Page:15 decisive battles of the world Vol 1 (London).djvu/58

 mutual exhortation, which Æschylus, who fought in both battles, tells us was afterwards heard over the waves of Salamis,—"On, sons of the Greeks! Strike for the freedom of your country,—strike for the freedom of your children, and of your wives,—for the shrines of your fathers' gods, and for the sepulchres of your sires. All—all are now staked upon the strife."

Instead of advancing at the usual slow pace of the phalanx, Miltiades brought his men on at a run. They were all trained in the exercises of the palæstra, so that there was no fear of their ending the charge in breathless exhaustion; and it was of the deepest importance for him to traverse as rapidly as possible the mile or so of level ground, that lay between the mountain foot and the Persian outposts, and so to get his troops into close action before the Asiatic cavalry