and it pleased them well to come to help the Athenians; but it was
impossible for them to do so at once, since they did not desire to break
their law; for it was the ninth day of the month, and on the ninth day
they said they would not go forth, nor until the circle of the moon
should be full. 95

107. These men were waiting for the full moon: and meanwhile Hippias
the son of Peisistratos was guiding the Barbarians in to Marathon, after
having seen on the night that was just past a vision in his sleep of
this kind,--it seemed to Hippias that he lay with his own mother. He
conjectured then from the dream that he should return to Athens and
recover his rule, and then bring his life to an end in old age in his
own land. From the dream, I say, he conjectured this; and after this, as
he guided them in, first he disembarked the slaves from Eretria on the
island belonging to the Styrians, called Aigleia; 96 and then, as the
ships came in to shore at Marathon, he moored them there, and after
the Barbarians had come from their ships to land, he was engaged in
disposing them in their places. While he was ordering these things, it
came upon him to sneeze and cough more violently than was his wont. Then
since he was advanced in years, most of his teeth were shaken thereby,
and one of these teeth he cast forth by the violence of the cough: 97
and the tooth having fallen from him upon the sand, he was very
desirous to find it; since however the tooth was not to be found when he
searched, he groaned aloud and said to those who were by him: "This land
is not ours, nor shall we be able to make it subject to us; but so much
part in it as belonged to me the tooth possesses."

108. Hippias then conjectured that his vision had been thus fulfilled:
and meanwhile, after the Athenians had been drawn up in the sacred
enclosure of Heracles, there joined them the Plataians coming to their
help in a body: for the Plataians had given themselves to the Athenians,
and the Athenians before this time undertook many toils on behalf of
them; and this was the manner in which they gave themselves:--Being
oppressed by the Thebans, the Plataians at first desired to
give themselves to Cleomenes the son of Anaxandrides and to the
Lacedemonians, who chanced to come thither; but these did not accept
them, and said to them as follows: "We dwell too far off, and such
support as ours would be to you but cold comfort; for ye might many
times be reduced to slavery b