Battle of Marathon
September 490 BCE · in Battle View, played out step by step on the ground where it was fought
Athenians and Plataeans defeated the first Persian invasion of Greece, sent by Darius I, on the plain of Marathon.
The sides
- Athens and Plataea, led by Miltiades: about 11,000 men
- Persia, led by Datis: about 25,000 men
States that fought: Achaemenid Empire, Greek City-States.
How it went
Battle of Marathon
Darius of Persia has sent a fleet across the Aegean to punish Athens for helping the Ionian Greeks rebel. It lands at the bay of Marathon, 40 km from the city. Athens marches out with every hoplite it has, and only the small city of Plataea comes to help.
Days of waiting
For days the armies watch each other across the plain. To match the longer Persian front, Miltiades stretches his line: the wings at full depth, the centre only a few ranks deep.
At the run
The Greeks advance, the last stretch at a run so the archers have little time to shoot. Herodotus calls them the first Greeks to charge at a run, and the first to face the sight of Persian dress without fear.
The centre gives
In the middle the Persians and Saka, the best troops of the army, break the thin Athenian centre and drive it back inland. On both wings the Athenians and Plataeans are winning.
The wings close in
Instead of chasing the beaten wings, the Athenian wings wheel inward and close on the victorious Persian centre from both sides. Now it is the Persians who are caught.
To the ships
The Persians break and run for the ships, many of them into the Great Marsh, where they drown. At the water's edge the Greeks try to seize the ships; they take seven, and the polemarch Callimachus is killed.
Marathon
Herodotus counts 6,400 Persian dead and 192 Athenians, buried where they fell under the Soros. The fleet sails round Cape Sounion for Athens, but the army marches back in time, and the Persians sail home. Ten years later they will be back.
Herodotus gives no Persian numbers; modern guesses for the landing force run from 20,000 to 60,000. The plain's shore and marshes have moved since; the mound where the Athenian dead were buried, the Soros, marks the middle of the fighting.
People and wars
- Darius the Great (c. 550 BCE – 486 BCE): Achaemenid king (r. 522–486 BCE) who organized the empire into satrapies, began Persepolis and launched the first Persian invasion of Greece.
- Greco-Persian Wars (499–449 BCE): Conflicts between the Achaemenid Empire and Greek city-states, beginning with the Ionian Revolt; Greek victories preserved the independence of mainland Greece.