We are told that a rustic and unlettered citizen gave his ostracizing vote, and expressed his dislike against Aristeidês,[638] on the simple ground that he was tired of hearing him always called the Just. Now the purity of the most honorable man will not bear to be so boastfully talked of as if he were the only honorable man in the country: the less it is obtruded, the more deeply and cordially will it be felt: and the story just alluded to, whether true or false, illustrates that natural reaction of feeling, produced by absurd encomiasts, or perhaps by insidious enemies under the mask of encomiasts, who trumpeted forth Aristeidês as The Just man at Attica, so as to wound the legitimate dignity of every one else. Neither indiscreet friends nor artful enemies, however, could rob him of the lasting esteem of his countrymen; which he enjoyed, with intervals of their displeasure, to the end of his life. Though he was ostracized during a part of the period between the battle of Marathon and Salamis,—at a time when the rivalry between him and Themistoklês was so violent that both could not remain at Athens without peril,—yet the dangers of Athens during the invasion of Xerxês brought him back before the ten years of exile were expired. His fortune, originally very moderate, was still farther diminished during the course of his life, so that he died very poor, and the state was obliged to lend aid to his children.
Such were the characters of Themistoklês and Aristeidês, the two earliest leaders thrown up by the Athenian democracy. Half a century before, Themistoklês would have been an active partisan in the faction of the Parali or the Pedieis, while Aristeidês would probably have remained an unnoticed citizen. At the present period of Athenian history, the characters of the soldier, the magistrate, and the orator, were intimately blended together in a citizen who stood forward for eminence, though they tended more and more to divide themselves during the ensuing century and a half. Aristeidês and Miltiadês were both elected among the ten generals, each for his respective tribe, in the year of the expedition of Datis across the Ægean, and probably even after that expedition was known to be on its voyage. Moreover, we are led to suspect from a passage in Plutarch, that Themistoklês also was general of his tribe on the same occasion,[639] though this is doubtful; but it is certain that he fought at Marathon. The ten generals had jointly the command of the army, each of them taking his turn to exercise it for a day: in addition to the ten, moreover, the third archon, or polemarch, was considered as eleventh in the military council. The polemarch of this year was Kallimachus of Aphidnæ.[640] Such were the chiefs of the military force, and to a great degree the administrators of foreign affairs, at the time when the four thousand Athenian kleruchs, or settlers planted in Eubœa,—escaping from Eretria, now invested by the Persians,—brought word to their countrymen at home that the fall of that city was impending. It was obvious that the Persian host would proceed from Eretria forthwith against Athens, and a few days afterwards Hippias disembarked them at Marathon, whither the Athenian army marched to meet them.
Of the feeling which now prevailed at Athens we have no details, but doubtless the alarm was hardly inferior to that which had been felt at Eretria: dissenting opinions were heard as to the proper steps to be taken, nor were suspicions of treason wanting. Pheidippidês the courier was sent to Sparta immediately to solicit assistance; and such was his prodigious activity, that he performed this journey of one hundred and fifty miles, on foot, in forty-eight hours.[641] He revealed to the ephors that Eretria was already enslaved, and entreated their assistance to avert the same fate from Athens, the most ancient city in Greece. The Spartan authorities readily promised their aid, but unfortunately it was now the ninth day of the moon: ancient law or custom forbade them to march, in this month at least, during the last quarter before the full moon; but after the full they engaged to march without delay. Five days’ delay at this critical moment might prove the utter ruin of the endangered city; yet the reason assigned seems to have been no pretence on the part of the Spartans. It was mere blind tenacity of ancient habit, which we shall find to abate, though never to disappear, as we advance in their history.[642] Indeed, their delay in marching to rescue Attica from Mardonius, eleven years afterwards, at the imminent hazard of alienating Athens and ruining the Hellenic cause, marks the same selfish dulness. But the reason now given certainly looked very like a pretence, so that the Athenians could indulge no certain assurance that the Spartan troops would start even when the full moon arrived.
In this respect the answer brought by Pheidippidês was mischievous, as it tended to increase that uncertainty and indecision which already prevailed among the ten generals, as to the proper steps for meeting the invaders. Partly, perhaps, in reliance on this expected Spartan help, five out of the ten generals were decidedly averse to an immediate engagement with the Persians; while Miltiadês with the remaining four strenuously urged that not a moment should be lost in bringing the enemy to action, without leaving time to the timid and the treacherous to establish correspondence with Hippias, and to take some active step for paralyzing all united action on the part of the citizens. This most momentous debate, upon which the fate of Athens hung, is represented by Herodotus to have occurred at Marathon, after the army had marched out and taken post there within sight of the Persians; while Cornelius Nepos describes it as having been raised before the army quitted the city,—upon the question, whether it was prudent to meet the enemy at all in the field, or to confine the defence to the city and the sacred rock. Inaccurate as this latter author generally is, his statement seems more probable here than that of Herodotus. For the ten generals would scarcely march out of Athens to Marathon without having previously resolved to fight: moreover, the question between fighting in the field or resisting behind the walls, which had already been raised at Eretria, seems the natural point on which the five mistrustful generals would take their stand. And probably indeed Miltiadês himself, if debarred from immediate action, would have preferred to hold possession of Athens, and prevent any treacherous movement from breaking out there,—rather than to remain inactive on the hills, watching the Persians at Marathon, with the chance of a detachment from their numerous fleet sailing round to Phalêrum, and thus distracting, by a double attack, both the city and the camp.
However this may be, the equal division of opinion among the ten generals, whether manifested at Marathon or at Athens, is certain,—so that Miltiadês had to await the casting-vote of the polemarch Kallimachus. To him he represented emphatically the danger of delay, and the chance of some traitorous intrigue occurring to excite disunion and aggravate the alarms of the citizens. Nothing could prevent such treason from breaking out, with all its terrific consequences of enslavement to the Persians and to Hippias, except a bold, decisive, and immediate attack,—the success of which he (Miltiadês) was prepared to guarantee. Fortunately for Athens, the polemarch embraced the opinion of Miltiadês, and the seditious movements which were preparing did not show themselves until after the battle had been gained. Aristeidês and Themistoklês are both recorded to have seconded Miltiadês warmly in this proposal,—while all the other generals agreed in surrendering to Miltiadês their days of command, so as to make him, as much as they could, the sole leader of the army. It is said that the latter awaited the day of his own regular turn before he fought the battle.[643] Yet considering the eagerness which he displayed to bring on an immediate and decisive action, we cannot suppose that he would have admitted any serious postponement upon such a punctilio.
While the army were mustered on the ground sacred to Heraklês near Marathon, with the Persians and their fleet occupying the plain and shore beneath, and in preparation for immediate action, they were joined by the whole force of the little town of Platæa, consisting of about one thousand hoplites, who had marched directly from their own city to the spot, along the southern range of Kithærôn and passing through Dekeleia. We are not told that they had been invited, and very probably the Athenians had never thought of summoning aid from this unimportant neighbor, in whose behalf they had taken upon themselves a lasting feud with Thebes and the Bœotian league.[644] Their coming on this important occasion seems to have been a spontaneous effort of gratitude which ought not to be the less commended because their interests were really wrapped up in those of Athens,—since if the latter had been conquered, nothing could have saved Platæa from being subdued by the Thebans,—yet many a Grecian town would have disregarded both generous impulse and rational calculation, in the fear of provoking a new and terrific enemy. If we summon up to our imaginations all the circumstances of the case,—which it requires some effort to do, because our authorities come from the subsequent generations, after Greece had ceased to fear the Persians,—we shall be sensible that this volunteer march of the whole Platæan force to Marathon is one of the most affecting incidents of all Grecian history. Upon Athens generally it produced an indelible impression, commemorated ever afterwards in the public prayers of the Athenian herald,[645] and repaid by a grant to the Platæans of the full civil rights—seemingly without the political rights—of Athenian citizens. Upon the Athenians then marshalled at Marathon its effect must have been unspeakably powerful and encouraging, as a proof that they were not altogether isolated from Greece, and as an unexpected countervailing stimulus under circumstances so full of hazard.
Of the two opposing armies at Marathon, we are told that the Athenians were ten thousand hoplites, either including or besides the one thousand who came from Platæa.[646] Nor is this statement in itself improbable, though it does not come from Herodotus, who is our only really valuable authority on the case, and who mentions no numerical total. Indeed, the number named seems smaller than we should have expected, considering that no less than four thousand kleruchs, or out-settled citizens, had just come over from Eubœa. A sufficient force of citizens must of course have been left behind to defend the city. The numbers of the Persians we cannot be said to know at all, nor is there anything certain except that they were greatly superior to the Greeks. We hear from Herodotus that their armament originally consisted of six hundred ships of war, but we are not told how many separate transports there were; and, moreover, reinforcements had been procured as they came across the Ægean from the islands successively conquered. The aggregate crews on board of all their ships must have been between one hundred and fifty thousand and two hundred thousand men; but what proportion of these were fighting men, or how many actually did fight at Marathon, we have no means of determining.[647] There were a certain proportion of cavalry, and some transports expressly prepared for the conveyance of horses: moreover, Herodotus tells us that Hippias selected the plain of Marathon for a landing place, because it was the most convenient spot in Attica for cavalry movements,—though it is singular, that in the battle the cavalry are not mentioned.
Marathon, situated near to a bay on the eastern coast of Attica, and in a direction E.N.E. from Athens, is divided by the high ridge of Mount Pentelikus from the city, with which it communicated by two roads, one to the north, another to the south of that mountain. Of these two roads, the northern, at once the shortest and the most difficult, is twenty-two miles in length: the southern—longer but more easy, and the only one practicable for chariots—is twenty-six miles in length, or about six and a half hours of computed march. It passed between mounts Pentelikus and Hymettus, through the ancient demes of Gargêttus and Pallênê, and was the road by which Peisistratus and Hippias, when they landed at Marathon forty-seven years before, had marched to Athens. The bay of Marathon, sheltered by a projecting cape from the northward, affords both deep water and a shore convenient for landing; while “its plain (says a careful modern observer[648]) extends in a perfect level along this fine bay, and is in length about six miles, in breadth never less than about one mile and a half. Two marshes bound the extremities of the plain: the southern is not very large, and is almost dry at the conclusion of the great heats; but the northern, which generally covers considerably more than a square mile, offers several parts which are at all seasons impassable. Both, however, leave a broad, firm, sandy beach between them and the sea. The uninterrupted flatness of the plain is hardly relieved by a single tree; and an amphitheatre of rocky hills and rugged mountains separates it from the rest of Attica, over the lower ridges of which some steep and difficult paths communicate with the districts of the interior.”
The position occupied by Miltiadês before the battle, identified as it was to all subsequent Athenians by the sacred grove of Hêraklês near Marathon, was probably on some portion of the high ground above this plain, and Cornelius Nepos tells us that he protected it from the attacks of the Persian cavalry by felled trees obstructing the approach. The Persians occupied a position on the plain; while their fleet was ranged along the beach, and Hippias himself marshalled them for the battle.[649] The native Persians and Sakæ, the best troops in the whole army, were placed in the centre, which they considered as the post of honor,[650] and which was occupied by the Persian king himself, when present at a battle. The right wing was so regarded by the Greeks, and the polemarch Kallimachus had the command of it; the hoplites being arranged in the order of their respective tribes from right to left, and at the extreme left stood the Platæans. It was necessary for Miltiadês to present a front equal, or nearly equal, to that of the more numerous Persian host, in order to guard himself from being taken in flank: and with this view he drew up the central tribes, including the Leontis and Antiochis, in shallow files, and occupying a large breadth of ground; while each of the wings was in stronger and deeper order, so as to make his attack efficient on both sides. His whole army consisted of hoplites, with some slaves as unarmed or light-armed attendants, but without either bowmen or cavalry. Nor could the Persians have been very strong in this latter force, seeing that their horses had to be transported across the Ægean. But the elevated position of Miltiadês enabled them to take some measure of the numbers under his command, and the entire absence of cavalry among their enemies could not but confirm the confidence with which a long career of uninterrupted victory had impressed their generals.
At length the sacrifices in the Greek camp were favorable for battle, and Miltiadês, who had everything to gain by coming immediately to close quarters, ordered his army to advance at a running step over the interval of one mile which separated the two armies. This rapid forward movement, accompanied by the war-cry, or pæan, which always animated the charge of the Greek soldier, astounded the Persian army; who construed it as an act of desperate courage, little short of insanity, in a body not only small but destitute of cavalry or archers,—but who, at the same time, felt their conscious superiority sink within them. It seems to have been long remembered also among the Greeks as the peculiar characteristic of the battle of Marathon, and Herodotus tells us that the Athenians were the first Greeks who ever charged at a run.[651] It doubtless operated beneficially in rendering the Persian cavalry and archers comparatively innocuous, but we may reasonably suppose that it also disordered the Athenian ranks, and that when they reached the Persian front, they were both out of breath and unsteady in that line of presented spears and shields which constituted their force. On the two wings, where the files were deep, this disorder produced no mischievous effect: the Persians, after a certain resistance, were overborne and driven back. But in the centre, where the files were shallow, and where, moreover, the native Persians and other choice troops of the army were posted, the breathless and disordered Athenian hoplites found themselves in far greater difficulties. The tribes Leontis and Antiochis, with Themistoklês and Aristeidês among them, were actually defeated, broken, driven back, and pursued by the Persians and Sakæ.[652] Miltiadês seems to have foreseen the possibility of such a check, when he found himself compelled to diminish so materially the depth of his centre: for his wings, having routed the enemies opposed to them, were stayed from pursuit until the centre was extricated, and the Persians and Sakæ put to flight along with the rest. The pursuit then became general, and the Persians were chased to their ships ranged in line along the shore: some of them became involved in the impassable marsh and there perished.[653] The Athenians tried to set the ships on fire, but the defence here was both vigorous and successful,—several of the forward warriors of Athens were slain,—and only seven ships out of the numerous fleet destroyed.[654] This part of the battle terminated to the advantage of the Persians. They repulsed the Athenians from the sea-shore, and secured a safe reëmbarkation; leaving few or no prisoners, but a rich spoil of tents and equipments which had been disembarked and could not be carried away.