Marathon

by Christian Cameron

  I’m prepared to use my fists to make a man see sense, and he

  backed away.

  ‘You seem to think you can give orders like a king,’ he said.

  ‘This is war,’ I said. ‘Some men it makes kings, and others it

  makes slaves.’

  ‘What’s that?’ he said.

  ‘Never mind,’ I said, and we went off to find space for two

  thousand men to sleep.

  We spent two days making camp and watching the Persians

  make theirs. They had to land al those men, and some of us

  wondered why we didn’t just rush them when they had about a

  third of their men ashore – it was discussed, but we did nothing.

  In fact, there was something awe-inspiring about the size of

  the Persian force and their fleet. They also had almost a thousand

  the Persian force and their fleet. They also had almost a thousand

  cavalry – deadly horse-archers, Persians and Sakai – who had

  been further north, filtering down from Eretria in pursuit of the

  last force in the field there, an army of Athenian settlers and

  Euboeans who had retreated in good order from the initial

  defeats but gradualy died under the arrows of the Sakai. We

  had had no idea that they stil existed until a runner came in on

  the third morning – a man with an arrow in his bicep who

  colapsed as soon as he entered the army’s agora.

  When Athens had defeated Euboea in my father’s time, they

  had determined to hold the place thereafter, and they sent four

  thousand settlers, lower-class Athenians, to become colonists

  and to hold the best farms. There was no love lost between the

  settlers and the locals, but when the Persians came, they made a

  good force. They fought three smal actions with the Persians,

  trying to break out, and finaly they got fishing boats and shuttled

  across the straits, right under the noses of the enemy – but then

  the cavalry fel on them. Those men had been fighting – and

  running – for two weeks.

  It was Miltiades’ day to command, and he summoned us al

  as soon as he heard what the messenger had to say.

  ‘One day’s march north, there are two thousand men – good

  men, and they’re dying under the arrows of the Sakai.’ He

  looked around. ‘I propose we take our archers and our picked

  men, and go and relieve them.’

  Calimachus shook his head. ‘You cannot split the army,’ he

  said. ‘And you cannot defeat their cavalry. That’s why we

  said. ‘And you cannot defeat their cavalry. That’s why we

  camped here – remember, fire-breather? So that their arrows

  could not easily reach us.’

  Miltiades shook his head. ‘With picked men, if we move fast

  and take archers of our own – we can beat them. Or at least

  scatter them, the way dogs can drive lions off their prey.’

  Aristides nodded. ‘We have to try. To leave those men to

  their deaths – no one would ever speak wel of us again.’

  Miltiades looked around. ‘Wel?’

  ‘I have a hundred Plataeans who can run the whole distance,’

  I said. ‘And twenty archers to run with them.’

  Miltiades smiled. But before he could speak, the polemarch

  shook his head.

  ‘If we must do this, then every man should go – in the dark.

  We can feel our way with guides, and be across the ridge before

  the Medes know we’ve gone. We’l catch their cavalry napping.’

  He looked around, the weight of the responsibility heavy on him.

  I think he would rather that the Euboeans had died at home.

  But he was right. Miltiades wanted a heroic raid, but if we

  were al together, and we moved fast, we’d accomplish the

  mission with much less risk.

  Everyone chose Calimachus’s method over Miltiades’.

  We rose in the dark, hours before the morning star would rise,

  and we slipped away behind our temple precinct hil, leaving

  three thousand chosen men to hold the camp behind us. By the

  time the sun was up, our leading men – my Plataeans – were less

  than ten stades from the hiltop where our Euboean-Athenians

  than ten stades from the hiltop where our Euboean-Athenians

  were making their stand.

  I wanted to run down the road with my epilektoi, but I knew

  that the only way to do this was with massed bodies of

  impenetrable spears. I hadn’t fought cavalry since the fight on the

  plains by Ephesus, but what I had learned there seemed pertinent

  – stay together and wait for the horsemen to flinch.

  By mid-morning, we were spotting Sakai scouts, and Teucer

  brought one down with a wel-aimed arrow. The next time we

  saw a party of them form, Teucer had a dozen of his light-armed

  men together, and they lofted arrows with a little breeze behind

  them. The Sakai rode out from under their little arrow shower,

  but their counter-shots fel wel short, and after that, it was like a

  deadly game of rovers. Our archers could out-range theirs, and

  that meant that they couldn’t come in on us, and twice Teucer’s

  little band took one of the Sakai off his horse, or left the horse

  dead, and they gave us room.

  The Athenians had a city archer corps, al dressed like

  Scythians. They were mostly poor men, but very proud, and they

  shot wel enough. There were two hundred of them, and they

  were al together just behind my Plataeans, so that the one time

  an enterprising Mede worked around my flank in some

  hedgerows, he emerged into a veritable hail of arrows and ran

  off leaving two of his men in the wheat.

  Casualties like that – ones and twos – don’t seem important

  when I tel a story as big as Marathon. But in skirmishes – in

  harassment – a dozen dead men can be as important as a lost

  battle. Our arrows were hitting them, and they weren’t reaching

  battle. Our arrows were hitting them, and they weren’t reaching

  us.

  So just before noon, their captain, whoever he was, decided

  that enough was enough and sent his best men to stop me.

  I wish I could say that I saw what was coming – but it was more

  luck than anything that we weren’t caught naked.

  As usual, I have to digress. Hoplites – heavy warriors – don’t

  wander the countryside al dressed up for war. It is hot in

  Greece, and the aspis is heavy, as is your thorax and your helmet

  and your spear. Once a man has the aspis on his shoulder and a

  spear in his hand, his speed is cut on the march.

  Perhaps it is just that Greeks are lazy. I have, in fact, spent al

  day marching with an aspis on my shoulder. But in the old days,

  we seldom did it. Instead, we carried our weapons, and our

  servants – sometimes free hypaspists, sometimes slaves – carried

  our helmets and shields.

  After the cavalry tried to work around our rear, I halted the

  column and ordered the Plataeans to arm. That actualy

  increased my vulnerability for a while. Imagine two thousand men

  on the road, just two or three abreast, in no particular order.

  Then imagine that every second man is busy finding his shield-

  bearer and getting his aspis on his arm, his helmet o
n his head.

  Some men had their body-armour on and others did not. Some

  men had additional pieces of armour – thigh armour and arm

  guards, such as I wore. Al of these were carried by servants.

  In my case, I wore my scale cuirass al day, but the rest of my

  gear was in a wicker basket on Gelon’s back. I even considered

  gear was in a wicker basket on Gelon’s back. I even considered

  changing my shoes – I had ‘Spartan’ shoes on my feet, and I

  considered, given the difficult fields on either side of the road,

  changing to boots.

  Some men were sitting in the road, changing sandals. Others

  were stripping naked to change into a heavier chiton to wear

  under armour.

  Got the picture? Chaos. I hate to think how long we were on

  that road without a single spear pointing at the enemy. I aged.

  It is different at sea. At sea, you do not engage until you are

  ready. But on land – especialy facing cavalry or light troops –

  they can hit you whenever they desire it. I was the leader, and I

  had fucked up. I could feel it. And now – too late – I was trying

  to retrieve my error. It was a lesson, if you like.

  As soon as I had a party of men armed, I filed the road with

  them, regardless of their place in the phalanx. And as soon as the

  bulk of my men were armed, I started them filing off the road to

  the left, where I could see the shields of our Euboean refugees

  flashing among the rocks on the hilside.

  Our guide, the wounded runner, pointed and gestured, and

  my eyes were on him when the Persian cavalry came for us. We

  had about a third of our men formed when they galoped around

  the corner of the field from behind a grove of olives. They

  already had arrows on their bows. Their leader was out in front

  on a big bay horse, and as he came around the corner he gave a

  whoop, leaned over and shot.

  That arrow went into my shield and the head emerged on my

  side, a finger’s width, just over my wrist where my hand entered

  the antilabe.

  ‘Form close!’ I caled, and I was scared – shocked sily. I

  had just enough nerve to tip my helmet from the back of my head

  over my face. Every man pressed into the centre of the front

  rank as the shields overlapped.

  Where had they come from?

  I cursed my failing in not forming up earlier, and I wondered

  how the rest of my column was doing, and I nearly shat myself in

  fear. These were not Lydians with spears. These were noble

  Persians, wel led, with discipline and murderous bow-fire, and

  my men were unprepared.

  The first hail of arrows hit our shields. A man screamed as an

  arrow went into his knee above the greave – his scream might

  have been my scream.

  They came past us, close enough for us to see the markings

  on their horses and the embroidery on their barbarian trousers

  and to feel the earth moved by four hundred hooves.

  The next storm of arrows broke over us like a big wave on a

  beach. I felt my shield lifted, moved, rocked as if hail was faling

  on me, and something screamed of my helmet and I blinked

  away the pain. My vision was limited to the eye slit in my

  Corinthian, and sweat was pouring down my body. But I saw it

  now – the Persian commander had sprung an ambush from

  behind the olive grove, and I was lucky that I’d paused to form

  my men or we’d already be dead. Luck. Tyche. And he had

  made two mistakes. He sprang his trap a little early, before my

  made two mistakes. He sprang his trap a little early, before my

  left flank was out in the field, away from the rocky wal that his

  horses didn’t want to cross. And he went for us – the formed

  men – when he could have falen like a smith’s hammer on my

  unformed men on the road.

  Instead, we were trapped against the field edge with a rubble

  pile from an old barn on one flank and the road ful of slaves and

  Athenians on the other – but we’d stood our ground. It sounds

  easy enough. You try it.

  Even as his first arrows rattled against us and men fel, he

  learned his third error, although I was as surprised as I imagine

  he was.

  We had archers in our ranks.

  As the Persians swept past us, Teucer and his archers rose

  from within our ranks, or knelt under the rims of our shields, and

  shot. Indeed, Teucer was leaning his weight against my hips as

  he shot, arrow after arrow. He had no horse between his thighs,

  no reins to manage, and his quiver hung comfortably under his

  left arm, where I carry my sword in battle, and he drew and shot

  and drew and shot, three arrows for every one by the Persians,

  and his had Apolo’s hand behind them.

  When an arrow hits a man in the phalanx, he screams and

  fals, and his armour makes a mournful clatter as he goes down –

  but his mates close over him, alive or dead. It is but one step to

  the front to fil the hole.

  When a horseman takes an arrow – better yet, when a horse

  takes an arrow – it can be a disaster for a dozen other men. One

  horse can fal over another, and a few casualties, by il-luck or

  horse can fal over another, and a few casualties, by il-luck or

  the wil of the war god, can stop a charge dead, or cause the

  animals to flow around their target the way smal boys divert a

  stream on a summer’s day.

  We had fewer than three hundred men formed, but al of

  Teucer’s archers were in our ranks – perhaps thirty men, and

  some javelins – and they shot at least one Persian for every one

  of us who fel. I suspect that, man for man, the Persians were the

  finer archers – but the best archer on a horse, shooting at

  armoured men behind big shields, is going to lose the contest to

  the poorer man with his feet firm on the ground, shooting at the

  enormous target of a man on a horse.

  And Teucer was the best archer I’ve ever known. He was

  safe under my shield rim, and his arrows did not miss. He made

  chaos of their files, and they broke and rode away, and their

  red-bearded officer lay, redder now, with one of Teucer’s

  black-fletched arrows in his throat.

  We spearmen played no role, except to stand and not run,

  and to be a living wal of wood and bronze for Teucer’s archers.

  We didn’t bloody our spears that day. The archers won that

  engagement for us, and gained status with us as a consequence.

  The Persian commander watched his best cavalry break

  around us, leaving a dozen of his noblemen face down in the

  hayfields, and he gathered the rest of his cavalry and rode away,

  no doubt reckoning, like a professional, that the terrain was

  against him and he had no reason to take a risk.

  He was wrong. There’s more to battle than counting the odds

  and chances and watching the ranges of the enemy weapons.

  and chances and watching the ranges of the enemy weapons.

  The Athenians and Plataeans were Greeks – men of the phalanx,

  where fights are decided not by spear-fighting but by the wil of

  the mass. To every Plat
aean – and to every Athenian coming late

  to the fight – it appeared that we were the better men, and the

  Persians were afraid. Not true, of course, but on such

  foolishness is victory made.

  We watched their dust cloud go, and a few fools shouted that

  we should folow them, but the Persians wanted us out in the

  open and we were happy in among the olive groves and low

  ridges where they couldn’t easily ride around our flanks. We let

  them go.

  In half an hour, Miltiades passed through my position. I chose

  to stay formed and watch the Persians, lest they fal on the rest of

  the column, or at least, that was my decision on the spot.

  Miltiades went up the hil and fetched out the Euboeans. I’l be

  honest – I was shaken. To my mind, Teucer and his archers had

  just saved me from a string of foolish errors. Command is

  different. It is not the same as serving in the front rank. I had

  been thinking of the wrong things, at the wrong time, and I knew

  how close my whole force – every Plataean – had come to dying

  at the hands of a hundred Persians.

  The rescued Euboeans were in poor shape. They had no

  archers –few Greeks did, in those days, except old-fashioned

  cities like Plataea, and we wouldn’t have had half as many

  without the Milesians – and the Persian cavalry had been able to

  get close, every day, whenever they wanted. A few of the

  get close, every day, whenever they wanted. A few of the

  Euboeans had the spirit to abuse the corpses of the dead

  Persians as they came down – one man told me that this was the

  closest he’d come to hitting one since the first day – but the rest

  simply stumbled off the steep rocks of their hil and begged us for

  water in the croaking of frogs, for they were parched and weary

  and had given up hope.

  Then we al turned on our heels and marched back to our

  camp. And the Persian cavalry rode away. I lost three men dead

  – al young epilektoi in the front rank. Lykon took an arrow in

  the greave – it held, but he couldn’t walk for a day from the pain.

  My wounded were mostly gashes to the head and neck –

  sometimes arrows went deep in the phalanx and got in among

  the men with no helmets, skidding from head to head. Two men

  with arrows in their thighs had to be carried, and that was hot,

  miserable work.

  As soon as our scouts said that the Persian cavalry was gone,