Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/364

 346 HISTORY OF GREECE. certain proportion of cavalry, and some transports expressly pr. pared for the conveyance of horses : moreover, Herodotus tella us that Hippias selected the plain of Marathon for a landing place, because it was the most convenient spot in Attica for cav- alry movements, though it is singular, that in the battle the cavalry are not mentioned. Marathon, situated near to a bay on the eastern coast of At- tica, and in a direction E.N.E. from Athens, is divided by the high ridge of Mount Pentelikus from the city, with which it communicated by two roads, one to the north, another to the south of that mountain. Of these two roads, the northern, a* once the shortest and the most difficult, is twenty-two miles in length : the southern longer but more easy, and the only one practicable for chariots is twenty-six miles in length, or about six and a half hours of computed march. It passed between mounts Pentelikus and Hymettus, through the ancient demes of Gargettus and Pallene, and was the road by which Peisistratus and Hippias, when they landed at Marathon forty-seven years before, had marched to Athens. The bay of Marathon, sheltered by a projecting cape from the northward, affords both deep water and a shore convenient for landing ; while " its plain (says a careful modern observer ') extends in a perfect level along this There is nothing in the account of Herodotus to make us believe that he had ever visited the ground of Marathon. 1 See Mr. Finlay on the Battle of Marathon, Transactions, etc., vol. iii, pp. 364, 368, 383, ut supra : compare Hobhousc, Journey in Albania, i, p. 432. Colonel Leake thinks that the ancient town of Marathon was not on the exact site of the modern Marathon, but at a place called Vrand, a little to the south of Marathon (Leake, on the Demi of Attica, in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature, 1829, vol. ii, p. 166). " Below these two points," he observes, " (the tumuli of VranA and the hill of Kotroni.) the olain of Marathon expands to the shore of the bay, which is near two miles distant from the opening of the valley of VranA. It is moderately well cultivated with corn, and is one of the most fertile pots in Attica, though rather inconveniently subject to inundations from the two torrents which cross it, particularly that of Marathona. From Lucian (in Icaro-Mcnippo) it appears that the parts about CEnoft were noted for their fertility, and an Egyptian poet of the fifth century has cele- brated the vines and olives of Marathon. It is natural to suppose that the rineyards occupied the rising grounds ; and it is probable that the oliTO-