Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/368

 350 HISTORY OF GREECE. seems to have foreseen the possibility of such a check, when h found himself compelled to diminish so materially the depth of his centre : for his wings, having routed the enemies opposed to them, were stayed from pursuit until the centre was extricated, and the Persians and Sakae put to flight along with the rest. The pursuit then became general, and the Persians were chased to their ships ranged in line along the shore : some of them be- came involved in the impassable marsh and there perished. 1 The Athenians tried to set the ships on fire, but the defence here wad both vigorous and successful, several of the forward warriors of Athens were slain, and only seven ships out of the numerous fleet destroyed. 2 This part of the battle terminated to the ad- vantage of the Persians. They repulsed the Athenians from the sea-shore, and secured a safe reembarkation ; leaving few or no prisoners, but a rich spoil of tents and equipments which had been disembarked and could not be carried away. Herodotus estimates the number of those who fell on the Per- sian side in this memorable action at six thousand four hundred men : the number of Athenian dead is accurately known, since all were collected for the last solemn obsequies, they were one hundred and ninety-two. How many were wounded, we do not bear. The brave Kallimachus the polemarch, and Stesilaus, one of the ten generals, were among the slain ; together with Kyne- geirus son of Euphorion, who, in laying hold on the poop-staff of one of the vessels, had his hand cut off by an axe, 3 and died of the wound. He was brother of the poet JSschylus, himself pres- ent at the fight ; to whose imagination this battle at the ships must have emphatically recalled the fifteenth book of the Iliad. Herodotus here tells us the whole truth without disguise : Plutarch (Aristeides, c. 3) only says that the Pewian centre made a longer resist- ance, and gave the tribes in the Grecian centre more trouble to overthrow. 1 Pausan. i, 32, 6. a Ilcrodot. vi, 113-115. ^eirus. How creditably does I is character as an historian contrast with that of the subsequent romancers ! Justin tells us that Kynegcirus first seized the vessel with his right hand : that was cut oft', and he held the vessel with his left : when he had lost that also, he seized the ship with hia teeth, "like a wild beast," (Justin, ii, 9) Justin seems to have found this jtatement in many different authors : " Cynegiri militis virtus, mnltis icriptorum laudibus celebrata."
 * Herodot. vi, 114. This is the statement of Herodotus respecting Kyne-