insolent little Greek community, which had dared to aid his
rebels and burn the capital of one of his provinces. That
victorious host had already fulfilled half its mission of
vengeance. Eretria, the confederate of Athens in the bold march
against Sardis nine years before, had fallen in the last few
days; and the Athenian generals could discern from the heights
the island of AEgilia, in which the Persians had deposited their
Eretrian prisoners, whom they had reserved to be led away
captives into Upper Asia, there to hear their doom from the lips
of King Darius himself. Moreover, the men of Athens knew that in
the camp before them was their own banished tyrant, Hippias, who
was seeking to be reinstated by foreign scimitars in despotic
sway over any remnant of his countrymen that might survive the
sack of their town, and might be left behind as too worthless for
leading away into Median bondage.

The numerical disparity between the force which the Athenian
commanders had under them, and that which they were called on to
encounter, was fearfully apparent to some of the council. The
historians who wrote nearest to the time of the battle do not
pretend to give any detailed statements of the numbers engaged,
but there are sufficient data for our making a general estimate.
Every free Greek was trained to military duty: and, from the
incessant border wars between the different states, few Greeks
reached the age of manhood without having seen some service. But
the muster-roll of free Athenian citizens of an age fit for
military duty never exceeded thirty thousand, and at this epoch
probably did not amount to two-thirds of that number. Moreover,
the poorer portion of these were unprovided with the equipments,
and untrained to the operations of the regular infantry. Some