and gave the world a signal proof for all time that the military strength of a people depends more on their animating spirit than on their numbers, and that it is possible for a comparatively small nation to preserve its independence if its citizens be united and resolute in devotion to the common cause. The event must have made an enormous impression, when even such an illustrious poet as Æschylus regarded it as the greatest honour of his life that he had fought at Marathon, and left directions that that fact, and no other, should be recorded on his tomb. Ten years later the same peril reappeared in a still more threatening form, and again the men of Athens covered themselves with glory. It might have been expected that when Xerxes and his immense host approached the city they would have prepared for a siege. But the numbers of the enemy were so immense that, if they had remained within the walls, it would only have been a question of time when they would have had to surrender. In their distress they appealed to the Delphian oracle for advice, but the first response was of a most depressing nature. They were told to quit their “wheel-shaped city” and flee to the ends of the earth. A second appeal, which they made in the form of suppliants, elicited the assurance that when everything else in the land of Cecrops was taken, Zeus would grant to Athena the preservation of a wooden wall to be a sure defence to the Athenians and their children. Under the astute guidance of Themistocles they came to the conclusion that it was their ships that were referred to. A few of them, however, mostly too old or too poor to have much prospect of a welcome elsewhere, put a different construction on the oracle, and took refuge in the Acropolis, strengthening its defences by the erection of wooden palisades. They succeeded in holding the fortress for a time, in spite of the arrows with burning tow attached which the Persians poured in upon them from their position on the Areopagus. The assailants found it impossible to force their way up against the great stones which were rolled down upon them from the western entrance, and it was not till they discovered a secret ascent on the north side of the rock that they got the better of the defenders by taking them unawares, and became masters of the fortress. A remorseless work of destruction then ensued, involving the temples and other buildings on the Acropolis in the same fate as had befallen, or was soon to befall, the best of the houses in the city, and its walls. It seemed to the Athenians a terrible calamity at the time, but it proved to be a blessing in disguise, for it led to the restoration of the city on a scale of grandeur unknown before, and made the Acropolis one of the wonders of the world. The naval operations, also, to which they were obliged to have recourse, crowned as these were by the glorious victory at Salamis, opened their eyes to