THE WAR OF GREEK INDEPENDENCE 1821 TO 1833 BY W.ALISON PHILLIPS 1897

178 THE WAR OF GREEK INDEPENDENCE
when the Greeks saw an apparently innumerable
host advancing upon
them with a steadiness and
fateful deliberation as disconcerting as it was strange
to their experience, many of them lost courage and
fled.
About a thousand, however, held their ground;
and Dikaios stimulated their courage
with the eloquence
which had made him so great a power in the
revolt. Victory was always possible, he cried, but if
they fell, many Turks would also bite the dust, and
this battle would be as famous among posterity as the
immortal stand of Leonidas and his three hundred
Spartans.
For once, courageous words were followed
by courageous deeds. The Arabs advanced to the
attack; but the Greeks held their ill-constructed entrenchments
with obstinate valour. At last, however,
the discipline and numbers of the enemy prevailed;
but not before 800 of the Greeks and 400 Mussulmans
had fallen. Dikaios himself fought like a lion; and
the headless trunk of the burly priest was discovered
surrounded by piles of slain Arabs. Ibrahim caused
the head to be sought; and, when it was found, had
it set upon the trunk, and the figure of the dead leader
placed upright against a post. For a while he stood
(
silently regarding it; then at last he said, That was
a brave and honourable man!
as many lives to have saved his;
Better have spent twice
he would have served