darling of their arms, the loss of which was the loss of honor; their spears were ponderous, thick, and long, a chief mark of +contradistinction from the light shaft of +Persia, and, with their short broad-sword, constituted their main weapons. 3. No Greek army marched to battle without vows, and sacrifice, and prayer; and now, in the stillness of the pause, the divine +rites were solemnized. Loud broke the trumpets; the standards, wrought with the sacred bird of Athens, were raised on high; it was the signal of battle, and the Athenians rushed with an impetuous vehemence upon the Persian power. "They were the first Greeks of whom I have heard," says the historian, "who ever ran to attack a foe; the first, too, who ever beheld, without dismay, the garb and armor of the Medes; for hitherto, in Greece, the very name of Mede had excited terror." + + 4. When the Persian army, with its numerous horse, animal as well as man protected by coats of mail, its expert bow-men, its lines and deep files of +turbaned soldiers, gorgeous with many a blazing standard, headed by leaders well hardened, despite their gay garbs and adorned breast-plates, in many a more even field; when, I say, this force beheld the Athenians rushing toward them, they considered them, thus few and destitute alike of cavalry and +archers, as madmen hurrying to destruction. But it was evidently not without deliberate calculation, that Miltiades had so commenced the attack. The warlike experience of his guerilla life had taught him to know the foe against whom he fought. To volunteer the assault, was to forestall and cripple the charge of the Persian horse; besides, the long lances, the heavy arms, the hand-to-hand valor of the Greeks, must have been no light encounter to the more weakly mailed and less formidably armed infantry of the East. Accustomed, themselves, to give the charge, it was a novelty and a disadvantage to receive it. 5. Long, fierce, and stubborn was the battle. The center wing of the barbarians, composed of the Sacians and the pure Persian race, at length, pressed hard upon the shallow center of the Greeks, drove them back into the country, and, eager with pursuit, left their own wings to the charge of Callimachus on the one side, and the Platean forces on the other. The brave Callimachus, after the most signal feats of valor, fell fighting in the field; but his troops, undismayed, smote on with spear and sword. 6. The barbarians retreated backward to the sea, where swamps and marshes encumbered their movements; and here, (though the Athenians did not pursue them far), the greater portion were slain, hemmed in by the morasses, and probably ridden down by their own disordered cavalry. Meanwhile, the two tribes that had formed the center, one of which was commanded by Aristides, +retrieved themselves with a mighty effort, and the two wings having routed their antagonists, now inclining toward each other, intercepted the barbarian center, which thus attacked in front and rear, was defeated with prodigious slaughter. + 7. Evening came on; confused and disorderly, the Persians now only thought of flight; the whole army retired to their ships, hard chased by the Grecian victors, who, amid the carnage, fired the fleet. Cynegirus, brother to Eschylus, the tragic poet, (himself highly distinguished for his feats, that day,) seized one of the vessels by the poop; his hand was severed by an ax; he died gloriously of his wounds. But to none did the fortunes of that field open a more illustrious career, than to a youth of the tribe of Leontes, in whom, though probably then but a simple soldier in the ranks, were first made manifest the nature and the genius destined to command. The name of that youth was THEMISTOCLES. 8. Seven vessels were captured, six thousand four hundred of the barbarians fell in the field; the Athenians and their brave ally lost only one hundred, but among them perished many of their bravest nobles. It was a superstition, not uncharacteristic of that imaginative people, and evincing how greatly their ardor was aroused, that many of them fancied they beheld the gigantic shade of their ancestral Theseus, completely armed and bearing down before them upon the foe. 9. A picture of the battle, representing Miltiades in the foremost place, and solemnly preserved in public, was deemed no inadequate reward to that great captain; and yet, conspicuous above the level plain of Marathon, rises a long barrow, fifteen feet in hight, the supposed sepulcher of the Athenian heroes. Still does a romantic legend, not unfamiliar with our traditions of the north, give a supernatural terror to the spot. Nightly, along the plains are yet heard by superstition, the neighings of chargers, and the rushing shadows of + spectral war. And still, throughout the civilized world, (civilized how much by the art and lore of Athens!) men of every clime, of every political persuasion, feel as Greeks at the name of Marathon. Later fields have presented the spectacle of an equal valor, and almost the same + disparities of slaughter; but never in the annals of earth, were united so closely in our applause, admiration for the heroism of the victors, and sympathy for the holiness of their cause. BULWER. LESSON CCXX. SONG OF THE GREEK BARD. A modern Greek is here supposed to compare the present + degeneracy of his country with its ancient glory, and to utter his lamentations in the words of the song. 1. THE Isles of Greece, the Isles of Greece! But all, except their sun, is set. 2. The Scian and Teian muse, The hero's heart, the lover's lute, I dreamed that Greece might still be free; 4. A king* sat on the rocky brow Which looks o'er sea-born +Salamis; 5. And where are they? And where art thou, Th' heroic bosom beats no more! 6. Must we but weep o'er days more blest? 7. What, silent still? and silent all? And answer, * Xerxes. But one arise,we come, we come!" 8. In vain! in vain!— strike other chords; And shed the blood of Scio's vine! The nobler and the manlier one? 11. The tyrant of the Chersonese Was freedom's best and bravest friend: O! that the present hour would lend Such chains as his were sure to bind. 12. Fill high the bowl with Samian wine! Where nothing, save the waves and I, BYRON. LESSON CCXXI. FAMILY OF MARCO BOZZARIS. 1. MOVING on beyond the range of ruined houses, though still within the line of crumbling walls, we came to a spot, perhaps as interesting as any that Greece, in her best days, could show. It was the tomb of +Marco Bozzaris! No monumental marble +emblazoned his deeds and fame; a few round stones, piled over his head, which, but for our guide, we should have passed without noticing, were all that marked his grave. 2. I would not disturb a proper reverence for the past; time covers, with its dim and twilight glories, both distant scenes and the men who acted in them; but to my mind, Miltiades was not more of a hero at Marathon, or Leonidas at Thermopylæ, than Marco Bozzaris at +Missolonghi. When they went out against the hosts of Persia, Athens and Sparta were great and free, and they had the prospect of glory and the praise of men,-to the Greeks always dearer than life. But when the Suliote chief drew his sword, his country lay bleeding at the feet of a giant, and all Europe condemned the Greek revolution as fool-hardy and desperate. 3. For two months, with but a few hundred men, protected only by a ditch, and a slight parapet of earth, he defended the town, where his body now rests, against the whole Egyptian army. In stormy weather, living upon bad and unwholesome bread, with no covering but his cloak, he passed his days and nights in constant vigil; in every assault his sword cut down the foremost assailant; and his voice, rising above the din of battle, struck terror into the hearts of the enemy. In the struggle which ended with his life, with two thousand men, he proposed to attack the whole army of Mustapha Pacha, and called upon all who were willing to die for their country, to stand forward. 4. The whole band advanced, to a man. Unwilling to sacrifice so many brave men in a death-struggle, he chose three hundred, the sacred number of the Spartan band, his true and trusty Suliotes. At midnight, he placed himself at their head, directing that not a shot should be fired, till he sounded his bugle; and his last command was, "If you lose sight of me, seek me in the *pacha's tent." In the moment of victory, and while ordering the pacha to be seized, he received a ball in the loins; his voice still rose above the din of battle, cheering his men, until he was struck by another ball in the head, and borne dead from the field of his glory.* 5. But the most interesting part of our day at Missolonghi was to come. Returning from a ramble round the walls, we noticed a large, square house, which, our guide told us, was the residence *This occurred August 20th, 1823. His last words were, "To die for liberty, is a pleasure, not a pain." |