and the level nature of the ground on which he camped was
favourable for the employment of his cavalry, if the Athenians
should venture to engage him. Hippias, who accompanied him, and
acted as the guide of the invaders, had pointed out Marathon as
the best place for a landing, for this very reason. Probably
Hippias was also influenced by the recollection, that forty-seven
years previously he, with his father Pisistratus, had crossed
with an army from Eretria to Marathon, and had won an easy
victory over their Athenian enemies on that very plain, which had
restored them to tyrannic power. The omen seemed cheering. The
place was the same; but Hippias soon learned to his cost how
great a change had come over the spirit of the Athenians.

But though "the fierce democracy" of Athens was zealous and true
against foreign invader and domestic tyrant, a faction existed in
Athens, as at Eretria, of men willing to purchase a party triumph
over their fellow-citizens at the price of their country's ruin.
Communications were opened between these men and the Persian
camp, which would have led to a catastrophe like that of Eretria,
if Miltiades had not resolved, and had not persuaded his
colleagues to resolve, on fighting at all hazards.

When Miltiades arrayed his men for action, he staked on the
arbitrement of one battle not only the fate of Athens, but that
of all Greece; for if Athens had fallen, no other Greek state,
except Lacedaemon, would have had the courage to resist; and the
Lacedaemonians, though they would probably have died in their
ranks to the last man, never could have successfully resisted the
victorious Persians, and the numerous Greek troops, which would
have soon marched under the Persian satraps, had they prevailed