Marathon, 490 BC

The battle, stage by stage

1. Late summer 490 BC, some days before the battle

   Landing at Schinias

   Fresh from the capture of Eretria on Euboea, the Persian expedition under Datis and Artaphernes crosses to Attica and, guided by the exiled Athenian tyrant Hippias, lands at Marathon — the part of Attica best suited to cavalry and closest to Eretria, as Herodotus explains (6.102). The ships are usually placed along the long Schinias beach in the north-east of the bay, sheltered by the Kynosoura promontory, with the camp behind the beach and on firm ground west of the Great Marsh near the Makaria spring (Vanderpool; Hammond). Centuries later Pausanias was shown the stone mangers of Artaphernes' horses above the marsh. Herodotus gives 600 triremes but no figure for the army; later writers inflate it (Nepos: 100,000 foot and 10,000 horse), while modern estimates mostly fall between about 15,000 and 30,000 fighting men. Before the army marched, Athens sent the runner Philippides to ask Sparta for help. Its hoplites, about 9,000–10,000 strong, probably came by the coast road and entered the plain at its southern end, between Mt Agrieliki and the sea; Hammond prefers the inland route by Vrana. All positions on this map are conjectural reconstructions, and the shoreline and marsh of 490 BC were not those of today.

2. The days of stand-off

   Camp in the precinct of Herakles

   The Athenians camp in a precinct of Herakles (Hdt 6.108, 6.116). Where it stood is still argued over. Soteriades put it in the Vrana valley below St Demetrios. After inscriptions of the Herakleian games turned up at Valaria, just north of the Brexiza (Little) Marsh, Vanderpool and most later scholars placed it at the southern entrance to the plain, as shown here; Matthaiou puts it about 1 km SSW of the Soros. Here the Plataeans join them with their whole levy — 1,000 men according to Nepos and Justin, perhaps nearer 600 (Hammond). For several days neither side moves. Herodotus says the ten generals were split evenly until Miltiades won over the polemarch Callimachus, whose vote decided for battle. The generals who favored fighting handed Miltiades their days of command, but he still waited for his own (6.109–110). Nepos adds that the Athenians felled trees to hamper the Persian horse. Sparta has promised to march only after the full moon.

3. The day of battle, early morning

   A thinned center

   To match the length of the Persian line, Miltiades thins the Athenian center to a few ranks and keeps the wings strong (Hdt 6.111); the Hellenic Army General Staff's route guide gives four ranks in the center and eight on the wings. As polemarch, Callimachus leads the right, the tribes stand in their order, and the Plataeans hold the far left. Plutarch says the tribes Leontis and Antiochis held the center, with Themistocles and Aristides fighting side by side. The Persians and Sakai hold the center of the Persian line. Herodotus says 'the space between the armies was no less than eight stadia' (about 1.5 km), and both lines are usually drawn at right angles to the shore. A story preserved in the Byzantine Suda has Ionians in the Persian camp signal from trees that the cavalry was away. That would explain both the timing of the attack and Herodotus' silence about horsemen in the fight, but Krentz and others think the cavalry was present. These traces follow the traditional placement around the Soros (Vanderpool; Hammond) and are conjectural.

4. The day of battle, morning

   At the run

   With the sacrifices favorable, the Athenians and Plataeans go at the enemy at a run (Hdt 6.112). Herodotus calls them the first Greeks known to charge at a run, and the first to stand the sight of Median dress. The Persians, seeing a small force with no horse or archers, think them possessed. Whether they really ran all eight stades is one of the oldest arguments about Marathon. Many scholars think they marched most of the way and ran only the last 150–200 m, inside arrow range. Hammond accepts the full distance, and so does Krentz, who argues that a hoplite's equipment then weighed far less than the 30 kg often claimed and that men could run nearly a mile and still fight — perhaps to close before the cavalry could act.

5. The day of battle, later that morning

   Center broken, wings close

   The fight is long (Hdt 6.113). In the center the Persians and Sakai break the thin Athenian ranks and chase them inland; Plutarch says Leontis and Antiochis took the worst of it. On both wings the Athenians and Plataeans rout their opponents. Rather than pursue, the victorious wings let the fugitives run, draw together, and turn on the Persians who have broken through the center, defeating them too; then the whole army pursues to the sea. The Athenian dead lie under the Soros, which is usually read as marking where the center fought. Krentz instead takes the trophy by Panagia Mesosporitissa, 3 km to the north-east, as the place where the Persians turned to flee (the tropē) and moves the main fight further north. The positions drawn are one reconstruction among several.

6. The day of battle, midday

   At the ships and the marsh

   The pursuit ends at the ships, where the Athenians call for fire and lay hold of the vessels (Hdt 6.113). Here the polemarch Callimachus dies and the general Stesilaus is killed. Cynegeirus, brother of the playwright Aeschylus, grips a ship's stern ornament and has his hand cut off with an axe (6.114). Seven ships are taken (6.115); the rest get clear. Pausanias says many Persians, not knowing the ground, ran into the marsh and perished there. Vanderpool notes that the only way to the ships was a narrow strip between the marsh and the sea. The ships are drawn along the modern Schinias beach. Coring of the plain (Baeteman 1985; later work by Pavlopoulos and colleagues) shows that the coast and marsh of 490 BC differed from today's: the marsh, drained in modern times, was then a densely vegetated muddy fen, and where the shoreline ran is still debated.

7. The day of battle and after

   The Soros and the march to Athens

   Herodotus counts about 6,400 Persian dead and 192 Athenian (6.117); Plataean and slave losses are not given. The Persians pick up the Eretrian captives left on the island of Aegilia and sail round Cape Sounion for Athens; a shield signal was later blamed on the Alcmaeonid family. The Athenians march home with all speed and camp at another precinct of Herakles, at Cynosarges, before the fleet appears off Phaleron. It rides there a while and then sails for Asia (6.115–116). Plutarch says Aristides stayed behind with his tribe Antiochis to guard the prisoners and spoils. The Athenian dead were cremated and buried under the Soros, where Stais found ash and burned bone in 1890–91. Marinatos identified a smaller mound at Vrana, excavated in 1970, as the Plataeans' tomb, though some doubt it. A marble trophy was raised later. Two thousand Spartans arrived after the battle, viewed the Persian dead and went home (6.120). The run from Marathon to Athens is a later tale (Plutarch, Lucian).