any man; but with him who unwittingly lights upon it the spirits are not
angry. He adds that the people of Marathon worship the men who fell in
the battle as heroes; and who could be more worthy of such honour than
they? The battle itself was not without its marvellous side. Epizelus,
the Athenian, used to relate how a huge hoplite, whose beard
over-shadowed all his shield, stood over against him in the thick of the
fight. The apparition passed him by and killed the man next him, but
Epizelus came out of the battle blind, and remained so for the rest of
his life.[37] Plutarch[38] also relates of a place in Boeotia where a
battle had been fought, that there is a stream running by, and that
people imagine that they hear panting horses in the roaring waters.

But the strangest account of the habitual haunting of great battlefields
is to be found in Philostratus's _Heroica_, which represents the spirits
of the Homeric heroes as still closely connected with Troy and its
neighbourhood. How far the stories are based on local tradition it is
impossible to say; they are told by a vine-dresser, who declares that he
lives under the protection of Protesilaus. At one time he was in danger
of being violently ousted from all his property, when the ghost of
Protesilaus appeared to the would-be despoiler in a vision, and struck
him blind. The great man was so terrified at this event that he carried
his depredations no further; and the vine-dresser has since continued to
cultivate what remained of his property under the protection of the
hero, with whom he lives on most intimate terms. Protesilaus often
appears to him while he is at work and has long talks with him, and he
keeps off wild beasts and disease from the land.

Not only Protesilaus, but also his men, and, in fact, virtually all of
the "giants of the mighty bone and bold emprise" who fought round Troy,
can be seen on the plain at night, clad like warriors, with nodding