Marathon: The Battle that Gave Birth to Western Civilization

2,340 years ago, a council of Athenian officers was summoned on the slope of one of the mountains that took 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 the result of their deliberations depended not merely on the fate of two armies, but the whole future progress of human civilization. This is the way the historian Sir Edward Creasy introduced the Battle of Marathon in his seminal 1851 work, The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World. Well, Sir Edward might be accused of a touch of hyperbole here, but the clash in 490 BC between the mighty Persian Empire and the small Greek city-state of Athens certainly casts a long shadow on world history. Marathon is one of the most studied and chronicled events in the history of the ancient world, and it is easy to see why. Athens was less than 20 years into an experiment in governance they called democracy. If the mighty empire had succeeded in conquering this city, the experiment probably would have failed and the spread of Greek culture, the cornerstone of modern civilization, over the following centuries might have never happened. Let's go back in time 2,500 years, when Rome was a fledgling republic, when the Great Pyramid of Giza was the tallest building in the world, when a small city took on a great The Persian Achaemenid Empire was founded in the 6th century BC, when the first king of kings, Cyrus the Great, conquered the Median, Lydian, and Neo-Babylonian empires and forged them into one mighty state. His son, Cambyses, went further, conquering Egypt and Cyprus, and by the time Darius the Great came to the throne in 522 BC, Persia was one of the world's first superpowers. Darius oversaw an empire that was divided into satrapies, largely autonomous districts ruled by a governor or satrap. Each satrap was levied with taxes, which provided the central government with enormous resources to finance projects such as 2,500 kilometers of highway that stretched all the way across the empire, facilitating trade and communication improvements. The Persians also raised and maintained a massive professional army drawn from all over the empire. Supplementing this, Darius financed the construction of a Persian navy to defend its coastline and carry on conflicts beyond their borders. In addition to the territories directly governed by Persia, the empire also had a number of client states and vassals, including Greek cities on the eastern end of the Aegean Sea and in the Kingdom of Macedonia, located to the north of Greece. The traditional symbol of vassalage was to make a gift of earth and water to the Persian king of kings, symbolizing the monarch's control over both of these elements and everything on them. The system worked well, and Persia grew both mighty and wealthy. But Darius found himself continually infuriated by his western neighbors, the Greeks. For most of its history, Ancient Greece was chopped up into a jigsaw of city-states, independent communities that governed themselves and alternately allied with or fought against their neighbors, sometimes over exceptionally petty disputes. One of these city-states was Athens. Situated on the Attica Peninsula that juts into the Aegean Sea, Athens benefited from trade with the Greek cities of Asia Minor, such as Miletus and Halicarnassus, which was under the control of Persia. In 510 BC, the tyrant ruler of Athens, Hippias, was deposed and exiled. The resulting power struggle over the following few years resulted in a radical shift in political power. The traditional nobility was weakened and the people, the Demos, were empowered. It would later become known as democracy. The word literally means power to the people. This was not representative democracy as is practiced today in most western countries. That was being developed around the same time in Rome, via the Roman Senate. Athens had a so-called direct democracy, in which the entire voting bloc, in this case the adult male Athenian citizens who were not slaves, were eligible to sit and vote in the people's assembly. The assembly voted on law proposals, treaties and decrees, and appointed magistrates to handle municipal affairs. The total number of men eligible to participate in the assembly topped out at around 30,000, a huge number for the time period. The Persian Empire The Persian Empire was so vast and contained so many different ethnic groups that it was almost impossible to prevent revolts and uprisings from taking place, particularly on the boundaries of the empire. This is what occurred in 499 BC, when the Greek city of Miletus, situated on the eastern edge of the Aegean Sea in modern-day Turkey, declared itself a democracy and threw out the Persian officials overseeing them. Up and down the coast, other cities followed suit, sparking a wide-scale revolt. The Ionian Revolt was a major headache for the Persian King of Kings. Darius needed to devote a lot of resources to bringing Ionia back under his control and the situation was made more embarrassing by the support the rebels received from the Greek mainland. Athens and Persia were not on friendly terms even before the Ionian Revolt. The former tyrant, Hippias, had fled to the Persian regional capital, Sardis, and spent years agitating the local satrap to intervene and put him back in power. This angered the Athenians, who, having experienced the freedom their new form of government provided them, were vehemently opposed to any form of autocracy being imposed upon them. As a result, Athens was sympathetic to the plight of the Ionians and they, along with the city of Eritrea, sent troops to Asia Minor to support the rebels. The Greeks surprised the Persians, capturing and burning Sardis, but were driven back with heavy losses. Chastened, the Athenians sailed home, declining to participate any further in the revolt. It took Darius until 493 BC to bring the rebellious cities back under his control, but he had not forgotten the support provided to the rebels by the mainland Greeks. He swore vengeance on both Athens and Eritrea. Herodotus writes that Darius instructed one of his servants to say, Master, I remember the Athenians three times a day before dinner, so he wouldn't forget his enemies. With Asia Minor now secure, Darius could begin planning a new campaign to punish the Greeks. Sponsor me, Unbounce Unbounce is the leading landing page platform that helps you convert more visitors into lead sales and customers. 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The ships ferried the army across the Hallespont, the ancient name for the Dardanelles strait that separates Asia from Europe. The Persians rampaged across Thrace and Macedonia, but were forced to retreat back to Asia Minor after their naval fleet was wrecked in a storm. The next year, Darius sent emissaries to the Greek city-states, demanding tributes of earth and water. Most of the Greek cities, scared of the might of Persia, acquiesced. But in Athens, the ambassadors were put on trial and executed a deliberate provocation. It was at this moment that Athens found an unexpected ally. To the south of Athens, the city of Sparta had unceremoniously thrown the Persian ambassadors down a well, signifying their intention to fight as well. Sparta, who possessed the most powerful land army in Greece, routinely clashed with Athens. The two cities couldn't be more different. But faced with an existential threat in Persia, both cities formed an alliance to fight Persia on behalf of all of Greece. In 490 BC, Darius decided that the time was right to attack mainland Greece. Instead of taking the long overland route as they did two years earlier, this time the Persians launched an amphibious invasion force of 600 triremes. Modern estimates put the size of the Persian army at around 25,000 troops. Small by Persian standards, but still far bigger than anything the Greek cities could muster. After subjugating the Cyclades, the chain of small islands situated in the Aegean Sea between Greece and Asia Minor, the Persians moved on to their first target, Eritrea. The city was besieged, and after a week, the Persians were let into the city by two traitors. The city was razed to the ground, and those who weren't killed were enslaved by the Persians. This time, the Persians re-boarded their ships and sailed south, toward their other target – Athens. The Persians landed their forces at the Bay of Marathon, 17 miles northeast of Athens. They were advised to do this by Hippias, the exiled Athenian tyrant who accompanied the Persians as an advisor, probably hoping to take over the administration of a conquered Athens on behalf of the Persians. Athens marshaled their army to oppose them, also sending out calls for help to their allies. The city's best runner, Pheidippides, was dispatched to Sparta. He covered the 150 miles between the two cities in 36 hours and called on the Spartans to march to Athens as aid. The Spartans were willing to do this, but legally they had to wait. The festival of Carnea was at hand, and by law, the army could not march until the full moon. For now, Athens was on its own. The Athenian army, commanded by ten strategoi, generals elected by the ten tribes of Athens, met the Persians at Marathon, blocking the two exits from the plain. They were in a strong defensive position, protected in their flanks by marshland, trees, and sharpened wooden stakes. The Athenian army, 10,000 strong, consisted almost entirely of infantry called hoplites. A hoplite was equipped with a long spear and a heavy shield. They utilized the phalanx formation and interlocking wall of shields that maximized their defensive capabilities. This style of warfare, developed over centuries of internal warfare between the Greek city states, would be tested for the first time against a foreign enemy. The Persian army was made up of a hodgepodge of troops from all over the empire. The soldiers were equipped with bows, swords, and woven wicker shields, and were much more lightly armored than the Greek hoplites. They also had around 1,000 cavalry, which found themselves unable to maneuver in the confined space of the campaign area. For five days, the two armies stared at each other across the plains of Marathon. Neither side was inclined to attack. The Athenians knew that every day that passed brought reinforcements from Sparta closer to them. Athens had to summon all available forces to oppose the Persians. If they attacked and were defeated, the city would be left defenseless. The Persians, meanwhile, were facing an army in a strong defensive position. An attack on it would incur heavy losses that could spell the end of the campaign. No one is quite sure what happens on the fifth day that triggered the battle. The most likely explanation is that the Persian general Dattis had loaded his cavalry, which weren't doing much good at Marathon, on his ships, intending to sail them around to attack the undefended city of Athens from behind. This changed the tactical situation dramatically. Now the Athenians knew they needed to go on the offensive. It could only help them that cavalry were off the field, since horsemen were the major weakness of the phalanx. They could ride around the formation and attack the hoplites from behind. The Athenians formed their battle line about 1,500 meters from the Persians. When they were ready, one of the Stratigoi Militaris, who was in command on this day, gave the order at them. They moved forward against the Persians, stretching their line to match the larger army, which reinforced the flanks of the Greek army and stretched the center thin. When they were 200 meters away, they reached the beaten zone, the range of the Persians' archers' effectiveness. The Persians fired, but did little damage. The arrows largely unable to penetrate the Greek shields and armor. The Athenians then did something the Persians didn't expect. They broke into a run towards the Persians. The tactic worked. The Greeks quickly made their way through the hail of arrows and, with a titanic crash, made contact with the Persian battle line. This was where the hoplite was strong in hand-to-hand combat, especially against the lightly armored Persian infantry. The fighting was brutal, up close, personal, and bloody. The battle turned when the strengthened Greek flanks broke through the Persian lines, putting them to flight. Then, rather than chase them, their commanders reformed their formation and turned them to attack the Persian center, which was holding against the thinly stretched Athenians. Attacked on three sides, these troops broke two, and the entire Persian army was routed. They fled back towards their ships, though some, unfamiliar with the topography, stumbled into the marshes around the battlefield. Many of them drowned. The Athenians pursued the beaten Persians back to the ships, capturing seven triremes, though the rest got away. The Persians left behind between 5,000 and 7,000 dead on the field. By contrast, Greek casualties came to just over 200 dead. It was a great victory, but the city wasn't out of danger yet. The Persian fleet made an attempt to sail what was left of the force around to attack Athens while the Greeks were still at Marathon. Leaving a rearguard behind, the rest of the Athenian army quick-marched back to Athens, getting there before the Persians arrived. When the fleet did show up, and Dattis saw the Athenians manning the walls, he knew the game was up. He turned the fleet around and sailed home, leaving Athens and the rest of Greece to celebrate their triumph. The Battle of Marathon Marathon was a watershed moment in the history of the ancient world. It showed the Greeks that they could stand up to Persia and win, something that would prove hugely important in the years to come. It also raised the esteem of Athens. The battle showed that they could fight without Sparta's formidable army with them. It did not, however, end the war between Greece and Persia. Darius was humiliated by the defeat of his forces at Marathon and vowed to return with an even larger army. But in 486 BC, Egypt rose up in revolt against Persia and, soon after, Darius died, leaving the empire to his son Xerxes. It was left to Xerxes to avenge Marathon and, ten years after the battle, the Persians launched a massive invasion force of 100,000 men and 1,200 ships. They famously defeated the Greeks at Thermopylae and burned and evacuated Athens. But the Persian navy was defeated at Salamis and Xerxes' huge army was destroyed at the Battle of Plataea in 479 and were thrown out of Greece, never to return. The final defeat of the Persians ushered in a new golden age for Greece, called the Classical Period by historians. The Greek cities experienced an unprecedented level of growth in culture, the arts, architecture, philosophy and prosperity. Most of what we think of as Greek culture evolved during this period. It was adopted by the kings of Macedonia, particularly Alexander the Great, who, after uniting all of Greece under his hegemony, invaded and conquered the entirety of the vast Persian Empire for himself. Though this empire would not survive his death, being torn apart by his successors, the ideas and culture he brought to it did, fusing with local traditions to form a new, blended culture. Greek civilization also had a huge impact on the Romans, who would eventually conquer Greece and most of the area of the former Persian Empire. The Romans adopted many Greek customs and ideas into their own culture, fusing it with their own, which was carried everywhere they went, which was most of the known world. The Battle of Marathon had one more, unintentional effect on our culture. A legend arose centuries later that the Greek runner Philippides ran the 25 miles from Marathon to Athens to announce the victory to the Athenian people. Supposedly, the exhausted runner made it to Athens, announced, we've won, and dropped dead. It seems that this legend arose from combining the two events chronicled by Herodotus, the heroic run by Philippides from Athens to Sparta, and the rapid march of the Athenian army from Marathon to Athens to get there before the Persian fleet. Nonetheless, the story was so famous that when the organizers of the first modern Olympics in 1896 met to discuss what athletic events should be included, they came up with an idea to recreate the original marathon run by having runners race to complete the 25 mile distance from Marathon to Athens in the fastest time. The event proved to be extremely popular and marathon races have featured in every Olympic since, as well as annual events being held in cities around the world. What would our world look like today without the Greeks? It's difficult to say because so much of modern Western culture is based on ideas and practices developed in Ancient Greece. comes from them. Aristotle, Archimedes, Euclid, Plato, Herodotus… those are just a few Ancient Greeks whose works are still studied and whose ideas are still put into practice today, more than 2,000 years after they lived. The only thing that has had as much of an effect on the history of Europe and the Western world is the rise of Christianity as the world's most prominent religion. All of this might never have happened if the Athenians had not been victorious at Marathon that day. Had the army been defeated, the city of Athens would almost certainly have fallen to the Persians and, more than likely, it would have been destroyed, its people massacred or enslaved. With Athens gone, the only Greek city that could possibly have stood up to Persia would have been Sparta. There is no guarantee that Sparta would have been able to survive a Persian onslaught without the help of Athens, in particular the Athenian navy that was built after Marathon to defend against another invasion. But even if they had, history would have still been very different. Because Sparta was culturally the polar opposite of Athens, an autocracy with an almost fanatical martial culture and a strong desire for secrecy, leaving us few records about the inner workings of their politics. The battle had a big impact on military tactics as well. It proved the value of the hoplite and the phalanx and it would remain the standard formation of Greek armies until the Roman conquest. The Romans eventually adopted the phalanx into their famous legions and the concept of heavily armed and armored infantry attacking in formation would persist in military tactics until the invention of the musket. There are few events in world history that we can definitively say would have changed everything had they gone differently, but the Battle of Marathon was certainly one of these. The foundation of our entire society is based on Greek civilization, but Greek civilization as we know it might never have existed if Persia had conquered Greece. The 10,000 Greeks who charged that day at Marathon were only thinking of defending their home from an invader. But what they ended up doing that day, to paraphrase Sir Edward Creasy, affected the whole future progress of human civilization.