Marathon: The Rise of Athens

By Martin Leavitt

In the late summer of 490 BCE, a large Persian army landed at the plain of Marathon just 26 miles from Athens. Once ashore, they set up a large tent encampment on the southern edge of a marsh. It was a multinational force, a chilling reminder of the Persian empire’s great scope. Each contingent had its own distinctive dress and weaponry. The Persians were among the most colorful, their garb consisting of multihued tunics and distinctive trousers. A soft cloth covering called a tiara enveloped their heads, completing the costume. There were also lonian Greeks—that is, Greeks living on the western coast of present day Turkey—reluctant warriors who had been compelled to join the Persian effort.

Perhaps the most unusual of all were the Ethiopians. Certainly they were the farthest from home. These Africans daubed their faces with white and vermilion, and some wore leopard skins as emblems of personal bravery and hunting prowess. Soon, they were going to hunt two-legged game.

Numbering 25,000, the Persian army was commanded by Datis and Artaphernes, the former a Mede general and the latter the son of a Persian governor. They were acting under the direct orders of King Darius I, a monarch who had brought the empire of the Medes and Persians to the height of its power. The expedition had a twofold mission: to punish Athens and subjugate central Greece. Athens was to be made a salutary lesson, a stern warning to all who tried to resist the will of the Great King. Once Athens was subdued, even the militant Spartans further west might yield to Persian sovereignty.

The Marathon landing place had been chosen with care, selected on the advice of an exiled Athenian. Hippias, son of Pisistratus, had once been tyrannos of Athens.Tyrannos meant “chief,” or even “dictator,” but without the negative connotation of our word “tyrant.” Hippias had begun well, but as time went on his regime became increasingly high-handed and arbitrary. He was overthrown in 510 BCE, and fled to Persia. Once there, he plotted for his return. Hippias traveled to Sardis in Asia Minor, where he canvassed the Persian satrap (governor) for action against his native city.

It was Hippias who suggested Marathon, in part because the flatness of the terrain—rare in mountainous Greece—favored cavalry. Since most Greek states were deficient in cavalry, the use of mounted soldiers at Marathon might well tip the scales in favor of Persia. In any event, Marathon’s coast road led directly to Athens, another point in its favor.

The Athenians prepared to resist. Miltiades, a leading light in the Athenian war council, felt that no time should be wasted. Instead of hiding behind its walls, the men of Athens should go out and actively engage the enemy—or, at least, impede his progress. Spartan aid would be welcome—after all, they were the finest soldiers in Greece—but Miltiades knew that Athens could not passively wait for the invader. “Take food and march!” Miltiades ordered, and with this laconic command some 10,000 Athenian troops began a trek to Marathon. The outcome of this contest would determine the fate of Athens, and the course of Western civilization.

How did the Athenians incur the wrath of the Persian King Darius? How did this first in a cycle of Persian wars start? The origins of the war can be traced to lonia, on the western fringes of Asia Minor, where transplanted Greek colonists had founded flourishing cities several centuries earlier. The ancient Greek homeland was blessed with a stark, rugged beauty, with snow-capped mountains rising above shallow plains. But the soil of Greece, called Hellas by its natives, is thin and not very fertile. With patient husbandry crops could be coaxed from the land, but there was always the threat of overpopulation and subsequent starvation. Colonization was the answer, and by the mid-6th century BCE the Greeks of lonia were well established.

Although the Ionian Greek civilization flourished, its very location made it vulnerable to subjugation. By 500 BCE Ionia was part of the Persian empire, ruled by King Darius I of the Achaemenid dynasty. Later ages, infected with a pro-Western bias, characterized the clash between Greece and Persia as a battle between civilization and barbarism. Persian civilization was not barbaric, however, and Darius was an able, even enlightened, ruler by the standards of the day.

But Darius also came from a cultural tradition where political freedom was an alien concept. Once a people was subjugated, their only duty was to obey. Conquered peoples might be allowed some degree of local autonomy, but ultimate control rested with the Great King. By 500 BCE the Persian Empire was at its apogee, stretching from Egypt to the borders of India. It was a huge landmass that might have been too unwieldy for any one man to control, however gifted. The Empire was also excessively heterogeneous, lacking the binding “glue” of common religion, language, or culture. Instead, Darius supplied an administrative unity by dividing his realm into 20 satrapies, each ruled by a governor or satrap under the Great King.

Empires are founded on conquest and rooted in expansion. Once a cycle of conquest is begun, it is hard to stop, and impossible to reverse. In 513 BCE Darius led an expedition across the Hellespont into Europe. The mighty Danube was bridged—a marvel of engineering for its time and troops sent into the vast unknown of Scythia (now roughly Romania, Ukraine, and southern Russia). The Scythians were hard-riding nomads, impossible to pin down, and the very vastness of the country—a constant theme in Russian history—tended to baffle and frustrate the invaders. Some historians feel Darius wanted merely to stage a demonstration in force to cow the Scythians, not add these nomads to his already far-flung empire.

In any case, the Scythian expedition was a failure. The elusive tribesmen adopted a scorched-earth policy that eerily presaged Russian tactics against Napoleon and later still the Germans in World War II. Although the Persian army failed to cow or conquer the Scythians, some of the effort’s secondary goals were more successful. Thrace was added to the Persian Empire, an area well-known for its gold and silver mines. Perhaps equally important, Thrace was in Europe, the Asian empire’s first tentative foothold on a new continent.

Macedonia, a kingdom on the southern edge of Thrace, soon pledged allegiance to the Persian king. Nothing, it seemed, would stop Persia’s inexorable spread along the western flank of the Aegean.

The semifailure of Darius’s European foray encouraged the lonian Greeks to think of freedom. By the standards of the day Persian rule was usually tolerant and just. Tribute taxes were not too burdensome, and local satraps were as circumspect as possible in dealing with the touchy Greeks. But even the lightest chain is still a shackle; even the most benevolent dictator still a despot. Fiercely independent, chafing at alien rule, the lonian Greeks were ripe for revolt.

The rebellion started in 499 BCE. One of the chief instigators of the uprising, Aristagoras of Miletus, went on an embassy to European Greece to solicit aid. For the most part, his eloquence fell on deaf ears. In spite of Darius’s presence in Thrace, few Greeks felt the Persians were a threat. The Ionians were their ethnic brethren, but the city-states of mainland Greece were too parochial in outlook to worry about what was going on across the sea.

Athens decided to give aid, however, dispatching a decidedly token 20 ships for the cause of Ionian Greek independence. Eretria, a small city on the island of Euboea followed suit, contributing five ships. Athens was not as altruistic as it seems; the city well knew Hippias was plotting with the Persians to return, and lonian freedom might weaken Persia’s prestige and power in the eastern Aegean.

At first, the lonian revolution seemed within an ace of succeeding. In 498 BCE the rebels staged an attack on Sardis, managing to burn most of the lower town. This apparent victory strengthened the rebel cause, until virtually all of lonia was in open revolt. The Athenians and Eretrians withdrew at this point, supposedly because of political dissension back home.

Perhaps Athens felt the lonians were so near to success that no further assistance was necessary.

Nothing could have been further from the truth. The full weight of Persian resources was now brought to bear, and with devastating impact on the Greek cause. In 494 BCE the Ionian Greek fleet was sunk at Lade, and Miletus put under siege by superior Persian forces.

The Persians took the city, massacred many of its citizens, and then deported the survivors as captive slaves. Miletus itself was razed.

Once Miletus was destroyed, Darius acted with moderation. After all, lonia was a valuable part of the empire. Laying it waste would have been counterproductive. But Darius realized these lonian Greeks might remain restive especially when, just to the west, mainland Greece still enjoyed independence. Conquering mainland Greece seemed a logical thing to do. It would bring a sense of closure; once European Greece was subdued, the Aegean would be a “Persian lake.”

The Greeks as a people were bold, inquisitive, and fiercely independent. The best of them had inquiring minds, ever ready to challenge the status quo, to investigate, to explore new things. It was these very qualities that helped make Greek civilization so brilliant. Yet the Greeks were politically fragmented, and sometimes quarrelsome and fratricidal. To a middle eastern “Oriental” despot like Darius, used to a strict hierarchy of obedience, Greek life must have seemed chaotic and vulnerable.

Ensconced in his palaces in Susa and Persepolis, Darius made plans for a punitive expedition against Eretria and Athens. But perhaps conquest, not punishment, was the Great King’s ultimate goal. The Athenian and Eretrian aid to the lonian rebels had been small, even puny—only 25 ships in all. Such opposition was mere pinpricks to such a mighty empire as Darius possessed. Certainly, it was not enough to warrant such an all-out vendetta on the Great King’s part.

An armada of ships was collected to sail against Greece, commanded by Maridonius, Darius’s son-in-law. In 492 the Persian fleet set sail, hugging the shore as much as possible as it proceeded south. Such caution proved useless when a storm slammed into the ships as they rounded the promontory of Mt. Athos. The fleet was badly damaged, with many ships sunk, but the Persians still remained a threat. Thrace was reorganized as a satrapy, and the Greek settlement there liquidated.

One of the Greek exiles from Thrace was Miltiades, who had been a leader of an Athenian colony established there years before. Miltiades was ambitious, and sometimes unscrupulous, but he was also a good soldier with a kind of sixth sense for divining the enemy’s intentions. He was a dangerous enemy for the Persians to have. Miltiades’ enmity was a factor in the coming clash at Marathon.

War is costly, and the Great King didn’t want to spend any more than he had to. If intimidation could achieve the same results, so much the better. Envoy-heralds were dispatched to each Greek island and city-state with a demand for submission. If a city “medized,” that is, agreed to Persian hegemony, earth and water would be given to Darius’s heralds in token of surrender. The key island of Aegina, just south of Attica on the Saronic Gulf, medized. This meant that naval resistance to the Persian onslaught would be difficult if not impossible.

In the early 5th century, Athens was in the midst of a great political experiment, unique in world history. Democracy, or rule by the people, was less than 20 years old. This democracy

was limited; women, foreign residents, and slaves had no say in political affairs. But Athenian democracy was still ahead of other nations, and its institutions were new and without the sanction of tradition and the balm of time. Athens has been called the “cradle of democracy,” and in the early 490s the concept was indeed in its infancy,

The growing trend in democracy was reflected in military affairs—ironically, the one area where it was needed the least. Indeed, it could be argued, military matters need to be authoritarian to function effectively, but the democratic experiment seems to have permeated all facets of Athenian life.

The nominal head of the Athens war effort was the polemarch or war leader. The polemarch has been variously called “commander-in-chief” and even “war minister” by authorities on ancient Athens. Even ancient authorities like Herodotus seem confused, sometimes suggesting the polemarch retained supreme authority and at other times implying he was first among equals. In truth, the office of polemarch was in the state of transition, which perhaps accounts for much of the ambiguity and confusion.

By 490 BCE the polemarch had lost much of his former authority. Now, thanks to the democratic experiment, military affairs were largely handled by a war council of 10 generals. Supreme authority was exercised on a rotation basis, with each general (strategoi) taking command for a single day. Apparently the polemarch was a kind of “chairman of the board,” but he also had a deciding vote if he chose to use it, a last vestige of former prestige.

Athens was fortunate in having Callimachus as polemarch in 490 BCE. An aristocrat by birth, he was seemingly without the overweening pride and ambition that all too often marred Athenian politics. Military decisions were apparently decided by majority vote, and if there was a tie, there was danger of fatal delay. The system gave the expression “divided councils” a whole new meaning.

The rotating command system was also potentially dangerous, because the army needed firm and consistent control. Strategy, even tactics, might change day by day with each new strategoi.

In the summer of 490 BCE a new Persian punitive expedition was ready to depart from its concentration point at Samos. The Persian fleet first stopped at the island of Naxos, which was brutally torched. The next target was the island of Delos, famed throughout the Eastern Mediterranean as the birthplace of Apollo. Perhaps because of its sacred nature the Persians were more circumspect; it wasn’t wise to offend a god, even a Greek one. The Apollo shrine was left untouched. In fact, the Persians left a necklace of twisted gold in dedication to the god.

The Persian fleet proceeded to the island of Euboea, anchoring off Eritrea. The city was surrounded and placed under siege, and for six days its citizens managed to repulse Persian attacks. On the seventh day, two prominent Eritreans by the names of Euphorus and Alemachus betrayed their neighbors and opened the gates to the enemy.

The Persians were harsh with Eritria, meting out punishments out of proportion to its “offense.” The hapless city was put to the torch; even its sacred temples were not spared the conflagration. Those citizens who managed to escape the sword were transported to Persia as captives. All this for contributing five ships to the lonian revolt? Perhaps Persian harshness was meant to provide Athens with a foretaste of its own fate if it did not submit. If so, the harshness only stiffened, not weakened, Athenian resolve.

When the Athenians learned the Persians had landed they sent messengers to enlist active support from neighboring city-states. Some had submitted to the Persians, some were apathetic, and some were fearful. Athens sent its swiftest runner, Pheidippedes, to Sparta with an urgent request for help. He covered the 140 miles between the cities in a remarkable two days, but though the Spartans seemed ready to fight they were right in the midst of a religious festival for Apollo. They promised, however, that when the full moon waxed bright in the sky, the festival would be over. Then, and only then, would the Spartans march. That meant in practice that no aid could be expected for a full week.

As we have seen, the Athenians chose to meet the enemy head-on instead of hiding behind city walls. The Athenian army headed for Marathon, marching east for the beckoning hills between Mount Hymettus and Pentelicon. Yet these were citizen-soldiers, not professionals in the strict sense, though it would be a mistake to dismiss them as raw militia. They probably marched in disconnected groups, and at least some were attended by servants who carried their panoply or armor. The presence of servant-slaves, however, did not necessarily imply great wealth, though undoubtedly some were well off. Most of these citizen-soldiers were roughly middle-class, men of relatively humble station. One of them, Aeschylus, was a poet who would later achieve fame as the father of Greek drama.

Marathon is a low plain hemmed in by mountains on three sides, and on the fourth, the deep blue waters of Marathon bay indents the shore in a graceful crescent. Mount Pentelikon anchored the southern approaches to Marathon, a rough peak noted for its fine marble. Within 50 years, stone quarried from its slopes would give shape to the Parthenon. Once they arrived, the Athenians erected a rough fortification (a stockade by some accounts) along the coast road to Athens. The fort not only blocked Persian advances southward, it held the high ground.

For the next several days there was little movement on either side. The Athenians were partly stalling for time, because each day brought Spartan aid that much nearer. But the Athenians were also paralyzed with endless debate and internecine wrangling. To function effectively a military command needs a single brain, will, and authority. Collective generalship and war by committee was proving disastrous. When the 10 generals voted, they found they were evenly split between those who favored immediate action and those who preferred to wait for the Spartans.

The Athenians were heartened by the arrival of men from the Boeorian town of Plataea. There were only six hundred Plataean hoplites— some sources say 1,000–so the numbers were insufficient to tip the scales in the Greeks favor. Even with these arrivals the Athenians were outnumbered two to one. Still, the Plataeans were welcome, and must have given the Athenians a psychological boost.

In spite of a paralyzed command structure—at least for the moment—the Athenians had several advantages that might yet lead to victory. To begin with, the Athenians, like other Greeks, had superior discipline, training, and equipment.

The basic Athenian soldier was the hoplite, or heavy infantryman. The name is taken from the distinctive soldier’s shield or hoplon, which could weigh as much as 18 pounds. The hoplite’s body was protected by a cuirass, his legs by bronze greaves that were molded in imitation of a man’s lower limbs. A heavy bronze helmet, graceful in spite of its weight, perched on the infantryman’s head. Cuirasses were often made of linen or canvas glued together, and reinforced with metal plates or scales. Wealthier hoplites could afford a muscled cuirass, an “anatomically correct” style most people associate with the Romans.

Tactics went hand-in-hand with the heavy armor. Greek hoplites fought in a hedgehog formation called a phalanx. Eight or more ranks of hoplites would be armed with long thrusting spears that averaged about eight or nine feet. Enemies were confronted with a wall of spears, a “porcupine” that was hard to penetrate.

The Athenian war council continued its deliberations. Luckily, it contained some of the keenest political minds in the city, men whose exploits would be celebrated in later ages. There was Themistocles, who would become a major leader in the coming decade, and Aristides, known for such honesty he was given the epithet “the Just.” Perhaps more importantly for the current crisis, these men were good soldiers, too.

Growing frustrated by the delay, Polemarch Callimachus broke the tie and ended the impasse by voting for immediate action. The Athenians would attack—but who was to lead them? As previously noted, each day a new general took command on a rotation basis. But perhaps inspired by Callimachus’s actions, four generals gave up their command days to Miltiades. In a typical gesture, even Aristides gracefully yielded to Miltiades. Miltiades accepted, but tactfully said he would wait until his turn came. Nevertheless, in principle if not in actual fact, the Athenians at last had one strategoi to unite them.

This consensus came in the very nick of time, because the Persians were on the move. Some of the Ionian- Greeks unwillingly drafted into the Persian army, eager to turn the tables against their oppressors, deserted to the Athenians with a vital piece of information. Persian commander Datis decided to put a new twist on the old axion “divide and conquer.” The Ionian deserters informed the Athenians that there was no Persian cavalry anywhere.

After some thought, Miltiades grasped the brilliance of the Persian plan. Datis had split his force into a land and a sea component. The Persian cavalry, accompanied by some infantry, had re-embarked onto the ships. It was entirely possible that a Persian sea expedition was about to be dispatched to Athens. True, the sea route to the city was longer than the land route, some 70 miles around the tip of Cape Sounion, but Athens was virtually defenseless; what would happen if the Persians managed to land while the Athenian army was still at Marathon?

Before the Athenians were able to absorb these facts, there was some stirring within the Persian camp. Datis was moving his forces southward in the direction of the Greek position. It looked as if the Persians were in a win-win situation; if the Athenians were overwhelmed, then all of Greece might be subjugated. If, on the other hand, the Athenian army held its own, the Persian land forces might buy time for a seaborne force content to circle around and take Athens from the rear: Worse still, the volatile nature of Athenian politics might actually favor the invaders. Pro-Persian or pro-Hippias elements within the city might aid the Persians. Time was of the essence; if strategoi Miltiades defeated the Persian host, he just might be able to move the army back in time to counter a sea attack.

Ailtiades saw that the enemy center was the strongest, composed largely of Persian troops. The center also had massed bodies of archers, whose “gadfly” shafts were meant to thin Athenian ranks and weaken Athenian resolve. The strategoi deliberately weakened his center, and strengthened his two flanks. The Persians in the center would be facing a hollow façade, but a façade that would hopefully dazzle them enough to overlook the strong Athenian flanks. Once the weak Persian flanks were brushed aside the Greeks could hit the Persian center on three, perhaps even four, sides.

The Platacan contingent was placed on the Greek left, while Callimacus the polemarch commanded the right. The Athenians adjusted bronze helmets, adjusted shields, and formed phalanx ranks. They held the high ground, so as they marched down the slope, they would have the advantage of a growing momentum. The Greek phalanx formations moved forward, the bristling spears of the front ranks pointing toward the enemy, the ground reverberating to the heavy tramp of bronze-clad warriors. As they marched, the hoplites raised their voices in a battle paean.

But something happened that completely altered the course of the battle: The Athenians started slowly at first, then suddenly charged forward in a run. The Persian were incredulous, scarcely believing their eyes. Persian archers unleashed clouds of arrows, but the Greeks were moving too fast, and many of the missiles missed their intended targets. Even those arrows that did find their mark were largely ineffective. A few Greeks fell, but most arrows bounced off heavy shields and sturdy helmets.

Herodotus, Greek historian of the battle, later commented that this was the first time Greeks charged an enemy at the run. It was an incredible feat: Each man was running in armor and shield that collectively weighed about 70 pounds, and that did not include the onerous task of handling a nine-foot spear. The Athenians had to run about a mile, but not one man faltered or slackened the pace. This “quickstep” run was being used for the first time in battle, but the technique was not entirely unprecedented. At the Olympic games there was the hoplitodromos, a foot race in armor that must have been familiar to most Athenians.

The Athenians smashed into the Persian flanks like bronze tidal waves, sweeping all before them. The Persian flanks wavered, then collapsed like a house of cards, exposing the Persian center. The Athenians kept their heads; once an enemy broke and ran it was the custom to pursue and slaughter as many fugitives as possible. But instead of chasing the refugees from the broken flanks, the Athenians concentrated their attention on the Persian center.

Ironically the Persian center had been locally victorious, breaking through the weakened Greek center, when suddenly it found itself surrounded on two sides. Iron-tipped hoplite spears impaled scores of Persians, easily puncturing or brushing aside wicker shields. Once a spear was broken, or circumstances favored close-in fighting, hoplites turned to their swords. Some had normal hoplite swords of iron; others were armed with the kopis, a heavy slashing weapon capable of great execution if wielded by a trained arm.

The Persian center fought well, but its relative lack of protective armor proved literally and figuratively crippling. Kopis swords hacked bloody paths through Persian ranks, each stroke cutting, lacerating, inflicting wounds and death with horrifying ease. Caught in a classic pincer movement, the Persian center soon met the fate of the flanks.

Bloodied and terror-stricken survivors sought any means of escape; some fled blindly into the marsh, while others streamed toward the Persian ships anchored not far from shore. These who waded into the marsh were cut down, the viscous ground proving a grave, not a refuge. A story was later told that the Greek god Pan, who could induce fear and stampede cattle, now came to the aid of the Athenians. The god instilled panikos in Persian hearts, literally panicking them.

Heady with victory, the Athenians attempted to capture the Persian ships lying at anchor close by. In spite of heavy armor, hoplites splashed into the water and boarded ships, now preoccupied with rescuing survivors and getting underway. Some of the Persians still fought boldly, and during the contest for the ships the Greeks lost some prominent men. It was here that the polemarch Callimacus lost his life, and strategoi Stesilaus. Cynaegirus, an Athenian noted for his muscular build and brute strength, managed to reach the stem of a ship, only to have his hand chopped off by a Persian axe as he attempted to board. Moments later, he too perished.

In all, the Athenians managed to capture seven Persian ships. They had won a great victory at Marathon. According to Greek sources, biased but possibly accurate, the Persians lost around 6,400 men, the Greeks 192. In the course of a single day, the men of Athens, aided by a small and courageous band from Plataea, crushed the Persian invasion and secured liberty, not only for themselves, but for all Greece.

But had they? Exhausted but triumphant, the Athenian army began to collect the dead and give aid to the wounded. But scarcely had they caught their breath when a light flashed from the peak of Mount Pentelikon. This was a signal, made by reflected sun rays off a burnished shield. It looked as if the signal were intended for the fast-retreating Persian ships. Who was signaling? Was it a traitorous Athenian, a supporter of Hippias? Was it a reassurance to the departing and bloodied Persians that some Athenians were still ready and able to collaborate with the invaders?

Strategoi Miltiades divined the danger: lulled by victory at Marathon, the Athenian hoplites might return to the city only to find it in Persian hands. It was possible—now, with the shield signal, even probable—that the Persians were not going home, but heading for Athens instead. It was crucial for the Athenian army to march back to the city with the greatest haste, not only to defend against a Persian landing, but also to forestall a possible pro-Hippias coup. Although the Persian ships had a head start, it will be recalled they faced a relatively long voyage around Cape Sounion to reach their objective. There was not a moment to lose. The hoplite units set out at once, a growing fatigue matched and eventually overcome by an even greater anxiety.

Miltiades and the Athenian army reached Phaleron, the old port of Athens near the city, just as Persian ships were coming into view. When Daris saw he had lost the race, he ordered a return to Asia.

According to legend, when the battle of Marathon was won, the runner Pheidippides was dispatched to Athens to announce the great victory. Superb athlete though he was, this 26-mile first “Marathon” came on top of hard fighting and a previous trek to Sparta to plead for aid. Pheidippides reached Athens, managing to gasp out Nenikükamen! (We have won!) before collapsing and dying of exhaustion. Another version claims he gasped “Nike!” (Victory!) before expiring.

The story of Pheidippides may or may not be true, but it stands as a fitting symbol for the Athenian achievement. Spartans were celebrated throughout the Greek world as tough, indefatigable warriors, but even they could not surpass the Athenians for sheer stamina and endurance during the Marathon campaign. The facts speak for themselves: A running attack across an open plain a mile wide, heavy fighting, then a forced march to forestall a Persian landing—all accomplished in heavy armor and shield.

All Greece rejoiced at Marathon, and Athens’ prestige was boosted throughout the classical world. Spartan troops arrived too late for the battle, but were impressed by the Athenian achievement. The Spartans even made a point to march to Marathon to view the Persian dead. The Greek dead were buried in a large mound not far from where they fell. The mound exists to this day, and was actually excavated by archaeologists in the 1890s. A layer of charcoal was found, along with human bones and Ethiopian obsidian arrowheads. One skeleton seems to have been accorded special treatment, with burial in a special pottery container. It’s only an educated guess, but some have ventured to suggest these are the remains of the polemarch Callimacus. Marathon stands as one of the great battles of world history. It is true that the Persians’ wars were not over with Marathon; 10 years later, the Persians returned with an even greater host. The Battles of Salamis and Plataea in 480-479 BCE were crucial events—but if the Persians had won at Marathon, there would not have been a Salamis and Plataca.

The Battle of Marathon was the beginning of the rise of Athens and the dawn of the classical world’s Golden Age. Led by Athens, 5th century Greece laid the foundations of Western civilization. Art, architecture, philosophy, literature, and drama all flourished. In Athens, the “school of Hellas,” the new and untried system of democracy was allowed to further develop and in time become yet another legacy to the Western world.

Yet this cultural flowering needed the water of freedom to stimulate its growth. The very brilliance of the Greek mind needed an unfettered atmosphere to reach its full potential. If the Persians had won at Marathon, the deadening hand of Oriental despotism would have altered and stifled Western civilization for decades, if not forever.

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