Datis, an eminent Persian commander, drew out
three hundred thousand men to Marathon, a plain of Attica, where he encamped and declared war against the inhabitants. The Athenians made no reckoning at all of
so barbarous a rabble, but sent out nine thousand men
against him, under the command of Cynaegirus, Polyzelus,
Callimachus, and Miltiades. Upon the joining of battle,
Polyzelus was struck blind at the sight of a wonderful apparition;
[p. 451]
Callimachus's body was struck through with a
great many lances, continuing in an upright posture even
when he was dead; Cynaegirus had both his hands cut off
upon laying hold of a Persian ship that was endeavoring
to get away.
King Asdrubal, having possessed himself of Sicily, proclaimed war against the Romans. Metellus, who was appointed by the Senate to command in chief, overcame him.
L. Glauco, a patrician, laid hold of the vessel that Asdrubal was in, and lost both his hands upon it.—Aristides
Milesits gives this account in his First Book of the Affairs
of Sicily, and Dionysius Siculus had it from him.
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