[42] The Panathenaic festival was celebrated every year from the time of Theseus, in honor of Athena Polias, the guardian of the city. It included torch races, musical and gymnastic contests, horse, foot, and chariot races, and costly sacrifices. The greater Panathenæa took place in the third year of every Olympiad. It was distinguished by a sacred procession, bearing to her temple in the Erechtheum a crocus-colored garment embroidered with representations of the victories of the goddess.
[44] Almost every Grecian state was divided between two parties, which preferred respectively democracy and oligarchy; i. e., government by many and by few.
[45] “The first Greeks,” says Herodotus, “who ever ran to meet a foe; the first, too, who beheld without dismay the garb and armor of the Medes, for hitherto in Greece the very name of Mede had excited terror.”
[46] Read the movements of Datis after the battle, [p. 86].
[49] A small island in the Saronic Gulf, between Ægina and the coast of Argolis.
[50] This exiled politician must not be confounded with Thucydides the great historian, who was living at the same time.