The Battle of Marathon

Introduction:

The Persian Achaemenid Empire, from the period of Cyrus the Great (559-530 BC) tothe time of Darius I (521-486 BC), experienced significant growth and a tremendousterritorial expansion, with its borders stretching from India to the Aegean.The socio-political crisis that broke out towards the end of the 6th century BC on theshores of Asia Minor led to the Ionian Revolt (500-499 BC), i.e. the armed uprising ofcities with a strong Hellenic element on the coasts of Ionia, with the aim of casting offthe Persian rule.Hoping to secure influence in Ionia, Athens and Eretria hastened to reinforce therebellious cities, the first with 20 ships and the latter with 5 ships. However, thePersian dominance was strong. By 493 BC, the revolts were violently suppressed andthe combined forces of Athens and Eretria were defeated.Darius I, the Great King of the Persians, regained his dominance over the coasts andmany islands of the Eastern Aegean Sea, but he had not yet exacted his revenge. Uponsecuring the submission of Thrace and Macedonia in 492 C, he sent messengers to therest of the Greeks in 491 BC, demanding “Earth and Water”.

1st Stop:

Athens

The messenger sent by Darius I arrived in Athens and demanded that it fully submit tothe Great King of Persia. Not all Athenians were on the same page regarding theposition they should take. Many were in favour of reconciling with the mighty PersianEmpire, while others believed that their city needs to resist to the “Barbarians”. In theend, the second position prevailed.The historian Herodotus reports that the Athenians received the Persian envoy andthrew him into the ravine of Varathro, where those condemned to death were thrown.The messenger's punishment was symbolic. This way, Athens essentially told thePersians that this would be the only way it would offer Earth and Water. Spartaresponded similarly to the Great King, while the rest of the Greek cities acceptedsubmission.The operations against the Persians were led by Miltiades, who was perhaps the mostpowerful man in Athens at the time. Scion of an aristocratic family and ruler of theThracian Peninsula, he was forced to abandon his homeland when the Persian fleetattacked and to take refuge in Athens, where he was elected General. Miltiades wasfamiliar with the military tactics of the Persians, having fought them during the IonianRevolt and, therefore, despite the criticism of the democratic Athenians who viewedhim with suspicion due to his tyrannical rule in the Peninsula, the General managed toemerge as the most suitable person to defend the freedom of the Greeks againstPersian authoritarianism.

2nd Stop:

Eretria

The refusal of Athens and Sparta to submit angered the Great Persian King, and thusthe First Median War had already begun in 490 BC. The Persian Generals Datis andArtaphernes assembled a considerable military force in Susa and, upon departing fromCilicia, they attacked Lindos in Rhodes, subdued Samos and struck against Naxos,which had opposed the Persians during the Ionian Revolt. However, there was anothercity with a greater price to pay still for assisting the rebellious Ionians: Eretria.The Persians moved from Naxos to Delos and from there they disembarked inEuboea, in the region of Karystos. The local inhabitants refused to provide hostages,so Karystos was besieged and the land plundered, until it was forced to surrender andsubmit.The Eretrians, upon finding out that the Persian fleet was approaching, immediatelyasked Athens for help. Almost immediately, 4,000 Athenian settlers from Chalkida setout for Eretria; however, they listened to the advice of the local ruler Aeschines andset sail for Oropos to save themselves. At the same time, the Eretrians were divided,some of them wanting to surrender the city to the Persians, others to abandon it andsave themselves by taking refuge in the surrounding hills, and others to stay anddefend their lands.In the end, the Eretrians remained in the city, while the Persians landed their forces inthree different parts of the region, launching a fierce siege that lasted six days andclaimed the lives of many fighters from both sides. It was Euphorbus and Philagrus,two prominent Eretrians, who decided to open the gates and let the Persian armyinvade the city. The retaliation for Eretria's resistance was merciless. The Persiansindulged in plundering and slaughtering, setting fire to buildings, looting temples,enslaving the local population and transporting a large part thereof to Susa.

3rd Stop:

Plain of Marathon

Hippias, the former tyrant of Athens, partnered with the Persians during theircampaign and advised the Persian General Datis to land his forces at the bay ofMarathon, so that he could deploy his cavalry. In fact, tradition has it that Hippiasdreamed that he was sleeping in his mother's arms, which he interpreted as an omenof victory. However, as soon as he set foot on the beach at Marathon, he sneezed and,due to his old age, some of his teeth fell out; he searched for them in the sand, but invain. From that moment, he was sure that the omens were bad and heralded defeat.According to modern research, Miltiades lined up around 10,000 hoplites, mostlyAthenians and some Plataeans, against approx. 25,000 to 30,000 Persians. The twoarmies took position on opposite sides, at a distance of 1.5 kilometres. The centre ofthe Greek army was arranged into ranks of four, led by the renowned GeneralsThemistocles and Aristides, while the flanks were reinforced in ranks of eight.The battle was fierce. Historians speculate that the Greeks attacked at the momentwhen the Persian cavalry was disembarking, having had no time to deploy. Herodotushighlights the unparalleled bravery of the Athenians, who, proving the effectivenessof the Athenian phalanx, moved like “pincers”. The Greek wings broke up the Persianline and surrounded the enemy, who, unable to find a way out, fled in panic towardsthe ships.Unfamiliar with the terrain, many Persians fell into swamps, where they drowned.Most of them managed to reach their ships, but seven of them fell into the hands ofthe pursuing Greeks. In fact, Herodotus refers to General Cynegirus, brother of thetragedian Aeschylus, who, seeing a Persian ship attempting to sail away, rushed tohold it back with his hands, which led to him receiving a fatal blow from a member ofthe crew. The Persians attempted to attack Athens directly, but the Greek forcesreturned rapidly back to their base, fighting them off and forcing them back to Asia.After the defeat of the Persians, a marble column was erected on the battlefield as atrophy. The term “trophy” comes from the Greek verb “trepo” (meaning to causesomeone to do something), and trophies were traditionally placed at the spot wherethe enemy was forced to abandon the battle and flee. Today, on the same spot, visitorscan see a later copy of the trophy, which rests on the original marble pedestal.

4th Stop:

Tumulus of the Athenians at Marathon

The Persians suffered heavy losses at the Battle of Marathon. Herodotus claims thatthe enemy numbered 6,400 dead, for whom mass graves were created according toarchaeological research.Herodotus also mentions that the Athenians and Plataeans lost 192 and 11 menrespectively. According to tradition, two tombs were created to bury and honour thedead, one for the Athenians and one for the Plataeans. The dead were burned, thenburied with all due honours and finally covered with the excavated soil. The resultwas the creation of two tumuli. The larger one is about twelve metres high and thesmaller one about three. Both have been excavated and restored by Greekarchaeologists.The erection of the tumuli continues to concern scientists. Many scholars argue that,despite being an anachronistic practice, the Athenians chose to follow it out ofenthusiasm for this great victory and in an attempt to excite, bringing back a methodused in the times of Homer. Another approach holds that the dead were buriedindividually with a column marking the site of each burial and that the erection of thetumulus occurred much later, in the 2nd century AD, during the Roman period, byHerodes Atticus who lived in his mansion in the region. Other researchers note furtherthat there is insufficient evidence to identify the second, smaller tumulus as the placewhere fallen Plataeans were buried.Among the findings that recount the victory of the Greeks at the Battle of Marathon, itis worth mentioning the helmet with the damaged dome, which was found in theArchaeological Site of Olympia and which bears the inscription “MILTIADESANE[TH]EKEN [T]OI DI”. Based on this, it is believed to be the helmet of GeneralMiltiades, which he dedicated to Zeus as a sign of gratitude for his divine favour. Theitem is on display at the Archaeological Museum of Olympia. Finally, we must notethe epigram composed by the lyric poet Simonides of Ceos in honour of the fallenAthenians: “Ellinon promachountes Athinaioi Marathoni, chrysoforon Midonestoresan dynamin”, meaning “Fighting in the forefront of the Hellenes, the Atheniansat Marathon destroyed the might of the gold-bearing Medes”.