There was, as has been said, a space of a mile between the two armies. Miltiades ordered the Athenians to cross this at a run. Such a thing had never been done before in regular warfare. It was an amazing feat of strength, for the men were in heavy armour. Not less remarkable was the courage of the movement, for in those days the Greeks had not learned to look down upon the Persians. To the enemy the charge seemed to be the act of madmen; but they must have felt that such madmen were dangerous enemies, and must have been shaken in the confidence with which they had looked forward to victory. Still they stood their ground, and met their assailants in hand-to-hand fight. They even broke the centre of the Athenian line, which, as has been said, was but two or three files deep. Herodotus even says that "they pursued them into the middle country," a curious phrase, seeing that the battle was fought only a mile or so from the sea shore. But in hand-to-hand fighting, when the conditions were at all equal, the Persians were no match, either in training or in equipment, for their adversaries. The poet Æschylus, himself "a man of Marathon," the proudest title which an Athenian could bear, speaks of the war of the Persian against the Greek as the battle of the bow against the spear. In the _Persæ_, the drama which celebrates the crushing defeat of Persia in its second assault on Greece, he makes the chorus, consisting of the Great King's councillors, boast of how their lord would bid "The arrows' iron hail advance Against the cumbrous moving lance;" a happy stroke of irony when it was known that the lance had prevailed over the arrow. It certainly prevailed that day. Both the wings were victorious in the shock of arms, and when they had put to flight the ranks opposed to them they turned to restore the fortune of the day in the centre. This they soon accomplished. Before long the whole Persian line was in rapid retreat. Pausanias says that many of the fugitives rushed into the marsh, and, indeed, that the greater part of their loss was thus caused. Miltiades, anxious to complete his victory, followed up the flying enemy, and endeavoured to cut off his retreat. Here he was less successful, and, indeed, incurred serious loss. In the attempt to burn the Persian ships not a few distinguished Athenians fell. The Polemarch and another of the generals were among them; so was a brother of the poet Æschylus, who, having laid hold of one of the ships, had his hand cut off by an axe, and died of the wound. The Persians contrived to get away, not losing more than seven of their ships, but leaving behind them in their richly furnished tents an ample booty for the conquerors.