Synopsis of Events between the Battle of Blenheim, 1704, and the Battle of Pultowa, 1709. CHAP. XII. THE BATTLE OF PULTOWA, A.D. 1709. Synopsis of Events between the Battle of Pultowa, 1709, and the Defeat of Burgoyne at Saratoga, 1777. CHAP. XIII. VICTORY OF THE AMERICANS OVER BURGOYNE AT SARATOGA, A.D. 1777. Synopsis of Events between the Defeat of Burgoyne at Saratoga, 1777, and the Battle of Valmy, 1792. CHAP. XIV. THE BATTLE OF VALMY. Synopsis of Events between the Battle of Valmy, 1792, and the Battle of Waterloo, 1815. CHAP. XV. THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO, 1815. THE FIFTEEN DECISIVE BATTLES OF THE WORLD. CHAPTER I.--THE BATTLE OF MARATHON. "Quibus actus uterque Europae atque Asiae fatis concurrerit orbis." Two thousand three hundred and forty years ago, a council of Athenian officers was summoned on the slope of one of the mountains that look over the plain of Marathon, on the eastern coast of Attica. The immediate subject of their meeting was to consider whether they should give battle to an enemy that lay encamped on the shore beneath them; but on the result of their deliberations depended not merely the fate of two armies, but the whole future progress of human civilization. There were eleven members of that council of war. Ten were the generals, who were then annually elected at Athens, one for each of the local tribes into which the Athenians were divided. Each general led the men of his own tribe, and each was invested with equal military authority. One also of the Archons was associated with them in the joint command of the collective force. This magistrate was termed the Polemarch or War-Ruler: he had the privilege of leading the right wing of the army in battle, and of taking part in all councils of war. A noble Athenian, named Callimachus, was the War-Ruler of this year; and as such, stood listening to the earnest discussion of the ten generals. They had, indeed, deep matter for anxiety, though little aware how momentous to mankind were the votes they were about to give, or how the generations to come would read with interest that record of their debate. They saw before them the invading forces of a mighty empire, which had in the last fifty years shattered and enslaved nearly all the kingdoms and principalities of the then known world. They knew that all the resources of their own country were comprised in the little army entrusted to their guidance. They saw before them a chosen host of the Great King sent to wreak his special wrath on that country, and on the other insolent little Greek community, which had dared to aid his rebels and burn the capital of one of his provinces. That victorious host had already fulfilled half its mission of vengeance. Eretria, the confederate of Athens in the bold march against Sardis nine years before, had fallen in the last few days; and the Athenian generals could discern from the heights the island of AEgilia, in which the Persians