Erato   

conjointly with the Athenians. Now, as they marshalled the host upon
the field of Marathon, in order that the Athenian front might he of
equal length with the Median, the ranks of the centre were diminished,
and it became the weakest part of the line, while the wings were
both made strong with a depth of many ranks.
So when the battle was set in array, and the victims showed
themselves favourable, instantly the Athenians, so soon as they were
let go, charged the barbarians at a run. Now the distance between
the two armies was little short of eight furlongs. The Persians,
therefore, when they saw the Greeks coming on at speed, made ready
to receive them, although it seemed to them that the Athenians were
bereft of their senses, and bent upon their own destruction; for
they saw a mere handful of men coming on at a run without either
horsemen or archers. Such was the opinion of the barbarians; but the
Athenians in close array fell upon them, and fought in a manner worthy
of being recorded. They were the first of the Greeks, so far as I
know, who introduced the custom of charging the enemy at a run, and
they were likewise the first who dared to look upon the Median garb,
and to face men clad in that fashion. Until this time the very name of
the Medes had been a terror to the Greeks to hear.
The two armies fought together on the plain of Marathon for a
length of time; and in the mid battle, where the Persians themselves
and the Sacae had their place, the barbarians were victorious, and
broke and pursued the Greeks into the inner country; but on the two
wings the Athenians and the Plataeans defeated the enemy. Having so
done, they suffered the routed barbarians to fly at their ease, and
joining the two wings in one, fell upon those who had broken their own
centre, and fought and conquered them. These likewise fled, and now
the Athenians hung upon the runaways and cut them down, chasing them
all the way to the shore, on reaching which they laid hold of the
ships and called aloud for fire.
It was in the struggle here that Callimachus the Polemarch,
after greatly distinguishing himself, lost his life; Stesilaus too,
the son of Thrasilaus, one of the generals, was slain; and Cynaegirus,
the son of Euphorion, having seized on a vessel of the enemy's by
the ornament at the stern, had his hand cut off by the blow of an axe,
and so perished; as likewise did many other Athenians of note and
name.
Nevertheless the Athenians secured in this way seven of the
vessels; while with the remainder the barbarians pushed off, and
taking aboard their Eretrian prisoners from the island where they
had left them, doubled Cape Sunium, hoping to reach Athens before
the return of the Athenians. The Alcmaeonidae were accused by their
countrymen of suggesting this course to them; they had, it was said,
an understanding with the Persians, and made a signal to them, by
raising a shield, after they were embarked in their ships.
The Persians accordingly sailed round Sunium. But the Athenians
with all possible speed marched away to the defence of their city, and
succeeded in reaching Athens before the appearance of the
barbarians: and as their camp at Marathon had been pitched in a
precinct of Hercules, so now they encamped in another precinct of
the same god at Cynosarges. The barbarian fleet arrived, and lay to
off Phalerum, which was at that time the haven of Athens; but after
resting awhile upon their oars, they departed and sailed away to Asia.
There fell in this battle of Marathon, on the side of the
barbarians, about six thousand and four hundred men; on that of the
Athenians, one hundred and ninety-two. Such was the number of the
slain on the one side and the other. A strange prodigy likewise
happened at this fight. Epizelus, the son of Cuphagoras, an
Athenian, was in the thick of the fray, and behaving himself as a
brave man should, when suddenly he was stricken with blindness,
without blow of sword or dart; and this blindness continued
thenceforth during the whole of his after life. The following is the
account which he himself, as I have heard, gave of the matter: he said