The Portland daily press., 1891-05-16

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KW 81 energetic seeds of
Greek and Roman
culture. 1t was there that 1872 heroic
ureeks yielded their lives to purchase a
victory whose fruits have blessed hun
dred generations of European blood.
The battlefield where Persia's victim horde
First bowed beneath the brunt of Hellas'
sword,
AS on the morn to distant glory dear,
When Marathon became a magic word;
Which uttered, to the hearers eye appear
The camp, the host, the fight, the conqueror's
career;
The flying Mede, his shaftless, broken bow.
The fiery Greek, his red pursuing spear.
From Marathon, also, dated new de-
parture in the conduct of warfare, since Of
course field so surprising in its results
had its genius and its hero for the amula-
ton of men who should come afterward.
This was Miltiades. a citizen of Athens.
who had been in the service of Darius
the Mede, and had sharpened his wits as a
soldier of fortune in some of the conquered
colonies where he was a satrap of the Per
sian king. The Athenians forgave him
CHI, ole toI H. - h.
ten generals of their army, when he re-
turned to them with price upon his head
for an act of daring treachery to Darius.
The Persian army set out in the year 400
B. G. to punish Athens for having assisted
Ionia in its rebellion against Asiatic
usurpation and tyranny, and having con-
quered the neighboring Euboea and razed
its city, Eretria, as an example of what
would befall Athens, they landed on the
plain of Marathon with over 10000 men,
intending to march upon Athens. The
Athenians went out to meet them 10000
strong, summoning their neighbors to
lend hand. The Spartans promised to
do so, but religious scruples detained
them, and the Plataans sent / ZOO men to
repay similar service rendered some
years before.
When the Athenian generals saw Darius
host before them and beheld their own
weak muster division of opinion showed
itself at once. The Persian troops up to
this date had proved invincible in every
contest waged against the Greeks, and the
very name of Mede sent terror to the souls
of the bravest son of Hellas. The Atheni-
ans, however, had immense advantages in
spite of their weak battalions, and five
generals out of ten voted for an immediate
battle The Persians had landed on a low
plain but slightly elevated from the beach,
and the Greeks were upon height that
encircled the plain nearly from shore to
shore. At the extremities of the height
were marshes which at the season-au-
tumn-were impossible for troops. Five
of the generals assumed that, as the Per-
slams had come to fight, they should be al
lowed to take the initiative and butt their
heads against the Athenian spears that
would await them at every turn. Besides,
since the Spartans were coming up to aid
their fellows, it would be best to postpone
action until their arrival at least.
On the other hand, five colleagues voted
for immediate attack on the Persian camp.
Miltiades headed this party and founded
his opinion on his knowledge of the Persian
troops, whom he deemed inferior to Greeks
when the latter were well handled, and his
belief in the uncertainty of human affairs,
no matter how rose colored they might ap-
pear. Athens was twenty-five miles dis
tant from Marathon, and there, safely hid
ing while better men were on the warpath.
were factions of scheming men ready to
betray the state into the hands of Darius for
their own ends. An expelled tyrant of
Athens, Hippias, was in the Persian camp
instigating the warfare on his people in