3G PLAIN OF MARATHON. 
CHAP, causeway, hardly wide enough to admit of two 
\ , persons abreast of each other, and which 
remains at the present day. Every other 
attempt to escape must have been fruitless, as 
the sea or the lake intervened to oppose it. 
The consequence, therefore, of so vast a multi- 
tude all rushing towards one narrow outlet, 
must be obvious ; for it would be similar to 
that which so recently befel the French army, 
in its retreat from Moscow, at the sanguinary 
passage of the Beresina ; — heaps of dead bodies 
choking the only channel through which any 
chance of a retreat is offered, the fugitives 
either plunge mto the abyss, or turn their arms 
upon each other ; and the few who escape 
drowning, or being crushed to death, fall by the 
hands of their comrades. Historians, in their 
accounts of the Battle of Marathon, simply relate, 
that the Persians were driven into the Lake, 
without being aware of the defile whereby they 
were ensnared : but it is very remarkable, that 
in the two memorable invasions of Greece by 
the Persians, — the first under Darins, when they 
were defeated at Marathon; and the second, 
only eleven years afterwards', under Xerxes, 
(l) riie haltle 0/ Marathon , according to Corsini, happened upon tl>e 
Seth ot September, in the year 490 B. C. {Corsini Fust. Jitir. vol. III. 
;». 150.) That of Therm apyUe m the year 4S1 B. C. Fid. Chronic. 
Par. Ep. 52. Lonil. 17B8. 
