"Stop, Pheidippides," he cried, and stop he did. Graciously and kindly did the god then speak to him, asking him why it was that Athens alone in Greece had built him no temple, yet he had always been and would forever be her friend. And now in her peril, he would come to her aid. He bade Pheidippides go home and tell Athens to take heart, for Pan was on her side. If Pheidippides had run swiftly before, now he ran as if wings had been given to him. He hardly touched the earth but seemed to race through the air, and burst upon the waiting Athenians who had not dared expect him so soon, with the news that Sparta indeed had failed them, but that Pan, mighty to save, would fight for them! But now grave news was brought: the Persians were landing in Attica. It was September of the year 490 B.C., and the hot summer days had not yet passed away. The Athenians could not wait for the Spartans, they must go out alone and meet the foe. They marched twenty-four miles in the heat over a rough and rugged road, until they reached the plain of Marathon. There they found the Persians. Now the Persians had probably never intended to fight at Marathon. They hoped that the friends of Hippias in Athens would in the end betray the city to them, and their plan in landing where they did was to bring the Athenian army away from the city, and if possible to keep it away, until they should have received the expected signal from the traitors. The plain of Marathon is surrounded by hills except where it slopes down to the sea. The Athenians {131} occupied the stronger and higher positions, the Persians were encamped near the sea, and their ships were anchored close to the coast. For several days the armies watched each other and waited. The Athenians counted the days until the moon should be full, when there was hope that the Spartans might come; the Persians knew that every added day gave the conspirators more time to do their treacherous work in the city. And so both sides waited. Suddenly help came to the Athenians from an unexpected quarter, help which cheered and inspirited them. Through a cloud of dust on one of the roads leading down into the plain, they saw the gleam of spears and helmets. It could not be the Spartans, for they would not come from that direction. As the men drew nearer, they were found to be an army from Plataea, a little city in Boeotia, to which, when some years before Thebes had threatened her independence, Athens had sent succour. Now, though not thought of by the Athenians as an ally, because she was small and not powerful, she had remembered those who had befriended her in the hour of need, and had come down with all her fighting men to help Athens in her peril.