The Yale Library of Military History

Donald Kagan and Dennis Showalter, Series Editors

This page intentionally left blank
 The
Battle of
Mar athon
Peter Krentz
Foreword by Donald Kagan and Dennis Showalter

Yale
university press
new haven and london
 Published with assistance from the Kingsley Trust Association Publication Fund
established by the Scroll and Key Society of Yale College, and from the foundation established in
memory of Calvin Chapin of the Class of 1788, Yale College.

Copyright © 2010 by Yale University.

All rights reserved.
This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations,
in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and
except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers.

Designed by James J. Johnson

Set in Minion type by Achorn International, Inc.
Printed in the United States of America.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Krentz, Peter.
The battle of Marathon / Peter Krentz ; foreword by Donald Kagan and Dennis Showalter.
p. cm. — (The Yale library of military history)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-300-12085-1 (alk. paper)
1. Marathon, Battle of, Greece, 490 B.C. I. Title.
DF225.4.K74 2010
938'.03—dc22 2010007096

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48–1992 (Permanence of Paper).

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
dedicated to the memory of
Major David Taylor
(1969 –2006)
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Age shakes Athena’s tower, but spares gray Marathon.
The sun, the soil, but not the slave, the same;
Unchanged in all except its foreign lord—
Preserves alike its bounds and boundless fame.
The Battle-field, where Persia’s victim horde
First bow’d beneath the brunt of Hellas’ sword,
As on the morn to distant Glory dear,
When Marathon became a magic word;
Which utter’d, to the hearer’s eye appear
The camp, the host, the fight, the conqueror’s career,
The flying Mede, his shaftless broken bow;
The fiery Greek, his red pursuing spear;
Mountains above, Earth’s, Ocean’s plain below;
Death in the front, Destruction in the rear!

—Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage

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 Contents

Foreword by Donald Kagan and Dennis Showalter xi

List of Illustrations xv
Acknowledgments xvii
Chronology xix

Introduction 1
chapter 1. Athens’ Alliance with Darius 19
chapter 2. Athens’ Victories over the Boeotians and Chalcidians 40
chapter 3. The Ionian Revolt 66
chapter 4. Darius and the Greeks of Europe 83
chapter 5. The Armies Arrive at Marathon 101
chapter 6. The Plain of Marathon 111
chapter 7. When Marathon Became a Magic Word 137
chapter 8. After the Fighting 161
chapter 9. What If ? 172

Appendix A. Important Ancient Sources on Marathon 177

Appendix B. The Date of the Battle 180
Notes 183
Bibliographical Notes 195
Index 225
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 Foreword

War has been a subject of intense interest across the ages. Very early lit-
erary works like Homer’s Iliad and the Rigvedic hymns of ancient India
talk of war. Few can fail to be stirred by such questions: How and why do
wars come about? How and why do they end? Why did the winners win
and the losers lose? How do leaders make life-and-death decisions? Why do
combatants follow orders that put their lives at risk? How do individuals
and societies behave in war, and how are they affected by it? Recent events
have raised the study of war from one of intellectual interest to a mat-
ter of vital importance to America and the world. Ordinary citizens must
understand war in order to choose their leaders wisely, and leaders must
understand it if they are to prevent wars where possible and win them
when necessary.
This series, therefore, seeks to present the keenest analyses of war in its
different aspects, the sharpest evaluations of political and military deci-
sion making, and descriptive accounts of military activity that illuminate
its human elements. It will do so drawing on the full range of military
history from ancient times to the present and in every part of the globe
in order to make available to the general public readable and accurate
scholarly accounts of this most fascinating and dangerous of human
activities.
More than any other battle of classical antiquity, even Thermopy-
lae, Marathon holds iconic status. Sir Edward Creasy describes the future
of Western civilization as having rested on its outcome. The Athenians
were no less certain of its implications. From Marathon’s immediate
xii foreword

aftermath they honored their dead and memorialized their victory. Mon-
uments and festivals celebrated liberation not merely from tyranny, but
from fear: fear of a universal military empire that bestrode the world like
a colossus—until the free men of Greece showed its feet of clay.
The myth endured, revitalized in the nineteenth century by a synergy
of classical education, liberal thought, and democratic politics. It sur-
vived a revisionist backlash arguing that Marathon settled nothing and
encouraged Athenian imperialism. But what is the face of that battle in
the light of contemporary developments in archaeology and anthropol-
ogy? What is Marathon’s place in the context of a surge in Achaemenid
studies that has fundamentally altered our understanding of the Persian
Empire? Above all, where does Marathon stand in the changing matrices
structuring approaches to the interaction, military and otherwise, of “the
West and the Rest”?
Peter Krentz begins by contextualizing Marathon. He describes the
Athenians’ deposition of the last of their tyrants, and the new democ-
racy’s successful search for a Persian alliance to counter what seemed
an overwhelming threat from a Spartan-led coalition of rival city-states.
He argues convincingly that the alliance was enough to destabilize the
coalition even without direct Persian involvement. And he describes the
“flight forward” in which Athens, refusing to accept the submission re-
quired of a Persian connection, instead supported a rebellion of the Greek
city-states of Asia Minor against their Persian overlords.
After six years of seesaw fighting, the revolt was defeated and the
rebels tamed. Persia looked across the Hellespont. Great King Darius,
ruler of 70 million people, dispatched an expedition. Its commander was
charged with bringing Athens to submission. The price of failure was his
head.
The rest is history—or is it? Krentz effectively establishes the site
of the battle despite significant changes to the geography of the coastal
plain. He convincingly reconstructs the Greeks’ decision to fight. And he
successfully restores in general terms the often-challenged credibility of
the account Herodotus gave. His major contribution, however, is a con-
sequence of addressing one of Marathon’s major anomalies: the eight-
stadia run.
foreword xiii

Eight stadia equals about nine-tenths of a mile. Herodotus insists that

the Athenians charged that distance at a run. Military historians since
Hans Delbrück have dismissed this as hyperbole: a physical impossibil-
ity for fully equipped men without collapsing from exhaustion or fall-
ing into disorder. Krentz begins by establishing the maneuver’s necessity.
The Athenians, he shows, had to reach the Persian infantry before their
cavalry, a devastatingly effective force built around horse archers, could
deploy in the plain and shoot the vaunted hoplite phalanx to pieces. At
close quarters the Greeks could fight on equal terms. And the charge
succeeded because the hoplite phalanx as generally understood did not
exist.
Contemporary scholars like Victor Davis Hanson hold that a Greek
hoplite carried about 70 pounds of armor and weapons: almost half his
body weight. They deployed in close formation, with about three feet of
space per man, advanced to contact, and pushed forward like “a rugby
scrum on steroids.” Light-armed men, archers and slingers, played pe-
ripheral roles compared with the panoplied citizens.
Krentz makes a contradictory argument. He points out that Greeks
were tough: physically active, used to hard work and systematic exercise.
He then carefully reconstructs the weight carried by a hoplite, reducing
it to a maximum of about fifty pounds. He goes further, arguing that not
every hoplite was fully equipped, that from choice or necessity many car-
ried no more than helmet, shield, and spear. The phalanx in the era of
Marathon might have included archers and slingers, who sought targets
of opportunity under cover of the hoplites. It might even have included
dismounted horsemen.
The broken nature of Greek terrain meant that any charge at any
pace was likely to scatter or bunch—more like the cavalry charges in an
old Western than the clockwork movements of eighteenth-century regi-
ments. The Greeks attacked not in close order, but together. The “push”
(othismos) was not literal, but a description of hand-to-hand combat re-
sulting in step-by-step retreat.
That is what happened at Marathon. According to Krentz’s recon-
struction, the Athenians broke camp, fell into line of battle, and marched
forward until they were less than a mile from the Persians, who believed
xiv foreword

they had plenty of time. No Greek army had ever charged a Persian one,
and the Athenians seemed to have neither cavalry nor archers in support.
Then Miltiades shouted, “Rush them!” The rush, actually more of a jog,
took ten or twelve minutes to reach the Persian line through a hail of
arrows. In heavy close-quarters fighting the Persians broke through the
Athenian center, but the Greeks prevailed on the flanks, then closed in
the center as temporarily victorious Persians tried to escape the suddenly
formed pocket. As they fought toward the ships, the rest of the now-
defeated army had time to board. Approximately 6,400 Persians fell in
the battle. The Athenian dead, carefully numbered, totaled 192.
Krentz’s case for his scenario and its surrounding context is suffi-
ciently plausible that the hoplite origins of the “Western way of war” will
benefit from reexamination. What this work validates is a wider truth:
that Marathon challenged and broke the aura of invincibility that en-
veloped the Persian army and the Persian Empire. To build on Krentz’s
words, the confidence born on that day in 490 BC made Salamis conceiv-
able, made Plataea possible, and foreshadowed the victories of Alexander
the Great.

Donald Kagan and Dennis Showalter

 Illustrations

1. Map of the Persian Empire under Darius 4

2. Interior of an Athenian black-figure cup, showing a torch race in
honor of Pan 7
3. The Marathon plain drawn by Giovanni Battista Lusieri in 1801 8
4. Reconstruction by Hermann Schenck of the painting in the Stoa Poikile 16
5. Map of southern Greece 22
6. Athenian red-figure cup, showing Greeks fighting Persians 24
7. Side A of an Athenian red-figure cup, showing Greeks fighting Persians 25
8. Side B of an Athenian red-figure cup, showing hoplites fighting
mounted archers 26
9. Drawing of seal impression DS 86 from Daskyleion 28
10. Battle scene from the north wall of Karaburun II 29
11. Detail of battle scene from Karaburun II after further cleaning 29
12. Battle scene on a painted wooden beam from Tatarlı 30
13. Etching of the cliff at Bisitun by Auguste-Alexandre Guillaumot
after a drawing by Pascal Coste 33
14. Etching of the Bisitun relief by Nicolas-Auguste Leisnier after a
drawing by Eugène Flandin 36
15. Battle scene from a Protocorinthian olpe (the Chigi vase) 47
16. Battle scene from a Protocorinthian aryballos 49
xvi illustrations
17. Map of the Aegean 69
18. Herm of Miltiades 79
19. Map showing Datis’ route in 490 from Rhodes to Marathon 93
20. Map of Attica and Euboea 104
21. Sketch of Marathon drawn by Louis-François-Sébastien Fauvel in 1792 115
22. Engraving of the Soros in the 1830s, designed by Captain Irton and
engraved by G. W. Bonner 124
23. Drawing of Staes’ excavation of the Soros 125
24. Johannes Kromayer’s map of Marathon 131
25. Landsat image of the plain of Marathon 135
26. Roman sarcophagus showing the fight at the ships 141
27. Painted clay plaque showing a running hoplite 145
28. Interior of an Athenian red-figure cup, showing two running warriors 152
29. Reconstruction of the battle, based on the modern shoreline 155
30. Reconstruction of the battle, based on Dunn’s reconstructed shoreline 155
31. Interior of an Athenian red-figure cup, showing a warrior fleeing
from arrows 174
 Acknowledgments

I first visited Marathon in 1975, while participating in an American School

of Classical Studies at Athens summer session led by Steve Tracy. Like
many other visitors, I remember the thrill of standing on the Athenian
burial mound. It is only one of many good memories of that summer,
which began a long affiliation with the American School. I have always
found it a welcoming home away from home. I did much of the ground-
work for this book in 2000–2001, when I was a visiting professor at the
American School and taught a seminar on ancient Greek warfare.
I am grateful to Donald Kagan for inviting me to contribute to Yale
University Press’s series in military history. Richard Dunn generously
shared with me his work on the geological history of the Marathon plain,
which he has presented at a conference and hopes to publish soon. He
patiently answered many questions and allowed me to use his sketch map
of the plain, on which Figure 30 is based. The University of Chicago Press
granted me permission to quote from Richmond Lattimore’s translations
of Homer, The Iliad (copyright 1951 by the University of Chicago) and
Greek Lyrics (copyright 1949, 1955, and 1960 by Richmond Lattimore).
Carcanet Press Limited gave me permission to quote Robert Graves’ “Per-
sian Version” from The Complete Poems in One Volume, edited by Beryl
Graves and Dunstan Ward (Manchester, 2000). I have used Andrea L.
Purvis’ translation of Herodotus in The Landmark Herodotus: The
xviii acknowledgments

Histories, edited by Robert B. Strassler (New York: Pantheon, 2007). I

have followed this edition’s spelling of names.
I would also like to thank Joe Gutekanst, master of the interlibrary
loan universe, for getting me more books than I can recall; Malcolm Wag-
staff, who is writing a biography of Colonel William Leake, for answering
several Leake-related questions; Jim Wright, for finding photographs in
the Bryn Mawr archives; Margaret Miller and Lâtife Summerer for gen-
erously sharing drawings they had commissioned; and Kelly Sandefer of
Beehive Mapping for preparing the maps.
An anonymous reader for Yale University Press, my good friend
Charles Reed, a lot of Krentzes—my mother Marion, my father Edgar,
my brother Christopher, my wife Jeri, and my son Tyler—and Phillip
King, my editor at the press, read various drafts of the manuscript and
offered many good suggestions from their different perspectives.
Finally, I want to express my gratitude to Davidson College for a sab-
batical leave and to the National Endowment for the Humanities for a
fellowship that gave me the time to write this book.
 Chronology

All three-figure dates are BC unless otherwise indicated. Many dates go back to
a list of Athenian officials whose annual terms began in the summer, resulting in
dates such as 511/10, meaning the second half of 511 and the first half of 510. See
Appendix B for the date of the battle.

522 Darius (522–486) becomes king of the Persian Empire

c. 513 Darius invades Scythia
510 Spartans expel Hippias from Athens
508/7 Kleisthenes institutes democracy in Athens
507/6 Athenians give earth and water to Persians
506 Spartan invasion of Attica aborts
Athenians defeat Thebans and Chalcidians
505? Thebes allies with Aegina
“Undeclared war” begins between Athens and Aegina
499 Persians besiege Naxos
Ionian Revolt begins
498? Greeks attack and burn Sardis
495 Battle of Lade
494 Persians take Miletus and recapture Caria
493/2 Artaphrenes’ settlement in Ionia
Darius’ heralds visit Greece
492 Mardonios’ settlement in Ionia and campaign in Europe
xx chronology
492/1 Darius sends ultimatum to Thasos and orders shipbuilding
491/0 Datis and Artaphrenes appointed to command
490 March Persian army and fleet gather in the Aleian Plain
April Persians advance to Rhodes, Samos, Icaria
May Persians take Naxos, Paros, Delos
June Persians take other Aegean islands
July Persians take Karystos and Eretria
August/
September Battle of Marathon
480 Battles of Thermopylae, Artemision, and Salamis
479 Battles of Plataea and Mycale
 Introduction

M
iltiades squinted as he walked directly toward the Persians.
The morning sun was rising behind them as they deployed.
Miltiades had served with the Persians in the past and knew
what to expect: row upon row of infantry archers who specialized in rain-
ing arrows down on their enemies, and mounted archers, riding sturdy
Iranian horses, who threatened to disrupt the Athenian charge. If the
Greeks broke and ran for their lives, the Persian cavalry would ride them
down and shoot them at little risk to themselves. After all, every Persian
learned to ride, to shoot a bow, and to tell the truth. The mounted archers
knew their business.
Miltiades walked among his relatives and neighbors. As one of ten gen-
erals elected by the Athenian assembly, he led one of ten Athenian tribes.
Each one comprised fathers and sons, brothers and cousins, neighbors
and drinking buddies. They did not march in step wearing government-
issue uniforms. Rather, each man supplied his own battle rattle: one or
two spears, a short sword, a bronze helmet (perhaps one inherited from
his grandfather), a round wooden shield, a corslet made of linen and
leather to protect his chest, shin guards, and sandals. Some had all of
these items; others were more lightly equipped. They walked with deter-
mination, most of them, and not a little trepidation.
After a week of watching the Persians ravaging and burning the fertile
plain of Marathon, Miltiades had decided that he would fight today.
2 introduction

It was a bold decision. Aside from a contingent from Plataea, the

Athenians had no allies present. Though the Spartans had promised to
help, they had not arrived. The Athenians had no archers or horsemen
capable of matching the Persians, who had chosen to land at Marathon
partly because it was good ground for horses.
Miltiades had a plan. When he saw what he was looking for, he raised
his arm, pointed at the Persians, and shouted Hormate kat’ auton (Rush
at them). The trumpet blew and the Greeks started to run. Before reach-
ing the Persians they had to cover eight lengths of a Greek stadium, a total
of 0.9 miles.1
The Persians heard them advancing like Homer’s Trojans, who
came on with clamour and shouting, like wildfowl,
as when the clamour of cranes goes high to the heavens,
when the cranes escape the winter time and the rains unceasing
and clamorously wing their way to the streaming Ocean,
bringing to the Pygmaian men bloodshed and destruction.

Astonished to see the Greeks charging without archers or cavalry, the

Persians thought they were crazy.2

The Significance of the Battle

The outcome of that charge at Marathon on a late summer day in 490

shocked most everyone who heard about it. Over the previous two gen-
erations, through one brutal conquest after another, the dynamic Achae-
menid dynasty had built the first world empire, extending from Ionia in
the west to India in the east (Figure 1). The Great King Darius ruled some
70 million people. When he put Datis the Mede in command of a new
expedition to add the Aegean islands to his empire, he told the general to
bring the Athenians back in chains, if he wanted to keep his head.
I doubt that Datis worried much. No reason to. After suppressing
the Asian Greeks’ revolt in the 490s, the Persians controlled the sea. No
Greek ships would oppose their fleet of 300 or more triremes, the biggest
and best warships of the day, so expensive that the Athenians had only a
handful of them. No Greek force had ever defeated a Persian land army.
introduction 3

Though Athens was large by Greek standards, it had only 30,000 adult
male citizens. Given the competitive, quarrelsome nature of the fiercely
independent Greek city-states, Athens was not likely to have many allies.
Moreover, Datis had right on his side. The Athenians had reneged on
their initial submission to Darius, sent ships to support the Greek revolt,
and participated in a surprise attack on Sardis, the wealthy capital of the
Persian province in Asia Minor. They had burned the temple of Kybele,
god the mother, whose indigenous ancient cult the Persians had not dis-
turbed. The gods would surely be with the Persians, who respected the
religious traditions of all their loyal subjects.
Datis had achieved all of his objectives but one. He had taken the
Cycladic islands with little difficulty. He faced resistance at Eretria, the
largest city on the island of Euboea, for barely a week. He had every ex-
pectation that he would take Athens too. The former tyrant (dictator)
of Athens, Hippias, accompanied him and assured him that his friends
would rally to the Persians’ side. The chains were ready.
Then came Marathon. In one of the great upsets in world history, the
Athenians killed 6,400 Persians while losing only 192 of their own men.
They even managed to board and capture seven Persian ships before they
could escape to deep water. Datis sailed back to Asia with empty chains.
Almost immediately, the Athenians heroized their dead and mon-
umentalized their victory. The fallen were cremated on the battlefield.
Over their ashes the Athenians erected the burial mound known today
as the Soros (heap). Gravestones listed the warriors who died; duplicate
gravestones were erected in the public cemetery just outside the Dipy-
lon Gate at Athens. An Ionic column went up on the Acropolis with an
inscription honoring Kallimachos, the titular commander of the army
who died in the battle. Another Ionic column marked the battle’s turning
point. On the plain, the Athenians erected a separate monument to Mil-
tiades, the general credited with the victory. Appropriate offerings went
to Olympia and Delphi, the major panhellenic sanctuaries of Zeus and
Apollo, where such dedications would impress the visitors who came to
watch the Olympic games or to consult the Delphic oracle. New sanc-
tuaries were created for Pan and Artemis in Athens, honoring them for
their help in the battle.
1. Map of the Persian Empire under Darius
6 introduction

Festivals kept alive what scholars call “collective memory.” The Athe-
nians competed in new or enlarged athletic games at the sanctuary of Her-
akles at Marathon, where the Athenians camped before the battle. They
held an annual torch race in honor of the god Pan, who had appeared
to the messenger Philippides and offered his help (Figure 2). Every year
they sacrificed 500 goats to Artemis to repay a vow made the morning of
the battle. Every year young Athenian men visited the Soros, where they
“honored with wreaths and funerary sacrifices those killed in the fight
for freedom.” Artists commemorated the battle for decades afterward.
Before he died in 489, Miltiades erected a statue of Pan in his new sanc-
tuary. Thirty years later, Myron painted the battle on a wall of the Stoa
Poikile (Painted Stoa) on the north side of the Athenian Agora, while the
sculptor Pheidias made a colossal bronze statue of Athena Promachos
(Front-line fighter or Defender) that stood on the Acropolis. Sixty years
after the battle, Agorakritos made a statue of Nemesis from the block of
Parian marble that the Persians had intended for a monument celebrat-
ing their anticipated conquest.3
“The monuments, the trophies, the votive offerings, the processions,
the pictures and sculptures, the songs, and the panegyric harangues that
celebrated the victory,” wrote Bishop Connop Thirlwall in 1845, “not
only proved, but, in part, made its importance.” Within a generation of
the battle, Marathon had become a powerful myth, the justification for
Athens’ claim to primacy among the Greeks. Though their public prayers
asked the gods to bless the Athenians and the Plataeans, at other times the
Athenians tended to forget the Plataeans who had fought by their side at
Marathon, much as the Spartans failed to remember the Thespians who
died with the 300 at the battle of Thermopylae in 480. At Marathon, the
Athenians said, they had stood alone against the barbarians and won.
The philosopher Plato maintained that Marathon began “the salvation of
Greece” that the battle of Plataea completed in 479. Only those two battles,
he felt, made the Greeks better. The naval battles of Artemision and Sa-
lamis, which most Greeks and barbarians credited with saving Greece,
made the people worse. A tourist who came through Athens more than
600 years after the battle wrote that the Athenians were prouder of Mara-
thon than of any other victory. As evidence, he cited the epitaph that
introduction 7

2. Interior of an Athenian black-figure cup, c. 490, showing a torch race in honor of

Pan (Martin von Wagner Museum, Würzburg, XXXX44630; courtesy Martin von
Wagner Museum der Universität Würzburg [Photo: K. Öhrlein])

Aeschylus (c. 525–456/5 BC) composed for himself. The great tragic play-
wright did not mention his distinguished literary career. He wrote only
these lines about what he regarded as the greatest day of his life:
The dead Aeschylus, son of Euphorion, the Athenian
this tomb covers in wheat-bearing Gela;
the grove of Marathon can attest his famed valor,
and the long-haired Mede who knew it well.4

In modern times, classically trained Europeans found Marathon

equally meaningful, especially once they visited the evocative site
(Figure 3). To Samuel Johnson (1709–1784), the literary critic known for
8 introduction

3. Detail of a sketch of the Marathon plain drawn by Giovanni Battista Lusieri in

1801 (Published in the quarto edition of Edward D. Clarke, Travels in Various
Countries of Europe, Asia, and Africa [London: Cadell and Davies, 1810], opposite
p. 14 in volume 4)

his snappy one-liners, Marathon was the example of a place renowned for
bravery. “Far from me and from my friends,” he wrote, “be such frigid
philosophy as may conduct us indifferent and unmoved over any ground
which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. That man is little
to be envied, whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of
Marathon.” Born just four years after Johnson died, the sixth baron By-
ron visited Marathon during the Ottoman occupation and found himself
thinking of freedom:
The mountains look on Marathon—
And Marathon looks on the sea;
And musing there an hour alone,
I dream’d that Greece might still be free.
For standing on the Persians’ grave,
I could not deem myself a slave.

Byron actually joined the War of Independence in Greece, where he

caught a fever and died in 1824, before seeing his dream come true.5
The early years of the nineteenth century saw many travelers in
Greece: Rev. Edward D. Clarke, Colonel William Leake, the artist Edward
introduction 9

Dodwell, Sir William Gell, to mention only some who wrote books about
their trips, including excursions to Marathon. Their reports fired the
imaginations of British children. At age 12 or 13 Elizabeth Barrett, future
wife of Robert Browning, wrote a 1,462-line poem called “The Battle of
Marathon” that her proud papa had published in 1820 (50 copies). She
later described it as “simply Pope’s Homer done over again, or rather
undone.” But the fact that a young girl could conceive of writing such a
poem reveals the penetrating power of the Marathon myth.6
In nineteenth-century England, the notes sounded by the Greek his-
torian Herodotus (c. 484–c. 425) rang loud and clear: Athens’ military
success followed her liberation from tyranny; the Athenians at Marathon
were the first Greeks to look at the Persians without paralyzing fear. Brit-
ish writers revered Marathon as a critical turning point in human his-
tory. “There is no battle in ancient or modern times more deserving of
applause for its military conduct,” proclaimed historian George Finlay in
1839, “none more worthy of admiration for its immediate results on soci-
ety, or more beneficial in its permanent influence on the fate of mankind.”
John Stuart Mill asserted that “the Battle of Marathon, even as an event in
English history, is more important than the Battle of Hastings. If the issue
of that day had been different, the Britons and the Saxons might still have
been wandering in the woods.” For florid prose, few could match Edward
Bulwer-Lytton, the leading historical novelist of his day:
And still, throughout the civilized world (civilized how much by the
arts and lore of Athens!), men of every clime, of every political persua-
sion, feel as Greeks at the name of Marathon. Later fields have presented
the spectacle of an equal valour, and almost the same disparities of
slaughter; but never, in the annals of earth, were united so closely in our
applause, admiration for the heroism of the victors, and sympathy for
the holiness of their cause. It was the first great victory of opinion! And
its fruits were reaped, not by Athens only, but by all Greece then, as by all
time thereafter, in a mighty and imperishable harvest,—the invisible not
less than the actual force of despotism was broken. Nor was it only that
the dread which had hung upon the Median name was dispelled—not
that free states were taught their pre-eminence over the unwieldy em-
pires which the Persian conquerors had destroyed,—a greater lesson was
taught to Greece, when she discovered that the monarch of Asia could
10 introduction
not force upon a petty state the fashion of its government, or the selec-
tion of its rulers. The defeat of Hippias was of no less value than that of
Darius; and the same blow which struck down the foreign invader smote
also the hopes of domestic tyrants.

In 1851 Sir Edward Shepherd Creasy solidified Marathon’s position as a

battle of the first importance by leading off with it in his 15 Decisive Battles
of the World, on the grounds that “the whole future progress of human
civilization” rested on it.7
Perhaps nothing has shaped the modern impression of Marathon
more than Robert Browning’s “Pheidippides,” published in 1879. The
poem reaches this climax:
So, when Persia was dust, all cried, “To Acropolis!
Run, Pheidippides, one race more! the meed is thy due!
‘Athens is saved, thank Pan,’ go shout!” He flung down his shield
Ran like fire once more: and the space ’twixt the fennel-field
And Athens was stubble again, a field which a fire runs through,
Till in he broke: “Rejoice, we conquer!” Like wine through clay,
Joy in his blood bursting his heart, he died—the bliss!

For Browning, Pheidippides died at his peak, with cheers ringing in his
ears, knowing he had saved the city he fought to save. The ancient Athe-
nian sage Solon would have understood.8
The twentieth century saw a backlash against such exaltation. After
the Great War of 1914–1918, what the historian G. B. Grundy had ear-
lier titled The Great Persian War did not seem so great after all, nor did
European civilization, given the horrific loss of life it had inflicted on it-
self. If Marathon was “the birth-cry of Europe,” as Major General J. F. C.
Fuller called it, what sort of child did it produce? Universal historian
Arnold J. Toynbee pointed out that the Greeks failed to learn the poten-
tial of a united people from the Persian Empire. The Athenian victory
at Marathon launched an era of great energy in Athens, but that energy
frightened other Greeks and prevented them from uniting. Except for
the brief moment in 480–479 when 31—only 31—city-states allied against
Xerxes’ invasion, “chronic fratricidal warfare” characterized the history
of the Greek people, who were so brilliant in art, drama, history, and
philosophy.9
introduction 11

Revisionists also emphasize that Marathon settled nothing. Darius’

son Xerxes invaded ten years later with 5,283,220 men, according to
Herodotus’ calculations. Historians of the battles in 480–479 suggest that
they mattered more than Marathon. Paul Cartledge dubs the attempt to
stop Xerxes at Thermopylae—a Greek defeat that slowed the Persian ad-
vance for less than a week—“the battle that changed the world.” Barry S.
Strauss proclaims the battle of Salamis “the naval encounter that saved
Greece—and western civilization.” Ultimately Greece’s fate rested on the
battle of Plataea, the largest land battle of the Persian Wars.10
The poet Robert Graves even questioned whether Marathon was
much of a win. Here’s his poem “The Persian Version,” a clever riff on
Herodotus’ statement that Persians were taught to ride, to shoot a bow,
and to tell the truth:
Truth-loving Persians do not dwell upon
The trivial skirmish fought near Marathon.
As for the Greek theatrical tradition
Which represents that summer’s expedition
Not as a mere reconnaissance in force
By three brigades of foot and one of horse
(Their left flank covered by some obsolete
Light craft detached from the main Persian fleet)
But as a grandiose, ill-starred attempt
To conquer Greece—they treat it with contempt;
And only incidentally refute
Major Greek claims, by stressing what repute
The Persian monarch and the Persian nation
Won by this salutary demonstration:
Despite a strong defence and adverse weather
All arms combined magnificently together.

For military historians, Marathon retains its fascination. Although

it does not make every list of decisive battles, it fares pretty well. It is in-
cluded in Richard A. Gabriel and Donald W. Boose, Jr., Great Battles of
Antiquity (1994), and Paul K. Davis, 100 Decisive Battles (1999). Michael
Lee Lanning ranked it number 28 in The Battle 100 (2003), and William
Weir ranked it number 1 in 50 Battles that Changed the World (2001), on
the grounds that democracy depended on it.
12 introduction

Marathon is the first battle in Western military history that we can

even hope to reconstruct, thanks to the wonderfully engaging narrative
of Herodotus, whom the Roman orator Cicero called the “Father of His-
tory.” Born on the east coast of the Aegean Sea, Herodotus wrote the ear-
liest extant account of the battle. It is not contemporary, but Herodotus
did visit Athens, where he gave public readings of his work. No doubt he
talked to many veterans. It’s unlikely that he talked to any of the gener-
als, but he could have spoken with their sons. Still, the fourth-century
historian Theopompos of Chios complained that “the battle of Marathon
did not happen as everyone celebrates it, nor did any of the other things
that the city of the Athenians brags about and uses to deceive the Greeks.”
Can we trust Herodotus? What methodology is appropriate, given the
nature of the evidence?11

On the Possibility of Reconstructing Marathon

I tell my students who are interested in Marathon to read Herodotus and

then find a paper by Noah Whatley, originally read in Oxford in 1920 but
not published until 1964. (I would love to know what the reaction to the
original presentation was, for a number of the scholars whom Whatley
skewered were sitting in the audience.) In “On the Possibility of Re-
constructing Marathon and Other Ancient Battles,” Whatley identified
five “Aids,” as he termed them, for interpreting ancient writers such as
Herodotus.
First, the study of geography and topography. Whatley described
this study as essential, but providing better negative results than positive
ones. Unless we know precisely the formations the Greeks and Persians
adopted, he says, “it is hopeless to try and trace on the ground the exact
movements of troops.” Nevertheless, understanding of the geography
and the topography of the Marathon plain has progressed (chapter 6).
It is critical for reconstructing what happened, even if the reconstruction
cannot be exact.12
Second, the use of deductions from modern works on strategy and
analogies from modern battles. Such deductions and analogies can widen
the historian’s sense of the possibilities, but Whatley rightly stressed
introduction 13

that ancient battle was altogether simpler than modern warfare. Ancient
Greek officers did not attend a West Point or a War College. Outside
Sparta ancient Greek warriors had little, if any, formal training before
they departed on a campaign. I generally avoid citing modern parallels or
theoretical discussions.
Third, Sachkritik, or the attempt to reconstruct in accordance with
die Realität der Dinge (the reality of things), the German military histo-
rian Hans Delbrück’s mantra. This principle seems to me unobjection-
able as long as we keep in mind that our understanding of the reality
of ancient things is not fixed. A good case in point for Marathon is the
feasibility of the running charge. Delbrück’s vigorous denial that it could
be done—and the scientific tests Walter Donlan and James Thompson
conducted to prove him right—rested on faulty assumptions about the
weight Greek hoplites carried (chapters 2 and 7).
Fourth, the study of the armies, their strategy and tactics, their equip-
ment and how they used it. Whatley suggested that this Aid had been
underutilized. On the Persian side, that is unfortunately still true. Despite
the surge in Achaemenid studies in the past several decades, a scholarly
monograph on the Persian military, making full use of the archaeological
evidence, has yet to appear. Greek warfare, on the other hand, has been
the subject of vigorous debate in the past three decades. Scholars disagree
about how Greeks fought in the Archaic period (chapter 2). I first con-
ceived this book as a way of increasing awareness of this debate.
Whatley’s last Aid, which he called the Sherlock Holmes method,
combines the other Aids with selected statements from later authors in
order to improve on Herodotus. “The modern method,” he wrote, “is
so often to accept as sound any element in the later stuff which suits a
particular theory . . . and to reject the rest as valueless.” This one is not
really an Aid in the same sense the other four are. Instead, it cuts to the
heart of a fundamental methodological issue. What is the proper use of
the literary sources themselves? Can the later sources supplement or even
correct Herodotus?13
The use of this method stems from an overall dissatisfaction with
Herodotus’ account. I will not waste time on the hypercritics who think
Herodotus is the Father of Lies rather than the Father of History. Most
14 introduction

historians today take him at his word that he wrote down what he heard
people say, though those people were more likely ordinary people he met
on his travels than truly learned individuals.
But even critics who take a more charitable attitude toward Herodotus
find fault with his account of Marathon. A. W. Gomme, best known for
his commentary on Thucydides, began his article on the battle by stating
flatly, “Everyone knows that Herodotus’ narrative of Marathon will not
do.” Herodotus’ great commentator, R. W. Macan, found six major cru-
ces or problems in Herodotus’ account:
• The major role of the supernatural: two visions (Philippides, Epi-
zelos), two dreams (Hippias, Datis), and one divine coincidence
(the Athenians twice camping at a sanctuary of Herakles).
• The exaggerated claim that the Athenians were the first Greeks to
charge the enemy at a run (for almost a mile, no less) and to endure
the sight of Median dress and the men wearing it (that is, Persian
soldiers); previously even the name of the Medes caused fear.
• The anachronistic portrayal of the polemarchos (war leader) Kallima-
chos, in saying that he was chosen by a lottery and that he voted with
the generals, rather than being the supreme commander.
• The inconsequential role of Miltiades and therefore an inadequate
explanation of why the battle occurred when and where it did.
• The absence of the Persian cavalry, despite the fact that Herodotus
says the Persians landed at Marathon because it was good cavalry
country.
• The unsatisfactory tale of the shield signal (something Herodotus
himself admits).14

I propose to apply two principles when interpreting Herodotus. First,

adapting Aristarchos of Samothrace, the Hellenistic textual critic of Ho-
meric poetry: Herodoton ex Herodotou saphenizein, “clarify Herodotus by
way of Herodotus.” So, for example, when considering whether to be-
lieve Herodotus’ statement that Datis had a fleet of 600 ships, we should
look at the numbers Herodotus gives for other Persian fleets. Herodotus
should not be forced into a precision he did not intend.
Second, adapting Martin Luther, whose explanation of the eighth
commandment ends with “put the best construction on everything,” we
ought to put the best construction on what Herodotus says. For instance,
introduction 15

instead of objecting to Herodotus’ two-fold explanation for the Persian

landing at Marathon on the grounds that neither half is true—Marathon is
neither the closest landing point in Attica to Eretria nor the most suitable
land in Attica for cavalry—we should take the point that Marathon best
combines these two qualities. There is no closer landing point that is any
good for cavalry, and no better cavalry country anywhere near Eretria.
If we follow these two principles, the six major difficulties identified
by Macan turn out not to be such big hurdles after all. I will take up each
of them in its place. Here I will only note that in comparison to later writ-
ers, Herodotus is restrained. The stories of Epizelos and Kynegeiros, for
example, grew in the telling (see chapter 7), as did the size of the Persian
expedition (chapter 4). Herodotus says nothing about the best-known
Marathon tale, the messenger Philippides’ run to Athens and announce-
ment of the victory before he died (chapter 8).
It is most certainly true that Herodotus did not write the sort of battle
narrative that a modern military historian would. He does not give the
exact date, the numbers of combatants, or the names of all the command-
ers. He does not explain the topography of the plain, or where on it the
fighting took place. He does not say why the Athenians fought when they
did, or why they ran for almost a mile.
We would like to know all these things. To what extent are we justi-
fied in using the later sources? And I do mean later, for aside from ten
lines in Aristophanes’ comedy Wasps (produced in 422) and bits from the
fourth-century writers Ktesias, Plato, and Xenophon, the other sources
all come from the time of the Roman emperor Augustus or later, 500 or
more years after the battle. (See the list of sources in Appendix A.)
One of these late sources, Pausanias (second century AD), deserves
particular attention because he describes both the topography and the
great painting of the battle in the Stoa Poikile, an original work of the 460s.
This painting would be our earliest source for the battle, had it survived.
(A nineteenth-century reconstruction of it appears in Figure 4.) There is
no reason to doubt that Pausanias saw what he says he saw, though the
painting may have deteriorated so that, for instance, the color of the sea
turned into a color Pausanias interpreted as a marsh. Or it may have been
restored and “improved” before Pausanias saw it.
16 introduction

4. Reconstruction of the painting in the Stoa Poikile (Painted Stoa), drawn by

Hermann Schenck to accompany Carl Robert, Die Marathonschlacht in der Poikile
und weiteres über Polygnot (Halle: Niemeyer, 1895)

For the rest, I take the approach my former teacher, Donald Kagan,
likes to call the “higher naïveté”: Believe anything an ancient writer adds
to Herodotus unless it is “demonstrably self-contradictory, absurd, or
false.” Herodotus always trumps a later writer. I do not doubt that there
is a detail somewhere on which Herodotus is wrong and a late source
right, but I do not see any methodological principle by which historians
could distinguish that kernel from the chaff. When we reject Herodotus,
as J. F. Lazenby remarked, “we are cutting off the branch on which we
sit.” We may decide that the branch is not very firm, or whittle away parts
of it, but we should not fool ourselves into thinking that later writers pro-
vide anything sturdier to sit on.15

An Outline of What Follows

My goal is to reconstruct the battle of Marathon, taking full account of

the ancient evidence, accounts of early travelers who saw the plain in a
much less developed state than it is in today, archaeological discoveries,
introduction 17

and modern interpretations. I confess that one of the pleasures of study-

ing Marathon, for me, lies in exploring all the clever ideas that scholars
have produced, sometimes with what seems like willful disregard of the
evidence. I do not shy away from proposing my own solution to what I
consider the biggest challenge posed by Herodotus’ account: Why did the
Athenians run so far at the beginning of the battle?
I begin with the threat that drove the Athenians to approach the Per-
sians for an alliance in 507. I also try here to give the reader a sense of the
Persian Empire and the way its soldiers fought, not only to make clear
why the Athenians looked east for help, but also to set up the battle to
come.
Chapter 2 suggests that Athens’ alliance with Persia successfully de-
terred a Peloponnesian army from advancing farther into Attica. It then
describes how, after the Peloponnesians went home, the Athenians won
battles against cities to the north that had invaded simultaneously with
the Peloponnesians. Here I discuss the Greek way of war, including the
weight of Greek military equipment. Currently accepted estimates are
18 introduction

much too high. The correct, lower weight has important consequences
for Archaic warfare generally and Marathon specifically, as will become
clear in chapter 7. The chapter ends with the Athenians’ fateful decision
to renege on their submission to Persia.
Chapter 3 tells the story of the Ionian Revolt, an unsuccessful attempt
by the Greeks of Asia to liberate themselves from Persian rule. The Athe-
nians and Eretrians sent ships and men to aid the rebels, which provided
the Great King a reason to campaign against them in 490. In this chapter
I digress on ancient ships and naval warfare, for though there was no
fighting at sea in 490, Datis sailed from island to island until he reached
Attica.
Chapter 4 describes events in mainland Greece after the Ionian Re-
volt. It tells the stories of the Persian expedition to northern Greece by
land in 492 and of the first part of Datis’ island-hopping campaign in 490,
ending with his arrival at Marathon.
Chapter 5 looks at the situation from the Athenians’ point of view,
assesses their options, and describes their arrival at Marathon, including
an estimate of their numbers and the number of Plataeans who came to
help.
Chapter 6 reviews the geography and topography of the plain, locat-
ing as best I can the positions of the Persian camp, the Greek camp, and
the site of the clash. I regard this chapter as absolutely essential to the
battle’s reconstruction, but readers who are not interested in such mat-
ters may prefer to read the summary at the chapter’s end. Read at least
that before chapter 7.
The story climaxes in chapter 7. Any attempt to understand Marathon
involves a certain amount of historical conjecture. I base my reconstruc-
tion on the topographical conclusions in chapter 6. I defend the accuracy
of Herodotus’ account as far as it goes, including the long running charge
that he emphasizes. I try to show how that charge determined the battle’s
outcome.
Chapter 8 treats what happened after the fighting stopped. I analyze
the infamous shield signal, Philippides’ fatal run to Athens, the Persians’
next moves, and the burial of the Greek war dead.
Chapter 9 indulges in speculation: What if Miltiades’ plan had not
worked?
 chapter 1

Athens’ Alliance with Darius

A Desperate Situation

D
irect relations between the Athenians and the Persians began
when the Athenians, finding themselves isolated and vulnerable
in Greece, approached the closest Persian satrap (governor) for
help. Here’s what happened. In 510 BC, the Spartans had expelled the
Athenian tyrant Hippias. The son of the popular tyrant Peisistratos, Hip-
pias had become more repressive after the assassination of his brother.
He had exiled the wealthy Alkmeonid family, among others. They had
tried to return by force, building a fort in Attica to attract like-minded
individuals, but Hippias had defeated them. So they plotted to bring in
allies who wouldn’t lose. With extravagant gifts, they persuaded the Del-
phic oracle to support their cause. Every time a Spartan came to consult
the oracle, Herodotus says, he heard, “Liberate Athens.”1
The advice fell on willing ears. Probably well-informed ears, too,
for though no source says so, it seems likely that Kleisthenes, the lead-
ing Alkmeonid, had spoken directly with influential Spartans such as
Kleomenes, one of Sparta’s two kings. Kleomenes had already pulled off
one diplomatic coup by getting residents of Plataea, just beyond the bor-
der of northwest Attica, to ask the Athenians for help against their pow-
erful neighbors to the north, the Thebans. The Athenians had agreed to
20 athens’ alliance with darius

help the underdog. The bitter feelings that resulted between Athenians
and Thebans did not surprise Kleomenes. They would prevent the two
cities from combining against Sparta. Kleomenes probably saw an oppor-
tunity to create a wedge between Athens and Argos, the home of one of
Peisistratos’ wives and a traditional enemy of Sparta. Liberating Athens
by removing Hippias and restoring the exiles would leave the Athenians
feeling grateful to Sparta and perhaps willing to break off their tie to
Argos. Intervening in Athens would fit Sparta’s traditional policy of ex-
pelling tyrants and supporting conservative aristocracies.
It took two tries—Hippias managed to drive off the first invasion that
came by sea—but Spartan soldiers under the leadership of Kleomenes
penned up the Peisistratids on the Acropolis, caught their children try-
ing to sneak out of Attica, and forced them all to agree to leave Attica in
order to get back their children unharmed. Hippias went to an Athenian
colony ruled by his half-brother on the Asian side of the entrance to the
Hellespont.
The Spartans’ attempt at regime change did not turn out as they an-
ticipated. Things went well enough at first. The exiles returned, and the
Athenians resumed the jockeying for power typical of elites in Greek cities
during the Archaic period (eighth–sixth centuries). The two most promi-
nent men were Kleisthenes and Isagoras. When Isagoras won the election
for archon, the highest political office in Athens, Herodotus says, Kleis-
thenes “added the commons [the demos] to his supporters” and began
the democratic reforms for which he is still celebrated. He abolished the
four traditional Athenian tribes and then reassigned all citizens, based on
where they lived, to one of ten new Athenian tribes. He established a new
Council of 500, 50 citizens from each tribe chosen by lot. The councilors
served for a single year, during which they met daily to supervise state of-
ficials and prepare motions for the assembly. All free adult male citizens
could speak and vote in the assembly. These changes, the philosopher
Aristotle thought, made Athens “much more democratic than it had been
in the time of Solon” (before the tyranny of Peisistratos).2
Whether that was Kleisthenes’ intent, at least at first, is not clear. He
has always remained a rather shadowy figure. His father had been a major
player in his day, prominent enough to marry the daughter of the tyrant
athens’ alliance with darius 21

of Sicyon, after whom Kleisthenes was named. Kleisthenes’ sister married

Peisistratos, though the marriage did not last. Kleisthenes himself held
the archonship in 525/4, before going into exile.
His was not the first exile for the Alkmeonid family. More than a cen-
tury earlier, the Alkmeonids tangled with an Olympic champion named
Kylon who had married the daughter of the tyrant of Megara. With sol-
diers borrowed from his father-in-law, Kylon seized the Acropolis in an
attempt to make himself tyrant of Athens. Besieged by angry Athenians,
he and his brother managed to escape, while his supporters took refuge at
the altar. When they were on the point of starving to death, the Athenians
on guard promised them their lives, brought them out of the Acropolis,
and killed them. The Athenians held the Alkmeonid who was serving as
archon responsible for this sacrilege. Considering his family polluted and
accursed, the Athenians drove the Alkmeonids into exile. By the middle
of the sixth century they were back. The experience of exile and return
must have dominated many dinner conversations at their houses. After
returning from his own exile, Kleisthenes did not want to emerge the
loser again. He may have appealed to the people in the hope of becoming
tyrant himself.
Neither a democracy nor a new tyranny in Athens was what the inter-
ventionist Spartan king had in mind. Kleomenes wanted a nice conserva-
tive government he could count on to support Spartan policies. When
Isagoras asked him to intervene again, the Spartan king agreed. Their
friendship was recent. Isagoras had hosted Kleomenes when he came to
Athens to overthrow Hippias, so they now considered themselves guest-
friends. (Rumor added that Kleomenes had enjoyed Isagoras’ wife.)
Kleomenes sent a herald to tell the Athenians to banish Kleisthenes and
all his relatives on the grounds of the old family curse. Bowing to the
inevitable, Kleisthenes left town before Kleomenes arrived with a small
force. Isagoras gave Kleomenes a list of 700 families to be banished, and
Kleomenes drove them out. Then he tried to dissolve the new Athenian
Council, intending to put Isagoras and 300 of his friends into power. But
the Council resisted, the Athenians spontaneously took up arms, and
Kleomenes could do nothing other than seize the Acropolis by force. He
had no way to bring in supplies, so after two days the Spartans agreed to
22 athens’ alliance with darius

5. Map of southern Greece

a truce giving them permission to withdraw unharmed. The Athenians

killed all the non-Spartans they caught. On his way home, Kleomenes
took over the sanctuary of Demeter at Eleusis on the western edge of
Athenian territory, where he left Isagoras (Figure 5).
The Athenians promptly recalled Kleisthenes and his friends. They
must have feared that Kleomenes would return with a larger army. What
to do? The Spartan alliance included most of the inhabitants of the Pelo-
ponnese or southern Greece, while the Athenians could count as nearby
allies only the small town of Plataea. The Peisistratids had received mili-
athens’ alliance with darius 23

tary support from Eretria, Naxos, Thebes, and Thessaly, but after expel-
ling Hippias the Athenians could not rely on help from any of these for-
mer friends. Where else could they turn?

The Persian Army

In 507 the Mediterranean world had only one superpower. Modern histo-
rians tend to underestimate the Persian army, since much of our evidence
for it comes from Greek accounts of two of its rare failures, Xerxes’ inva-
sion of Greece in 480 and Alexander the Great’s conquest of the Persians
in 334. In the late sixth century, these failures were still in the future. How
would the Great King’s military power have looked to a Greek then?
The Persian and Median infantry, according to the Greek historian
Herodotus, had identical equipment: “They wore soft felt caps on their
heads, which they call tiaras, and multicolored tunics with sleeves, cover-
ing their bodies, and they had breastplates of iron fashioned to look like
fish scales. On their legs they wore trousers, and instead of shields they
carried pieces of wicker [gerra], which had quivers hung below them.
They were armed with short spears, long bows, and arrows made of reeds.
From their belts they fastened daggers, which hung down along the right
side.” A number of Athenian red-figure vases show scenes of Greeks
fighting Persians (two examples appear in Figures 6 and 7). The Persians
wear the caps, long-sleeved tunics, and trousers described by Herodotus.
They fight with bows, spears, or single-edged curved swords. No iron
scales are visible. Some Persians wear corslets that look like padded linen,
perhaps the Egyptian corslets that Herodotus says the Persians adopted.
The vases also show shields that must be gerra, tall and rectangular. (One
is propped upright in Figure 6, and others are held by fighters in Figure 7.)
Gerron makers cut slits in a rectangular piece of uncured leather and then
inserted pliable willow rods into the slits. When the leather dried and
hardened, the shield became light and rigid. The different patterns seen
on Greek vases resulted from different kinds of slits and perhaps different
colors of paint. Made of perishable materials, few gerra have survived, but
American excavators at Dura Europos in Syria found two dating from the
third century AD.3
24 athens’ alliance with darius

6. Athenian red-figure cup by the Painter of the Paris Gigantomachy, c. 490–480,

showing Greeks fighting Persians (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York,
1980.11.21; from Eduard Gerhard, Auserlesene Griechische Vasenbilder, Hauptsächlich
Etruskischen Fundorts [Berlin: G. Reimer, 1840–1858], vol. 3, pl. 166)

The Persians did not originally have cavalry, which Cyrus the Great
organized after he defeated the Lydians. On that occasion, he used cam-
els. By the late sixth century, Persian horses were numerous. Estimates
put them at not more than 14 hands tall, weighing about 1,000 pounds.
The Persians became great horse breeders. No fewer than ten different
breeds appear on reliefs at the palace in Persepolis. Tritantaichmes, the
satrap of Babylon, was said to have a stud farm with 800 stallions and
16,000 mares. As a result, Persian horses surpassed the best available in
Greece. Xerxes demonstrated their superiority in 480 when he held a race
athens’ alliance with darius 25

7. Side A of an Athenian red-figure cup by the Painter of the Oxford Brygos,

c. 490–480, showing Greeks fighting Persians (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford,
1911.615; drawing by N. Griffiths, © Margaret C. Miller)

among Persian and Thessalian horses. Herodotus reports that “the Greek
horses were left far behind.”4
Herodotus says that Persian and Median horsemen were equipped in
the same way as their foot soldiers, except that the horsemen had bronze
or iron helmets. In art horsemen have both bows and spears (mounted
archers appear in Figure 8). A cavalry officer named Masistios wore a
corslet with golden scales under his shirt at the battle of Plataea. After
his horse went down, his apparent invincibility puzzled the Greeks until
someone realized he had something under his shirt and stabbed him in
the eye.
In an inscription on his tomb, King Darius boasted: “As a horseman
I am a good horseman. As a bowman I am a good bowman, both on foot
and on horseback. As a spearman I am a good spearman, both on foot
and on horseback.” According to Greek sources, Persians were trained
in these skills. The ancient geographer Strabo says that “from five years
of age to 24 Persians are trained to use the bow, to throw the javelin, to
ride horseback, and to speak the truth.” They remained liable for military
service up to age 50. Xenophon adds that in practice only the sons of
26 athens’ alliance with darius

8. Side B of an Athenian red-figure cup by the Triptolemos Painter, c. 490–480,

showing hoplites fighting mounted archers (National Museums of Scotland, Edin-
burgh, 1887.213; from Paul Hartwig, Die Griechischen Meisterschalen der Blüthezeit
des Strengen Rothfigurigen Stiles [Stuttgart: Spemann, 1893], pl. 55)

great families received this education; Persians who lived on estates in the
provinces sent their sons to the satrap’s court, where their training was
identical to that in Persia. Xenophon has military service proper last from
17 to 27, with liability to conscription lasting for another 25 years.5
How did the Persian national infantry fight? It was organized on a
decimal system. The largest units of 10,000 comprised units of 1,000 that
comprised units of 100 that comprised units of ten. Because one could not
shoot a bow while holding a gerron, the front-line man in each file of ten
may have held a gerron and fought with a spear or sword to defend the
nine shieldless archers behind him. This interpretation fits Herodotus’
descriptions of the battles of Plataea and Mycale, where the Greeks appar-
ently have to get past only one line of shields formed into a shield wall.
The Persians would hope to win a battle with a barrage of arrows.
They used two kinds of bows. The more common was the Scythian bow,
which formed the shape of a Greek capital letter sigma (Σ) when strung.
It was about 30 inches long, with a bracing height (the distance from
the string to the handle when strung) of about 8 inches. The Persian
bow, carried by Persians and perhaps Medes, formed a simple curve
with recurved tips. It was longer, about 47 inches, with a bracing height
of about 9 inches. Both bows shot arrows made of reed with socketed
athens’ alliance with darius 27

bronze heads weighing 0.1–0.2 ounces each. The most common was a
three-winged head about an inch long. Scythian arrows were about
20 inches long, the Persian about 30.
The Scythian bow imparted a maximum kinetic energy on release of
18–36 joules, the Persian 24–52. (For comparison, later English longbows
and Turkish composite bows gave an arrow about 50 joules.) An archer’s
effective range extended to at least 175–190 yards. The most revealing bit
of literary evidence is Herodotus’ statement that the Persians shot fire
arrows from the Areopagos hill in Athens to the barricades at the gate
of the Acropolis, a distance of about 500 feet with a vertical rise of about
100 feet. Those archers could have shot a regular arrow at least 250 yards
on a level field. They may have been selected for their strength, but if
common archers could reach three-quarters of that distance, they could
shoot 190 yards.
The arrows would have lost energy quickly. At 55 yards, the Scythian
arrow dropped to perhaps 20 joules. Another 55 yards and it was down to
15 joules. By 220 yards, if it went that far, it had only 9 joules. The larger
Persian arrows did better: 30 joules at 55 yards, 26 joules at 110, 20 joules
at 220. That compares to about 30 joules for a Greek hand-held spear. A
Persian arrow shot from 55 yards away had about as much kinetic energy
when it hit as an overhand spear thrust did, a Scythian arrow about two-
thirds as much. For causing a wound through armor, a bow has some
advantage over a thrusting spear, since a spear needs to create a larger
hole than an arrow.
Perforation tests have shown that arrows with an energy below
35 joules would not have penetrated bronze armor 0.04 inches or more
thick. Greek shields would have been vulnerable to arrows with an en-
ergy of 25–35 joules, so Persian arrows might have pierced shields at close
range, but Scythian arrows would have done no harm unless they hit an
unprotected area. (See chapter 2 for more information about Greek ar-
mor.) If a warrior wore a corslet and carried a shield, his chest was well
protected against Persian arrows. This conclusion is consistent with the
low casualties reported for the Greeks at the battle of Marathon.6
Persians could use their cavalry in several ways. Persian horsemen
could attack in squadrons, riding across the enemy front from left to
28 athens’ alliance with darius

9. Drawing of the seal impression DS 86 from Daskyleion, 479–375 BC (Reproduced

from Deniz Kaptan, The Daskyleion Bullae: Seal Images from the Western Achaeme-
nid Empire [Leiden: Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten, 2002], pl. 257, by
permission of Deniz Kaptan)

right, shooting arrows or throwing javelins across their bodies as they

went, all the while keeping a safe distance. This is how the Persians first
assaulted the Greeks at Plataea. Or they could have charged the infantry
head-on and fought at close quarters. They did that (unsuccessfully) at
Plataea after their commander Masistios went down, and at the battle of
Salamis on Cyprus, where the Persian Artybios’ horse had his legs sheared
off. They would do better against Greek infantry if they could attack the
flanks.
Fighting scenes appear only rarely in Achaemenid art, apart from
small seals such as the one illustrated in Figure 9. Deniz Kaptan describes
the scene on this seal as follows: “A horseman wearing trousers, corselet,
and a bashlyk [headgear made of soft material such as leather and wool]
thrusts his spear into the chest of a warrior clad in a knee-length chiton
[sleeveless shirt] and a conical helmet with a long tassel. He carries a large
round shield in his left hand. Its inside detailing, such as the handgrips,
has been carefully indicated.” The double-grip shield is typically Greek;
the pilos-type helmet with its hanging crest is a rare type most similar to
funerary reliefs in Lycia.7
A similar scene occurs at the center of a battle painting on the north
wall of an early-fifth-century tomb chamber known as Karaburun II in
Lycia (Figures 10 and 11). Excavated by Bryn Mawr archaeologists in the
1970s, the tomb awaits final publication. In her preliminary reports, ar-
chaeologist Machteld J. Mellink described the scene as “some kind of a
10. Battle scene from the north wall of Karaburun II, early fifth century BC (Photo
Department of Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology, Bryn Mawr College, with
the permission of Stella Miller-Collett)

11. Detail of battle scene from Karaburun II after further cleaning (Photo Depart-
ment of Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology, Bryn Mawr College, with the
permission of Stella Miller-Collett)
30 athens’ alliance with darius

12. Battle scene on a painted wooden beam from Tatarlı, c. 475–450 (Courtesy Lâtife
Summerer)

Persian war in which the Greeks are the losers.” The tomb owner, pre-
sumably the rider portrayed in the middle, wears a purple long-sleeved
tunic over purple trousers tucked into his blue shoes. He rides over a
fallen archer as he stabs a warrior armed with a two-handled shield, cors-
let, helmet, and shin guards. As in the scene on the seal, an eastern horse-
man uses a spear to kill a warrior armed with a Greek shield. Whether or
not these scenes show particular historical events—more likely the horse-
man died fighting—they provide a nice balance to the vases painted by
Greeks. Here Persian horsemen kill Greek hoplites.8
Another fascinating battle scene comes from a burial mound near
Tatarlı in Phrygia. In the 1960s looters sawed in two the wooden beam
on which it was painted (Figure 12). The beam ended up in the Archäolo-
gische Staatssammlung in Munich, where it remained largely unnoticed
until a German scholar, Lâtife Summerer, rediscovered it. It shows a Per-
sian force, coming from the left, defeating a Scythian force coming from
the right. In the center, the Persian commander pulls the Scythian leader
forward by his beard as he stabs him in the stomach with a dagger—a
stock execution scene in Achaemenid art. The Scythian shot through
the neck, the fallen Scythian shot in the back, and the horse shot in the
chest show that archers won the battle. The foremost archer shoots from
a chariot. Seven mounted and two infantry archers follow, the mounted
archers in two lines. The infantry archers shoot the Persian longbow, the
others the Scythian or composite bow. The painting is dated on stylistic
grounds to the mid-fifth century. Though the Persians are not fighting
athens’ alliance with darius 31

Greeks here, the painting illustrates how the Persians might have hoped
to win at Marathon, where the Athenians could not match them in ar-
chers or horses.
How large was the Persian army? Herodotus’ great catalogue of all the
ethnic contingents in Xerxes’ army, including 1,700,000 infantry, 80,000
cavalry, and 200 camel riders and charioteers, gives the impression of
a most heterogeneous force, since all the contingents are described as
wearing their native equipment. The Ethiopians, for instance, have leop-
ard skins, lion pelts, and bows more than six feet long. The Sagartian
horsemen have no weapons other than lassoes and daggers.9
This catalogue records a parade army rather than the fighting army.
In his descriptions of fighting, Herodotus mentions only Persians, Medes,
Kissians, Sacae, Baktrians, and Indians, all equipped in much the same
way as the Persians. Where then did the parade army come from? Per-
haps Xerxes brought small numbers of ethnic contingents for his military
reviews. Or perhaps some of the Egyptians, Medes, and Sacae were not
recruited in Egypt, Media, and central Asia, since the Persians maintained
ethnically diverse garrisons and colonies throughout the empire. Some of
the native contingents may have included those to whom the Persians
granted lands in the satrapy in exchange for military service. We know,
for example, of Persians living near Sardis who rallied to the satrap’s aid
when the Ionian Greeks revolted in 499.
Such a parade, designed to flaunt imperial power, reminds me of
the International Festival at the college where I teach, if I may “compare
32 athens’ alliance with darius

small things with great.” Once a year, students who have come from
abroad, including sons and daughters of U.S. citizens living abroad, set
up displays with photos and flags, dress in their country’s traditional
style, and serve samples of their native cuisine. On other days I would
have a hard time distinguishing most of these students from the majority
student population, since they dress in much the same way and eat much
the same food.10
Just as an International Festival can make a student body seem
more diverse than it is, so Xerxes’ parade portrayed his army as more
diverse than his actual fighting force was. The same applies to Darius.
When Herodotus says that Darius set up inscriptions at the Bosporus in
513 listing all the peoples participating in his expedition to Scythia, we
should not take him literally. The total of 700,000 men reflects Darius’
boast about his empire’s total military capacity rather than a statement
about how many men actually went on the campaign. A generation later,
Xerxes claimed to be able to raise a million men more.
The Persian military had an intimidating record. In addition to
the conquests by Cyrus the Great (c. 559–530) and his son Cambyses
(530–522), the 15 years of the current king, Darius (522–486), had seen
further victories and advances. In the year after he became king, Darius’
armies fought 19 battles against rebels. In the trilingual inscription be-
low the monumental relief he had cut into a cliff at Bisitun, more than
300 feet above the road, Darius boasted that he killed 34,425 enemies in
the greatest of these battles (Figure 13).
Darius had then defeated the Sacae (Scythians) in central Asia, cap-
turing the Scythian king Skunkha, whose image was added to the Bisitun
relief. In the east he went on to conquer India. In the west he took the
major islands off the coast of Asia, as well as the Greek cities on the Hel-
lespont, which submitted peacefully. In 513, he invaded Europe. Greek
writers heard more about Persian activities when they came closer to
Greece. Herodotus devotes most of his fourth book to this first European
campaign, which he portrays as a colossal failure. If Darius wanted to
annex Scythia, he failed. But the expedition looks rather different if he
was really after the timber, gold, and silver resources on the north coast
of the Aegean and crossed the Danube River only to deter the Scythians
13. Etching of the cliff at Bisitun by Auguste-Alexandre Guillaumot after a draw-
ing by Pascal Coste (From Eugène Flandin and Pascal Coste, Voyage en Perse de
Mm. Eugène Flandin, Peintre, et Pascal Coste, Architecte, Entrepris par Ordre de M. le
Ministre des Affaires Étrangères, d’après les Instructions Dressées par l’Institut [Paris:
Gide and Baudry, 1851], pl. 16; photo, Asian and Middle Eastern Division, New York
Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations)
34 athens’ alliance with darius

from raiding the coast. He returned without bringing the Scythians to

battle. As he made his way back to Asia, he left a Persian named Mega-
bazos in command of a large army. Megabazos campaigned in Thrace,
bringing “every city and every nation” under Persian control—at least
those along the coast, for some peoples were left independent. He pushed
toward the Strymon River, where he met resistance from the Paionians.
He deported them to Asia. He demanded and accepted earth and water
from the king of Macedon. Not much later, Megabazos’ son married the
king’s daughter. So while Herodotus portrays Darius as barely escaping
from the Scythians, the Persian king and his general extended the em-
pire to include what is today European Turkey and parts of Bulgaria and
northern Greece.11
Before returning to the east, probably in 511, Darius appointed his
paternal half-brother Artaphrenes satrap of Sardis and named Otanes
military commander of the men on the coast, subordinate to Artaphrenes
(sometimes spelled Artaphernes). Otanes conquered or reconquered a
number of Greek cities in the Hellespont, captured the islands of Lem-
nos and Imbros, and may have campaigned again in Thrace, for a gap in
Herodotus’ text resumes, “he enslaved and conquered everyone, accusing
some of deserting to the Scythians and others of plundering Darius’ army
as it returned from Scythia.”12
By 507, Greeks in Asia and on the northern Aegean coast knew the
Persian military well. What’s missing is any record of Greeks fighting
Persians in the open field. When Cyrus the Great defeated Croesus, king
of Lydia, his former Greek subjects fortified their cities. But they did not
come out to fight. The Persians built earth mounds against the city walls
and captured them one by one, except for Miletus, which had made a
treaty with Cyrus earlier, and two others, whose inhabitants abandoned
their cities and sailed west. Perhaps only the Greek mercenaries serving
under the Egyptian pharaoh Psammenitus when Cambyses invaded Egypt
had actually fought Persians. In a great battle, Herodotus says, “the fight-
ing became quite fierce, so that a large number of men fell on both sides,
but finally the Egyptians were routed.” It would be interesting to know
how many Greek mercenaries fought in this battle. Probably thousands,
for a generation earlier a large mercenary army of Carians and Ionians
athens’ alliance with darius 35

(30,000, according to Herodotus) fought for an Egyptian pharaoh against

an army of Egyptian rebels, losing only because they were outnumbered.
Eastern monarchs valued Greek mercenaries, but eastern troops could
and did defeat them.13
Given that no Greeks had withstood the Persians, the Athenians knew
that Persian friendship would deter anyone thinking of attacking Athens.
How likely were they to get it? What did they know about the Great King
and his policies?

Darius, the Great King, King of Kings, King of Persia,

King of Lands, the Son of Hystaspes,
the Grandson of Arsames, an Achaemenid

Darius had become king at the age of 28, probably by leading a successful
conspiracy to assassinate Cambyses’ brother and successor. That may not
have been common knowledge in Greece. Darius went to great lengths to
have his version of events accepted. Herodotus’ account agrees in broad
outline with Darius’ inscription at Bisitun. In Darius’ version, the god
Auramazda bestowed the kingship on him after Cambyses murdered his
brother, an imposter claiming to be the brother revolted, and Cambyses
died a natural death. Darius and a few friends then killed the imposter
and restored the kingship to his family. He claimed to be descended from
Achaemenes, who was also said (though not before the reign of Darius)
to be an ancestor of Cyrus. To strengthen his claim to be related to Cyrus,
he married three of Cyrus’ daughters (two of whom had been married to
Cambyses) and one of Cyrus’ granddaughters.
The young ruler showed himself as ruthless in keeping as he was in
getting the throne. He faced many rebels, whom he called liars. They
came not from the fringes of the empire, but right from its heart: Elam,
Babylonia, Media, Parthia, Margiana, even Persia. He punished them
publicly and brutally, as he boasted in the Bisitun inscription: “I cut off
his [Fravartish’s] nose, ears, and tongue, and tore out one eye. He was
held in fetters at my palace entrance; all the people saw him. After that,
I impaled him at Ecbatana; and the men who were his foremost follow-
ers, those I hanged at Ecbatana in the fortress.” Darius made sure people
36 athens’ alliance with darius

14. Etching of the Bisitun relief by Nicolas-Auguste Leisnier after a drawing by

Eugène Flandin (From Flandin and Coste, Voyage en Perse de Mm. Eugène Flandin,
Peintre, et Pascal Coste, Architecte, pl. 16; photo, Asian and Middle Eastern Division,
New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations)

knew what happened to anyone who opposed him. He circulated the

text of the inscription throughout the empire. The relief at Bisitun shows
Darius, standing with his foot on the chest of one recumbent rebel, facing
a line of smaller rebel leaders, chained together at their necks (Figure 14).
Darius continued to portray himself as a warrior throughout his reign.
His coinage regularly shows him as an archer.14
Several projects illustrated Darius’ power in monumental form. He
built his own new palaces at Persepolis and Babylon, then rebuilt the pal-
ace at Susa and continued Cyrus’ construction at Pasargadae. He finished
the canal from the Nile River to the Red Sea begun a century earlier, a
canal that was almost 150 feet wide, 16 feet deep, and 50 miles long.
To pay for these projects, Darius reorganized the tribute system.
Herodotus notes that Darius was nicknamed the kapelos (retailer) be-
cause he put a price on everything, and contrasts his system of fixed
tribute paid in gold and silver to the earlier system of “gifts” used by
Cyrus (the “father”) and Cambyses (the “master”). Scholars dispute the
accuracy of Herodotus’ description of the satrapies and their tribute; the
athens’ alliance with darius 37

details of Achaemenid finance are extraordinarily scattered and complex.

But such details are beside the point: Compared with the little Greek city-
states, the Great King commanded virtually unlimited resources—that
much any Greek would know.
In foreign affairs, Darius proceeded with some caution. Before cam-
paigning, he typically sent scouting missions. They are attested for the
Indus River valley, Scythia, and the coasts of Greece and Italy. By 507
Darius’ armies had campaigned in all three areas, and he had shown his
willingness to use his fleet against Greek cities.
In short, Darius had the resources to help Athens and had shown inter-
est in expanding into mainland Greece. But with submission came obliga-
tions. The Athenians must have known that the fate of anyone who turned
against the Great King—anyone who became a liar—was not pretty.

The Athenian Embassy in 507/6

Because Athens had no chance against the Spartan coalition, the Alkmeo-
nids faced a fourth exile. Dreading that, they persuaded the Athenians to
seek help from the closest Persian satrap, Darius’ brother Artaphrenes, at
Sardis. “The Athenians”—by which Herodotus ought to mean a vote of
the Athenian assembly—“sent envoys to Sardis, wanting to form an alli-
ance with the Persians.” Perhaps ten men went, one from each of the new
tribes. They would have sailed through the Cyclades to Samos and then
to the mainland at Ephesus. From Ephesus they would have walked for
three days, about 60 miles all told.15
Visualizing the Achaemenid city of Sardis is difficult, despite 50 years
of excavation. It apparently lay mostly to the east of what has been un-
covered so far. The Persians had looted Croesus’ fabulously rich city. On
the other hand, Cyrus named a treasurer for Sardis in addition to a sa-
trap, which suggests that the city remained wealthy. Forty years after the
conquest, it must have regained much of its prosperity, since it thrived as
the capital of the Persian satrapy of Sparda (Ionia). Athenians knew it as
“Sardis rich in gold.”16
Before reaching the city gates, the ambassadors walked past some of
Sardis’ houses, built of reeds or mud brick with reed roofs. They may
38 athens’ alliance with darius

have seen two altars on the west side of the city outside the line of the
walls: one to Artemis, at the site of the later Hellenistic temple, and one
to Kybele, a third of a mile to the north, a small, old altar reconstructed
during the Achaemenid period. They probably glanced over at a sanctu-
ary of Kybele near the site of the later synagogue, where a marble model
of a temple with a statue of Kybele was found, the earliest Achaemenid
sculpture discovered at Sardis (c. 540–530).
They may also have passed a formal garden, a Near Eastern tradition.
In the late fifth century, Cyrus and Tissaphernes both planted gardens
at Sardis. It seems likely to me that after 40 years of Persian rule there
would have been one already in the late sixth century. Archaeologists at
Persepolis have explored one such Persian garden, with paths and plants
laid out in straight lines leading to colonnaded pavilions. Stone water-
courses irrigated exotic flora. Such a formal garden would have put a
Persian stamp on the Sardian landscape.
The fortification walls surely impressed the Athenian visitors. At the
time of the Persian conquest, Sardis had a massive wall, larger than any
contemporary wall in Greece: 65 feet wide at the base, as much as 115 feet
tall, built of mud brick on a stone socle that kept the brick from getting
wet and turning back into mud. In the excavated section, this wall was
demolished in the mid-sixth century and rebuilt on top of the destruc-
tion debris. The stone faces of this wall were filled with rubble, most likely
with mud brick on top.
The ambassadors made their way up to the satrap’s residence in
Croesus’ palace on the acropolis, past another fortification wall, this one the
Lydian wall protecting the acropolis. It too must have been impressive, for
Cyrus captured the acropolis only when some of his men scaled the almost
vertical face at an undefended point. His first satrap held out here against
the Lydian rebels in the 540s, as did Artaphrenes later against the Ionians
who revolted in 499. Croesus’ palace survived into Roman times, but the
only trace of it identified by archaeologists is a possible terrace wall.
Probably a little out of breath after the steep climb, a little awed by
the view of the fertile plain below, and more than a little impressed by the
strength of the acropolis and its fortifications, the Athenian ambassadors
entered the palace. If they hoped for Persian help, I doubt that they came
into Artaphrenes’ presence before they were told to offer earth and water.
athens’ alliance with darius 39

The king did not make alliances with equals; he generously accepted the
submissions of inferiors.
Scholars have fussed about the precise significance of the custom of
giving earth and water, which we hear about only in Herodotus. Did earth
and water, in the Iranian world view, represent humility and inviolabil-
ity, a humble desire to submit irrevocably? Were earth and water part of
a ritual, with an oath taken while standing on one’s own ground? Were
earth and water connected to the king’s role as the good gardener respon-
sible for the fertility of the soil? Did earth and water signify the source
of life and, in the Lydian (and now Persian) conception of sovereignty,
the king’s assertion that he was the custodian of the basis of human life
everywhere on earth? Or is the phrase simply Herodotus’ shorthand for
complete submission, surrendering control of one’s earth and water to
the king?
Herodotus regularly says that the king asked his opponents to give
him earth and water—the Scythians, the Macedonians, the Athenians
now, all the Greek cities later. Whatever its precise meaning, the gift of
earth and water acknowledged the king’s superiority. It was a formal sub-
mission that left open what one’s future obligations would be. For ex-
ample, Darius invited the Scythians to give earth and water and then dis-
cuss terms with him. These terms could include tribute (perhaps called
“gifts” if the subject proposed an amount acceptable to the king), military
service, and the provision of appropriate resources to the king or his rep-
resentatives if they came to the subject territory. Giving earth and water
did not automatically mean the imposition of a garrison or a tyrant, or
even of tribute.
All this was surely no surprise to the ambassadors. The Athenian col-
onists in the Chersonese, the strip of land along the European side of the
Hellespont, must have submitted to the Persians, since they participated
in Darius’ European campaign. By now, enough Greeks had either sub-
mitted or been conquered that the Athenians must have considered in
advance whether they would give earth and water and what terms they
would propose. Unfortunately Herodotus does not give details, though
he implies that the ambassadors reached agreement with Artaphrenes
after giving earth and water. They swore an oath and left for home, no
doubt pleased with their success.
 chapter 2

Athens’ Victories over the

Boeotians and Chalcidians

Kleomenes’ Big Invasion

B
elieving that the Athenians “had treated him outrageously in
words and actions,” Kleomenes did just what the Athenians
feared he would do. In the spring of 506, he collected a large army
drawn from the entire Peloponnese. An unusually strong Spartan king
accustomed to getting what he wanted, Kleomenes had failed the pre-
vious summer because he had only a small force, a mistake he did not
intend to repeat. With the Peloponnesians invading Attica from the west,
he arranged for the Boeotians to attack from the north and the Chalcid-
ians from the east. The nightmare had begun.1
Herodotus’ catalogue of the Greek hoplites (heavy-armed soldiers) at
the battle of Plataea in 479 gives some idea of the numbers potentially in-
volved: 5,000 Spartans, 5,000 other Lacedaemonians, 1,500 Tegeans, 5,000
Corinthians, 600 Orchomenians, 3,000 Sicyonians, 800 Epidaurians,
1,000 Troizenians, 200 Lepreans, 400 Mycenaeans and Tirynians, 1,000
Phleiasians, 300 Hermionians, and 3,000 Megarians, for a total of 26,800
Peloponnesians, not counting light-armed (whom Herodotus reckons at
seven for each Spartan and one for each of the others). Herodotus does
not give a figure for the Boeotians, nor do we know how many cities the
Boeotian League included in 506. In 424 the league had 7,000 hoplites
athens’ victories over the boeotians and chalcidians 41

and 10,000 light-armed at the battle of Delion. Herodotus lists only 400
Chalcidians at the battle of Plataea, but in 506, before the Athenians took
much of their land, the Chalcidians had thousands of hoplites. In the Ar-
chaic period, Chalcis’ rival Eretria had 3,000 hoplites and 600 horsemen,
so Chalcidian manpower must have been comparable.
The invaders massively outnumbered the Athenians. Despite Kleis-
thenes’ creation of a citizen army based on the new system of ten tribes—
the military aspect of Kleisthenes’ legislation that probably alarmed the
Spartans—the Athenians had fewer than 10,000 fully armed hoplites in
506. They later sent 8,000 hoplites to Plataea at a time when they had
at least 500 marines serving in the fleet. Even if they had as many light-
armed as they had hoplites, the Athenians faced an overwhelming nu-
merical disadvantage.
The invaders advanced simultaneously on all three fronts. The Athe-
nians decided to ignore the Boeotians and Chalcidians for the time be-
ing and deployed against the Peloponnesians. But when the armies were
about to fight, the Peloponnesian force disintegrated. First the Corin-
thians went home, then Demaratos (the other Spartan king who shared
the command with Kleomenes) departed, and finally all the other allies
dispersed as well.
This is a remarkable chain of events. For starters, it is surprising that
the Athenians would be willing to fight against a force so much larger
than their own. In general, Greeks refused to fight when outnumbered
by a ratio of more than three to two. Facing greater odds, they either fled
to the hills or prepared for a siege. In 445, the one other time when the
Athenians went out to meet a full Peloponnesian invasion, the Spartan
king Pleistoanax led his army back home—and was exiled on the grounds
that he must have taken a bribe. (Pericles, the Athenian general, entered a
large amount in his accounts for that year for “necessary expenses.”)2
That confrontation in 445 followed a half century of highly successful
warfare for the Athenians. In 506 the Athenians did not have a particularly
distinguished record as fighters. Their early wars with Eleusis, Megara,
and Aegina were small-scale affairs aptly described by words like “raid”
and “skirmish.” When Peisistratos invaded from Eretria in his third at-
tempt to establish himself as tyrant, he easily defeated the Athenians who
42 athens’ victories over the boeotians and chalcidians

came out to oppose him. The one major victory they could point to was
the defeat of the Boeotians in 519, when the Boeotians attacked them on
their way home from Plataea. In that battle the Athenians were probably
not outnumbered.3
No less remarkable is the Corinthian withdrawal. Sparta’s allies in the
sixth century may not have sworn the oath first attested at the end of the
fifth, “to follow the Spartans wherever they lead, on land or on sea,” but they
had joined the campaign. What made them change their minds? Herodo-
tus says they decided they were acting unjustly, without further explana-
tion. A few pages later he reports that a Corinthian made an impassioned
speech against Sparta’s new plan to restore the tyrant Hippias because the
insolent Athenians had become a threat. So perhaps the Corinthians sus-
pected that Kleomenes intended to make Isagoras tyrant. Alternatively,
whatever the Corinthians said about justice, they made a calculated po-
litical decision, either that they needed Athenian help against Aegina and
Megara or that they did not want Athens controlled by Sparta.4
Most remarkable is Demaratos’ decision to leave. Surely the two
kings had discussed their goals prior to the campaign. Demaratos had not
previously disagreed with Kleomenes. Would the withdrawal of Corinth
have sufficed to change his mind? True, the Corinthians were powerful
allies. Yet they constituted no more than a fifth of the Peloponnesian
army, not enough to change the odds to favor Athens. I suspect that De-
maratos—and the Corinthians—learned something new, something that
changed their minds about attacking Athens. And I think we can be fairly
sure what that something was. The Athenian envoys had gone only to
Sardis, not all the way to Susa. They should have returned in plenty of
time for the Athenians to have informed the Peloponnesians about the
new Athenian alliance with the Persians. Perhaps they even had a letter
from Artaphrenes threatening the Peloponnesians with what he would
do if they harmed his allies, something along the lines of the fourth-
century King’s Peace. It might have read: “King Darius thinks it just that
the other Greeks leave his allies, the Athenians, alone. I will make war,
both by land and by sea, with ships and with money, against anyone who
attacks them.”5
For Herodotus does not say that the Athenians repudiated the alli-
ance with Persia. He says only that when the envoys returned, they were
athens’ victories over the boeotians and chalcidians 43

greatly blamed for giving earth and water, which they had done on their
own authority. But when the Athenians voted to send the ambassadors,
they must have known they would have to submit to Persia if they wanted
Darius’ help. What we’re dealing with here is a later Athenian retelling
of what happened. After the Persian Wars, no Athenian would want to
admit that the city had once given earth and water, much less that the
Persian alliance had saved Athens from a Peloponnesian invasion. The
fourth-century historian Theopompos mentioned the Athenian treaty
with Darius as one of the events falsified by Athenian propaganda, but
we can still discern its original importance. It saved Athens in 506.
After the Peloponnesian army disintegrated, the Athenians, out for
revenge, moved against Chalcis. They headed for the Euripos, the nar-
rowest place in the strait between the island of Euboea and the main-
land, about 130 feet wide. Chalcis sits on the Euboean side, 34 miles from
Athens as the crow flies. The march to the Euripos over the shoulder of
Mount Parnes would have taken at least two days.
Since the earliest known bridge was not built until 410, crossing to Eu-
boea required boats. The crossing can be tricky, for the channel’s current,
at times as strong as 8.5 mph, changes direction as often as seven times a
day. How did the Athenians plan to cross? In the sixth century Athens did
not have much of a navy. According to scattered sources, 48 ship-districts
were each responsible for providing one ship. These were probably old-
fashioned penteconters rowed by 50 men rather than new triremes crewed
by 200, but if you add in some other boats it is not hard to imagine the
Athenians ferrying their men across in several trips. They might have had
help from Eretria, Chalcis’ rival on the island of Euboea.6
Before the Athenians left the mainland, word came that the Boeotians
were hurrying toward the Euripos to help the Chalcidians. The Athenians
decided to fight the Boeotians first and turned to meet them.

Greek Warfare

What was this battle like? The conventional view, championed by Victor
Davis Hanson in his influential The Western Way of War: Infantry Battle
in Classical Greece, holds that each Greek hoplite carried about 70 pounds
of equipment, almost half his own body weight. Hoplites deployed in a
44 athens’ victories over the boeotians and chalcidians

close-order formation that allowed each man about three feet. The two
sides lumbered toward each other, smashing together in a loud collision,
and then tried to shove their way forward in what Greeks called “the
push” (othismos). Modern writers envision the push like a rugby scrum
on steroids. The rear ranks shoved the front ranks forward, each man
jamming his shield into the back or shoulder of the man in front of him.
This kind of fight required little skill with weapons, for hoplites simply
jabbed or poked with spears and swords. They looked down on archers,
slingers, javelin throwers, and the like, who ran fewer risks than the hop-
lites. As the Spartan poet Tyrtaios wrote,
For no man ever proves himself a good man in war
unless he can endure to face the blood and the slaughter,
go close against the enemy and fight with his hands.
Here is courage, mankind’s finest possession, here is
the noblest prize that a young man can endeavor to win,
and it is a good thing his city and all the people share with him
when a man plants his feet and stands in the foremost spears
relentlessly, all thought of foul flight completely forgotten,
and has well trained his heart to be steadfast and to endure,
and with words encourages the man who is stationed beside him.
Here is a man who proves himself to be valiant in war.
With a sudden rush he turns to flight the rugged battalions
of the enemy, and sustains the beating waves of assault.

And in another poem,

Our man should be disciplined in the work of the heavy fighter,
and not stand out from the missiles when he carries a shield,
but go right up and fight at close quarters and, with his long spear
or short sword, thrust home and strike his enemy down.
Let him fight toe to toe and shield against shield hard driven,
crest against crest and helmet on helmet, chest against chest;
let him close hard and fight it out with his opposite foeman,
holding tight to the hilt of his sword, or to his long spear.

Conventional wisdom says that the Greeks restricted light-armed men

to peripheral roles. Though we have few details for the Archaic period,
most historians seem confident that battles remained pushing contests
for several hundred years, until the Persian Wars.7
athens’ victories over the boeotians and chalcidians 45

Supporters of this view have claimed for it the status of orthodoxy,

which puts anyone who disagrees in the category of heretics, with all the
negative baggage that term conveys. I remain an unrepentant heretic. Just
as the orthodox theology of the Christian Church has a history, so does
the orthodox view of Greek warfare. Scholars have not always empha-
sized a mass shove as the essence of Greek battle, nor have they always
interpreted it literally. Recent literalists tend to prefer some categories
of evidence to others. They privilege literary sources, even later literary
sources, over contemporary vase painting. And only recently has the ma-
terial evidence, particularly the surviving dedications of armor and weap-
ons at Greek sanctuaries, received the attention it deserves.
Let’s begin with the weight of the equipment, or hopla, that gave the
hoplite his name. Most scholars writing in English today put the total
weight of this equipment at 70 pounds or more. This figure originated
with W. Rüstow and H. Köchly’s Geschichte des Griechischen Kriegswe-
sens von der Ältesten Zeit bis auf Pyrrhos (1852), where the authors gave
a total of 72 pounds. An influential, combative German military histo-
rian, Hans Delbrück, adopted their estimate, and the third edition of
his Geschichte der Kriegskunst (1920), translated as History of the Art of
War (1975), has made it popular among English-speaking readers. These
72 pounds are German pounds, each equal to half a kilogram or 1.1 avoir-
dupois pounds. So the original estimate was actually about 79 avoirdu-
pois pounds, a point that the English translation unfortunately missed,
for it gives the erroneous impression that Delbrück thought hoplites car-
ried 72 avoirdupois pounds.8
Rüstow and Köchly did not weigh museum pieces or attempt to re-
construct the equipment. One reviewer, Theodor Bergk, dismissed their
figures as “purely hypothetical attempts.” Another nineteenth-century
German scholar, Hans Droysen, justified his decision to ignore them by
calling them “arbitrary estimates.” After all the archaeological discover-
ies of the past century and a half, especially in the German excavations at
Olympia, we can do better. In 1995 Eero Jarva published a restudy of the
armor from Olympia, and in 2002 Johann Peter Franz reported weights
for various pieces of equipment in the extensive Axel Guttman collec-
tion. To account for the corrosion of bronze and the almost complete
46 athens’ victories over the boeotians and chalcidians

disappearance of leather and linen, Franz added 33 percent to each weight

to approximate the weight of the piece when it was intact. Scholars can
also draw on the experience of enthusiasts who have tried to reconstruct
various pieces of hoplite equipment. Peter Connolly, a pioneer in this
field, now has many followers in groups such as the Hoplite Association
in London, the Sydney Ancients, and the Hoplitikon of Melbourne.9
Let’s examine the equipment piece by piece, focusing on the late sixth
and early fifth centuries. A full set of equipment included a helmet, chest
protector, shin guards, shield, spear, and sword.
The most popular helmet through most of the Archaic period, the
Corinthian helmet, was hammered from a single sheet of bronze and
completely covered the head except for eye holes. Jarva finds the usual
range to be 2.6–3.3 pounds, with a few as high as 4.4 pounds. Franz gives
the corrected weight as 4.6 pounds. The style of this helmet changed over
time. In the last quarter of the sixth century, it became harder and thin-
ner. The average thickness was reduced from 0.05 to 0.03 inches, with an
increase in the distance between the skull and the helmet to allow for ad-
ditional padding. The late Corinthian helmets weighed 2 pounds or less;
if we add 33 percent for padding, we get 2.6 pounds. Most helmets worn
at the battle of Marathon probably weighed even less than that: Early-
fifth-century Athenian vases showing Greeks fighting Persians portray
the Greeks wearing “Attic” helmets. These had hinged cheek pieces and
did not cover the ears. On the painting of Marathon in the Stoa Poikile,
the Plataeans wore only a leather cap called a “dog’s skin.”10
A well-preserved early example of a bronze bell cuirass (breastplate)
found in Argos, similar to those portrayed on the Chigi vase (Figure 15),
has an average thickness of 0.08 inches and weighs 7.5 pounds in its cur-
rent state. Later examples are thinner, 0.02–0.04 inches. Franz gives the
average corrected weight as 10.6 pounds, with a corrected range of about
7.7–12.1.
Bronze plate cuirasses were never the only option. Homer and Alkaios
mention padded linen corslets, probably made of wool stuffed between
two layers of quilted linen. To judge by Athenian vase painting, a new type
called the shoulder-piece corslet had replaced the bell cuirass by about
525. Debate continues about how it was made. Most likely the maker
athens’ victories over the boeotians and chalcidians 47

15. Battle scene from the Protocorinthian olpe known as the Chigi vase, c. 640
(Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia, Rome, 22679; from E. Pfuhl, Malerei
und Zeichnung der Griechen [Munich: Bruckmann, 1923], pl. 59)

glued together layers of linen cloth. The Hoplite Association has found
that using a leather core speeds up construction. Andy Crapper, one of
the group’s founders, says that after six years of experience he makes an
8-pound corslet by gluing a dozen or so layers of good midweight cloth
onto a leather core. Peter Connolly had earlier achieved the same fig-
ure. Vase paintings sometimes show bronze scales added to the corslets,
either over the whole or only on the right side. Crapper’s reconstruc-
tion of this composite corslet, fully covered with bronze scales, weighs
15 pounds.11
Shin guards were made of a thin layer of bronze to which linen pad-
ding was sewn or glued. Jarva concludes that an average pair weighed
about 3.5 pounds; Franz gives a corrected average of 3.7 pounds. Like the
helmet, the shin guard became thinner over time. Jarva says the late Ar-
chaic examples in Olympia and Copenhagen would have weighed less
than 1.1 pounds, so correcting by Franz’s 33 percent we may set the aver-
age weight of a late Archaic pair at 2.9 pounds.
The concave shield was more or less round, approximately three feet
in diameter, with an offset rim that allowed it to rest on the warrior’s
shoulder. He inserted his left arm up to his elbow into an armband in the
center and gripped a leather loop at the edge with his left hand. The shield
was made of wood. It could be covered with a thin sheet of bronze on the
48 athens’ victories over the boeotians and chalcidians

exterior and leather on the interior. To judge by finds at Olympia, these

bronze facings began to be used in the last third of the seventh century,
about two-thirds of a century after the double handles appear in vase
painting (Figure 16 shows an early example of the double grip). Other
shields had bronze rims, but the majority had no bronze and have disap-
peared without a trace.12
Three examples have survived with sufficient wood to be identified.
One, dated to the mid-sixth century, probably came from a grave in east-
ern Sicily and is now in Basel. It was made of willow strips 5.5 inches wide,
laminated and pegged together. The famous Chigi vase, painted about
640, seems to show this first type, strips of wood laminated across each
other in layers to prevent splitting. This type continued in use for a long
time, for a fourth-century example found at Olynthos in northern Greece
consisted of crossing pieces of wood 2.4 inches wide (unfortunately the
remains of the wood were not analyzed). The second, dated to the early
fifth century, probably came from an Etruscan tomb at Bomarzo and is
now in the Museo Gregoriano Etrusco di Villa Giulia in Rome. It was
made of poplar boards 7.9–11.8 inches wide, glued together with no trace
of lamination. The third, from Olympia but so poorly preserved that the
method of construction cannot be determined, was willow or poplar.
Rather soft woods, both willow and poplar tend to dent rather than split,
which qualified them for the list of woods recommended for shields by
the Roman naturalist Pliny. They weigh roughly half as much as oak and
two-thirds to three-quarters as much as lime and pine.13
P. Henry Blyth’s reconstruction of the shield in the Vatican weighs
13.7 pounds. The bowl varies from 0.3 to 0.4 inches thick, while the
side walls are 0.5–0.7 inches. On the low end of the range in diameter
(32.3 inches), this shield had a bronze exterior facing and a leather in-
terior lining. The bronze facing added about 6.6 pounds, so an unfaced
poplar shield with the same dimensions would weigh only 7.1 pounds.
Craig Sitch of Manning Imperial in Australia, a modern armorer
who produces sophisticated reproductions of ancient Greek equipment,
makes several shields: one of poplar, 33 inches in diameter, that weighs
9.5 pounds, and another of radiata pine, 33.5 inches in diameter, that’s
14.3–15.4 pounds (samples vary). The Hoplite Association in London
athens’ victories over the boeotians and chalcidians 49

16. Battle scene from a Protocorinthian aryballos, c. 690–680, from Lechaion

(Corinth Museum, CP 2096; from C. W. J. Eliot and Mary Eliot, “The Lechaion
Cemetery near Corinth,” Hesperia 37 [1968]: pl. 102.2, courtesy of the Trustees of
the American School of Classical Studies at Athens)

produces shields made of lime and pine, 36.6 inches in diameter, that are
14.1 pounds. In popular or willow, these last two models would drop un-
der 11 pounds. Sitch’s heaviest version, radiata pine 35.8 inches in diame-
ter, faced with brass and lined with leather, is 19.8 pounds. In poplar, this
shield would be at most 15 pounds. So while some late Archaic hoplites
could have carried shields in the 15-pound range, most probably carried a
lighter one, many a much lighter one, under 11 or even under 10 pounds.
For comparison, a Roman scutum weighed 22 pounds.14
The hoplite’s thrusting spear, to judge by vase paintings, varied be-
tween seven and eight feet long, with a cornel or ash shaft about an inch
in diameter, an iron spearhead, and a bronze butt spike. Minor Markle
has calculated that an eight-foot spear would weigh two pounds. Adding
a spearhead and butt spike, Jarva estimates the weight of a typical hoplite
spear as about 3.3 pounds. Franz compares Marcus Junklemann’s recon-
struction of a Roman hasta, which weighed 3.5 pounds.
As a secondary weapon, the hoplite normally carried an iron sword.
In the early fifth century, vases show both a straight cut-and-thrust sword,
usually with a leaf-shaped blade, and a curved, single-edged slashing
sword. Extant examples are not well preserved, so calculating the weight
is difficult. Because the preserved half of a single-edged specimen from
Etruscan Vetulonia weighs 1 pound, Jarva thinks the weight of swords
plus scabbards would fall between 3.3 and 4.4 pounds. Franz notes that a
Roman gladius weighed almost 5 pounds.
Other clothing, such as a pair of sandals and a shirt, would add an-
other pound or two.
50 athens’ victories over the boeotians and chalcidians

We can now calculate the total weight carried by an Athenian hoplite

in 506:
Helmet 2.6 pounds
Corslet 8–15 pounds
Shin guards (pair) 2.9 pounds
Shield 7.1–15 pounds
Spear 3.3 pounds
Sword 3.3–4.4 pounds
Clothing 1–2 pounds
Total (rounded) 28–45 pounds

Earlier warriors, who sometimes wore additional upper arm guards,

lower arm guards, belly guards, and the like, made from very thin bronze,
could have added a few pounds more. These estimates remain estimates,
but they are not arbitrary or purely hypothetical.
The hoplite therefore carried a maximum of about 50 pounds rather
than upward of 70. A fully equipped hoplite might have carried no more
than 28 pounds. A warrior who went without chest protection and shin
guards could have carried only 17 pounds. The minimum Homer’s Odys-
seus said he needed to fight—helmet, shield, spears—would have pro-
tected all vital organs. According to the Spartan king Demaratos, the only
essential piece of defensive equipment was the shield, and Aristophanes
has the Marathon fighters charge simply “with spear, with shield.” Men
might even have had a choice of shield, for scattered literary sources refer
to wicker shields, presumably made of leather stretched over a frame of
woven willow rods. This type would have been a lighter alternative to
a solid wooden shield. Homer describes just this sort of mix of equip-
ment in the Iliad, where at one point the Greeks exchange gear so that the
bravest fighters have the biggest shields, the best helmets, and the longest
spears.15
The central point is that the Greeks kept to U.S. military historian
S. L. A. Marshall’s recommendation that a soldier’s load should not ex-
ceed a third of his body weight. A fully equipped warrior at the Euripos in
506 or at Marathon in 490 might have carried a burden equal to a fifth of
his body weight, and many would have had less than a sixth.16
athens’ victories over the boeotians and chalcidians 51

How did hoplites deploy? Hellenistic sources describing the Mace-

donian phalanx give the width of file as three feet, but this figure does
not necessarily apply to the Archaic or Classical Greek phalanx, which
was equipped differently. The three-foot spacing really rests on a pas-
sage from the fifth-century historian Thucydides, in which he says that
as hoplites advance, “each man, out of fear, brings his uncovered [right]
side as close as possible to the shield of the man stationed to his right.”
But Thucydides does not say how close that was. There is some truth to
Mardonios’ statement in Herodotus that the Greeks went to fight on “the
finest and most level land,” but no plain in Greece looked like a Kansas
wheat field. The more I walk on uneven Greek plains—broken up by field
walls, watercourses, occasional trees, rocks, ditches, huts, farmhouses,
and so on—the more I think that while Archaic hoplites might have
lined up at three-foot intervals, they would have scattered or bunched
when they charged. Scholars have not always paid sufficient attention to
other remarks made by Thucydides, who also says that while the Spartans
marched in time to the music of a pipe, other Greeks advanced “violently
and furiously,” and that the formation of large armies tends to break up
or scatter in the approach.17
Homer provides an appropriate pair of similes in book 16 of the Iliad,
when the Myrmidons deploy in a tight formation that Homer likens to a
solid wall, and then charge like wasps coming out of a nest:
And as a man builds solid a wall with stones set close together
for the rampart of a high house keeping out the force of the winds, so
close together were the helms and shields massive in the middle.
For shield leaned on shield, helmet on helmet, man against man,
and the horse-hair crests along the horns of the shining helmets
touched as they bent their heads, so dense were they formed on each
other.
...
The Myrmidons came streaming out like wasps at the wayside
when little boys have got into the habit of making them angry
by always teasing them as they live in their house by the roadside;
silly boys, they do something that hurts many people;
and if some man who travels on the road happens to pass them
and stirs them unintentionally, they in heart of fury
52 athens’ victories over the boeotians and chalcidians
come swarming out each one from his place to fight for their children.
In heart and in fury like these the Myrmidons streaming
came out from their ships, with a tireless clamor arising.

This imagery would work equally well for Archaic and Classical pha-
lanxes. The two sides did not normally reach each other in neat rectangu-
lar formations resembling the red and blue boxes that appear on so many
battle plans.18
Relatively few vase paintings from the Archaic period show a tight
phalanx formation. As of September 2008, the Beazley Archive Pottery
Database, an electronic database maintained in Oxford, England, listed
1,761 vases that have images of warriors. Only 17, or about one percent,
show warriors in groups. The best known of these is the Chigi olpe,
painted about 640. Both sides have multiple lines, and a piper accompa-
nies the hoplites advancing to the right, as if to illustrate the famous pas-
sage in which Thucydides describes the Spartans marching to pipe music.
Each warrior on the Chigi vase has two spears. At the left, where we see
the two spears of a warrior still arming, the shorter one has a throwing
loop, so it is a javelin. In the two battle lines that appear about to clash,
some warriors have a raised finger on the spear they hold horizontally.
These warriors are about to throw their first spear, after which they will
close to fight hand-to-hand. The painter has omitted space.
Vases with hoplites in groups of three or more show men standing
still, advancing, running (sometimes perhaps in a race in armor). They
do not show fighting. Vases that show hoplites fighting—there are hun-
dreds of them—do not show tight formations. As François Lissarrague
remarks, “the first representation of the phalanx seems also to be the
last,” for the other images do not have a pipe player, do not show both
sides, and do not show more than one line of hoplites.19
It would be fascinating to have the larger wall paintings of battles,
such as the famous painting of Marathon in the Stoa Poikile. German
archaeologist Wolf-Dietrich Niemeier is currently excavating one at Ka-
lapodi in Phocis. He describes it as a mid-seventh-century battle painting
comparable to the Chigi vase, but on a much larger scale. The only pho-
tograph I have seen shows two hoplites advancing close together from the
right; whether there were more, and more lines, remains to be seen.
athens’ victories over the boeotians and chalcidians 53

How did hoplites fight? They began their advance with spears held
at the slope on their right shoulders, spearheads upward. They lowered
them on command to an underhand thrusting position. During the march
they might sing. During the charge they yelled a war cry, something like
eleleu or alala. No conclusive evidence shows that Greek armies collided
on the run. The ancient historians regularly speak of armies coming “to
hands” or “to spear.” The slow Spartan advance, in particular, does not
fit the shock tactics that modern historians imagine. In the Iliad, the two
sides approach each other tentatively, often throwing spears at a distance
before some fighters get within an arm’s reach.
Opinions differ on whether hoplites delivered their initial blows un-
derhand, with the thumb forward, or overhand, with the thumb rear-
most. The Spartan warriors in the movie 300 fight with an underhand
grip, which has the advantage of requiring no change in hand position
as the soldiers lower their spears, charge, and fight. But in vase paint-
ings soldiers in lines about to engage wield their spears overhand, which
would permit a more powerful thrust; only in duels do we see underhand
grips. Perhaps the debate is misguided, and we should not look for uni-
formity. Individuals might have preferred different grips.
For all the prominence of the othismos (push) in modern discus-
sions, the three great Classical historians Herodotus, Thucydides, and
Xenophon use the word in battle contexts exactly three times: twice in
Herodotus, once in Thucydides, and never in Xenophon. At the battle of
Thermopylae in 480, there was an othismos over the body of the Spartan
king Leonidas; at Plataea in 479, there was a long fight before the two
sides came to othismos; at Delion in 424, there was an obstinate struggle
with an othismos of shields. The upshot is revealing: The word for the
shove supposed to be the essence of Greek battle occurs once in a de-
scription of Greek fighting Greek. There it does not stand alone, but is
modified by “of shields.” From these few passages, it is hard to be sure
that Thucydides’ othismos of shields is any more literal than Herodotus’
othismos of words, a phrase Herodotus uses twice.20
A century ago, readers did not take the word literally. Consider
Herodotean scholars. In his translation (1858), George Rawlinson used
“a fierce struggle” for Thermopylae and “a hand-to-hand struggle” for
54 athens’ victories over the boeotians and chalcidians

Plataea. In 1904 George C. Macauley translated the same passages “a great

struggle” and “justling” (= jostling). In his 1908 commentary on the last
three books of Herodotus, Macan wrote that “Hdt. seems to use othismos
for fighting at the closest quarters (without special reference to its etymo-
logical sense).” In the Loeb edition (1921), Alfred Denis Godley offered
“a great struggle” and “blows at close quarters.” In his 1938 Lexicon to
Herodotus, still the standard work, John Enoch Powell rendered othismos
as “hand-to-hand combat.”21
Thomas Hobbes (1628) rendered the Thucydides passage, where the
text reads literally a “fierce fight and othismos of shields,” as “the rest
made sharp battle; standing close, and striving to put by each others’
bucklers.” He gives a more literal alternative, “bearing each other down
with their shields,” only in a note. Richard Crawley (1874) produced “en-
gaged with the utmost obstinacy, shield against shield.” Benjamin Jowett
(1881) translated “a fierce struggle and pushing of shield against shield.”
In the 1920 Loeb edition, Charles F. Smith used “stubborn conflict, with
shield pressed against shield.”
It is not easy to find the image of a rugby scrum in these translations.
Nor were historians yet thinking of Greek battles as shoving contests.
Delbrück, for instance, wrote that: “In such a phalanx two ranks at most
can participate in the actual combat, with the second rank stepping into
the holes of the first at the moment of contact. The following ranks serve
as immediate replacements for the dead and wounded, but they exercise
principally a physical and moral pressure. The deeper phalanx will defeat
the more shallow one, even if on both sides exactly the same number of
combatants actually manage to use their weapons.” By “physical pres-
sure,” Delbrück did not mean shoving by the rear ranks. On the next
page he said that Greeks did not put unarmored men in the rear ranks be-
cause “the realization that they could not really expect to receive any true
support from these rear ranks would have seriously weakened the drive,
the forward thrust of the foremost ranks, in which, of course, the value
of the rearmost ranks normally lies.” If battles were shoving matches,
more men in the rear, whether armed or unarmed, would have helped.
Delbrück must mean that by their reassuring physical presence the rear
ranks supported the front ranks and encouraged their advance.22
athens’ victories over the boeotians and chalcidians 55

How then did the rugby model come to be the standard view? The ear-
liest use of the rugby analogy that I have found is in George B. Grundy’s
Thucydides and the History of His Age, originally published in 1911: “Un-
der ordinary circumstances the hoplite force advanced into battle in a
compact mass. . . . When it came into contact with the enemy, it relied
in the first instance on shock tactics, that is to say, on the weight put into
the first onset and developed in the subsequent thrust. The principle was
very much the same as that followed by the forwards in a scrummage at
the Rugby game of football.” Grundy’s further explanation of his idea
is curious, to say the least: “People who are unacquainted with military
history do not understand the importance of mere avoirdupois weight
in close fighting. A regiment of big men meeting a regiment of smaller
men in a circumscribed space, such as, for example, a village street, will
almost certainly drive the latter back. . . . In the fifth century the appre-
ciation of it [the weight factor] would seem to have been at least imper-
fect. It was not till [the battle of ] Leuktra [in 371] that the Greeks really
learnt this particular lesson in the military art.” Of course Greek battles
did not take place on village streets, and the Greeks knew their own mili-
tary history. If weight was so important in Archaic and Classical battles,
how is it possible that the Greeks did not appreciate it until the fourth
century?23
Grundy found a follower in William J. Woodhouse. In his 1933 book
King Agis III of Sparta and His Campaign in Arkadia in 418 B.C., Wood-
house wrote that “a conflict of hoplites was, in the main, a matter of
brawn, of shock of the mass developed instantaneously as a steady thrust
with the whole weight of the file behind it—a literal shoving of the enemy
off the ground on which he stood.” Here is the earliest clear statement I
have found of the view that all hoplites pushed, not merely the first few
rows, as Grundy’s rugby analogy might have suggested. (Only the eight
forwards, not all 15 players on a team, participate in a rugby scrum.) The
context for this passage is Woodhouse’s odd discussion of Thucydides
5.71, where Thucydides says that soldiers kept close to their right-hand
neighbor’s shield out of fear. Woodhouse labeled this “notion . . . , to
put it bluntly, nothing but a fatuous delusion and stark nonsense.” He
claimed to understand the real explanation: Hoplites advanced with their
56 athens’ victories over the boeotians and chalcidians

shields held straight across their chests, forcing them to slant to the right
as they walked.24
Not surprisingly, the great commentator on Thucydides, Arnold W.
Gomme, objected to this dismissal of the experienced Greek general’s
word: “A Greek battle was not so simply ‘a matter of brawn, a steady thrust
with the whole weight of the file behind it—a literal shoving of the enemy
off the ground on which he stood’ (did the back rows push the men in
front?), as Professor Woodhouse supposes. It was not a scrummage. The
men all used their weapons, and had their right arms free.” But no public-
ity is bad publicity. Despite Gomme’s sarcasm, the rugby analogy caught
on. By the 1970s it had become the standard view of how Greeks fought.
Its defenders now describe it as the “natural” reading of the texts.25
It is true that, unlike the noun othismos, the verb otheo (push) and
its compounds occur frequently in the classical historians. One side fre-
quently pushes the other back. The rugby model takes these verbs liter-
ally. But before we assume that Greek writers meant this pushing literally,
we should consider two points. First, they sometimes use the verb “push”
figuratively. When Herodotus says that Miltiades pushed away the Apsin-
thians by walling off the Chersonese (modern Gallipoli) peninsula, he is
not speaking literally. When Herodotus refers to the Athenians pushing
the Persian back so that the battle was no longer for their territory but for
his, he is not speaking literally. When Herodotus says that the Greeks at
Plataea pushed back the Persian cavalry, he is not speaking literally.26 So
it is at least possible that when historians use the word “push” in battle
contexts, they do not mean it literally.
Second, the Greeks inherited this word otheo from Homer. A word
does not always mean the same thing. But if it has a well-established
meaning in Homer’s battle contexts, the burden of proof rests on those
who believe it means something else in the Classical historians’ battle
narratives. If Homer describes mass shoving, the natural interpretation is
that the historians do too. But if he does not, the natural interpretation is
that they do not either. W. Kendrick Pritchett, the leading Greek military
historian in the 1970s and 1980s, opted for the former. “The othismos is
as common in Homer as it is in later hoplite warfare,” he opined, “al-
athens’ victories over the boeotians and chalcidians 57

though the noun is not used.” In his description of Homeric fighting, Prit-
chett said, “they pushed, leaning their shields against their shoulders . . .
while they thrust with swords and spears.” But this combination never
occurs in the poem. Pritchett cited two passages for the leaning of shields
on shoulders. Neither mentions pushing. He cited six passages for the
thrusting with swords and spears. Only one mentions pushing.27
The one passage that mentions both thrusting with weapons and
pushing comes in Iliad 13. The Greeks are massed together closely in what
sounds like a hoplite phalanx as Hektor attacks:
But when he met the dense phalanx
he came close and stopped. The opposing sons of the Achaians,
pricking him with swords and leaf-headed spears,
pushed him away from them; he shivered as he retreated.

Here the Greeks are fighting inside their camp wall with their backs to
their ships. A small group of nine champions, each one named by the
poet, rallies together. Homer does not mention shields; the stabbing and
the pushing happen simultaneously. He means that the Greeks used their
weapons to force Hektor to retreat, slowly—pushed back, as opposed to
routed. A figurative push makes equally good sense in the other passages
Pritchett cites as evidence of a mass shove in the Iliad.28
In his description of the battle of Koroneia in 394—one of the literal-
ists’ favorite passages—Xenophon uses the verb “push” while alluding to
a passage in Homer that does not use it. “Clashing their shields together,”
Xenophon says in his Hellenika, “they pushed, they fought, they killed,
they died.” This compressed sentence alludes to a scene that occurs twice
in the Iliad. Xenophon uses the same verb in “clashing their shields” that
Homer does:
Now as these advancing came to one place and encountered,
they clashed their [leather] shields together and their spears, and the
strength
of armored men in bronze, and the shields massive in the middle
clashed against each other, and the sound grew huge of the fighting.
There the wails of despair and the cries of triumph rose up together
of men killing and men killed, and the ground ran with blood.
58 athens’ victories over the boeotians and chalcidians

The allusion is clearer in the expanded version Xenophon gives in his

Agesilaos. Here we have, as in Homer, the peculiar noise of battle, men
killing and men dying, and blood on the ground: “Clashing their shields
together, they pushed, they fought, they killed, they died. There was no
screaming, nor was there silence, but the noise that anger and battle to-
gether will produce . . . When the fighting ended, one could see, where
they met one another, the ground stained with blood.” And what hap-
pens next in the Iliad ? Fighting with javelins. Homer continues:
So long as it was early morning and the sacred daylight increasing
so long the thrown weapons of both took hold, and people fell.

If Xenophon has this Iliad scene in mind, “push” cannot be a mass shove
in either the Agesilaos or Hellenika passages.29
Literalists like to cite passages referring to the importance of weight
in Greek battles. But this language can also be figurative. Commenting
on the battle of Mantinea in 362, for instance, the first-century histo-
rian Diodoros of Sicily says that Thessalian slingers and javelin throw-
ers “practiced this type of fighting assiduously from boyhood and con-
sequently were accustomed to exercise great weight in battles because of
their experience in handling these missiles.”30
In short, while individual soldiers sometimes shoved with their
shields, when the Classical historians say that one army pushed the other
back, they mean that close hand-to-hand combat resulted in a gradual,
step-by-step withdrawal as opposed to a rout. When Xenophon says that
at the battle of Leuctra in 371 the Spartans finally retreated, pushed back
by the mass, he does not mean a mass shove. Since the 12-deep Spartans
were winning initially, they cannot have been engaged in a shoving match
with the 50-deep Thebans. Xenophon means that the Spartans were over-
come by Theban numbers rather than by any superiority in the Theban
hoplites or failure in their own courage.
“All infantry actions,” the distinguished military historian John
Keegan once remarked, “even those fought in the closest of close order,
are not, in the last resort, combats of mass against mass, but the sum of
many combats of individuals—one against one, one against two, three
against five.” If we imagine Archaic battles as multiple hand-to-hand
athens’ victories over the boeotians and chalcidians 59

fights, we can take two passages in Euripides as reflecting the essence of

contemporary battle, though they are set in the legendary past. In Phoeni-
cian Women 1380–1420, the rival brothers Polyneikes and Eteokles fight
a duel that begins with the blowing of the salpinx, an early trumpet that
sounded the battle charge. They both advance, crouch beneath their
shields, and jab their spears whenever they see the other peeking over the
shield’s rim, but do no real damage until Eteokles stumbles on a stone,
revealing his leg. Polyneikes then stabs Eteokles in the thigh, but exposes
his own shoulder as he does so, and Eteokles manages to stab him there.
Both break their spears and they fight with their swords, clashing their
shields together, until Eteokles does the Thessalian feint, stepping back
with his left foot and then, as Polyneikes advances, forward with his right,
driving his sword through Polyneikes’ belly. As Eteokles bends to strip his
brother’s armor, the dying Polyneikes jabs his sword into Eteokles’ liver.
Every bit of this could have happened in a hoplite battle, provided we al-
low a warrior enough space to take a step back.31
In Herakleidai 830–842, Euripides describes a battle between the Athe-
nians and the Argives. The trumpet sounds, the two sides begin to fight,
the shields make a great noise. First the Argives break the Athenian lines,
but then the fighting surges in the other direction and intensifies as they
stand foot against foot, man against man. Finally, without any mention
of pushing, the Athenians rout the Argives completely. This too might
describe an actual battle.
The Classical Greek phalanx, familiar from Thucydides and Xeno-
phon, excluded light-armed fighters such as archers, javelin throwers, and
slingers. But if we imagine Archaic warriors fighting as described above,
we are free to consider the possibility, or even the probability, that the
Archaic Greek phalanx included a variety of fighters, so that it was closer
to what we read about in Homer than to what Thucydides describes. Pas-
sages in the lyric poets, vase paintings, and finds at Greek sanctuaries sup-
port the possibility. As late as 640–600, Tyrtaios appended the following
lines to one of his exhortations to hoplites:
You light-armed men, wherever you can aim
from the shield-cover, pelt them with great rocks
60 athens’ victories over the boeotians and chalcidians
and hurl at them your smooth-shaved javelins,
helping the armored troops with close support.

Archaic vases often show archers together with hoplites, and archaeolo-
gists have found lead figurines of crouching archers among the Archaic
and early Classical dedications at the sanctuary of Artemis Orthia in
Sparta. These archers look comparable to the stone throwers and jav-
elin throwers in the Tyrtaios passage, crouching behind the protection of
hoplites rather than standing. In the Iliad, Homer says Teukros
took his place in the shelter of Telamonian Aias’
shield, as Aias lifted his shield to take him. The hero
would watch, whenever in the throng he had struck some man with an
arrow,
and as the man dropped and died where he was stricken, the archer
would run back again, like a child to the arms of his mother,
to Aias, who would hide him in the glittering shield’s protection.

A good archer would keep his eyes open for an opportunity, as Paris (Al-
exandros) did when he knocked three heroes out of the fighting: He hit
Diomedes in the foot, Machaon in the right shoulder, and Eurypylos in
the right thigh. In close hand-to-hand fighting, such archers would be of
little use, but in a more fluid battle a light-armed man would have mo-
ments to exploit. A contingent of light-armed archers and slingers, such
as the Lokrians, could disrupt an enemy:
The heart was not in them to endure close-standing combat,
for they did not have the brazen helmets crested with horse-hair,
they did not have the strong-circled shields and the ash spears,
but rather these had followed to Ilion with all their confidence
in their bows and slings strong-twisted of wool; and with these
they shot their close volleys and broke the Trojan battalions.
So now these others fought in front in elaborate war gear
against the Trojans and Hektor the brazen-helmed, and the Lokrians
unseen volleyed from behind, so the Trojans remembered
nothing of the joy of battle, since the shafts struck them into confusion.

I think that the exclusive hoplite phalanx did not exist before Marathon.
In Archaic battles, men fought with whatever equipment they preferred
and could afford.32
athens’ victories over the boeotians and chalcidians 61

So far I have said nothing about Greek horsemen. Thanks partly to

the rough, mountainous terrain and partly to the high cost of raising
horses, cavalry played a much less important role in Greece than it did
east of the Aegean. The Thessalians had 1,000 horsemen, but scholars
debate whether the Athenians had any cavalry at all in the late sixth cen-
tury. Perhaps they had only mounted hoplites who rode to the battlefield
but fought on foot. I believe that in 506 the Athenians did have a cavalry
force, but only a small one, with fewer than a hundred horses. The Boeo-
tians and Chalcidians probably had more. Though Boeotian cavalry is
not specifically attested until the Persian Wars, Homer calls the Thebans
“horse-racing Cadmeans,” and Boeotia is better cavalry country than At-
tica. The aristocrats at Chalcis were known as the hippobotai (horse feed-
ers), which suggests that they had cavalry. Aristotle says that both the
Chalcidians and the Eretrians, their rivals at the other end of the Lelan-
tine plain, used horses in war. According to an inscription seen by Strabo,
the Eretrians’ Archaic cavalry numbered 600 horsemen, one for every
five hoplites. The numbers at the battle of the Euripos might not have
been so lopsided, for we do not know what proportion of their horsemen
the Boeotians and Chalcidians actually sent into the field.33
Like the infantry, Greek horsemen provided their own equipment.
Vase paintings show some horsemen with the entire set of hoplite equip-
ment, occasionally even including the round double-grip shield; others
have helmets and body armor, but no shield; still others have at most
light corslets. They fought with one or more light spears or javelins, a
heavy thrusting spear, a sword, or some combination of the above, but
not with bows and arrows in the Persian manner. Several recent books
have argued for the importance of Greek cavalry, but in the Archaic pe-
riod it really did not count for much south of Thessaly.
Finally, what sort of training did Greek soldiers have? Sparta had a
rigorous program designed to produce good soldiers. It began at age 7
and continued until 18. Even thereafter Spartans had no jobs other than
to train for war. State-owned serfs made this training possible because
they worked the land, freeing Spartans for other activities. Writing in
the fourth century, Aristotle credited their early military dominance to
the Spartans’ training and the discipline it instilled: “Even the Spartans
62 athens’ victories over the boeotians and chalcidians

themselves, as we know from experience, were superior to others only so

long as they were the only people which assiduously practiced the rigors
of discipline: and nowadays they are beaten both in athletic contests and
in actual war. . . . The Spartan training has now to face rivals. Formerly
it had none.” Outside Sparta, no cities had professional armies or even
communal training programs for their citizen soldiers. Men turned out
for a campaign; when it ended, they returned to what they had been do-
ing before. But I should stress that the ancient Greeks were much more
physically active than most people in the United States and Europe are
today. The typical Greek man worked on a farm, walked wherever he
went, and ate a lean diet that produced a low body-mass index. Wealthy
men who did not do their own farm work spent a lot of time exercising
in the gymnasium, exercise that Greek writers say prepared them for war.
So the fact that Archaic Athenians had no required group training or
exercises before going to war should not fool us into thinking that they
were unconditioned for combat. Victor Davis Hanson has an illuminat-
ing passage about the “uncanny strength” of potbellied California farm-
ers who in middle age could outwork his athletic friends in their late 20s
when they came to visit his family farm.34
The absence of formal training should make us try hard to overcome
any mental picture we might have of Greeks (Spartans excepted) march-
ing in unison or carrying out complex battlefield maneuvers. In the fourth
century, Greek hoplites drilled to do a few simple movements, such as
leveling their spears and advancing at the sound of the trumpet, or set-
ting down their shields and standing at ease. Because the front man in
each Spartan file was an officer, Xenophon says, the Spartans carried out
movements that others found difficult, such as changing from a column
into a line of battle. That other Greeks would find such a basic marching
maneuver difficult tells us a lot.35
In sixth-century Athens, an elected polemarchos commanded the
Athenians, who were probably organized after Kleisthenes in ten tribal
units, as they certainly were in the fifth century. The tribes probably had
their own commanding officers. Scholars debate whether there was any
further organization whatsoever.
athens’ victories over the boeotians and chalcidians 63

The Battles of the Euripos

Let us resume the story of the Athenians who marched north after the
Peloponnesian invasion of Attica fell apart in 506. Herodotus covers two
battles in about two sentences: “The Athenians joined battle with the
Boeotians, and decisively overwhelmed them, slaughtering vast numbers
and capturing 700 of them alive. Then, on the same day, the Athenians
crossed over to Euboea and met the Chalcidians in battle as well. Win-
ning another victory there. . . .” Both fights would have looked more like
confused melees than giant rugby scrums. The first, in particular, must
have ended quickly, or the Athenians would not have had the energy to
cross the Euripos and fight again that day. Perhaps the full Boeotian army
did not have time to gather. It is also likely that the Athenians had help
from Eretria, a traditional enemy of Chalcis.36
The Athenians honored their dead by inhuming or (more likely) cre-
mating them near the Euripos and erecting a mound over their remains,
all at public expense. This collective burial is the earliest known example
of what became standard Athenian practice, a common grave for men
who fought in a common cause. An epigram attributed to Simonides is
our only evidence for the burial mound at the Euripos:
Under the folds of [Mount] Dirphys, we were killed, and upon us a
mound
was piled near the Euripos, at public expense;
not unjustly, for we lost our lovely youth
when we welcomed the rugged cloud of war.

This epitaph fits Kleisthenes’ democratic army by defending the use

of public funds to raise the mound, heroizing the dead with language
that has Homeric echoes, and noting that the Athenians fought will-
ingly. The burial itself imitated private aristocratic family burials in At-
tica that took the form of mounds, modeled on the burials of Homeric
heroes such as Patroklos and Hektor. To honor the fallen, the Athe-
nians raised a mound over the remains of the dead and erected a tomb-
stone, inscribed with the epigram and the names of the dead, on top of the
mound.37
64 athens’ victories over the boeotians and chalcidians

Herodotus draws a lesson in terms of tyranny versus freedom, one

of the great themes of his Histories: “So Athens flourished. Now, the ad-
vantages of everyone having a voice in the political procedure are not
restricted just to single instances, but are plain to see wherever one looks.
For instance, while the Athenians were ruled by tyrants, they were no
better at warfare than any of their neighbors, but once they had got rid
of the tyrants they became vastly superior. This goes to show that while
they were under an oppressive regime they fought below their best be-
cause they were working for a master, whereas as free men each indi-
vidual wanted to achieve something for himself.” The twin victories paid
off handsomely for the survivors. Not only did the Athenians annex bor-
der territories in the northwest and the northeast, they also settled 4,000
Athenian citizens on land they confiscated from the Chalcidian aristo-
crats in the fertile Lelantine plain between Chalcis and Eretria. The Athe-
nians eventually released their captives for two minas each, the standard
rate for ransom among the Peloponnesians. At that rate 700 Boeotian
prisoners brought in more than 1,300 pounds of silver, to say nothing of
the captured Chalcidians or the value of equipment stripped from the
enemy corpses. The Athenians put the prisoners’ chains on the Acropolis,
where Herodotus saw them hanging on walls burned by the Persians in
480–479. The Athenians dedicated a tenth of the ransom in the form of a
bronze four-horse chariot, with the inscription:
The Boeotian and Chalcidian peoples were tamed
By the sons of the Athenians in works of war,
Who quelled their arrogance in dark bonds of iron,
And set up these horses as a tithe for Pallas [Athena].38

The Athenians’ problems did not disappear. The Thebans soon coun-
terattacked, but were defeated; they then urged the Aeginetans to help
them by waging an undeclared war on Athens. Aeginetan raids damaged
the Attic coast, including the bay of Phaleron, Athens’ harbor. As the
Athenians were preparing (building ships?) to take revenge, the Spartans
called their allies to a meeting at which they proposed reinstating the
deposed tyrant Hippias, so that Athens would be weaker and willing to
submit to their authority. The allies did not approve this proposal.
athens’ victories over the boeotians and chalcidians 65

Hippias turned to the Persians. After his brother Hipparchos’ assas-

sination in 513, Hippias had married his daughter to the son of the tyrant
of a Greek city in Asia, “perceiving that they had great influence with
King Darius.” Now “he missed no opportunity to slander the Athenians
to Artaphrenes and did all he could to bring about Athens’ submission to
himself and Darius.” The Athenians sent ambassadors to Sardis to urge
the Persians not to listen to exiles, only to be told to take Hippias back
if they wanted security. Some Iranologists find this story suspect on the
grounds that it sounds like Athenian propaganda. To justify their partici-
pation in the Ionian Revolt, the argument goes, the Athenians told a story
in which the Persians broke their treaty first. But since we do not know
the terms of Athens’ submission to Persia, it is not clear that Artaphrenes
violated them in this story. Even if the Athenians had received a guaran-
tee of autonomy, Artaphrenes might have considered himself entitled to
advise the Athenians to take back Hippias. In any case the Athenians re-
fused. “By this refusal,” Herodotus comments, “their posture as enemies
of the Persians became public.”39
This change in policy paved the way for cooperation instead of hostil-
ity with Sparta, but it led to armed conflict with Persia.
 chapter 3

The Ionian Revolt

The Outbreak of the Revolt

D
uring the winter of 499/8, Aristagoras of Miletus arrived in
Athens to ask for help in the Ionian Greeks’ revolt from Persia.
Aristagoras had already visited Sparta, where he had appealed to
Kleomenes without success. In front of the Athenian assembly, he talked
up the riches of Asia and how easy it would be to defeat the Persians,
who fought without spears or shields. He piled on rhetoric about how
the Milesians were originally Athenian colonists and how the Athenians,
great power that they were, ought to protect them. After Aristagoras made
unspecified extravagant promises, the Athenians agreed to send 20 ships,
probably penteconters with 50–80 men each. Echoing Homer, Herodo-
tus says that “these ships turned out to be the beginning of evils for both
Greeks and barbarians.” He does not exaggerate. As Maria Brosius put
it, from the Persian perspective “Athens’ involvement . . . constituted a
violation of the Persian-Athenian treaty of 507/6.”1
The trouble in Ionia had started when Aristagoras listened to the
“men of substance” (or, in a less flattering translation, “the fat”) exiled
from Naxos, the largest and most fertile of the Cycladic islands. The exiles
asked for the forces they needed to return home. Aristagoras reasoned
that if he played his cards right, he could rule Naxos and the rest of the
the ionian revolt 67

Cyclades, in addition to Miletus and the Milesian foothold in Thrace—

potentially controlling both the Cycladic and the Thracian silver mines.
Darius had granted these mines to Histiaios, the tyrant of Miletus, as a
reward for faithful service during the Scythian expedition. When Darius
later promoted Histiaios to an advisory post in Susa, he left his cousin
and son-in-law Aristagoras in control of Miletus. Some scholars have
doubted that Aristagoras could really have hoped to control both the Cy-
cladic and the Thracian silver, but with Histiaios an honored adviser at
the royal court, why not?2
So Aristagoras told the Naxian exiles that he wanted to help them,
but he lacked the resources to defeat the “8,000 shields” and “many long
ships” that Naxos had. (The unique expression “8,000 shields” may mean
not fully equipped hoplites, but all men able to carry any sort of shield.)
Aristagoras therefore asked the exiles to approve a request to his friend
Artaphrenes, the Persian governor at Sardis. The exiles agreed, promis-
ing to pay for gifts to the Persians and for the expenses of the expedition.
They thought these expenses would be low, because they expected the
local residents to submit quietly. Exiles often persuade themselves that
their popularity back home is actually high—and other outsiders looking
for an excuse to meddle believe them.3
Aristagoras put the idea to Artaphrenes, stressing Naxos’ wealth,
proximity to Asia, and potential as a springboard to the other Cycladic
islands and even the large island of Euboea, off the coast of Attica. He
asked for 100 ships. Artaphrenes raised the stakes, promising that 200
ships would be ready in the spring, once he had secured the king’s ap-
proval. Perhaps he wanted to make sure that it was a Persian operation
rather than a Greek campaign with Persian support. To command the ex-
pedition he appointed his cousin Megabates, son of the Megabazos who
had conquered Thrace.
Darius had contemplated westward expansion for more than a de-
cade. Before the Scythian expedition in 513, his wife had advised him to
let the Scythians wait while he attacked Greece. Darius responded by
sending a Greek doctor on a scouting mission with 15 Persians. The spies
sailed along the coast of Greece and crossed the Adriatic Sea over to Italy.
The doctor then deserted. Darius invaded Scythia.
68 the ionian revolt

After the Scythian expedition, Darius had opted mostly for cam-
paigning by land on the Aegean coast (Figure 17). By 500 he controlled
the eastern and northern coasts, the route through the Hellespont to the
Black Sea, and the most important islands directly off the coast. A naval
campaign through the Cyclades was a logical next step.
In the spring of 499, the Persian fleet sailed north from Miletus, pre-
tending to head for the Hellespont. Herodotus heard a story about a quar-
rel between Aristagoras and Megabates, with the improbable result that
Megabates tipped off the Naxians he was about to attack. More likely,
they heard about their exiles’ activities and prepared accordingly.
The exiles misread the Naxians’ resolve. After besieging the town for
four months, the invaders had run out of supplies, Aristagoras had spent
a lot of his own money, and the Naxian exiles did not have the resources
to pay for the expedition as they had promised. Megabates decided to
abandon the siege. He fortified a place on Naxos for the exiles and re-
turned to Asia.
Fearing for his own position in Miletus, Aristagoras began to plan a
revolt from Persia. Just then, “the man with the tattoed head” arrived with
a message from Histiaios. Histiaios had shaved a slave’s head, tattoed on
it instructions for Aristagoras to revolt, waited for the slave’s hair to grow
back, and sent him to Miletus with orders to tell Aristagoras to shave the
slave’s head. George Cawkwell recently declared this story unacceptable
in detail, quipping that “if the slave was reliable enough to carry the mes-
sage on his head, he was reliable enough to carry it in his head.” But how
would a slave have persuaded Aristagoras that what he had to say really
came from Histiaios, without some sign? Why not a tattoo?4
When the Ionians asked Histiaios later why he sent this message, he
told them that Darius planned to transplant the Phoenicians to Ionia and
the Ionians to Phoenicia. Though Herodotus asserts that Darius had no
such plan for a population exchange, the Great King may have intended
to transplant some Greeks. He later moved Milesians and Eretrians who
resisted him, so the Naxians would definitely be candidates. Histiaios may
have warned Aristagoras after hearing about big new plans for the west.
Critical scholars frequently fault Herodotus for focusing so narrowly
on individuals such as Aristagoras and Histiaios that he fails to see the
the ionian revolt 69

17. Map of the Aegean

bigger picture of why the Ionians revolted, not to mention why others
followed their example. But Herodotus supplies plenty of threads for
weaving a larger, more complex tapestry. Explanations that contradict
Herodotus are unconvincing. For instance, the hypothesis that Persian
expansion ruined the trading economies of Ionian cities not only con-
tradicts Herodotus, who says that Miletus was at its economic peak; it
also does not fit the external evidence of increased monumental building,
increased private dedications, and increased silver coinage. The Greeks of
Asia prospered under the Persians.
70 the ionian revolt

The Greeks did have potential economic grievances. For one, the con-
fiscation of land. The king had granted large estates to Persians willing to
resettle in Asia Minor in return for help defending the area, such as the
man buried in Karaburun II. For another, the annual tribute. Several late
stories suggest that Darius was considered lenient in the amount of trib-
ute he required, but require he did. For a third, required military service.
Before 513 this standard requirement had not affected Greeks much, but
Darius’ Scythian campaign involved tens of thousands of them serving in
the fleet. After several smaller campaigns, the Naxian fiasco called upon
many Greeks again, as many as 40,000 men for the crews. Though this
first attempt to conquer the Cyclades failed, the Greeks could expect it to
be repeated. Campaigns to Greece and farther west would require more
service.
Herodotus supplies all these reasons for the Ionian Revolt, without
trying to oversimplify and name a single, truest explanation. But how
did Aristagoras persuade Darius’ Greek subjects that they had a chance
against the powerful Persian navy? No doubt he suggested that Greeks
not yet subject to the Persians would help. No doubt he talked about how
their revolt would spur others into action, such as the Hellespontines, the
Carians, and the Cyprians (all of whom did revolt), as well as the Lydians
(who had revolted in 546), the Babylonians (who had already revolted
against Darius once), and perhaps even the Egyptians, whose uprising
came a few years too late to help the Ionians. But I suspect that he stressed
the opportunity offered by the Persian ships returned from Naxos and
docked on the coast. To explain the importance of this fleet requires a
digression on Archaic navies.

Archaic Navies

The early history of Mediterranean warships is obscure. No warships of

the seventh through fourth centuries have been found. Between 2003 and
2006 the Persian Wars Shipwreck Survey Project—a collaborative venture
of the Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities, the Canadian Archaeologi-
cal Institute at Athens, and the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research—
mounted four expeditions hoping to find warships at two places where
the ionian revolt 71

storms destroyed hundreds of them, as well as at the site of the battle of

Artemision. The team used visual observation, sidescan sonar, a submers-
ible vehicle, and two remote-operated vehicles, but failed to identify any
warships, though they did recover a spear butt spike, apparently cherished
in an amphora by the resident octopus. A trireme, the best type of warship
available in the late Archaic and Classical periods, may never be found.
Unlike a loaded merchant vessel, whose cargo could sink it straight to the
bottom and then protect the wood from marine predators and general
deterioration, a trireme carried little but its crew, most of whom would
abandon a sinking ship. (Experts estimate that the crew weighed almost
half as much as the wooden hull.) When penetrated by an enemy ram, a
trireme would be swamped rather than sunk, so that it could be salvaged
before it went down. Of triremes that did sink, little will remain.
In the absence of direct physical evidence, scholars depend on images
of ships, mostly on Athenian pots (and relatively rare and notoriously
difficult to interpret), together with literary sources, mostly Greek and
especially Herodotus. At the time of the Ionian Revolt, the penteconter
(50-oared ship) and the triaconter (30-oared ship) remained in use, but
the trireme had become the top-of-the-line warship. In the fifth century,
a trireme had up to 170 rowers positioned in three banks. These rowers
powered a cigar-shaped ship, less than 20 feet broad, some 121 feet long,
with a bronze-covered ram at its prow. A great debate over the structure
of the trireme ended, at least in the minds of most naval historians, with
the launching of the Olympias in June 1987. Aptly described as a “float-
ing hypothesis” for a fourth-century trireme, Olympias resulted from a
collaboration between Cambridge philosopher John Morrison and naval
architect John Coates. The idea of building a life-size working trireme
came up in 1981 over dinner in Britain, probably the one country in the
world where enough people care enough about both classics and navies
to raise the £750,000 necessary to turn this vision into reality. In sea trials
conducted between 1987 and 1994, Olympias’ oar system proved work-
able, though the ship’s all-day cruising speed and momentary peak speed
fell about 30 percent short of expectations. These experiments led to sev-
eral suggestions for tweaking the design, which, the experts think, would
enable a modern trireme to work significantly better.
72 the ionian revolt

When was the trireme invented? Controversy continues. It is first

mentioned in a poem by Hipponax of Ephesus, c. 540–520. A plausible
hypothesis holds that the Carthaginians, spurred by a naval defeat c. 540,
invented the oar system; that the Egyptians, the coastal power with the
largest financial resources, applied the new oar system to much larger
ships; and that the Persians, when they set their sights on Egypt in the
520s, had triremes built to match the Egyptian fleet. Triremes were ex-
pensive. They required not only more wood than penteconters, but also
sailcloth, ropes, flax soaked with pitch for caulking seams, and bronze for
sheathing the ram. They were also expensive to man. Herodotus regu-
larly calculates 200 men per trireme, the Athenian standard during his
own day, including 10 marines and 4 archers. In 480 Xerxes’ ships in-
cluded 30 marines in addition to native crews.5
How many triremes and penteconters did the Great King have? Ac-
cording to Herodotus, Xerxes had 1,207 triremes with 230 men each, plus
3,000 penteconters with 80 men each, or 517,610 men total. Given that
the rowers came only from the coastal areas, these numbers are probably
as exaggerated as the numbers Herodotus reports for the land army. At
Doriskos, Xerxes reviewed his fleet much as he reviewed his army, ask-
ing questions about each contingent and having the answers recorded.
Perhaps the numbers for ships should be taken as the potential forces,
analogous to the numbers for infantry. Herodotus’ statement that Darius
had 600 triremes on his Scythian campaign would mean that the king’s
potential strength was 600 triremes, not that he actually had that many
with him. Alternatively, we could read 600 as simply meaning a large
fleet, since Herodotus gives the same figure for the Scythian expedition,
the battle of Lade, and the Marathon campaign.6
The Greeks lagged behind the wealthier Mediterranean powers in
building new fleets. Shortly after 540, the tyrant of Samos used 100 pen-
teconters to raid and plunder his neighbors. He supported the Persian
invasion of Egypt with 40 triremes, the hulls perhaps provided by the
Persians. The Corinthians, whose city was famously known as “wealthy
Corinth,” built the first triremes in Greece. At the battle of Salamis in 480,
they had 40. The Aeginetans, another Archaic naval power, had 30. No
other Greek city managed more than 16, except the Athenians, who built
the ionian revolt 73

an impressive 200 triremes after a lucky strike of silver in 483. Earlier the
Athenians relied on private owners of penteconters for their fleet, such
as it was. In the lingering war against Aegina after 506, they could put to
sea only 50 penteconters, until the Corinthians sold them 20 more for a
nominal price. Individuals owned the first triremes attested at Athens.
The trireme on which Miltiades—the future hero of Marathon—sailed to
the Chersonese, as well as the five triremes with which he returned home
in 493, were probably privately owned.7
In 500 the Greeks had no large fleets of triremes. Aristagoras, ruler
of the most prosperous Greek city in Asia, had to ask the Persians for
triremes to deal with the Naxians, who had long ships, but apparently no
triremes. Yet if the Greeks hoped to defy the Persians, they had to control
the sea.
The presence in Ionia of a large Persian fleet offered the rebels an
opportunity. “Through guile,” Herodotus says (without telling us what
the trick was), they arrested many of the Greek tyrants who were com-
manding contingents in the fleet. The promise of equality under the law
turned the tyrants’ men into freedom fighters, and the rebels acquired at
a stroke 200 good triremes. Only after this fleet had joined the cause was
Aristagoras “in open revolt.”8

The Course of the Revolt

In the spring of 498, the Athenians reached Miletus together with five
Eretrian triremes carrying another 1,000 men. Another messenger must
therefore have approached Eretria, and we can infer still another from
Herodotus’ later remark that a city on the coast of Caria had refused the
offer of an alliance before the Sardis campaign. I suspect that the Ioni-
ans sent messengers in all directions. The Cyprians also joined the revolt
early.9
The Persians stationed in western Asia had begun to gather. Before
they had a chance to do anything, however, the Greeks launched a daring
raid on Sardis itself. Sardis’ gold would fund many ships. But the Greeks
may have had broader goals. They may have aimed to overthrow the
ideology of Lydian tyranny, taken over by the Persians. In this ideology,
74 the ionian revolt

Kybele, the Mother of the Gods, sustained the ruler responsible for her
cult. To create a free Ionia, to overthrow the ruling Persian king, the
Greeks needed to replace this goddess Kybele with their own great female
deity, Artemis of Ephesus.
Led by Ephesian guides, a large force caught Sardis unprepared and
captured the entire city without any resistance. Only the acropolis held
out. Then a Greek soldier set fire to one of the houses. The fire spread
from one highly flammable reed roof to another until the whole city was
in flames. In the great fire, Kybele’s sanctuary burned. Unable to get out
of the city, the Lydians and Persians ran to an open market. Crowded
together, compelled to resist, the Lydians and Persians frightened the
Greeks, who returned, by night, to their ships at Ephesus. Persian re-
inforcements arrived too late to save the city. They caught up with the
Greeks at Ephesus. The Ionians deployed their troops, but were defeated
with heavy losses. The allies then dispersed to their own cities. The Per-
sians later used the burning of Kybele’s sanctuary as justification for
burning Greek temples. Achaemenid religious tolerance lasted only as
long as a people’s loyalty to the Persians lasted.
The Eretrians may have remained in the fight, but the Athenians
went home and did not come back. Nevertheless, the naval campaign of
497 began well for the Greeks. They sailed first to the north, where they
subjected Byzantium and all the other cities, then south to Caria, where
most Carians joined the alliance, and finally to Cyprus. There again the
Persians won a battle on land. Though the Ionians won a naval battle,
they sailed back to Ionia, abandoning the Cyprian cities to be reduced
by siege. Archaeologists have unearthed fascinating evidence at Paphos
in western Cyprus, where the Persians constructed a siege mound that
crossed a defensive ditch and went right up to the wall. Javelin heads and
stone balls found in the mound probably came from the defenders, while
Persian archers protecting the mound builders shot the arrows whose
three-winged heads were found in concentrations rather than scattered.
At Soloi in northern Cyprus, the Persians dug a tunnel beneath the wall
and captured the city after a siege of more than four months.
The land war in Asia also turned against the Greeks, who managed no
further joint campaigns. Instead, they faced a three-pronged assault led
the ionian revolt 75

by the three Persian commanders who chased them to Ephesus. The Per-
sians won two battles in Caria and began to recapture the cities in revolt.
Meanwhile the Persians were building warships as fast as they could.
In 495 or perhaps 494, they concentrated their land forces into one army,
manned 600 ships, and headed for Miletus. The Greeks decided to de-
fend Miletus by sea with every one of their ships, leaving the Milesians
to defend the walls. This strategy was sound. At the end of the seventh
century, the Milesians had survived 11 years of war with the Lydians, who
repeatedly destroyed their crops but had no way to challenge them at sea.
If the Greeks could maintain control of the water, they could hope to
hold Miletus.
The Greek fleet, 353 triremes in all, assembled at the island of Lade, off
the coast of Miletus. When the Persian fleet offered battle, the Ionians put
to sea. They later disagreed about what happened next, each blaming the
other. Apparently some contingents abandoned the fight and fled before
the rest, but the Persians won a complete victory in the end.
After losing this battle, the Greeks managed no more joint activity. In
494, the sixth year after Aristagoras began the revolt, Miletus fell. Its sanc-
tuary at Didyma was plundered and burned. Surviving Milesians were
deported and resettled on the Persian Gulf. The Persians kept the plain
and the land around the city for themselves. At Athens a play called The
Fall of Miletus reduced its audience to tears. As they wept for Miletus, the
Athenians probably thought just as much about their own future.
One by one the Persians took the rebellious cities. Some submitted,
others were captured. The Persians left Samos unharmed—proof, per-
haps, of the story that they had guaranteed safety if the Samians aban-
doned the Greek cause at Lade. The other major islands off the coast were
captured and “netted.” (Netting meant forming a human chain and walk-
ing across the island from one side to the other in order to catch every
person on the island—not always literally possible, but the idea is clear.)
The Persians carried out their threats. They castrated the best-looking
boys, took the prettiest virgins for the king, and burned the cities and
their sanctuaries. The fleet continued north all the way to the entrance to
the Black Sea, where the Byzantians fled before the Persians arrived. By
the end of 493, the Ionian Revolt had passed into memory.
76 the ionian revolt

Artaphrenes summoned representatives from the Greek cities to a

meeting. He compelled them to agree to submit their disputes to arbitra-
tion, rather than, in Herodotus’ phrase, “pillaging and plundering one
another.” Scholars have thought Artaphrenes must have had in mind
private squabbles rather than disputes between cities, because so few are
known. But as Persians got to know Greeks, they must have realized what
a remarkably predatory culture Greeks had. When Chian survivors from
the battle of Lade managed to reach the territory of Ephesus, for instance,
the Ephesians jumped to the conclusion that they were hostile raiders
and slaughtered them all. Artaphrenes coerced the Greeks into accept-
ing the principle of arbitration to resolve their differences. Then he reas-
sessed the tribute on the basis of a new survey of their land. The overall
amount each city owed did not change much, but the survey clarified the
boundaries. Herodotus links this survey closely to the required arbitra-
tion and admits that “these policies contributed to peace.”10
This Persian settlement, a combination of harsh reprisals and a will-
ingness to listen to Greek concerns, proved quite successful. The Ionians
participated as loyal subjects in the Persian invasions of mainland Greece
in 490 and 480, when the majority of them fought well at the battle of
Salamis. The Ionians did not revolt again until the Greek fleet landed in
Asia in 479.

Two Enigmatic Figures: Histiaios and Miltiades

Two Greek tyrants, Histiaios of Miletus and Miltiades of Athens, played

puzzling roles in this story of revolt and reconquest. What Herodotus
says about their actions and especially their motives probably goes back
to what they said themselves or what their enemies said about them. Both
tried to present themselves as patriotic Greeks, though both had pros-
pered under Persian rule. Looking at them together illuminates the man
who led the Athenians at Marathon.
“It is said,” Herodotus reports, that when Darius learned about the
burning of Sardis (spring 498), he asked who the Athenians were. Then
he called for a bow, shot an arrow into the sky, and prayed, “Zeus [Au-
ramazda, in Persian terms], let it be granted to me to punish the Athe-
the ionian revolt 77

nians.” He also instructed a servant to say to him three times at each

dinner, “My lord, remember the Athenians.” After giving these orders, he
summoned Histiaios and asked him whether he knew about the revolt:
How could it have happened without his knowledge? Histiaios denied
knowing anything about it and expressed doubt that the Milesians had
really revolted. If Darius would send him to Ionia, he promised to restore
order, to hand over Aristagoras, and to wear the same clothes until he
made the island of Sardinia a tribute-paying subject of the king. Darius
sent him west.11
When he reached Sardis and met with the satrap Artaphrenes, Histiaios
again denied all knowledge of the revolt. Knowing the truth, Artaphrenes
quipped, “You stitched up the shoe, and Aristagoras put it on.” That night
Histiaios escaped to the coast. He managed to cross to Chios, where the
Chians arrested him, thinking he intended to overthrow their govern-
ment. When he explained, they let him go. He told them he prompted the
revolt because Darius had plans for a population exchange between Phoe-
nicia and Ionia. He wrote a letter to certain Persians in Sardis, but his
chosen courier turned the letter over to Artaphrenes, who executed the
intended recipients. Then Histiaios talked the Chians into helping him
get back to Miletus, but by the spring of 497 the Milesians, happy to have
gotten rid of Aristagoras, did not want Histiaios back. When he tried to
get in by force, he was wounded in the thigh. He persuaded the Mytilen-
ians to give him eight triremes, which he used to seize all the ships coming
out of the Black Sea, unless they promised to obey his orders.12
After the battle of Lade—during which he remained at Byzantium,
preying on merchant ships—Histiaios continued to operate in the north-
ern Aegean, attacking islands that refused to cooperate with him. He
landed in Asia to find food for his hungry men. When a Persian force
attacked as he disembarked, he allowed himself to be captured, expect-
ing that Darius would save him. The satrap Artaphrenes feared the same
thing, so he impaled Histiaios and sent his head to Darius. One can only
imagine Darius’ feelings when he was given his friend’s head. Herodotus
says that he issued a rebuke for not bringing Histiaios to him alive. Then
he had the head washed and buried, because Histiaios had been a great
benefactor to the Persians.
78 the ionian revolt

This story might all be true. Histiaios might have resented his gilded
cage in Susa, might have wanted to assume the leadership of the revolt, and
might have been forced to take up the life of a pirate. But since Herodotus
presents him as a self-proclaimed trickster, one cannot help wondering.
Histiaios went to Ionia without any additional resources: no additional
funds, soldiers, or ships. How did he intend to end the revolt? To judge
by what he did, he planned to kill the snake by cutting off its head. With
Artaphrenes’ help, he could escape from Sardis and pretend to be shocked
when his courier, carrying incriminating letters, deserted to Artaphrenes.
He could then persuade the Chians to help him get back into Miletus.
Once there he could persuade the Milesians that it would be in their best
interest to abandon the revolt and resubmit to Darius. He could tell them
exactly what Darius would do to them—what, in the event, he did do.
Without Miletus, the other Greeks would not sustain the revolt.
This plan worked with the Chians, but not the Milesians. Thereafter
Histiaios had to improvise. His luck finally ran out. After everything that
had happened, the Great King regarded Histiaios as a great benefactor. If
he was not acting on Darius’ instructions, at least he was acting in what
the king believed to be his interest.
Miltiades, the son of Kimon, was less prominent (Figure 18). His uncle,
for whom he was named, claimed descent from the Trojan War hero
Ajax. This older Miltiades, the son of Kypselos, won the four-horse char-
iot race at the Olympic games, a clear indication of his wealth. He came
to the Chersonese at the request of the local residents, who found them-
selves in a difficult war with their northern neighbors. Athens had already
demonstrated an interest in the north by conquering a town just across
the straits. So it made sense for the locals to look to Athens, where they
might find an ambitious man who could bring sufficient reinforcements
to win the war. Miltiades ended the peninsula’s troubles by building a
wall more than four miles long across it. He ruled the area for at least
20 years. When he died, his former subjects honored him with equestrian
and athletic contests, as well as with the sacrifices traditionally given by
Greek cities to their founders.
Having no heirs, Miltiades left the Chersonese to his nephew. When
the nephew was assassinated, perhaps in 515/4, the Athenian tyrants sent
the ionian revolt 79

18. Herm of Miltiades, a Roman copy of a fourth-century BC original (Museo

Nazionale di Ravenna, inv. no. 347; photo inv. no. AFS-RA001880, by permission
of the SBAP-Ravenna [MiBAC-Italia]; further reproduction or duplication by any
means is prohibited)

out his brother Miltiades. Born in the late 550s, Miltiades had held the
archonship in 524/3, and may have married a Peisistratid, perhaps even
Hippias’ daughter. He was close to 40 years old, with a son named Metio-
chos, when he left Athens.
Once he arrived in the Chersonese, the younger Miltiades stayed in-
doors, pretending to mourn his brother, until the leading men came to
pay their respects. Miltiades arrested them all. He then hired 500 merce-
naries and had no more trouble with the locals.
80 the ionian revolt

Miltiades accompanied Darius’ Scythian expedition in 513. When

the Scythians asked the Greeks to destroy the Danube bridge they were
guarding for Darius and go home, Miltiades favored doing as they sug-
gested, but Histiaios won over the other tyrants by pointing out that they
all depended on the Persians for their positions. The bridge remained.
Later the Scythians, exasperated by Darius, united and advanced as far as
the Chersonese, prompting Miltiades to leave. He remained in exile until
the local residents brought him back.
At some point Miltiades conquered the island of Lemnos. The Lem-
nians had once promised to hand over their land “whenever a ship sails
with the north wind and completes the journey from your land to ours
on the same day.” Miltiades sailed from the tip of the Chersonese penin-
sula to Lemnos in one day and expelled the inhabitants.13
He decided to return to Athens in 493 when he heard that the Per-
sian fleet was approaching. Earlier in the year the Persians had sailed up
the Hellespont, “capturing everything on the left bank.” Evidently they
missed some cities, for after burning Byzantium they sailed back to the
Chersonese to destroy those remaining. Herodotus says they subdued all
the cities in the Chersonese except the one in which Miltiades lived. He
loaded all his possessions on five triremes and set out. He encountered
the enemy fleet as he cleared the Chersonese, but managed to escape with
four ships to Imbros; the Persians captured the fifth ship, the one com-
manded by his son Metiochos, whom they took to Darius. Instead of
punishing him, the Great King gave Metiochos a house, property, and a
Persian wife who bore him children regarded as Persians. Miltiades him-
self reached Athens safely.14
Miltiades was a divisive figure. He was put on trial twice, once in 493
after he reached Athens and again in 489 after he led an unsuccessful at-
tack on Paros. What Herodotus heard about him probably goes back to
these prosecutions and defenses. What sense can be made of his career in
the north?
Scholars have not sufficiently appreciated how remarkable Metio-
chos’ fate was. It is true that Herodotus regularly describes the Persian
kings as generous to defeated enemies. It was a Persian custom to honor
the sons of kings even if their fathers had revolted. Yet what Darius did
the ionian revolt 81

for Metiochos surpasses what Persian kings did for others. His treatment
of Metiochos suggests a reward, rather than a display of generosity. It
looks to me as if Darius regarded Metiochos—and therefore his father
too—as a loyal servant.
Miltiades’ presence on the Scythian campaign shows that he had ac-
cepted Persian authority. His alleged willingness to abandon Darius in
Scythia cannot be confirmed or refuted, but even if it is true that Miltia-
des favored destroying the bridge over the Danube he would only have
been following Darius’ own instructions.
It seems likely that the Scythians crossed the Danube after Darius
went home, but unlikely that they came as far as the Chersonese. It seems
likely that Miltiades left the Chersonese, but unlikely that he was fleeing
from the Scythians. The story sounds like a prosecutor’s version of what
happened. Perhaps it was then that Miltiades went to the court of the
Thracian king Oloros to marry the king’s daughter, and the Chersone-
sians who brought Miltiades back from exile served as an honorary escort
accompanying bride and groom on their return journey. Perhaps Miltia-
des and some Chersonesians had joined Megabazos on his campaign in
Thrace. Megabazos advanced along the coast before turning inland along
the Strymon River. He did not compel the Thracians around Mount Pan-
gaion to submit, which probably means they came over voluntarily. If
Oloros was related to the Athenian historian Thucydides son of Oloros,
who owned gold mines in Thrace, part of his kingdom was probably in
this area. It does not require much imagination to envision Miltiades and
Oloros meeting while in Persian service and agreeing to a marital alliance.
If the prosecution at Miltiades’ trial then charged him with fleeing from
the Scythians, he would have found himself in a difficult position. If he
wanted to refute the charge of cowardice, he would have to explain how
he arranged his marriage while helping to expand the Persian Empire.
Miltiades is not mentioned in connection with the Persians’ expe-
dition to Naxos, nor did Aristagoras’ purge of the Ionian tyrants reach
as far as the Chersonese. Herodotus’ blanket statement that the Ionians
“sailed to the Hellespont and made Byzantium and all the other cities
there subject to themselves” probably did not include Miltiades’ towns.
By that time Athens had abandoned the revolt.15
82 the ionian revolt

Miltiades probably took advantage of the disruptions in the Aegean to

capture the island of Lemnos. The Persians conquered both Lemnos and
Imbros in about 512. If Lemnos was in revolt when Miltiades conquered
it, then he did not attack a Persian territory. Like Aristagoras and Histi-
aios, he might have hoped that Darius would allow a loyal Greek tyrant to
expand his area of influence. Lying southwest of the Chersonese, Lemnos
was a stopping point on the trade route between Athens and the Black
Sea. Imbros, another island on that route, was a safe harbor for Miltiades
when he fled in 493, which may imply that he had subdued it as well.
Darius might have allowed this expansion. But at the end of the re-
volt, his field commanders took a harsh line toward the Greeks. Histiaios
lost his head before he had a chance to make his case to Darius. Miltiades
may have feared the same fate, especially when he heard that a Greek
from Paros had denounced him to the Persians, and even more when
the Persian fleet started to capture his cities. Perhaps I am too much in-
fluenced by my life with a teenage son, but I can hear a family argument,
Metiochos disagreeing with his father, arguing that their main city,
Kardia, had not been touched, yielding to his father’s demand that they
get out while they could, and then deserting and going Persian. Miltiades
continued on to Athens. This time, he did burn his bridge.
Miltiades knew what Athens faced. Though Herodotus does not de-
scribe the fighting in detail, the Ionian Revolt showed that the formidable
Persian cavalry could charge and defeat Greek infantry. The Persians won
each of the five known battles on land. Most of the time the Greeks of
Asia and the islands did not even go out to fight: They tried to withstand
a siege, or abandoned their cities, or capitulated. Islanders could survive
a Persian siege—Naxos proved that—but most cities fell to Persian siege
techniques. Naxos held out only because the besiegers ran out of supplies.
Miltiades knew all this, and must have thought long and hard about what
to do when the Persians came. They would come. The Athenians had
broken their oaths and attacked Sardis. No Great King would forget.
 chapter 4

Darius and the Greeks of Europe

Events in Greece

B
y the end of summer 493, as the Persians finished securing the
European side of the Hellespont and the Aegean coast, Darius
instructed the tribute-paying cities on the coast to build warships
and horse transports. He also sent heralds to the Greek cities asking for
earth and water. His request amounted to a blunt “Are you with us or
against us?” All the islands approached by his representatives, including
Aegina, submitted. Many mainland cities did too. Thebes later claimed to
have been the first to give earth and water.
Two cities reacted violently. Herodotus mentions the fate of the
heralds to Athens and Sparta only briefly in a digression to explain why
Xerxes did not send heralds to them in 481: “When Darius had sent her-
alds to these cities some years before, the Athenians had cast these her-
alds, when they made their request, down into a pit, and the Spartans
had thrown theirs into a well; and the heralds were told to take their
earth and water to the King from there!” Late sources add some inter-
esting names. Miltiades proposed executing the heralds at Athens, while
Themistokles—the man who later devised the winning strategy against
Xerxes—proposed executing the interpreter as well.1
84 darius and the greeks of europe

Why did the Athenians and Spartans respond so harshly to Darius’

heralds? Greeks normally treated heralds with respect. Herodotus rejects
the idea that the Athenians were punished when the Persians ravaged
their land and city in 480, but he blames the death of two Spartans on
the wrath of Talthybios (Agamemnon’s herald, who was worshipped at
Sparta). Why didn’t they just refuse to submit and send the heralds on
their way?
We know little about Athens after the 20 Athenian ships returned
home in 498. Some scholars have seen Athens as deeply divided, theoriz-
ing that many Athenians regretted their switch to an anti-Persian pol-
icy and thought it might be wise to accept Hippias back, while others
remained hostile to Persians and tyrants. It appears, for instance, that
the Athenians permitted Hippias’ relatives to return. They elected Hip-
parchos the son of Charmos, probably Hippias’ grandson, eponymous
archon in 496. An altar to Apollo Pythios dedicated by Hippias’ son Pei-
sistratos might belong to the 490s, which would strengthen the case that
Peisistratids were back in town.
Where would Miltiades stand? As soon as he reached Athens safely
in the summer of 493, his opponents put him on trial. Using an Athe-
nian law that disenfranchised anyone who tried to become a tyrant, they
charged him with tyranny in the Chersonese. If the stories in Herodo-
tus can serve as a guide to the prosecution and defense in the case, the
prosecutors claimed that the law applied to any Athenian, wherever he
was. They argued that Miltiades acted as a tyrant by keeping a permanent
force of 500 mercenaries. They claimed that Miltiades was a friend of the
Peisistratid tyrants, since Peisistratos had supported his uncle’s original
trip and Hippias had given Miltiades a trireme. They branded him a cow-
ard who had fled from the Scythians, and they faulted him for submitting
to Darius. We can also see how Miltiades responded. He reminded the
Athenians that his father chose exile rather than life under the Peisistra-
tids, who eventually had him murdered. He said that he hired troops to
protect the Chersonese, not himself. He maintained that he was no tyrant
and that he ruled no Greek cities. Even if he did, the law did not apply
to an Athenian in the Chersonese. And finally, he had acted as indepen-
darius and the greeks of europe 85

dently of Darius as he dared. His flight from the Persians demonstrated

his anti-Persian credentials.
He was acquitted. But as a man under some lingering suspicion, Mil-
tiades had good reason to take a tough line against the Persians. He and
Themistokles succeeded in persuading the Council to take a strong stand,
one that would be difficult to reverse. The execution of the heralds com-
mitted the Athenians to fighting Persia.
Spartan history in the 490s is equally opaque. Most of what we hear
concerns Kleomenes. The two kings, Kleomenes and Demaratos, had
disagreed during the aborted invasion of Attica in 506. Kleomenes lis-
tened to Aristagoras in 499/8, but eventually decided against helping the
Ionians. He won a great victory against Argos about 494, after which he
burned a sacred grove where many Argives had taken refuge. Accused of
accepting a bribe not to take the city, he was acquitted, though Herodo-
tus could not tell whether the charge was true or false. Mutual hostility
to Aegina, friend of Argos, may have nudged Sparta and Athens together
in opposition to Persia. I suspect that Kleomenes, like Miltiades, meant
to make an irrevocable decision by killing Darius’ heralds. Demaratos
would have been irked, judging by what happened next.
When the Athenians heard that the Aeginetans had given earth and
water, they thought that the Aeginetans intended to join the Persians in
attacking Athens. They went to Sparta and accused the Aeginetans of be-
traying Greece. Kleomenes promptly crossed over to Aegina and tried
to arrest the men most responsible for Aeginetan policy. But Demaratos
wrote a letter to Krios, a prominent Aeginetan whose name meant “ram,”
informing him that Kleomenes did not have the Spartan assembly’s sup-
port for his actions. Demaratos alleged that the Athenians had bribed
Kleomenes. Krios stood up to Kleomenes and refused to let him arrest
anyone. Kleomenes asked him his name. When the Aeginetan told him,
Kleomenes snarled, “Well then, Krios, cover your horns in bronze, since
you are about to encounter great trouble.”2
Kleomenes returned to Sparta and found that Demaratos had deni-
grated him while he was away. Furious, Kleomenes found a way to de-
pose his fellow king. Demaratos’ father, childless with his first two wives,
86 darius and the greeks of europe

had tricked a friend into giving him his wife, believed to be the most
beautiful woman in Sparta. She gave birth to Demaratos fewer than nine
months later. When the king heard the news, he counted the months on
his fingers and blurted out, with an oath, “He could not be my own son!”
He later came to believe that Demaratos really was his son, born pre-
maturely. When he died in 515, Demaratos inherited the kingship. Now,
more than 20 years later, Kleomenes learned that a relative of Demara-
tos named Leotychidas was willing to accept Kleomenes’ policy against
Aegina if he replaced Demaratos as king. At Kleomenes’ urging, Leoty-
chidas accused Demaratos of being illegitimate. The Spartans decided to
resolve the dispute by consulting the Delphic oracle. Kleomenes bribed
the priestess to give the answer he wanted. After being publicly mocked
by Leotychidas at a midsummer festival in 492, Demaratos left Sparta. Af-
ter some adventures, he ended up at the court of the Persian king, where
Darius welcomed him and gave him property in Asia.3
Kleomenes took Leotychidas with him to Aegina, where they selected
ten wealthy Aeginetan aristocrats, including Krios, and gave them to the
Athenians as hostages. The rest of the Kleomenes story reflects what his
friends and enemies said about him. When his plot against Demaratos
was discovered, Kleomenes went to Thessaly and then to Arcadia, where
he tried to rally the Arcadians against Sparta. The Spartans brought him
back in alarm, but he had gone mad. His family locked him into wooden
stocks because he kept shaking his staff in people’s faces. Somehow he got
a knife and “started to mutilate himself, beginning from his shins. Cut-
ting his flesh lengthwise, he proceeded to his thighs, and from his thighs,
his hips, and then his sides, until he reached his abdomen, which he thor-
oughly shredded and then died.” Herodotus reports no fewer than four
Greek explanations. Many Greeks blamed his death on the fact that he
had bribed the Delphic priestess; the Athenians said he had ravaged sa-
cred ground in Eleusis; the Argives said he had executed men who had
taken sanctuary in the sacred grove and then burned the grove; the Spar-
tans said he had become an alcoholic after learning to drink undiluted
wine from Scythian ambassadors. The alleged madness of Kleomenes has
prompted more than a few people, in the modern age of conspiracy theo-
darius and the greeks of europe 87

ries, to read between the lines: Was Kleomenes assassinated and the plot
covered up?4

Mardonios

The Ionian Revolt postponed Persian expansion to the west, but it soon
resumed. The forces that finished suppressing the revolt in 493 were dis-
banded. To lead a new expedition across the Hellespont, the king picked
Mardonios, who was simultaneously Darius’ nephew, brother-in-law,
and son-in-law: His mother was Darius’ sister, his sister was one of Da-
rius’ wives, and he had recently married one of Darius’ daughters.
At the beginning of the spring of 492, Mardonios left Susa for the
coast, traveling more than 1,000 miles in perhaps two months. After as-
sembling an army and a fleet in Cilicia, he went by ship to the Hellespont
while subordinate commanders marched by land. He needed two or three
weeks to sail approximately 600 miles to Miletus. As he proceeded up the
Ionian coast, Mardonios stopped at the Greek cities, deposed the tyrants,
and established democracies. Exactly how long this took we do not know,
but the army needed at least six to eight weeks to walk from Cilicia to the
Hellespont. It might have been mid-July or even early August before the
joint forces crossed to Europe.
Herodotus describes the results as “disgraceful failures” and says
Darius replaced Mardonios “since he had failed on his expedition.” Does
Mardonios deserve such a pejorative legacy? Eretria and Athens were the
pretext for the expedition, but Herodotus says the Persians intended “to
subdue as many Greek cities as they could.” There is no good reason to
doubt that Darius intended to conquer mainland Greece. Even if we re-
ject the tale that his wife Atossa had advised him to conquer Greece more
than 20 years earlier, plenty of evidence demonstrates an interest in the
west: Democedes’ reconnaissance mission along the Aegean coast, up the
Adriatic, and over to Italy; the request for earth and water from the Athe-
nian ambassadors in 506; Megabazos’ campaign in 500, intended to take
the Cycladic islands and even Euboea; and Histiaios’ promise to capture
Sardinia.5
88 darius and the greeks of europe

Perhaps Darius underestimated the length of time Mardonios would

need. If so, Xerxes benefited from his experience. Setting out from Sardis
rather than Susa in the spring of 480, Xerxes reached Athens by late sum-
mer. Alternatively, Mardonios was sent simply to push as far as he could.
The king may already have had in mind the island-hopping expedition
that ended at Marathon in 490. A logical strategy would be first to con-
solidate gains in the northern Aegean, second to conquer the rest of the
Aegean islands, and third to punish Eretria and Athens before conquer-
ing the rest of mainland Greece.
Mardonios’ navy and army operated separately. The navy subjugated
Thasos without any resistance before it ran into a powerful north wind
as it attempted to sail around Mount Athos. It was said that savage crea-
tures (sharks?), rocks, drowning, and the cold destroyed 300 ships and
20,000 men. This story is credible, though I wouldn’t insist on the num-
bers. The rough coast, sudden strong winds from the north, sharks, cold
water brought by a storm, all fit the Athos peninsula, even in summer.
Xerxes took extreme measures to avoid a similar disaster: He dug a canal
across the peninsula so he would not have to sail around it. The project
took three years.
The navy likely had other successes to its credit. After ferrying the
army across the Hellespont, it probably visited the other islands in the
northern Aegean before reaching Thasos. After the storm, it may have
continued west to a rendezvous with Mardonios at the mouth of the
Haliakmon-Axios river valley in Macedon.
The infantry proceeded west by land all the way to the heart of Mace-
don. In Herodotus’ phrase, the Persians “added the Macedonians to their
already existing host of slaves.” The Macedonian king Alexander most
likely submitted peacefully, since there is no evidence of fighting with the
Macedonians. Macedon became a formal part of the satrapy of Thrace.
During the night, a Thracian tribe called the Brygoi attacked the Persian
camp. The Brygoi lived east of the Axios River in what is now southern
FYROM (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia). Though Mardonios
himself was wounded, he counterattacked and did not leave the area until
he had subjugated the Brygoi. Herodotus says he later told Xerxes that he
advanced as far as Macedon, a short distance from Athens, and “no one
darius and the greeks of europe 89

came out to face us in battle.” From Darius’ perspective, the campaign

succeeded: “All the peoples as far as Thessaly,” Herodotus later admits,
“had been enslaved and forced to pay tribute as subjects of the king after
the conquests of Megabazos and, later, Mardonios.”6
Mardonios had set the stage for the invasion of Greece.

Datis and Artaphrenes

During preparations for the next campaign, Darius ordered the Thasians
to demolish their city wall and send their long ships to Abdera. Their
neighbors (the Abderitans?) had accused them of planning a revolt.
Thanks to their gold mines, both on the mainland and on the island,
the Thasians enjoyed a regular annual income of 200 talents, or 300 in
a good year. For comparison, the first Persian provincial district on
Herodotus’ list, comprising the Ionians, Magnesians, Aeolians, Carians,
Lycians, Milyans, and Pamphylians, paid the Great King a combined to-
tal of 400 talents a year. So it is not surprising that Darius took advantage
of the opportunity to put wealthy Thasos more firmly under his thumb.
The Thasians complied without protest and brought their ships to Ab-
dera, a relatively young city founded by Ionians who did not want to
submit to Cyrus. In Darius’ day, Abdera accepted Persian sovereignty,
and it remained loyal to Xerxes, who was hosted at Abdera on his way to
Greece and again on his way back. One citizen quipped that they should
thank the gods that the king ate only once a day, for Abdera would have
been bankrupted had it been asked to provide lunch as well as dinner.
Thasos too remained loyal as well as prosperous, able to spend a rumored
400 talents on the king’s dinner in 480.7
Darius named two new commanders for the anticipated expedition
in 490: his nephew Artaphrenes, son of his brother Artaphrenes, and
Datis, a Mede whose ancestry is unknown. Why two? Darius had used
single generals before, such as Megabazos in Thrace in 513 and Mardo-
nios in Thrace and Macedonia in 492. Herodotus treats Datis as the real
commander, so Artaphrenes might have been sent to keep an eye on
him. Alternatively, Artaphrenes might have been put in command of a
subsidiary unit, such as the fleet or the cavalry (locals at Marathon later
90 darius and the greeks of europe

showed travelers what they said were the stone mangers of Artaphrenes’
horses). Or Darius might have intended the two to divide their forces at
some point, as the three commanders who first chased the Ionian rebels
to Ephesus had done.
Datis was a Mede, not a Persian. Cyrus the Great had defeated the
Medes, to whom the Persians were related so closely that the Greeks often
did not distinguish them. A Greek who took the side of the Persians was said
to “medize.” Some Medes held powerful posts under Persian kings. Cyrus,
for example, left a Mede to finish the conquest of the Greeks after Sardis
fell, and when he died of an illness, Cyrus appointed another Mede to
replace him. So Datis the Mede’s appointment was not unprecedented.
Neither Datis nor Artaphrenes was a particularly young man, since
both had sons who commanded contingents of Xerxes’ forces in 480.
Both men had prior experience with Greeks. A quotation from the lost
historian Ktesias, a Greek doctor who worked at the Persian court in the
late fifth century, says that Datis returned from the Black Sea in command
of the fleet. He had also gone to Sardis in 494 on a mission from the king,
for one of the tablets found in an archive at Persepolis reads: “Datiya
received 70 quarts beer as rations. He carried a sealed document of the
king. He went forth from Sardis [via] express [service], [he] went to the
king at Persepolis. 11th month, year 27.” Among all the persons receiving
rations attested in this archive, only Parnaka (the king’s uncle and the
chief economic official of Persia) and Gobryas (father of Mardonios) got
more than Datiya (= Datis), with 90 and 100 quarts respectively. Because
Datis had travel orders from the king, he was on the return leg of a round
trip to Ionia that began and ended in Persepolis. The date falls between
January 17 and February 15, 494, just before the final campaign. Given this
previous service, he would have been well-informed about Greeks be-
fore assuming the command in 490. As for Artaphrenes, he had probably
lived with his father, the satrap in Sardis during the Ionian Revolt.8

The Expedition Departs

Datis and Artaphrenes left the king in Susa in the spring, say mid-March,
and brought a large, well-equipped army to Cilicia, the Persians’ regular
gathering point. The fleet, including ships (re)built as horse transports
darius and the greeks of europe 91

(the earliest known example of boats carrying horses), met them there.
They put the horses on the transport vessels, the army embarked, and the
entire force sailed with 600 triremes for Ionia.
So says Herodotus, without any more precise numbers. Simonides,
a poet of the early fifth century, mentions 90,000 men; Lysias and Plato,
a century later, say 500,000. The writers of the Roman era give 200,000
(Cornelius Nepos) and 600,000 (Justin). Pausanias says that 300,000 died
at Marathon. The one source to lower Herodotus’ ship numbers is Plato,
who speaks of 300 triremes.9
No one puts much stock in the later writers. Within a few years the
Athenians were boasting that “we alone of the Greeks fought the Persian
all by ourselves and not only survived such a remarkable endeavor, but
won a victory over 46 nations.”10 Over time, the opponent’s numbers
multiplied in the telling.
Trying to deduce the size of the Persian land forces from Herodotus is
tricky. At the standard Classical figure of 200 men per trireme, Herodotus
has in mind at least 120,000 men on the triremes, plus men and horses on
the transport ships. But as we saw in chapter 3, 600 may be a stock figure
meaning nothing more precise than a large number. Or Herodotus might
be using “triremes” loosely. Since triremes had little storage room, supply
vessels must have accompanied them. Perhaps Datis had 300 triremes, as
Plato says, and 300 other ships. Between 478 and 331, the most common
size of Persian fleets is 300 triremes.
In either case, we do not really know how many men these early tri-
remes carried, nor can they have been fully loaded given their mission to
bring back Eretrian and Athenian captives. The highest number of sol-
diers ever attested on triremes is 40. If each trireme had 60 rowers and
40 soldiers, 300 triremes would have had 18,000 rowers and 12,000 sol-
diers; 600 triremes could have carried 36,000 rowers and 24,000 soldiers.
These figures can serve as outside limits. Some scholars argue for a
number on the higher end, believing that the Persians must have planned
on fighting the combined forces of Athens and Sparta at a minimum. But
the Persians might have expected few Greeks to fight at all, and they could
always sail away as long as they controlled the sea. Various scholars have
maintained that the 6,400 who eventually died at Marathon represented
most of the middle third of the Persian line, implying a total fighting
92 darius and the greeks of europe

force of perhaps 20,000. But was the Persian center a literal third? Major
General Frederick Maurice estimated that the water supply at Marathon
could have sustained a force of 16,000 for a week, but not a significantly
larger force. To my mind, this is as good a figure as any.
The number of horses is unknown: Estimates have ranged from zero
to 10,000, the figure given twice by Cornelius Nepos. Later Athenians
converted old triremes into transports that carried 30 horses each. But
even if we knew how many Persian ships carried horses (which we don’t),
they were not triremes, for Herodotus counts them among Xerxes’ 3,000
smaller vessels. Most likely the Persian transports carried a handful of
horses each.
The transports also carried food and water for the animals. Estimates
for the horses’ daily rations vary from 12 to 21 pounds of hard fodder,
such as barley, and 14 to 55 pounds of green or dry fodder, such as hay.
They drank four to eight gallons of water each day, perhaps more at the
peak of the sweltering Aegean summer. Persian planners must have an-
ticipated feeding and watering the horses for several months. Springs,
rivers, and wells could supply much of the water, but the Aegean islands
lacked good pastures, and, in any case, horses shifted suddenly to pastur-
age can develop debilitating or even fatal colic. The Persians must have
brought plenty of grain and hay. As it happens, the Roman naturalist
Pliny says that alfalfa hay was introduced to Greece “from Media at the
time of the Persian wars that Darius waged.”11 Presumably Persian horse
droppings left fertile seeds.
Given the challenges of feeding horses and keeping them healthy,
the Persians would have taken enough to counter whatever cavalry they
might have to face, but not many more. How many horsemen would
they have imagined opposing them? On most islands, there were none to
speak of. Homer has Telemachos decline an inappropriate gift from his
host Menelaos of Sparta in the following diplomatic words:
I will not take the horses to Ithaka, but will leave them
here, for your own delight, since you are lord of a spreading
plain, there is plenty of clover here, there is galingale,
and there is wheat and millet here and white barley wide grown.
There are no wide courses in Ithaka, there is no meadow;
darius and the greeks of europe 93

a place to feed goats; but lovelier than a place to feed horses;

For there is no one of the islands that has meadows for driving horses;
They are all sea slopes; and Ithaka more than all the others.

The Lelantine plain between Chalcis and Eretria on Euboea was an ex-
ception; the Eretrians had 600 horsemen. I doubt that the Persians had
as many as 1,000. If I had to guess, I’d say 800. They had to take more
than one horse per rider to make up for animals that died or became
disabled.12
Darius instructed his commanders to enslave Athens and Eretria and
to bring the captives to him. The philosopher Plato put the orders color-
fully: “Come back with the Eretrians and Athenians, if you want to keep
your head.” The plan called for avoiding the long land route around the
Aegean by sailing from island to island through the Cyclades, beginning
with Naxos, perhaps the primary target of the campaign (Figure 19). The

19. Map showing Datis’ route in 490 from Rhodes to Marathon

94 darius and the greeks of europe

Naxians had opposed the king before either the Athenians or the Eretri-
ans had acted against him; and, as Aristagoras and the Naxian exiles had
realized a decade earlier, whoever controlled Naxos would dominate the
rest of the Cyclades. But the Persian horses show that the campaign goals
went beyond the Cyclades to include at least Euboea. In short, Datis was
to carry out the plan Aristagoras had proposed to the satrap Artaphrenes
before the Ionian Revolt. Darius tempered aggression with caution, con-
solidating his current or prior holdings before expanding. After the revolt
he reconquered the Aegean coast, adding some of the nearby islands that
had supported the rebellion, and then consolidated his grip on coastal
Thrace. Now he wanted to secure the remainder of the Aegean islands
before tackling the Greek mainland.13

Rhodes

The Persian forces saw their first hostile action at Lindos, a city on the
east side of the island of Rhodes. The evidence comes not from Herodo-
tus, whose account of the campaign is highly compressed (only a couple
of pages until the Persians reach Marathon), but from a monumental
inscription cut in 99 BC and excavated by Danish archaeologists at the
beginning of the twentieth century. The text records a list of offerings
made at the sanctuary of Athena, most of which had been destroyed, and
of the goddess’s epiphanies. The first epiphany describes how Athena
saved the people from the Persian expedition sent by Darius to enslave
Greece. The Persians landed first on Rhodes and besieged the Rhodians at
Lindos. When the Rhodians had only five days of water left, one of their
leaders had a dream in which Athena encouraged him not to surrender,
saying she was going to ask her father Zeus for help. So the Rhodians
asked for a truce for five days, saying they would surrender peacefully if
nothing happened before then. Datis laughed. But when it rained heav-
ily on the acropolis the next day, he made a treaty of friendship with the
Rhodians. Saying that the gods protected them, he dedicated to Athena
the clothing he was wearing, including his jewelry, as well as a sword and
his covered carriage.
The date is not certain. Some scholars have argued for either 497,
darius and the greeks of europe 95

when the Persians first attempted to suppress the Ionian Revolt, or 495,
when the Persians were on their way to the battle of Lade. But the phrase
“for the enslavement of Greece” fits 490 best, when the Persians passed
Rhodes on their way to Greece.
Others have dismissed the entire episode as fictitious. Of the nine
authorities the inscription names, four are otherwise entirely unknown
and two are only tentatively identified with known writers. But surviv-
ing writers refer to the other three. These three were real authors, and
though none is earlier than the fourth century, the basic story is com-
pletely credible: A sudden rainstorm relieved the besieged Lindians’
thirst. If Herodotus’ silence is a hurdle to believing what the inscription
says, it’s a very low one.
The inscription tells the story from the Lindians’ perspective. While
the rain saved them from complete surrender, it is evident that they ne-
gotiated a deal with Datis. His version would have told how he spared the
city when the residents submitted, giving earth and water. Datis then en-
couraged other Greeks to submit by recognizing the Lindians’ god with
appropriate gifts. Easterners often dedicated items of personal clothing
and adornments. Datis would continue this policy at Delos.

The Cyclades

From Rhodes, the Persian fleet continued up the coast to Samos, not the
quickest route to Naxos. Perhaps the Persians needed to rendezvous with
additional ships or pick up additional supplies. Or the route may have
been a feint: If the Naxians thought that the Persian fleet was once again
proceeding north, they might not be ready for an attack.
A rapid advance from Samos caught the Naxians off guard. Remem-
bering what had happened to the Milesians and other Ionian rebels who
tried to withstand a siege, the Naxians ran for the hills. Naxos has high
mountains (the tallest is almost 3,300 feet) ideal for hiding from invad-
ers, but the Persians caught and “enslaved” some of the inhabitants. That
might mean that the Naxians were literally deported and taken away into
slavery, or only that they were forced to recognize the sovereignty of the
Persian king, since the Greeks conceptualized even high-ranking Persian
96 darius and the greeks of europe

nobles as “slaves” of the king. After burning the city and the Naxian sanc-
tuaries, the Persians sailed off. Naxian chroniclers, according to Plutarch,
later maintained that “the general Datis was repulsed after burning [. . .]
to do harm.” Despite the gap in the text, it is clear that patriotic Naxians
reframed the story.14
The Persians then sailed for the other Cycladic islands. First was De-
los. Although it was tiny—three miles long and less than a mile wide—
Delos played a major role in the region as the birthplace of the divine
twins Apollo and Artemis. A sanctuary was established soon after 700.
In the Archaic period the Greeks held a great festival, the Delia, every
four years, with athletic, musical, and dancing contests. The Ionians
and the islanders came with their wives and children. Thucydides says
that “later, naturally enough, most of the contests were stopped because
of misfortune,” though the islanders and the Athenians continued to
send choruses and offerings. Whether he means the conquest of Ionia
in the mid-sixth century or the reconquest in the 490s, the holy place
of Delos loomed large in the minds of the islanders and the Athenians
in 490.15
Datis sailed to Delos ahead of the rest of his ships. He had them an-
chor at Rhenaia, an island less than half a mile from Delos. He found the
sacred island deserted. With no mountains to hide in—the tallest hill on
Delos is only 367 feet high—the Delians had fled to a nearby island. When
Datis learned where the Delian refugees were, he sent a herald with this
message: “Holy men, why have you gone in flight and condemned me
without good reason? For I myself have enough good sense to know, and
besides the King has instructed me, not to harm the site on which the two
gods were born, nor the rest of the island or its inhabitants. Therefore
return to your homes and inhabit your own island again.”16
As he had at the sanctuary of Athena on Rhodes, the Persian com-
mander donated some of his personal ornaments as votive offerings. In-
scriptions record a gold necklace Datis dedicated. One even specifies that
it lay “against the wall.”17
Then he burned 300 talents of frankincense on the altar. The scale of
this offering supports his claim that the king had instructed him to treat
Delos with special care. The offering was so generous—7.5 tons, or 38
darius and the greeks of europe 97

camel loads—that scholars usually dismiss it as hopelessly exaggerated.

It would be easier to imagine the scene if we knew the dimensions of the
altar, but French archaeologists have found no trace of it. There were ac-
tually two altars in the sanctuary, one for wheat, barley, and cheese cakes,
and the other, composed of the horns of previously sacrificed victims, for
burnt offerings. Altars built up of the remains of sacrificial victims could
be quite large. The famous altar of Zeus at Olympia, composed solely of
ashes, grew to 23 feet tall.
Grandiose as the offering would have been, the Persians had the re-
sources to make it if they wished. The Arabians gave the Persian king an
annual gift of 141 camel loads of the stuff. Of course this report might be
exaggerated too, but the figure pales in comparison to what the Roman
Empire imported: In the first century AD, 7,000 to 10,000 camel loads of
frankincense entered the Roman Empire every year. So I am prepared to
believe that Datis brought 300 talents of frankincense, which would have
fit on a single merchant ship. If it would have taken too long to burn it
all, perhaps he simply gave it to the priests for future use. But Datis need
not have been in a rush. The twin towers of smoke, one from Naxos and
the other from Delos, sent a powerful message to other Greeks. A week
spent demonstrating Persian generosity and religious toleration might
save many more days later.
Datis may also have needed to wait for ships to arrive from Asia, for
when he left Delos he took Ionians and Aeolians with him. These Greeks
from Asia did not necessarily row triremes; they might have brought
supplies.
Instead of sailing directly to Euboea, Datis divided his forces and sent
them in different directions, taking the time to conscript men and take
boys as hostages. The residents of the Cyclades islands all complied with
Persian requests. Which islands were visited? Certainly Paros, which con-
tributed a trireme to the campaign, and probably the other Cyclades too.
Since these islands had already given earth and water to the king, the Per-
sians were confirming, rather than imposing, their authority. They left no
occupying troops behind.
When the Persians reached Karystos on the southern end of Euboea,
they found a different attitude. The Karystians refused to give hostages
98 darius and the greeks of europe

or join the campaign against their neighbors, the Eretrians and the Athe-
nians. Evidently they hoped the Persians would move on, for they did
not flee into the steep hills from which came the greenish marble later
so popular among the Romans. Accepting nothing short of total com-
pliance, the Persians besieged the city and ravaged the land until the
Karystians submitted. Perhaps because other Greeks believed that Karys-
tos had voluntarily gone over to the Persians, the residents of Karystos
still take pride in this early resistance, even though it did not succeed. The
Athenians later used their behavior as an excuse first for extorting money
from them, then for ravaging their land, and finally for fighting and con-
quering them. The fact that Karystos suffered no punishment from the
Persians suggests that it capitulated fairly quickly. The longer the siege
lasted, the harder it is to understand the later belief that the Karystians
had medized.

Waiting for the Barbarian

From the moment news arrived of Datis’ attack on Naxos, the Eretrians
and the Athenians knew they were in immediate danger. In Persian eyes,
both had become followers of the Lie. The Eretrians had surely heard
about Aristagoras’ proposed expedition to take Naxos, the rest of the Cy-
clades, and Euboea, an actual expedition foiled only by stubborn Naxian
resistance. They had helped the Ionian rebels and may have contributed
larger forces and for a longer time than the Athenians did. The Athenians
had accepted Persian protection only to reject Artaphrenes’ request that
they take back Hippias. Then they sent ships to help the Ionians, par-
ticipated in the attack on Sardis, and killed a Persian herald who offered
them a second chance. Whether Darius’ servant really reminded him ev-
ery day to remember the Athenians, as they believed, scarcely matters.
The Eretrians asked the Athenians for help. Eretria was in the more
difficult position, since it was on an island. What mainland city would
send troops to an island when the Persian fleet controlled the sea? The
Athenians could not very well commit their men to Eretria, since Karys-
tos was closer to Attica than to Eretria. If Athenian troops had crossed to
Euboea, the Persians could easily have reached Athens before the citizens
darius and the greeks of europe 99

could return. The Athenians did send the 4,000 colonists who settled on
Chalcidian land after their victory in 506.
An inscribed column found just a few years ago in Thebes may ex-
plain the availability of these men. In late Archaic letters, this broken text
seems to commemorate an otherwise unknown event, the “loosening”
of Chalcis. From the Theban and Chalcidian point of view, the 4,000
Athenian settlers had oppressed Chalcis. Perhaps Thebes had loosened or
liberated Chalcis, driving the Athenians out.18
When the Athenian settlers arrived, they found the Eretrians divided
about what to do. Some wanted to flee to the hills, while others pon-
dered betraying the city to win personal rewards. Given this uncertainty,
a prominent Eretrian advised the Athenians to go to their own country
so they would not die along with the Eretrians. They took this advice,
returning not to their farms in the Lelantine plain between Eretria and
Chalcis—a confirmation that the Thebans had intervened in Chalcis?—
but to Attica, crossing the channel safely before the Persians arrived.
The Eretrians determined not to abandon their city, but to withstand
a siege.

The Persian Assault on Eretria

Datis sailed up the strait and landed his ships in Eretrian territory, not
right at the city itself, but at three places whose precise location is un-
known. The Persians unloaded their horses and prepared to attack. What
preparations did they make?
The city was fortified by a strong wall made of stone below and mud
brick above. The Persians had to go over, under, or through this barrier.
Building a mound against the wall or digging a tunnel under it would
have proceeded slowly. The assault must have been more direct, with ar-
chers trying to clear defenders from the top of the wall so men could
climb ladders or bash the gates with battering rams. So their preparations
must have included making rams and ladders. The ladders had to be built
on the spot after the attackers could see the height of the wall: too tall,
and the ladders would have been easy to throw off; too short, and the
100 darius and the greeks of europe

climbers would not have reached the top. (Think of the besieged Platae-
ans preparing to escape from a siege in the Peloponnesian War, counting
bricks in the Spartans’ circumvallation wall again and again to get the
height of the ladders right.)19
Even with skilled archers doing their best to clear the wall, men climb-
ing ladders were exposed and vulnerable. If they were knocked off, the
fall might be their last. In his Phoenician Women, Euripides describes the
fate of one such attacker vividly:
He crept up having drawn up his body under his shield,
Passing up the smooth rungs of the ladder.
Just as he reached the cornice of the wall
Zeus struck him with his bolt; the earth rang
So that all were terrified. From the ladder
He was hurled, his limbs spreading apart,
Hair toward heaven and blood toward earth.
His arms and legs like the wheel of Ixion
Spun; the fiery corpse fell to earth.

Herodotus describes the assault as “fierce.” In six days, many fell on both
sides. On the seventh day, Euphorbos son of Alkimachos and Philagros
son of Kyneas, both prominent citizens according to Herodotus but
otherwise unknown to us, “betrayed their city and surrendered it to the
Persians.” Were it not for the sequel, one might think this sentence a
pejorative description of a negotiated settlement. But the Persians looted
and burned the sanctuaries and enslaved the people, so Euphorbos and
Philagros must have opened a gate or arranged to leave part of the wall
undefended or performed some other such traitorous action. The king
later rewarded them with land, perhaps—if the Gongylos whom Xeno-
phon described as “the only Eretrian to medize” was one of their rela-
tives—near Pergamon, where Xenophon met Gongylos’ descendants.20
The Persians deported 780 Eretrians, including old men, women, and
children. Logistics ruled out taking the entire population by ship to Asia.
For the moment, the Persians deposited the prisoners under guard on the
little island of Aigilia in the strait between Euboea and Attica.21
The campaign so far had gone as planned.
 chapter 5

The Armies Arrive at Marathon

Decisions at Athens

O
ne target remained. Athens was part of Datis’ assignment all
along, as the presence of an Athenian adviser, the deposed ty-
rant Hippias, shows. Whether or not Datis intended to restore
him to power—Hippias was by now an old man, nearly 80—he would be
an invaluable resource for the campaign in Attica.
Datis rested his men for several days. He gave the Athenians one more
chance to surrender. His messenger told the Athenians that not a single
Eretrian had escaped, for as Plato puts it, his soldiers “had joined hands
and swept Eretria clean as with a net.”1
The Athenians faced a difficult choice. Though they had sent mes-
sengers “in all directions” to ask for help, only Sparta and Plataea had
responded positively. The Spartans had at least 5,000 hoplites, the best
warriors in Greece, and seven times that many light-armed, but they lived
150 miles from Athens. Plataea was closer, just across the border in Boeo-
tia, but also much smaller. Only 600 Plataean hoplites and 600 Plataean
light-armed fought in 479 at the battle of Plataea, for which they should
have produced every available man since it was fought in their own ter-
ritory. Despite being allied to Athens for a generation, they could not be
expected to send more than 1,000 men.2
102 the armies arrive at marathon

What then to do? Capitulation would mean death or deportation for

many and loss of freedom for all. Could they withstand a siege? Naxos
had managed to hold off the Persians for four months in 499. In less
than half that time, the Persians would need to sail east before the stormy
season began, for it was already August or even September. But would
the Athenians remain loyal as they watched the Persians trample their
vines, chop down their trees, grab their movable property, and burn their
houses outside the city? Eretria had just been betrayed.
For Athens, unlike Eretria, fighting was a real option. The largest of
all Greek city-states, Athens had 9,000 or 10,000 troops according to late
sources. Herodotus gives no numbers for the Athenians at Marathon. His
Athenians have 8,000 hoplites plus about 8,000 light-armed at Plataea, at
a time when the Athenians were also manning 200 or so triremes. If we
calculate ten hoplite marines per trireme, the Athenians had 10,000 hop-
lites and 8,000 light-armed. There ought to have been as many available
for Marathon. Unfortunately, we do not know whether the 4,000 men
who returned to Athens in 490 from Chalcis remained in Athens in the
480s, in which case the survivors among them would have been included
among the men available in 479, or returned to Chalcis, in which case
they would not have counted among the Athenians available for Plataea.
If they were not counted at Plataea but were present at Marathon, the
Athenian total would rise to 22,000.3
The Athenians had been talking about what to do for weeks if not
months. The Persian envoys appeared before the Council of 500, where a
proposal might be formulated and debated before it went to the Athenian
assembly for a decision by majority vote. Miltiades made the motion.
He had been elected general in the spring of 490, perhaps because
of his experience with the Persians. Just what experience he had is not
certain, beyond the time he spent waiting at the Danube for Darius to
return from Scythia. He was no tyrant in Athens. He served as one of ten
generals the Athenians elected annually, one from each of the ten Athe-
nian tribes, starting in 501. The titular commander of the army remained
the traditional polemarchos. In 490 the polemarchos was Kallimachos of
Aphidna, whose voice was to prove critical, even if he was no longer the
field commander of the army.
the armies arrive at marathon 103

Miltiades proposed that as soon as they learned where the Persians

had landed, the Athenians take provisions, leave the city to the god, and
go out to meet the barbarians. To maximize Athenian numbers, he of-
fered freedom to any slaves willing to fight.4
The motion carried.

The Persians Land at Marathon

When they learned that the Athenians refused to submit, the Persians
started to sail across to Marathon (Figure 20). No ancient evidence sup-
ports the suggestion that they timed the attack to coincide with a reli-
gious festival at Sparta when the Spartans could not send out an army.
Nor is there any reason why the Persians should fear the Spartans so. All
the Spartans had done in the past was warn Cyrus to keep his hands off
the Greeks of Asia. When he ignored their threat, the Spartans had done
nothing.
Herodotus gives two reasons why Hippias led the Persians to Mara-
thon: It was the most suitable place in Attica for horses and it was closest
to Eretria. Picky readers have objected that it was neither. The plain of
Phaleron was better for horses; Oropos was closer to Eretria. But no place
in Athenian territory was better for horses and closer to Eretria.
Hippias had in fact invaded Attica here before. Almost 60 years ear-
lier, he accompanied his father, Peisistratos, on his return from exile.
Peisistratos and sons collected money and men in Eretria, crossed to
Marathon, and then marched on Athens via the same route followed by
the Lambrakis Peace Marathon today. The first third of the trek follows
a fairly flat path south along the coast, then there’s a turn to the west and
an uphill climb for a long middle third, and the last stretch goes down-
hill to the city. Peisistratos surprised the Athenian forces resting after
their midday meal at Pallene, about two-thirds of the way to Athens, and
routed them completely.
Hippias hoped for a repeat performance.
After rounding the promontory of Kynosoura, the Persian ships
backed into the shore and tethered to stones or stakes on land. When he
reached the beach, Hippias began to sneeze and cough. One particularly
104 the armies arrive at marathon

20. Map of Attica and Euboea

violent cough sent a loose tooth right out of his mouth. He searched in
the sand, but it had disappeared among the many brown and white pieces
of rock that cover the beach. He could not find it. He then rethought his
dream from the previous night, when he dreamed he was sleeping with
his mother. At first he had interpreted the dream to mean that he would
the armies arrive at marathon 105

recover his rule and die in his native land, but now he groaned and said,
“This land is not ours, and we shall not make it subject to us, either, for
my tooth now has my share.”5
Moving the entire force from Eretria to Marathon, unloading men,
horses, and supplies, and setting up camp took several days. Plutarch says
that the booty captured after the battle included “silver and gold piled
up, all kinds of clothing and innumerable other goods in the tents and
captured ships.” Since Herodotus says nothing about the booty at Mara-
thon, Plutarch might have extrapolated this description, not unreason-
ably, from what Herodotus does say the Greeks captured in Xerxes’ camp
after the battle of Plataea: “They found tents adorned with gold and sil-
ver, couches gilded with gold and silver, golden mixing bowls, libation
bowls, and other drinking vessels. On the wagons they discovered sacks
in which they saw cauldrons of gold and silver. And they stripped the
bodies lying there of their bracelets, necklaces, and golden daggers, but
they paid no attention at all to the embroidered clothing. . . . Later, well
after these events, the Plataeans found chests made of gold and silver as
well as other goods [that presumably had been buried in the camp].” As
the Great King, Xerxes would have traveled more opulently than Datis
and Artaphrenes, but Persian nobles did not travel lightly.6
The Persian nobles and horses probably camped in the plain of Triko-
rynthos by the Makaria spring, the best source of water in the plain (see
the next chapter). Others probably slept on the beach or under the an-
cient predecessors of the umbrella pines there now.

The Oath That the Athenians Swore When They

Were About to Fight against the Barbarians

If the Athenians had lookouts and fire signals, the news reached the
city a few minutes after the Persian ships landed. The generals had the
trumpeter blow his trumpet to summon the men to the usual marshal-
ing place, the gymnasium of Apollo Lykeios east of the city. We do not
know how many of the 18,000 to 22,000 available men answered the call.
If the Athenians sent 16,000 men to Plataea in 480, they ought to have
had at least as many at Marathon. The late sources that mention 9,000
106 the armies arrive at marathon

or 10,000 Athenians probably counted only citizen hoplites required to

serve on the basis of their wealth (ability to afford armor). Sometimes,
however, the Athenians declared a campaign that welcomed all volun-
teers, whether they were fully equipped or not. Marathon was surely
one such campaign. To magnify the glory of the victory, Greek writers
understate Greek numbers even as they exaggerate Persian numbers. As
William Mitford observed in the eighteenth century, “later writers have
not less contradicted probability in diminishing the Grecian than in ex-
aggerating the Persian force.”7 The numbers were probably about even.
When the men had gathered and sorted themselves into their ten
tribes, they sacrificed to the gods and prayed for victory. They then per-
formed a unique ceremony. They placed their shields over the sacrificed
animals, bringing each shield into direct or indirect contact with a vic-
tim, so that soldiers would see on their shields a bloody warning of what
would happen to them if they broke their vows. The piles of shields also
demonstrated their solidarity in this crisis. At the sound of the trumpet,
they swore to fight to the death, not to desert their officers, to follow
the generals’ commands, and to bury their dead on the battlefield. They
guaranteed special treatment for their allies Sparta and Plataea, even if
they became enemies, and kept the door open for other cities to join the
fight. They invoked blessings if they kept their word, but curses if they
broke it: “If I keep true to what has been written in the oath may my city
be free from sickness, if not, may it be sick; and may my city be unrav-
aged, but if not, may it be ravaged; and may my [land] bear, but if not,
may it be barren; and may the women bear children like their parents, but
if not, monsters; and may the animals bear young like the animals, but if
not, monsters.” This oath became the template for a more famous oath,
the Oath of Plataea that all the Greeks swore before the last great battle of
the Persian Wars.8

The March to Marathon

From Athens, two main routes lead to Marathon. The shorter way goes
north to Kephisia, skirts Mount Pentelikon to the west, climbs to the
village of Stamata, and then descends to the plain of Marathon either
the armies arrive at marathon 107

through the Avlona valley, passing Vrana, or between Mount Kotroni

and Mount Stavrokoraki, passing modern Marathona. European trav-
elers in the early nineteenth century followed this route on horseback.
(The Turks governing Athens regarded anyone on foot as a lowly
peasant.)
As a student at the British School in Athens in 1930, Nicholas G. L.
Hammond walked to Marathon and back to Athens on the same day, tak-
ing the even more difficult variation of this route, over the top of Mount
Pentelikon. He reached Marathon in six hours and returned in seven. He
believed he would have made even better time by going through Stamata.
When he became a distinguished Oxford historian, he maintained that
the Athenians went via Stamata. He recognized that the route was dif-
ficult, but he thought that each Athenian would have found his own way
over the hills rather than marched in column along a path.
The other main route is the one taken by Peisistratos in reverse, pass-
ing between Mount Pentelikon and Mount Hymettos, turning east over
the hills to the coast, proceeding north along the coast, and entering the
plain of Marathon in the southwest. This route is longer, about 25 miles
versus 22, but easier. It is the better choice for a large force. If Datis had
tried to march quickly on Athens, he would have taken the coastal route
and the Athenians would have intercepted him. I feel certain that the
Athenians took the longer, easier coastal route. As historian Peter Green
writes, no commander in his right mind would “have first stripped Ath-
ens of defenders, and then obligingly left the front door open, as it were,
while he led his troops up the back lane.”9
Since they were not leaving their own territory, the Athenians prob-
ably took less with them than they would have if they were going farther
afield. At a minimum, they transported armor, weapons, and some pro-
visions. An ancient Greek, smaller than his modern counterpart, needed
about 3,000 calories a day. The standard daily ration of one Attic choi-
nix of barley or (less often) wheat, weighing about 1.9 pounds, provided
some 2,800 calories. Men got the remainder from onions (soldiers’ packs
reeked of onions), cheese, salted meat or fish, and perhaps figs. The total
daily ration weighed two to three pounds. They probably brought wine,
too, since they normally drank wine mixed with water.
108 the armies arrive at marathon

They probably also brought camping supplies (not necessarily tents,

since the weather would be hot and dry), tools, and medical supplies. For
cooking, men needed either stone hand-mills, which might weigh over
60 pounds, or lighter wooden mortars and pestles, and pots or griddles
or grills. Tools might include rasps for smoothing spear shafts, files for
sharpening weapons, carpenter’s tools, shovels, mattocks, axes, and sick-
les, plus plenty of extra straps, for as Xenophon notes, “when straps break
everything stops, unless you have extras.”10
The typical hoplite did not carry all this himself. He had a porter,
usually a slave. And the Athenians had “coworkers in war,” otherwise
called “under-the-yokers,” oxen and mules and donkeys. These animals
might pull two-wheeled carts or larger four-wheeled wagons, but they
would move more quickly if they simply carried packs on their backs.11
When the Athenians reached the plain of Marathon, they camped at
the sanctuary of Herakles. Greeks often camped at sanctuaries because
they offered a critical resource during hot Greek summers: water. This
particular sanctuary had another appealing feature. It blocked the coast
road to Athens (see next chapter).
No sooner had the Athenians set up camp than the Plataeans joined
them with every available man. If they numbered as many as the 1,000
mentioned by the later sources, the figure includes light-armed.

Philippides

Before they left Athens, the generals sent Philippides, a professional dis-
tance runner, to Sparta. Probably running barefoot, Philippides reached
Sparta the day after he left Athens—that is, he covered roughly 150 miles
(on the most likely route) in not more than about 36 hours. If the story
once seemed incredible, it does no longer. In 1982, two RAF officers ran
from Athens to Sparta in 34 and 35.5 hours, demonstrating that Philip-
pides could have done what Herodotus says he did. Starting in 1983, run-
ners have competed in an annual Spartathlon. A Greek, Yannis Kouros,
set the course record of 20:29 in 1990, but hundreds of people have com-
pleted the race in less than 36 hours.
the armies arrive at marathon 109

Philippides’ route was not easy. He began on the Sacred Road through
the Kerameikos cemetery to Eleusis, the sanctuary of Demeter on the
western edge of Attica. Then he followed the coast through the Megarid
to the isthmus, including the track along the Skironian Cliffs, where the
legendary Athenian hero Theseus was said to have avoided the giant
Skiron’s kick and then pushed him off the cliff. After Corinth he would
have turned south, tackling much hillier country in the Peloponnese. He
probably crossed the Argolid plain and continued over Mount Parthe-
nion (3,986 feet) to Tegea.
On the far side of Mount Parthenion, Philippides experienced an
epiphany of the god Pan. Pan was an Arcadian deity, represented as part
human, part goat. As Philippides later reported, Pan fell in with him, called
him by name, and told him to ask the Athenians a question. “Why do
they pay no attention to me, though I like them and have already helped
them many times and will do so again in the future?”12
When he reached Sparta, Philippides asked for help. “Spartans,” He-
rodotus reports that he said, “the Athenians beg you to rush to their de-
fense and not look on passively as the most ancient city in Greece falls
into slavery imposed by barbarians. For in fact Eretria has already been
enslaved, and thus Greece has become weaker by one important city.” In
reply, the Spartans expressed their willingness to help, but said that they
could not act yet. It was the ninth of the month, and a law prevented
them from marching until the moon was full. The law in question prob-
ably applied only to the month of Karneia, during which the Spartans
celebrated the festival of Apollo that gave its name to the month. Scholars
of an earlier generation tended to dismiss Spartan religious qualms as
specious excuses for inaction, but today it is generally recognized that the
Spartans paid particular attention to the gods in their military life.13
Herodotus may not have understood all the Spartans’ concerns. In-
deed, Philippides may not have heard them. The philosopher Plato says
that the Spartans were hindered by a war against the Messenians, that
is, against their helots, most of whom came from Messenia, the region
across Mount Taygetos west of Sparta. For all his brilliance Plato was not
a very good historian. Some scholars have been reluctant to believe him
110 the armies arrive at marathon

here because no other literary evidence directly mentions a helot revolt

in 490. But various stray bits of evidence add up to a case for a revolt at
this time. The best is an inscription found on a statue base for a Spartan
dedication at Olympia. Pausanias saw and quoted this very inscription,
which he says was set up at the time of the second Messenian revolt. The
usual candidate is the famous revolt after the earthquake in the 460s. The
letter forms on the inscription, however, look decidedly earlier than 460
and would fit a revolt in 490. Of course, Pausanias could be wrong; the
inscription does not actually mention the Messenians. But worries about
homeland security would help explain why only 2,000 Spartans set out
from Sparta after the full moon. They reached Attica remarkably quickly,
on the third day after they started. So their religious scruples were en-
tirely sincere.14
Philippides had a mixed report to take back to Athens. Human help
was coming, but not yet. Would the god Pan make good on his promise?
 chapter 6

The Plain of Marathon

Geography

T
he plain of Marathon has changed a great deal in the 200 years
since Lord Byron mused there and Ottoman Turks still ruled
Greece. In the days of early European travelers, Marathon re-
tained an unspoiled, wild look. Richard Chandler, who visited Greece in
the mid-eighteenth century on behalf of the Society of Dilettanti, noted
that “this region abounds in wolves.” He sounded no less frightened of
the “large and fierce” dogs that guarded his party as they roasted a kid
goat for supper and slept under a bare rock on Mount Agrieliki. Mara-
thon positively inspired Rev. Edward D. Clarke in 1801:
And if there be a spot upon earth pre-eminently calculated to awaken the
solemn sentiments which such a view of Nature is fitted to make upon
all men, it may surely be found in the Plain of Marathon; where, amidst
the wreck of generations, and the graves of antient heroes, we elevate our
thoughts towards him “in whose sight a thousand years are but as yester-
day;” where the stillness of Nature, harmonizing with the calm solitude
of that illustrious region which was once a scene of the most agitated
passions, enables us, by the past, to determine the future. In those mo-
ments, indeed, we may be said to live for ages;—a single instant, by the
multiplied impressions it conveys, seems to anticipate for us a sense of
that Eternity, “when time shall be no more”; when the fitful dream of
112 the plain of marathon
human existence, with all its turbulent illusions, shall be dispelled; and
the last sun having set in the last night of the world, a brighter dawn than
ever gladdened the universe shall renovate the dominions of darkness
and of death.1

A visit to Marathon became part of the standard tour in Greece. On

Monday, April 11, 1870—the same year Heinrich Schliemann first visited
Marathon—Lord Muncaster’s party left Athens at 5:45 a.m. in two car-
riages, accompanied by four mounted soldiers supplied by the Greek
government. The group included four Englishmen, two women, a six-
year-old girl, an Italian with his servant, and a Greek guide. They took
the coast road, the only route suitable for carriages. Muncaster’s journal
records that they reached the Soros about 11:00 a.m. and had a picnic. The
gentlemen walked to the shore and looked for Persian remains. About
2:30 p.m. they started back to Athens. At about 4:30, as they entered a
wooded part of the road, they heard gunshots and soon found themselves
prisoners of the Arvanitakis gang, one of the most notorious bands of
klephts (thieves).
Events quickly spun out of control. The brigands released the females
and sent Lord Muncaster to get ransom for the men. They also demanded
amnesty, which the Greek government declared unconstitutional. Greek
soldiers attacked the klephts, who moved north toward Dilesi, hoping to
reach the Turkish border. They shot prisoners who could not keep up. Early
on Friday morning, April 22, Muncaster learned that the four English-
men and their Italian friend were dead. The following Sunday, Muncaster
made his way through a crowd in Athens to see something exposed on a
gallows. He soon identified seven of his captors’ mutilated heads.
In the crowd of boisterous vacationers who populate the coast of
Marathon on summer days now, it is as hard to imagine the solitude
Clarke experienced as it is to imagine being kidnapped by brigands or
fighting in a battle, unless you climb up one of the mountains that sur-
round the plain. From above it remains evocative. The bay has a pleas-
ing, crescent-shaped curve, unbroken except for a slight bump near the
middle, an irregularity that only emphasizes the harmony of the whole. It
is easy to imagine the Persian fleet rounding the thin Kynosoura (Dog’s
Tail) peninsula that shelters the bay from northeast winds and unloading
on the long, sandy beach known as Schoinia.
the plain of marathon 113

But appearances can deceive. It would be unwise to assume that the

ancient Greek coast looked pretty much as it does today, or as it did in
1800. The modern visitor to Thermopylae, to take an example familiar
from recent books and movies, may feel disappointment, for the site of
the Spartans’ last stand now sits three miles inland instead of blocking a
narrow path along the cliffs. Sediment brought down by the Spercheios
River has pushed back the Malian Gulf. Recent work by geologists sug-
gests some important changes at Marathon, too.
Schist and marble mountains surround the plain. From the south-
west, proceeding counterclockwise, they are Agrieliki (altitude 1,827 feet),
Aphorismos (1,555 feet), Kotroni (771 feet), Stavrokoraki (1,043 feet), Lin-
govouni (1,089 feet), Terokorifi (1,227 feet), Mavrokorifi (738 feet), Megali
Korifi (866 feet), Drakonera (794 feet), and the Kynosoura peninsula
(164 feet).
Water bringing down sediment from these hills created the alluvial
plain below. The most prominent of the watercourses is, or was, the
Charadra. The Charadra arose on the northern side of Mount Parnes.
When rain fell, the Charadra grew as it proceeded to the southeast. Before
the Marathon Dam cut off the water supply in the late 1920s, the Char-
adra could rush with deadly force. Colonel William Leake reported that
“in the autumn of 1805, the torrent carried away some of the houses of
the village of Seferi [on the right bank below Marathona], and destroyed
cattle and corn-fields in the great plain below.” Edward Dodwell said that
in 1806, if I understand him correctly, the Charadra overflowed, “sweep-
ing away a mill that was upon its banks, and depriving several individuals
of their lives.”2
Even if it flows irregularly, a powerful torrent can move an impressive
quantity of material. The Marathon Charadra created an alluvial fan or
fluvial delta system. At the Soros, the ground level has risen ten feet. The
alluviation increases as one moves northeast from the southwest corner
of the plain. W. Kendrick Pritchett, who was as much an expert on Greek
topography as he was on military history, reported that wells southwest of
the Soros are dug only 23 feet deep, while near the Charadra they go down
66 feet. Most recently the Charadra continued more or less directly to the
sea, entering it roughly in the middle of the bay. C. G. Higgins, an expert
in groundwater geomorphology who accompanied Pritchett on one
114 the plain of marathon

of his visits to Marathon, observed that the Charadra had at times flooded
along the slopes of both Mount Kotroni and Mount Stavrokoraki. He
found the heaviest scarring along the base of Mount Stavrokoraki, sug-
gesting that the Charadra once drained to the northeast. Two draw-
ings made more than 200 years ago support this claim. Louis-François-
Sébastien Fauvel’s sketch made in 1792 shows the Charadra hugging
Mount Stavrokoraki and reaching the sea northeast of where it does
today (Figure 21); in Giovanni Battista Lusieri’s drawing from 1801, the
Charadra zig-zags downhill between Kotroni and Stavrokoraki and then
turns east, disappearing behind Stavrokoraki rather than continuing
to the sea (Figure 3 in the Introduction). But since three different core
sample studies have found that the Great Marsh does not contain much
fluvial deposit, most of the time the Charadra passed through the middle
of the plain. The northern end has its own story.
Because it was a dynamic system, we cannot tell where the Charadra
ran in 490, nor can we tell how much of an obstacle it posed to men or
horses. During the dry summer it should not have posed any great dif-
ficulty to either. Crossing it before the battle, in other words, should have
been possible for either Persians or Greeks. Crossing it while fighting or
retreating might have been more of a problem. Since no ancient source
mentions the Charadra, it probably did not play a significant role in what
happened.
Water also reached the plain through springs. The most important
of these are the springs at the base of Mount Agrieliki (which fed a small
marsh until the Rockefeller Foundation paid for a canal to drain it in
1933), several small springs at the other side of the bay below Mount
Drakonera, and above all Megalo Mati, which still gushes powerfully
where a spur of Mount Stavrokoraki juts out toward the Megalo Helos
(Great Marsh). The remains of an old pumping station remind the visitor
that this spring once supplied water to Athens. A concrete pillbox shows
that the Germans considered it worth protecting as recently as World
War II. Megalo Mati is the Makaria spring mentioned by Pausanias.
The coastline has shifted over time. Greek geologists interested in the
effect of the Marathon Dam deduced from aerial photographs that the
coast at the former Charadra outlet receded 328 feet between 1938 and
the plain of marathon 115

21. Sketch of Marathon drawn by Louis-François-Sébastien Fauvel in 1792 (Collec-

tion Barbié du Bocage no. 1341, Bibliothèque Nationale de France)

1988, since the river no longer brought down sediment to counteract the
rising sea level.
How has the coast changed since 490? In broad terms, the history of
the plain seems to be as follows. So much water froze during the last great
ice age that at its height, 20,000 years ago, the global sea level dropped
almost 400 feet. When that ice melted, 10,000 to 8,000 years ago, the sea
level rose. The water probably reached all the way to the hills. Since then
rushing water coming down from the mountains in the Charadra and
other, smaller torrents has pushed the shore back out by depositing sedi-
ment. How fast this happened and whether the trend ever reversed before
the construction of the dam depends on many things. Increased rainfall
would lead to more alluviation, for instance, decreased rainfall to less.
Deforestation leading to erosion would increase the size of the plain. The
region is tectonically active; an uplift would expand the land, while the
opposite would bring in the sea. Currents can move sand along the coast.
Rising sea level would counteract alluviation.
116 the plain of marathon

At the southern end of the plain, Pritchett found reason to think that
the shore moved inland between the Archaic period and the Roman pe-
riod, and has since moved back out. He found Archaic and Classical sherds
in clay or sandy soil in one place near the coast. Since the surrounding al-
luvium had none, he guessed that he had found a burial mound. The Ro-
man buildings now 160 feet inland sit on a layer of clay above beachrock,
so they may have been on the coast. Pritchett supposed that the land once
extended farther out; he notes “heavy formations of beachrock” extend-
ing out into the bay. On British Admiralty Chart 1554, the contour lines
in the bay suggest that the delta once extended farther out opposite the
Soros. Indeed, the sketch of the plain published by George Finlay in 1839
shows just such a bulge in the coast, though it is small. Hauptmann von
Eschenburg, who surveyed the plain for the German map project Karten
von Attica in the winter of 1884, also shows a projection of the coast in the
middle of the bay. All this suggests that the coastline has moved, but does
not tell us where it was in 490. “Our greatest need at Marathon,” Pritchett
rightly said, “is for a geophysical map prepared by scientists who have
permission to drill.”3
For the northern end of the plain, we have just that. In fact we have
more than one. In the 1980s and 1990s, several teams drilled holes to study
the history of the Great Marsh. These studies aroused more interest than
most because of the controversy over the construction of a rowing center
for the 2004 Olympics. The studies reached similar broad conclusions.
The northern end of the plain had its own alluvial fans created by torrents
from the hills, but the hills in the east are lower and the torrents weaker
than the powerful Charadra river in the west. Largely bypassed by the
Charadra system, the eastern plain developed more slowly. Ten thousand
years ago, the sea extended much farther inland than it does today. But
after about 4000 BC, eastward littoral transport brought sand and gravel
from the Charadra delta and began to form a barrier beach. This barrier
gradually shifted southward. By 490, it was still some 1,600 feet farther
inland than it is today.
When did the beach close off a lake that turned into a lagoon that
turned into the Great Marsh? On the basis of carbon-14 dated cores drilled
at the western edge of the Great Marsh, Cecile Baeteman concluded in
1985 that the area did not become entirely dominated by a fluvial system
the plain of marathon 117

until 530 BC or AD 590 (two peat layers, though close to each other, had
distinct dates). More recently, a team led by Kosmas Pavlopoulos drilled
boreholes and dug trenches in the western part of the marsh, slightly east
of Baeteman’s. They found that communication with the sea was peren-
nial until about 1550 BC. For the next thousand years, freshwater and salt-
water conditions oscillated. At times freshwater from springs dominated,
but at other times salt water penetrated most of the lake. Since about
550—uncomfortably close to the date of the battle, given the margin of
error for carbon-14 dating—the area has no longer been inundated by
salt water. The best study, though still unpublished, may turn out to be
Richard Dunn’s, since Dunn drilled holes across the Great Marsh rather
than only on its western side. He concludes that in 490 the area was a
shallow lake or lagoon open to the sea. His results match the ancient tes-
timony of Pausanias, who describes a marshy lake connected to the sea.
After Pausanias’ visit, the area became less lake and more marsh; before
his visit, it would have been less marsh and more lake.
It remains uncertain whether in 490 the connection to the sea was
wide enough and deep enough to permit Persian ships to enter the lake.
A trireme had a rather shallow draft. Unmanned, the modern trireme
Olympias has a draft of 3.3 feet; fully manned, it is 3.9 feet. So if Dunn and
Pausanias are right, some of the Persian ships might have sheltered in the
lake (see Figure 30 for a battle plan based on Dunn’s reconstruction of
the topography).4

Ancient Descriptions of Marathon

Herodotus does not describe the plain. He says only that the Greeks
camped at the sanctuary of Herakles and pursued the Persians until
they reached the sea. Fortunately, that energetic ancient traveler Pausa-
nias visited Marathon in the second century AD. He gives the following
description:
There is a deme called Marathon, equidistant from the city of Athens
and Karystos in Euboea. It was at this place in Attica that the barbar-
ians landed, were defeated in battle, and lost some of their ships as they
put out to sea. On the plain is the grave of the Athenians, and on it are
tombstones inscribed with the names of the dead, arranged by tribes.
118 the plain of marathon
There is another grave for the Plataeans of Boeotia and for the slaves, for
slaves fought then for the first time. There is a separate monument for
one man, Miltiades the son of Kimon. . . . A trophy of white marble has
also been made. Although the Athenians say that they buried the Medes,
because the gods require a human corpse to be buried in the earth, I
could not find any grave, for there was neither a mound nor any other
trace to be seen, as they carried the corpses to a trench and threw them in
any which way. At Marathon is a spring called Makaria. . . . At Marathon
is a lake, for the most part marshy. Into this ignorance of the roads made
the foreigners fall in their flight, and it is said that this accident was the
cause of their great losses. Above the lake are the stone mangers of Arta-
phrenes’ horses, and marks of his tent on the rocks. Out of the lake flows
a river, affording near the lake itself water suitable for cattle, but near its
mouth it becomes salty and full of sea fish. A little beyond the plain is the
Hill of Pan and a remarkable Cave of Pan. The entrance to it is narrow,
but farther in are chambers and baths and the so-called “Pan’s herd of
goats,” rocks shaped in most respects like goats.

Can these places and monuments be located? Any reconstruction of the

battle depends on the answer. Let me take them up in turn.5

The Herakleion (Herakles’ Sanctuary)

Ancient Marathonians claimed that they were the first to recognize

Herakles, son of Zeus, as a god. The only fifth-century source that may
give a hint about the location of his sanctuary, Pindar, says in his victory
ode for Aristomenes of Aegina that Aristomenes also won “in the muchos
[nook, corner, recess] of Marathon.” If by this phrase he means not that
Marathon was a corner of Attica but that the sanctuary was in the corner
of the Marathon plain, Pindar provides a clue.6
For anything else we have to look hundreds of years later. Accord-
ing to Lucian of Samosata, writing in the second century AD, Herakles’
temple was “near” the tomb of Eurystheus. Where was the tomb of Eu-
rystheus? Strabo narrates Eurystheus’ death as follows: “Now Eurystheus
made an expedition to Marathon against Iolaus and the sons of Herakles,
with the aid of the Athenians, as the story goes, and fell in the battle,
and his body was buried at Gargettos, except his head, which was cut
off by Iolaus, and was buried separately at Trikorynthos near the spring
the plain of marathon 119

Makaria below the wagon road. And the place is called ‘Eurystheus’
Head.’ ” If Lucian knew this story, was he thinking of Eurystheus’ head
or his body when he spoke of Eurystheus’ tomb? Since there is no known
Herakleion at Gargettos, on the other side of Mount Pentelikon, the bet-
ter bet is the resting place of Eurystheus’ head near Makaria. But the
Athenians cannot have camped in the northeastern part of the plain, as
they came from Athens after the Persians landed at Marathon. So Lucian
must have used “near” loosely. He is not much help for locating Herak-
les’ sanctuary.7
Scholars have suggested no fewer than a half dozen possible sites for
the Herakleion, where the Greeks camped:
1. In 1876 an early topographer, H. G. Lolling, identified the stone
enclosure in the valley of Avlona, known today as Mandra tes Graias
(Old Woman’s Sheepfold), as the sanctuary’s boundary.
2. In their Commentary on Herodotus (1908), W. W. How and J. Wells
favored the convent of St. George on the spur of Mount Aphorismos
above Vrana.
3. Greek archaeologist Giorgios Soteriades advocated a large irregular
enclosure just north of the chapel of St. Demetrios.
4. N. G. L. Hammond suggested the south end of Mount Kotroni as a
possible site.
5. W. Kendrick Pritchett championed the mouth of the Vrana valley.
6. American archaeologist Eugene Vanderpool put the Herakleion in
the region of Valaria, just north of the smaller marsh.

Of these six, the first four are no longer serious candidates. The stone
enclosure turned out to be part of the estate of Herodes Atticus, a wealthy
Athenian of the second century AD. Sites two and four lack any evidence
of an ancient sanctuary. The wall of site three might very well be modern.
Of the two remaining sites, one has foundations of a small temple and of
a larger building, perhaps also a temple, but no inscriptions to connect
the buildings to Herakles. The other has inscriptions relating to Herakles,
but no foundations. Neither can be positively ruled out. Either could be
described as in a recess or corner of the valley.
At the mouth of the Vrana valley, Soteriades excavated the founda-
tions of a small temple, 36 by 20 feet, north of the chapel of St. Demetrios.
In 1969 Pritchett published a photograph of a larger foundation about
120 the plain of marathon

1,000 feet north of the chapel of St. Demetrios and about 330 feet west of
Soteriades’ temple. He argued that this corner of the plain was devoted to
sanctuaries and graves. The temple foundations could belong to Athena
Hellotis, Dionysos, or Apollo Pythios; ancient sources attest sanctuaries
at Marathon for each of these gods. Or one of the foundations might be-
long to Herakles. A Herakleion here would make sense for an army com-
ing by the shorter route from Athens via Stamata. A natural route would
bring the Plataeans here too. The camp would protect the shorter route
to Athens and flank the coastal route.
Soteriades saw an inscribed stone in the courtyard of a house in Mara-
thona. The homeowner told Soteriades that he discovered it in 1930 in
his vineyard just north of the smaller marsh. The stele had two Archaic
inscriptions. When he published them in 1942, Vanderpool dated the
inscription on the back to the early fifth century on the basis of its let-
ter forms. It contained regulations for the Herakleia, the contests held
in honor of Herakles. Though damaged, the first 12 lines of the inscrip-
tion can be read. They say: “For the Herakleia at Marathon a board of
commissioners are to hold the contest. Thirty men are to be chosen for
the contest from among those present, three from each tribe, who are to
promise in the sanctuary to help in arranging the contest to the best of
their ability and who are to be not less than thirty years of age. These men
are to take the oath in the sanctuary over victims. To serve as steward
[illegible].” In 1966 Vanderpool revealed what he had thought a quarter
century earlier but refrained from saying out of respect for Soteriades,
who had given him permission to publish the inscription. Vanderpool
suggested that the stone’s findspot indicated the Herakleion’s approxi-
mate position. The inscription turned up only a few yards south of where
the nineteenth-century German survey of Attica, the Karten von Attika,
noted a foundation and building fragments.8
Not all scholars were persuaded, since the stone might have been
moved from its original position. Then, in 1972, a second inscription was
discovered built into a late Roman building in the same area. This in-
scription is a simple dedication to Herakles. As one colleague remarked
to Vanderpool when he heard the news, “Two Herakles inscriptions are
more than twice as good as one Herakles inscription.”9
the plain of marathon 121

There remains one more relevant inscription, the one containing the
Marathon epigrams. Greek epigrapher Angelos P. Matthaiou recently
clarified this important text. In his interpretation, based on the discov-
ery of a new fragment, the epigrams formed part of a cenotaph erected
in Athens, a replica of the monument erected on the mound at Mara-
thon. One of the epigrams refers to the Athenians standing in front of
“the gates.” Matthaiou connects this phrase to the dedicatory inscrip-
tion mentioned in the previous paragraph, where he interprets a difficult
phrase as referring to the Herakleia Empulia (the games in honor of Her-
akles at the gates, deriving the adjective “Empulia” from pule or gate). A
Herakleion at the relatively narrow southern exit from the plain would
be “at the gates.” Compare Thermopylae, the hot gates, an even narrower
road on the coast.
In my judgment, the best choice based on current evidence is Van-
derpool’s site. An Athenian camp there would have blocked the main
road to Athens.

The Deme of Marathon

The deme or village of Marathon is even more elusive than the Herakleion.
In population Marathon was the ninth largest of the 139 Athenian demes.
So where was it? Archaeologists and topographers have found nothing
definitive, which is perhaps not surprising in a plain with so much al-
luviation. In less than a decade, Pritchett advocated no fewer than three
different sites. In 1965, he commented that “whoever suggests a site for
the deme of Marathon today does so on a purely speculative basis.”10
The candidates are:
1. Marathona, between Mount Kotroni and Mount Stavrokoraki.
2. The left bank of the Charadra between Marathona and the plain.
3. The flat ground at the foot of Mount Agrieliki, about 1.6 miles from
the coast and east of the cemetery below the chapel of St. Demetrios.
4. At the southeast foot of Mount Kotroni, at the north end of the
Vrana valley.
5. Vrana, at the back of the Vrana valley.
6. Vrexisa, the smaller marsh at the southwest entrance to the plain.
122 the plain of marathon
7. The area known as Plasi, on the right bank of the Charadra at the
coast.

Only the last two remain serious contenders today. The first four, how-
ever plausible they have seemed to some topographers, have yet to pro-
duce sufficient remains for a deme site. Vrana was a cemetery, not a deme.
The finds at Vrexisa so far have mostly been Roman. The most likely
candidate, therefore, is Plasi, where the Charadra entered the sea in 1884,
when Hauptmann von Eschenburg surveyed the plain for the Karten von
Attica. On the bottom left corner of sheet 18 (Drakonera), von Eschen-
burg indicated potsherds, building remains, and foundations. He saw
more ancient remains here, in fact, than anywhere else in the plain. In a
lecture on December 4, 1886, he declared that the site had to be the deme
of Marathon. In the early 1970s, Spyridon Marinatos made some pre-
liminary excavations in the area “on a line parallel to the shore towards
the North and East, for half a mile.” He found “ruins and crossing walls
almost everywhere,” about one and a half to three feet beneath the sur-
face. Though the datable finds were all several hundred years later than
the battle, he concluded that “it is now fairly certain that the deme of
Marathon existed on this site.”11
Vasileios Petrakos has suggested one other possibility: There was no
village of Marathon. The residences might have been dispersed, rather
than clustered together in a single village. I see no way to rule out this
possibility. But on balance, Plasi seems to me the best candidate—with
one twist, admittedly speculative. Perhaps much of the deme is now un-
der water. If the delta once extended farther into the bay, as argued above,
then the remains of earlier houses might have washed out to sea as the
eastward littoral movement ate away the land on which they sat.

The Grave of the Athenians

The prominent mound known as the Soros is the only candidate for the
Athenians’ grave. The early travelers all focused on it. It has been exca-
vated (I use the term loosely) four times.
In October 1788, the French antiquarian Fauvel opened the mound
as he hunted for antiquities. For eight days he had ten men dig in the
the plain of marathon 123

middle, where they reached the level of the plain. They dug two other
holes as well, to the right and left of the large one, both five or six feet
deep. Fauvel cut quite a swath—E. D. Clarke reported that it was visible
from the mountain behind Marathona, “like a dark line traced from the
top towards the base”—but he did not find what he was looking for. Lord
Byron heard that Fauvel found “few or no relics, as vases, & c.” In his 1897
biography of Fauvel, Philippe-Ernest Legrand says that “nothing is found
for his trouble, and Fauvel, mortified by his failure and harassed by the
owner of the land, discontinues his research.”12
On June 24, 1802, Lord and Lady Elgin, on board the frigate Narcissus,
“came in sight of Marathon and saw the barrow on the shore, under
which it is supposed the Athenians who fell in battle against the Persians
were buried.” Lady Elgin described their visit in a letter to her mother.
On the 25th the sailors pitched a tent for them, surrounding it with pillars
they found scattered. After dinner, she wrote, “we visited the mound of
earth which Fauvel had partly opened; our ship’s crew dug in another di-
rection and discovered a few fragments of pottery and some silver rudely
melted into a small mass.” The next day three other Englishmen joined
the party, including one Captain Leake, the future colonel. They explored
the entire plain before sailing off together on the 29th without digging
deeper in the mound.13
Nameless followers of Fauvel and Elgin, termed “speculators in antiq-
uities” by historian George Finlay, left the mound “half dug open” by the
1830s. On May 12, 1836, the Greek minister of education, Iakovos Rizos
Neroulos, sent the following memorandum to the Provincial Directorate
of Attica: “Being informed that foreign travelers passing via Marathon
are frequently excavating, with the help of the locals, in the very tumulus
[mound] of those Athenians who fell in the battle (the so-called Soros),
in order to find arrow heads, and wishing this most ancient monument
of Greek glory to remain untouched and untroubled, we ask you to issue
as quickly as possible the necessary orders to the municipal authority of
Marathon, so that it is not allowed for anyone on any pretext to exca-
vate the afore-mentioned tumulus or the other monuments on the field
of battle.” An engraving published by Christopher Wordsworth in 1838
gives a vivid impression of the mound’s sorry state (Figure 22).14
124 the plain of marathon

22. Engraving of the Soros in the 1830s, designed by Captain Irton and engraved by
G. W. Bonner (From Christopher Wordsworth, Greece, Pictorial, Descriptive, and
Historical [London: Orr, 1839], 113)

In 1883, Heinrich Schliemann, the excavator of Troy and Mycenae,

sank a 13-foot square trench into the top of the Soros, and a second one,
half as large, into the eastern side. He dug the central shaft through the
mound to a depth of 6.5 feet below the level of the plain, where he believed
he hit virgin soil. The eastern shaft filled with water and had to be aban-
doned when only half that far below modern ground level. Concluding
that the Soros had nothing to do with the battle in 490, Schliemann sug-
gested that it was a prehistoric mound from the nineteenth century BC.
Then in two seasons of excavations in 1890 and 1891, Greek archaeolo-
gist Valerios Staes demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that the tomb
held the cremated remains of Athenian soldiers. It might seem incredible
that anything was left to find, but no one had dug deep enough. Thirteen
feet below the plain Staes found a funeral pyre on a brick-lined tray, with
ashes and charred bones and black-figure pottery not later than the early
fifth century (Figure 23). Apparently foreseeing that skeptics might chal-
lenge his veracity, Staes published an affidavit signed by himself and four
the plain of marathon 125

23. Drawing of Staes’ excavation of the Soros. The delta marks the cremation tray.
(After V. Staes, “Ho en Marathoni Tumbos,” Athenische Mitteilungen 18 [1893]: 49)

distinguished scholars who vouched for his findings: P. Kavvadias, H. G.

Lolling, K. Metsopoulos, and G. Kaveraou.
For the past century, scholars have almost unanimously accepted the
Soros as the burial mound of the Athenians. It has played a major role
in some battle reconstructions for two reasons. First, Pausanias says that
the Athenians were buried “on the spot.” Second, Hammond maintained
that Persian arrowheads found in the fill of the mound show that the
earth in the mound came from within bowshot of the Persian battle line.
Both claims deserve scrutiny.15
126 the plain of marathon

It might seem that Greeks would bury their battle dead in the clos-
est convenient spot—closest, that is, to where they fell, or where most of
them fell. But that is not what usually happened. The best comparison is
probably the burial of the Sacred Band who fell on the Greek right wing
at Chaironeia (338). They were buried all the way across the plain, under
the ugly stone lion. The point was to make a memorial that would be no-
ticed. At Marathon, the Athenians might have erected the Soros where it
would have the greatest visual impact, perhaps at a fork in the path from
Athens leading left to Oinoï (up the pass between Mount Kotroni and
Mount Stavrokoraki) and right to Marathon, Trikorynthos, and Rham-
nous. Pausanias’ phrase “on the spot” need not be taken literally, for he
is comparing those buried at Marathon with all the other Athenians who
died in battle and were buried just outside Athens’ Dipylon Gate along
the road to the Academy. By “on the spot” he might mean at Marathon
instead of outside the Dipylon Gate.
As for the arrowheads, the more one looks into them the more puz-
zling they become. Early travelers made quite a sport of finding arrow-
heads in the Soros. In 1801, E. D. Clarke wrote, his party “had no sooner
reached this Tumulus, which stands about six furlongs from the shore,
than we entered a passage which had been recently excavated towards its
interior [a footnote says this excavation was said to be Fauvel’s]; and in
the examination of the earth, as it was originally heaped from the Plain to
cover the dead, we found a great number of arrow-heads, made of com-
mon flint. . . . We collected many of these.”16
Edward Dodwell says that he “found in the large tumulus some frag-
ments of coarse pottery, and a great many small arrow heads of black flint,
which probably belonged to the Persian army.” He then cites Herodotus
for Ethiopians in Xerxes’ army having stone arrowheads and concludes
from Pausanias’ description of the statue of Nemesis at Rhamnous that
Datis had Ethiopians in 490 as well. (Pausanias says that Pheidias carved
the statue from a block of Parian marble that the Persians brought to
Marathon to make a trophy; with her right hand the goddess held a cup
on which were carved Ethiopians.) On the next page Dodwell says that
Marathon “is the only part of Greece where I found arrow-heads of flint;
the plain of marathon 127

those of bronze are common on the spots where battles have been fought.”
Common, but he evidently found none of bronze in the Soros.17
Sir William Gell wrote that “The tumulus, supposed that of the Per-
sians [sic], toward the centre of the plain . . . consists of a large heap of
earth, in which are found arrow heads of brass, and others of flint, appar-
ently such as were used by the Ethiopians, who joined the Persian invad-
ers, according to Herodotus.” Thanks to his use of the passive voice, it is
uncertain whether Gell found bronze as well as flint arrowheads himself,
or was reporting what he had heard.18
Colonel Leake’s reports are curious. Hammond quotes him selec-
tively, giving the false impression that Leake gathered bronzes while his
servant collected flints: “In the 1820s Leake’s servant gathered ‘a great
number of small pieces of black flint at the foot of the mound,’ which
Finlay realized were from modern threshing instruments. Leake himself
found ‘many brazen arrowheads, about an inch in length, of a trilateral
form’ in the soil of the mound’s surface.” Here Hammond combines pas-
sages from two different books describing two different visits.
Leake visited Marathon first on June 26–29, 1802, when he met Lord
and Lady Elgin, and again on January 29, 1806. In The Demi of Attica, he
describes what must be his first visit: “[I found the mound] composed
of a light mould mixed with sand, amidst which I found many brazen
heads of arrows, about an inch in length, of a trilateral form, and pierced
at the top with a round hole for the reception of the shaft. There were
also, in still greater number, fragments of black flint, rudely shaped by
art, and which in general are longer than the arrow-heads of brass. All
these were probably discharged by the Persian bowmen, and, having been
collected after the action, were thrown into the grave of the Athenians,
as an offering to the victorious dead, who thus received the first marks
of those heroic honours which were ever afterwards paid to them by the
Marathonii.”
In his Travels in Northern Greece, Leake describes his brief second
visit quite differently. He writes that while he was on top of the mound,
“my servant amused himself in gathering, at the foot of the barrow, a
great number of small pieces of black flint which happened to strike his
128 the plain of marathon

observation. These flints are so numerous, and have been so evidently

chipped by art into their present form, like gun-flints, that there is good
reason for believing them to have been the heads of arrows discharged by
the Persians who fought at Marathon, and to have been interred with the
Athenians, after having been gathered from every part of the plain, after
the battle: Herodotus shows, that some of the Barbarians were armed
in this manner, though his remark is applied not to the army of Darius,
but to that of Xerxes. . . . I have heard that arrow heads of bronze have
also been found here, but we searched for them without success.” These
words sound as if Leake found no bronze arrowheads, either in 1806 or
previously. I cannot explain these conflicting statements. This puzzle
about bronze arrowheads matters because, as Hammond noted, the flint
pieces turned out to be parts of wooden threshing sleds, not arrowheads
at all.19
If it seems unclear whether the early travelers found bronze arrow-
heads, it is as certain as these things can be that Schliemann and Staes
did not. Neither mentions them. Though their reports sound amateurish
by current standards, I cannot imagine that they found arrowheads and
kept quiet about them. Bronze arrowheads would have supported Staes’
identification of the cremated bones as those of the Athenian heroes.
What then of the “Marathon” arrowheads now in London (38 bronze
and 10 iron) and Karlsruhe (35 bronze)? Elisabeth Erdmann’s careful
study of the Karlsruhe specimens divided them into four types and col-
lected comparanda for each. She concluded that three of the types fit the
era of the Persian Wars (the fourth type is later), but she stressed that
her comparisons do not confirm that the arrowheads in Karlsruhe came
from Marathon. Indeed E. J. Forsdyke, in his much earlier paper on the
Marathon arrowheads in the British Museum, thought they were “much
more likely to have been accumulated in a modern shop. Arrowheads no
doubt find a readier sale as relics of a famous victory than on their own
merits, and it would probably be found that Marathon has always been
an attractive source of curiosities for the traveler. It ought not to be ac-
cepted as a provenance for ancient weapons without good evidence of
their discovery.” We have little evidence at all for the provenance of these
arrowheads. When Saumarez Brock donated 10 of them to the British
the plain of marathon 129

Museum in 1906, she said that “her father, Admiral Brock, had dug them
out of a grave in the plain of Marathon in 1830.” Hammond thought
the grave was “no doubt the mound,” but there were lots of graves at
Marathon, some of which have entirely disappeared. And even if Admiral
Brock did find arrowheads in the Soros, they do not confirm the early
reports of bronze arrowheads. All 10 are iron.20
In short, the Soros contains the ashes of Athenians who died in the
battle, but it does not tell us where they fought. It is all too likely that the
early reports of arrowheads were based mainly on the pieces of flint, and
that some or even all of the bronze arrowheads said to be from Marathon
did not come from the Soros. The absence of arrowheads among the finds
of Schliemann and Staes makes it unlikely that the ingredients of the So-
ros included the ground on which thousands of Persian arrows fell.

The Tomb of the Plataeans?

In the 1970s, Spyridon Marinatos excavated five burial mounds at Vrana.

While four were prehistoric, the fifth proved to be Late Archaic. The half
of the mound that Marinatos excavated contained 11 males, ten adults
and one boy about ten years old. Only two of the burials were cremations.
Gravestones marked several of the inhumations, one of them crudely in-
scribed in Ionic letters (the dialect favored at Athens). Marinatos judged
the pottery indistinguishable from the finds in the Soros. Based on the
ceramic evidence and the absence of female bodies, he identified this
mound as the tomb of the Plataeans who died in the battle. Archias, he
thought, was an officer whose friends preferred the Ionic alphabet to the
Boeotian; he took the ten-year-old to be a military messenger. Believing
it unlikely that the Plataeans and freed slaves would have been buried
together, Marinatos proposed to emend a single word in Pausanias by a
single letter (heteros to heteroi), which would give “other graves for the
Plataeans of Boeotia and for the slaves” instead of “another grave for the
Plataeans of Boeotia and for the slaves.”
Scholarly response has been mixed. Marinatos found nothing con-
clusive. Skeptics have argued that the mound is too far away from the
Soros (about 1.6 miles) for the length of the Greek line, and too far out
130 the plain of marathon

of Pausanias’ path as he passed through the plain on his way to Rham-

nous. A better candidate, they suggest, would be the mound seen by the
early travelers near the Soros. (Since it has completely disappeared, this
hypothesis cannot be tested.) Why are most individuals here inhumed,
when the Athenians cremated all their corpses? Perhaps this is simply a
family tomb in an area known to be a cemetery.
Whether or not the mound contains the Plataeans, it does not help
us reconstruct the battle. The burial site does not have to be anywhere
near where they camped or fought and died. It might have been chosen
as the most appropriate place to honor Plataean heroes, along the route
Plataeans would have taken to Marathon.

The Monument of Miltiades

About 650 yards north of the Soros, the early travelers saw the ruins
of what the locals called Pyrgo (pyrgos = tower). Leake described it as
“the foundations of a square monument, constructed of large blocks of
white marble,” and suggested it was all that was left of the monument of
Miltiades. The marble blocks had all disappeared by 1890, leaving only
a foundation of bricks and mortar. Vanderpool thought that the Pyrgo
was most likely a medieval tower made of ancient blocks. They could
have come from Miltiades’ monument or from one of the sanctuaries.
No other candidates have emerged for this monument.21

The Trophy

In 1966, Vanderpool explored the remains of a medieval tower beside the

chapel of Panagia Mesosporitissa in the northeastern part of the plain.
The chapel stands midway between the modern shore and the base of
Mount Stavrokoraki, a few hundred yards from the western edge of the
lake or marsh. Early travelers had noticed ancient marble blocks built
into this tower. Vanderpool found one monumental Ionic capital, frag-
ments of at least five column drums (two others, reported by travelers as
lying on the ground some distance away, have disappeared), a battered
bit of sculpture, and a number of step and orthostate blocks. Vanderpool
24. Johannes Kromayer’s map of Marathon, showing early hypotheses for the loca-
tion of the battle. Kromayer’s own hypothesis appears at the bottom. (From
Kromayer, “Drei Schlachten aus dem Griechisch-Römischen Altertum,” Abhand-
lungen der Philologische-Historischen Klasse der Sächsischen Akademie der Wissen-
schaften 34 [1921]: pl. 1)
132 the plain of marathon

believed these to be the remains of a single Ionic column, 33 feet tall, dat-
able by the style of the capital to the second quarter of the fifth century
(475–450). He therefore endorsed Leake’s suggestion that we have pieces
of the Marathon trophy mentioned by Pausanias. He thought it com-
memorated the place where the greatest number of Persians died.
The tower sits on rubble and mortar foundations, not, so far as Van-
derpool could determine, on top of ancient foundations (he dug small
trenches on each side of the tower down three to six feet without reach-
ing the foundations’ lowest level). Odds are, though, that so many blocks
were not moved far. The ground rises slightly, but not enough to make it
worth moving large blocks any great distance to get to this spot. I believe
the Marathon trophy stood here.
The word “trophy” comes from the Greek tropaion, which derives
from trope (turn). On the day of a battle, victorious Greeks erected tro-
phies—captured armor and weapons hung on a tree or post—at the place
where the enemy turned and ran. The Athenians evidently replaced the
temporary trophy with a marble Ionic column that became one of their
proudest monuments. Aristophanes and Plato, among others, refer to it.
For the reconstruction of the battle, the trophy is the single most criti-
cal topographical marker. It should mark the battle’s turning point, not
necessarily the place where the greatest number of Persians died. It makes
irrelevant the earlier debate about how the battle lines were oriented
(Figure 24), for the fighting took place well to the east of the Soros.
Before the 2004 Olympics, the Greeks built a replica column in
marble next to the remains of the tower. Standing on top of a three-
stepped platform, it commemorates the place where the Greeks and Per-
sians met and where the Persians turned to flee.

The Trench with the Persian Dead

Six hundred years after the battle, Athenians assured Pausanias that their
ancestors had buried the Persian dead. He deduced, or was told, that they
were thrown into a trench. He could find no trace of them. Von Eschen-
burg may have done better during the seven months he spent survey-
ing Marathon. He reported that “in the vineyard belonging to Skouzes a
the plain of marathon 133

large quantity of remains of bones was found, haphazardly placed, which

seem to belong to many hundreds of dead. I thank for the information
Mr. Skouzes’ steward, an intelligent young Greek under whose direction
the vineyard was planted. I myself dug at the edges of the vineyard and
found that this area full of remains of bones extends as far as the marsh.”
Though it would be nice to have confirmation from a proper archaeologi-
cal excavation, in all probability von Eschenburg discovered the remains of
the Persians, dumped unceremoniously into the ground. The Greeks had
no reason to bury the Persians anywhere other than where they fell.22

The Spring of Makaria

I have already mentioned the identification of Makaria with the power-

ful spring at the northwest corner of the marsh. The geographer Strabo
locates it below the wagon road to Trikorynthos (modern Kato Souli).
Leake reported “traces of ancient wheels” on the rocks in the pass be-
tween the base of Stavrokoraki and the marsh, a passage Clarke described
as “hardly wide enough to admit of two persons abreast of each other.”
At the end of the nineteenth century, J. G. Frazer found it only slightly
broader: “hardly wide enough for two horses to pass each other.”23

The Mangers of Artaphrenes’ Horses

Leake noted a “small cavern . . . which has in some places the appearance
of having been wrought by art” in the side of Mount Drakonera, east of
the lake; he suggested that it might be the stone mangers mentioned by
Pausanias. More plausibly, in his 1898 commentary on Pausanias, J. G.
Frazer noted “some shallow, niche-like excavations in the rock, not un-
like mangers,” halfway up the hill above Kato Souli, and thought that
locals had named them the mangers of Artaphrenes’ horses. This local
tradition may have no more historical significance than the names tour
guides give to stalagmites in caves, but it is likely that the Persians kept
their horses near the Makaria spring, so that the Persian headquarters
was in the plain of Trikorynthos, as Leake suggested.24
134 the plain of marathon

The Cave of Pan

Visited by some early travelers, this cave was rediscovered in 1958 about
two miles west of modern Marathona. Greek archaeologist Ioannis
Papadimitriou explored the cave, which is identified by an inscription re-
cording a dedication to Pan and the Nymphs, and found that human ac-
tivity there began in Neolithic times. Papadimitriou believed that people
abandoned the cave after the Mycenaean period and only began to use it
again after the battle. It has no importance for the reconstruction of the
battle. It does show that Pausanias did not proceed directly through the
plain on the road to Rhamnous farther up the coast, which means that
his account is not inconsistent with Marinatos’ proposed identification
of the Tomb of the Plataeans.

A Short Description of the Plain in 490

After visiting Marathon, Edward Lear wrote to his sister from Athens
on July 19, 1848: “The place like all such in Greece is quite unchanged by
time, & the exact points of the battle are as exactly to be followed as those
of Waterloo.” This letter is a cautionary tale against such confidence, for
Lear continued, “A vast tumulus still marks the site of the buried Persians
[sic].” But any reconstruction of the battle must rest on the best possible
understanding of the topography, even if it remains less certain than Lear
supposed. Here’s my best understanding (Figure 25).25
Surrounded by mountains, the alluvial plain of Marathon extended
farther out to sea in the southwest than it does today, while the coastline
in the northeast ran farther to the north. The Kynosoura promontory
protected the eastern end of the bay. The barrier beach may or may not
have closed off the shallow lake that later turned into the Great Marsh.
Athenians could get to Marathon either by the coast road or by the
shorter route around the other side of Mount Pentelikon, past Stamata,
and down to the plain via (modern) Vrana or (modern) Marathona.
In August or September, the torrents would have been dry. Rain sel-
dom falls in Attica during the summer. Both Greeks and Persians depended
on springs and wells. There were good springs both in the southwest,
 Deme of
a
ner
Trikorynthos

ki
ko

o ra
Persian cavalry

a
ok
Marathon

Dr
camp

vr
Dam
ta

Mt .
.S
MARATHONA
Mt Makaria
Spring

Mt inia
.K Trophy Persian Scho
ot camp

ro
ni
AVLONA
Cape
Deme of Kynosoura
s
rismo Tomb of the Marathon?
ho
STAMATA . Ap Plataeans
Mt VRANA Soros

Herakleion
Bay of Marathon
ki
g rieli N
t. A
M

2 miles
2 km

25. Landsat image of the plain of Marathon showing the topographical identifications adopted in the text
136 the plain of marathon

which later supplied the small marsh, and in the north and east, around
the lake. The village of Marathon most likely lay on the coast in the middle
of the bay, where the delta used to extend farther out. The path or paths
of the torrents in 490 cannot be known because these dynamic systems
have changed course many times. Since no source mentions them, they
are best left aside when reconstructing the battle.
Ancient writers described the plain as liparos (shiny, oily, wealthy),
ennotios (wet, moist), and elaiokomos (olive-rearing). In the eighteenth
century, Richard Chandler rode through “some very thick corn [grain]
of most luxuriant growth.” By the time of the battle, the grain harvest
had ended. The olive trees grew primarily on the hillsides, but Cornelius
Nepos mentions “scattered trees” on the battlefield. With grapevines, ol-
ive trees, fruit trees, houses or outbuildings, watercourses, and boundary
walls here or there, the plain would not have looked like a manicured
parade ground.26
The sanctuary of Herakles sat at the “gates,” just north of the narrow
exit from the plain in the southwest. Neither the Soros nor the mound
Marinatos identified as the tomb of the Plataeans helps to locate the fight-
ing, though the former is certainly the resting place of the Athenian dead
and the latter might hold their Plataean allies. The two sides met where
the marble trophy stood, well out in the plain near the chapel of Panagia
Mesosporitissa.
It remains to discover how and why the battle came to be fought
there.
 chapter 7

When Marathon Became a Magic Word

The Athenian Generals Debate

T
hough the Athenians and Plataeans had hurried to Marathon and
secured the southern end of the plain, the Spartans had not yet
arrived. The ten Athenian generals differed in their views about
what to do next. Half thought their numbers were too few to fight, while
the other half wanted a battle. Herodotus says that Miltiades persuaded
the polemarchos Kallimachos to cast the deciding vote.
It is now up to you, Kallimachos, whether you will reduce Athens to
slavery or ensure its freedom and thus leave to all posterity a memorial
for yourself which will exceed even that of Harmodios and Aristogeiton.
For from the time Athenians first came into existence up until the pres-
ent, this is the greatest danger they have ever confronted. If they bow
down before the Medes, it is clear from our past experience what they
will suffer when handed over to Hippias; but if this city prevails, it can
become the first among all Greek cities. I shall explain to you how mat-
ters really stand and how the authority to decide this matter has come to
rest with you. We 10 generals are evenly divided in our opinions, some
urging that we join battle, others that we do not. If we fail to fight now, I
expect that intense factional strife will fall upon the Athenians and shake
their resolve so violently that they will medize. But if we join battle be-
fore any rot can infect some of the Athenians, then, as long as the gods
138 when marathon became a magic word
are impartial, we can prevail in this engagement. All this is now in your
hands and depends on you. If you add your vote for my proposal, your
ancestral land can be free and your city the first of Greek cities. But if you
choose the side of those eager to prevent a battle, you will have the op-
posite of all the good things I have described.

Kallimachos’ vote broke the tie. The Athenians would fight. Nevertheless,
the battle did not happen immediately, because the ten generals took turns
commanding for each day, and the generals in favor of fighting yielded
their days to Miltiades. He did not take the field until his own day of com-
mand came around. We do not know how long the delay was, but if we
take Herodotus’ plural “generals” seriously, Miltiades waited for at least
two and as many as nine days. Why? What really broke the stalemate?1
Miltiades’ speech—composed by Herodotus, of course, not a tran-
scription of what was actually said—echoes the pre-battle speech Herodo-
tus has Dionysios of Phocaea make before the battle of Lade, the battle
that, for all practical purposes, ended the Ionian Revolt. Both speeches
stress the decisiveness of the moment. Both draw a sharp distinction be-
tween slavery and freedom. Both contain, word for word, the phrase “as
long as the gods are impartial.” At Lade, many of the Greeks abandoned
the fight. Would Athenians lose their courage and submit now? That fear
was real, but Herodotus does not support J. B. Bury and Russell Meiggs’
idea that “bad news on the political front from Athens” persuaded the gen-
erals to risk a battle. Miltiades urges fighting before such bad news could
arrive.2
The speech may contain a clue about how Herodotus thought Mil-
tiades planned to win. What does Herodotus mean by the expression “as
long as the gods are impartial,” or more literally, “if the gods distribute
equal things”? Is it more than a pious inshallah or “God willing”? He
might be thinking psychologically: If the gods keep us from panicking,
we can win. This interpretation would make sense of the fact that Philip-
pides’ vision prompted, after the battle, a formal cult of Pan in Athens.
Pan caused panics. But the Persians did not panic at Marathon; on the
contrary, they fought for a long time. So perhaps the idea is rather that
Pan prevented panic among the Athenians, since Herodotus says that be-
when marathon became a magic word 139

fore Marathon “even to hear the name ‘Medes’ spoken would strike ter-
ror into the Greeks.”3
Or we might accept Jon D. Mikalson’s suggestion that the phrase
means “if the gods make it a fair fight.” Then the question becomes: How
did Miltiades plan to secure a fair fight? If the Athenians advanced into the
open plain, they became vulnerable to Persian cavalry. Would that be a
fair fight, if the Athenians could not match the Persian cavalry? Wouldn’t
the fight be on more equal terms after the Spartans arrived?4
According to one of J. A. R. Munro’s ingenious ideas, the Persians
forced Miltiades’ hand. In the first edition of the Cambridge Ancient His-
tory, Munro maintained that the Persians had divided their forces. Datis
landed at Marathon while Artaphrenes landed at Eretria. “It was the sail-
ing of the Persian ships from Eretria,” Munro wrote, “that determined
the day of the battle. . . . News had arrived that Artaphernes was moving,
and no doubt that his cavalry was embarked, for either Marathon or Pha-
lerum. At Marathon the cavalry would heavily weight the scale against
the Athenians, at Phalerum it could make a dash for Athens, or rout the
Spartans, if it met them on the plain. . . . The critical moment had come;
the Athenians must strike instantly, now or never.” This vivid account,
unfortunately, grew out of Munro’s own imagination. No source suggests
that the Persians divided their forces to attack Athens and Eretria simul-
taneously. In fact Plutarch says specifically that Datis landed at Marathon
“with his entire force.”5
There must be another answer. Miltiades must have seen an opportu-
nity to exploit—an opportunity that would not wait for the Spartans.

“The Cavalry Are Apart”

After emphasizing the Persian cavalry when he describes preparations

for the campaign and the landing at Marathon, Herodotus does not men-
tion horsemen in his battle narrative. According to another old hypothe-
sis (which Munro favored in an earlier article), Herodotus does not men-
tion them because they were no longer there. On this view, Datis decided
to leave a covering force on land, embark his cavalry and half his infantry,
and sail to Athens, where he hoped either to catch the city undefended
140 when marathon became a magic word

or to find pro-Persian Athenians who would betray it. Tipped off by Io-
nians that the horses and half the infantry were on the ships, Miltiades
attacked and won. Though this idea rests on what Charles Hignett called
“no evidence worthy of the name,” it has proved remarkably resilient.
Two videos about the battle broadcast on the History Channel in 2004,
for instance, present the embarkation of the horses as fact.6
Scholars favoring this hypothesis cite three passages, one in Herodotus,
one in Cornelius Nepos’ biography of Miltiades, written more than 400
years after the battle, and the third in the Suda, a Byzantine Greek histori-
cal encyclopedia compiled in the ninth or tenth century.
Andrew R. Burn pointed to Herodotus’ statement that after the battle
the Athenians hurried back to Athens “as fast as their feet would carry
them.” To Burn, this haste meant that the Persians had already begun to
embark on their ships before the battle. But neither the Persians nor the
Athenians could have reached Athens until the following day. Herodotus’
comment on the Athenians’ speed tells us nothing about when the Per-
sians began to embark.7
Nepos has Datis invading with 200,000 infantry, but fighting with
only 100,000. Nepos apparently thought that only half of Datis’ infantry
engaged. But he does not say that the other half had returned to the ships,
and he describes Datis’ horsemen as fighting, not reembarking.
So the notion that the Persian cavalry did not participate in the battle
really rests on an entry in the Suda under the heading choris hippeis (the
cavalry are apart). R. W. Macan said of this passage, “It is certainly re-
markable that with the authority which is chronologically the end of the
catena, one new grain of gold is added to the circle of tradition.” In his
translation of the paragraph, James A. S. Evans indicates different pos-
sibilities where the meaning is not certain:
When Datis invaded Attica, men say that the Ionians, when he had with-
drawn (or gone away), came up inland to a wooded area (or climbed
trees) and told (or signaled) the Athenians that their horses were apart
(or away or brigaded by themselves, or possibly off on a separate mission).
And Miltiades who took note of their departure (or understood what
they were up to), attacked and won a victory. Thus the aphorism is said
when marathon became a magic word 141

26. Roman sarcophagus, third century AD, showing the fight at the ships (Photo
courtesy of the Civici Musei di Brescia)

of those who break up (or destroy) battle order (or an army detachment,
or possibly even an army).8

Does the Suda truly offer a grain of gold? In addition to its unknown
authorship, late date, and unknown source, the passage presents several
other difficulties. It does not say clearly where the horses were or what
they were doing. It does not mention ships. It does not explain why the
Athenians would need to hear anything from the Ionians. With hills all
around, the Marathon plain offers ready visibility. The Athenians ought
to have seen for themselves where the horses were. The story reeks of Io-
nian propaganda. Who benefited from it? The Ionians who accompanied
the Persian expedition, but here at the moment of crisis show their loyalty
to the Greek cause. I suspect the story was first told somewhere in Ionia.
Some evidence—late, but not as late as the Suda—suggests that horses
were present at the battle. More than 600 years after the battle, Pausanias
reports that locals heard horses neighing and men fighting every night.
His contemporary, the orator Aelius Aristeides, says that the Athenians
captured the horses. More tentatively, there is artistic evidence too: The
Brescia sarcophagus, which may derive from the painting of the battle in
the Stoa Poikile, includes a horseman (Figure 26), and the south frieze of
142 when marathon became a magic word

the temple of Athena Nike, which may also derive from the great painting
of Marathon, shows hoplites fighting mounted Persians.9
All in all, the Suda passage is best put aside. Its staying power derives
more from the perceived inadequacies of Herodotus than from its own
clarity or pedigree. Other evidence cannot be said to support it. If an
explanation of how the Athenians won the battle is consistent with the
Suda, or explains the aphorism’s origin, well and good, but the Suda is
no firm foundation on which to rest a reconstruction. It may be true, as
Burn claimed, that “it would have received more respect in our age of
Quellenkritik [source criticism] if the writer had only quoted, as the book
often does elsewhere, the name of his source.” Or it may not, if the writer
had only a poor authority or none at all.10

Miltiades’ Plan

If the proposed division of Persian forces is rejected as a modern inven-

tion without sufficient support in the sources, then what did break the
stalemate? One suggestion is that the Persians threatened to take the coast
road to Athens, but the location of the Greek camp at Valaria rules out
that possibility. The Persians would have had to go right through the
camp. But it did not block the more difficult route via Stamata. To cover
that route as well, the Greeks had to advance not only in front of the
Vrana valley, which would cut off one entry to the Stamata route, but
also to Mount Stavrokoraki, in order to cut off the other entry up the pass
between Mount Kotroni and Mount Stavrokoraki. To cover both land
routes to Athens, in other words, the Athenians had to cross the broadest
part of the plain.
To protect their flanks as much as possible, the Athenians would have
wanted to reach the shortest line between Mount Stavrokoraki and the
sea. That line would have passed right by the trophy. The formation there
would have extended almost 1.5 miles, a length of line that some previous
writers have considered feasible. Herodotus says that the Greek center
was stretched thin, but the wings were strong. A force of 18,000, eight
deep on the wings and four deep in the center third, would have covered
1.5 miles with a file width of three feet. Fewer would have sufficed in a
looser formation, as I think possible.
when marathon became a magic word 143

The Greeks’ challenge would be to cross the widest part of the plain
before the Persian cavalry slowed or halted their advance, leaving them
sitting ducks to be shot down by Persian archers. (If Richard Dunn turns
out to be right in his hypothesis that the delta extended farther out in
490, the plain was much broader in the middle than it is now, and the risk
even greater. But this is hypothesis; he did not bore holes in the southern
half of the plain.) No Athenian commander would have marched out
into the plain without some plan for dealing with the Persian cavalry.
What was Miltiades’ plan?
Miltiades had had several days to observe the Persians deploying on
the plain, as they surely did, ravaging Athenian land and offering to fight.
He had a sense of how early in the morning they started and how long the
deployment took. The Persians tethered and usually hobbled their horses
at night. To get them ready for action, the grooms had to untie them,
give them feed and water, and put on their saddlecloths and bridles. The
fourth-century historian Xenophon, who had served with Persians, com-
ments that this preparation is difficult at night. So we should imagine
them starting no earlier than first light.11
If the Persian high command and the horses camped in the valley of
Trikorynthos north of the lake, as Leake and Hammond have suggested,
the cavalry had to make its way single file along the narrow road between
Mount Stavrokoraki and the Makaria spring. The effect would be some-
thing like what happens on a modern highway that suddenly shrinks
from four lanes to one. If it took only five seconds for each horse to pass
the spring, a cavalry force of 600 would need 50 minutes to ride through
the bottleneck. Ten seconds each would mean an hour and 40 minutes.
I believe that Miltiades planned to get inside his enemy’s decision
cycle. If the Greeks could reach the Persian infantry before the Persian
cavalry deployed in the plain, it would be too late for Datis to do anything
about it. The Greeks could fight on equal terms.

The Run for Eight Stadia

The tactical plan outlined above makes sense of Herodotus’ narrative,

particularly of the famous run. The Greeks ran to cross the plain before
the Persian cavalry could reach them.
144 when marathon became a magic word

Herodotus says that the Athenians advanced dromoi (at a run) for
eight stadia. He uses the word dromoi four times in a single paragraph.
Other fifth-century evidence confirms the importance of this run. The
lost painting of the battle in the Stoa Poikile showed the Athenians and
Plataeans closing with the enemy for hand-to-hand combat, with the Pla-
taeans, distinguished from the Athenians by their caps, each coming to
help “as fast as he could.” In other words, the painting showed both the
Athenians and the Plataeans charging at a run, with the Plataeans identi-
fiable not by their running but by what they had on their heads. Another
confirmation comes from the comic poet Aristophanes, who says that the
Athenians “ran out with spear and shield” to fight the barbarians. After
the battle, archaeologist Sarah Morris writes, “the image of a running
warrior in armor became a symbol of the Athenian victory over Persia”
(Figure 27).12
A Greek stadion was always 600 Greek feet, but the length of a foot
differed from place to place. It varied from about 10.9 inches at Halieis,
where the stadium was 548 feet long, to as much as 12.6 inches at Olym-
pia, where the stadium was 630 feet. Most likely Herodotus heard this
story from Athenians; on the Attic standard (one Attic foot = 11.7 inches),
eight stadia would be about 0.9 miles.
Since Hans Delbrück published Die Perserkriege und die Burgunder-
kriege in 1887, most scholars have refused to believe the Athenians ran this
distance on the grounds that, as Delbrück later put it, “Such a run is a
physical impossibility: a heavily equipped unit can cover at the most 400
or 500 feet (120 to 150 meters) at a run without completely exhausting its
strength and falling into disorder.”13
The skeptics have differed over whether Herodotus exaggerated the
speed or the distance. One solution is to translate dromoi as “at the quick
step,” that is, 120 steps per minute, each step 2.5 feet, or a pace of 3.4 miles
per hour (mph). But in an article published in 1919, W. W. How collected
the occurrences of dromoi in Greek historians and argued persuasively
that “at the quick step” is too slow. How favored “double-time,” in mod-
ern terms 180 steps per minute, each step three feet, or a pace of 6.1 mph.
Delbrück himself argued against the distance, citing current Prussian
military practice, which restricted men carrying a load of 64 pounds to
27. Painted clay plaque, c. 490, showing a running hoplite carrying a shield with
a satyr (Pan?) as the shield device. The plaque originally read “Megakles kalos”
(Megakles is good-looking), but “Megakles” was erased and “Glauketes” substi-
tuted. (Acropolis Museum, Athens, no. 67; Ministry of Culture, A’ Ephorate of
Prehistoric and Classical Studies)
146 when marathon became a magic word

running two minutes, walking five minutes, and running two minutes.
They ran at a speed of 6.1–6.5 mph. Delbrück reported that the director of
the Military Central Physical Training School confirmed to him person-
ally that two minutes would be the most that a column with field equip-
ment could run and still reach the enemy in condition to fight. Since
Delbrück believed that a Greek hoplite carried 15 pounds more than a
Prussian soldier, he concluded that the amateur Athenians ran at most
400 or 500 feet.
In the 1970s, two professors at Pennsylvania State University tried
to test the Marathon run’s feasibility, both in the field and in a human
performance laboratory. In 1973, Walter Donlan and James Thompson
asked ten male college students, each carrying 15 pounds (including a
nine-pound shield), to run a mile at a 7 mph pace. Two students failed
to finish the distance, and only one, a member of the varsity track team,
was judged able to fight after the run. Donlan and Thompson did not
report their data on energy expenditure and heart rate, but they said:
“It was calculated that for a subject to run the measured distance carry-
ing a total weight of 13.6 kg (30 lbs.), including the nine-pound shield,
would require 90–95 percent of his maximum capability. While this is
not an unusually high figure for well-trained men to run a mile, relatively
untrained men would have experienced considerable difficulty.” In 1977,
they had 13 students, similarly equipped, run 565 yards in 2:45, again at a
7 mph pace. This time they reported that the students reached 93 percent of
their maximum work capacity. Again they did not report their data, but
by using “established formulae” they concluded: “Given a total panoply
weight of 50–70 lbs. (including a 15-lb. shield, carried isometrically), a
grade of approximately 2 1/2% (which simulates uneven terrain), and a
reduced rate of 5 mph for 1.5 minutes, well-conditioned men can tra-
verse a distance of 220 yards with sufficient energy reserves to engage in
combat.”14
Mistaken assumptions vitiate these experiments. Instead of 7 mph,
the test ought to be done at the slowest pace that would still qualify as a
run. Physiologists distinguish walking and running gaits on the basis of
the duty factor (the fraction of the stride duration for which each foot
is on the ground). When the duty factor is greater than 0.5, a person is
when marathon became a magic word 147

walking, whereas if the duty factor is less than 0.5, the person is running.
Put another way: To walk, a person must have at least one foot in contact
with the ground at all times. If there is a moment when neither foot is on
the ground, the person is running. To go faster, people walk with lon-
ger and quicker steps until they reach 4.5 mph, when they spontaneously
change gaits from walking to running. This pace falls between quick-step
and double-time. It is well below that used by Donlan and Thompson.
The other mistaken assumption in the Penn State tests relates to the
weight hoplites carried. As I showed in chapter 2, by the end of the sixth
century a fully equipped hoplite carried 30–50 pounds instead of 50–70,
as Donlan and Thompson assumed. So the tests and calculations ought to
be done at a pace just over 4.5 mph instead of 7 and a load of 30–50 pounds
instead of 50–70.
But even if we redid the experiments, they would never settle the ar-
gument to everyone’s satisfaction. It is debatable how similar U.S. college
students are to ancient Greek farmers, as I learned a few years ago when I
had a student who wanted to rerun the tests as a summer research project.
I agreed to work with him and helped him apply for a summer research
grant at Davidson College. The faculty selection committee turned him
down with the comment that the tests would not prove anything. How
can college students who drink soda loaded with sugar, eat a high sodium
diet, and work out for 30–60 minutes a day be compared with farmers
who drank wine mixed with water, ate a lean diet with little meat, and
walked almost everywhere they went?
We ought to look at soldiers in the field rather than students in a lab.
Delbrück should have asked his Prussian army sources about a slower
pace with less weight. He did know about a French captain named de
Raoul who claimed to have trained a platoon from the French 16th In-
fantry Regiment with great success in the winter of 1889–1890. With each
man carrying a rifle, a saber, 100 rounds of ammunition, and rations, the
platoon covered 12.7 miles in 106 minutes, a pace of 7.2 mph. In another
performance they carried field equipment for 6.8 miles in 80 minutes, a
pace of 5.1 mph, and proceeded to target practice, in which they bested
all their rivals. Delbrück scorned these claims, suggesting that even if they
were true, de Raoul had worked with only a small number of carefully
148 when marathon became a magic word

selected men. Athenian farmers, fishermen, charcoal burners, potters,

and sculptors, he said, would have had neither the time nor the energy to
train for running.
De Raoul’s claims are not unparalleled. I give two twenty-first-century
examples from two different countries:
• Lieutenant Colonel J. C. C. Schute recently reported on a British
battalion challenged to move 15 miles with 66 pounds in less than
3.5 hours (that is, faster than 4.3 mph) and again 15 miles with
44 pounds in less than three hours (that is, faster than 5.0 mph) and
then to attack with full battle procedure. Schute reported that the
“vast majority” of the battalion passed this test.15
• To qualify for the Expert Infantryman Badge in the modern U.S.
army, soldiers carrying a 35-lb backpack and a rifle have to cover
12 miles in three hours or less. That’s an average of 4 mph.

A modern Delbrück might object that only particularly fit soldiers meet

these standards. To get a better sense of what might be more typical, I
e-mailed all of the Davidson College ROTC graduates for the past 30 years
and asked them about running with weight. I received replies from more
than 50. With one exception, they were confident that troops carrying
35 pounds could run a mile and then fight. Some of their comments:
• Captain Bob Beard ’77: “It was quite common to train by jogging
with full equipment, and sometimes wearing chemical gear. I was on
active duty from 1977–1980. Given the ‘jog’ pace of running in a tight
formation, I don’t think you would be overly fatigued after a mile to
continue into battle.”
• Captain Bob Blair ’98, who served with an infantry unit in 1999: “We
discouraged troops from running with weighted rucks, but many
did on their own, often with 30 or more pounds, at a jogging pace
(around 5 mph). It’s fairly common, and for multiple miles. . . . I ran
with that weight for 7 miles on one occasion in training.”
• Lieutenant Colonel David Dale ’76 described training at the 82nd
Airborne Division’s Recondo school. He remembered running 3 to
5 miles each morning, carrying approximately 30 pounds and running
8- to 9-minute miles. He said that afterward he was drained, but “like
anything else we quickly improved our stamina and by graduation
(10 days or so) it became just another daily task.”
when marathon became a magic word 149

• Based on his polling of old colonels, Colonel Will David ’84 thinks
that “it would be entirely possible for a formation to run a mile in
battle gear. . . . When you look at a well-conditioned unit, most of
the soldiers can complete a 12-mile Expert Infantry Badge road march
in less than 2:30 with gear weighing about 30 pounds. Many soldiers
would be in the 2 to 2:15 range. When you drop down to a 6-mile
road march, it is common to see times of about an hour.”
• Lieutenant Colonel Rocky Kmiecik ’85 wrote from Iraq to describe his
combat load (51 pounds plus water) and a run of about 6,800 feet he
did once through palm groves chasing a group of insurgents. Though
winded at the end, he walked out of the groves and continued on pa-
trol. “For training,” he said, “most units have a standard ruck march
(usually a jog) where the soldiers carry a 35- to 40-pound load over a
20 kilometer [12 mile] course and must complete it in under 3 hours.”
• 2nd Lieutenant Myles MacDonald ’79 reported on his experience as
an armor officer in a tank battalion stationed in northern Bavaria
from 1980 to 1983. “We routinely ran 5 miles/day in boots in an 80-
man formation after a half hour of calisthenics. Once a week we did
it as a battalion with 600 people in formation. . . . Every couple of
months we did 2 miles in gas masks wearing MOPP suits.” They ran
at 4 to 4.5 mph wearing gas masks, 5 mph for the battalion run, and 4
to 6 mph for the company runs. MacDonald said it was hard to stay
organized above 5 mph or so. “Within that limit, running 10 minutes
with 20 to 30 pounds 3 feet apart is no sweat. Add peer pressure and
adrenalin and I suspect you’d be warmed up to fight on arrival.”
• Captain Grier Martin ’91 described experiences in college, Air Assault
School, the army reserves, and Afghanistan. His sense: “Thirty-five
pounds is not so bad to keep up a slow steady run. Fifty-five starts to
get heavy.”
• Major David Rozelle ’95 wrote: “Modern body armor and combat
equipment, without even adding a ruck-sack load, is a minimum of
50 pounds. Our field soldiers train for this kind of weight as part of
their physical training and adapt to the extra burden before deploying
to a combat zone. With that weight it is common for men to run in
excess of one mile, climb walls, and even maneuver through various
obstacles. If a soldier is properly conditioned, it is not a problem.”
• Colonel Jack Summe ’78 said: “The U.S. Army is big on running
and a great deal of our special forces focus . . . conditioning training
on running with weighted rigs. I have been assigned to Ft. Bragg,
NC and commanded both an Airborne Battalion and an Airborne
150 when marathon became a magic word
Brigade there. . . . I have seen soldiers running on weekends carrying
full backpack loads (approx 35 to 55 pounds) or while wearing a flak
jacket or body armor with plates (20 to 30 pounds). . . . We routinely
run 3 to 5 miles daily with no extra weight, but could easily run with
20 to 30 pounds of equipment for 1 to 2 miles with no deleterious
effect. We also accomplish routine (monthly) “ruck” marches (fully
loaded backpack—55 pounds, weapon and load bearing belt or har-
ness) of up to 12 miles. During many of these marches, you might
see a soldier run for 2 to 3 miles to make up time. . . . After 28 years
of service in the military, I can confidently state that I could throw a
35-pound ruck on my back today and go out and run a mile with very
little negative effect.”
• Major David Taylor ’91 emailed from Iraq: “Present-day U.S. Infantry
troops train to move 12 miles with a 35- to 50-pound load, in less than
3 three hours (4 mph), and fight upon arrival.”

If our soldiers today can manage 12 miles at 4 mph, ancient Greeks

carrying a comparable load could have done one mile at 4.5 mph. It is true
that men today are bigger. But we should not underestimate the work
capacity of farmers accustomed to doing hard physical labor all their
lives. Ancient Greeks could have charged 0.9 miles at a pace that could be
described as dromoi, though “jog” would probably better describe their
speed than “run.” The competitors in the race in armor (hoplitodromos)
at Olympia would have run faster, since the race was only two stadia.
(The length of this Olympic event does not prove, as some have sug-
gested, that hoplites cannot have run farther, any more than the 100-
meter dash shows that no one can run a marathon.)
Delbrück clinched his argument against the long run, or so he thought,
with the battle of Pharsalos. When Julius Caesar’s Romans charged at
Pharsalos, Pompey had his troops remain stationary, confident that his
enemies would lose their formation and exhaust themselves as they ran.
Caesar’s veterans realized the danger, checked their charge about half-
way, and caught their breath before charging again. Caesar does not actu-
ally say how far apart the two battle lines were. (Delbrück assumed 600
to 700 feet by analogy with an earlier confrontation in Spain.) And Cae-
sar’s legionnaires were more heavily equipped than the Greeks at Mara-
thon. If Pharsalos shows anything, it shows that warriors might sponta-
when marathon became a magic word 151

neously stop to catch their breath. Anyone who doubts that the Greeks
at Marathon could have jogged eight stadia is free to believe that they
stopped (just out of missile range?), caught their breath, and made their
final charge.16
The charge did not have to maintain a tight formation. Herodotus uses
the word athrooi. Though the standard Greek-English dictionary trans-
lates athrooi here as “in close order,” it is better understood as “all to-
gether.” In a nearly contemporary parallel, the poet Pindar has the lead-
ers of the Cadmeans run quickly athrooi in their bronze armor, but here
they are running into the infant Herakles’ bedroom and so running “all
together” or “all at once” rather than “in close order.” Or take Thucy-
dides’ account of the Plataeans escaping from their besieged city on a
dark and stormy night: They proceeded athrooi along the road toward
Thebes.17
Herodotus says that the Persians were surprised to see the Athenians
charging without the support of archers or cavalry. The important point
is not that the Persians had archers and cavalry or that the Athenians did
not yet have archers or cavalry. The point is that the Athenian archers did
not fight as archers or their horsemen as horsemen. Because the Persians
had Hippias as an adviser, they knew what sort of forces the Athenians
had, and the Athenians knew that they knew. So either Herodotus had
a source (an Ionian?) who knew that the Persians were surprised to see
the Athenians charging without their archers and cavalry, or his source
conjectured that the Persians were surprised to see the Athenians charg-
ing without their archers and cavalry. Either way, the passage implies that
Athens had archers and cavalry but did not use them as such. The Athe-
nians charged “all together,” hoplites and light-armed and dismounted
horsemen, all with spears or swords. In his Knights, Aristophanes says
that Demos—a personification of the Athenian common people—“com-
peted with the Medes in the sword-dance for the land at Marathon.” I
would like to think that a red-figure cup by Douris shows this charge,
with a hoplite and an archer, both armed with spears, running together
(Figure 28).18
A great irony of Marathon historiography is that so many modern
writers have explained the running charge by the presence of Persian
152 when marathon became a magic word

28. Interior of an Athenian red-figure cup attributed to Douris, c. 490, showing

two running warriors, one armed as a hoplite, the other dressed as an archer but
carrying a spear. (Johns Hopkins University Museum, Baltimore, B8; from Paul
Hartwig, Die Griechischen Meisterschalen der Blüthezeit des Strengen Rothfigurigen
Stiles [Stuttgart: Spemann, 1893], pl. 22.2)

archers while explaining the Athenian decision to fight by the absence of

Persian cavalry. Herodotus mentions neither archers nor horses in his
battle narrative. He stresses the run for eight stadia. Archers would ex-
plain a charge for one stadion, approximately the range of Persian bows,
not eight. Only the presence—or rather the near presence—of the cavalry
explains the long charge. The Greeks had to cross the plain and engage
the Persian infantry before the Persian cavalry could attack them.
when marathon became a magic word 153

A Reconstruction of the Battle

On the evening before his day of command, Miltiades explained his plan
to the other generals and circulated the orders to prepare for battle in the
morning. Like the English king in Shakespeare’s Henry V, he made the
rounds himself, offering encouragement. He told them they were going
to seize the initiative. They would surprise the Persians by a bold advance,
crossing the plain and closing to close quarters before the Persian cavalry
could stop their advance. He suggested that his men leave unnecessary
weight behind. He asked them, Do you need your shin guards? Could a
slave or poor friend wear your corslet, while you rely on your shield?
The men woke early. They had a fortifying cup of wine and water.
An owl, some said, flew over—a good omen since the owl was the bird
of Athena. The polemarchos Kallimachos sacrificed, looking for good
omens. Campground sacrifices were a normal part of Greek warfare; the
seer studied the flames as well as the internal organs, especially the liver,
of the sacrificial victims.19
When the seer declared the sacrifices favorable, the generals gave the
orders to arm and begin deployment. The usual way to give such orders
was by blowing the trumpet. Aristotle compares its sound to that of a
trumpeting elephant. Others likened it to the braying of a donkey. The
Persians would have heard it and realized the Greeks were going to act.
So perhaps the Athenian generals planned a quieter way of starting their
deployment at Marathon.
As Kallimachos took his traditional position of honor on the right
wing, the Athenian tribes “followed after as they were counted.” Last came
the Plataeans, who took the left wing.20
The Athenians made their line equal to the Persian formation in
length, Herodotus says, keeping both wings strong but thinning the
middle of the line, where the men were only a few ranks deep. Some re-
cent writers have deduced that the Persians moved first, so that Miltiades
could see the length of the Persian line as it advanced and adjust his own.
But the Greeks could have observed the size of the Persian force on earlier
days. If the Persians deployed first, they would not have been in the act
154 when marathon became a magic word

of preparing (Herodotus uses the imperfect pareskeuazonto) when the

Greeks charged.21
The Greeks deployed in front of their camp, perhaps originally eight
men deep throughout. As the line wheeled out into the plain, the Platae-
ans headed for the base of the hills on the far, northern side, while Kalli-
machos kept close to the shore or headed for the inland edge of the village
of Marathon. As a result—did Miltiades foresee it?—the center stretched
thinner than the wings.
When a report reached Datis that the Greeks were moving, he was
delighted and gave orders for the Persians to prepare for battle. Their
preparations began later and so lagged behind the Greeks, as Miltiades
had anticipated. The Persians had not gone to sleep expecting to fight the
next morning. They had something to eat and drink, dressed, checked
their equipment, and began to take positions west of the lake. They were
in no hurry. No Greek force had ever charged a Persian army. Datis ex-
pected to have plenty of time.
The Greeks continued advancing for some 2.5 miles from the Her-
akleion, until they were less than a mile from the Persian line they saw
forming before them (Figures 29 and 30). Here they paused and dressed
their lines. Perhaps some men took off their shin guards or their sandals
or even their corslets, to save weight. They would have preferred to con-
tinue walking, but Miltiades realized that they did not have 20 minutes
to reach the Persian lines. Perhaps the first Persian cavalry appeared on
the plain. If the Greeks didn’t close with the Persians soon, if they didn’t
jog, the Persian cavalry would reach the plain and be on them. So the seer
made the final battle-line sacrifice, the sphagia.
The noun sphagia and the verb sphagiazesthai (to perform sphagia)
have the same linguistic root as the verb sphazein (to pierce the throat).
Greeks made this sacrifice at the last moment before they charged. The act
required no altar and no fire. It was quick. The seer stabbed the animal’s
neck and watched the blood flow. He used the same sword he would soon
wield against the enemy. Sphagia could turn out badly; in that case an-
other victim would be sacrificed. But there was less concern with divina-
tion at this last, emotional moment than there had been with the sacrifice
in camp. The act of sphagia meant, as Michael Jameson put it, “O gods!
29. Reconstruction of the battle, based on the modern shoreline in Johannes
Kromayer’s map

30. Reconstruction of the battle, based on Richard Dunn’s reconstructed shoreline.

156 when marathon became a magic word

We destroy this life. We wish to kill and not be killed. Support us.” Or
even more succinctly: “We kill. May we kill.”22
At this critical moment, Kallimachos vowed, on behalf on the Athe-
nian people, to sacrifice one female goat to Artemis Agrotera (of the wild)
for every enemy killed. The Spartans regularly sacrificed a goat to Artemis
Agrotera immediately before charging. The goddess had a temple at Agrai
just outside the city of Athens, but the Athenians are not otherwise known
to have sacrificed to her before battle. They may have decided to imitate
the Spartan custom this time because they were about to face skilled Per-
sian archers. Artemis the hunter was an archer; her cult statue showed
her with a bow.23
As soon as the sacrifice was good, Miltiades raised his arm, pointed
at the Persians, and shouted Hormate kat’ auton (Rush at them). The
trumpet blew for the charge. The men yelled and began to jog. Herodotus
says they were the first Greeks to run all together into a battle. The
challenge was not to follow a “rabbit” and run faster than planned—a
danger familiar to many a marathon runner today (including me) who,
full of adrenalin, has started too fast and regretted it later. Perhaps the
officers put mature men in the front line and ordered the others not to
pass them. At a jog, they would have covered eight stadia in no more than
12 minutes.
The Persians thought the Greeks were insane to be charging without
cavalry or archers, but they prepared to receive the charge. They set up a
barricade of wicker shields, as they did at the battle of Plataea, and read-
ied their bows and arrows from behind the shield wall. When the Greeks
came within range of the Persian archers, “it was impossible to see the sky
because of the arrows,” as Aristophanes puts it. The arrows provided an
incentive to keep up the pace but did not break the charge.24
When the Athenians reached the Persian line, the hand-to-hand fight-
ing lasted “a long time.” How long is anybody’s guess. The only other direct
evidence is Aristophanes’ Wasps, which says that the Athenians pushed
the enemy back “towards evening.” Athenian tradition remembered a
tough fight “with spear, with sword . . . standing man by man,” not a
quick resolution. Modern guesses have ranged from a few minutes to
when marathon became a magic word 157

an hour or so, at most three, but if we include the advance, the hand-to-
hand fight, the pursuit, the fight at the shore, and the return to camp, the
battle must have lasted at least six hours.25
Herodotus describes the fighting in one down-to-earth paragraph: no
singing dust clouds, no apparitions of women shouting so loudly that the
entire force could hear them, not even a vision of Pan or Herakles. The
single remarkable occurrence noted by Herodotus was the blinding of an
Athenian soldier named Epizelos, who said he saw a huge hoplite coming
at him with a beard so large it covered his shield, but the hoplite passed
by and killed the next man. Though he was not hit, Epizelos went blind
and remained blind for the rest of his life. Doctors today would say he
suffered from conversion disorder or hysterical blindness.26
Epizelos appeared in the painting of the battle in the Stoa Poikile, as
did a “man of rustic appearance” who killed many enemies with a plough
handle. Pausanias says that the anonymous fighter vanished after the
battle. When the Athenians inquired of the Delphic oracle, the god Apollo
told them to honor the hero Echetlaios (Plough Handle). Though Herod-
otus doesn’t mention Echetlaios, I find this story entirely credible. If a
farmer’s spear broke, he might well have grabbed a broken plough handle
and swung it as a club.27
Finally, the Persians and the (Asiatic) Scythians in the center broke
the thinner Greek line and pursued the Greeks toward the mesogaia. This
word is usually translated “inland,” which made good sense when the
Persians were imagined as facing the Vrana valley with their backs to the
sea. If the Persians were perpendicular to the coast, as most scholars now
believe, the phrase doesn’t tell us much, since just about any direction
back from the point of engagement led toward some pass out of the Mar-
athon plain. Today Mesogaia is the name of the plain in which the new
Athenian airport lies, separated from the city plain by Mount Hymettos.
If Herodotus meant that the Athenians fled toward that plain, he meant
that they retreated toward their camp and the southwest exit along the
coast.
On both wings the Greeks won. Instead of pursuing the enemy, they
“brought together” the wings and fought the Persians and Scythians who
158 when marathon became a magic word

had broken through in the center. Scholars have understood this phase of
the battle in various ways. On one interpretation, the men on the wings
formed a single phalanx and attacked the Persian center from the rear.
On another interpretation, the wings re-formed separately and executed
a tactical double envelopment. Supporters of both ideas tend to agree
that Miltiades planned the whole thing, as evidenced by the Greeks’ de-
ployment with a thinner center between deeper wings. Some Miltiades
fans have even suggested that he lured the Persians into a trap by ordering
his center to fall back.28
I do not believe that untrained and inexperienced Athenian and Pla-
taean hoplites—very different from Spartan warriors—could have ex-
ecuted such maneuvers in the middle of a battle. As far as we know, the
Athenians had not fought a pitched battle since 506. Hans van Wees even
doubts the story altogether, dismissing it as “a story of ideal hoplite be-
havior pushed to heroic extremes.” But we can take “brought together”
as “rallied” or “regrouped” rather than “brought together into a tight
phalanx formation.” The Greeks on the wings stopped, regrouped, and
turned to help their center. Meanwhile the Persians and Scythians, realiz-
ing they had lost on both wings, turned back, perhaps in a panic. As they
made for the ships, fighting the Greeks on their flanks, the other Persian
infantry and the cavalry had time to board.29
The Greeks later boasted that they cut down the Persians “until they
came to the sea.” The Stoa Poikile painting showed many Persians losing
their way in the marshy lake. The painting’s original sea blue might have
aged to a confusing green that Pausanias misinterpreted as the marsh he
could see in his own day. That would fit Richard Dunn’s reconstruction
of the topography. The Greeks pursued toward the water. The Persians
were pushing and shoving and falling in shallow water as they tried to
reach their ships. Herodotus’ use of the Homeric verb kopto (cut or smite)
lends an epic quality to the narrative, as does the scene at the ships where
the Greeks call for fire, as the Trojans had in the Iliad. Aristophanes, on
the other hand, recalls Aeschylus’ Persians when he says the Greeks were
“spearing them like tuna through their baggy trousers.” In desperate fight-
ing at the water’s edge, the polemarchos Kallimachos died—later legend
when marathon became a magic word 159

said that so many spears pierced his body that his corpse remained up-
right—together with “many other famous Athenians,” including one of
the generals, Stesilaos son of Thrasylaos. Aeschylus’ brother Kynegeiros
died when he grabbed a Persian ship and a sailor chopped off his arm.
(Justin later embellished this story: Kynegeiros lost first his right arm,
then his left, and died holding on to the ship with his teeth!) In the end,
almost all Persian ships escaped. The Athenians captured seven.30

How Did the Greeks Win?

Dedications after the battle show that the Athenians credited the gods
and heroes for the victory. Most historians—Pritchett is an exception—
have credited Miltiades. Miltiades does deserve recognition. Without his
prodding, the Athenians might have stayed in Athens. Without his per-
suasiveness, the generals might have continued to wait for the Spartans.
Without his bold plan to cross the plain before Persian horsemen could
enter it, and without his order to run when it seemed they might not get
across in time, the Athenians might never have closed for hand-to-hand
fighting with the infantry.
Part of the explanation must be the difference in equipment. The Per-
sians may have had some hoplites—they had picked up some Greeks on
their way across the Aegean, and the Athenian soldier Epizelos reported
seeing that huge hoplite coming at him—but they relied primarily on
archers and cavalry. The Athenians’ thrusting spears gave them an ad-
vantage in hand-to-hand fighting. The Greeks also had better defensive
equipment, especially stronger helmets and sturdier shields. On the other
hand, the difference in equipment did not stop the Persians from break-
ing the Athenian ranks in the center. The Persians were probably better
trained and better disciplined. They fought bravely. The conscripts on
their wings may have been less well trained, less well equipped, and less
committed. But evidently the battle was no foregone conclusion even af-
ter the Greeks charged through the hail of arrows.
Perhaps it is fair to say that Miltiades put the Greeks in a position
where they could win. But praise should also go to the Athenians who
160 when marathon became a magic word

elected him, who voted to take the field, who made the run, who fought
to defend their land, their families, and their freedom. Plutarch tells a
story that is certainly ben trovato. When Miltiades asked the Athenian as-
sembly for a crown of olives, Sophanes retorted, “When you have fought
and defeated the barbarians by yourself, Miltiades, then you may ask to
be honored by yourself.”31
 chapter 8

After the Fighting

The Shield Signal

A
fter the battle, the Persian ships pulled away from the shore. “At
Athens,” Herodotus reports, “the Alkmeonids were later blamed
for having contrived a scheme whereby a shield would be dis-
played to send a signal to the Persians aboard their ships.” A few para-
graphs later Herodotus vigorously defends the Alkmeonids, the family of
Kleisthenes, against the charge of medism. No family opposed tyranny
more consistently. It is inconceivable, he says, that the Alkmeonids col-
laborated with the Persians. Someone did raise a shield. But it was not
the Alkmeonids.1
What are we to make of this story? Was holding up a shield really a
big deal? Some scholars have dismissed the shield signal as an invention
of the Alkmeonids’ political opponents, perhaps Themistokles, or an em-
bellishment of something that happened but did not have the significance
the story attached to it. Lionel Scott, for example, suggests that the tale
grew after someone raised his shield to taunt the losers. Such attempts to
dismiss the story stem partly from the speculations it has prompted.
Here are some of the speculations. John B. Bury turned the story on
its head. Instead of a signal shown by a Greek after the battle, he sug-
gested, the shield was a signal shown before the battle by a detachment of
162 after the fighting

Persians sent to take control of the route to Athens via Stamata. Sending
troops to cut off the Athenians from the city makes some sense. But it is
not credible that a Persian contingent reached Mount Pentelikon, flashed
a signal, and somehow escaped after the Greek victory. Where did it go?
This sort of tale is not history.
Harris Gary Hudson admitted that a Greek gave the signal but sug-
gested that it was intended for Miltiades, not the Persians. A lookout,
seeing that the Persians had partially reembarked, signaled Miltiades that
the time was right for an attack. This too is a nice story, but not history.
G. B. Grundy acknowledged that a Greek used a shield to signal the
Persians, but he altered the chronology. The signal was given before the
battle, he suggested, and prompted the Persians to divide their forces.
But as we have seen, there’s no good evidence that the Persians divided
their forces.
Asserting that a raised shield could signal nothing more than yes or
no, P. K. Baillie Reynolds wondered why it was necessary if the direct
communication needed to agree on the yes or no question was possible.
He answered that the Persians planned to be in their ships. The message
was that the conspiracy at Athens had failed. But if that was it, why did the
Persians sail to Phaleron? They already had all the evidence they needed
to tell the king that Hippias did not have as many friends in Athens as he
had suggested. Perhaps thinking along these lines, Fritz Schachermeyr
suggested that the shield was raised at Phaleron, not Marathon. But again
this is not what Herodotus says.
Recently A. Trevor Hodge has shown that the curved surface of a
hoplite shield would have diffused sunlight too much for it to be used
to flash a signal. As if to anticipate this objection, Hammond suggested
that the signaler used a signaling disk rather than an actual shield. But
Herodotus uses the word aspis, the standard word for a hoplite shield. In
fact Herodotus does not say anything about the shield reflecting sunlight.
The verb he uses means simply “to show by lifting up.” The notion of
a heliograph goes back at least to Colonel Leake, but not to an ancient
source. It is a modern myth.
Where then was the signaler? For the Persians on board ship to see
the signal, the signaler must have stood somewhere near the coast. How
after the fighting 163

would the Persians have distinguished the signal shield from all the other
shields being waved about by jubilant soldiers? Presumably the sig-
naler held it above arm’s length. If a soldier on the battlefield had raised
his shield on a stick, he would have been identified. Most likely, then,
the signaler stood somewhere else, perhaps on a roof in the village of
Marathon.
It is true that a shield could only be shown or not shown, but that does
not mean the signaler could only indicate yes or no. The signaler might
have agreed with the Persians on a set of items, each meaning something
different. For instance, a white flag if the collaborators had taken over the
city, a red cloak if the Spartans had reached Attica, a shield if the city was
still defended. Datis would want to know what he was going to find.
If Herodotus could not discover the full story of the shield signal, we
certainly are not likely to stumble on the truth by guesswork 25 centuries
later. But we should not deny the signal just because Herodotus could
not identify the signaler. It shows that Athenians suspected they had po-
tential collaborators among them. It confirms Miltiades’ argument to
Kallimachos that the Athenians needed to fight or risk dissension leading
to surrender.
The potential collaborators might have been the Alkmeonids, in
spite of Herodotus’ protests. Granting his point that the Alkmeonids op-
posed tyranny, they might have been willing to take the Persians’ side if
Datis guaranteed the survival of the democracy. After the great victory at
Marathon, they could not have expected to persuade a majority in the as-
sembly to vote for submission, but if the Persians reached Athens before
the Athenian army, there would have been no need for a vote. Eretria had
shown another way.

A Message for Athens

Of all the tales told about Marathon, the most famous one relates that
Thersippos (or was it Eukles or Philippides or Phidippides?) ran (in full
armor, in one version) to Athens after the battle, shouted, “Rejoice, we
have won!” and dropped dead. This story appears first in Plutarch, who
credits it to an author who wrote much earlier, but still 150 years after
164 after the fighting

the battle. It is not found in Herodotus and probably is not historical,

though not because the feat was impossible. In the annual Bataan Me-
morial Death March held at White Sands, New Mexico, soldiers in the
Male Military Heavy division carry a rucksack weighing a minimum of
35 pounds for 26.2 miles. The 2008 winner, 21-year-old Jack Glojek, fin-
ished in 5:15:27, an impressive pace of 12:02 minutes per mile. A 40-year-
old in the Civilian Male Heavy division named David Pokorny did even
better, finishing in 4:02:29. The real reason to doubt the story, as Frank
Frost once remarked, is that someone would have jumped on a horse.
The same thought occurred to patriotic Greeks in the nineteenth
century. The modern Greek folktale version of Phidippides’ fatal run to
Athens connected Marathon explicitly to the fight for liberation from
the Turks. According to the story, a big battle took place at Marathon
when many Turks (not Persians, Turks) came to enslave Marathon and
then Athens. So much blood flowed that it became a river and turned
the sea red. After the Greeks won, two messengers went to Athens. One
mounted a horse and followed the coast road. The other, still wearing
his armor, took the shorter but more difficult route over the hills. As he
passed through a village, women who wanted to know what happened
shouted “Stamata!” (Stop!). Pausing only briefly to catch his breath, he
beat the messenger on horseback to Athens. He called out “We won!” and
collapsed. The story lives on today. While walking from Marathon to Sta-
mata in May 2006, I found myself on Marathonodromou Pheidippidou
(Street of the Marathon-runner Phidippides).

The Persians’ Voyage to Phaleron

After seeing the shield signal, the Persians picked up their Eretrian prison-
ers from the tiny island of Aigilia and sailed round Cape Sounion. Most
scholars imagine Persian ships racing tired Athenian hoplites to Phaleron,
the Athenian harbor in 490. Hammond’s scenario has both ships and
soldiers arriving eight to nine hours after the battle. As Herodotus says,
the Athenians went “as fast as their feet would carry them.” They moved
from one Herakleion at Marathon to another Herakleion at Kynosarges,
a gymnasium sometimes used for military training, on the banks of the
after the fighting 165

Ilissos River not far from the city. When the Persians reached Phaleron,
they anchored offshore. They eventually sailed off to Asia without trying
to land.2
A realistic assessment of fleet speed rules out a dramatic race for the
city. The sea voyage from Marathon to Phaleron is 70 miles or more
around Cape Sounion, much longer than by land. Under favorable con-
ditions, a single trireme rowed at seven to eight knots might have made
it in nine to ten hours. But because of the U-shaped course, a wind that
favored the Persian fleet for the first leg would have hindered it for the
second and vice versa. Moreover, a fleet moves at the speed of its slowest
ship, and ancient sailing vessels moved at two to three knots. The entire
Persian fleet, moving at the speed of its transport ships, would have taken
30 to 45 hours for the journey. If the Persians divided their forces, a “fly-
ing squadron” could have traveled more quickly. Although such a tactic
is possible, Herodotus mentions no division of the Persian fleet. Almost
certainly the fleet anchored off Phaleron the day after the battle.
The same-day march is no more plausible than the same-day sail.
Before starting their return to Athens, the Athenians had advanced from
the Herakleion to Kynosoura and returned to the Herakleion, perhaps
ten miles in all, jogging for nearly a mile and fighting hand-to-hand for a
long time under the hot summer sun. The Athenians would have been in
no condition to march back to Athens the same day—and there was no
need for them to try.
Plutarch says in his Aristeides that the Athenians got back on the same
day: “When the Athenians had routed the barbarians, driven them aboard
their ships, and saw that they were sailing away, not toward the islands,
but into the gulf toward Attica under compulsion of wind and wave, then
they were afraid that the enemy would find Athens empty of defenders.
So they hurried to the city with nine tribes and reached the city on the
same day.” Does “on the same day” mean on the same day as the battle?
The same author says in his Moralia either that “Miltiades, having joined
battle at Marathon on the next day, returned to the city victorious with
his army” or that “Miltiades, having joined battle at Marathon, on the
next day returned to the city victorious with his army.”3 The uncertainty
is whether to take “on the next day” with the participle or the main verb.
166 after the fighting

If we take it with the participle, Plutarch contradicts Herodotus in deny-

ing a delay before the battle. If we take it with the main verb, Plutarch
contradicts himself, unless we take “on the same day” in the Aristeides
passage as meaning “on the same day they set out for Athens.” I think it is
preferable to interpret Plutarch charitably so that he contradicts neither
Herodotus nor himself. The Athenians hurried all the way back to the
city on the day after the battle.
The Athenians spent the rest of the day of the battle celebrating their
victory, collecting their corpses, looting the enemy dead, erecting a tro-
phy of captured arms and armor, and securing the Persian camp. Then
they rested for the night. The next morning, leaving Aristeides and his
tribe at Marathon, they hurried back to Athens as fast as they could man-
age, arriving in time to take up a position in Kynosarges before the Per-
sians arrived.
The Persians put down their anchors but did not try to land. Perhaps
the Athenians marched down to the shore and demonstrated their inten-
tion to contest a landing, but Herodotus does not say so. Perhaps the
Persians sent a few scouts to see what was going on. Perhaps they looked
for another signal that did not come. In any event, they set off for home.

The Persians Return to Susa

On their way back to Asia, the Persians again made their way through the
Cyclades islands. At Mykonos, Herodotus says, Datis had a dream that
prompted him to search his ships. On one of the Phoenician ships, he
found a gilded statue of Apollo that had been looted from Delion on the
mainland opposite Chalcis. One would like to know more about the cir-
cumstances in which this statue was taken. Most likely, men looking for
provisions took the statue during the siege of Eretria. But Datis consid-
ered the theft regrettable and deposited the statue in Apollo’s sanctuary
on Delos, instructing the Delians to take it back to Delion. (They didn’t,
but 20 years later the Thebans came and got it themselves.)
The rest of the trip passed without incident. Though Darius had a
bitter grudge against the Eretrians, when he saw them as prisoners he did
them no further harm. He settled them 210 stadia (about 26 miles) from
after the fighting 167

Susa near a well that produced bitumen (a tarlike form of petroleum),

water, and oil. In 1836 Major (later Colonel) Henry Rawlinson identified
a likely site at Kir-Ab, about 40 miles northeast of Susa, where he found
bitumen still being collected.
When the philosopher Apollonios of Tyana visited the place in the
first century AD, he learned that the Persians took 780 Eretrian captives—
men, women, even some children—to Ionia by ship. The Eretrians had to
walk the rest of the way. Only 400 men and 10 women survived the trek.
Apollonios supposedly saw the Eretrians’ tombs, with the names of the
deceased and their fathers written in Greek, accompanied by carvings of
ships. One tomb had this touching epitaph:
We once left the deep-sounding Aegean waves,
who lie here in the middle of the plain of Ecbatana
Farewell, famous Eretria, our former home; farewell, Athens,
neighbor of Euboea; farewell, dear sea.4

Apollonios’ visit may be fictitious. Elsewhere the epigram is attrib-

uted to Plato, and it may be an even later composition. It certainly has the
geography wrong, for Ecbatana is 186 miles north of Susa. But let it stand
as a reminder that however gloriously the campaign ended for Athens,
for Eretria it was a disaster from which the city never recovered.
Dio Chrysostom, a Greek orator from Asia Minor who also lived in
the first century AD, says that he heard “a Mede declare that the Per-
sians concede none of the claims made by the Greeks, but maintain that
Darius sent Datis and Artaphernes against Naxos and Eretria, and that
after capturing these cities they returned to the king. However, while
they were lying at anchor off Euboea, a few of their ships, not more than
20, were driven on to the Attic coast and their crews had some kind of
an engagement with the inhabitants of that place.” Dio comments that
the account is false, but it contains considerable truth. Darius must have
been pleased that his forces had taken Naxos, the rest of the Cyclades, and
Eretria. His commanders no doubt reported that they had ravaged some
Athenian territory and killed many Athenians, but that Hippias’ prom-
ised supporters had failed to materialize. Datis had indubitably expanded
the Persian Empire, and a conqueror such as Darius was accustomed to
taking some casualties in order to expand.5
168 after the fighting

Datis then disappears from history. One Persian tradition said that
he died fighting at Marathon; when the Persians asked for his body, the
Greeks refused to give it back. This version contradicts Herodotus’ evi-
dence that Datis survived at least as far as Delos, and I suspect that if the
Greeks had killed him they would have boasted about it. More likely,
Datis survived the campaign. There is no hint that the king punished
him. As for Artaphrenes, the Great King’s nephew, he commanded the
Lydians and Mysians on his cousin Xerxes’ invasion of Greece ten years
later.

The Athenians Bury the Dead

When the Athenians marched for Athens, they left Aristeides and the men
of his tribe, Antiochis, together with the Plataeans, to guard the captives
and the booty. No source specifies the number of captives. Given their
high casualties, probably few invaders survived unless they got away by
ship. As for the booty, Plutarch speaks of silver and gold lying in heaps, all
kinds of clothing, unspeakable wealth in the tents, and captured utensils.
Since Herodotus does not mention booty at Marathon, skeptical scholars
have supposed that Plutarch had no evidence and simply drew on what
Herodotus says about the camp and the booty captured after the battle of
Plataea in 479. But the list of dedications made after the battle leaves no
doubt that the profits were large indeed.6
Plutarch tells an anecdote about Kallias, whose descendants were
called lakkoploutoi (“pit rich”). A barbarian begged Kallias for mercy and
showed him a mass of gold in a pit. Kallias took the gold, but killed the
man so no one would learn what he had done. This story has been chal-
lenged too: A more mundane explanation of the family nickname would
be that they made their money in mining. Yet since Herodotus attests that
the locals found hoards of gold and silver hidden in the area after Plataea,
it is plausible that the Persians buried gold and silver at Marathon.7
The seven captured ships would have had their share of wealth, simi-
lar to the gold and silver cups and other treasures that washed ashore
after a storm wrecked Persian ships in 480. The 6,400 Persian corpses
may not have had much armor to interest the Greeks, but the Persians
after the fighting 169

went into battle wearing gold bracelets and necklaces. Gold attachments
decorated their embroidered clothing, and they carried gilded daggers.8
Attention must soon have turned from shiny gold to decompos-
ing corpses. Greek funerals normally took place on the second day after
death. As most of the Athenians marched back to Athens, Aristeides and
his men must have prepared for the cremation of the dead. They began
by collecting all the Athenian corpses. They apparently planned from the
start to erect a funeral mound over the remains, for they began by mark-
ing out the location of the Soros with a layer of sand and greenish earth.
Directly on top of the sand they built a brick-lined cremation tray, about
3 feet wide and at least 16 feet long, on which the pyre was laid. Homer gives
a vivid description of the process when he tells of Patroklos’ funeral:9
Now powerful Agamemnon
gave order for men and mules to assemble from all the shelters
and bring in timber, and a great man led them in motion,
Meriones, the henchman of courtly Idomeneus. These then
went out and in their hands carried axes to cut wood
and ropes firmly woven, and their mules went on ahead of them.
They went many ways, uphill, downhill, sidehill and slantwise;
but when they came to the spurs of Ida with all her well springs,
they set to hewing with the thin edge of bronze and leaning
their weight to the strokes on towering-leafed oak trees that toppled
with huge crashing; then the Achaians splitting the timbers
fastened them to the mules and these with their feet tore up
the ground as they pulled through the dense undergrowth to the flat
land.
All the woodcutters carried logs themselves; such was the order
of Meriones, the henchman of courtly Idomeneus. These then
threw down their burdens in order along the beach, where Achilleus
had chosen place for a huge grave mound, for himself and Patroklos.

Then the body is brought, a prayer said, and most people depart. The
poet resumes:
The close mourners stayed by the place and piled up the timber,
and built a pyre a hundred feet long this way and that way,
and on the peak of the pyre they laid the body, sorrowful
at heart; and in front of it skinned and set in order numbers
170 after the fighting
of fat sheep and shambling horn-curved cattle; and from all
great-hearted Achilleus took the fat and wrapped the corpse in it
from head to foot, and piled up the skinned bodies above it.

Achilleus kills and adds to the pyre four horses, nine dogs, and a dozen
young Trojans. When the pyre would not light, he prays to the winds,
and
They came with a sudden blast upon the sea, and the waves rose
under the whistling wind. They came to the generous Troad
and hit the pyre, and a huge inhuman blaze rose, roaring.
Nightlong they piled the flames on the funeral pyre together
and blew with a screaming blast, and nightlong swift-footed Achilleus
from a golden mixing-bowl, with a two-handled goblet in his hand,
drew the wine and poured it on the ground and drenched the ground
with it,
and called upon the soul of unhappy Patroklos. And as
a father mourns as he burns the bones of a son, who was married
only now, and died to grieve his unhappy parents,
so Achilleus was mourning as he burned his companion’s
bones, and dragged himself by the fire in close lamentation.

Achilleus finally sleeps, and in the morning,

First with gleaming wine they put out the pyre that was burning,
As much as was still aflame, and the ashes dropped deep from it.

Then they collect Patroklos’ bones and save them for later, after Achilleus’
death, when they will raise a burial mound over them both.
With a few minor adjustments—the Athenians did not sacrifice
horses, dogs, and humans at Marathon—this description gives a good
sense of what happened in 490. Beside the cremation tray, the excavator
Staes found early black-figure lekythoi—that is, pots frequently used at
funerals, but ones made about a century before the battle. Evidently the
relatives of the dead used family heirlooms for a funeral meal and left the
tableware at the tomb. Immediately thereafter, for hardly any later pot-
tery was found, the Athenians raised the large mound that has been such
a prominent feature ever since, rising at least 39 feet above the plain.
That was not all. The Athenians made a second brick-lined tray on
the outer face of the mound, where the residents of Marathon still made
after the fighting 171

offerings to the heroized dead 600 years later in the time of Pausanias.10
Staes found this tray three feet below the surface of the mound, where it
had been covered by eroded soil.
And finally, the Athenians had the names of their 192 casualties,
organized by tribe as they had fought, inscribed on tombstones placed
on top of the mound, where Pausanias saw them.11 Greek archaeologist
Theodoros Spyropoulos announced in 2000 that he had found one of
these inscriptions at Herodes Atticus’ villa in the Peloponnese. Originally
from Marathon, Herodes might have moved these famous stones, or had
them copied. The potentially spectacular find remains unpublished, but
the inscription is said to have an epigram followed by a casualty list in-
cluding 25 names cut in letters that look late Archaic.
The Marathon burial revived an aristocratic form—cremation,
mound, offering trench, marker—that had gone out of fashion in the
previous century. To heroize the Marathon fighters, as they were called,
the young Athenian democracy collectivized the form of burial once used
for individual aristocratic warriors.
The Plataeans and the slaves, the non-Athenians who fought in the
battle, were buried separately, with a separate mound raised over their
remains.
Persian corpses were treated altogether differently. Stripped and left
to rot in the blazing sun until the Spartans arrived and inspected them
the day after the battle, they were tossed into a trench. Kallimachos’ vow
to sacrifice a goat for every Persian casualty meant that the bodies were
counted, at least approximately. The ratio of dead Persians (6,400) to
dead Athenians (192) works out to 100 Persians for every 3 Athenians.
 chapter 9

What If ?

T
he “What if ?” game goes back to Herodotus. In a famous passage,
the Father of History considers what would have happened in 480
if the Athenians had abandoned their country or surrendered to
Xerxes. Either the Persian fleet would have taken the Greek cities one by
one, he says, leaving the Spartans to fight and die, or the Spartans would
have bowed to the inevitable and come to terms with Xerxes. “In either
case,” Herodotus opines, “Greece would have come under Persian rule.”1
As a way to think about Marathon’s importance, I’ll suggest my own
“What ifs.” What if the battle of Marathon had turned out differently?
What if the Athenians had deployed more slowly and the Persians more
quickly? The story might have ended like this:
Miltiades shaded his eyes as he looked to the east. The morning sun
was already well up, since deploying the troops had taken longer than he
had hoped. The slaves, unused to serving as hoplites, had slowed every-
thing down. Still, the generals had prodded everyone to hurry. They had
now reached the middle of the plain.
Miltiades could see Persian horses. He had hoped that they would
reach the plain no more quickly than they had on previous days, but as
soon as scouts reported movement out of the Greek camp, Datis had rec-
ognized what Miltiades was trying to do. He ordered his troops to deploy
as quickly as possible. “The Greeks must not be allowed to escape,” he
what if? 173

told his officers. “Let’s catch them in the middle of the plain and make
them pay for all that they have done to us.” Full of confidence and excited
at the prospect of finally getting to fight, Datis’ men carried out their
orders. Artaphrenes began to lead the cavalry into the plain.
The Greeks began their charge at Miltiades’ order, but it was too late.
As they jogged, they saw hundreds of mounted archers riding into the
space between the two infantry lines. The Greeks hesitated. When the
Persian archers came within bowshot and began shooting, the Greek
advance came to a halt as men took cover behind their shields.
Meanwhile Datis, on horseback, led the Persian infantry in their own
charge. The commanders of the other contingents, as soon as they saw
Datis advance, raised their standards—the signal to charge—and rushed
forward, shouting their battle cry. They had always intimidated Greeks in
the past and they expected to do so now.
As their infantry approached, the Persian cavalry rode off to the flank,
where they could attack the Plataeans. Meanwhile the front line of Persian
infantry set up a barricade of wicker shields. Though shaken by the first
cavalry charge, the Athenians resumed their advance through the hail of
arrows. Many of them fell, including the polemarchos Kallimachos, who
was riddled with arrows. Many more were wounded; those who lacked
good shields were especially vulnerable. They began to hang back. Some
turned and ran the other way (Figure 31).
When the depleted Greek ranks reached the Persian shield wall, hand-
to-hand fighting began. The Persians dropped their bows and fought with
spears and swords. Though they lacked the good helmets and solid shields
used by the Greeks, they had similar chest protection. The Persians in
the center were better trained in hand-to-hand fighting than the Greeks,
and even managed to snatch and break some of the Greek spears. One
stout farmer who lost his spear grabbed a broken plough handle someone
had left in the field and began to swing it as a club. He was no Herakles,
however, and was soon cut down. The Plataeans on the left broke and
ran first, which freed some of the Persian cavalry to attack the Athenians
next to the Plataeans. Like a wave, the Greek retreat grew from left to
right. On the Athenian right, the Greek allies of the Persians fought better
and better as they sensed what was happening. One bearded Parian, a tall
174 what if?

31. Interior of an Athenian red-figure cup, showing a warrior fleeing from arrows
(Staatliche Museen, Berlin, 2304; from Eduard Gerhard, Trinkschalen und Gefässe
des Königlichen Museums zu Berlin und Anderer Sammlungen [Berlin: Reimer, 1848]
pl. VI–VII, no. 5)

man with an unusually robust physique, so terrified an Athenian named

Epizelos that he went blind. He was an easy mark for the next Parian. The
playwright Aeschylus fell, mortally wounded, but his brother Kynegeiros
managed to escape.
Finally, all the Greeks fled. The Persians rushed after them, killing
many and capturing not a few, including the general Miltiades. He was
brought to Datis, who killed him on the spot, afraid that if Miltiades
reached Darius, the Great King would have pity on him, remembering
his previous service. The prisoners were put on board the ships. Pick-
ing up the Eretrian prisoners along the way, the fleet sailed around to
Phaleron. They disembarked without opposition. As they set up camp
what if? 175

outside the city of Athens, a delegation arrived offering earth and water
to the king. Datis accepted the offer, installed Hippias as dictator, and
erected a victory monument carved from a large block of Parian marble.
He then sailed back to Asia, leaving a garrison behind to keep the peace.
Several hundred Athenians from distinguished families were resettled
with the Eretrian prisoners near Susa. Miltiades’ son Kimon received a
grant of land near the estate previously given to his brother.
When Hippias died of old age less than a year later, Darius chose
Xanthippos, a member of the Alkmeonid family, to succeed him. Xan-
thippos joined the campaign of Artaphrenes two years after Marathon.
Artaphrenes’ fleet sailed around the Peloponnese, accepting earth and
water wherever it went. Sparta was the last holdout, but after the libera-
tion of Messenia, Spartan soldiers accepted an offer to become mercenar-
ies for a Persian campaign in Egypt. The survivors came home rich men
and retired to a life of ease. Athens, too, prospered under Persian rule.
Xanthippos’ brilliant son, Pericles, succeeded him as tyrant.
Had the Athenians submitted without fighting, or run away, or de-
fended their walls against a siege, the eventual outcome would not have
been much different. The only other realistic scenario to ponder is this:
What if the Athenians had waited for the Spartan 2,000 to arrive? Datis
would then have expected them to fight and would not have allowed them
to cross the plain virtually untouched. He might have withdrawn, set-
ting up the next, larger campaign. He might have defeated the Greeks in
the open plain. If he lost—if the Athenians won with Spartan help—the
myth of Marathon would have taken on a quite different tone. In their
collective memory, the Athenians could not have brushed the Spartans
aside as easily as they did the Plataeans. Without the boost to their egos
that their “single-handed” victory gave, would the Athenians have dared
to assert their claim to the leadership of the Greeks?
When he made Marathon the first of his 15 Decisive Battles, Creasy
did not forget that the Persians invaded again ten years later with more
ships and more men. Marathon did not end Persian hopes of conquering
Greece. Plataea did that, and without Salamis there would have been no
Plataea. What Creasy realized is that Marathon “broke forever the spell
of Persian invincibility, which had previously paralyzed men’s minds.”2
Marathon made Salamis conceivable and Plataea possible.
This page intentionally left blank
 Appendix A
Important Ancient Sources on Marathon

Aeschylus (c. 525/4–456/5), the Athenian tragic poet, refers to Marathon three
times in his Persians, produced 18 years after the battle (231–245, 286–289,
and 472–476).
Aristophanes (c. 447–386), the Athenian comic poet, calls the Mara-
thonomachai, the Marathon fighters, “hard as holm-oak, men of maple”
(Acharnians 180–181). In Wasps 1078–1088, he describes the battle of Mara-
thon, though not by name. He lifts some details from the stories of Xerxes’
invasion ten years later, but not inappropriately. Datis’ men probably did
burn Athenian land and shoot many arrows. The Athenians probably did
spear the Persians like tuna as they scrambled to their ships. Knights 1333,
Wasps 711, and a quotation from the Holkades (Athenaios 3.111) provide the
earliest references to “the trophy at Marathon.”
The Athenian Constitution, written by the philosopher Aristotle (384–322)
or one of his students, describes the constitutional position of the generals at
the time of the battle. In his Rhetoric, Aristotle mentions Miltiades’ motion
calling for the Athenians to march to Marathon.
In one of his speeches, Demosthenes (384–322) quotes Miltiades’ motion
calling for the Athenians to go out and meet the Persians.
Unfortunately the Marathon section of the Universal History written by
Diodoros of Sicily (first century BC) is almost entirely lost. A fragment de-
scribing an exchange of messages between Datis and Miltiades does survive.
Herodotus of Halicarnassus (c. 484–c. 425) wrote the earliest extant nar-
rative of the battle in his Histories. His great commentator, Reginald Walter
Macan, called him “the prince of story-tellers,” and his account of Marathon
178 appendix a
lives up to that accolade. Herodotus was indefatigably curious. No doubt he
talked to many veterans. Though it is unlikely that he talked to any of the
generals, he could have spoken with their descendants. A century ago schol-
ars often took a hypercritical attitude toward Herodotus and his sources, but
his reputation has improved more recently. Most historians today take him
at his word that he wrote down what he heard people say (2.123.1, 4.195.2, and
7.152.3), though those people were more likely ordinary people he met on his
travels than truly learned individuals. And most historians today believe that
Herodotus went where he says he went. He certainly visited Athens, where he
gave public readings of his work.
Justin (second, third, or fourth century AD) wrote a condensed version of
Pompeius Trogus’ Philippic Histories, originally composed during the reign
of the emperor Augustus. His brief battle narrative is perhaps most memo-
rable for the line that the Greeks fought as men, the barbarians as sheep. It
offers little to the historian.
Ktesias (late fifth century BC), a Greek doctor who worked at the court
of Artaxerxes, wrote a history of Persia that survives only in fragments. A
description of Marathon is not among them, other than a paragraph saying
that Datis died in the battle.
Lysias (?459/8–380) includes in his Funeral Oration a highly rhetorical
version of the battle, showing such a “reckless disregard of tradition and
of probabilities” (Macan) that it is of no use whatsoever for reconstructing
what happened.
Cornelius Nepos (c. 100–24), born in northern Italy, includes the battle
in his brief biography of Miltiades. The story here differs considerably from
that in Herodotus, but Nepos has had his champions, from George Grote in
the nineteenth century to Johan Henrik Schreiner in the twenty-first. Some
bits of other late writers match parts of Nepos’ account. His defenders argue
that an alternative tradition derives from Ephoros of Cyme, a historian of the
fourth century BC. Hammond championed instead an Atthidographer (a lo-
cal historian of Attica) who wrote after the death of Demetrios of Phaleron in
307, perhaps Demon, whose work survives only in quotations.
Among the works of the philosopher Plato (c. 429–347) is a dialogue
known as the Menexenos that contains a funeral oration in which Marathon
figures prominently. Scholars have questioned the authorship and the seri-
ousness of the dialogue; in it Socrates credits the speech to Pericles’ partner
Aspasia. Two passages in the Laws overlap somewhat with the Menexenos,
but contain some new material as well.
Pausanias, an early travel writer, describes what he saw in Greece in the
second century AD. He was little interested in contemporary buildings and
appendix a 179

events, but fascinated by the heritage of Classical Greece. He gives an im-

portant description of the plain of Marathon as it looked in his day. He also
describes the famous painting of the battle in the Stoa Poikile (Painted Stoa)
in Athens, an original work from the 460s that would be our earliest source
for the battle had it survived.
Plutarch (c. AD 46–120), the prolific writer from Chaironeia, unfor-
tunately did not include Miltiades in his series of parallel Lives of famous
Greeks and Romans. His lives of Theseus, Aristeides, and Kimon have some
relevant material, as do his treatises On the Glory of the Athenians and On the
Malice of Herodotus.
Two or three epigrams relating to Marathon are attributed to Simonides
of Keos (c. 556–466), who had more to say about Xerxes’ invasion.
A ninth- or tenth-century Byzantine encyclopedia known as the Suda
contains several relevant entries, including one under the heading choris hip-
peis (the cavalry are apart), which some scholars have made the foundation
for an ingenious reconstruction. A group of scholars is now translating the
Suda and making it available online at http://www.stoa.org/sol/.
Thucydides (born 460–455, died after 404), the great Athenian historian
of the Peloponnesian War, refers to Marathon a half dozen times.
Xenophon (c. 430–c. 355) has a lot to say about Persia, especially in his
Anabasis, Education of Cyrus, and Hellenica. He provides the earliest evidence
for Kallimachos’ vow to Artemis.
 Appendix B
The Date of the Battle

The Year
As if to prove that nothing about Marathon is beyond challenge, J. A. R.
Munro put the battle in 491. He maintained that Herodotus, Thucydides,
and Aristotle’s Athenian Constitution, “simply and naturally interpreted,”
all put the battle a year earlier than 490. I cannot explain how he reached
this conclusion. Aristotle puts the battle in the archonship of Phainippos
(490/89). Thucydides says that the Persians invaded Greece again in the tenth
year after Marathon. He refers to Xerxes’ campaign of 480, which therefore
began in 481/80, the tenth year after 490/89, counting inclusively in the Greek
way. The series of dates offered by Herodotus is internally consistent and
fits with Aristotle and Thucydides. After Marathon, Asia was in commo-
tion for three years preparing warships, horses, and so on: 490/89, 489/8,
and 488/7. In the fourth year, 487/6, Egypt revolted. In the next year, 486/5,
Darius died. In the second year, 485/4 counting inclusively, Xerxes recovered
Egypt, and he then prepared for four full years (485/4, 484/3, 483/2, 482/1)
for the invasion of Greece, which began in the fifth year after the recovery
of Egypt, 481/80 counting inclusively. All the evidence hangs together: The
battle of Marathon took place in 490.1

The Month and the Day

The following evidence pertains to the month and the day:
• According to Herodotus, the Spartans told Philippides that they
wanted to help but could not do so immediately without violating
appendix b 181

their law, “for it was the ninth day of the month, and it was not per-
missible to set out [on the ninth] unless the moon was full.”
• Herodotus also says that “after the full moon, 2,000 Spartans
marched to Athens in such great haste that they arrived in Attica on
the third day out of Sparta. They were too late to engage in battle,
but nevertheless wished to see the Medes, which they did when they
reached Marathon.”
• Plato says that the Spartans arrived one day too late for the battle.
• According to Plutarch, the battle occurred on Boedromion 6, and the
Athenians later commemorated it annually on that day.2
In 1855 August Boeckh combined this evidence with modern astronomi-
cal calculations to put the battle on September 12. Since Herodotus’ evidence
about the moon cannot be reconciled with Plutarch’s date of Boedromion 6,
he reasoned, Plutarch must have confused the date of the victory celebration
with the date of the battle. The battle occurred shortly after the full moon
in the preceding month, Metageitnion, the second month in the Athenian
lunar year. The Athenian lunar year began with the first new moon after
the summer solstice, which in 490 fell on June 29. Metageitnion would have
begun on August 25, and the next full moon fell on September 9. If the Spar-
tans marched on September 10, they reached Attica on September 12 and
Marathon on September 13, the day after the battle. Boeckh’s chronology has
dominated the field, though some scholars put the battle one day earlier by
supposing that the Spartans went to Marathon the same day they reached
Attica, making the impressive speed of their march even more remarkable.
In 1962 Burn revived an alternative date for the battle favored by Georg
Busolt, a distinguished German historian of the late nineteenth century. In
490 a new moon occurred on June 27, very close to the summer solstice of
June 29. If the new moon was not observed until after the solstice, the first
full moon of the new year would have fallen in July and the second in August
rather than September, putting the battle a month earlier than on Boeckh’s
chronology. Burn thought an earlier date advantageous because it made the
Persian advance less leisurely, and when the Persians ravaged the Karystians’
land, they might have destroyed grain standing in the field before the harvest
in June.
In 2004 Donald W. Olson, Russell L. Doescher, and Marilynn S. Olson
put a new twist on Burn’s argument. We must look to the Spartan calendar,
they argued, rather than the Athenian. Though Herodotus does not men-
tion the Spartan month, they assume it was Karneios, in which the Spartans
celebrated the Karneia, a nine-day festival of Apollo that culminated with
the full moon. Earlier scholars made Karneios the eleventh month in the
182 appendix b
Spartan calendar, which they believed started after the autumnal equinox.
The eleventh full moon after the equinox of September 29, 491, occurred on
August 10. So Olson, Doescher, and Olson put the battle in August. This
argument is not conclusive because the Spartan calendar is so uncertain.
Catherine Trümpy’s 1997 study of the ancient Greek months puts the start of
the Spartan year in the summer and makes Karneios the third month of the
year. So Olson, Doescher, and Olson have not settled the issue.
Hammond began the year in June, but kept the battle in September by
reversing the usual interpretation of the battle and the celebration. He sug-
gested that Kallimachos made his vow on behalf of Athens at the festival of
Artemis Agrotera on Boedromion 6. The battle took place eleven days later,
after the full moon of Boedromion, the third month of the year, rather than
Metageitnion. This scenario seems unlikely. Kallimachos probably made his
vow on the day of the battle when he sacrificed before the Athenians de-
ployed.
Francis M. Dunn is the only scholar to defend Boedromion 6, the only
explicit date given by an ancient source. He shows that Greek calendars
were not astronomically precise. A month began not with the astronomi-
cal conjunction—the moment when the moon crosses a line between the
earth and the sun—but when the crescent first became visible. On an ob-
servational calendar at Athens, the full moon could fall anywhere from the
ninth to the sixteenth of the month, or even (less commonly) on the eighth.
Therefore—I’m oversimplifying somewhat—what Herodotus says about the
Spartan calendar is credible. The full moon did not necessarily occur on the
fifteenth, as commonly assumed. It could have occurred on the eighth or on
any day in the week that followed. Boedromion 6 would fall at least two days
before a full moon, so Dunn suggested that the Athenians added days to the
calendar so that the campaign would not interfere with the celebration of
the Eleusinian Mysteries that began on Boedromion 13. In other words, the
archon may have called multiple days Boedromion 6. On this reasoning, the
battle took place in September or even October. But all those Boedromion
6s do sound a bit like Harpo Marx playing one ace of spades after another in
Animal Crackers.
Whether or not Dunn is correct to defend Boedromion 6, he makes an
important point relative to the stalemate at Marathon. It might have lasted
anywhere from three to nine days, so it is impossible to name a specific day
in our calendar. The battle occurred about the time of the full moon in either
August and September. I lean toward August.
 Notes

Abbreviations
Asheri 2007 Asheri, David, Alan Lloyd, and Aldo Corcella. 2007. A Com-
mentary on Herodotus Books I-IV. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Briant 2002 Briant, Pierre. 2002. From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the
Persian Empire. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbraun.
Burn 1984 Burn, Andrew Robert. 1984. Persia and the Greeks: The Defence of
the West, c. 546–478 BC. 2nd ed. Stanford: Stanford University
Press.
CAH 4(2) Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 4, 2nd ed., ed. John Boardman,
Nicholas G. L. Hammond, David M. Lewis, and Martin
Ostwald. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
Cawkwell 2005 Cawkwell, George. 2005. The Greek Wars: The Failure of Persia.
New York: Oxford University Press.
Clarke 1818 Clarke, Edward D. 1818. Travels in Various Countries of Europe,
Asia, and Africa, 4th ed. London: Cadell and Davies.
Delbrück 1887 Delbrück, Hans. 1887. Die Perserkriege und die Burgunderkriege.
Berlin: Walther and Apolant.
Delbrück 1975 Delbrück, Hans. 1975. History of the Art of War within the Frame-
work of Political History, vol. 1. Trans. of the third (1920)
German edition by Walter J. Renfroe, Jr. Westport, Conn:
Greenwood.
Evans 2006 Evans, James Allan Stewart. 2006. The Beginnings of History:
Herodotus and the Persian Wars. Campbellville, Ont: Edgar
Kent.
FGrHist Die Fragmente der Griechischen Historiker, ed. Felix Jacoby.
Leiden: Brill, 1923–1958.
184 notes to pages 2–9
Hammond 1973 Hammond, Nicholas Geoffrey Lemprière. 1973. Studies in Greek
History. Oxford: Clarendon.
IG Inscriptiones Graecae.
Kuhrt 2007 Kuhrt, Amélie. 2007. The Persian Empire: A Corpus of Sources
from the Achaemenid Period. 2 vols. London: Routledge.
Lazenby 1993 Lazenby, John F. 1993. The Defence of Greece, 490–479 B.C.
Warminster: Aris and Phillips.
Leake 1835 Leake, William Martin. 1835. Travels in Northern Greece. London:
Rodwell.
Leake 1841 Leake, William Martin. 1841. The Topography of Athens. 2 vols.
London: Rodwell.
Macan 1895 Macan, Reginald Walter. 1895. Herodotus: The Fourth, Fifth, and
Sixth Books. London: Macmillan.
ML Meiggs, Russell, and David M. Lewis. 1988. A Selection of Greek
Historical Inscriptions to the End of the Fifth Century B.C.
Oxford: Clarendon.
Munro 1899 Munro, John Arthur Ruskin. 1899. “Some Observations on the
Persian Wars, I. The Campaign of Marathon,” Journal of Hel-
lenic Studies 19: 185–197.
Petrakos 1996 Petrakos, Vasileios Ch. 1996. Marathon. Athens: [The Archaeo-
logical Society at Athens].
Pritchett 1971–1991 Pritchett, W. Kendrick. 1971–1991. The Greek State at War. 5 vols.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Schachermeyr 1951 Schachermeyr, Fritz. 1951. “Marathon und die Persische Politik.”
Historische Zeitschrift 172: 1–35.
Scott 2005 Scott, Lionel. 2005. Historical Commentary on Herodotus Book 6.
Leiden: Brill.
Sekunda 2002 Sekunda, Nicholas. 2002. Marathon 490 BC: The First Persian
Invasion of Greece. Oxford: Osprey.

Introduction
1. “Rush at them,” attributed to Miltiades by a scholiast (anonymous commentator)
on Aelius Aristeides (ed. Dindorf III 566).
2. Homer, Iliad 3.2–6, trans. Lattimore.
3. IG 2(2).1006 lines 26–27.
4. Thirlwall, A History of Greece (New York: Harper, 1845) 1.247; They had stood
alone, Thucydides 1.73.2; Plato, Menexenos 240c; Plato, Laws 4.707c; Aeschylus’ epitaph,
Life of Aeschylus 11; Pausanias 1.14.5.
5. Johnson, Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland, “Inch Kenneth,” available from
the 1775 edition at http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/j/johnson/samuel/western/chapter30
.html; Byron, Don Juan, 3rd Canto 86, “The Isles of Greece” 13–18. Byron was not the
only man to mistake the Soros for the burial of the Persians; for another example, see
chapter 6.
6. Barrett, letter to R. H. Horne, 5 October 1843, quoted in The Complete Poetical
Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1900) 485, where it is
followed by the complete text of the poem.
notes to pages 10–27 185

7. Finlay, “On the Battle of Marathon,” Transactions of the Royal Society of Litera-
ture of the United Kingdom 3 (1839): 392; Mill, review of George Grote, History of Greece,
in his Essays on Philosophy and the Classics, ed. John M. Robson (Collected Works of
John Stuart Mill, 11) (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1963) 273, originally in Ed-
inburgh Review 84 (1846) 343–377; Bulwer-Lytton, Athens: Its Rise and Fall (New York:
Harper, 1856 [orig. 1837]) 274–275; Creasy, The 15 Decisive Battles of the World: From Mara-
thon to Waterloo (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1851) 13.
8. Browning, The Complete Works of Robert Browning, ed. Charlotte Porter and
Helen A. Clarke (New York: Crowell, 1898) 123 lines 106–112.
9. Fuller, A Military History of the Western World (New York: Funk and Wagnalls,
1954) 25; Toynbee, The Greeks and Their Heritage (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981)
65.
10. Cartledge, Thermopylae: The Battle That Changed the World (New York: Vintage,
2006); Strauss, The Battle of Salamis: The Naval Encounter That Saved Greece—and West-
ern Civilization (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004).
11. Cicero, Laws 1.5; Theopompos, FGrHist 115 F 153 = Theon, Progymnasmata 2.
12. Whatley 1964: 124.
13. Whatley 1964: 128.
14. Gomme, “Herodotos and Marathon,” Phoenix 6 (1952): 77. See Macan 1895:
151–169 for his six cruces.
15. Kagan, The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1969) x; Lazenby 1993: 15.

Chapter 1. Athens’ Alliance with Darius

1. Herodotus 5.63.1.
2. Herodotus 5.66.2; Aristotle, Athenian Constitution 22.1.
3. Herodotus 7.61.1. This description is consistent with the pitch Aristagoras the Mile-
sian makes when trying to get help from the Spartans. He says that the Persians carry
bows and short spears, and wear trousers and turbans. When trying to get help from
the Athenians, Aristagoras says the Persians do not carry round shields or long spears
(Herodotus 5.49). The one place where Herodotus seems inconsistent is in his description
of the battle of Plataea in 479, where he says the Persians did not have armor (9.62–63).
Sekunda 2002: 22 has photographs of the two later gerra found at Dura-Europos.
4. Herodotus 1.192.3, 7.196.
5. DNb 2h, translated in Kuhrt 2007: 2.505; Strabo 15.3.18, expanding on Herodotus’
statement that “The Persians teach their sons, between the ages of five and twenty, only
three things: to ride, use a bow, and speak the truth” (1.136.2); Xenophon, Education of
Cyrus 1.2.8–9, 13 (length of service), 1.2.15 (access limited to wealthy), 8.6.10 (provincial
education modeled on the homeland).
6. In their study of the military capabilities of ancient armies, Richard A. Gabriel
and Karen S. Metz conclude that the combination of armor and shield meant that “un-
less a lucky shot struck a particularly inattentive or poorly trained soldier, the infantry
formations of ancient armies had little to fear from archery fire” (From Sumer to Rome:
The Military Capabilities of Ancient Armies [Westport, Conn: Greenwood, 1991] 72). This
conclusion seems valid even if some of their facts about ancient armies are inaccurate for
Greeks (for example, Greeks did not carry two-by-four-foot shields).
186 notes to pages 28–48

7. Kaptan, The Daskyleion Bullae: Seal Images from the Western Achaemenid Empire
(Leiden: Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten, 2002) 2.107. See 1.80 n. 315 for the
explanation of bashlyk I include in brackets, and 1.80–81 for the pilos-like helmet with a
flowing crest.
8. Mellink, “Excavations at Karatas-Semayük and Elmalı, Lycia, 1971,” American
Journal of Archaeology 76 (1972): 268.
9. For Herodotus’ catalogue, see 7.60–86.
10. “Compare small things with great” comes from Herodotus 2.10, but it also ap-
pears in numerous other classical authors, including Thucydides, Cicero, Vergil, Ovid,
and Statius.
11. Herodotus 5.2.2.
12. Herodotus 5.27.
13. Herodotus 3.11.3; for the Carians and Ionian mercenaries, see Herodotus 2.163.1,
169.1.
14. DB II.32, trans. Kuhrt 2007: 145–146.
15. Herodotus 5.73.1.
16. Aeschylus, Persians 41.

Chapter 2. Athens’ Victories over the Boeotians and Chalcidians

1. Herodotus 5.74.1, where the root of the word Herodotus uses is hubris.
2. Plutarch, Pericles 23.1.
3. Herodotus 6.108.5.
4. Xenophon, Hellenika 2.2.20.
5. Xenophon, Hellenika 5.1.31.
6. For ship districts (naukrariai), see Photios, Lexicon, s.v. “naukraria” (= Kleidemos,
FGrHist 323 F 8); Pollux, Onomastikon 8.108; Bekker, Anecdota Graeca I 283.20f (all trans-
lated in Charles W. Fornara, Archaic Times to the End of the Peloponnesian War [Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977] no. 22).
7. Tyrtaios F 12.10–22 and F 11.27–34 West, trans. Lattimore.
8. Delbrück 1887: 56 n. 1 cites Rüstow and Köchly, Geschichte des Griechischen Krieg-
swesens von der Ältesten Zeit bis auf Pyrrhos (Aarau: Verlags-Comptoir, 1852) 44. In 1920
Delbrück repeated the estimate, conceding that Rüstow and Köchly lacked evidence, but
asserting that the fact that hoplites were heavily armed cannot be denied (1920: 71 = 1975:
86). That he did not question the Rüstow-Köchly figure is not surprising when one con-
siders the weight soldiers carried in his day: Austrians and French 61.2 pounds, English
62.4, Germans 63.9, Italians 67.2, Russians 69.0, Swiss 69.2 (1887: 56 n.1).
9. Bergk, review of W. Rüstow and H. Köchly, Geschichte des Griechischen Kriegswe-
sens, in Zeitschrift für die Alterthumswissenschaft 5 (1853): 434; Droysen, Heerwesen und
Kriegführung der Griechen (Freiburg: Mohr, 1889) 3 n. 2.
10. See the description of the painting at [Demosthenes] 59.94.
11. Crapper, personal email dated September 11, 2007.
12. In his Argivische Schilde (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1989), Peter Bol catalogues 279 bronze
outer fittings found at Olympia. He estimates the diameters for 78 of these (his catalogue
does not give a diameter for his A278, perhaps because it is so large—47.2 inches—that it
was probably intended for ceremonial or display use). The 78 diameters range from 30.3
to 43.3 inches. The mean is 35.4 inches, and the middle 50 percent fall between 34.6 and
36.2 inches.
notes to pages 48–61 187

13. Pliny, Natural History 16.209. Aristophanes (fr. 65) and Euripides (Cyclops 7, Her-
aclidae 376, Suppliants 695, Trojan Women 1193) mention shields made of willow.
14. For Manning Imperial’s online catalogue, go to http://www.manningimperial
.com/index.php. For the pine shield, item no. 117, see http://www.manningimperial.com/
item.php?item_id=117&g_id=2&c_id=10. Cherilyn Fuhlbohm and Craig Sitch supplied
additional information in a personal email dated April 17, 2008. For the poplar, item
no. 486, see http://www.manningimperial.com/item.php?item_id=486&g_id=2&c_id=10.
All these shields have a bowl about 3.9 inches deep. For details from the Hoplite Associa-
tion, go to http://www.4hoplites.com/Aspis.htm, accessed on April 11, 2008. The Hoplite
Association prefers a deeper bowl of 6.3 inches.
15. Homer, Odyssey 18.376–380; Plutarch, Moralia 220A; Aristophanes, Wasps 1081;
Homer, Iliad 14.370–383.
16. For Marshall’s recommendation, see The Soldier’s Load and the Mobility of a Na-
tion (Washington: Combat Forces Press, 1950).
17. Thucydides 5.71; Herodotus 7.9; Thucydides 5.70.
18. Homer, Iliad 16.212–217, 259–267.
19. Lissarrague, L’Autre Guerrier: Archers, Peltastes, Cavaliers dans l’Imagerie Attique
(Paris: La Découverte, 1990) 14. The following vases show a group of hoplites standing in a
line: Boston (Mass.), Museum of Fine Arts 21.21; London, British Museum 1836.2–24.218;
Munich, Antikensammlungen 244 and 1436; Paris, Musee du Louvre E876 and E855;
Würzburg, Martin von Wagner Museum 251 and 255. The following vases show a group
of hoplites advancing: Bologna, Museo Civico Archeologico PU191; Kurashiki, Ninagawa
XXXX302758; Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 132615. The following vases show
a group of hoplites running: Brussels, Musées Royaux A715; Göttingen, Georg-August-
Universität: XXXX350353; London, British Museum 1836.2–24.218; Munich, Antikensam-
mlungen 1510; New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art 91.1.463; Taranto, Museo Archeo-
logico Nazionale 20129. The first two look like races in armor, though the contestants are
not known ever to have carried spears.
20. Herodotus 7.225.1, 9.62.2; Thucydides 4.96.2. For the othismos of words, see
Herodotus 8.78, 9.26.
21. Macan 1908: 730, commenting on 9.62.
22. Delbrück 1975: 53 and 54, a translation of the 1920 third edition; the first edition
was published in 1900.
23. Grundy, Thucydides and the History of His Age (London: Murray, 1911) 268 (the
passage is unchanged in the 1948 second edition) and 268–269.
24. Woodhouse, King Agis of Sparta and His Campaign in Arkadia in 418 B.C.:
A Chapter in the History of the Art of War among the Greeks (Oxford: Clarendon, 1933)
78–79.
25. Gomme, Essays in Greek History and Literature (Oxford: Blackwell, 1937) 135.
26. Herodotus 6.37.1, 8.3.2, 9.25.
27. Pritchett 1971–1991: 4.29.
28. Homer, Iliad 13.145–148, trans. Lattimore (slightly modified).
29. Xenophon, Hellenika 4.3.19; Homer, Iliad 4.446–451 = 8.60–65, trans. Lattimore
(slightly modified); Xenophon, Agesilaos 2.12–14; Homer, Iliad 8.66–67.
30. Diodoros 15.85.4.
31. Keegan, The Face of Battle (New York: Viking, 1976) 100.
32. Tyrtaios F 11.35–38; Homer, Iliad 8.266–272, 11.377, 507, 582, and 13.714–722.
33. Homer, Iliad 4.391; see Strabo 10.448 for the inscription.
188 notes to pages 62–83

34. Aristotle, Politics 8.3.4, 1338b, trans. Barker; Hanson, The Other Greeks: The Fam-
ily Farm and the Agrarian Roots of Western Civilization, 2nd ed. (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1999) 262.
35. On Spartan maneuvers, see Xenophon, Lacedaemonian Constitution 11.8.
36. Herodotus 5.77.2.
37. Simonides 2 (Denys L. Page, Epigrammata Graeca [Oxford: Clarendon, 1975] 9).
38. Herodotus 5.78. Herodotus saw the monument and copied the epigram (5.77).
Not one but two stone bases inscribed with this text were found on the Acropolis, one in
Archaic letters and one with later letter forms. The inscriptions have lines 1 and 3 reversed.
Herodotus quotes the later version. Most likely the Persians destroyed the original monu-
ment in 480 and the Athenians replaced it. I quote Fornara’s translation of the earlier
inscription (Archaic Times no. 42). For the Greek texts and a succinct discussion, see ML
no. 15 (= IG 1[2] 394). The Archaic inscription is heavily but reliably restored on the basis
of Herodotus’ text and the other inscription.
39. Thucydides 6.59.3; Herodotus 5.96.1, 2.

Chapter 3. The Ionian Revolt

1. Herodotus 5.97.3; Brosius, The Persians (London: Routledge, 2006) 23.
2. Herodotus 5.30.1.
3. Herodotus 5.30.4.
4. Herodotus 5.35.2; Cawkwell 2005: 69–70.
5. For the earliest mention of a trireme, see Hipponax F 28 West.
6. For Xerxes’ navy, see Herodotus 7.184.
7. Polykrates, Herodotus 3.39, 44; Corinthians at Salamis, Herodotus 8.1, 43; Aegi-
netans, Herodotus 8.46; Athenians, Herodotus 8.44.1; Gelon of Syracuse in Sicily, the
second-largest city in the Greek world after Athens, claimed to have 200 triremes ready to
go (Herodotus 7.158.4), but he did not send them. Nor did the Corcyreans fight at Salamis
with their 60 triremes (Herodotus 7.168), preferring to wait and side with the winner.
Athenian purchase of Corinthian ships, Herodotus 6.89. Herodotus describes them with
the generic word for ships, and some scholars have supposed them to be triremes; it seems
to me more likely that the Corinthians sold the Athenians 20 of their outmoded pente-
conters. Miltiades’ triremes, Herodotus 6.39, 41.
8. Herodotus 5.37.1.
9. Herodotus 5.103.2.
10. Herodotus 6.42.1, 2.
11. Herodotus 5.105.
12. Herodotus 6.1.2.
13. Herodotus 6.139.4.
14. Herodotus 6.33.1.
15. Herodotus 5.103.2.

Chapter 4. Darius and the Greeks of Europe

1. Herodotus 7.133; for Miltiades, see Pausanias 3.12.7; for Themistocles, Plutarch,
Themistocles 6.2, Aelius Aristides, On the Four 184, and Panathenaicus 99.
notes to pages 85–101 189

2. Herodotus 6.50.3.
3. Herodotus 6.63. For Demaratus’ property in Asia, see Xenophon, Hellenika 3.1.6,
crediting the gift to Xerxes, who might have extended the award.
4. Herodotus 6.75.3.
5. Herodotus 6.45.2, 6.94.2, and 6.44.1.
6. Herodotus 6.44.1, 7.9a2 (repeated in b2), and 7.108.1.
7. Herodotus 7.120.
8. Ktesias, FGrHist 688 F 13 (22), translated Kuhrt 2007: 1.236 no. 58; Persepolis Forti-
fication Tablet no. 1809, translated Kuhrt 2007: 1.224.
9. Other sources giving Persian numbers include Simonides F 90 Bergk; Lysias 2.2;
Plato, Menexenos 240a; Nepos, Miltiades 4.1, 5.6; Justin 2.9; Pausanias 4.25.4.
10. Herodotus 9.27.5.
11. Pliny, Natural History 18.43.
12. Homer, 4.601–608 from The Odyssey of Homer, Translated and with an Introduc-
tion by Richmond Lattimore, copyright © 1965, 1967 by Richmond Lattimore; reprinted by
permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
13. Plato, Menexenos 240b. In the Laws, Plato said simply that the penalty for failure
would be death (698c).
14. Herodotus 6.96; Plutarch, Moralia 869B.
15. Thucydides 3.104.
16. Herodotus 6.97.2.
17. IG 11.2.154A.51–52 (restored), 153.7 (restored), 161B.96 (which specifies that the
torque lay against the wall), 164A.34, 199B.24.
18. For the inscribed column from Thebes, see Vassilis L. Aravantinos, “A New In-
scribed Kioniskos from Thebes,” Annual of the British School at Athens 101 (2006): 369–
377. Aravantinos takes “loosening” as referring to the ransoming of captives after the 506
battle, which means the Thebans commemorated a loss. I prefer Kurt Raaflaub’s sugges-
tion that it refers to the liberation of Chalcis, not mentioned in Herodotus; The Discovery
of Freedom in Ancient Greece (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004) 117.
19. Herodotus 6.101.2.
20. Euripides, Phoenician Women 1179–1186, trans. W. P. Childs. Herodotus 6.101.2.
For the Eretrians’ reward, see Plutarch, Moralia 510B. By “the only Eretrian to medize”
(Anabasis 7.8.8 and Hellenika 3.1.6), Xenophon might refer to some otherwise unattested
action in 480, but it would be odd for an Athenian to have forgotten those who betrayed
Eretria in 490.
21. Philostratus, Life of Apollonius 1.24.

Chapter 5. The Armies Arrive at Marathon

1. Plato, Laws 698d. Another version, found in the first-century historian Diodoros
10.27, says that Datis demanded the return of what was rightfully his, for the Athenians
had driven out their king Medos, who had migrated to Asia and founded the Median
people. If the Athenians surrendered, Datis said, he would forgive them; but if they re-
sisted, they would suffer a worse fate than the Eretrians had. In its present form, this story
is anachronistic, for the tradition of an Athenian named Medos, son of Medea and Aigeus,
is not attested until later. The earlier version connecting the Medes to Medea, reflected
in Herodotus 7.62, says nothing about this son, and only has her coming to Athens for
190 notes to pages 101–125
protection after she killed her sons and left Corinth, where her lover Jason had abandoned
her for a chance to marry the Corinthian king’s daughter (see Euripides, Medea).
2. Plato, Laws 698d.
3. Athenian numbers according to late sources: Not more than 9,000, including the
old and the slaves, Pausanias 10.20.2; 9,000, Nepos, Miltiades 5 and Suda, s.v. Hippias (I);
10,000, Justin 2.9. For the Athenians at Plataea, Herodotus 9.28.6–29.
4. Aristotle, Rhetoric 1411 a 9–10; Demosthenes 19.303; Plutarch, Moralia 628E; schol.
Aristeides 2.219.
5. Herodotus 6.107.4.
6. Plutarch, Aristeides 5; Herodotus 9.80.1–2, 83.
7. Mitford, The History of Greece, 3rd ed. (London: Cadell, 1795) 2.97.
8. P. J. Rhodes and Robin Osborne, Greek Historical Inscriptions: 404–323 BC (Ox-
ford: Oxford University Press, 2003) no. 88 lines 39–46.
9. Green, The Greco-Persian Wars (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996) 32 n.
10. Xenophon, Education of Cyrus 6.2.32.
11. Xenophon, Memorabilia 4.3.10.
12. Herodotus 6.105.2. According to Pausanias 8.54.6, Pan promised to go to Mara-
thon and fight. Since Herodotus does not mention this specific promise, it was probably
added to the story later.
13. Herodotus 6.106.2.
14. Plato, Laws 692d, 698e.

Chapter 6. The Plain of Marathon

1. Chandler, Travels in Greece (Oxford: Clarendon, 1776) 162; Clarke 1818: 7.37–38.
2. Leake 1841: 86; Dodwell, A Classical and Topographical Tour through Greece, during
the Years 1801, 1805, and 1806 (London: Rodwell and Martin, 1819) 163.
3. Pritchett, “Marathon Revisited,” in Studies in Ancient Greek Topography, vol. 1
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965) 84.
4. Personal email from Boris Rankov, February 12, 2008.
5. Pausanias 1.32.3–7.
6. Pindar, Pythian 8.79.
7. Lucian, Assembly of the Gods 7; Strabo, Geography 8.377.
8. The inscription is IG 1(3) 3 (the regulations for the Herakleia), trans. Vanderpool.
9. E. V. Vanderpool, “Regulations for the Herakleian Games at Marathon,” in Studies
Presented to Sterling Dow on his Eightieth Birthday, ed. Alan L. Boegehold (Durham, N.C.:
Duke University, 1984) 296.
10. Pritchett 1965: 88.
11. Marinatos, “Further Discoveries at Marathon,” Archaiologika Analekta ex Athe-
non/Athens Annals of Archaeology 3 (1970): 349.
12. Clarke 1818: 7.18; Byron, The Works of Lord Byron (London: Murray, 1821) 154; Le-
grand, “Biographie de Louis-François-Sebastian Fauvel, Antiquaire et Consul (1753–1838),”
Revue Archeologique 3rd ser. 30 (1897): 56.
13. Mary Nisbet Ferguson and John Patrick Nisbet Hamilton Grant, The Letters of
Mary Nisbet of Dirleton, Countess of Elgin (London: Murray, 1926) 204.
14. Finlay, “On the Battle of Marathon,” Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature
of the United Kingdom 3 (1839): 365; Neroulos, translated in Petrakos 1996: 186 n. 43.
15. Pausanias 1.29.4.
notes to pages 126–151 191

16. Clarke 1818: 7.23.

17. Dodwell, Classical and Topographical Tour 2.159 and 160.
18. Gell, The Itinerary of Greece; Containing One Hundred Routes in Attica, Boeotia,
Phocis, Locris, and Thessaly (London: Rodwell and Martin, 1819) 59.
19. Hammond 1973: 176–177; Leake 1941: 2.80 (repeated from the first edition pub-
lished in 1929); Leake 1835: 2.431–432.
20. Forsdyke, “Some Arrow-Heads from the Battlefield of Marathon,” Proceedings of
the Society of Antiquaries of London 32 (1919–1920): 147; Hammond 1973: 177 n.2.
21. Leake 1841: 2.101.
22. Hauptmann von Eschenburg, Topographische, Archaeologische, und Militärische
Betrachtungen auf dem Schlachtfelde von Marathon (Berlin: Reichsdruckerei, 1886) 10.
23. Strabo 8.377; Leake 1941: 2.96; Clarke 1818: 7.36; Frazer, Pausanias’s Description of
Greece (London: Macmillan, 1898) 2.432.
24. Leake 1841: 2.96; Frazer, Pausanias’s Description 2.432.
25. Susan Hyman, ed., Edward Lear in the Levant: Travels in Albania, Greece, and
Turkey in Europe, 1848–1849 (London: Murray, 1988) 47.
26. Pindar, Olympian 13.110; Kallimachos F 90–91 Kapp; Nonnos, Dionysiaka 13.184;
Chandler, Travels in Greece 163; Nepos, Miltiades 5.3.

Chapter 7. When Marathon Became a Magic Word

1. The chapter title comes from Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage 2.89.7 (The Works
of Lord Byron [London: Murray, 1821] 113); Herodotus 6.109.2–6.
2. Bury and Meiggs, A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great, 4th ed.
(New York: St. Martin’s, 1975) 159.
3. Herodotus 6.112.3.
4. Mikalson, Herodotus and Religion in the Persian Wars (Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 2003) 29–30.
5. Munro, “Marathon,” in Cambridge Ancient History, ed. J. B. Bury, S. A. Cook,
and F. E. Adcock (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1926) 4.245–246; Plutarch,
Aristeides 5.1.
6. Hignett, Xerxes’ Invasion of Greece (Oxford: Clarendon, 1963) 71.
7. Herodotus 6.116.1.
8. Macan, Herodotus: The Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Books (London: Macmillan, 1895)
230; Evans, The Beginnings of History: Herodotus and the Persian Wars (Campbellville,
Ont: Edgar Kent, 2006) 182.
9. Pausanias 1.32.3; Aristeides, Panathenaikos 106–108.
10. Burn 1984: 247.
11. Xenophon, Anabasis 3.4.35.
12. Herodotus 6.112; [Demosthenes] 59.94 and Pausanias 1.15.3; Aristophanes, Wasps
1081; Morris, Daidalos and the Origins of Greek Art (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1992) 303.
13. Delbrück 1975: 74.
14. Donlan and Thompson, “The Charge at Marathon,” Classical Journal 71 (1976):
340 and “The Charge at Marathon Again,” Classical World 72 (1979): 420.
15. Schute, “The First Battalion,” Royal Green Jackets Chronicle 38 (2003): 43–47.
16. For Caesar’s charge at Pharsalus, see Caesar, Civil War 3.92–93, cited by Delbrück
1975: 86; for the Spanish parallel, see Caesar, Civil War 1.82.4.
192 notes to pages 151–160
17. The standard Greek-English dictionary is H. G. Liddell, R. Scott, H. S. Jones, and
Roderick McKenzie, A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., revised and augmented (Oxford:
Clarendon, 1996). The parallels I cite are Pindar, Nemean 1.51 and Thucydides 3.24.1.
18. Aristophanes, Knights 781. The verb diexiphiso derives from xiphos (sword). See
also the Suda entry for diexiphiso.
19. Aristophanes, Wasps 1083–1086 mentions both the drink and the owl.
20. Herodotus 6.111.1. For the point that Herodotus always uses the verb “count”
(arithmeo) to refer to a numerical count, see W. K. Pritchett, Marathon (Berkeley: Univer-
sity of California Press, 1960) 147. Herodotus is not referring to the order of the tribes.
21. Herodotus 6.112.2.
22. Jameson, “Sacrifice before Battle,” in Hoplites: The Classical Greek Battle Experi-
ence, ed. Victor D. Hanson (London: Routledge, 1991) 221.
23. In the event, the Athenians could not find 6,400 goats to sacrifice, so they decided
to sacrifice 500 each year instead (Xenophon, Anabasis 3.1.12, followed by Plutarch, Mora-
lia 862 B). Aristophanes parodies the vow at Knights 660–661, where the Sausage-Seller
vows to sacrifice 1,000 female goats to Agrotera if the price of anchovies stays low until
the next day. Late sources have some curious variations: A scholiast to the Aristophanes
passage says that Kallimachos vowed oxen, but goats were substituted; Aelian says that
the Athenians sacrificed 300 goats in fulfillment of Miltiades’ vow (Varia Historia 2.25).
An argument can be made for either Kallimachos or Miltiades. The polemarchos was
responsible for this sacrifice (Aristotle, Athenian Constitution 58.1), which could have led
the scholiast to credit the original vow to Kallimachos; alternatively, someone might have
credited Miltiades with the vow as he was the leading general. Another uncertainty is when
the vow was made. Some scholars think the sight of the temple of Artemis Agrotera, near
the Lykeion, might have prompted the vow before the Athenians marched to Marathon.
Pritchett’s collection of Greek military vows (1979: 230–239) does not contain enough Ar-
chaic and Classical historical examples to help. To my mind, such an extraordinary vow
fits best in the tense moment immediately before the charge.
For Artemis’ statue with a bow, see Pausanias 1.19.6.
24. Aristophanes, Wasps 1084. He comes close to plagiarizing a tale about the Spartan
Dienekes, who when told at Thermopylae that Persian arrows hid the sun, replied simply,
“Then we’ll fight in the shade” (Herodotus 7.226.2).
25. Herodotus 6.113.1; Aristophanes, Wasps 1085; Aristophanes, Wasps 1081–1083.
26. For the cloud and woman at the battle of Salamis, see Herodotus 8.65, 84.2. Plu-
tarch does assert that “not a few” Athenians saw an apparition of Theseus, armed, leading
their charge (Theseus 35), but this is the only evidence for an epiphany of Theseus on the
battlefield. The Stoa Poikile painting showed Theseus emerging out of the ground, not
charging into battle. It also included the hero Marathon, Athena, and Herakles. As far as
we know no one claimed to have seen them on the battlefield.
27. Pausanias 1.15.3, 32.5.
28. Herodotus 6.113.2.
29. Van Wees, Greek Warfare: Myths and Realities (London: Duckworth, 2004) 180.
30. Herodotus 6.113.2, 114; Aristophanes, Wasps 1087 (compare Aeschylus, Persians
424–426). For koptontes, see Iliad 11.146 and Odyssey 8.528. For the attempt to burn the
ships, see Iliad 15.718–720. On Kynegeiros’ death, see Justin 9.2.17–18.
31. Plutarch, Kimon 8.1.
notes to pages 161–181 193

Chapter 8. After the Fighting

1. Herodotus 6.115.
2. Herodotus 6.116.
3. Plutarch, Aristeides 5.5; Plutarch, Moralia 350E.
4. Philostratos, Life of Apollonios 1.24.
5. Dio Chrysostom, Discourses 11.148.
6. Plutarch, Aristeides 5.5.
7. Herodotus 9.83.1.
8. Herodotus 7.190.
9. Homer, Iliad 23.110–127, 163–169, 214–225, 250–251.
10. IG 2(2) 1006 lines 26–27, 69–70; Pausanias 1.32.4.
11. Pausanias 1.32.3.

Chapter 9. What If ?
1. Herodotus 7.139.4.
2. Creasy, The 15 Decisive Battles of the World: From Marathon to Waterloo (New
York: Harper & Brothers, 1851) 14.

Appendix B. The Date of the Battle

1. Munro, “Marathon,” in Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 4, ed. J. B. Bury, S. A.
Cook, and F. E. Adcock (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1926) 233.
2. Herodotus 6.106–107, 120; Plato, Menexenos 240c and Laws 698d; Plutarch, Moralia
861E-862A (compare Camillus 19.3 and Moralia 349F).
This page intentionally left blank
 Bibliographical Notes

Chronology
I follow P. J. Rhodes, “Herodotean Chronology Revisited,” in Herodotus and
His World, ed. P. Derow and R. Parker (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2003) 58–72 on when Darius’ heralds visited mainland Greece and when the
sequence of events in Aegina began. Scott 2005: 546–552 reviews a variety of
different proposals, preferring to put the fighting of Herodotus 6.88–93 after
the battle of Marathon.

Introduction

The Significance of the Battle

Michael Jung, Marathon und Plataia: Zwei Perserschlachten als “Lieux de Mé-
moire” im Antiken Griechenland (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht,
2006) 27–224, describes the cults, dedications, and monuments with ref-
erences to earlier bibliography. H. R. Goette and T. M. Weber, Marathon:
Siedlungskammer und Schlachtfeld—Sommerfrische und Olympische Wett-
kampfstätte (Mainz: Von Zabern, 2004) 78–94, has color photographs and
reconstruction drawings of burial mounds, monuments, and statues. To the
items discussed by Jung, add an Athenian dedication at Olympia deduced
by Holger Baitinger from the findspots of two helmets, arrowheads, and
pieces of a bronze bow-case (“Waffen und Bewaffnung aus der Perserbeute
in Olympia,” Archaeologischer Anzeiger [1999]: 125–139). In The Invention of
196 bibliographical notes
Athens: The Funeral Oration in the Classical City (Cambridge: Harvard Uni-
versity Press, 1986), Nicole Loraux probes how speakers used Marathon in
the annual ceremonies honoring Athenian war dead.
Full publication details on the books listing decisive battles: Richard A.
Gabriel and Donald W. Boose, Jr., Great Battles of Antiquity: A Strategic and
Tactical Guide to Great Battles That Shaped the Development of War (West-
port, Conn.: Greenwood, 1994); Paul K. Davis, 100 Decisive Battles: From An-
cient Times to the Present (Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 1999); William
Weir, 50 Battles That Changed the World: The Conflicts That Most Influenced
the Course of History (Franklin Lakes, N.J.: Career, 2001); Michael Lee
Lanning, The Battle 100: The Stories behind History’s Most Influential Battles
(Naperville, Ill.: Sourcebooks, 2003).

On the Possibility of Reconstructing Marathon

Anyone interested in Marathon should run, not walk, to consult Herodo-

tus. Robert B. Strassler’s The Landmark Herodotus: The Histories (New York:
Pantheon, 2007) offers a wealth of helpful material, especially maps, in addi-
tion to a modern translation by Andrea L. Purvis. Lighter and more portable
are John M. Marincola’s revision of Aubrey de Sélincourt’s Penguin transla-
tion (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1996) or Robin Waterfield’s version in the
Oxford World’s Classics series (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998). Both
contain notes and a few maps.
Noah Whatley’s paper, “On the Possibility of Reconstructing Marathon
and Other Ancient Battles” (Journal of Hellenic Studies 84 [1964]: 119–139),
blisters what he calls the “excessive ingenuity” of Oxford scholars. He had in
mind above all J. A. R. Munro, whose speculative ideas in “Some Observa-
tions on the Persian Wars, I. The Campaign of Marathon,” Journal of Hel-
lenic Studies 19 (1899): 185–197, continue to influence popular conceptions
of what happened at Marathon. Munro also wrote the Marathon chapter in
volume 4 of the Cambridge Ancient History, ed. J. B. Bury, S. A. Cook, and
F. E. Adcock (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1926) 229–267.
A team of scholars has published the first volume of a welcome new com-
mentary on Herodotus (Asheri 2007) designed to replace W. W. How and
J. Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus (Oxford: Clarendon, 1912), which was
never adequate. For book 6, the Marathon book, Scott 2005 provides a full
commentary, though Macan 1895 remains worth reading. Two recent col-
lections of essays give a good idea of current approaches to Herodotus:
Egbert J. Bakker, Hans van Wees, and Irene J. F. de Jong, Brill’s Companion
to Herodotus (Leiden: Brill, 2002) and Carolyn Dewald and John Marincola,
bibliographical notes 197

The Cambridge Companion to Herodotus (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 2006).
W. Kendrick Pritchett, The Liar School of Herodotos (Amsterdam: Gieben,
1993), takes aim particularly at Detlev Fehling, Herodotus and His “Sources”:
Citation, Invention, and Narrative Art (Leeds, Great Britain: Francis Cairns,
1990), and O. Kimball Armayor’s two books, Herodotus’ Autopsy of the Fay-
oum: Lake Moeris and the Labyrinth of Egypt (Amsterdam: Gieben, 1985) and
Herodotus’ Great Army and Satrapy Lists of the Persian Empire (Amsterdam:
Gieben, 1986).
Macan 1895: 2.174–233 surveys the other literary sources. Important re-
cent books on Pausanias include Susan E. Alcock, John F. Cherry, and Jas
Elsner, Pausanias: Travel and Memory in Roman Greece (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2001) and William Hutton, Describing Greece: Landscape
and Literature in the Periegesis of Pausanias (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 2005). In “The South Frieze of the Nike Temple and the Marathon
Painting in the Painted Stoa,” American Journal of Archaeology 76 (1972):
353–378, Evelyn B. Harrison collects the sources for the battle painting in the
Stoa Poikile. Vin Massaro, “Herodotos’ Account of the Battle of Marathon
and the Picture in the Stoa Poikile,” L’Antiquité Classique 47 (1978): 458–475,
suggests that the colors of the painting may have changed over time (possibly
during a restoration), misleading Pausanias.

Chapter 1. Athens’ Alliance with Darius

A Desperate Situation

For Sparta’s policy of expelling tyrants and restoring aristocracies, see Herod-
otus 5.92a.1 and Thucydides 1.18.1, defended by George Cawkwell, “Sparta
and Her Allies in the Sixth Century,” Classical Quarterly 43 (1993): 364–376,
against doubters such as Paul Cartledge, who refers to the “myth of Sparta’s
principled opposition to tyranny” (Sparta and Lakonia: A Regional History,
1300–362 B.C., 2nd ed. [New York: Routledge, 2002] 127).
On the end of the tyranny in Athens, see W. G. Forrest, “The Tradi-
tion of Hippias’ Expulsion from Athens,” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine
Studies 10 (1969): 277–286, which argues that Herodotus is the best available
source.
The 2,500th anniversary of Kleisthenes’ reforms in 508/7 prompted a
number of reassessments of this enigmatic Athenian politician. A good start-
ing point is Ian Morris, Kurt A. Raaflaub, and David Castriota, eds. Democracy
198 bibliographical notes
2500?: Questions and Challenges (Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt, 1998). See
also the interesting study in Greg Anderson, The Athenian Experiment: Build-
ing an Imagined Political Community in Ancient Attica, 508–490 B.C. (Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004).

The Persian Army

The Achaemenid Persian Empire has become a scholarly field in itself. On

all aspects, see Briant 2002 and his rich Web site, http://www.achemenet
.com/. Less intimidating are Josef Wiesehöfer, Ancient Persia: From 550 BC
to 650 AD (London: Tauris, 1996) and Maria Brosius, The Persians: An In-
troduction (London: Routledge, 2006). Amélie Kuhrt has now published an
indispensable collection of sources from seven different languages translated
into English: The Persian Empire: A Corpus of Sources from the Achaemenid
Period (London: Routledge, 2007).
Though Briant’s survey is almost 1,200 pages long, it says very little about
the Persian military, nor does Kuhrt’s collection of sources include a chapter
on the subject; she describes the evidence for Persian armies and warfare as
“bitty” (Kuhrt 2007: xxix). Despite enormous interest in the Achaemenid
Empire, no detailed study of its army has appeared. For now, see Duncan
Head, Achaemenid Persian Army (Stockport: Montvert, 1992); Nicholas
Sekunda, The Persian Army 560–330 BC (Oxford: Osprey, 2003); and the
brief chapter by Briant, “The Achaemenid Empire,” in War and Society in
the Ancient and Medieval Worlds, ed. Kurt Raaflaub and Nathan Rosenstein
(Washington, D.C.: Center for Hellenic Studies, 1999) 105–128.
For images of Greeks and Persians fighting, see A. Bovon, “La Représen-
tation des Guerriers Perses et la Notion de Barbare dans la Première Moitié
du Ve Siècle,” Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique 87 (1963): 579–602.
On Persian horses, see Ahmed Afshar and Judith Lerner, “The Horses of
the Ancient Persian Empire at Persepolis,” Antiquity 53 (1979): 44–47, sum-
marized in Evans 2006: 204.
On the distance Persian archers could shoot, see W. McLeod, “The Range
of the Ancient Bow,” Phoenix 19 (1965): 1–14, supported by P. H. Blyth, “The
Effectiveness of Greek Armour against Arrows in the Persian War (490–479
B.C.): An Interdisciplinary Enquiry” (Diss. University of Reading, 1977), an
important study that remains unpublished. Hammond 1973: 177 n. 3, by con-
trast, settles on 164 yards as the maximum effective range. McLeod rebuts in
“The Bowshot at Marathon,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 90 (1970): 197–198
and “The Range of the Ancient Bow. Addenda,” Phoenix 26 (1972): 78–82.
bibliographical notes 199

The painted Lycian tomb known as Karaburun II will be published by

Stella Miller-Collett. For now, see the preliminary reports of Machteld J.
Mellink, “Excavations at Karatas-Semayük and Elmalı, Lycia, 1970,” American
Journal of Archaeology 75 (1971): 249–255, “Excavations at Karatas-Semayük
and Elmalı, Lycia, 1971,” American Journal of Archaeology 76 (1972): 263–269,
“Excavations at Karatas-Semayük and Elmalı, Lycia, 1972,” American Jour-
nal of Archaeology 77 (1973): 297–301, and “Excavations at Karatas-Semayük
and Elmalı, Lycia, 1973,” American Journal of Archaeology 78 (1974): 355–359.
Mellink identifies the tomb’s occupant as a local ruler who lived under Per-
sian auspices. Bruno Jacobs, Griechische und Persische Elemente in der Grab-
kunst Lykiens zur Zeit der Achämenidenherrschaft (Jonsered: Åström, 1987)
29–33, argues that he was actually a Persian.
The best studies of the painted wooden beam from Tatarlı are Lâtife
Summerer, “Imaging a Tomb Chamber: Pictures, Choices, and Identities on
the Wall Paintings of Tatarli,” in Ancient Greece and Ancient Iran: Cross-
Cultural Encounters, ed. Seyed Mohammad Reza Darbandi and Antigoni
Zournatzi (Athens: National Hellenic Research Foundation, 2008) 265–298,
and “Picturing Persian Victory: The Painted Battle Scene on the Munich
Wood,” in Achaemenid Culture and Local Traditions in Anatolia, Southern
Caucasus, and Iran: New Discoveries, ed. Askold Ivantchik and Vakhtang
Licheli (Leiden: Brill, 2007) 3–30. I agree with Summerer against P. Calmeyer,
“Zwei mit Historischen Szenen Bemalte Balken der Achaemenidenzeit,”
Münchener Jahrbücher 43 (1993): 7–18, that the scene need not represent any
particular battle.

Darius, the Great King, King of Kings

Jack M. Balcer, A Prosopographical Study of the Ancient Persians Royal and

Noble, c. 550–450 B.C. (Lewiston, N.Y.: Mellen, 1993), sets out what is known
about high-ranking Persians.
For the documents relating to the royal centers, see Kuhrt 2007: 488–490
(Persepolis, including a plan), 491–497 (Susa, with plans), 497–501 (Ecbatana).
On Pasargadae, see David Stronach, Pasargadae (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1978).

The Athenian Embassy in 507/6

For Achaemenid Sardis, see Elspeth R. M. Dusinberre, Aspects of Empire in

Achaemenid Sardis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). Hasan
200 bibliographical notes
Dedeoğlu, The Lydians and Sardis (Istanbul: A Turizm Yayınaı, 2003) has
excellent color photographs.
Louis L. Orlin finds the significance of earth and water in their functions
in Zoroastrian thought (“Athens and Persia ca. 507 B.C.: A Neglected Per-
spective,” in Michigan Oriental Studies in Honor of George G. Cameron, ed.
George Glenn Cameron and Louis L. Orlin [Ann Arbor: Department of Near
Eastern Studies, University of Michigan, 1976] 255–266). Amélie Kuhrt sug-
gests that earth and water formed part of an oath-taking ritual (“Earth and
Water,” in Method and Theory: Proceedings of the London 1985 Achaemenid
History Workshop, ed. Amélie Kuhrt and Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg
[Leiden: Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten, 1988] 87–99). Mark
H. Munn finds a symbolic significance tied to a concept of kingship (The
Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia: A Study of Sover-
eignty in Ancient Religion [Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006]
222–225).
On the treaty between Athens and Persia, I find myself in almost total
agreement with Fritz Schachermeyr, “Athen als Stadt des Grosskönigs,”
Gräzer Beitrage 1 (1973): 211–220.

Chapter 2. Athens’ Victories over the Boeotians and Chalcidians

Kleomenes’ Big Invasion

Hans van Wees argues that Athens required only those in the top three in-
come classes to fight, but allowed anyone who had the equipment to partici-
pate. In van Wees’ view, many in the lowest (fourth) class must have fought
as hoplites, for the top three classes comprised no more than 20 percent of
the population (“The Myth of the Middle-Class Army: Military and Social
Status in Ancient Athens,” in War as a Cultural and Social Force: Essays on
Warfare in Antiquity, ed. Tonnes Bekker-Nielsen and Lise Hannestad [Co-
penhagen: Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, 2001] 45–71, and
“Mass and Elite in Solon’s Athens,” in Solon of Athens: New Historical and
Philological Approaches, ed. Josine H. Block and André P. M. H. Lardinois
[Leiden: Brill, 2006] 351–389). Victor Davis Hanson paints a more traditional
view of Athenian hoplites as middling farmers in The Other Greeks: The Fam-
ily Farm and the Agrarian Roots of Western Civilization, 2nd ed. (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1999).
G. E. M. de Ste. Croix, The Origins of the Peloponnesian War (Ithaca,
N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1972), champions the common view of the
Peloponnesian League as a tightly organized body with a constitution and
bibliographical notes 201

a standard oath. Donald Kagan, The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War

(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1969), represents the minority view
that the alliance was loosely organized and intended primarily for defense,
with a common oath that was not well enforced. Recently some scholars have
suggested that the oath did not apply to all allies, or even that it did not ex-
ist until the fifth century; it is first attested in 404/3. See Sarah Bolmarcich,
“The Date of the ‘Oath of the Peloponnesian League,’ ” Historia 57 (2008):
65–79.
In “The Athenian Treaty in Theopompos F 153,” forthcoming in Phoenix,
I argue that Theopompos, FGrHist 115 F 153, refers to the 507 treaty between
Persia and Athens.

Greek Warfare

Victor Davis Hanson brilliantly evokes the experience of Archaic battle ac-
cording to the conventional interpretation, particularly in The Western Way
of War: Infantry Battle in Classical Greece, 2nd ed. (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 2000) and in his best book, The Other Greeks (1999).
Hanson relies, as we all do, on the wide-ranging studies of Pritchett 1971–
1991. Hans van Wees, Greek Warfare: Myths and Realities (London: Duck-
worth, 2004), and Louis Rawlings, The Ancient Greeks at War (Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 2007), provide an alternative to Hanson along
the lines I am suggesting.
Anthony M. Snodgrass’ two books on Greek military equipment have
not yet been replaced: Early Greek Armour and Weapons, from the End of
the Bronze Age to 600 B.C. (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1964)
and Arms and Armor of the Greeks, 2nd ed. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Uni-
versity Press, 1999). Important monographs on the finds at Olympia have
appeared in German: Emil Kunze, Archaische Schildbänder: Ein Beitrag zur
Frühgriechischen Bildgeschichte und Sagenüberlieferung (Berlin: de Gruyter,
1950); Peter Bol, Argivische Schilde (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1989); Emil Kunze,
Beinschienen (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1991); Holger Baitinger, Die Angriffswaffen
aus Olympia (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2001); and Hanna Philipp and Hermann
Born, Archaische Silhouettenbleche und Schildzeichen in Olympia (Berlin: de
Gruyter, 2004).
On the weight of Greek armor and weapons, see Eero Jarva, Archaiolo-
gia on Archaic Greek Body Armour (Rovaniemi, Finland: Pohjois-Suomen
Historiallinen Yhdistys, 1995), and Johann Peter Franz, Krieger, Bauern,
Bürger: Untersuchungen zu den Hopliten der Archaischen und Klassischen Zeit
(Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 2002). Important reenactors include the Hoplite
202 bibliographical notes
Association in London (http://www.hoplites.org/index.htm), the Sydney An-
cients (http://sydneyancients.5u.com/), and the Hoplitikon of Melbourne
(http://hoplitikon.com/Mission.htm). For Craig Sitch’s reproductions, go to
http://www.manningimperial.com/.
On helmets, see P. H. Blyth and A. G. Atkins, “Stabbing of Metal Sheets
by a Triangular Knife: An Archaeological Investigation,” International Jour-
nal of Impact Engineering 27 (2002): 459–473. On the spear, see Minor M.
Markle, III, “The Macedonian Sarissa, Spear, and Related Armor,” American
Journal of Archaeology 81 (1977): 323–339.
For the three shields with identifiable wood, see (1) G. Seiterle, “Tech-
niken zur Herstellung der Einzelteile (Exkurs zum Schild Nr. 217),” in Antike
Kunstwerke aus der Sammlung Ludwig, II. Terrakotten und Bronze, ed. Ernst
Berger (Mainz: von Zabern, 1982) 250–263, and David Cahn, Waffen und
Zaumzeug (Basel: Antikenmuseum Basel und Sammlung Ludwig, 1989) 15–17;
(2) P. H. Blyth, “The Structure of a Hoplite Shield in the Museo Gregoriano
Etrusco,” Bolletino dei Monumenti, Musei e Gallerie Pontificie 3 (1982): 5–21;
(3) Bol, Argivische Schilde (1989) 3. For the shield found at Olynthos, see
David M. Robinson, Excavations at Olynthus, X: Metal and Minor Miscella-
neous Finds (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1941) 443–444.
On the earliest vases that apparently represent hoplites in close for-
mation, see Hans van Wees, “The Development of the Hoplite Phalanx:
Iconography and Reality in the Seventh Century,” in War and Violence in
Ancient Greece, ed. Hans van Wees (London: Duckworth and the Classi-
cal Press of Wales, 2000) 125–166, to which add a Proto-Corinthian frag-
ment, painted by the Macmillan or Chigi Painter, found at Erythrai: Meral
Akurgal, “Eine Protokorinthische Oinochoe aus Erythrai,” Istanbuler Mit-
teilungen 42 (1992): 83–96. François Lissarrague, L’Autre Guerrier: Archers,
Peltastes, Cavaliers dans l’Imagerie Attique (Paris: Découverte, 1990) 14–15,
lists two dozen or so more from the late seventh through the early fifth cen-
turies. The Beazley Archive Pottery Database can be searched at http://www
.beazley.ox.ac.uk/databases/pottery.htm. Wolf-Dietrich Niemeier reports
on the painting at Kalapodi in the Jahresberichte des Deutschen Archäolo-
gischen Instituts for 2006, available online at http://www.dainst.org/index_
74507e76bb1f14a153620017f0000011_en.html. In 2007 he did not find further
fragments of the battle scene.
For the debate on othismos, see Robert D. Luginbill, “Othismos: The Im-
portance of the Mass-Shove in Hoplite Warfare,” Phoenix 48 (1994): 51–61,
defending the literalist view, and Adrian K. Goldsworthy, “The Othismos,
Myths and Heresies: The Nature of Hoplite Battle,” War in History 4 (1997):
1–26, arguing for the figurative interpretation.
bibliographical notes 203

On Greek cavalry, see Glenn Richard Bugh, The Horsemen of Athens

(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989); I. G. Spence, The Cavalry of
Classical Greece: A Social and Military History with Particular Reference to
Athens (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993); Leslie J. Worley, Hippeis: The Cavalry of
Ancient Greece (Boulder: Westview, 1994).
Everett Wheeler questions the authenticity of the inscription Strabo saw
at Eretria, suggesting that Strabo depended on Ephorus, who might have in-
vented the treaty to provide a precedent for a ban on missile fire (“Ephorus
and the Prohibition of Missiles,” Transactions of the American Philological
Association 117 (1987): 157–182.
Recently Mario Rausch suggested that a competition in the war dance
in armor was added to the Athenian Panathenaia festival in the late sixth
century due to the Peloponnesian threat (Isonomia in Athen: Veränderungen
des Öffentlichen Lebens vom Sturz der Tyrannis bis zur Zweiten Perserabwehr
[Frankfurt: Franz Steiner, 1999] 175–177, 257–258). He may be right (the evi-
dence is far from conclusive), but his suggestion only underlines the lack of
communal training in general. See J. K. Anderson, Military Theory and Prac-
tice in the Age of Xenophon (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970)
84–110; Pritchett 1971–1991: 2.208–231; van Wees 2004: 89–93.
For the earliest Athenian casualty list, see the list of names found on Lem-
nos, with early-fifth-century Attic letter forms (IG 1[3].1477). It contains the
name of the tribe Hippothontis, suggesting that it is a casualty list organized
according to the ten Kleisthenic tribes, as was the normal practice later. It has
been plausibly connected to Miltiades’ conquest of Lemnos.
On the organization of the Athenian army, van Wees (2004: 96) cites
Herodotus 5.71.2 as support for his view that the prutaneis (presidents) of the
naukraroi (ship captains) were responsible for mobilizing troops and ships
in the 48 naukrariai (ship districts). The naukraroi are obscure and the pru-
taneis even more shadowy, but this passage does not say that the naukraroi
raised troops.

The Battles of the Euripos

Keith G. Walker makes the case for Eretrian involvement in the double battle
in Archaic Eretria: A Political and Social History from the Earliest Times to
490 BC (London: Routledge, 2004) 257–262.
For figures on ransom of prisoners of war, see Pritchett 1971–1991:
5.245–312.
On the epigram for the battle dead and the thank-offering dedicated on
the Acropolis, see Greg Anderson, The Athenian Experiment: Building an
204 bibliographical notes
Imagined Political Community in Ancient Attica, 508–490 B.C. (Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press, 2003) 151–157.
For doubts about the story that Artaphrenes told the Athenians to take
Hippias back, see Amélie Kuhrt, “Earth and Water,” in Method and Theory:
Proceedings of the London 1985 Achaemenid History Workshop, ed. Amélie
Kuhrt and Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg (Leiden: Nederlands Instituut voor
het Nabije Oosten, 1988) 93.

Chapter 3. The Ionian Revolt

The Outbreak of the Revolt

The causes of the revolt have prompted a large bibliography. For a rebuttal to
the claim that “the western expansion of Persia was disastrous for the Greek
mercantile cities of Ionia” (Oswyn Murray in CAH 4[2].477), see Pericles B.
Georges, “Persian Ionia under Darius: The Revolt Reconsidered,” Historia
49 (2000): 1–39. Cawkwell 2005: 61–86 takes a much more positive view of
Histiaios and Aristagoras than Herodotus does. Cawkwell sees Aristagoras
as a real hero of the fight for Greek freedom, whereas Herodotus portrays
him as a coward who escaped to Thrace when the revolt began to fail (5.50.2,
97.2, and 124.1). It is difficult to decide between these views, since it is un-
clear to what extent Aristagoras dictated the actions of the rebels, and since
Herodotus has him make the boldest statement of his ambitions in a private
conversation with Kleomenes of Sparta, about which Herodotus is unlikely
to have been well informed.
For democracies outside Athens, see Eric W. Robinson, The First Democra-
cies: Early Popular Government outside Athens (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1997).

Archaic Navies

For the Persian Wars Shipwreck Survey Project, go to http://nautarch.tamu

.edu/pwss/homepage/.
The best place to start on how a trireme was built is J. S. Morrison, J. F.
Coates, and N. B. Rankov, The Athenian Trireme: The History and Reconstruc-
tion of an Ancient Greek Warship (New York: Cambridge University Press,
2000). They survey the history of the problem, report on the construction
and performance of Olympias, and suggest possible improvements. Using
a cubit about two inches longer (attested on a recently discovered Archaic
metrological relief ) and canting the seats by an angle of 18.4 degrees, they
bibliographical notes 205

believe, would increase the maximum stroke length by 25 percent. Using the
longer cubit would make the ship almost 130 feet long; they would also like
to widen it about seven inches.
Alec Tilley continues to champion an alternative reconstruction, in
which each horizontal cross-section has three rather than six rowers (Sea-
faring on the Ancient Mediterranean: New Thoughts on Triremes and Other
Ancient Ships [Oxford: Hedges, 2004]; “Rowing Ancient Warships: Evidence
from a Newly-Published Ship-Model,” International Journal of Nautical Ar-
chaeology 36 [2007]: 293–299). I find his arguments attractive and his pro-
posed oar system sounds workable to this landlubber, but I do not see how
the attested number of rowers can be squeezed into a boat of his design. For
the time being I prefer to stick with the majority view. But the case is not
closed, especially since archaeologists have discovered shipsheds at Naxos in
Sicily that are shorter and narrower than those at Peiraieus. Triremes might
have come in a variety of sizes.
On the introduction of the trireme and the construction of a Persian
fleet, see H. T. Wallinga, Ships and Sea-Power before the Great Persian War:
The Ancestry of the Ancient Trireme (Leiden: Brill, 1993). Wallinga rejects as
anachronistic Herodotus’ ascription (2.159.1) of triremes to the Egyptian
pharaoh Necho (610–595) on the grounds that if triremes had existed at the
time of the battle of Alalia (540), the Carthaginians would have had them
(104). There is no explicit evidence for Wallinga’s conjectures that Cambyses
built a royal navy with a base in Cilicia prior to his invasion of Egypt in 525,
or that Darius expanded this navy before 513 and added a second base on the
Aegean coast. Alternatively, and I think more likely, the king had no stand-
ing navy, but called on his subjects to contribute ships as well as their rowers
(Cawkwell 2005: 255–259 defends this view). For example, when Herodotus
says that Otanes took ships from Lesbos and conquered Lemnos and Im-
bros (5.26), or when Thucydides says that Darius used the Phoenician fleet
to conquer the islands (1.16), we should understand that the Persians used
Lesbian and Phoenician ships, not merely Lesbian and Phoenician rowers.
Van Wees’ attempted compromise (2004: 206)—the Persian king directed
and paid for the Greeks’ shipbuilding, but allowed them to keep the ships—
seems to me conceivable but unlikely.
Most scholars have regarded the numbers Herodotus gives for the Per-
sian fleet as patriotic exaggerations or round numbers meaning only “a large
fleet” (Cawkwell 2005: 260–267 is a good recent example). Alternatively,
H. T. Wallinga proposes that the triremes were not fully manned (Xerxes’
Greek Adventure: The Naval Perspective [Leiden: Brill, 2005] 32–46).
206 bibliographical notes
The Course of the Revolt

For the theory that the Greeks intended to overthrow Kybebe (Kybele) and
upset the Lydian ideology of the good ruler, see Mark Munn, The Mother
of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia (Berkeley: University of Cali-
fornia Press, 2006). Not all scholars agree with the identification of Kybebe
with Kybele; for an opposing view, see Lynn E. Roller, In Search of God the
Mother: The Cult of Anatolian Cybele (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1999).
Clive Foss has identified two ancient roads, with paving still extant in part,
between Hypaipa and Sardis (“Explorations in Mount Tmolus,” California
Studies in Classical Antiquity 11 [1979]: 27–37 with a map on 29). He suggests
that the Ephesians led the Greeks along the less common route, which reaches
the Paktolos River about five minutes’ walk south of the Temple of Arte-
mis. He gives the distance from Ephesos to Sardis via Hypaipa as 100 miles.
Rose Lou Bengisu, “Lydian Mount Karios,” in Cybele, Attis, and Related
Cults, ed. E. N. Lane (Leiden: Brill, 1996) 23, also shows an ancient road from
Hypaipa to Sardis; it looks slightly different from either of Foss’s, but the
precise course must be conjectural where paving does not survive. The route
via Hypaipa was presumably the sacred route used for processions from the
Temple of Artemis at Ephesos to the Temple of Artemis at Sardis, which leads
Munn, Mother of the Gods 246–247, to suggest that the guides were reenacting
a religious procession rather than taking the Greeks along an unusual route in
order to surprise Sardis (as Oswyn Murray suggested in CAH 4[2].143).
Fritz Schachermeyr suggested that Eretrians continued fighting in Ionia
after the Athenians went home (“Marathon und die Persische Politik,” His-
torische Zeitschrift 172 [1951]: 6). Keith G. Walker believes that Eretria kept
up its support until the fall of Miletus in 494 (Archaic Eretria: A Political and
Social History from the Earliest Times to 490 BC [London: Routledge, 2004]
278), though Herodotus does not list Eretrians among the naval forces at the
battle of Lade in 494.
For the Persian siege mound at Paphos, see Elisabeth Erdmann, Nordost-
tor und Persische Belagerungsrampe in Alt-Paphos (Konstanz: Universitäts-
verlag, 1977), summarized by Murray in CAH 4(2).484.
W. Kendrick Pritchett collected a dozen examples of delays of three days
or more before battles, not including this one (1971–1991: 2.154).

Two Enigmatic Figures: Histiaios and Miltiades

On Miltiades, see Helmut Berve, Miltiades: Studien zur Geschichte des

Mannes und seiner Zeit (Berlin: Weidmann, 1937); H. T. Wade-Gery, “Mil-
bibliographical notes 207

tiades,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 71 (1951): 212–221; Konrad Kinzl, Miltiades-

Forschungen (Wien: Verlag Notring, 1968). Scott 2005: 507–512 doubts Herod-
otus’ story of Miltiades and the Dolonci. Miltiades’ archonship is known
from ML no. 6, an inscribed fragment of an archon list.
The chronology of Miltiades’ career is disputed. It takes Scott almost a
dozen pages to unravel the problems in Herodotus 6.40, which is textually
corrupt (2005: 522–532). I agree with his analysis, which avoids adding “be-
fore” in 6.40.1 (Andrea Purvis in the Landmark Herodotus, John Marincola
in the revised Penguin, and Robin Waterfield in the Oxford World’s Classics
edition all accept the addition of “before”).
When did Miltiades conquer Lemnos? Herodotus tells this story in con-
nection with Miltiades’ trial in 489, without any chronological indicators.
Some scholars place the conquest before the Scythian expedition (N. G. L.
Hammond, “The Philaids and the Chersonese,” Classical Quarterly 50 [1956]:
122–127, 129). Others put it about 510 (Scott 2005: 453). The unsettled condi-
tions of the Ionian Revolt seem the most likely context to me (David Lewis,
CAH 4[2].298).

Chapter 4. Darius and the Greeks of Europe

Events in Greece

For the story of Darius’ heralds, see the sensible article by Raphael Sealey,
“The Pit and the Well: The Persian Heralds of 491 B.C.,” Classical Journal 77
(1976): 13–20, countering the once popular view that this story is a doublet of
the heralds sent in 481. Mark Munn, The Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the
Tyranny of Asia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), has recon-
structed an expanded story based on a combination of scattered, late sources
(the earliest being the Roman emperor Julian in the fourth century AD). A
priest of the Mother of the Gods, Kybele, came to Athens to address the burn-
ing of the shrine at Ephesos. He spoke to the Athenian Council of 500, which
normally received foreign embassies, and demanded that the Athenians re-
vere the Mother of the Gods and the Great King whom she supported. The
Athenians threw him into the pit. Later, on the advice of an oracle, they
dedicated their Council House to the Mother of the Gods, and used it as an
archives building. In her review of Munn’s book, Lynn Roller pinpoints the
weakness of the idea: “Why would the Persians require submission to a deity
who was not Persian?” (Classical Philology 103 [2008]: 199).
Ernst Badian, the caustic Harvard historian best known for his work
on Alexander the Great and the late Roman Republic, once remarked of
Athenian internal history before the Persian Wars that there are “practically
208 bibliographical notes
no facts known,” with the result that scholars’ “ingenuity and imagination
have been limited only by what the audience has been willing to believe.” He
added that “these limits have traditionally been generous” (“Archons and
Strategoi,” Antichthon 5 [1971]: 1). For lucidly written contrasting views see
M. F. McGregor, “The Pro-Persian Party at Athens from 510 to 480 B.C.,”
Athenian Studies Presented to William Scott Ferguson (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1940) 71–95, arguing that no strong pro-Persian group ex-
isted at Athens, and C. A. Robinson, Jr., “Athenian Politics, 510–486 B.C.,”
American Journal of Philology 66 (1945): 243–254, identifying three major
political factions (anti-Spartan and anti-Persian democrats, pro-Spartan
and pro-Persian aristocrats, and pro-Spartan and pro-Persian tyrannists).
Michael Arnush provides an updated bibliography—there was a burst of in-
terest in the 1970s and 1980s—in “The Career of Peisistratos Son of Hippias,”
Hesperia (1995) 64: 135–162. Arnush dates the altar dedicated by Peisistratos,
son of Hippias and grandson of the tyrant (IG 1[3] 948), to the 490s, provid-
ing additional support for the view that Hippias’ relatives were welcome in
Athens before Marathon.
For the theory that Kleomenes was assassinated, contrast W. P. Wallace,
“Kleomenes, Marathon, the Helots and Arcadia,” Journal of Hellenic Stud-
ies 74 (1954): 32–35, blaming the ephors, with David Harvey, “Leonidas the
Regicide? Speculations on the Death of Kleomenes I,” in Arktouros: Hellenic
Studies Presented to Bernard M. W. Knox on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday,
ed. Glen W. Bowersock, Walter Burkert, and Michael C. J. Putnam (Berlin:
de Gruyter, 1979) 253–260, ruling out the ephors on the grounds that Plu-
tarch says Agis IV was the first Spartan king to die at their hands. Harvey is
also skeptical that the obvious beneficiary Leonidas could have had anything
to do with Kleomenes’ death since Herodotus heard not a hint of such a
scandal.

Mardonios

See Michael Zahrnt, “Der Mardonioszug des Jahres 492 v. Chr. und Seine
Historische Einordnung,” Chiron 22 (1992): 237–280. For preliminary re-
ports on the attempt to locate the Athos canal, go to http://www.gein.noa.gr/
xerxes_canal/ENG_XERX/ENGWEB.htm.

Datis and Artaphrenes

For the identification of Datis the Mede with the Datiya mentioned on Per-
sepolis Fortification Tablet no. 1809, see David Lewis, “Datis the Mede,”
Journal of Hellenic Studies 100 (1980): 194–195.
bibliographical notes 209

The Expedition Departs

Scholars have varied quite widely on how many fighting troops Datis had.
On the high end, Ernst Curtius gave the Persians 100,000 (The History of
Greece [New York: Scribner, Armstrong, 1876] 2.235), while Georg Busolt fa-
vored half that (Griechische Geschichte Bis zur Schlacht bei Chaeroneia [Gotha:
Perthes, 1893–1904] 2.575). On the low end, Delbrück (who paid little atten-
tion to the numbers in any source) put Datis’ forces at only 10,000 to 15,000
(1887: 161). Hammond (1973: 222) and Cawkwell (2005: 88) give 25,000 at a
minimum and up to 30,000 respectively, based on the size of the potential
opposition forces, if other Greeks rallied to support Athens. Munro (1899:
189) thought that 20,000 Persians fought, on the grounds that one-third of
them died (he believed that Datis started with 40,000, but divided his forces).
Lazenby (1993: 46) and Sekunda (2002: 23) reason as I do based on the at-
tested figures for soldiers on triremes, arriving at 18,000 to 24,000 (30 to
40 soldiers on each of 600 triremes). Frederick Maurice used the estimated
water supply to arrive at 16,000 (“The Campaign of Marathon,” Journal of
Hellenic Studies 52 [1932]: 20).
Few scholars accept Nepos’ figure of 10,000 for the number of Persian
horsemen; for one who does, see Curtius, History of Greece 2.235. At the other
extreme, Maurice (“Campaign” 16–17) followed Karl Julius Beloch in doubt-
ing that cavalry participated in the campaign at all. Evans, who devotes the
most attention to the problem, sets the minimum at 200 horsemen (2006:
208), while Hammond estimates at least 1,000 (1973: 222). These figures rep-
resent the likely range.
For the food and drink requirements of horses, see Jonathan P. Roth,
The Logistics of the Roman Army at War (264 B.C.–A.D. 235) (Leiden: Brill,
1999) 62.

Rhodes

On the inscription that is the only evidence for Datis’ siege of Lindos, see
Carolyn Higbie, The Lindian Chronicle and the Greek Creation of Their Past
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), with a text, translation, and com-
mentary. Michael Heltzer, “The Persepolis Documents, the Lindos Chron-
icle, and the Book of Judith,” La Parola del Passato 44 (1989): 81–101, puts
Datis at Lindos in 497, near the beginning of the Ionian Revolt. Burn 1984:
210–211 favors 495, as the Persian fleet headed for Lade. Higbie herself seems
inclined to think the episode is fictitious, though she also explains the puz-
zling reference to Mardonios with the suggestion that he might have been
sent ahead to transport the horses to Greece as quickly as possible (147).
210 bibliographical notes
The Cyclades

On frankincense, see Nigel Groom, Frankincense and Myrrh: A Study of the

Arabian Incense Trade (London: Longman, 1981).
For Karystos, see M. Chidiroglou and A. Chatzidimitriou, eds., Antiqui-
ties of Karystia (Karystos: Kronos, 2006).

The Persian Assault on Eretria

On siege warfare, see the vivid description by Josiah Ober in “Hoplites and
Obstacles,” in Victor D. Hanson, Hoplites: The Classical Greek Battle Experi-
ence (London: Routledge, 1991) 176–196, and the book by Paul Bentley Kern,
Ancient Siege Warfare (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999).

Chapter 5. The Armies Arrive at Marathon

Decisions at Athens

Robert G. A. Weir, “The Lost Archaic Wall around Athens,” Phoenix 49

(1995): 247–258, accepts its existence, tries to describe it based on contem-
porary parallels, and explains its total disappearance by suggesting that the
Themistoklean wall reused every block of the socle.
Victor D. Hanson, Warfare and Agriculture in Classical Greece, 2nd ed.
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), shows how difficult it was to
destroy virtually all of a city’s crops. Lin Foxhall, “Farming and Fighting,” in
War and Society in the Greek World, ed. John Rich and Graham Shipley (Lon-
don: Routledge, 1993) 134–145, offers something of a corrective to Hanson’s
view that invaders hurt farmers’ pride more than their property, but she
agrees with him that invasions almost never threatened a city’s food supply,
in either the short or the long term.
General studies of Miltiades include Helmut Berve, Miltiades: Stu-
dien zur Geschichte des Mannes und Seiner Zeit (Berlin: Weidmann, 1937),
H. T. Wade-Gery, “Miltiades,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 71 (1951): 212–221,
and Konrad Kinzl, “Miltiades-Forschungen” (Diss., University of Vienna,
1968).

The Persians Land at Marathon

For the suggestion that the Persians timed their arrival at Marathon to co-
incide with the Karneia festival at Sparta, see Schachermeyr 1951: 10–11.
bibliographical notes 211

Interpreters have suggested that Hippias understood the tooth as a phal-

lus (J. Glenn, “The Dream of Hippias,” Rivista di Studi Classici 20 Suppl.
[1972]: 5–7), or as a seed (R. Drew Griffith, “Hippias’ Missing Tooth [Hdt.
6.107],” Ancient History Bulletin 8 [1994]: 121–122). Philip Holt, “Sex, Tyr-
anny, and Hippias’ Incest Dream (Herodotos 6.107),” Greek, Roman, and
Byzantine Studies 39 (1998): 221–241, discusses the dream in the context of
typical tyrannical behavior.

The Oath That the Athenians Swore When They Were about to Fight
against the Barbarians

These words are the heading (lines 21–22) of an inscribed oath usually identi-
fied with the Oath of Plataea (P. J. Rhodes and Robin Osborne, Greek His-
torical Inscriptions: 404–323 BC [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003] no.
88). I assume here the correctness of the case I made in 2007: This inscribed
oath is instead the “traditional oath” that the orator Lykourgos says (1.80)
served as a template for the Oath of Plataea (“The Oath of Marathon, not
Plataia?” Hesperia 76 [2007]: 731–742). A description of the oath-taking cer-
emony (lines 46–51) follows the oath (lines 23–46), which is the second oath
inscribed on the stele.
For the trumpet (salpinx), see Peter Krentz, “The Salpinx in Greek War-
fare,” in Hoplites, ed. Victor Hanson (London: Routledge, 1991) 110–120. To
the references there add Homer, Iliad 18.219–220 and 21.388.
For the distinction between campaigns carried out by hoplites “in the
catalogue” and Athenians “in full force,” see Hans van Wees, “The Myth
of the Middle-Class Army: Military and Social Status in Ancient Athens,”
in War as a Cultural and Social Force: Essays on Warfare in Antiquity, ed.
Tønnes Bekker-Nielsen and Lise Hannestad (Copenhagen: Det Kongelige
Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, 2001) 45–71.
“It is highly improbable,” G. B. Grundy once observed, “that the Per-
sians outnumbered the Greeks by two to one, and quite possible that the
disproportion between the two armies was not very great” (The Great Persian
War and Its Preliminaries: A Study of the Evidence, Literary and Topographical
[London: Murray, 1901] 185). Others who think the later sources underesti-
mate the total number of Athenians include Leake, who gave 10,000 Athe-
nian hoplites an equal number of light-armed (1841: 2.222), as did A. R. Burn
(“Thermopylae Revisited and Some Topographical Notes on Marathon and
Plataia,” in Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean in Ancient History and Pre-
history: Studies Presented to Fritz Schachermeyr on the Occasion of his 80th
Birthday, ed. K. H. Kinzl [Berlin: de Gruyter, 1977] 91); Julius Beloch, who
212 bibliographical notes
gives the Athenians 6,000–7,000 hoplites plus at least the same number of
light-armed (Griechische Geschichte [Strassberg: Trübner, 1912] 2.1.21); and
J. A. R. Munro, who estimates 15,000 including a few thousand light-armed
and slaves (Munro 1899: 189). On the other hand, Hans Delbrück, who calls
the figures found in the later sources “completely unverified,” thinks that
“the Athenians at Marathon had at the very most 8,000 hoplites, and proba-
bly only some 5,000, accompanied by the same number of unarmored men”
(Delbrück 1975: 37, 64).
For the significance of the oath-taking ritual I follow Christopher A.
Faraone, who compares this ritual to sacrifices in Xenophon and Aeschylus
in which the blood of sacrificed animals was collected in a shield (“Molten
Wax, Spilt Wine, and Mutilated Animals: Sympathetic Magic in Near East-
ern and Early Greek Oath Ceremonies,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 113 [1993]
66–67).

The March to Marathon

Richard M. Berthold, “Which Way to Marathon?” Revue des Études Anciennes

78/79 (1976/1977): 85–95, defends the longer but easier route. For Clarke’s de-
scription of the shorter route, including traces of an ancient road between
Stamata and the modern town of Marathona, see Clarke 1818: 12–15. Eugene
Vanderpool relocated this road; Josiah Ober published an article about it
with maps and photographs (“Edward Clarke’s Ancient Road to Marathon,
A.D. 1801,” Hesperia 51 [1982]: 453–458). If Ober is right that the road was
not built until the fourth century, it was not used by the Athenians in 490,
a point stressed by J. A. G. Van der Veer, “Clarke’s Road,” Mnemosyne 39
(1986): 417–418. Hammond described his day hike in Hammond 1973: 210.
An exceptionally vigorous young man, Hammond later served in Greece and
Albania during World War II; see his account of those days, Venture into
Greece: With the Guerrillas, 1943–1944 (London: Kimber, 1983).
For my description of what men took on campaign, I draw on my chapter
in The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare, ed. Philip Sabin, Hans
van Wees, and Michael Whitby (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2007) 1.150–153.
In Cornelius Nepos, the Athenians deploy in a defensive position “at the
foot of the mountain in an area with scattered trees,” so the Persian cavalry
would be hampered by the trees and the Persians could not surround them
with greater numbers (Miltiades 5). Nevertheless, Datis attacked because he
wanted to fight before the Spartans arrived. Johann Henrik Schreiner, Two
bibliographical notes 213

Battles and Two Bills: Marathon and the Athenian Fleet (Athens: Norwegian
Institute at Athens, 2004), combines Nepos with various other late sources
to argue for two separate battles at Marathon. No single source records two
battles. The Suda entries under the headings Hippias (2) and choris hippeis
come the closest, I suppose, but not very close. Schreiner admits that the
Athenians did not win on the same day they marched out, as the Hippias
entry says. Schreiner also admits that Nepos presents “a host of problems”
(29). I lack his confidence in two battles. Schreiner’s reasoning reminds me
of the sixteenth-century theologian Andreas Osiander, who confronted di-
vergent accounts in Matthew, Mark, and Luke of the raising of Jairus’ daugh-
ter from the dead by supposing that Jesus raised her from the dead three
times.

Philippides

For the growing popularity of barefoot running today, see http://

runningbarefoot.org/.
The statistics for the modern race from Athens to Sparta are available at
http://www.spartathlon.gr/results.php. Hugh M. Lee, “Modern Ultra-Long
Distance Running and Philippides’ Run from Athens to Sparta,” Ancient
World 9 (1984): 107–133, argues that such modern performances show that
Philippides’ run was possible.
On the name of the runner, see Frank J. Frost, “The Dubious Origins of
the ‘Marathon,’ ” American Journal of Ancient History 4 (1979): 159–163, de-
fending Philippides, against Ernst Badian, “The Name of the Runner,” Ameri-
can Journal of Ancient History 4 (1977): 163–166, defending Pheidippides.
Pamela-Jane Shaw, “Message to Sparta: The Route of Pheidippides be-
fore Marathon,” Geographia Antiqua 6 (1997) 53–78, reconstructs the route
as described in the text. The Spartathlon follows a longer route that avoids
the Argive plain, on the grounds that Argos was hostile to Sparta and Athens
in the 490s.
On religion in Greek warfare, see especially Pritchett 1971–1991 vol. 3, Re-
ligion, and Anna Jacquemin, Guerre et Religion dans le Monde Grec (490–322
av. J.-C.) ([Paris]: SEDES, 2000).
Paul Cartledge, Sparta and Lakonia: A Regional History, 1300–362 BC, 2nd
ed. (London: Routledge, 2002) 132–133, succinctly summarizes the evidence for
a helot revolt at the time of the battle of Marathon. To his list should be added
Strabo’s comment that there were four, not three, Messenian Wars (8.4.10,
362). The inscription at Olympia is ML no. 22, with additional bibliography.
214 bibliographical notes
Chapter 6. The Plain of Marathon
In this chapter I draw frequently on the fascinating reports of early travelers,
including Richard Chandler, Travels in Greece (Oxford: Clarendon, 1776);
Clarke 1818; Edward Dodwell, A Classical and Topographical Tour through
Greece, During the Years 1801, 1805, and 1806 (London: Rodwell and Martin,
1819); William Gell, The Itinerary of Greece; Containing One Hundred Routes
in Attica, Boeotia, Phocis, Locris, and Thessaly (London: Rodwell and Martin,
1819); Leake 1835 and 1841. Once found mainly in rare book rooms, these vol-
umes are now easily accessible through Google Books (http://books.google
.com/). Dietram Müller, Topographischer Bildkommentar zu den Historien
Herodots: Griechenland, im Umfang des Heutigen Griechischen Staatsgebiet
(Tübingen: Wasmuth, 1987) 655–673, provides a helpful survey with excellent
black-and-white photographs. See also J. A. G. Van der Veer, “The Battle of
Marathon: A Topographical Survey,” Mnemosyne 35 (1982): 290–321.

Geography

For the tragic story of the 1870 Dilessi murders, see Josslyn Francis
Pennington Muncaster and Crosby Stevens, Ransom and Murder in Greece:
Lord Muncaster’s Journal, 1870 (Cambridge: Lutterworth, 1989), including on
page 57 a photograph of the severed heads.
W. Kendrick Pritchett returned to Marathon several times, both on the
ground and in print: Marathon (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1960); “Marathon Revisited,” in Studies in Ancient Greek Topography (Berke-
ley: University of California Press, 1965) 1.83–93; “Deme of Marathon: von
Eschenburg’s Evidence,” in Studies in Ancient Greek Topography (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1969) 2.1–11.
George Finlay’s map of Marathon appears in his article “On the Battle of
Marathon,” Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature of the United King-
dom 3 (1839), following 394. Hauptmann von Eschenburg’s map appears in
his Topographische, Archaeologische, und Militärische Betrachtungen auf dem
Schlachtfelde von Marathon (Berlin: Reichsdruckerei, 1886) opposite 18, and
as sheets 18–19 of the Karten von Attika, accessible in color at http://digi.ub
.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/curtius1895a/0022 and http://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg
.de/diglit/curtius1895a/0023.
For geological studies of the northern end of the plain, see Cecile
Baeteman, “Late Holocene Geology of the Marathon Plain (Greece),” Jour-
nal of Coastal Research 1 (1985): 173–185; Richard K. Dunn and Kirsten Ol-
son, “Holocene Epoch Evolution of the Plain of Marathon, Greece, and Its
Significance on Regional Archaeology and Paleoclimate Records,” Geological
bibliographical notes 215

Society of America Abstracts with Program 31 no. 7 (1999): 401, abstract

no. 51897, available online at http://rock.geosociety.org/absindex/annual/
1999/51897.htm; K. Pavlopoulos, P. Karkanas, M. Triantaphyllou, and E.
Karymbalis, “Climate and Sea-Level Changes Recorded during Late Holo-
cene in the Coastal Plain of Marathon, Greece,” in The Mediterranean World
Environment and History, ed. Eric Fouache (Mayenne, France: Elsevier, 2003)
453–465; K. Pavlopoulos, P. Karkanas, M. Triantaphyllou, E. Karymbalis,
T. Tsourou, and N. Palyvos, “Paleoenvironmental Evolution of the Coastal
Plain of Marathon, Greece, during the Late Holocene: Deposition Environ-
ment, Climate, and Sea Level Changes,” Journal of Coastal Research 22 (2006):
424–438. Petros G. Themelis, “Marathon,” Archaiologikon Deltion 29 (1974):
226–244, anticipated the geologists’ conclusion that the coastline has moved.
For the twentieth-century recession of the coastline at the former outlet
of the Charadra, see H. Maroukian, A. Zamani, and K. Pavlopoulos, “Coastal
Retreat in the Plain of Marathon (East Attica), Greece: Cause and Effects,”
Geologica Balcanica 23 (1993): 67–71.

The Herakleion

For the various suggestions, see H. G. Lolling, “Zur Topographie von Mara-
thon,” Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archaeologischen Instituts 1 (1876): 67–94;
W. W. How and J. Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1912) 2.109; G. Soteriades, “The Campaign of Marathon according to
a Recent Critic,” Praktika tis Akademias Athenon 8 (1933): 377–381; Pritchett,
“Marathon Revisited” 83–93 and “Deme of Marathon”; E. V. Vanderpool,
“The Deme of Marathon and the Herakleion,” American Journal of Archaeol-
ogy 70 (1966): 319–323—which includes a translation of parts of Soteriades’
reports—and “Regulations for the Herakleian Games at Marathon,” in Stud-
ies Presented to Sterling Dow on his Eightieth Birthday, ed. Alan L. Boegehold
(Durham, N.C.: Duke University, 1984) 295–296. The inscriptions are IG 1(3)
3 (the regulations for the Herakleia), 503/504 (the epigrams), and 1015bis (the
dedication). The epigrams have their own long bibliography, but see now
Angelos P. Matthaiou, “Athenaioisi Tetagmenoisi en Temenei Herakleos (Hdt.
6.108.1),” in Peter Derow and Robert Parker, Herodotus and His World: Es-
says from a Conference in Memory of George Forrest (Oxford: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 2003) 190–202.

The Deme of Marathon

Petrakos 1996 summarizes the finds at both Vrexisa and Plasi. For the lat-
ter, see also Eschenburg, Topographische, Archaeologische, und Militärische
216 bibliographical notes
Betrachtungen, summarized in Archaeologischer Anzeiger 1 (1889): 33–39,
and Spyridon Marinatos, “Further Discoveries at Marathon,” Archaiologika
Analekta ex Athenon / Athens Annals of Archaeology 3 (1970): 349.

The Grave of the Athenians

For Fauvel’s digging in the mound, see Philippe-Ernest Legrand, “Biographie

de Louis-François-Sébastian Fauvel, Antiquaire et Consul (1753–1838),” Re-
vue Archéologique 3rd ser. 30 (1897): 41–66. We know about Elgin’s visit from
his wife’s letters: Mary Nisbet Ferguson and John Patrick Nisbet Hamilton
Grant, The Letters of Mary Nisbet of Dirleton, Countess of Elgin (London:
Murray, 1926). Heinrich Schliemann reported on his work in a brief article,
“Das Sogenannte Grab der 192 Athener in Marathon,” Zeitschrift für Eth-
nologie 16 (1884): 85–88. Valerios Staes published several reports, including
“Ho Tumbos ton Marathonomachon,” Archaiologikon Deltion (1890): 123–132,
“Anaskaphai en Marathoni,” Archaiologikon Deltion (1891) 34, 67, 97, and “Ho
en Marathoni Tumbos,” Athenische Mitteilungen 18 (1893): 46–63. Hammond
1973: 173–176 summarizes Schliemann’s and Staes’ findings in English.
The exception to the rule that scholars accept the mound as the collective
burial of the Marathon fighters is Andrea Mersch, “Archäologischer Kom-
mentar zu den ‘Grabern der Athener und Plataier’ in der Marathonia,” Klio
77 (1995): 55–64.
Pritchett (1971–1991) 4.125–139 lists eleven excavated collective burials
containing war dead. Norman A. Doenges appreciates the point relative to
Marathon, for he notes that the location of the Soros “had more to with the
road system through the plain than the site of the battle” (“The Campaign
and Battle of Marathon,” Historia 47 [1998]: 13 n. 21). On the Chaironeia buri-
als under the Lion Monument, see now John Ma, “Chaironeia 338: Topogra-
phies of Commemoration,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 128 (2008): 72–91. In
the storerooms of the National Museum in Athens, Ma rediscovered some
of the bones excavated in 1879–1880 by Panayiotis Stamatakis. In this article,
Ma reports physical anthropologist Maria Liston’s observations on these
bones.
Pritchett quotes George Finlay’s 1839 letter to Leake at Marathon 140
n. 20. See also Finlay, “On the Battle of Marathon” 392–393.
For the arrowheads in museums said to come from Marathon, see
E. J. Forsdyke, “Some Arrow-Heads from the Battlefield of Marathon,” Pro-
ceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London 32 (1919–1920): 146–157, and
Elisabeth Erdmann, “Die sogenannten Marathonpfeilspitzen in Karlsruhe,”
Archaeologischer Anzeiger (1973) 30–58. Spyridon Marinatos describes and
bibliographical notes 217

illustrates the arrowheads he found at Thermopylae in Thermopylae: An

Historical and Archaeological Guide (Athens: [Ekdosis Ellenikou Organismou
Tourismou], 1951).

The Tomb of the Plataeans?

Marinatos published his work only briefly: “From the Silent Earth,” Ar-
chaiologika Analekta ex Athenon / Athens Annals of Archaeology 3 (1970):
64–66, “Further News of Marathon,” Archaiologika Analekta ex Athenon/
Athens Annals of Archaeology 3 (1970) 153–166, and “Further Discoveries at
Marathon,” Archaiologika Analekta ex Athenon / Athens Annals of Archae-
ology 3 (1970): 357–366. Skeptics include Petros G. Themelis, “Marathon,”
Archaiologikon Deltion 29 (1974): 226–244, and Petrakos 1996: 65–67. Mersch,
“Archäologischer Kommentar,” accepts the identification, despite her skep-
ticism about the Soros.

The Monument of Miltiades

For Vanderpool’s opinion, see his “A Monument to the Battle of Marathon,”

Hesperia 35 (1966): 101.

The Trophy

Vanderpool, “Monument,” reports on his identification of the remains of

the trophy. A sign at the site in 2007 said that Manolis Korres later identi-
fied a block of the euthynteria, which now sits next to the column replica.
The original capital and column drums have been moved to the museum.
Sekunda 2002: 61 points out that a trophy marks the turning point and lo-
cates the battle correctly. Pritchett (1971–1991: 2.246–275) collects the refer-
ences in the Greek historians to trophies.

Chapter 7. When Marathon Became a Magic Word

The Athenian Generals Debate

Critics have accused Herodotus of misrepresenting the polemarchos’ consti-

tutional position. The Aristotelian Athenian Constitution says that in 501/500
“the Athenians began to choose their generals by tribes, one from each
tribe, but the polemarchos was the leader of the whole army” (22.2). A few
paragraphs later, Aristotle notes that in 487/6 the Athenians began to choose
218 bibliographical notes
their archons (one of whom was the polemarchos) by lot (22.5). When this
document was first published in 1890, a groundswell of opinion against
Herodotus built into a formidable wave, but over the past century the waters
have calmed down. Opinion is now as divided as Herodotus says the Athe-
nian generals were. In itself, Herodotus’ account makes a coherent story.
The ten generals had probably not yet served on a campaign together. They
determined strategy as a group, but rotated the field command each day.
The later date and uneven historical reliability of the Athenian Constitution
do not justify favoring it over Herodotus. I accept Ernst Badian’s solution:
The Athenians first elected nine archons and then held a lottery to determine
which of them filled which particular archonship (“Archons and Strategoi,”
Antichthon 5 [1971]: 1–34). For a different view, see P. J. Bicknell, “The Com-
mand Structure and Generals of the Marathon Campaign,” L’Antiquité Clas-
sique 39 (1970): 427–442. Bicknell dismisses Herodotus as based on the biased
painting in the Stoa Poikile; the polemarchos was the elected commander;
the generals were only the commanders of the tribes, though Miltiades might
have had more auctoritas than the others.
For the suggestion that “if the gods are impartial” might refer to Pan
helping the Greeks not to panic, see Henry R. Immerwahr, Form and Thought
in Herodotus (Cleveland: Published for the American Philological Associa-
tion [Chapel Hill, N.C.] by the Press of Western Reserve University, 1966)
253. Jon D. Mikalson, Herodotus and Religion in the Persian Wars (Chapel
Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003) 29–30, translates “if the gods
make it a fair fight.”

“The Cavalry Are Apart”

In his Griechische Geschichte, originally published in 1857–1867, Ernst Curtius

proposed that the cavalry were reembarked; see the English translation of
Ernst Curtius and William A. Packard, The History of Greece, trans. Adolphus
William Ward (New York: Scribner, Armstrong, 1876) 2.250–251. Munro
1899 popularized the idea. For a spirited—and to my mind decisive—rebut-
tal, see Noah Whatley, “On the Possibility of Reconstructing Marathon and
Other Ancient Battles,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 84 (1964): 119–139, the first
publication of a lecture delivered in 1920. The recent video programs are His-
tory Channel (television network), Arts and Entertainment Network, and
New Video Group, Decisive Battles: Marathon (New York: A and E Televi-
sion Networks, 2004) and Command Decisions: Battle of Marathon and Battle
of Chalons (New York: A and E Television Networks, 2004).
For the suggestion that the Brescia sarcophagus reproduces part of the
Stoa Poikile painting, see Vanderpool, “Monument” 105. E. B. Harrison,
bibliographical notes 219

“The South Frieze of the Nike Temple and the Marathon Painting in the
Painted Stoa,” American Journal of Archaeology 76 (1972): 353–378, argues
that the south frieze of the Nike Temple also represents the battle. With re-
gard to the latter, Cawkwell (2005: 116 n. 6) comments, “It is absurd to treat
the sculpture as a precise record of events forty or fifty years past, and it is a
refinement of fancy to suppose that the artist of the temple of Athena Nike
was reproducing what he saw in the painting in the Painted Porch.” Fair
enough. (But who treats the frieze as a “precise record”?) The case for the
Brescia sarcophagus is stronger, since it does seem to show a Greek about to
have his hand chopped off as he grasps a ship.

Miltiades’ Plan

Evans (2006: 190) and Lazenby (1993: 62) both propose that the Persians had
sent their cavalry on ahead to secure the road to Athens between Mount
Agrieliki and the sea. Vanderpool’s location of the Greek camp at Valeria
rules out that idea.
Scholars who accept the numbers given by the late sources for the Greeks
generally put the Greek frontage at 1,500–1,600 yards: Pritchett 1960: 144;
Hammond 1973: 178; Lazenby 1993: 64; Sekunda 2002: 54. Scholars who have
envisioned a longer line include Leake 1841: 2.224 (3,500 yards); George
Finlay, “On the Battle of Marathon,” Transactions of the Royal Society of
Literature of the United Kingdom 3 (1839): 386 (2,500 yards); Frederick
Maurice, “The Campaign of Marathon,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 52 (1932):
20–23 (2,300 yards); John L. Myres, Herodotus, Father of History (Oxford:
Clarendon, 1953) 210 (2,750 yards).
In making the case I do for Miltiades’ plan, I find myself anticipated to
some degree by Leake, who wrote that “the operations of the cavalry were
frustrated by the suddenness of the Athenian attack and by the narrowness
of the plain, the whole breadth of which appears to have been occupied by
the line of Persian regular infantry” (On the Demi of Attica [London: Valpy,
1829] 188).

The Run for Eight Stadia

For the length of the Greek stadion, see David G. Romano, Athletics and
Mathematics in Archaic Corinth: The Origins of the Greek Stadion (Philadel-
phia: American Philosophical Society, 1993) 17. Romano puts the Corinthian
stadion at about 541 feet, slightly shorter than the one at Halieis.
Delbrück 1887: 56 ruled out the feasibility of the run; he defended his
view further in Delbrück 1975: 20, 83–86 n. 7. Not quite everyone has agreed
220 bibliographical notes
with him. For the minority view, see Amédée Hauvette, Hérodote, Historien
des Guerres Médiques (Paris: Hachette, 1894) 261, and Hammond 1973: 225.
Hammond describes Herodotus’ claim as “completely unimpeachable,”
without further argument. Hammond describes the Greeks as attacking “at
the double” and claims that they returned to Athens after the battle at an
even faster rate (1973: 209)!
For the translation of dromoi as “at the quick step,” see Leake 1841: 2.212,
followed by G. B. Grundy, The Great Persian War and Its Preliminaries: A
Study of the Evidence, Literary and Topographical (London: Murray, 1901) 188,
F. Schachermeyr, “Marathon und die Persische Politik,” Historische Zeitschrift
172 (1951): 28, and Burn 1984: 249. W. W. How rebuts in “On the Meaning of
BADEN and DROMOI in Greek Historians of the Fifth Century,” Classical
Quarterly 13 (1919): 40–42. But dromoi need not conform to either “at the quick
step” or “double time.” For the speed at which humans switch from a walking
to a running gait, see A. Hanna, B. Abernethy, R. J. Neal, and R. Burgess-
Limerick, “Triggers for the Transition between Human Walking and Run-
ning,” in Energetics of Human Activity, ed. William Anthony Sparrow (Cham-
paign, Ill.: Human Kinetics, 2007) 124–164. Their research suggests that we all
begin to run at about the same pace, no matter how long our legs are.
I have seen Félix Regnault’s brief article, “La Marche et le Pas Gymnas-
tique Militaires,” La Nature 1052 (1893): 129–130, but not his book, Com-
ment On Marche: Des Divers Modes de Progression de la Supériorité du Mode
en Flexion (Paris: Charles-Lavauzelle, 1898), for which I have to rely on
Delbrück’s summary. Regnault reports Captain de Raoul’s methods.
Rudolph H. Storch, “The Silence Is Deafening: Persian Arrows Did Not
Inspire the Greek Charge at Marathon,” Acta Archaeologica Academiae Sci-
entiarum Hungaricae 41 (2001): 381–394, rightly stresses that Herodotus does
not say the Athenians ran to get through the Persian arrows quickly.

A Reconstruction of the Battle

On sacrifices in Greek warfare, see Pritchett 1971–1991: 1.109–115, Michael

H. Jameson, “Sacrifice before Battle,” in Hoplites: The Classical Greek Battle
Experience, ed. Victor D. Hanson (London: Routledge, 1991) 197–227, and
Robert Parker, “Sacrifice and Battle,” in War and Violence in Ancient Greece,
ed. Hans van Wees (London: Duckworth, 2000) 299–314.
Scholars who maintain that the Persians deployed first include Delbrück
1975: 78–79, Lazenby 1993: 62, Sekunda 2002: 54, Scott 2005: 387, 620, and
Evans 2006: 176 (“If the Athenians were able to draw up their battle line to
equal the length of the Persian front, they must have been able to gauge its
length, which they could not do until they saw it!”).
bibliographical notes 221

The positioning of the tribes has led to more discussion than its impor-
tance merits. Citing a lost elegiac poem written by Aeschylus, who fought
in the battle, Plutarch says the tribe of Aiantis was on the right (Moralia
628D–E). The locals from Marathon, Oinoë, and Trikorynthos belonged to
Aiantis, as did Kallimachos the polemarchos. In Aristeides 5.3, Plutarch says
that Themistokles son of Neokles of Phrearrhioi and Aristeides son of
Lysimachos of Alopeke fought side by side in the battle. They belonged to
the tribes of Leontis and Antiochis, respectively. Since these tribes, num-
bers IV and X in the official order known later, would not be contiguous
according to that order, J. A. R. Munro invented a marching scheme that
would put them together: The Athenians marched out in two columns, on
the right Aiantis (IX) followed by tribes I-IV, on the left tribes V-X (“Mara-
thon,” in Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 4, ed. J. B. Bury, S. A. Cook, and
F. E. Adcock [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1926] 246). When the
columns wheeled right and left, tribes IV and X wound up next to each other
in the center. This procedure would also explain how Miltiades managed the
thinning of the center: Moving from the center outward, the Greeks took up
their positions on the wings first and left the final two tribes to close any gap
that was left. This procedure is easier to imagine for Greeks coming from a
camp at Vrana than at Valaria. It is best to admit that we really do not know
how they deployed. The story of Themistokles and Aristeides fighting side
by side might be only a tale told to advance the story of their later political
rivalry. Or the official order known from later sources might not have been
in effect. Several variant lists exist. (Sekunda 2002: 54–58 summarizes the
evidence neatly.) Or a lottery might have determined the order.
On the duration of the battle, James P. Holoka, “Marathon and the Myth
of the Same-Day March,” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 38 (1997):
329–353, challenges earlier views that the battle lasted an hour or so, at most
three. Considering the distances covered in the advance, the pursuit, and the
return to camp, Holoka puts the minimum at six hours. The urge to compress
the time involved comes from the desire to have the Athenians return to Ath-
ens on the same day, but there was no need for that, given the time required
for the Persian ships to get there. The earlier views include Burn’s “minutes
rather than hours” (1984: 251), Hammond’s “an hour or so” (1973: 196 n. 1,
citing the battle of Pydna), Petrakos’ “about one hour” (1996: 12), and Peter
Green’s “the battle and pursuit had taken something under three hours” (The
Greco-Persian Wars [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996] 38).
For the view that the Greek wings formed a single phalanx and attacked
the Persian center from the rear, see (for example) Hammond, CAH 4(2).512
(“Miltiades, having foreseen this development, had ordered his wings in such
a contingency to turn back and attack the enemy centre from the rear”), van
222 bibliographical notes
der Veer 1982: 319 (“both Greek wings . . . drew together into a single unit.
They closed in on the Persian centre . . . so as to enclose it as it were in a
pincer movement”), and Burn 1984: 250 (“this was an amazing performance,
by citizen soldiers in the heat of battle, and must have been premeditated”).
For the view that the wings re-formed separately and executed a tactical
double envelopment, see (for example) Green, who writes: “The Athenian
and Plataean wings about-faced, and hastened back the way they had come.
They did not take the Persians in the rear (tempting though this must have
been) because to do so might well have meant sacrificing their own hard-
pressed centre altogether in the process. Instead, they outflanked the battle
in a double-pincer movement, which strengthened the Athenian line with
massive reinforcements, and, eventually, brought Artaphernes’ advance to a
standstill” (The Greco-Persian Wars [Berkeley: University of California Press,
1996] 37). For the view that the Athenians in the center withdrew intention-
ally, see W. Watkiss Lloyd: “It appears certain from the small number of
(Athenian) slain that the victorious pursuit by the Persians here was chiefly
and at best a driving in of ranks which obeyed instructions and were pre-
pared to give ground rather than expose themselves to be uselessly crushed”
(“The Battle of Marathon,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 2 [1881]: 388). On the
other hand, Lazenby 1993: 68–70 expresses the skeptical view that the Greeks
lacked the training necessary for such maneuvers.
On what happened to Epizelos, see the interesting comments in
Lawrence A. Tritle, “Alexander and the Killing of Cleitus the Black,” in Cross-
roads of History: The Age of Alexander, ed. Waldemar Heckel and Lawrence A.
Tritle (Claremont, Calif.: Regina, 2003) 127–146, with references to medical
literature. On Echetlaios, see Michael H. Jameson, “The Hero Echetlaeus,”
Transactions of the American Philological Association 92 (1951): 49–61.

Chapter 8. After the Fighting

The Shield Signal

Scholars inclined to throw the story out altogether include Scott 2005: 392,
following Lazenby 1993: 72–73. The skeptical tradition goes back to Delbrück.
Scholars who retell the story in various ways include J. B. Bury, “The Battle
of Marathon,” Classical Review 10 (1896): 95–98; Harris Gary Hudson, “The
Shield Signal at Marathon,” American Historical Review 42 (1937): 443–459;
G. B. Grundy, The Great Persian War and Its Preliminaries: A Study of the
Evidence, Literary and Topographical (London: Murray, 1901) 190–191; P. K.
bibliographical notes 223

Baillie Reynolds, “The Shield Signal at the Battle of Marathon,” Journal of

Hellenic Studies 49 (1929): 100–105; and F. Schachermeyr, “Marathon und die
Persische Politik,” Historische Zeitschrift 172 (1951): 30.
The idea that the shield signal was a heliograph appears as early as
Leake 1841: 2.207 n. 1. It was disproved by A. Trevor Hodge, “Reflections on
the Shield at Marathon,” Annual of the British School at Athens 96 (2001):
237–259. Hammond, CAH 4(2).512, suggests that the signaler used a flat disk
rather than a shield, which contradicts Herodotus. Evans 2006: 174 suggests
that the signaler was on a roof near the coast.

A Message for Athens

On the legend that led to the modern marathon race, see Frank J. Frost,
“The Dubious Origins of the ‘Marathon,’ ” American Journal of Ancient
History 4 (1976): 159–163, with references to all the ancient sources. For the
results in the annual Bataan Memorial Death March, go to http://www
.bataanmarch.com/. For the nineteenth-century Greek folktale, see J. T.
Kakridis, Die Alten Hellenen im Neugriechischen Volksglauben (Munich: Hei-
meran, 1967) 79–80, translated into German. On April 30, 2008, a version in
English could be found on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_
of_Marathon#Marathon_run.

The Persians’ Voyage to Phaleron

For fleet speeds, see J. S. Morrison, J. E. Coates, and N. B. Rankov, The Athe-
nian Trireme (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000): 102–106. On
the specific route from Marathon to Phaleron, see A. Trevor Hodge, “Mara-
thon to Phaleron,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 95 (1975): 169–171. James P.
Holoka, “Marathon and the Myth of the Same-Day March,” Greek, Roman,
and Byzantine Studies 38 (1997): 329–353, assesses the length of the battle and
the length of the Athenians’ march, concluding that they cannot have hap-
pened on the same day.

The Persians Return to Susa

For the case against the historicity of Apollonios’ visit, see Scott 2005:
400–401.
Silvana Cagnazzi, “Tradizioni su Dati, Comandante Persiano a Mara-
tona,” Chiron 29 (1999): 371–393, compares the versions of Datis’ fate found
in Herodotus and Ktesias, FGrHist 688 F 13(22).
224 bibliographical notes
The Athenians Bury the Dead

On Persian war booty, see Margaret C. Miller, Athens and Persia in the Fifth
Century B.C.: A Study in Cultural Receptivity (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 1997) 30–32.
See Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum 49.370N and 51.425 for the avail-
able information about Spyropoulos’ discovery of a Marathon casualty list at
Herodes’ villa in Kynouria. So far we have only newspaper descriptions based
on a lecture given by Spyropoulos. On March 13, 2007, the Greek newspaper
Kathimerini reported that Spyropoulos’ son Giorgios will publish the finds:
http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/news/ell_1KathiLev&xml/&aspKath/
ell.asp&fdate=13/03/2007. He is quoted describing the Marathon stone as a
“supreme monument to the heroized dead, from the grave and not from the
mound of the Athenians at Marathon.”
For the construction of the mound, see the reports of Staes listed above
under chapter 6. James Whitley, “The Monuments That Stood before Mar-
athon: Tomb Cult and Hero Cult in Archaic Attica,” American Journal of
Archaeology 98 (1994): 213–230, reexamines the finds, compares the burial
to known contemporary burials, and concludes that the Athenians heroized
the dead warriors by burying them in an aristocratic style that had gone out
of use.
For doubts about the number of Persian dead, see Harry C. Avery, “The
Number of the Persian Dead at Marathon,” Historia 22 (1973): 757. Avery
suggests that the Athenians simply calculated the ratio of Persian to Greek
dead at 33.3:1. But why would they pick this peculiar ratio? For the point
about Kallimachos’ vow requiring a count, see Burn 1984: 251.

Appendix B. The Date of the Battle

See August Boeckh, Zur Geschichte der Mondcyclen der Hellenen (Leipzig:
Teubner, 1855) 64–73; Sekunda 2002: 37, 50, 93; Burn 1984: 240–241 n. 10;
D. W. Olson, R. L. Doescher, and M. S. Olson, “The Moon and the Marathon,”
Sky and Telescope 108 (2004): 34–41; Catherine Trümpy, Untersuchungen zu
den altgriechischen Monatsnamen und Monatsfolgen (Heidelberg: Winter,
1997) 135–140; Hammond 1973: 215–217; Francis M. Dunn, “Tampering with
the Calendar,” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 123 (1998): 213–231.
All these scholars have more faith in the evidence than does James P. Holoka,
who argues that the Spartans needed at least eight days to reach Marathon
(“Marathon and the Myth of the Same-Day March,” Greek, Roman, and Byz-
antine Studies 38 [1997]: 350–351).
 Index

Abdera, 89 Artybios, 28
Achaemenids: art, 28–30; finance, 37; religious Arvanitakis, Takos, 112
tolerance, 3, 74, 97 Aspasia, 178
Aegina, 41–42, 72–73, 83, 85–86 Athena Promachos, statue of, 6
Aeschylus, 7, 174, 221; Persians, 158, 177 Athenian army: oath of, 106; rations and sup-
Agorakritos, 6 plies, 107–108; route to Marathon, 106–107;
Aigilia, 100, 164 size of, 18, 102, 105–106, 211–212; weaponry,
Alexander (Macedonian king), 88 1, 159; weight of hoplite military equip-
Alexander the Great, 23 ment, xiii, 13, 43, 45–50, 146–147, 153–154.
Alkaios, 46 See also infantry, Greek; navies and war-
Alkmeonids, 19, 21, 37, 161, 163 ships, Archaic
Animal Crackers (film), 182 Athenian Constitution, 177, 180, 217–218
Apollo Lykeios, gymnasium of, 105 Athens: Acropolis, 3, 6, 20–21; and Aegina,
Apollonios of Tyana, 167 41–42, 64, 73; and Boeotia, 43, 63–64; and
Apollo Pythios, altar to, 84 Chalcis, 43, 63–64; Council of 500, 20–21,
Arcadia, 86 85, 102; and Darius, 42–43, 76–77, 83–85;
Aristagoras of Miletus, 66–68, 73, 75, 77, and Ionian Revolt, 18, 66; and Persian
81–82, 85, 94, 98, 185n3, 204 heralds, 83–84. See also Eleusis; Eretria;
Aristarchos of Samothrace, 14 Megara; Plataea; Sparta; Thebes
Aristeides, 166, 168 Athos, Mount, 88
Aristeides, Aelius, 141 Atossa, 87
Aristomenes of Aegina, 118
Aristophanes, 50, 132, 144, 158, 177, 187n13; Babylon, 36
Knights, 151, 177, 192n23; Wasps, 15, 156, 177 Baeteman, Cecile, 116
Aristotle, 20, 61, 153, 177, 180; Rhetoric, 177 Baillie Reynolds, P. K., 162
Artaphrenes (half-brother of Darius), 34, Barrett, Elizabeth, “The Battle of Mara-
37–39, 42, 65, 67, 76–78 thon,” 9
Artaphrenes (nephew of Darius), 89–90, 98, Beard, Bob, 148
105, 118, 133, 139, 167–168, 173, 175, 222 Beazley Archive Pottery Database, 52
Artemis Agrotera, cult of, 3, 38, 156 Bergk, Theodor, 45
Artemision, battle of, 6, 71 Bisitun, inscription and relief at, 32, 33,
Artemis Orthia, sanctuary of, 60 35–36, 36
226 index

Blair, Bob, 148 68, 77, 166; submission and tribute to, 36,
Blyth, P. Henry, 48 39, 70; suppression of rebellion, 35–36,
Boeckh, August, 181 76–77; tomb of, 25
Boeotia, 40–42, 61 Datis the Mede, 2–3, 14, 18; ancient sources
Bol, Peter, 186n12 on, 140, 166–167, 177–178, 189, 212, 223;
Bomarzo, Etruscan tomb at, 48 death of, 168, 178; at Delos, 96–97, 166,
Boose, Donald W., Jr., 11 168; dream of, 14, 166; invasion prepara-
bows, 26–27. See also Persian army tions and strategy, 90–91, 93; at Marathon,
Brock, Saumarez, 128 139–140, 143, 154, 163, 168, 172–175; military
Brosius, Maria, 66 background, 89–90; at Rhodes, 94–95;
Browning, Robert, “Pheidippides,” 10 and siege of Lindos, 209. See also Persian
Bulwer-Lytton, Edward, 9 military expeditions
Burn, Andrew R., 140, 142, 181 David, Will, 149
Bury, John B., 138, 161 Davis, Paul K., 100 Decisive Battles, 11
Busolt, Georg, 181 Delbrück, Hans, 13, 54, 146–147, 150, 186n8,
Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron, vii, 8, 111 209; Die Perserkriege, 144; Geschichte der
Kriegskunst, 45
Caesar, Julius, 150 Delion, 53, 166
Cambyses, King, 32, 35–36, 205 Delos, 96–97, 166
Cartledge, Paul, 11 Delphic oracle, 19
cavalry: Greek, 61; Persian, 24–25, 26, 27–28, Demaratos, 41–42, 50, 85–86
92–93 Demetrios of Phaleron, 178
Cave of Pan, 118, 134 Democedes, 87
Cawkwell, George, 68 Demosthenes, 177
Chaironeia, 126 Dio Chrysostom, 167
Chalcis, 40–41, 43, 61, 63–64, 93, 99, 102, Diodoros of Sicily, 58, 189n1; Universal His-
189n18 tory, 177
Chandler, Richard, 111, 136 Dionysios of Phocaea, 138
Chersonese, 39 Dodwell, Edward, 8–9, 113, 126
Chigi vase (olpe), 47, 48, 52 Doescher, Russell L., 181–182
Clarke, Edward D., 8, 111–112, 123, 126 Donlan, Walter, 13, 146–147
Coates, John, 71 Douris, 151
Connolly, Peter, 46–47 dreams, portentous, 94, 104–105, 166
Corinth, 41–42, 72–73, 190n1 Droysen, Hans, 45
Corinthian helmet, 46 Dunn, Francis M., 182
Crapper, Andy, 47 Dunn, Richard, 117, 143, 158
Crawley, Richard, 54 Dura Europos, 23
Creasy, Edward Shepherd, 10; 15 Decisive
Battles, 175 earth and water, offering of, 38–39, 43, 83, 85
Croesus, King, 34, 38 Echetlaios, 157
cuirass, 46–47 Egypt, 34–35, 72, 175, 180, 205
Cyclades, 3, 66–68, 166–167 Eleusis, 22, 41, 86, 109
Cyrus the Great, 24, 32, 34–38, 103 Elgin, Mary Bruce, Countess of, 123, 127
Elgin, Thomas Bruce, Earl of, 123, 127
Dale, David, 148 Ephoros of Cyme, 178
Darius, King, 72; ancient sources on, 32, Epizelos, 14–15, 157, 159, 174
34–36; ascent to throne, 35; and Demaratos, Erdmann, Elisabeth, 128
86; Greek expedition of, 2–3, 87–90; and Eretria, 15, 93–94, 102–103, 105, 109; and
Histiaios, 67, 76–78; and Mardonios, 87; Athens, 23, 41, 43, 63–64, 98–99; captives
and Metiochos, 80–81; and Miltiades, 81– from, 68, 91, 100, 164, 166–167, 174–175; cav-
82; Persian expansion under, 32, 34, 37, alry of, 41, 61, 93; in Ionian campaign, 18,
67–68, 167; population exchanges under, 73–74, 206; number of hoplites, 41; Persian
index 227

campaign against, 3, 87–88, 93, 98–101, 139, 177–178; on Ionian Revolt, 66, 68–69, 73; on
166–167 Miltiades, 56, 207; modern interpretations
Eschenburg, Hauptmann von, 116, 120, 122, of, 12–18; on offering of earth and water, 39;
132–133 othismos in, 53; on Persian horses, 25; on
Euboea, 3, 67 the Persians, 11, 23, 27, 31–32, 34–35, 68, 88,
Euphorbos, 100 91–92, 100, 103, 209; on the shield signal,
Euripos, battles of the, 43, 63–64 161–162; on Spartan affairs, 85–86, 109
Eurpides, 187n13; Herakeidai, 59; Phoenician Higgins, C. G., 113
Women, 59, 100 Hignett, Charles, 140
Eurystheus, tomb of, 118–119 Hipparchos, 84
Evans, James A. S., 140 Hippias, 137, 162, 167; aid to Persians, 3, 101,
103, 151; attempts to reinstate, 42, 64–65, 84,
Fauvel, Louis-François-Sébastien, 114, 115, 98, 175; dream of, 14, 104–105; expulsion of,
122–123, 126 19–21, 23
Finlay, George, 9, 116, 123, 127 Hipponax of Ephesus, 72
Forsdyke, E. J., 128 Histiaios of Miletus, 67–68, 76–78, 80, 82, 87
frankincense, 96–97 Hobbes, Thomas, 54
Franz, Johann Peter, 45–47, 49 Hodge, A. Trevor, 162
Frazer, J. G., 133 Homer: Iliad, 2, 46, 50–53, 56–60, 92–93,
Frost, Frank, 164 169–170; Odyssey, 50
Fuller, J. F. C., 10 Hoplite Association, 46–48
hoplites. See infantry, Greek
Gabriel, Richard A., 11, 185n6 Hoplitikon of Melbourne, 46
Gell, William, 9, 127 hoplitodromos (race in armor), 150
Gelon of Syracuse, 188n7 How, W. W., 119, 144
Geschichte des Griechischen Kriegswesens Hudson, Harris Gary, 162
(Rüstow and Köchly), 45
Glojek, Jack, 164 iconographic evidence: ceramics, 23, 24, 25, 26,
Gobryas, 90 30, 45–46, 47, 48–49, 52–53, 59–61, 71, 145, 151,
Godley, Alfred Denis, 54 152, 187n19, 202; funerary art, 28, 29, 30–31;
Gomme, Arnold W., 14, 56 sculpture, 141, 141–142; seal impression, 28
Gongylos, 100 infantry, Greek: deployment and tactics,
Graves, Robert, “The Persian Version,” 11 2, 13, 44–45, 51–60, 142–143, 157–158, 159;
Great Battles of Antiquity (Gabriel and hoplite phalanx, xiii, 51–52, 54, 57, 59–60,
Boose), 11 158; military equipment carried by, xiii, 13,
Green, Peter, 107 43, 45–50, 146–147, 153–154, 159; number of
Grote, George, 178 armed men, 101–102, 105–106, 142; othismos
Grundy, George B., 10, 162; Thucydides, 55 (“the push”), xiii, 44–45, 53–57; supplies,
Guttman, Axel, 45 107–108; training, 61–62
Ionian Revolt, 18, 31, 65–66, 68–71, 73–76, 78,
Hammond, Nicholas G. L., 107, 119, 127, 143, 81–82, 87, 138
162, 164, 178, 182 Isagoras, 20–22, 42
Hanson, Victor Davis, xiii, 62, 200, 201; The
Western Way of War, 43 Jameson, Michael, 154
Herakles, sanctuary of, 6, 117–121, 136 Jarva, Eero, 45–47, 49
Herodes Atticus, 119 Johnson, Samuel, 7–8
Herodotus: on Athens, 9, 19–20, 42–43, Jowett, Benjamin, 54
217–218; on battle of Marathon, 102, 117, Junklemann, Marcus, 49
128, 137–140, 142, 144, 151–153, 156–157, 168, Justin, 91, 159, 178
180–181; on battle of Mycale, 26; on battle
of Plataea, 26, 40–41; on battles of the Euri- Kagan, Donald, 16
pos, 63–65; on Darius, 34–36; Histories, 64, Kalapodi wall painting, 52
228 index

Kallias, 168 cremation and burial of the dead, 169–171;

Kallimachos, 3, 102, 221; death of, 158–159, date of, 180–182; duration of, 156–157;
173; Herodotus on, 14; at Marathon, engagement, 156–158, 172–174; reconstruc-
137–138, 153–154, 156, 163; vow to Artemis, tion methodology, 12–18; running charge,
156, 171, 179, 182, 192n23, 224 14, 143–144, 151–152, 156; significance for
Kaptan, Deniz, 28 modern Europeans, 7–10
Karaburun II, 28, 29, 30, 70 Marathon, deme of, 117, 121–122
Karten von Attika, 120 Marathon, topography of, 8, 113–117, 115, 134,
Karystos, 97–98, 117 136
Kaveraou, G., 125 Marathon trophy, 130, 132, 177
Kavvadias, P., 125 Mardonios, 51, 87–89
Keegan, John, 58 Marinatos, Spyridon, 122, 129, 134, 136
Kimon, 175 Markle, Minor, 49
Kleisthenes, 19–22, 41, 62–63, 161 Marshall, S. L. A., 50
Kleomenes, 19–22, 40–42, 66, 85–87, 204, 208 Martin, Grier, 149
Kmiecik, Rocky, 149 Masistios, 25, 28
Köchly, H., 45, 186n8 Mattaiou, Angelos P., 121
Koroneia, battle of, 57–58 Maurice, Frederick, 92
Krios, 85–86 Medes, 14, 26
Ktesias, 15, 90, 178 Medos, King, 189n1
Kybele, temple of, 3, 38, 74 Megabates, 67–68
Kylon, 21 Megabazos, 34, 67, 81, 87, 89
Kynegeiros, 15, 159, 174 Megara, 21, 41
Meiggs, Russell, 138
Lade, battle of, 75, 77, 95, 138, 206 Mellink, Machteld J., 28
Lanning, Michael Lee, The Battle 100, 11 Metiochos, 79–82
Lazenby, J. F., 16 Metsopoulos, K., 125
Leake, William, 8, 113, 123, 127, 130, 132–133, Metz, Karen S., 185n6
143, 162, 219; The Demi of Attica, 127; Trav- Mikalson, Jon D., 139
els in Northern Greece, 127 Miletus, 34, 66–69, 75, 87
Lear, Edward, 134 military equipment, weight of: hoplites, xiii, 13,
Legrand, Philippe-Ernest, 123 43, 45–50, 146–147, 153–154; modern, 147–150
Leonidas, 53 Mill, John Stuart, 9
Leotychidas, 86 Miltiades, 6, 73, 218; ancient sources on, 14,
Leuctra, battle of, 58 56, 76, 177–179; archonship of, 79, 207;
Lindos, 94–95 in the Chersonese, 79–81, 84; conquest
Lissarrague, François, 52 of Lemnos, 80, 82, 203, 207; at Danube
Lolling, H. G., 119, 125 bridge, 80; flight to Athens, 80; herm of,
Lucian of Samosata, 118–119 79; at Marathon, xiv, 1–2, 137–140, 142–143,
Lusieri, Giovanni Battista, 8, 114 153–154, 156, 158–160, 162–163, 165, 172–175,
Luther, Martin, 14 219, 221; marriage, 79; monument to, 3,
Lycian funerary art, 28, 30, 70 118, 130; motion to Athenian Council of
Lysias, 91; Funeral Oration, 178 500, 102–103; Persian service, 1, 80–81; tri-
als of, 80, 83–85, 207; vow of, 192n23
Macan, Reginald Walter, 14–15, 54, 140, 177 Miltiades (uncle), 78
Macauley, George C., 54 Mitford, William, 106
MacDonald, Myles, 149 Morris, Sarah, 144
Makaria, spring of, 105, 114, 118–119, 133, 143 Morrison, John, 71
Mantinea, battle of, 58 Muncaster, Josslyn Francis Pennington,
Marathon, battle of: Athenian commemora- Lord, 112
tion of, 3, 6; Athenian forces, 18; Athenian Munro, J. A. R., 139, 180, 221
formation, 153–154, 221; casualties, 27, 168; Mycale, battle of, 26
ceremonial sacrifices before, 153–154, 156; Myron, 6
index 229

navies and warships, Archaic, 70–74, 88, 91, Persian Wars Shipwreck Survey Project, 70
188n7, 205 Petrakos, Vasileios, 122
Naxos, 23, 66–68, 70, 81–82, 93–98, 102, 167, Phainippos, 180
205 phalanx, hoplite. See infantry, Greek
Nemesis, statue of, 6, 126 Phaleron, 64, 164–165
Nepos, Cornelius, 91–92, 136, 140, 178, Pharsalos, battle of, 150
212–213 Pheidias, 6, 126
Neroulos, Iakovos Rizos, 123 Pheidippides, 10
Niemeier, Wolf-Dietrich, 52 Philagros, 100
Philippides, 6, 14–15, 18, 108–110, 138, 163, 180.
Oath of Plataea, 106 See also Pheidippides; Thersippos
Oloros, King, 81 Pindar, 118, 151
Olson, Donald W., 181–182 Plataea, 6, 19, 101, 118
Olson, Marilynn S., 181–182 Plataea, battle of, 6, 11, 25, 26, 28, 40–42,
Olympia, 45, 48, 150, 186n12 53–54, 105, 156, 168, 185n3
Olympias (trireme), 71, 117 Plataeans, burial mound of, 129–130, 134, 136
Olynthos, 48 Plato, 15, 91, 93, 109, 132; Laws, 178; Menexenos,
Oropos, 103 178
Osiander, Andreas, 213 Pleistoanax, King, 41
Otanes, 34 Pliny, 48, 92, 187n13
othismos (“the push”), xiii, 44–45, 53–57 Plutarch, 105, 139, 160, 163, 168, 208, 221;
Aristeides, 165–166; On the Glory of the
Pan, cult of, 3, 6, 138 Athenians, 179; Lives, 179; On the Malice of
Papadimitriou, Ioannis, 134 Herodotus, 179; Moralia, 165
Paphos, Cyprus, 74 Pokorny, David, 164
Parnaka, 90 polemarchos, consitutional position of,
Paros, 80–81, 97 217–218
Pasargadae, 36 Pompeius Trogus, Philippic Histories, 178
Pausanias, 15, 91, 110, 114, 117, 125–126, 129–130, Pompey the Great, 150
132–133, 141, 157, 178–179 Powell, John Enoch, 54
Pavlopoulos, Kosmas, 117 Pritchett, W. Kendrick, 56–57, 113, 116, 119–121,
Peisistratids, 20, 22–23, 84 159
Peisistratos (father of Hippias), 19–21, 41, 103, Psammenitus, 34
107
Peisistratos (son of Hippias), 84 race in armor (hoplitodromos), 150
penteconters, 43, 72–73 Raoul, de (French captain), 147–148
Pericles, 178 Rawlinson, George, 53
Pericles (son of Xanthippos), 41, 175 Rawlinson, Henry, 167
Persepolis, 36, 38 Rozelle, David, 149
Persian army: cavalry, 24–25, 26, 27–28, 92–93; running charge, feasibility of, 13, 144, 146–152
clothing and equipment, 23, 24, 25, 25–27; Rüstow, W., 45, 186n8
ethnic composition of, 31, 126; preparations
and resources, 90–93; size of, 31–32, 91–93, Sachkritik, 13
209; techniques for engagement, 26–28; Sacred Band, 126
training, 25–26 Salamis, battle of, 6, 11, 72
Persian bow. See bows Salamis (Cyprus), battle of, 28
Persian Empire, extent of, 2, 4–5 Samos, 75
Persian military expeditions: the Cyclades, 93, Sardinia, 77, 87
93–94, 95–98; Egypt, 34, 72, 175, 180, 205; Sardis: Athenian delegations to, 37–39, 42, 65;
Europe, 32, 34, 39; Greek mainland, 37, 76, and Ionian Revolt, 3, 31, 38, 73–74, 76–77,
87–93, 99–101, 105, 107; Indus River valley, 82, 90, 98
37; Ionian Revolt, 74–75; Rhodes, 94–95; Schachermeyr, Fritz, 162
Scythia, 32, 37, 67–68, 72, 80–81, 102 Schliemann, Heinrich, 112, 124, 128
230 index

Schreiner, Johan Henrik, 178 Talthybios, 84

Schute, J. C. C., 148 Tatarlı, 30
Scott, Lionel, 161 Taylor, David, v, 150
Scythia, 32, 34, 37. See also Persian military Thasos and Thasians, 88–89
expeditions Thebes, 19–20, 23, 83, 99
Scythian bow. See bows The Fall of Miletus, 75
Scythians, 30, 86 Themistokles, 83, 85, 161
shields, Greek, 47–49 Theopompos, 12, 43
shield signal, 161–163 Thermopylae, 6, 11, 53, 113, 121, 192n24
shin guards, 47 Thersippos, 163–164
Simonides of Keos, 63, 91, 179 Thessaly, 86
Sitch, Craig, 48–49 Thirlwall, Connop, 6
Skunkha, King, 32 Thompson, James, 13, 146–147
Smith, Charles F., 54 Thrace, 34; silver mines of, 67
Society of Dilettanti, 111 300 (film), 53
Socrates, 178 Thucydides, 51–56, 59, 81, 151, 179, 180
Soloi, Cyprus, 74 Tissaphernes, 38
Solon, 10, 20 Toynbee, Arnold J., 10
Sophanes, 160 triremes, 71–72, 165, 204–205; Olympias recon-
Soros, 3, 6, 112–113, 116, 122–130, 124, 125, 132, struction, 71, 117
136, 169–171, 184n5, 216–217 Tritantaichmes, 24
Soteriades, Giorgios, 119–120 Trümpy, Catherine, 182
Sparda (Ionia), 37. See also Ionian Revolt Tyrtaios, 44, 59–60
Sparta, 2, 6, 13, 83–85, 108; aid to Athens, 101,
109–110; invasion of Attica, 40–41, 85; reli- Vanderpool, Eugene, 119–121, 130, 132
gious festival at, 103, 109–110; size of army, van Wees, Hans, 158, 200
101; soldiers, 51–53, 61–62; war against Mes- vases. See iconographic evidence: ceramics
senians, 109–110 Vetulonia, 49
Spartathlon, 108
spear, Greek, 49 Weir, William, 50 Battles that Changed the
Spyropoulos, Theodoros, 171 World, 11
Staes, Valerios, 124, 128 Wells, J., 119
Stamata, 106–107, 142, 162, 164 Whatley, Noah, 12–13
Stesilaos, 159 Woodhouse, William J., King Agis III of
Stoa Poikile (Painted Stoa), 6, 15, 16–17, 46, 52, Sparta, 55–56
141, 144, 157–158, 179, 192n26, 218 Wordsworth, Christopher, 123
Strabo, 25, 61, 118, 133, 203
Strauss, Barry S., 11 Xanthippos, 175
Suda, 140–142, 179, 213 Xenophon, 15, 25–26, 53, 57–59, 62, 100, 108,
Summe, Jack, 149 143, 179, 189n20; Anabasis, 179, 189n20;
Summerer, Lâtife, 30 Agesilaos, 58; Hellenika, 57–58; Education of
Susa, 36, 42, 166–167 Cyrus, 179; Hellenica, 179
swords, Greek, 49 Xerxes, 10–11, 23–24, 31, 72, 83, 88–90, 92, 105,
Sydney Ancients, 46 128, 172, 179