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112-526: The twelve ancient city-states were listed by Herodotus as: Smyrna , an originally Aeolic city bordering the Ionians, asked for admission and entered the League at a later date, being first attested in a decree of 289/8 BC. The league is still attested as having thirteen members as late as the 3rd century AD, but this may reflect tradition more than reality, as due to synoecisms and the fluctuation in importance of

224-527: A Carian state persisted until a coalition of Ionian cities defeated it and divided its lands among them. In view of the rising Persian threat, they decided to continue the coalition as the Ionian League, building a new religious and political center at Melia. Delegates ( theoroi ) of the league gathered to celebrate the Panionia , a religious festival and games ( panegyris ) dedicated to Poseidon Heliconius at

336-510: A Persian assault in 499 BC) and then to head to Greece to force Eretria and Athens to submit to Darius or be destroyed. After island-hopping across the Aegean, including successfully attacking Naxos, the Persian force arrived off Euboea in mid summer. The Persians then proceeded to besiege , capture, and burn Eretria. They then headed south down the coast of Attica, to complete the final objective of

448-444: A Persian subject, and it may be that the young Herodotus heard local eyewitness accounts of events within the empire and of Persian preparations for the invasion of Greece , including the movements of the local fleet under the command of Artemisia I of Caria . Inscriptions recently discovered at Halicarnassus indicate that Artemesia's grandson Lygdamis negotiated with a local assembly to settle disputes over seized property, which

560-473: A boy living on the island of Samos, to which he had fled with his family from the oppressions of Lygdamis, tyrant of Halicarnassus and grandson of Artemisia. Panyassis , the epic poet related to Herodotus, is reported to have taken part in a failed uprising. The Suda also states that Herodotus later returned home to lead the revolt that eventually overthrew the tyrant. Due to recent discoveries of inscriptions at Halicarnassus dated to about Herodotus's time, it

672-578: A final settlement between the ancient state of Caria and the Ionians who had been settlers on its land at the mouth of the Maeander for some centuries. Their last stronghold was the fortified settlement of Melia at the smaller peak of Dilek Daglari on the north slopes of Mycale , where the seat of their worship of Poseidon Heliconius was located. The fort was constructed in the early 7th century BC. Carians and Ionians had been intermarrying for generations but

784-596: A historical topic more in keeping with the Greek world-view: focused on the context of the polis or city-state. The interplay of civilizations was more relevant to Greeks living in Anatolia, such as Herodotus himself, for whom life within a foreign civilization was a recent memory. Before the Persian crisis, history had been represented among the Greeks only by local or family traditions. The "Wars of Liberation" had given to Herodotus

896-519: A huge new army with which he meant to completely subjugate Greece; however, in 486 BC, his Egyptian subjects revolted, indefinitely postponing any Greek expedition. Darius then died whilst preparing to march on Egypt, and the throne of Persia passed to his son Xerxes I. Xerxes crushed the Egyptian revolt, and very quickly restarted the preparations for the invasion of Greece. The epic second Persian invasion of Greece finally began in 480 BC, and

1008-476: A large army had denuded Athens of defenders, and thus any secondary attack in the Athenian rear would cut the army off from the city; and any direct attack on the city could not be defended against. Still further, defeat at Marathon would mean the complete defeat of Athens, since no other Athenian army existed. The Athenian strategy was therefore to keep the Persian army pinned down at Marathon, blocking both exits from

1120-404: A literary critic of Augustan Rome , listed seven predecessors of Herodotus, describing their works as simple unadorned accounts of their own and other cities and people, Greek or foreign, including popular legends, sometimes melodramatic and naïve, often charming – all traits that can be found in the work of Herodotus himself. Modern historians regard the chronology as uncertain, but according to

1232-549: A naval task force under Datis and Artaphernes across the Aegean , to subjugate the Cyclades , and then to make punitive attacks on Athens and Eretria. Reaching Euboea in mid-summer after a successful campaign in the Aegean, the Persians proceeded to besiege and capture Eretria. The Persian force then sailed for Attica , landing in the bay near the town of Marathon . The Athenians, joined by

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1344-402: A population of 315,000 at this time including slaves, which implies the full Athenian army at the times of both Marathon and Plataea numbered about 3% of the population. According to Herodotus, the fleet sent by Darius consisted of 600 triremes . Herodotus does not estimate the size of the Persian army, only saying that they were a "large infantry that was well packed". Among ancient sources,

1456-447: A premature end to the campaign. However, in 490 BC, following the successes of the previous campaign, Darius decided to send a maritime expedition led by Artaphernes (son of the satrap to whom Hippias had fled) and Datis , a Median admiral. Mardonius had been injured in the prior campaign and had fallen out of favor. The expedition was intended to bring the Cyclades into the Persian empire, to punish Naxos (which had resisted

1568-610: A small force from Plataea, marched to Marathon, and succeeded in blocking the two exits from the plain of Marathon. The Athenians also sent a message to the Spartans asking for support. When the messenger arrived in Sparta, the Spartans were involved in a religious festival and gave this as a reason for not coming to help the Athenians. The Athenians and their allies chose a location for the battle, with marshes and mountainous terrain, that prevented

1680-432: A title conferred on him by the ancient Roman orator Cicero , and the " Father of Lies " by others. The Histories primarily cover the lives of prominent kings and famous battles such as Marathon , Thermopylae , Artemisium , Salamis , Plataea , and Mycale . His work deviates from the main topics to provide a cultural, ethnographical , geographical, and historiographical background that forms an essential part of

1792-466: A vassal of Persia. Attempts at further expansion into the politically fractious world of ancient Greece may have been inevitable. However, the Ionian Revolt had directly threatened the integrity of the Persian empire, and the states of mainland Greece remained a potential menace to its future stability. Darius thus resolved to subjugate and pacify Greece and the Aegean, and to punish those involved in

1904-680: A version of the Histories written by "Herodotus of Thurium", and some passages in the Histories have been interpreted as proof that he wrote about Magna Graecia from personal experience there (IV, 15,99; VI, 127). According to Ptolemaeus Chennus , a late source summarized in the Library of Photius , Plesirrhous the Thessalian, the hymnographer, was the eromenos of Herodotus and his heir. This account has also led some historians to assume Herodotus died childless. Intimate knowledge of some events in

2016-510: A young Thucydides happened to be in the assembly with his father, and burst into tears during the recital. Herodotus observed prophetically to the boy's father: "Your son's soul yearns for knowledge." Eventually, Thucydides and Herodotus became close enough for both to be interred in Thucydides's tomb in Athens. Such at least was the opinion of Marcellinus in his Life of Thucydides . According to

2128-618: Is consistent with a tyrant under pressure. His name is not mentioned later in the tribute list of the Athenian Delian League , indicating that there might well have been a successful uprising against him some time before 454 BC. Herodotus wrote his Histories in the Ionian dialect , in spite of being born in a Dorian settlement. According to the Suda , Herodotus learned the Ionian dialect as

2240-486: Is generally assumed that he died not long afterwards, possibly before his sixtieth year. Herodotus would have made his researches known to the larger world through oral recitations to a public crowd. John Marincola writes in his introduction to the Penguin edition of the Histories that there are certain identifiable pieces in the early books of Herodotus's work which could be labeled as "performance pieces". These portions of

2352-436: Is generally considered a reliable source of ancient history, many present-day historians believe that his accounts are at least partially inaccurate, attributing the observed inconsistencies in the Histories to exaggeration. Several English translations of Herodotus's Histories are available in multiple editions, including: Battle of Marathon The Battle of Marathon took place in 490 BC during

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2464-794: Is now known that the Ionic dialect was used in Halicarnassus in some official documents, so there is no need to assume (like the Suda ) that he must have learned the dialect elsewhere. The Suda is the only source placing Herodotus as the heroic liberator of his birthplace, casting doubt upon the veracity of that romantic account. As Herodotus himself reveals, Halicarnassus, though a Dorian city, had ended its close relations with its Dorian neighbours after an unseemly quarrel (I, 144), and it had helped pioneer Greek trade with Egypt (II, 178). It was, therefore, an outward-looking, international-minded port within

2576-602: Is on account of the many strange stories and the folk-tales he reported that his critics have branded him "The Father of Lies". Even his own contemporaries found reason to scoff at his achievement. In fact, one modern scholar has wondered whether Herodotus left his home in Greek Anatolia , migrating westwards to Athens and beyond, because his own countrymen had ridiculed his work, a circumstance possibly hinted at in an epitaph said to have been dedicated to Herodotus at one of his three supposed resting places, Thuria : Herodotus

2688-473: The Alcmaeonids , a clan whose history is featured frequently in his writing. According to Plutarch , Herodotus was granted a financial reward by the Athenian assembly in recognition of his work. Plutarch, using Diyllus as a source, says this was 10 talents . In 443 BC or shortly afterwards, he migrated to Thurii , in modern Calabria , as part of an Athenian-sponsored colony . Aristotle refers to

2800-562: The Byzantine Suda , an 11th-century encyclopedia which possibly took its information from traditional accounts. Still, the challenge is great: The data are so few – they rest upon such late and slight authority; they are so improbable or so contradictory, that to compile them into a biography is like building a house of cards, which the first breath of criticism will blow to the ground. Still, certain points may be approximately fixed ... Herodotus was, according to his own statement, at

2912-486: The Euphrates to Babylon . For some reason, possibly associated with local politics, he subsequently found himself unpopular in Halicarnassus, and sometime around 447 BC, migrated to Periclean Athens  – a city whose people and democratic institutions he openly admired (V, 78). Athens was also the place where he came to know the local topography (VI, 137; VIII, 52–55), as well as leading citizens such as

3024-708: The Peloponnesian War on the abduction of some prostitutes – a mocking reference to Herodotus, who reported the Persians' account of their wars with Greece , beginning with the rapes of the mythical heroines Io , Europa , Medea , and Helen . Similarly, the Athenian historian Thucydides dismissed Herodotus as a story-teller. Thucydides, who had been trained in rhetoric , became the model for subsequent prose-writers as an author who seeks to appear firmly in control of his material, whereas with his frequent digressions Herodotus appeared to minimize (or possibly disguise) his authorial control. Moreover, Thucydides developed

3136-565: The Persian Empire , and the historian's family could well have had contacts in other countries under Persian rule, facilitating his travels and his researches. Herodotus's eyewitness accounts indicate that he traveled in Egypt in association with Athenians, probably sometime after 454 BC or possibly earlier, after an Athenian fleet had assisted the uprising against Persian rule in 460–454 BC. He probably traveled to Tyre next and then down

3248-493: The Persian cavalry from joining the Persian infantry. Miltiades , the Athenian general, ordered a general attack against the Persian forces, composed primarily of missile troops. He reinforced his flanks, luring the Persians' best fighters into his center. The inward wheeling flanks enveloped the Persians, routing them. The Persian army broke in panic towards their ships, and large numbers were slaughtered. The defeat at Marathon marked

3360-569: The Suda , he was buried in Macedonian Pella and in the agora in Thurii. Herodotus announced the purpose and scope of his work at the beginning of his Histories: Here are presented the results of the inquiry carried out by Herodotus of Halicarnassus. The purpose is to prevent the traces of human events from being erased by time, and to preserve the fame of the important and remarkable achievements produced by both Greeks and non-Greeks; among

3472-492: The first Persian invasion of Greece . It was fought between the citizens of Athens , aided by Plataea , and a Persian force commanded by Datis and Artaphernes . The battle was the culmination of the first attempt by Persia under King Darius I to subjugate Greece . The Greek army inflicted a crushing defeat on the more numerous Persians, marking a turning point in the Greco-Persian Wars . The first Persian invasion

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3584-467: The tactical offensive, and attacked them. Obviously, it cannot be firmly established which theory (if either) is correct. However, both theories imply that there was some kind of Persian activity which occurred on or about the fifth day which ultimately triggered the battle. It is also possible that both theories are correct: when the Persians sent the cavalry by ship to attack Athens, they simultaneously sent their infantry to attack at Marathon, triggering

3696-429: The Athenian ambassadors acquiesced. They were, however, severely censured for this when they returned to Athens. At some later point Cleomenes instigated a plot to restore Hippias to the rule of Athens. This failed and Hippias again fled to Sardis and tried to persuade the Persians to subjugate Athens. The Athenians dispatched ambassadors to Artaphernes to dissuade him from taking action, but Artaphernes merely instructed

3808-456: The Athenians and Plataeans prevailed. The Athenian wings quickly routed the inferior Persian levies on the flanks, before turning inwards to surround the Persian centre, which had been more successful against the thin Greek centre. The battle ended when the Persian centre then broke in panic towards their ships, pursued by the Greeks. Some, unaware of the local terrain, ran towards the swamps where unknown numbers drowned. The Athenians pursued

3920-440: The Athenians had won a great victory. The Athenian and Plataean dead of Marathon were buried on the battlefield in two tumuli . On the tomb of the Athenians this epigram composed by Simonides was written: Ἑλλήνων προμαχοῦντες Ἀθηναῖοι Μαραθῶνι χρυσοφόρων Μήδων ἐστόρεσαν δύναμιν Fighting at the forefront of the Greeks, the Athenians at Marathon laid low the army of the gilded Medes. Meanwhile, Darius began raising

4032-443: The Athenians remained on the defensive in the run up to the battle. Tactically, hoplites were vulnerable to attacks by cavalry, and since the Persians had substantial numbers of cavalry, this made any offensive maneuver by the Athenians even more of a risk, and thus reinforced the defensive strategy of the Athenians. The Persian strategy, in contrast, was probably principally determined by tactical considerations. The Persian infantry

4144-402: The Athenians to take Hippias back as tyrant. The Athenians indignantly declined, and instead resolved to open war with Persia. Having thus become the enemy of Persia, Athens was already in a position to support the Ionian cities when they began their revolt. The fact that the Ionian democracies were inspired by the example the Athenians had set no doubt further persuaded the Athenians to support

4256-517: The Athenians!" Herodotus further writes that Darius charged one of his servants to say "Master, remember the Athenians" three times before dinner each day. At the time of the battle, Sparta and Athens were the two largest city-states in Greece. Once the Ionian revolt was finally crushed by the Persian victory at the Battle of Lade in 494 BC, Darius began plans to subjugate Greece. In 490 BC, he sent

4368-538: The Greco-Persian Wars is the Greek historian Herodotus . Herodotus, who has been called the "Father of History", was born in 484 BC in Halicarnassus, Asia Minor (then under Persian overlordship). He wrote his Enquiries (Greek – Historiai ; English – (The) Histories ) around 440–430 BC, trying to trace the origins of the Greco-Persian Wars, which would still have been relatively recent history (the wars finally ended in 450 BC). Herodotus's approach

4480-407: The Greek counterattack. Herodotus mentions for several events a date in the lunisolar calendar , of which each Greek city-state used a variant. Astronomical computation allows us to derive an absolute date in the proleptic Julian calendar which is much used by historians as the chronological frame. Philipp August Böckh in 1855 concluded that the battle took place on September 12, 490 BC in

4592-485: The Greeks attacked the Persians (and the other sources confirm this), but it is not clear why they did this before the arrival of the Spartans. There are two main theories to explain this. The first theory is that the Persian cavalry left Marathon for an unspecified reason, and that the Greeks moved to take advantage of this by attacking. This theory is based on the absence of any mention of cavalry in Herodotus' account of

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4704-413: The Ionian Revolt had finally been crushed, Darius dispatched an expedition to Greece under the command of his son-in-law, Mardonius . Mardonius re-subjugated Thrace and made Macedonia fully subordinate to the Persians; it had been a vassal of the Persians since the late 6th century BC, but retained its general autonomy. Not long after, however, his fleet was wrecked by a violent storm, which brought

4816-405: The Ionian Revolt, especially since the cities of Ionia were originally Athenian colonies. The Athenians and Eretrians sent a task force of 25 triremes to Asia Minor to aid the revolt. Whilst there, the Greek army surprised and outmaneuvered Artaphernes, marching to Sardis and burning the lower city. This was, however, as much as the Greeks achieved, and they were then repelled and pursued back to

4928-559: The Ionian Revolt. The Ionian Revolt had begun with an unsuccessful expedition against Naxos , a joint venture between the Persian satrap Artaphernes and the Milesian tyrant Aristagoras . In the aftermath, Artaphernes decided to remove Aristagoras from power, but before he could do so, Aristagoras abdicated, and declared Miletus a democracy. The other Ionian cities followed suit, ejecting their Persian-appointed tyrants, and declaring themselves democracies. Aristagoras then appealed to

5040-515: The Ionians." Writers and documents of the Hellenistic Period explicitly use the term koinon ("common thing") or synodos (" synod ") of the Ionians, and by anachronism apply it to the early league when they mention it. Under the Roman Empire it was allowed to issue its own coinage under the name koinon Iōnōn on one side with the face of the emperor on the other. The Meliac War was

5152-521: The Julian calendar, and this is the conventionally accepted date. However, this depends on when exactly the Spartans held their festival and it is possible that the Spartan calendar was one month ahead of that of Athens. In that case the battle took place on August 12, 490 BC. Herodotus does not give a figure for the size of the Athenian army. However, Cornelius Nepos , Pausanias and Plutarch all give

5264-459: The Persian fleet. The revolt was used as an opportunity by Darius to extend the empire's border to the islands of the eastern Aegean and the Propontis , which had not been part of the Persian dominions before. The pacification of Ionia allowed the Persians to begin planning their next moves; to extinguish the threat to the empire from Greece and to punish Athens and Eretria. In 492 BC, after

5376-410: The Persian line, and would not therefore be outflanked. When the Athenian line was ready, according to one source, the simple signal to advance was given by Miltiades: "At them". Herodotus implies the Athenians ran the whole distance to the Persian lines, a feat under the weight of hoplite armory generally thought to be physically impossible. More likely, they marched until they reached the limit of

5488-478: The Persians (despite knowing that the Spartans are coming to aid the Athenians), but strangely, chooses to wait until his actual day of command to attack. This passage is undoubtedly problematic; the Athenians had little to gain by attacking before the Spartans arrived, and there is no real evidence of this rotating generalship. There does, however, seem to have been a delay between the Athenian arrival at Marathon and

5600-466: The Persians back to their ships, and managed to capture seven ships, though the majority were able to launch successfully. Herodotus recounts the story that Cynaegirus , brother of the playwright Aeschylus , who was also among the fighters, charged into the sea, grabbed one Persian trireme, and started pulling it towards shore. A member of the crew saw him, cut off his hand, and Cynaegirus died. Herodotus records that 6,400 Persian bodies were counted on

5712-410: The Persians met with initial success at the battles of Thermopylae and Artemisium . Defeat at the Battle of Salamis happened after Xerxes burnt Athens to the ground after Athenians left the city, and the next year the expedition was ended by the decisive Greek victory at the Battle of Plataea . The defeat at Marathon barely touched the vast resources of the Persian empire, yet for the Greeks it

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5824-402: The aid of the hard pressured centre. According to Vic Hurley , the Persian defeat is explained by the "complete failure ... to field a representative army", calling the battle the "most convincing" example of the fact that infantry-bowmen cannot defend any position while stationed in close-quarters and unsupported (i.e. by fortifications, or failing to support them by cavalry and chariots , as

5936-407: The ancient account, these predecessors included Dionysius of Miletus , Charon of Lampsacus, Hellanicus of Lesbos , Xanthus of Lydia and, the best attested of them all, Hecataeus of Miletus . Of these, only fragments of Hecataeus's works survived, and the authenticity of these is debatable, but they provide a glimpse into the kind of tradition within which Herodotus wrote his own Histories . It

6048-476: The archers' effectiveness, the "beaten zone" (roughly 200 meters), and then broke into a run towards their enemy. Another possibility is that they ran up to the 200 meter-mark in broken ranks, and then reformed for the march into battle from there. Herodotus suggests that this was the first time a Greek army ran into battle in this way; this was probably because it was the first time that a Greek army had faced an enemy composed primarily of missile troops. All this

6160-527: The audience. It was conventional in Herodotus's day for authors to "publish" their works by reciting them at popular festivals. According to Lucian , Herodotus took his finished work straight from Anatolia to the Olympic Games and read the entire Histories to the assembled spectators in one sitting, receiving rapturous applause at the end of it. According to a very different account by an ancient grammarian, Herodotus refused to begin reading his work at

6272-402: The battle (and indeed have triggered the battle). The second theory is simply that the battle occurred because the Persians finally moved to attack the Athenians. Although this theory has the Persians moving to the strategic offensive, this can be reconciled with the traditional account of the Athenians attacking the Persians by assuming that, seeing the Persians advancing, the Athenians took

6384-496: The battle, and an entry in the Suda dictionary. The entry χωρίς ἱππέων ("without cavalry") is explained thus: The cavalry left. When Datis surrendered and was ready for retreat, the Ionians climbed the trees and gave the Athenians the signal that the cavalry had left. And when Miltiades realized that, he attacked and thus won. From there comes the above-mentioned quote, which is used when someone breaks ranks before battle. There are many variations of this theory, but perhaps

6496-405: The battle; Herodotus, who evidently believed that Miltiades was eager to attack, may have made a mistake while seeking to explain this delay. As is discussed below , the reason for the delay was probably simply that neither the Athenians nor the Persians were willing to risk battle initially. This then raises the question of why the battle occurred when it did. Herodotus explicitly tells us that

6608-609: The battlefield, and it is unknown how many more perished in the swamps. He also reported that the Athenians lost 192 men and the Plataeans 11. Among the dead were the war archon Callimachus and the general Stesilaos. There are several explanations of the Greek success. Most scholars believe that the Greeks had better equipment and used superior tactics. According to Herodotus, the Greeks were better equipped. They did not use bronze upper body armour at this time, but that of leather or linen. The phalanx formation proved successful, because

6720-453: The beginning of his work, a native of Halicarnassus in Anatolia , and it is generally accepted that he was born there around 485 BC. The Suda says his family was influential, that he was the son of Lyxes and Dryo and the brother of Theodorus, and that he was also related to Panyassis – an epic poet of the time. Halicarnassus was then within the Persian Empire , making Herodotus

6832-409: The campaign—punish Athens. The Persians sailed down the coast of Attica, and landed at the bay of Marathon, about 27 kilometres (17 mi) northeast of Athens, on the advice of the exiled Athenian tyrant Hippias (who had accompanied the expedition). Under the guidance of Miltiades , the Athenian general with the greatest experience of fighting the Persians, the Athenian army marched quickly to block

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6944-415: The centre of the Athenian line stayed to guard the battlefield under the command of Aristides. The Athenians arrived in time to prevent the Persians from securing a landing, and seeing that the opportunity was lost, the Persians turned about and returned to Asia. Connected with this episode, Herodotus recounts a rumour that this manoeuver by the Persians had been planned in conjunction with the Alcmaeonids ,

7056-451: The coast by Persian horsemen, losing many men in the process. Despite the fact that their actions were ultimately fruitless, the Eretrians and in particular the Athenians had earned Darius's lasting enmity, and he vowed to punish both cities. The Persian naval victory at the Battle of Lade (494 BC) all but ended the Ionian Revolt, and by 493 BC, the last hold-outs were vanquished by

7168-411: The dust of Aeschylus doth hide, Euphorion's son and fruitful Gela's pride. How tried his valor, Marathon may tell, And long-haired Medes, who knew it all too well. Militarily, a major lesson for the Greeks was the potential of the hoplite phalanx. This style had developed during internecine warfare amongst the Greeks; since each city-state fought in the same way, the advantages and disadvantages of

7280-449: The end of the first Persian invasion of Greece, and the Persian force retreated to Asia. Darius then began raising a huge new army with which he meant to completely subjugate Greece; however, in 486 BC, his Egyptian subjects revolted, indefinitely postponing any Greek expedition. After Darius died, his son Xerxes I restarted the preparations for a second invasion of Greece , which finally began in 480 BC. The Battle of Marathon

7392-532: The ethnicities involved in the battle, Herodotus specifically mentions the presence of the Persians and the Sakae at the center of the Achaemenid line: They fought a long time at Marathon. In the center of the line the foreigners prevailed, where the Persians and Sacae were arrayed. The foreigners prevailed there and broke through in pursuit inland, but on each wing the Athenians and Plataeans prevailed. In victory they let

7504-401: The family had ruled for 36 out of the previous 50 years and fully intended to continue Hippias's rule. Hippias fled to Sardis to the court of the Persian satrap , Artaphernes and promised control of Athens to the Persians if they were to help restore him. In the meantime, Cleomenes helped install a pro-Spartan tyranny under Isagoras in Athens, in opposition to Cleisthenes , the leader of

7616-439: The festival of Olympia until some clouds offered him a bit of shade – by which time the assembly had dispersed. (Hence the proverbial expression "Herodotus and his shade" to describe someone who misses an opportunity through delay.) Herodotus's recitation at Olympia was a favourite theme among ancient writers, and there is another interesting variation on the story to be found in the Suda : that of Photius and Tzetzes , in which

7728-520: The figure of 9,000 Athenians and 1,000 Plataeans; while Justin suggests that there were 10,000 Athenians and 1,000 Plataeans. These numbers are highly comparable to the number of troops Herodotus says that the Athenians and Plataeans sent to the Battle of Plataea 11 years later. Pausanias noticed on the monument to the battle the names of former slaves who were freed in exchange for military services. Modern historians generally accept these numbers as reasonable. The areas ruled by Athens (Attica) had

7840-422: The first genuinely historical inspiration felt by a Greek. These wars showed him that there was a corporate life, higher than that of the city, of which the story might be told; and they offered to him as a subject the drama of the collision between East and West. With him, the spirit of history was born into Greece; and his work, called after the nine Muses, was indeed the first utterance of Clio . Though Herodotus

7952-500: The first years of the Peloponnesian War (VI, 91; VII, 133, 233; IX, 73) suggests that he returned to Athens, in which case it is possible that he died there during an outbreak of the plague. It is also possible he died in Macedonia instead, after obtaining the patronage of the court there; or else he died back in Thurii. There is nothing in the Histories that can be dated to later than 430 BC with any certainty, and it

8064-429: The flanks by the victorious Greek wings. Lazenby (1993) believes that the ultimate reason for the Greek success was the courage the Greeks displayed: Marathon was won because ordinary, amateur soldiers found the courage to break into a trot when the arrows began to fall, instead of grinding to a halt, and when surprisingly the enemy wings fled, not to take the easy way out and follow them, but to stop and somehow come to

8176-445: The full moon rose; Athens could not expect reinforcement for at least ten days. The Athenians would have to hold out at Marathon for the time being, although they were reinforced by the full muster of 1,000 hoplites from the small city of Plataea , a gesture which did much to steady the nerves of the Athenians and won unending Athenian gratitude to Plataea. For approximately five days the armies therefore confronted each other across

8288-421: The hoplite phalanx had not been obvious. Marathon was the first time a phalanx faced more lightly armed troops, and revealed how effective the hoplites could be in battle. The phalanx formation was still vulnerable to cavalry (the cause of much caution by the Greek forces at the Battle of Plataea ), but used in the right circumstances, it was now shown to be a potentially devastating weapon. The main source for

8400-402: The hoplites had a long tradition in hand-to-hand combat, whereas the Persian soldiers were accustomed to a very different kind of conflict. At Marathon, the Athenians thinned their centre in order to make their army equal in length to the Persian army, not as a result of a tactical planning. It seems that the Persian centre tried to return, realizing that their wings had broken, and was caught in

8512-531: The infantry, from 20,000 to 100,000 with a consensus of perhaps 25,000; estimates for the cavalry are in the range of 1,000. The fleet included various contingents from different parts of the Achaemenid Empire, particularly Ionians and Aeolians , although they are not mentioned as participating directly to the battle and may have remained on the ships: Datis sailed with his army against Eretria first, taking with him Ionians and Aeolians. Regarding

8624-580: The longer-term interaction between the Greeks and Persians. In 500 BC the Persian Empire was still relatively young and highly expansionistic, but prone to revolts amongst its subject peoples. Moreover, the Persian King Darius was a usurper , and had spent considerable time extinguishing revolts against his rule. Even before the Ionian Revolt, Darius had begun to expand the empire into Europe, subjugating Thrace , and forcing Macedon to become

8736-424: The matters covered is, in particular, the cause of the hostilities between Greeks and non-Greeks. His record of the achievements of others was an achievement in itself, though the extent of it has been debated. Herodotus's place in history and his significance may be understood according to the traditions within which he worked. His work is the earliest Greek prose to have survived intact. Dionysius of Halicarnassus ,

8848-488: The most prevalent is that the cavalry were completing the time-consuming process of re-embarking on the ships, and were to be sent by sea to attack (undefended) Athens in the rear, whilst the rest of the Persians pinned down the Athenian army at Marathon. This theory therefore utilises Herodotus' suggestion that after Marathon, the Persian army began to re-embark, intending to sail around Cape Sounion to attack Athens directly. Thus, this re-embarcation would have occurred before

8960-538: The name of the Medes caused the Hellenes to panic". Passing through the hail of arrows launched by the Persian army, protected for the most part by their armour, the Greek line finally made contact with the enemy army. They fought a long time at Marathon. In the center of the line the foreigners prevailed, where the Persians and Sacae were arrayed. The foreigners prevailed there and broke through in pursuit inland, but on each wing

9072-612: The narrative and provides readers with a wellspring of additional information. Herodotus was criticized in ancient times for his inclusion of "legends and fanciful accounts" in his work. The contemporaneous historian Thucydides accused him of making up stories for entertainment. He retorted that he reported what he could see and was told. A sizable portion of the Histories has since been confirmed by modern historians and archaeologists . Modern scholars generally turn to Herodotus's own writing for reliable information about his life, supplemented with ancient yet much later sources, such as

9184-474: The peak of its civilization, a peak whose fruits we moderns have inherited." It seems that the Athenian playwright Aeschylus considered his participation at Marathon to be his greatest achievement in life (rather than his plays) since on his gravestone there was the following epigram: Αἰσχύλον Εὐφορίωνος Ἀθηναῖον τόδε κεύθει μνῆμα καταφθίμενον πυροφόροιο Γέλας· ἀλκὴν δ’ εὐδόκιμον Μαραθώνιον ἄλσος ἂν εἴποι καὶ βαθυχαιτήεις Μῆδος ἐπιστάμενος This tomb

9296-423: The plain of Marathon in stalemate. The flanks of the Athenian camp were protected by either a grove of trees or an abbatis of stakes (depending on the exact reading). Since every day brought the arrival of the Spartans closer, the delay worked in favor of the Athenians. There were ten Athenian strategoi (generals) at Marathon, elected by each of the ten tribes that the Athenians were divided into; Miltiades

9408-434: The plain of Marathon; remains of its fortifications are still visible. Whatever event eventually triggered the battle, it obviously altered the strategic or tactical balance sufficiently to induce the Athenians to attack the Persians. If the first theory is correct (see above ), then the absence of cavalry removed the main Athenian tactical disadvantage, and the threat of being outflanked made it imperative to attack. But if

9520-426: The plain, and thus preventing themselves from being outmaneuvered. However, these disadvantages were balanced by some advantages. The Athenians initially had no need to seek battle, since they had managed to confine the Persians to the plain of Marathon. Furthermore, time worked in their favour, as every day brought the arrival of the Spartans closer. Having everything to lose by attacking, and much to gain by waiting,

9632-585: The poet Simonides , another near-contemporary, says the campaign force numbered 200,000; while a later writer, the Roman Cornelius Nepos estimates 200,000 infantry and 10,000 cavalry, of which only 100,000 fought in the battle, while the rest were loaded into the fleet that was rounding Cape Sounion; Plutarch and Pausanias both independently give 300,000, as does the Suda dictionary. Plato and Lysias give 500,000; and Justinus 600,000. Modern historians have proposed wide-ranging numbers for

9744-440: The prominent Athenian aristocratic family, and that a "shield-signal" had been given after the battle. Although many interpretations of this have been offered, it is impossible to tell whether this was true, and if so, what exactly the signal meant. On the next day, the Spartan army arrived at Marathon, having covered the 220 kilometers (140 mi) in only three days. The Spartans toured the battlefield at Marathon, and agreed that

9856-493: The request of Isagoras and so Cleisthenes, the Alcmaeonids and other prominent Athenian families were exiled from Athens. When Isagoras attempted to create a narrow oligarchic government, the Athenian people, in a spontaneous and unprecedented move, expelled Cleomenes and Isagoras. Cleisthenes was thus restored to Athens (507 BC), and at breakneck speed began to reform the state with the aim of securing his position. The result

9968-468: The research seem independent and "almost detachable", so that they might have been set aside by the author for the purposes of an oral performance. The intellectual matrix of the 5th century, Marincola suggests, comprised many oral performances in which philosophers would dramatically recite such detachable pieces of their work. The idea was to criticize previous arguments on a topic and emphatically and enthusiastically insert their own in order to win over

10080-676: The rise of the Classical Greek civilization, which has been enduringly influential in Western society, and so the Battle of Marathon is often seen as a pivotal moment in Mediterranean and European history, and is often celebrated today. The first Persian invasion of Greece had its immediate roots in the Ionian Revolt , the earliest phase of the Greco-Persian Wars . However, it was also the result of

10192-542: The routed foreigners flee, and brought the wings together to fight those who had broken through the center. The Athenians prevailed, then followed the fleeing Persians and struck them down. When they reached the sea they demanded fire and laid hold of the Persian ships. From a strategic point of view, the Athenians had some disadvantages at Marathon. In order to face the Persians in battle, the Athenians had to summon all available hoplites ; even then they were still probably outnumbered at least 2 to 1. Furthermore, raising such

10304-749: The sanctuary of Poseidon called the Panionium . The Ionians (who had amalgamated with the Carians) had decided to continue the worship of Poseidon. Eventually, a new temple to the god was erected about 540 BC. (Its ruins and the location of Melia were part of the Lohmann et al. discoveries of 2004; prior to then, other theories of the location had been prevalent.) [REDACTED] Media related to Ionian League at Wikimedia Commons Herodotus Herodotus ( Ancient Greek : Ἡρόδοτος , romanized :  Hēródotos ; c.  484  – c.  425 BC)

10416-399: The second theory is correct, then the Athenians were merely reacting to the Persians attacking them. Since the Persian force obviously contained a high proportion of missile troops, a static defensive position would have made little sense for the Athenians; the strength of the hoplite was in the melee, and the sooner that could be brought about, the better, from the Athenian point of view. If

10528-427: The second theory is correct, this raises the further question of why the Persians, having hesitated for several days, then attacked. There may have been several strategic reasons for this; perhaps they were aware (or suspected) that the Athenians were expecting reinforcements. Alternatively, they may have felt the need to force some kind of victory—they could hardly remain at Marathon indefinitely. The distance between

10640-470: The son of Sphynx lies; in Ionic history without peer; a Dorian born, who fled from slander's brand and made in Thuria his new native land. Yet it was in Athens where his most formidable contemporary critics could be found. In 425 BC, which is about the time that Herodotus is thought by many scholars to have died, the Athenian comic dramatist Aristophanes created The Acharnians , in which he blames

10752-521: The states of mainland Greece for support, but only Athens and Eretria offered to send troops. The involvement of Athens in the Ionian Revolt arose from a complex set of circumstances, beginning with the establishment of the Athenian Democracy in the late 6th century BC. In 510 BC, with the aid of Cleomenes I , King of Sparta , the Athenian people had expelled Hippias , the tyrant ruler of Athens. With Hippias's father Peisistratus ,

10864-482: The traditionally powerful Alcmaeonidae family, who considered themselves the natural heirs to the rule of Athens. Cleisthenes, however, found himself being politically defeated by a coalition led by Isagoras and decided to change the rules of the game by appealing to the demos (the people), in effect making them a new faction in the political arena. This tactic succeeded, but the Spartan King, Cleomenes I, returned at

10976-533: The two armies at the point of battle had narrowed to "a distance not less than 8 stadia" or about 1,500 meters. Miltiades ordered the two tribes forming the center of the Greek formation, the Leontis tribe led by Themistocles and the Antiochis tribe led by Aristides , to be arranged in the depth of four ranks while the rest of the tribes at their flanks were in ranks of eight. Some modern commentators have suggested this

11088-415: The two exits from the plain of Marathon, and prevent the Persians moving inland. At the same time, Athens's greatest runner, Pheidippides (or Philippides in some accounts) had been sent to Sparta to request that the Spartan army march to the aid of Athens. Pheidippides arrived during the festival of Carneia , a sacrosanct period of peace, and was informed that the Spartan army could not march to war until

11200-461: The various cities, some were incorporated into others over time (e.g. Myus became part of Miletus). One of the earliest known historical sources, the Histories of Herodotus , and early inscriptions refer to the legally constituted body customarily translated by "league" as "the Ionians" in the special sense of the cities incorporated by it. One therefore reads of the cities, council or decisions "of

11312-448: Was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus , part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum , Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria , Italy. He wrote the Histories , a detailed account of the Greco-Persian Wars , and was the first writer to apply a scientific method to historical events. He has been described as " The Father of History ",

11424-407: Was a deliberate ploy to encourage a double envelopment of the Persian centre. However, this suggests a level of training that the Greeks are thought not to have possessed. There is little evidence for any such tactical thinking in Greek battles until Leuctra in 371 BC. It is therefore possible that this arrangement was made, perhaps at the last moment, so that the Athenian line was as long as

11536-567: Was a response to Athenian involvement in the Ionian Revolt , when Athens and Eretria sent a force to support the cities of Ionia in their attempt to overthrow Persian rule. The Athenians and Eretrians had succeeded in capturing and burning Sardis , but they were then forced to retreat with heavy losses. In response to this raid, Darius swore to burn down Athens and Eretria. According to Herodotus , Darius had his bow brought to him and then shot an arrow "upwards towards heaven", saying as he did so: "Zeus, that it may be granted me to take vengeance upon

11648-513: Was a watershed in the Greco-Persian wars, showing the Greeks that the Persians could be beaten; the eventual Greek triumph in these wars can be seen to have begun at Marathon. The battle also showed the Greeks that they were able to win battles without the Spartans, as Sparta was seen as the major military force in Greece. This victory was overwhelmingly won by the Athenians, and Marathon raised Greek esteem of them. The following two hundred years saw

11760-561: Was also applicable to Greece as a whole; "their victory endowed the Greeks with a faith in their destiny that was to endure for three centuries, during which Western culture was born". John Stuart Mill 's famous opinion was that "the Battle of Marathon, even as an event in British history, is more important than the Battle of Hastings ". According to Isaac Asimov , "if the Athenians had lost in Marathon, . . . Greece might have never gone to develop

11872-418: Was an enormously significant victory. It was the first time the Greeks had beaten the Persians, proving that the Persians were not invincible, and that resistance, rather than subjugation, was possible. The battle was a defining moment for the young Athenian democracy, showing what might be achieved through unity and self-belief; indeed, the battle effectively marks the start of a "golden age" for Athens. This

11984-405: Was evidently lightly armoured, and no match for hoplites in a head-on confrontation (as would be demonstrated at the later battles of Thermopylae and Plataea . ) Since the Athenians seem to have taken up a strong defensive position at Marathon, the Persian hesitance was probably a reluctance to attack the Athenians head-on. The camp of the Athenians was located on a spur of mount Agrieliki next to

12096-484: Was evidently much to the surprise of the Persians; "... in their minds they charged the Athenians with madness which must be fatal, seeing that they were few and yet were pressing forwards at a run, having neither cavalry nor archers". Indeed, based on their previous experience of the Greeks, the Persians might be excused for this; Herodotus tells us that the Athenians at Marathon were "first to endure looking at Median dress and men wearing it, for up until then just hearing

12208-431: Was not actually a democracy or a real civic state, but he enabled the development of a fully democratic government, which would emerge in the next generation as the demos realized its power. The new-found freedom and self-governance of the Athenians meant that they were thereafter exceptionally hostile to the return of the tyranny of Hippias, or any form of outside subjugation, by Sparta, Persia, or anyone else. Cleomenes

12320-458: Was not pleased with events, and marched on Athens with the Spartan army. Cleomenes's attempts to restore Isagoras to Athens ended in a debacle, but fearing the worst, the Athenians had by this point already sent an embassy to Artaphernes in Sardis, to request aid from the Persian empire. Artaphernes requested that the Athenians give him an ' earth and water ', a traditional token of submission, to which

12432-467: Was one of these. In addition, in overall charge, was the War- Archon ( polemarch ), Callimachus , who had been elected by the whole citizen body. Herodotus suggests that command rotated between the strategoi , each taking in turn a day to command the army. He further suggests that each strategos , on his day in command, instead deferred to Miltiades. In Herodotus's account, Miltiades is keen to attack

12544-435: Was the common Persian tactic). In the immediate aftermath of the battle, Herodotus says that the Persian fleet sailed around Cape Sounion to attack Athens directly. As has been discussed above , some modern historians place this attempt just before the battle. Either way, the Athenians evidently realised that their city was still under threat, and marched as quickly as possible back to Athens. The two tribes which had been in

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