The plain of Marathon, as everybody knows, is a long crescent-shaped strip of land by the shore, surrounded by an amphitheatre of hills, which may be crossed conveniently in three places, but most easily toward the south-west, along the road which we travelled, and which leads directly to Athens. When the Athenians marched through this broad and easy passage they found that the Persians had landed at the northern extremity of the plain—I suppose, because the water was there sufficiently deep to let them land conveniently. Most of the shore, as you proceed southward, is lined on the seaboard by swamps. The Greek army must have marched northward along the spurs of Pentelicus, and taken up their position near the north of the plain. There was evidently much danger that the Persians would force a passage through the village of Marathon, farther toward the north-west. Had they done this, they might have rounded Pentelicus, and descended the main plain of Attica, from the valley below Dekelea. Perhaps, however, this pass was then guarded by an outlying fort, or by some defences at Marathon itself. The site of the battle is absolutely fixed by the great mound, upon which was placed a lion, which has been carried off, no one knows when or whither. The mound is exactly an English mile from the steep slope of one of the hills, and about half a mile from the sea at present; nor was there, when I saw it, any difficulty in walking right to the shore, though a river flows out there, which shows, by its sedgy banks and lofty reeds, a tendency to create a marshy tract in rainy weather. But the mound is so placed that, if it marks the centre of the battle, the Athenians must have faced nearly north; and if they faced the sea eastward, as is commonly stated, this mound must mark the scene of the conflict on their left wing. The mound is very large—I suppose thirty feet high—altogether of earth, so far as we could see, and bears traces of having been frequently ransacked in search of antiquities. Dr. Schliemann, its latest investigator, could find nothing there but prehistoric flint weapons. [Illustration: Looking Toward the Sea from the Soros, Marathon]