Marathon!  A name to conjure up such visions of glory as few battlefields have ever shown.  Heroism and determination on the part of the Athenians, supported by the small but ever noble band of Plataeans who came to their aid; who can read the repulse of the Persians on this ever memorable plain without experiencing a thrill of admiration and delight at the achievement?  The whole world since that battle has looked upon it as a victory of the under dog.  Many of the great engagements of modern times have been likened unto it.  For long it has been the synonym of brave despair; the conquering of an enemy many times superior in numbers to its opponent.

This attempt of the Persians on the Greeks was not the first against them, That took place B.C. 493 under Mardonius.  This commander had reduced Ionia, dethroned the despots, and established democracy throughout the land.  After this he turned his attention to Eretria and Athens, taking his army across the straits in vessels.  But the ships of war and transports were wrecked by a mighty headwind as they rounded Mount Athos.  Many were driven ashore, about three hundred of them were totally lost, and some twenty thousand men perished in the catastrophe.

All the trouble between the Persians and Greeks arose over the capture of Sardis by the Ionians, B.C. 500.  The city was burned, and then the Ionians retreated.  It was to avenge this that Persia determined on a punitive expedition against the Greeks.  The Ionians and Milesian men were mostly slain by the Persians, the women and children led into captivity, and the temples in the cities burned and razed to the ground.[40]

[Footnote 40:  The year following the fall of the Ionic city of Miletus the poet Phrynichus made it the subject of a tragedy.  On bringing it on the stage he was fined one thousand drachmae for having recalled to them their own misfortunes.—­SMITH.]

     In the battle of Marathon, which succeeded these events, we have a
     vivid picture presented to us in Creasy’s glowing words: 

Two thousand three hundred and forty years ago a council of Athenian officers was summoned on the slope of one of the mountains that look over the plain of Marathon, on the eastern coast of Attica.  The immediate subject of their meeting was to consider whether they should give battle to an enemy that lay encamped on the shore beneath them; but on the result of their deliberations depended, not merely the fate of two armies, but the whole future progress of human civilization.