by Jim Lacey
Clearly, Herodotus thought the run was a remarkable event worthy of special notice, as it was the only time he was aware of the Greeks attacking in such a fashion. Remember, he would have been reading his work in front of Athenians who had grown up hearing the story of Marathon repeated ad nauseam. In fact, no small number of the “Marathon Men” would still have been alive to hear his recitation. For them, the memories of such a run would be seared in their minds. This observation leads to several questions, starting with how reliable are battlefield memories. Science provides a partial answer. It turns out that a rush of adrenaline imprints a clear memory of events that will last a lifetime.8 This is why people forget the mundane moments of their past but tend to remember every detail of a traumatic event, no matter how distant. As any veteran will tell you, there is nothing like hostile fire to release just such a surge of adrenaline.
Still, that does not mean the memory is a correct one. I experienced this myself when interviewing many dozens of soldiers on their combat experiences during the invasion of Iraq in 2003. I conducted these interviews an average of eighteen months after the event, but in many cases I had transcripts of interviews a number of these soldiers had given within days of capturing Baghdad. Interestingly, there were often divergences in the stories that different participants had of the same event, which reflected their individual perspectives on the fighting. However, where a soldier was describing events he had participated in, there was no difference between his first version and what he recounted more than a year later.9 Given the imperative to close the distance before the Persians could fully prepare to meet the attack, and the extra impetus of getting through the kill zone of the archers as rapidly as possible, it is clear the Athenians had every reason to run. It should therefore be judged a certainty that if ten thousand hoplites “remembered” running toward the Persians, they did.10
Hoplites running into battle, from a vase dating from the sixth century BC. A number of historians have doubted Herodotus’s claim that the Athenians charged at a run at Marathon. This contemporary vase shows the hoplites running into battle. It leaves open the questions of how far they would run and how fast. The Art Archive/Musée Archéologique Naples/Gianni Dagli Orti
One question remains: Can men outfitted in full armor and carrying heavy shields run close to a mile? At least one paper claims this is a physical impossibility based on tests run at Pennsylvania State University.11 Researchers there took physical education majors, outfitted them like hoplites, and had them run a mile. They failed. However, this is hardly convincing proof. As every athlete knows, exercise is specific. If you want to do a lot of push-ups, you have to practice doing push-ups. All the weight lifting in the world is not going to prepare you for a push-up contest. Furthermore, if you were to take a well-conditioned physical education major and place him with a U.S. Marine or 101st Airborne Division squad in Iraq or Afghanistan, he would collapse of exhaustion inside of an hour doing what those young men do all day, every day. Hours of conditioning in the gym or on a track just cannot prepare an individual to go out in 125-degree heat on a combat patrol while carrying a hundred-pound combat load.
Here, I would like to fall back on personal experience. When I arrived at the 82nd Airborne as a twenty-two-year-old second lieutenant, I was chagrined to find out that my battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Frank Akers, thought it great fun to take his officers on formation runs with full rucksacks that ended with a series of sprints up and down the stairs at the local stadium. I can assure you, based on that miserable experience repeated many times over two years, it is quite possible to keep up a pretty brisk pace for five or more miles carrying a heavy load.12 And for those who argue that men cannot run any great distance with a shield, I have often witnessed units running in close order carrying rifles at port arms for mile after mile. Is it easy? No. But for men trained to the task, it can be done.
If we keep in mind that the Athenians at Marathon were a nation in arms for most of the previous decade, then we can assume that they took training seriously.13 And did they train to run at the enemy? Well, they had an Olympic event for just that—a sprint in full hoplite panoply with shield. However, I will relent on one matter: A mile sprint, while just barely possible, would wreck the cohesion of the phalanx and leave the hoplites too winded for immediate combat. What the Athenians remembered as a run was probably a double time for most of the distance, followed by a real run once they were within range of the archers. In their minds, there would have been no difference between the two. As I remember it, we did not go very fast when Lieutenant Colonel Akers took us out for some exercise with rucksacks, but among ourselves, we always described them as runs.
I think it is worth closing this segment with the thoughts of a foremost scholar of ancient Greece: “In the Sunday Times of 26th June, Harold MacMillan wrote that ‘no one who fought at Ypres [as he did] can ever forget the road from Poperinghe to Ypres’ in 1917; in 445 BC the march from Marathon to Athens in 490 BC must have been equally unforgettable for the veterans. I take it then that the salient facts in Herodotus’ narrative are completely unimpeachable—namely, the landing of the Persian expeditionary force at Marathon, the Athenian march from Athens, the days of waiting, the rapid advance, the victory on the wings, the defeat in the centre, the combined attack of the wings on the centre, the immediate and close pursuit to the shore, the capture of seven ships …”14
Why Did the Athenians Not Wait for the Spartans?
After waiting over a week for the Spartans to arrive, why did the Athenians suddenly attack on their own when they must have known the Spartan advance guard was less than a day away and force marching to their aid? The answer to this can never be known. Beyond doubt, the two thousand Spartans who arrived the next morning would have been a welcome addition to the force. And if they had waited for the entire Spartan army to arrive, there is a strong possibility that the combined Greek force could have annihilated the entire Persian army. As the Athenians knew that a Spartan force was marching hard to join them, something had to have happened that propelled them to attack prior to its arrival. Some historians have argued that the Athenians had no choice as to when to fight, as the Persians, also aware the Spartans were approaching, attacked first. As this involves throwing out just about everything Herodotus, the only historian who met the combatants personally, has to say on the battle, one must discount such a theory. To accept such a fabrication as true is to say we know nothing of this battle or any of its preliminaries, as we have tossed aside our only contemporary witness.
After much thought and a thorough consideration of what dozens of others have said about this battle, I concluded that only a Persian withdrawal could have prompted the Athenians to risk battle without the powerful addition of the Spartans. The Athenians simply could not allow the Persians to sail off and threaten them at some other point. Besides, the confusion that would inevitably ensue in any boarding operation must have been a great temptation to attack. It was a moment of weakness that Callimachus would have been waiting and hoping for. Of course, I completely reject the notion that the Athenians attacked so they would not have to share the glory of victory with the Spartans. Generals such as Callimachus and Miltiades did not reach their sixth decade by taking foolish and unnecessary risks.
The Shield Signal
Herodotus tells us that after the battle, traitors to the Greek cause used a shield to reflect the sun and send a message to the Persians out at sea. At the time, many Greeks interpreted this act as a signal that Athens was undefended and, if the Persians sailed immediately for Phaleron, the city would be theirs for the taking. At the time, it appears that some Greeks blamed elements of the Alcmaeonidae clan in league with Hippias for this treasonous act. Herodotus, however, is vehement in their defense—a sure indication that one of his interviewees was an Alcmaeonidae.
Although I believe there was a shield signal, I have left this event out of my reconstruction. I did this because there is no way to know who signaled, what t
he signal meant, or whom it was meant for. Moreover, unless knowledge of the signal encouraged the Athenians to march that much faster to their city’s defense, it apparently had no effect on the battle or subsequent military events.15 The debates over this issue may have influenced Athenian politics in the years after Marathon, but how they did so remains unrecorded.
Who Commanded?
Callimachus commanded. In doing so, he was ably advised and assisted by Miltiades. As Callimachus died in battle, Miltiades returned to Athens as the hero of the hour. That he died in prison just a short time later suggests that Athenians did not judge his contributions at Marathon much superior to those of others. Nevertheless, it should be noted that the Athenians had a nasty habit of punishing even successful generals.
I understand that overturning two eons of glorification of Miltiades is an uphill task, but I believe earlier chapters make a good case for Callimachus’s primary role.
Where Was the Persian Camp?
The Persians were a professional army, and as such they would have built a fortified camp almost immediately upon arrival at Marathon. Neglecting to do so invited the Greeks to launch a devastating night attack that might have seen the entire Persian army annihilated. This camp would have played into Callimachus’s calculations before the battle, and its location would have determined how he would attack. As there is no evidence, literary or otherwise, on the camp’s true location, one can attempt to determine it only by applying sound military judgment.
Therefore, the most likely location is at the base of the Great Marsh, at the entrance to the beach where the Persian ships had beached. Here the camp would have easy access to water, plenty of warning of a Greek attack, and a prime position from which to guard the beached ships. The course of the battle presents further support for this location. If the camp was where I believe, it makes even more sense to stop the flanks, particularly the right flank, before they ran into an easily defended camp. Although it is likely the camp was partially disassembled in preparation for a move, the Greeks would not have known that when they were making their plans. Moreover, even a partially disassembled camp made a natural rallying point for the Persians, where Datis could gather troops for a final stand. I contend that it was this fortified camp that made it possible for Datis to build a new line and hold it fiercely while the bulk of the Persian ships escaped out to sea.
The Move to Phaleron
That the Persians sailed around Cape Surion with the intent of approaching Athens is a certainty. Why they did so, one can only guess. It most certainly was not to capture and hold Athens, as such an act would have been disastrous to the Persian cause. Assuming that entering an undefended Athens would have been relatively easy, what next? The Persians would have found themselves locked up in Athens, where whatever stores the city held were by this point nearly exhausted. Outside, there would have been an Athenian army with blood and vengeance on its mind. Joining them would have been a Spartan force and hoplites from other cities, all looking to get in on the final kill. It is almost impossible to believe that Datis thought his shattered army could withstand a siege. It is therefore doubtful he was planning to rush into Athens only to see his army starved into submission or slaughtered. Another reason must be found.
It is feasible that Datis just hoped to get ashore and move inland to engage the Athenians on ground more suitable to the Persian way of war. However, I do not judge it likely that a disorganized army that had just lost sixty-four hundred men would be in much of a hurry to try its luck again. Hoplite warfare must have been a traumatic experience for the survivors, and Datis would have had some difficulty convincing his men to go another round. And of course that assumes he had some way of talking to them and coordinating a plan while sailing, which was probably impossible. Of course, if the Persians were already withdrawing before the Athenian attack, then the ships may have been following a prearranged plan that Datis was powerless to change. That he would have continued on this course is all the more likely if some of the Persian ships had departed as soon as they were loaded and Datis now had to round them up.16
The most likely scenario, though, can be guessed at if one remembers what brought the Persians to Attica in the first place. At the start of the Ionian revolt, the Athenians burned Sardis. The Persians had come to Eretria and Attica to exact revenge. Datis was going to return with the slaves he had collected from a wrecked Eretria.17 However, that was a job half-done, and Darius was sure to ask of Athens’s fate. Datis could have hidden or explained several thousand casualties, as the loss was not great for a mighty empire.18 But failure in the campaign’s key objective could not easily be explained. It is my contention that Datis intended to repay the Athenians in kind for Sardis. His plan was to land and make a lightning march to seize Athens, burn as much of it as possible, and return to his ships. He most assuredly wanted to do this before the Athenian hoplites returned to inflict another terrible beating on his army. Surely the Great King would be satisfied with his Eretrian slaves and the destruction of Athens. With just a bit of luck, Datis might even have been able to round up enough Athenians to make a suitable present to Darius. If this was his plan, seeing the Athenian phalanx arrayed and prepared to throw any landing attempt back into the sea dissuaded him from the attempt.
Conclusion
Despite Sir Edward Creasy’s listing of Marathon among his fifteen decisive battles in history, the battle’s importance has been obscured by the far larger Persian invasion that fell upon Greece a decade later. For many historians, the Battle of Marathon was little more than a sideshow that inflicted a mere pinprick on the mighty Persian Empire. This general dismissal of the importance of the Battle of Marathon, however, misses a key point. Had the Athenians and their Plataean ally failed at Marathon, Greece would have been doomed. With Athens lost, the Spartans would have retreated into the Peloponnesus to await the final Persian assault. For their part, the Persians would have wintered in Attica and completed their conquest in the next year’s campaigning season. Most likely the Persians would have been greatly reinforced during the winter, both by new forces sent from the empire and by Greek cities that would have gone over to the Persian side in the wake of Athens’s defeat.
In the spring, the Persians would have faced a radically transformed Greece. Every city north of the isthmus would have Medized, while Sparta would either find itself standing alone or trying to keep wavering allies in line. Moreover, the Messenians, seeing their opportunity for freedom, would likely have risen up in support of Persia. Sparta might have prevailed in such a situation, but the odds were long. In reality, they probably would have fallen in a glorious but futile battle.
Many have also neglected the effect that Athens’s victory had on the morale of all Greece. Up until Marathon, the might of Persia caused all of Greece to quake. Although Greeks had fought Persians in Ionia, Marathon was the first time the two had met in pitched battle. The result proved to all Greeks that sturdy, disciplined hoplites were more than a match for the Oriental hordes of the Persian Empire. In no small measure, it was Athens’s triumph at Marathon that convinced Greece to stand against the overawing force that marched with Darius’s successor, Xerxes, in 480 BC. Unfortunately for the heroes of Marathon, it is this second invasion ten years later that is best remembered today. The story of the three hundred Spartans’ last stand at Thermopylae is the stuff of legend, while the massive Battle of Plataea pitted an estimated forty-five thousand Greek hoplites against upward of one hundred thousand Persian soldiers. Furthermore, the Greek naval victory at Salamis definitively ended Persian plans to dominate the Mediterranean.
Of course, a second Persian invasion would not have been necessary if Athens had lost at Marathon, as all of Greece would already have been incorporated into the Persian Empire. Moreover, it is unlikely that the rest of Greece would have found the fortitude to resist a much larger Persian invasion if Athens had been crippled by the smaller initial invasion force a decade before. At Marathon, victory was not enough. A win
, just barely eked out, that saw Athens’s hoplites roughly handled would have doomed Greece.
In the decades after the battle, no Greek doubted its importance. In Athens itself there was a cult of Marathon, and the men who fought that day were honored until their death. They were the equivalent of Athens’s “greatest generation.” At the time Herodotus was reading his Histories (425 BC), Aristophanes was putting on his great play The Acharnians, in which he referred to the “Marathon Men” still alive: “They are veterans of Marathon, tough as oak or maple, of which they are made for rough and ruthless.”1 For those who fought at Marathon, it was the life event they never forgot. The great dramatist Aeschylus, for instance, wrote his own epitaph, in which he did not mention his career as a dramatist. His only desire was to be remembered as a “Marathon Man” despite having also fought at the great naval battle of Salamis. On his tombstone was written:
Beneath this stone lies Aeschylus, son of Euphorion, the Athenian, who perished in the wheat-bearing land of Gela; of his noble prowess the grove of Marathon can speak, or the longhaired Persians who know it well.
At Marathon, Athens saved itself, Greece, and by extension all of Western civilization. Some have proposed that Marathon made little difference in the creation and development of a unique Western civilization. After all, this argument goes, Pericles, Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates still would have been born. They still would have been brilliant, and their achievements would have been as great. One is hard-pressed, however, to think how these great minds and independent spirits would have soared as slaves to a despotic empire. In truth, Western civilization owes its existence to a thin line of bronze-encased “men as hard as oak” who went bravely forward against overwhelming odds, to victory and never-ending glory.
