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Battle of Marathon

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Ancient History,
Classical History and Mythology

                          Battle of Marathon
   Part of the Greco-Persian Wars
   The plain of Marathon today.

     Date   September, 490 BC
   Location Marathon, Greece
    Result  Athenian victory
                              Combatants
   Athens and Plataea Persia
                              Commanders
   Miltiades
   Callimachus†       Darius I of Persia
                      Datis†?
                      Artaphernes
                               Strength
   10,000 Athenians
   1,000 Plataeans    20,000-60,000 by modern estimates ^1
                              Casualties
   192 Athenians dead
   11 Plateans dead   6,400 dead
                      7 ships captured
   ^1 Ancient sources give numbers ranging from 200,000 to 600,000,
   however, these numbers cannot be taken as completely accurate as
   ancient historians are believed to exaggerate when giving Persian
   numbers.
   Greco-Persian Wars
   1st Naxos – Ephesus – Sardis – Lade – 2nd Naxos – Eretria – Marathon –
   Thermopylae – Artemisium – Salamis – Potidea – Olynthus – Plataea –
   Mycale – Sestus – Byzantium – Eion – Doriskos – Eurymedon – Pampremis –
   Prosoptis – Salamis in Cyprus

   The Battle of Marathon ( 490 BC) was the culmination of King Darius I
   of Persia's first major attempt to conquer the remainder of the Greeks
   and incorporate it into the Persian Empire, to secure the weakest
   portion of his Western border. Most of what is known of this battle
   comes from Herodotus.

   Darius first sent Mardonius, in 492 BC, via a land route to Europe to
   strengthen Persia's hold of Thrace and Macedon, which had been weakened
   by the Ionian Revolt. Although successful, most of this force perished
   in a storm off Mount Athos, and the remainder was forced to return to
   Asia, losing men along the way. In 490 BC, Datis and Artaphernes were
   sent in a maritime operation to subjugate the Cyclades islands in the
   central Aegean and punish Eretria and Athens for their assistance in
   the Ionian revolt. Eretria was besieged and fell; then the fleet landed
   in Marathon bay. There they were defeated by a small force of Athenian
   and Plataean hoplites, despite their numerical advantage. The long run
   of the messenger who conveyed news of the victory to Athens became the
   inspiration for the marathon race, which was first staged at the 1896
   Olympic Games.

Background

   In 510 BC, with the aid of Cleomenes I, King of Sparta, the Athenian
   people expelled Hippias, the tyrant ruler of Athens. With Hippias'
   father Peisistratus, the family had ruled for 36 out of the previous 50
   years and intended to continue Hippias' rule. Hippias fled to Sardis to
   the court of the nearest Persian satrap, Artaphernes, and promised
   control of Athens to the Persians if they were to restore him. When the
   Athenians demanded he be expelled, the satrap suggested that they ought
   to restore him to power. This answer moved Athens to consider herself
   at war with the Persians, and they gave assistance, in the form of 20
   boats, to the Ionian cities embroiled in the Ionian Revolt ( 499 BC–
   494 BC). Hippias had probably fled to the court of king Darius during
   the revolt.

   The city of Eretria had also given assistance to the Ionians. Though
   the assistance sent by the two cities was not very effective, it
   alarmed Darius and he wished to mete punishment on the two cities. In
   492 BC, he dispatched an army under the command of his son-in-law,
   Mardonius, to Greece. Mardonius conquered Thrace and thus compelled
   Alexander I of Macedon to relinquish his kingdom again to Persia.
   However, while en route south to the Greek city-states, the Persian
   fleet was wrecked in a storm in Cape Athos, losing 300 ships and 20,000
   men. Mardonius was forced to retreat to Asia. Attacks by Thracian
   tribes incurred losses to the retreating army.

   Darius learned, perhaps through Hippias, the Alcmaeonidae, a powerful
   Athenian family, were opposed to Miltiades, who at the time was the
   most prominent politician of Athens. While they were not ready to help
   reinstate Hippias (they had helped overthrow him), they probably
   believed a Persian victory was inevitable and wanted to secure a better
   position in the new political regime that was to follow the Persian
   conquest of Athens. Darius wished to take advantage of this situation
   to conquer Athens, which would isolate Sparta and, by handing him the
   remainder of the Greeks in the Aegean, would to consolidate his control
   over Ionia. In order for the Athenians to revolt, two things would need
   to happen: the populace would need to be encouraged to revolt, and the
   Athenian army would have to leave Athens so that they could not crush
   it.

   Darius decided to send a purely maritime expedition led by Artaphernes
   and Datis, a Median admiral—Mardonius had been injured in the prior
   campaign and had fallen out of favour—with the intention to punish
   Naxos (whose resistance to Persian attack in 499 BC led to the Ionian
   revolt) and force Eretria and Athens to submit to the Great King or be
   destroyed.

Size of opposing forces

   Modern drawing of a phalanx. The hoplites were not actually uniformly
   equipped because each soldier would buy his own arms and decorate them
   at his discretion.
   Enlarge
   Modern drawing of a phalanx. The hoplites were not actually uniformly
   equipped because each soldier would buy his own arms and decorate them
   at his discretion.

   According to Herodotus, the fleet sent by Darius consisted of 600
   triremes, whereas, according to Cornelius Nepos, there were only 500.

   The historical sources do not reveal how many transport ships
   accompanied them, if so. According to Herodotus, 3,000 transport ships
   accompanied 1,207 ships during Xerxes's invasion in 480 BC. Stecchini
   estimates the whole fleet comprised 600 ships altogether: 300 triremes
   and 300 transports; while Peter Green says there were 200 triremes and
   400 transports. Ten years earlier, 200 triremes failed to subdue Naxos,
   so a 200 or 300 trireme fleet is perhaps inadequate for all three
   objectives.

   Herodotus does not estimate the size of either army. Of the Persian
   army, he says they were a large infantry that was well packed . Among
   ancient sources, 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 assert 500,000; and Justinus 600,000.

   Modern historians have also made various estimates. As Kampouris has
   noted, if the 600 ships were warships and not transport ships, with 30
   epibates soldiers in each ship—the ships' foot soldiers that formed and
   defended from boarding parties during the sea battles—(typical for
   Persian ships after the Battle of Lade; this was how many they had
   during Xerxes' invasion), the number 18,000 is attained for the troops.
   But since the fleet did have transport ships, it must have at least
   carried the Persian cavalry. Whereas Herodotus claims the cavalry was
   carried in the triremes, the Persian fleet had dedicated ships for this
   undertaking, and according to Ephorus, 800 transports accompanied
   Xerxes' invasion fleet 10 years later. Estimates for the cavalry are
   usually in the 1,000–3,000 range, though as noted earlier Cornelius
   Nepos gives 10,000.

   Other modern historians have proposed other numbers for the infantry.
   Kleanthis Sandayiosis talks of 60,000 to 100,000 Persian soldiers;
   Christian Meier talks of over 90,000 battle troops, Peter Green of over
   80,000 including the rowers; Stecchini believes there were 60,000
   Persian soldiers in Marathon . Bussolt and Glotz) talk of 50,000 battle
   troops; general Dimitrios Gedeon believes there were 48,000 soldiers;
   while How & Wells estimate 40,000 Persians landed in Marathon; and
   Bengtson believes that there were no more than 20,000 Persians.
   Scholars claiming relatively small numbers for Persian troops argue
   that the army could not be very big in order to fit in the ships, which
   is rejected by scholars who claim large numbers, whose counterargument
   is as follows: if the Persian army was small, then the Eretrians
   combined with the Athenians and Plateans could match it, and possibly
   have sought battle outside Eretria. Naxos alone could field "8,000
   shields" in 500 BC and with this force successfully defended against
   the 200-ship Persian invasion 10 years earlier.

   The size of the Athenian army is another subject of debate. Some recent
   historians have given around 7,000–8,000, while others favour 10,000.
   Pausanias asserts it did not surpass 9,000, while Justinus and
   Cornelius Nepos both give 10,000 as the number of the Athenians.
   Herodotus tells us that at the Battle of Plataea eleven years later the
   Athenians sent 8,000 hoplites while others were at the same time
   engaged as epibates in the fleet that later fought at the battle of
   Mycale. Pausanias noticed in the trophy of the battle the names of
   former slaves who were freed in exchange for military services. Also,
   it is possible that metoikoi, non-Athenian Greeks residing in Athens,
   were drafted since they had military obligations to Athens in times of
   great emergency (for example in 460 BC). However, for Marathon, this is
   not mentioned by any surviving source, and their number in Athens was
   not as significant in 490 BC as it became later in the century when
   Athens became head of the Delian League.

   Athens at that time could have fielded at least four times the force it
   did had it chosen to also send light troops consisting of the lower
   classes, for ten years later at the Battle of Salamis it had a 180
   trireme fleet that was manned by 32,000 rowers, and had lost some 60
   ships earlier in the Battle of Artemisium. Why this did not happen has
   been subject to speculation. Kampouris, among others, notes that the
   political leanings of the lower classes were unreliable. After the
   Ionic revolt had shown the general unreliability of tyrants to the
   Persian empire, Artafernes, in 494 BC, had changed the regime of the
   Ionian city-states from tyranny to democracy, thus setting an example
   that was later copied, among others, by the Second Athenian Alliance
   and Alexander the Great. There the power rested on the poor with the
   Persian army in place to rein in any move that threatened Persia's
   position. Some of the poor who remembered Pesistratus well, since he
   had given them jobs, probably hoped for a victory of the Persians and a
   change in regime to give them more power, which is one of the reasons
   Hippias ordered the landing in Marathon where the vast majority of
   local inhabitants were from these social classes. On the other hand,
   the Persian army hoped for an internal revolution in Athens so as to
   have an easy victory as in Eretria.

Datis and Artaphernes' campaign before Marathon

   German map of the Persian Wars. Datis and Artapherne's campaign is the
   green line
   Enlarge
   German map of the Persian Wars. Datis and Artapherne's campaign is the
   green line

   After one year of preparations, the expeditionary force first gathered
   on Cilicia in the spring of 490 BC. The army boarded the Persian
   transports, escorted by the fleet, sailed to Samos and from there to
   Naxos. After a fruitless campaign there (the Naxians fled to the
   mountains of their island and the Persians became masters of a deserted
   city), it sailed at first across the Cyclades islands and then for
   Carystus on the south coast of Euboea, which quickly surrendered. From
   there, they sailed up the Euboean channel to Eretria where their aims
   became clear to the Greeks.

   The Eretrians sent an urgent message to Athens for help. The Athenians
   agreed, but realized they needed more help. They sent the courier
   Pheidippides to the Spartans and probably messengers to other cities.
   Pheidippides arrived in Sparta on the next day, the ninth of the month.
   According to Herodotus, the Spartans agreed to help, but being
   superstitious, said that they could not march to war until the Carneian
   festival ended on the full moon ( September 9). Some modern historians
   hold that the Spartans set out late because of a helot revolution, and
   claim this was the time of a revolution mentioned by Plato.

   The only ones to stand by the Athenians in the battle were the
   Plataeans. The small Boeotian city of Plataea had allied itself with
   Athens in the sixth century BC against Thebes and decided to repay the
   help by coming to assist the Athenians in their time of need, just as
   the Athenians had come to their need earlier. Their forces numbered,
   according to Cornelius Nepos, 1000 hoplites. The Athenian-Plataean
   alliance was to continue until the end of Greek independence to the
   Romans, in the second century BC.

   As to what was the course of the Persian fleet after Carystos, there is
   disagreement among modern historians. Some claim that Artaphernes took
   part of the Persian army and laid siege to Eretria, while the remainder
   of the army crossed with Datis and landed in the Bay of Marathon.
   Others claim that the events happened consecutively: at first Eretria
   was besieged and fell, and later the whole army landed at Schinias
   beach. Herodotus reports that there was a council of the 10 tribal
   Strategoi, with five voting for moving to confront the enemy and five
   voting against it. Callimachus was the polemarch in that year, one of
   the nine archons or leaders of Athens. Until a few years earlier, power
   in Athens resided in the nine archons who at the time were elected.
   There was a constitutional change though a few years earlier and the
   archons were chosen by lot, thus turning the polemarch's leadership
   into a symbolic power. Due to the deadlock, it was decided by the
   elected tribal generals to ask for his opinion. After a very dramatic
   appeal by Miltiades, he cast the deciding vote in favour of attack.
   Thus, an Athenian army made of hoplites (numbering probably 10,000)
   under the polemarch, marched to the north and east from Athens to meet
   the enemy near the landing site.

   The army encamped near the shrine of Heracles, where they blocked the
   way to Athens in an easily defendable position. The position also
   permitted intervention in Athens, had any revolution taken place. The
   Plataeans joined them there. The army was composed of men from the
   aristocracy—the upper and upper-middle classes—since armament in
   ancient Greece was the responsibility of the individual and not of the
   state (even in Sparta), so men armed themselves for battle with
   whatever they could afford. Before Ephialte's constitutional reforms in
   457 BC, most power rested on these social classes since many positions
   of significant political power in the regime were reserved for those
   who had significant property.

Before the battle

   An ancient Greek hoplite. From a map created by the Department of
   History, United States Military Academy, West Point.
   Enlarge
   An ancient Greek hoplite. From a map created by the Department of
   History, United States Military Academy, West Point.

   For five days, the armies peacefully confronted each other, hoping for
   developments, with the Athenian army slowly narrowing the distance
   between the two camps, with pikes cut from trees covering their sides
   against cavalry movements. Since time worked in favour of the
   Athenians, it probably was the Persian army that decided to move. On
   the sixth day, when Miltiades was the prytanevon general, a rather
   bureaucratic rank consistent with the duty officer of modern
   armies—either 12 September or possibly 12 August 490 BC reckoned in the
   proleptic Julian calendar—Artaphernes decided to move and attack
   Athens. The Athenians came to know from two Ionian defectors that the
   Persian cavalry was gone. Where and why, along with the Persian battle
   plan, has been a matter of debate. Several historians have supposed
   that this was either because the cavalry had boarded the ships, that it
   was inside the camp since it could not stay in the field during the
   night, or because it was moving along with the whole army among the
   northern route to reach the walls of Athens. It should be noted that
   Herodotus does not mention that the army was boarding the ships. Some
   light is given by the "χωρίς ἰππεῖς" (=without cavalry) entry of the
   Suda dictionary. It states: "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".

   According to Herodotus, by that point the generals had decided to give
   up their rotating leadership of the army in favour of Miltiades, who
   decided to move against the Persians very early in that morning. The
   distance between the two armies had narrowed to a distance not less
   than 8 stadia or about 1500 meters, which they covered running, much to
   the surprise on the Persians who 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. It is also a matter of debate whether the Greek army ran the
   whole distance or marched until they reached the limit of the archers'
   effectiveness, the "beaten zone", or roughly 200 yards, and then ran
   towards the ranks of their enemy. Proponents of the latter opinion note
   that it is very hard to run that large a distance carrying the heavy
   weight of the hoplitic armor. Proponents of the former opinion note the
   following arguments: the ancient Greeks—as indicated by the surviving
   statues—were in very good physical condition (the hoplite run had
   recently become an Olympic sport), and if they had run the entire
   distance, it would have been covered in about 5 minutes, whereas if
   they had marched, it would have probably taken 10—enough time for the
   Persians to react, which they did not.

Composition and formation of Persian forces

   Lancers, detail from the archers' frieze in Darius' palace, Susa.
   Silicious glazed bricks, c. 510 BC. Louvre
   Enlarge
   Lancers, detail from the archers' frieze in Darius' palace, Susa.
   Silicious glazed bricks, c. 510 BC. Louvre

   The bulk of Persian infantry were probably Takabara lightly armed
   archers. Several lines of evidence support this. First of all,
   Herodotus does not mention a shield wall in Marathon, that was typical
   of the heavier Sparabara formation, as he specifically mentions in the
   Battle of Plataea and the Battle of Mycale. Also, in the depiction of
   the battle of Marathon in the Poikele Stoa that was dedicated a few
   years later in 460 BC when most veterans of the war were still alive,
   that is described by Pausanias, only Takabara infantry are depicted.
   Finally, it seems more likely that the Persians would have sent the
   more multipurpose Takabara soldiers for a maritime operation than the
   specialized Sparabara heavy (by Persian standards) infantry. The
   Takabara troops carried a small woven shield, probably incapable of
   withstanding heavy blows from the spears of the hoplites. The usual
   tactic of the Persian army was for the archers to shoot volleys of
   arrows to weaken and disorganise their enemy while their excellent
   cavalry destroyed the enemy. On the other hand, the ὄπλον (hoplon), the
   heavy shield of the hoplites (which gave them their name) was capable
   of protecting the man who was carrying it (or more usually the man on
   his left) from both the arrows and the spears of its enemies.

   During the Ionian revolt, the phalanx was seriously weakened by the
   arrows of the Persian archers before it reached hand to hand combat
   with them—where it excelled—because it moved slowly in order to
   maintain formation. This is why Miltiades, who had great experience
   with the Persian army since he was forced to follow it during its
   campaign in Scythia in 513 BC, ordered his army to run. This could have
   meant that they could end up fighting in disordered ranks. Herodotus,
   however, mentions in the description of the battle that the retreat of
   the center happened in order, meaning that the formation was not broken
   during the initial rush. This is supported by the fact that there were
   few casualties in that phase of the battle. The Greek centre was
   reduced to four ranks, from the normal eight. The wings maintained
   their eight ranks. If Miltiades only wanted to extend the line and
   prevent the Persian line from overlapping the Greeks, he would have
   weakened, uniformly, the whole army so as not to leave weak points. But
   Herodotus categorically states that it was a conscious decision by
   Miltiades to strengthen the sides.
   The initial positions of the troops before the clash. The Greeks (blue)
   have pulled up their wings to bolster the corners of their
   significantly smaller centre in a ]] shape. The Persian fleet (red)
   waits some way off to the east. This great distance to the ships played
   a crucial role in the later stages of the battle.
   Enlarge
   The initial positions of the troops before the clash. The Greeks (blue)
   have pulled up their wings to bolster the corners of their
   significantly smaller centre in a ]] shape. The Persian fleet (red)
   waits some way off to the east. This great distance to the ships played
   a crucial role in the later stages of the battle.

   The front of the Greek army numbered 250 × 2 (for the centre tribes)
   plus 125 × 9 (for the side tribes and the Plateans) = 1,625 men. If the
   Persians had the same density as the Greeks and were 10 ranks strong
   then the Persian army opposing the Greeks numbered 16,000. men But if
   the front had a density of 1 meter compared to 1.4 meters for every
   Greek and had a density of 40 to 50 ranks as seems to be the maximum
   possible for the plain—the Persian army had even fought in 110
   ranks—then the Persian army numbered 44,000 to 55,000. If the Persian
   front numbered 2,000 men and they fought in 30 ranks (as Xenophon in
   Cyropaedia claims) they numbered 60,000. Kampouris suggests it numbered
   60,000 since that was the standard size of a major Persian formation
   equivalent to a modern day army corps.

The enemies engage in hand to hand combat

   The Greek wings (blue) envelop the Persian wings (red) while their
   strategically-thinned centre filled the gap made between them.
   Enlarge
   The Greek wings (blue) envelop the Persian wings (red) while their
   strategically-thinned centre filled the gap made between them.

   As the Greeks advanced, their strong wings drew ahead of the center,
   which retreated according to plan. The retreat must have been
   significant since Herodotus mentions that the centre retreated towards
   Mesogeia, not several steps. However, ranks did not break since the
   overall casualties were low, and most were sustained during the last
   phase of the battle. The Greek retreat in the centre, besides pulling
   the Persians in, also brought the Greek wings inwards, shortening the
   Greek line. The result was a double envelopment, and the battle ended
   when the whole Persian army, crowded into confusion, broke back in
   panic towards their ships and were pursued by the Greeks. The sides
   were left open so that the Persian ranks would break, since even a
   desperate army that maintained numerical advantage after a battle could
   still defeat its enemy. Some, unaware of the local terrain ran towards
   the swamps, where they drowned.

   Herodotus records that 6,400 Persian bodies were counted on the
   battlefield, and it is unknown how many perished in the swamps. Also
   seven Persian ships are mentioned captured though none are mentioned
   sunk. The Athenians lost 192 men and the Plateans 11 , most during the
   final chase when their heavy armor proved a disadvantage. Among the
   dead was Callimachus. A story is given to us about Kynaigeirus, brother
   of the playwright Aeschylus who was also among the fighters. He 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
   Kynaigeirus died.

Aftermath

   As soon as Datis had put to sea, the two centre tribes stayed to guard
   the battlefield and the rest of the Athenians marched to Athens. A
   shield had been raised over the mountain near the battle plain, which
   was either the signal of a successful Alcmaeonid revolution or
   (according to Herodotus) a signal that the Persian fleet was moving
   towards Phaliro. They arrived in time to prevent Artaphernes from
   securing a landing. Seeing his opportunity lost, Artaphernes turned
   about and returned to Asia. On the next day, the Spartan army arrived,
   having covered the 220 kilometers in only 3 days. Some modern
   historians doubt they traveled so fast. The Spartans toured the
   battlefield at Marathon, and agreed that the Athenians had won a great
   victory.

   The Greek upset of the Persians, who had not been defeated on land for
   many decades (except by Samagaetes and Scythes, both nomad tribes),
   caused great problems for the Persians. The Persians were shown as
   vulnerable. Many subject peoples revolted following the defeat of their
   overlords at Marathon. Order was not restored for several years.

   Simonides captured the feeling on his famous epigram

          Ελλήνων προμαχούντες Αθηναίοι Μαραθώνι
          χρυσοφόρων Μήδων εστόρεσαν δύναμιν

   which means

          Athenians fighting at the forefront of the Greeks in Marathon
          Humiliated the power of the gilded Medes

   For the Athenians, the victory gave confidence to the people. Two years
   later ostracism was exercised for the first time.

Conclusion

   Marathon was in no sense a decisive victory over the Persians. However,
   it was the first time the Greeks had bested the Persians on land, and
   "their victory endowed the Greeks with a faith in their destiny that
   was to endure for three centuries, during which western culture was
   born." (J.F.C. Fuller, A Military History of the Western World). John
   Stuart Mill's famous opinion is that the Battle of Marathon was more
   important an event for British history than the Battle of Hastings.
   Kampouris sees the battle as a failure of purely maritime operations,
   due to their inherent weaknesses.

   The longest-lasting legacy of Marathon was the double envelopment. Some
   historians have claimed it was random rather than a conscious decision
   by Miltiades. As they say, was it really Cannae before Cannae? In
   hoplitic battles, the two sides were usually stronger than the centre
   because either they were the weakest point (right side) or the
   strongest point (left side). However, before Miltiades (and after him
   until Epaminondas), this was only a matter of quality, not quantity.
   Miltiades had personal experience from the Persian army and knew its
   weaknesses. As his course of action after the battle shows (invasions
   of the Cyclades islands), he had an integrated strategy upon defeating
   the Persians, hence there is no reason he could have not thought of a
   good tactic. The double envelopment has been used ever since, e.g. the
   German Army used a tactic at the battle of Tannenberg during World War
   I similar to that used by the Greeks at Marathon.

Date of the battle

   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. August
   Böckh in 1855 concluded that the battle took place on 12 September 490
   BC in the Julian calendar, and this is the conventionally accepted
   date. However, this depends on when 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 12 August 490 BC.
   If the battle really occurred in August, temperatures in the area
   typically reach over 30 degrees Celsius and thus make the marathon run
   event less plausible. See D.W. Olson et al., "The Moon and the
   Marathon", Sky & Telescope Sep. 2004, pp. 34—41.

Religious and supernatural events associated with the battle

   A victory that important against a superior enemy was bound to have
   consequences on religious life. Herodotus mentions that Pheidippides
   was visited by the god Pan on his way to Sparta for help. He asked why
   the Athenians did not honour him and Pheidippides promised that they
   would to do so from now on. After the battle, a temple was built to
   him, and a sacrifice was annually offered. The festival of "Agroteras
   Thusia", (Thusia means sacrifice) was held at Agrae near Athens, in
   honour of Artemis Agrotera, in fulfillment of a vow made by the city,
   before the battle, to offer in sacrifice a number of goats equal to
   that of the Persians slain in the conflict. The number being so great,
   it was decided to offer 500 goats yearly. Plutarch mentions that the
   Athenians saw Theseus, the mythical hero of Athens leading the army in
   full battle gear in the charge against the Persians and indeed he was
   depicted in the mural of the Poikele Stoa along with the gods fighting
   for the Athenians. Furthermore Pausanias mentions that at times ghosts
   were seen and heard to engage in battle in Marathon. This phenomenon
   appears to have also been reported in the modern era: according to
   newspapers of the time in the year 1930, visitors to the region claimed
   to have heard a sound of metal clashes and screams coming from the
   battlefield. This event is usually mentioned in books about paranormal
   events in Greece and is usually associated with the drosoulites
   phenomenon of Southern Crete, though the scientific explanation given
   for the latter (a mirage from North Africa) can not explain the former
   event.

Marathon run

   According to Herodotus, an Athenian runner named Pheidippides ran from
   Athens to Sparta to ask for assistance before the battle. This event
   was later turned into the popular legend that Pheidippides ran from
   Marathon to Athens. The traditional story relates that Pheidippides, an
   Athenian herald, ran the distance between the battlefield by the town
   of Marathon to Athens to announce the Greek victory over Persia in the
   Battle of Marathon ( 490 BC) with the word "Νενικήκαμεν!" (Nenikékamen,
   We were victorious!) and died on the spot. Most accounts incorrectly
   attribute this story to the historian Herodotus, who wrote the history
   of the Persian Wars in his Histories (composed about 440 BC). The story
   first appears in Plutarch's On the Glory of Athens in the 1st century
   AD, who quotes from Heracleides of Pontus' lost work, giving the
   runner's name as either Thersipus of Erchius or Eucles. Lucian of
   Samosata (2nd century AD) also gives the story but names the runner
   Philippides (not Pheidippides). It should be noted that in some
   medieval codices of Herodotus the name of the runner between Athens and
   Sparta before the battle is given as Philippides and in a few modern
   editions this name is preferred.

   Another point of debate is the path taken by the runner. There are two
   exits from the battlefields. One is towards the south that follows
   modern-day Marathonos avenue leading through Pikermi over the pass of
   Stavros Agias Paraskevis and down modern day Messogeion avenue to
   Athens, which is 40.8 kilometers (25.3 miles) long—following the
   ancient roads, the modern road has been lengthened somewhat to
   accommodate vehicular traffic to and from Mesogeia. The other is
   towards the north, over the modern village of Vranas, up the relatively
   high mountain pass towards modern day Dionyssos and the northern
   suburbs of Athens, which is 34.5 kilometers (21.4 Miles) long. It is
   more likely that the runner followed the safer, shorter but more tiring
   northern route than the longer but unsafe southern route. For the first
   modern marathon during the 1896 Olympics, the southern route was chosen
   probably because it was the main modern route between Marathon and
   Athens. That event was won by the Greek Spyros Loues who, being a
   local, knew that he had to conserve energy to pass the Stavros Agias
   Paraskevis pass, unlike his foreign competitors who were unaware of the
   terrain and were abandoned there. The race today is run over a distance
   of 42.195 km (26.2 miles). This length was set during the 1908 Olympics
   because the royal family wanted to see the runners starting from the
   balcony of the palace.

   A popular legend about the battle and the run was recorded by Andreas
   Karkavitsas in the 19th century and also Linos Politis On the plain of
   Marathon there was once a big battle. Many Turcs with many ships came
   to enslave the land and from there pass to Athens... The blood turned
   into a river, and reached from the roots of Vranas until Marathon on
   the other side. It reached the sea and painted the waves red. Lots of
   lamentation and evil took place. In the end the Greeks won... Then two
   run to bring the news to Athens. One of them went on horseback and the
   other on foot and in full gear. The rider went towards Halandri and the
   one on foot towards Stamata. Swift-footed he went up Aforesmos and down
   towards the village. As women saw him they run towards him:

   Stamata, they shouted, stamata (=stop). They wanted to ask what
   happened in the battle. He stopped a moment to catch his breath and
   then took the road again. Finally he reaches Psychico. There he was
   almost near death (pige na ksepscyhesei) , his feet were shaking, he
   felt like falling down. But he composed himself, took a deep breath,
   continued and finally reached Athens.

   We won he said, and immediately he fell down and died. The rider has
   yet to come. But there where the foot runner stopped and took a breath
   is named after his act. The first village is called Stamata and the
   second Psychico.
   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Marathon"
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