Shortly after came the Persian invasion of Greece and the battle of Marathon (490 B.C.). Here occurred one of the early tactical variations from the parallel order. Miltiades had but eleven thousand men; the Persians had ten times as many. They lay on the sea-shore in front of their fleet. To reach and lean his flanks on two brooks running to the sea, Miltiades made his centre thin, his wings strong, and advanced sharply on the enemy. As was inevitable, the deep Persian line easily broke through his centre. But Miltiades had either anticipated and prepared his army for this, or else seized the occasion by a very stroke of genius. There was no symptom of demoralization. The Persian troops followed hard after the defeated centre. Miltiades caused each wing to wheel inwards, and fell upon both flanks of the Persian advance, absolutely overwhelming it, and throwing it back upon the main line in such confusion as to lead to complete victory. [Illustration: BEFORE BATTLE OF MARATHON] You must note that demoralization always plays an immense part in battle. The Old Dessauer capped all battle-tactics with his: “Wenn Du gehst nicht zurück, so geht der Feind zurück!” (If you don’t fall back, why, the enemy will fall back.) Whenever a tactical manœuvre unnerves the enemy, it at once transforms his army into a mob. The reason why Pickett’s charge did not succeed was that there was no element of demoralization in the Union ranks. Had there been, Gettysburg might have become a rebel victory. The Peloponnesian War shows instances of far-seeing strategy, such as the seizure of Pylos (B.C. 425), whence the threat of incursions on Sparta’s rear obliged her to relax her hold on the throat of Athens. Brasidas was the general who, at this time, came nearest to showing the moral and intellectual combination of the great soldier. His marches through Thessaly and Illyria and his defeat of Cleon at Amphipolis were admirable. He it was who first marched in a hollow square, with baggage in the centre. [Illustration: GREEK MANŒUVRE AT MARATHON]