And Greece shall be a hallowed name, While the sun shall climb the pole, And Marathon fan strong freedom's flame In many a pilgrim soul. And o'er that mound where heroes sleep, [Footnote: This famous mound is still to be seen on the battle-field.] By the waste and reedy shore, Full many a patriot eye shall weep, Till Time shall be no more. And the bard shall brim with a holier hymn, When he stands by that mound alone, And feel no shrine on earth more divine Than the dust of Marathon. THE DEATH OF MILTIADES. Soon after the Persian defeat, Miltiades, who at first received all the honors that a grateful people could bestow, met a fate that casts a melancholy gloom over his history, and that has often been cited in proof of the assertion that "republics are fickle and ungrateful." History shows, however, that the Athenians were not greatly in the wrong in their treatment of Miltiades. He obtained of them the command of an expedition whose destination was known to himself alone; assuring them of the honorableness and the success of the enterprise. But much treasure was spent, many lives were lost, and through the seeming treachery of Miltiades the expedition terminated in disaster and disgrace. It was found, upon investigation, that the motive of the expedition was private resentment against a prominent citizen of Paros. Miltiades was therefore condemned to death; but gratitude for his previous valuable services mitigated the penalty to a fine of fifty talents. His death occurred soon after, from a wound that he received in a fall while at Paros, and the fine was paid by his son Cimon. As GROTE well observes, "The fate of Miltiades, so far from illustrating either the fickleness or the ingratitude of his countrymen, attests their just appreciation of deserts. It also illustrates another moral of no small importance to the right comprehension of Grecian affairs; it teaches us the painful lesson how perfectly maddening were the effects of a copious draught of glory on the temperament of an enterprising and ambitious Greek. There can be no doubt that the rapid transition, in the course of about one week, from Athenian terror before the battle to Athenian exultation after it, must have produced demonstrations toward Miltiades such as were never paid to any other man in the whole history of the commonwealth. Such unmeasured admiration unseated his rational judgment, so that his mind became abandoned to the reckless impulses of insolence, antipathy, and rapacity-- that distempered state for which (according to Grecian morality) the retributive Nemesis was ever on the watch, and which, in his case, she visited with a judgment startling in its rapidity, as well as terrible in its amount." [Footnote: "History of Greece," Chap. xxxvi.]