The Athenians At Marathon

The time came when Darius of Persia did not need the bidding of a slave

to make him "Remember the Athenians." He was taught a lesson on the

battle-field of Marathon that made it impossible for him ever to forget

the Athenian name. Having dismally failed in his expedition against the

Scythians, he invaded Greece and failed as dismally. It is the story of

this important event which we have next to tell.



And here it may be well to remark what terrible consequences to mankind

the ambition of a single man may cause. The invasion of Greece, and all

that came from it, can be traced in a direct line of events from the

deeds of Histiaeus, tyrant of Miletus, who first saved Darius from

annihilation by the Scythians, then roused the Ionians to rebellion,

and, finally, through the medium of Aristagoras, induced the Athenians

to come to their aid and take part in the burning of Sardis. This roused

Darius, who had dwelt at Susa for many years in peace, to a thirst for

revenge on Athens, and gave rise to that series of invasions which

ravaged Greece for many years, and whose fitting sequel was the invasion

and conquest of Persia by Alexander the Great, a century and a half

later.



And now, with this preliminary statement, we may proceed with our tale.

No sooner had the Ionian revolt been brought to an end, and the Ionians

punished for their daring, than the angry Oriental despot prepared to

visit upon Athens the vengeance he had vowed. His preparations for this

enterprise were great. His experience in Scythia had taught him that the

Western barbarians--as he doubtless considered them--were not to be

despised. For two years, in every part of his vast empire, the note of

war was sounded, and men and munitions of war were actively gathered. On

the coast of Asia Minor a great fleet, numbering six hundred armed

triremes and many transports for men and horses, was prepared. The

Ionian and AEolian Greeks largely manned this fleet, and were forced to

aid their late foe in the effort to destroy their kinsmen beyond the

archipelago of the AEgean Sea.



An Athenian traitor accompanied the Persians, and guided their leader in

the advance against his native city. We have elsewhere spoken of

Pisistratus, the tyrant of Athens, whose treason Solon had in vain

endeavored to prevent. After his death, his sons Hipparchus and Hippias

succeeded him in the tyranny. Hipparchus was killed in 514 B.C., and in

511 Hippias, who had shown himself a cruel despot, was banished from

Athens. He repaired to the court of King Darius, where he dwelt many

years. Now he came back, as guide and counsellor to the Persians,

hoping, perhaps, to become again a despot of Athens; but only, as the

fates decreed, to find a grave on the fatal field of Marathon.



The assault on Greece was a twofold one. The first was defeated by

nature, the second by man. A land expedition, led by the Persian general

Mardonius, crossed the Hellespont in the year 493 B.C., proposing to

march to Athens along the coast, and with orders to bring all that were

left alive of its inhabitants as captives to the great king. On marched

the great host, nothing doubting that Greece would fall an easy prey to

their arms. And as they marched along the land, the fleet followed them

along the adjoining sea, until the stormy and perilous promontory of

Mount Athos was reached.



No doubt the Greeks viewed with deep alarm this formidable progress.

They had never yet directly measured arms with the Persians, and dreaded

them more than, as was afterwards shown, they had reason to. But at

Mount Athos the deities of the winds came to their aid. As the fleet was

rounding that promontory, often fatal to mariners, a frightful hurricane

swooped upon it, and destroyed three hundred of its ships, while no less

than twenty thousand men became victims of the waves. Some of the crews

reached the shores, but of these many died of cold, and others were

slain and devoured by wild beasts, which roamed in numbers on that

uninhabited point of land. The land army, too, lost heavily from the

hurricane; and Mardonius, fearing to advance farther after this

disaster, ingloriously made his way back to the Hellespont. So ended the

first invasion of Greece.



Three years afterwards another was made. Darius, indeed, first sent

heralds to Greece, demanding earth and water in token of submission to

his will. To this demand some of the cities cowardly yielded; but

Athens, Sparta, and others sent back the heralds with no more earth than

clung to the soles of their shoes. And so, as Greece was not to be

subdued through terror of his name, the great king prepared to make it

feel his power and wrath, incited thereto by his hatred of Athens, which

Hippias took care to keep alive. Another expedition was prepared, and

put under the command of another general, Datis by name.



The army was now sent by a new route. Darius himself had led his army

across the Bosphorus, where Constantinople now stands, and where

Byzantium then stood. Mardonius conveyed his across the southern strait,

the Hellespont. The third expedition was sent on shipboard directly

across the sea, landing and capturing the islands of the AEgean as it

advanced. Landing at length on the large island of Euboea, near the

coast of Attica, Datis stormed and captured the city of Eretria, burnt

its temples, and dragged its people into captivity. Then, putting his

army on shipboard again, he sailed across the narrow strait between

Euboea and Attica, and landed on Attic soil, in the ever-memorable Bay

of Marathon.



It seemed now, truly, as if Darius was about to gain his wish and

revenge himself on Athens. The plain of Marathon, where the great

Persian army had landed and lay encamped, is but twenty-two miles from

Athens by the nearest road,--scarcely a day's march. The plain is about

six miles long, and from a mile and a half to three miles in width,

extending back from the sea-shore to the rugged hills and mountains

which rise to bind it in. A brook flows across it to the sea, and

marshes occupy its ends. Such was the field on which one of the decisive

battles of the world was about to be fought.






The coming of the Persians had naturally filled the Athenians and all

the neighboring nations of Greece with alarm. Yet if any Athenian had a

thought of submission without fighting, he was wise enough to keep it to

himself. The Athenians of that day were a very different people from

what they had been fifty years before, when they tamely submitted to the

tyranny of Pisistratus. They had gained new laws, and with them a new

spirit. They were the freest people upon the earth,--a democracy in

which every man was the equal of every other, and in which each had a

full voice in the government of the state. They had their political

leaders, it is true, but these were their fellow-citizens, who ruled

through intellect, not through despotism.



There were now three such men in Athens,--men who have won an enduring

fame. One of these was that Miltiades who had counselled the destruction

of Darius's bridge of boats. The others were named Themistocles and

Aristides, concerning whom we shall have more to say. These three were

among the ten generals who commanded the army of Athens, and each of

whom, according to the new laws, was to have command for a day. It was

fortunate for the Athenians that they had the wit to set aside this law

on this important occasion, since such a divided generalship must surely

have led to defeat and disaster.



But before telling what action was taken there is an important episode

to relate. Athens--as was common with the Greek cities when

threatened--did not fail to send to Sparta for aid. When the Persians

landed at Marathon, a swift courier, Phidippides by name, was sent to

that city for assistance, and so fleet of foot was he that he performed

the journey, of one hundred and fifty miles, in forty-eight hours' time.



The Spartans, who knew that the fall of Athens would soon be followed by

that of their own city, promised aid without hesitation. But

superstition stood in their way. It was, unfortunately, only the ninth

day of the moon. Ancient custom forbade them to march until the moon had

passed its full. This would be five days yet,--five days which might

cause the ruin of Greece. But old laws and observances held dominion at

Sparta, and, whatever came from it, the moon must pass its full before

the army could march.



When this decision was brought back by the courier to Athens it greatly

disturbed the public mind. Of the ten generals, five strongly counselled

that they should wait for Spartan help. The other five were in favor of

immediate action. Delay was dangerous with an enemy at their door and

many timid and doubtless some treacherous citizens within their walls.



Fortunately, there was an eleventh general, Callimachus, the war archon,

or polemarch, who had a casting vote in the council of generals, and

who, under persuasion of Miltiades, cast his vote for an immediate march

to Marathon. The other generals who favored this action gave up to

Miltiades their days of command, making him sole leader for that length

of time. Herodotus says that he refused to fight till his own day came

regularly round,--but we can scarcely believe that a general of his

ability would risk defeat on such a childish point of honor. If so, he

should have been a Spartan, and waited for the passing of the full moon.



To Marathon, then, the men of Athens marched, and from its surrounding

hills looked down on the great Persian army that lay encamped beneath,

and on the fleet which seemed to fill the sea. Of those brave men there

were no more than ten thousand. And from all Greece but one small band

came to join them, a thousand men from the little town of Plataea. The

numbers of the foe we do not know. They may have been two hundred

thousand in all, though how many of these landed and took part in the

battle no one can tell. Doubtless they outnumbered the Athenians more

than ten to one.



Far along the plain stretched the lines of the Persians, with their

fleet behind them, extended along the beach. On the high ground in the

rear were marshalled the Greeks, spread out so long that their line was

perilously thin. The space of a mile separated the two armies.



And now, at the command of Miltiades, the valiant Athenians crossed this

dividing space at a full run, sounding their paean or war-cry as they

advanced. Miltiades was bent on coming to close quarters at once, so as

to prevent the enemy from getting their bowmen and cavalry at work.



The Persians, on seeing this seeming handful of men, without archers or

horsemen, advancing at a run upon their great array, deemed at first

that the Greeks had gone mad and were rushing wildly to destruction. The

ringing war-cry astounded them,--a Greek paean was new music to their

ears. And when the hoplites of Athens and Plataea broke upon their ranks,

thrusting and hewing with spear and sword, and with the strength gained

from exercises in the gymnasium, dread of these courageous and furious

warriors filled their souls. On both wings the Persian lines broke and

fled for their ships. But in the centre, where Datis had placed his best

men, and where the Athenian line was thinnest, the Greeks, breathless

from their long run, were broken and driven back. Seeing this, Miltiades

brought up his victorious wings, attacked the centre with his entire

force, and soon had the whole Persian army in full flight for its ships.



The marshes swallowed up many of the fleeing host. Hundreds fell before

the arms of the victors. Into the ships poured in terror those who had

escaped, followed hotly by the victorious Greeks, who made strenuous

efforts to set the ships on fire and destroy the entire host. In this

they failed. The Persians, made desperate by their peril, drove them

back. The fleet hastily set sail, leaving few prisoners, but abandoning

a rich harvest of tents and equipments to the victorious Greeks. Of the

Persian host, some sixty-four hundred lay dead on the field, the ships

having saved them from further slaughter. The Greek loss in dead was

only one hundred and ninety-two.



Yet, despite this signal victory, Greece was still in imminent danger.

Athens was undefended. The fleeing fleet might reach and capture it

before the army could return. In truth, the ships had sailed in this

direction, and from the top of a lofty hill Miltiades saw the polished

surface of a shield flash in the sunlight, and quickly guessed what it

meant. It was a signal made by some traitor to the Persian fleet.

Putting his army at once under march, despite the weariness of the

victors, he hastened back over the long twenty-two miles at all possible

speed, and the worn-out troops reached Athens barely in time to save it

from the approaching fleet.



The triumph of Miltiades was complete. Only for his quickness in

guessing the meaning of the flashing shield, and the rapidity of his

march, all the results of his great victory would have been lost, and

Athens fallen helpless into Persian arms. But Datis, finding the city

amply garrisoned, and baffled at every point, turned his ships and

sailed in defeat away, leaving the Athenians masters of city and field.



And now the Spartans--to whom the full moon had come too late--appeared,

two thousand strong, only in time to congratulate the victors and view

the dead Persians on the field. They had marched the whole distance in

less than three days. As for the Athenian dead, they were buried with

great ceremony on the plain where they fell, and the great mound which

covers them is visible there to this day.