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facts, which, though well known to every classical scholar, cannot, 

 consistently with the object of this history and the information of 

 the less learned, be entirely omitted. 



Twice, in the preceding reign of Darius, had the small kingdom 

 of Macedonia been compelled to pay to that monarch the accus- 

 tomed, but degrading, tribute of earth and water : first, at the 

 return of Darius from his Scythian expedition, when he appointed 

 Megabazus commander-in-chief of the forces in the western ex- 

 tremity of his empire, and who obtained that mark of homage to 

 his master from Amyntas, the reigning monarch; secondly, after 

 the Ionian revolt and conquest, when Mardonius, the Persian 

 satrap, led the first armament against the Greek inhabitants of the 

 islands of the ^.gean Sea. That armament, however formidable, 

 proved inefficacious as to its objects, as well from a furious storm 

 that dashed to pieces the greatest part of the Persian fleet, when 

 attempting to double the Cape of Mount Athos, as from an un- 

 expected attack made by night on his army by the Brygian 

 Thracians, who stormed his camp, not sufficiently fortified, slew a 

 great number of his men, and, wounding Mardonius himself, com- 

 pelled him for that season to relinquish the expedition. With the 

 ensuing spring the design was renewed : an army and fleet more 

 powerful, commanded by generals more skilful and determined, 

 were ordered to enforce on the Grecian republics the usual demand 

 of earth and water from the haughty Persians ; but the undaunted 

 spirit of the insular Greeks could not brook the indignity to which 

 the feebler government of Macedon had tamely submitted. At 

 Athens and at Lacedaemon, when the heralds of Darius appeared 

 publicly, to demand that proof of their submission, the general 

 indignation was so extreme, that, at the one place, amidst the 

 execrations of the people, they were thrown into a deep ditch, and 

 at the other into a well, and, in the firm language of free-born men, 



Vol. in. Z 



