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Selections from the Works of Robert Browning
Selections from the Works of Robert Browning Author:Robert Browning Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: PHEIDIPPIDES. ANALYSIS. This poem is based upon an incident related by Herodotus in Book VI, 105, 106. In the year 490 B. C. the Persians invaded Attica an... more »d encamped on the plain of Marathon. When the news was received in Athens the generals sent a swift messenger to Sparta, which was about 140 miles distant, to beg for assistance. The legend as given by Herodotus is as follows :— " And first, while the generals were yet in the city, they dispatched a herald to Sparta, one Phidippides, an Athenian, who was a courier by profession. This man, then, as Phidippides himself said and reported to the Athenians, Pan met near Mount Parthenon, above Tegea; and Pan, calling out the name of Phidippides, bade him ask the Athenians, why they paid no attention to him, who was well inclined to the Athenians, and had often been useful to them, and would be so hereafter. This Phidippides, being sent by the generals at that time when he said Pan appeared to him, arrived in Sparta the following day after his departure from the city of the Athenians, and on coming in presence of the magistrates, he said :—' Lacedaemonians, the Athenians entreat you to assist them, and not to suffer the most ancient city among the Greeks to fall into bondage to barbarians; for Etruria is already reduced to slavery, and Greece has become weaker by the loss of a renowned city.' " He accordingly delivered the message according to his instructions, and they resolved indeed to assist the Athenians ; but it was out of their power to do so immediately, as they were unwilling to violate the law ; for it was the ninth day of the current month, and they said they could no march out on the ninth day, the moon's circle not being full. They therefore waited for the full moon." There seems to be no historical fou...« less