The Æginetæ, offended at what they considered a great affront, prepared to revenge themselves on the Athenians: and as the Athenians happened to have a five-benched galley at Sunium, they formed an ambuscade and took the ship "Theoris"[24] filled with the principal Athenians, and put the men in chains. The Athenians, thus treated by the Æginetæ, no longer delayed to devise all sorts of plans against them. Now there was in Ægina an eminent man named Nicodromus, son of Cnœthus; incensed against the Æginetæ on account of his former banishment from the island, and now hearing that the Athenians were preparing to do a mischief to the Æginetæ, he entered into an agreement with the Athenians for the betrayal of Ægina, mentioning on what day he would make the attempt, and on what it would be necessary for them to come to his assistance. Nicodromus, according to his agreement, on the appointed day seized that which is called the old town. The Athenians, however, did not arrive at the proper time, for they happened not to have a sufficient number of ships to engage with the Æginetæ; and while they were entreating the Corinthians to furnish them with ships, their plan was ruined. The Corinthians, for they were then on very friendly terms with them, at their request supplied the Athenians with twenty ships, hiring them out at a nominal price of five drachmæ each; because by their laws they were forbidden to give them for nothing. The Athenians, taking these and their own, manned seventy ships in all, sailed to Ægina, and arrived one day after that agreed upon. When the Athenians did not arrive at the proper time, Nicodromus embarked on shipboard and made his escape from Ægina; and others of the Æginetæ accompanied him, to whom the Athenians gave Sunium for a habitation; and they, sallying from thence, plundered the Æginetæ in the island. This, however, happened subsequently. In the meantime the most wealthy of the Æginetæ overpowered the common people, who, together with Nicodromus, had revolted against them, and led them out to execution. On this occasion they incurred a guilt, which they were unable to expiate by any contrivance, as they were ejected out of the island before the goddess became propitious to them. For having taken seven hundred of the common people prisoners, they led them out to execution; and one of them, who escaped from his bonds, fled to the porch of Ceres the lawgiver, and seizing the door-handle, held it fast; when they were unable by dragging to tear him away, they cut off his hands, and so took him away; and the hands were left sticking on the door-handles. So did the Æginetæ treat their own people. But when the Athenians arrived with their seventy ships, they came to an engagement, and being conquered in the sea-fight, they called upon the same persons as before for assistance, that is, on the Argives. They, however, would not any longer succor them, but complained that the ships of the Æginetæ, having been forcibly seized by Cleomenes, had touched on the territory of Argos, and the crews had disembarked with the Lacedæmonians. Some men had also disembarked from Sicyonian ships in the same invasion; and a penalty was imposed upon them by the Argives, to pay a thousand talents, five hundred each. The Sicyonians, acknowledging that they had acted unjustly, made an agreement to pay one hundred talents, and be free from the rest; but the Æginetæ would not own themselves in the wrong, and were very obstinate. On this account, therefore, none of the Argives were sent by the commonwealth to assist them; but, on their request, volunteers went to the number of a thousand; a general, whose name was Eurybates, and who had practised for the pentathlon, led them. The greater number of these never returned home, but were slain by the Athenians in Ægina. The general, Eurybates, engaging in single combat, killed three several antagonists in that manner, but was slain by the fourth, Sophanes of Decelea. But the Æginetæ attacked the fleet of the Athenians when they were in disorder, and obtained a victory, and took four of their ships with the men on board.
CHAPTER III.
EXPEDITION OF DATIS AND ARTAPHERNES; THE BATTLE OF MARATHON.
War was accordingly kindled between the Athenians and Æginetæ. But the Persian pursued his own design, for the servant continually reminded him to remember the Athenians, and the Pisistratidæ constantly importuned him and accused the Athenians; and at the same time Darius was desirous of subduing those people of Greece who had refused to give him earth and water. He therefore dismissed Mardonius from his command, because he had succeeded ill in his expedition; and appointed other generals, whom he sent against Eretria and Athens, namely, Datis, who was a Mede by birth, and Artaphernes, son of Artaphernes, his own nephew; and he despatched them with strict orders to enslave Athens and Eretria, and bring the bondsmen into his presence. When these generals who were appointed left the king, and reached the Aleian plain of Cilicia, bringing with them a numerous and well-equipped army, they encamped there until the whole naval force required from each people came up: the horse-transports were also present, which Darius in the preceding year had commanded his tributaries to prepare. They put the horses on board of these, and embarked the land-forces in the ships, and sailed for Ionia with six hundred triremes. From there they did not steer their ships along the continent direct to the Hellespont and Thrace; but parting from Samos they bent their course across the Icarian sea, and through the islands, dreading the circumnavigation of Athos, because in the preceding year, in attempting a passage that way, they had sustained great loss.
While they were doing this, the Delians also, abandoning Delos, fled to Tenos; but as the fleet was sailing down toward it, Datis would not permit the ships to anchor near the island, but further on, off Rhenea; and he, having ascertained where the Delians were, sent a herald and addressed them as follows: "Sacred men, why have you fled, forming an unfavorable opinion of me? For both I myself have so much wisdom, and am so ordered by the king, that in the region where the two deities[25] were born, no harm should be done either to the country itself or its inhabitants. Return, therefore, to your houses, and resume possession of the island." This message he sent to the Delians by means of a herald; and afterward heaped up three hundred talents of frankincense upon the altar, and burnt it. Then Datis sailed with the army first against Eretria, taking with him both Ionians and Æolians. But after he had put out to sea from there, Delos was shaken by an earthquake, as the Delians say, the first and last time that it was ever so affected. And the deity assuredly by this portent intimated to men the evils that were about to befall them. For during the three successive reigns of Darius, son of Hystaspes, of Xerxes, son of Darius, and of Artaxerxes, son of Xerxes, more disasters befell Greece than during the twenty generations that preceded the time of Darius, partly brought upon it by the Persians, and partly by the chief men amongst them contending for power. So that it is not at all improbable that Delos should be moved at that time, though until then unmoved; and in an oracle respecting it, it had been thus written: "I will move even Delos, although hitherto unmoved." And in the Greek language these names mean: Darius, "one who restrains"; Xerxes, "a warrior"; and Artaxerxes, "a mighty warrior."
After the barbarians had parted from Delos, and touched at the islands, they took with them men to serve in the army, and carried away the sons of the islanders for hostages. Having subdued Eretria, and rested a few days, they sailed to Attica, pressing the inhabitants very close, and expecting to treat them in the same way as they had the Eretrians. Now as Marathon was the spot in Attica best adapted for cavalry, and nearest to Eretria, they gathered their forces there. When the Athenians heard of this, they also sent their forces to Marathon: and ten generals led them, of whom the tenth was Miltiades, whose father, Cimon, had been banished from Athens by Pisistratus. During his exile, it was his good fortune to obtain the Olympic prize in the four-horse chariot race, the honor of which victory he transferred to Miltiades, his brother by the same mother; afterward, in the next Olympiad, being victorious with the same mares, he permitted Pisistratus to be proclaimed victor, and returned home under terms. But after he had gained a third Olympic prize with the same mares, it happened that he died by the hands of the sons of Pisistratus, when Pisistratus himself was no longer alive; they slew him near the Prytaneum, having placed men to waylay him by night. Cimon was buried in front of the city, beyond that which is called the road to Cœla, and opposite him these same mares were buried, which won the three Olympic prizes. Stesagoras, the elder son of Cimon, was at that time being educated by his uncle in the Chersonese, but the younger by Cimon himself at Athens, and he had the name of Miltiades, from Miltiades, the founder of the Chersonese. At that time, then, this Miltiades, coming from the Chersonese, and having escaped a twofold death, became general of the Athenians; for in the first place, the Phœnicians pursued him as far as Imbros, exceedingly desirous of seizing him and carrying him up to the king; and in the next, when he had escaped them, and had returned to his own country, and thought himself in safety, his enemies attacked him, and brought him before a court of justice, to prosecute him for tyranny in the Chersonese. These also he escaped, and was at length appointed general of the Athenians by the choice of the people.
And first, while the generals were yet in the city, they despatched a herald to Sparta, one Phidippides, an Athenian, a courier by profession, who arrived in Sparta on the following day after his departure from the city of the Athenians, and on coming in presence of the magistrates, said: "Lacedæmonians, the Athenians entreat you to assist them, and not to suffer the most ancient city among the Greeks to fall into bondage to barbarians; for Eretria is already reduced to slavery, and Greece has become weaker by the loss of a renowned city." He delivered the message according to his instructions, and they resolved to assist the Athenians; but it was out of their power to do so immediately, as they were unwilling to violate the law; for it was the ninth day of the current month; and they said they could not march out until the moon's circle should be full.
Meanwhile the traitor Hippias, son of Pisistratus, had guided the barbarians to Marathon. He first of all landed the slaves from Eretria on the island of the Styreans, called Ægilia; and next he moored the ships as they came to Marathon, and drew up the barbarians as they disembarked on land. But as he was busied in doing this, it happened that he sneezed and coughed more violently than he was accustomed; and as he was far advanced in years, several of his teeth were loose, so that through the violence of his cough he threw out one of these teeth. It fell on the sand, and he used every endeavor to find it; but when the tooth could nowhere be found, he drew a deep sigh, and said to the bystanders: "This country is not ours, nor shall we be able to subdue it; whatever share belongeth to me, my tooth possesses."
When the Athenians were drawn up in a place sacred to Hercules, the Platæans came to their assistance with all their forces. For the Platæans had given themselves up to the Athenians, as the Athenians had already undergone many toils on their account.
The opinions of the Athenian generals were divided: one party not consenting to engage, "because they were too few to engage with the army of the Medes"; and the others, among whom was Miltiades, urging them to give battle. There was an eleventh voter who was appointed minister of war among the Athenians, who had an equal vote with the generals, and at that time Callimachus of Aphidnæ was minister of war. To him Miltiades came and spoke as follows: "It now depends on you, Callimachus, either to enslave Athens, or, by preserving its liberty, to leave a memorial of yourself to every age, such as not even Harmodius and Aristogeiton have left. For the Athenians were never in so great danger from the time they were first a people. If they succumb to the Medes, it has been determined what they are to suffer when delivered up to Hippias; but if the city survives, it will become the first of the Greek cities. How, then, this can be brought to pass, and how the power of deciding the matter depends on you, I will now proceed to explain. The opinions of us generals, who are ten, are equally divided; the one party urging that we should engage, the other that we should not. Now, if we do not engage, I expect that some great dissension arising amongst us will shake the minds of the Athenians so as to induce them to a compliance with the Medes. But if we engage before any dastardly thought arises in the minds of some of the Athenians, if the gods are impartial, we shall be able to get the better in the engagement. All these things now entirely depend on you. For if you will support my opinion, your country will be free, and the city the first in Greece; but if you join with those who would dissuade us from an engagement, the contrary of the advantages I have enumerated will fall to your lot." Miltiades, by these words, gained over Callimachus, and it was determined to engage. Afterward the generals whose opinions had been given to engage, as the command for the day devolved upon each of them, gave it up to Miltiades; but though he accepted it, he would not come to an engagement before his own turn to command came.