Greece / Painted by John Fulleylove; described by J.A. McClymont

by J. A. M'Clymont

The craggy mass to the left is the Areopagus (Mars Hill), with the cleft of the Eumenides. Behind the Temple of Theseus stretch the famous olive groves of Athens, nourished by the water of the subterranean Kephissus. The mountain range is that of Ægaleos, with the Pass of Daphni.

proposals. Among other changes which he introduced was the abolition of a cruel law by which insolvent debtors were liable to be enslaved along with their families; and in the political sphere he laid the foundations of the democratic constitution which was destined to contribute so largely to the greatness of Athens. He resisted all temptations to take power into his own hands—to the surprise of some, who thought he “should have hauled up the net when he had the fish enmeshed in it.” Unfortunately his self-denying spirit was not shared by all his countrymen, and he had the mortification of seeing his work to a great extent frustrated by one of his own friends, Peisistratus by name, whose success as a usurper was as much due to guile as to force. Posing as a friend of the people he presented himself one day in the market-place bleeding from self-inflicted wounds, which he pretended he had received at the hands of his political enemies, whereupon one of his partisans appealed for a bodyguard of fifty men to protect him, which was granted. With their assistance he soon made himself master of the Acropolis, and, by a stratagem, deprived the citizens of their arms. Although his rule was comparatively mild, and was signalised by some useful public enterprises, he was twice driven from the country. After his second restoration he held his position for about fourteen years. On his death his three sons carried on the government for some years, but at length a plot was formed for their assassination by two young men, partly on public and partly on private grounds. The plot was not altogether successful, two of the despots being untouched. One of the assassins, Harmodius, was at once overpowered and put to death, and the other, Aristogeiton, also forfeited his life after being subjected to torture in the hope that he would betray the names of their accomplices. The dynasty became more unpopular than ever, owing to its increasing severity, and in a few years the surviving members of it were driven into exile. So highly was the conduct of the two tyrannicides, Harmodius and Aristogeiton, appreciated that their statues in bronze were erected in a prominent place between the Agora and the Acropolis, and for a long time it was forbidden to erect any others in the same place. The statues were carried off by Xerxes in the next century, but they were soon replaced by others of a similar kind; and after the earlier ones were recovered, the two groups stood side by side. Another monument of the conspiracy was to be seen in the Acropolis in the form of a tongueless lioness, representing a woman named Leæna, who had been suspected of being in the plot, and was put to the torture, without divulging any name.

Within a generation afterwards the Athenians’ love of liberty and their readiness to die for it was demonstrated on a much grander scale, in their resistance of the Persian invader. It is said that the first time Darius heard of the Athenians was after the burning of Sardis, in which they rendered assistance to the Asiatic Ionians. On their name being mentioned to him Darius asked who they were, and, being told, he shot an arrow to the sky, and exclaimed, “O Zeus, grant me to revenge myself on these Athenians,” at the same time bidding an attendant to repeat in his hearing every day at dinner the words, “Remember the Athenians.” His generals, Datis and Artaphernes, now landed on the Attic shore with about 100,000 men, under the guidance of Hippias, who had accompanied his father Peisistratus by the same route to Athens nearly fifty years before, when he was returning from exile the second time to take possession of the city. But Athens was a very different community now from what it was then. It had enjoyed more than twenty years of self-government, and its citizens were now united as one man in the determination to resist the eastern despot to the uttermost. Seldom has a more heroic stand been taken by any nation in defence of its liberties. The Persians had hitherto been regarded as invincible, and their numerical superiority was overwhelming. But the Athenians did not for a moment hesitate. They at once despatched a swift messenger to Sparta appealing for assistance, who is said to have accomplished the journey of 150 miles in forty-eight hours. But the Spartans were slow to move, owing to their superstitious dependence on the full moon, for which they had to wait five days. No other Greeks shared in the glory of the occasion, except 1000 soldiers from Platæa, whose generous and timely succour won the undying gratitude of the Athenians, and was annually mentioned at the anniversary services which were regularly held to celebrate the victory. Of the ten Athenian generals who were in command of the forces it fell to Miltiades to act as chief. If his advice had been taken by the Ionians who were left in charge of the bridge which they had built over the Danube for Darius shortly before, the invasion of Greece would have been averted. The sixty days during which Darius had ordered them to preserve the bridge for his return had expired, and Darius was beset with difficulties in Scythia, which would soon have overwhelmed him; but the Ionian leaders refused to destroy the bridge, as Miltiades advised—for the selfish reason that their tenure of power in their respective cities depended on Persian support. Darius was thus saved, and his cruel conquest of Eretria was the result—the prelude, as it seemed, of a like fate for Athens and for all Greece.

The distance from Athens to Marathon is about 25 miles, by the road taken by the troops, which was the same as is followed by the modern traveller. The length of the plain is about six miles and its breadth a mile and a half, with a marsh at each end. The Persians had disembarked and were drawn up in the plain at a considerable distance from the shore. The Greeks appear to have taken up a position a little in front of the amphitheatre of rocky hills which encloses the plain on the north and west. It was the first time the Athenians had ever met the dreaded Medes in battle array; but throwing aside all fear they raised the war-cry and set off at a run, which was facilitated by the slight declivity of the ground, bearing down upon

The plain of Marathon and the long spit of Kynosura are well shown; but the sickle shape of the famous bay is obscured by the intervening summit of Mount Agrieliki. Across the blue gulf of Petali we see the splendid chain of the Eubœan Mountains.