elieved its truth, and in calmer times dedicated a temple to
the deity, venerated him with annual sacrifices, and the race of
torches.

III. While the Athenians listened to the dreams of this poetical
superstition, the mighty thousands of the Mede and Persian landed on
the Attic coast, and, conducted by Hippias among their leaders,
marched to the plain of Marathon, which the traveller still beholds
stretching wide and level, amid hills and marshes, at the distance of
only ten miles from the gates of Athens. Along the shore the plain
extends to the length of six miles--inland it exceeds two. He who
surveys it now looks over a dreary waste, whose meager and arid
herbage is relieved but by the scanty foliage of unfrequent shrubs or
pear-trees, and a few dwarf pines drooping towards the sea. Here and
there may be seen the grazing buffalo, or the peasant bending at his
plough:--a distant roof, a ruined chapel, are not sufficient evidences
of the living to interpose between the imagination of the spectator
and the dead. Such is the present Marathon--we are summoned back to
the past.

IV. It will be remembered that the Athenians were divided into ten
tribes at the instigation of Clisthenes. Each of these tribes
nominated a general; there were therefore ten leaders to the Athenian
army. Among them was Miltiades, who had succeeded in ingratiating
himself with the Athenian people, and obtained from their suffrages a
command. [277]

Aided by a thousand men from Plataea, then on terms of intimate
friendship with the Athenians, the little army marched from the city,
and advanced to the entrance of the plain of Marathon. Here they
arrayed themselves in martial order, near the temple of Hercules, to
the east of the hills that guard the upper part of the valley. Thus
encamped, and in sight of the gigantic power of the enemy, darkening
the long expanse that skirts the sea, divisions broke out among the
leaders;--some contended that a battle was by no means to be risked
with such inferior forces--others, on the contrary, were for giving
immediate battle. Of this latter advice was Miltiades--he was
supported by a man already of high repute, though now first presented
to our notice, and afterward destined to act a great and splendid part
in the drama of his times. Aristides was one of the generals of the
army [278], and strenuously co-operated with Miltiades in the policy
of immediate battle.

Despite, however, the milita