army by a rapid night-march back across the country to Athens.
And when the Persian fleet had doubled the Cape of Sunium and
sailed up to the Athenian harbour in the morning, Datis saw
arrayed on the heights above the city the troops before whom his
men had fled on the preceding evening. All hope of further
conquest in Europe for the time was abandoned, and the baffled
armada returned to the Asiatic coasts.

After the battle had been fought, but while the dead bodies were
yet on the ground, the promised reinforcement from Sparta
arrived. Two thousand Lacedaemonian spearmen, starting
immediately after the full moon, had marched the hundred and
fifty miles between Athens and Sparta in the wonderfully short
time of three days. Though too late to share in the glory of the
action, they requested to be allowed to march to the battle-field
to behold the Medes. They proceeded thither, gazed on the dead
bodies of the invaders, and then, praising the Athenians and what
they had done, they returned to Lacedaemon.

The number of the Persian dead was six thousand four hundred; of
the Athenians, a hundred and ninety-two. The number of Plataeans
who fell is not mentioned, but as they fought in the part of the
army which was not broken, it cannot have been large.

The apparent disproportion between the losses of the two armies
is not surprising, when we remember the armour of the Greek
spearmen, and the impossibility of heavy slaughter being
inflicted by sword or lance on troops so armed, as long as they
kept firm in their ranks. [Mitford well refers to Crecy,
Poictiers, and Agincourt, as instances of similar disparity of