Persian Empire
Q & A 6 min read

What Happened at the Battle of Marathon (490 BCE)

The Battle of Marathon, fought on the plain of Marathon about 42 km northeast of Athens in September 490 BCE, was the first major land battle between the forces of the Achaemenid Empire and the Greek city-states. The Persian expedition under Datis and Artaphernes was defeated by the Athenian army under Miltiades. The Greek victory ended Darius I’s first invasion of Greece, and it set the stage for the much larger Greek-Persian confrontation of 480 BCE. The standard treatment in English is Herodotus book 6; the modern scholarly account is W. Kendrick Pritchett, The Greek State at War, vol. V (1991).

The background

The battle was the culmination of a long-simmering conflict between the Persian Empire and the Greek world. The Greek cities of Ionia, on the Aegean coast of Asia Minor, had been subject to Persia since the conquests of Cyrus the Great, and they had grown increasingly restive under the rule of the Persian-installed tyrants. In 499 BCE the Ionian Greeks revolted against Persia, with the support of Athens and Eretria. The revolt was accompanied by a Greek expedition to Sardis, the capital of the Persian satrapy of Lydia, which the Greeks succeeded in burning. The burning of Sardis was a serious affront to Persian prestige, and Darius the Great resolved to punish Athens and Eretria. According to Herodotus (5.105), Darius ordered a servant to repeat to him at every dinner, “Master, remember the Athenians.”

The Ionian revolt was eventually crushed by the Persian generals, with the help of the Phoenician fleet, and the Ionian Greek cities were brought back under Persian control. The revolt had demonstrated, however, that the Persian hold on the Aegean was not unbreakable. Darius resolved to send a punitive expedition against Athens and Eretria, the two Greek cities that had supported the Ionian revolt.

The Persian expedition

The Persian expedition of 490 BCE was a major undertaking. Modern scholars put the army at perhaps 25,000 men, supported by a fleet of perhaps 600 triremes; Herodotus does not give a precise army number, and the 25,000 figure is a modern estimate, not a Herodotean one. The expedition was commanded by two of Darius’ most experienced generals: Datis, a Mede, and Artaphernes, the son of the satrap of Sardis.

The expedition sailed from Cilicia across the Aegean, first attacking Naxos, which had been a centre of resistance to Persia, and then sailing to the island of Euboea, where the city of Eretria was besieged and captured. The population of Eretria was enslaved, and the temples of the city were burned, in what the Greeks saw as retaliation for the burning of Sardis. The expedition then sailed south to the Bay of Marathon, on the northeastern coast of Attica, which offered a good harbour and a plain suitable for the deployment of cavalry. The Persian army landed, set up camp, and prepared to march on Athens.

The news of the Persian landing threw Athens into a panic, and a messenger, Pheidippides (or Philippides), was sent to Sparta to ask for help, covering the distance of about 230 km in two days, according to the tradition later reported by Plutarch via Herodotus 6.105–106. The Spartans, who were celebrating the Carneian festival, agreed to help but could not march immediately, and they arrived at Marathon only after the battle was over.

The battle

The Athenian army, under the command of the strategos Miltiades, marched to Marathon and encamped on a hill overlooking the plain. The Athenians were joined by a small force of about 1,000 Plataeans, the only Greek city that sent help, in accordance with an old alliance. The Athenian force numbered perhaps 10,000 hoplites, while the Persian force is estimated by modern scholars at perhaps 20,000 to 25,000 men, including infantry and cavalry. The two armies faced each other for several days, and there was considerable debate among the Athenian generals about whether to attack, to wait, or to retreat behind the walls of Athens.

The decision to attack was made by a narrow margin. According to Herodotus, Miltiades persuaded the polemarch Callimachus to vote in favour of battle, and the ten Athenian strategoi decided to attack. The Greek army, about 10,000 strong, was arranged in a line that was stronger in the wings than in the centre, with the intention of drawing the Persian centre forward and enveloping the Persian wings. The Greek hoplites, in heavy bronze armour, advanced at a run across the plain, closing the distance before the Persian archers could inflict serious casualties. The Greek wings were successful; the Greek centre was broken by the Persian infantry. The Greek wings, having defeated the Persian wings, then turned inward to attack the Persian centre, and the Persian army was routed. The Persian fleet, anchored in the bay, was unable to take on the fleeing troops, and the Persian army withdrew to Asia.

Casualties and aftermath

The casualties were significant. According to Herodotus, the Athenians lost 192 men killed, and the Plataeans lost 11, while the Persians lost about 6,400. The Persian figures are probably exaggerated, but the relative order of magnitude is clear: the Greek army was victorious, and the Persian army was decisively defeated. The dead Athenians were buried on the plain of Marathon in a tumulus that is still visible today.

The aftermath of Marathon was decisive for the subsequent history of the ancient world. The Persian expedition of 490 BCE had been defeated, and the Persian hold on the Aegean was seriously weakened. Darius, who had been planning a larger campaign against Greece, died in 486 BCE before the plan could be carried out. His son Xerxes I took up the project and led the great invasion of 480 BCE, with the battles of Thermopylae, Salamis, and Plataea. The decade between Marathon and Salamis saw the Athenians, under Themistocles, use the newly discovered silver of the Laurion mines to build a fleet of 200 triremes, on the grounds that Athens would need a powerful navy to face the Persian threat.

The tactical lesson

The tactical lesson of Marathon is clear: the Greek hoplite phalanx, fighting in heavy armour on a narrow front, proved superior to the Persian infantry, which relied on missile weapons and lighter armour. The Greek victory gave the Athenian democracy the confidence to embark on the great project of building a maritime empire in the Aegean, and the Greek world as a whole the confidence to resist the second Persian invasion in 480 BCE.

The strategic lesson, which the Greeks did not draw at the time, is more interesting. The Persian expedition of 490 BCE was a punitive raid, not an invasion of conquest, and the Persian state that sent it was already past the peak of its expansion. Darius’s death in 486 BCE and the troubles of Xerxes’ succession marked the beginning of a long period in which the Achaemenid state was on the defensive against the Greek world. Marathon was the first battle in which the Greeks defeated a Persian army in a stand-up fight on land, and it changed the morale of both sides. The Persian expedition of 480 BCE was much larger, and the Greek victory at Salamis was much more decisive, but the morale change starts at Marathon.

Reading

  • Herodotus, The Histories, book 6. Translated by Robin Waterfield (1998), with commentary
  • Pritchett, W. Kendrick. The Greek State at War, vol. V (1991)
  • Bicknell, P. J. “The Battle of Marathon” in Antichthon 6 (1972)
  • Holland, Tom. Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West (2005)
  • Briant, Pierre. From Cyrus to Alexander (2002)