Having
thus settled their differences, they set apart from the plunder eighty
talents for the Plataeans, with which they built the temple of Athena,
and the shrine, and also decorated the temple with paintings, which
even to this present day retain their lustre. The Lacedaemonians set up
a trophy for themselves, and the Athenians another one apart. When
they enquired at Delphi what sacrifice was to be offered, the oracle
bade them set up an altar to Zeus the Protector of the Free, and not
to sacrifice upon it until they had first put out all fires throughout
the country, because it had been defiled by the presence of the
barbarian, and had then fetched a new fire pure from pollution, from
the hearth at Delphi, which is common to all Greece. The chiefs of the
Greeks at once proceeded throughout the Plataean territory, forcing
every one to extinguish his fire, even in the case of funeral piles,
while Euchidas of Plataea, who promised that he would fetch fire as
quickly as possible, proceeded to Delphi. There he purified his body,
and having been besprinkled with holy water and crowned with laurel,
took fire from the altar, set off running back to Plataea, and arrived
there about sunset, having run a distance of a hundred and twenty-five
miles in one day. He embraced his fellow citizens, handed the fire to
them, fell down, and in a few moments died. The Plataeans, to show
their admiration of him, buried him in the temple of Artemis Eukleia,
with this inscription on his tomb:

"Euchidas ran to Delphi and back again in one day."

As for Eukleia, most persons believe her to be Artemis, and worship
her as that goddess; but some say that she was a daughter of Herakles
and Myrto, the daughter of Menoetius, who was the sister of Patroklus,
and who, dying a virgin, is worshipped by the Boeotians and Lokrians.
An altar and image of her stands in every market-place in these
countries, and those who are about to marry, sacrifice to her.

XXI. After this Aristeides proposed at a general assembly of all the
Greeks, that all the cities of Greece should every year send deputies
and religious representatives to the city of Plataea, and that every
fifth year Eleutheria, or a festival in honour of Freedom, should be
celebrated there. Also he proposed that there should be a general levy
throughout Greece, for the war against the Persians, of ten thousand
heavy armed troops, a thousand horse, and a hundred ships of war; and
that the Platae