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Marathon Memorials
Coming to Terms with War through Public Monuments in 5th century B.C. Greece
Prof. Dr. Natascha Sojc
Inaugural lecture 4 February 2011
(Draft 28.January)
Honoured rector,
members of the Byvanck board and trustees of this special chair,
distinguished guests!
Some 2500 years ago, the Greeks defeated the Persians on the plain of Marathon. However,
although it was only one of the many battles fought during what have come to be known as
the Greco-Persian Wars, it has always been treated as a glorious victory in European history,
and even in recent historical publications for the wider public one still finds Marathon defined
as the “historical salvation of the cradle of Western civilisation”. While terms like “salvation”
and “Western civilisation” now call for deconstruction in the world of academia, within the
context of European education during 18th and 19th centuries, such admiration and
fascination does not seem out of place. In his detailed and thrilling account, the Greek
historian Herodotus had described how a smaller number of Athenians triumphed over the
more numerous Persians while defending their homeland.
Because Herodotus’s history, the most famous source of information on the Battle of
Marathon, is literary, there was a need to find support for his claim of a glorious victory by the
Greeks in the material realm. This is attested to by paintings like this one by Carl Rottmann
from 1847 on the handout, where the glory of the victory is combined with the view of the
battlefield painted as a beautiful landscape. In that period, elements of weaponry brought
home from Greece as souvenirs catered to the same need. Archaeological investigation was
ultimately initiated by politicians, topographers and military men who had been travelling
through Greece since the 17th century and sought to determine exact findspots and original
material remains in order to make Herodotus’s description of the battle and the fallen heroes’
burial grounds more manifest.
But archaeological remains connected with the battle of Marathon can be studied as sources
in their own right. Without the preconceived goal of using them to underpin the idea that
Marathon was a proof of some impending cultural ascendancy.
But what can be investigated instead? What is a battle beside victory or defeat and a mark in
history?
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That war in general was considered by the Greeks as something that has a downside to it,
beside the positive aspects of winnng and gaining more wealth and power, is attested to by
the tragedies, where myths where treated through a drastic narrative of victory and defeat
following one another in close sequence.
Also the negative aspects of war are alluded to by the Greek historians, for example by
Thukydides (1,23), who equals a great war to a great amount of suffering.
This goes to show that war for 5th century Greeks caused ambivalent thoughts, troubles in
decisionmaking and questions which could not solved by custumary moral behaviour, war
had to be coped with.
When the archaeological remains of the Marathon monuments are investigated closely, it
becomes apparent that they are linked together by one common trait: they were a means of
coming to terms with an event of war. The fact that these monuments differ in form, and that
they were erected over a period of time longer than one generation, points to a process from
monument to memorial: The ‘materialiaized memory’ of war had ‘phases,’ changed over
time.
Today, I would like to show you how the first phase of Marathon monuments, constructed
right after the battle, was linked directly to the realities of the event itself. Then I am going to
point out how abstraction set in during a second phase; this means that the event of war was
no longer mirrored directly in its formal representation, but was instead transformed into a
monumentalised memorial. Finally, it will become apparent how only in a third phase of
Marathon monuments, erected approximately one generation after the event, the battle is
represented in a narrative, historical manner. This appears to be the concluding stage in
coming to terms with the Marathon battle through public works of art, and it is only at the end
of that process that a political instrumentalisation of the battle becomes apparent.
But before starting with the investigation of the Marathon monuments, I would like to refresh
your memories of the historical context of the Battle of Marathon in a brief review:
The time of the Greco-Persian Wars: historical context of the Marathon battle in a brief
review
At the end of the 6th c. B.C. the Athenians had driven the tyrants out and were now governed
by the assembly. The newly reformed city-state of Athens supported the revolts of the Greek
cities in Asia Minor against the Persian Empire in the early 5th c. B.C. with their own troops
out of self-interest. In retaliation for this support, Athens became the target of a campaign of
Persian conquest, with the intention of installing a system of Greek aristocratic tyrannical
control over a subjugated Athens that would be positively disposed towards Persia. On the
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plain of Marathon the Athenians, along with their allies from Plataea clashed with the Persian
army in their first military battle and emerged victorious.
In the wake of this success, the Athenians were not only able to triumph over the Persians,
but also against the political groups that had participated in the system of tyrannical rule.
However, a decade later, Athens and other city-states in Greece were again the target of a
campaign of Persian conquest. In the years 480 and 479 B.C., additional military altercations
of importance followed: the battles at Thermopylae, Salamis und Plataea, as well as the
evacuation of Athens, which was plundered and razed by the Persians.
Nevertheless, the Battle of Marathon has taken an extraordinary place not only in Athenian
but also in Greek history as one of the decisive events in these wars. The historian
Herodotus (ca. 484-430) wrote about the Battle of Marathon for the first time a little more
than a generation afterwards. In an historical work compiled by Thucydides (ca. 460-396)
some time later, the Battle of Marathon is also discussed. And centuries later, during Roman
times, authors such as the writer and geographer Pausanias, extensively discuss the event
and the forms in which it was commemorated.
Marathon monuments, first phase: The remains of the battle
The grave monuments
The Greek historian Thucydides reported that the Athenians who fell at Marathon were
buried in the middle of the battlefield in honour of their extraordinary valour.
Although we have no certain knowledge regarding the course of the battle on the plain of
Marathon – neither archaeological nor historical sources provide sufficient information here,
and the natural geography of this swampy area has changed markedly since ancient times –
researchers have often attempted to find this grave, which written sources led them to
believe was very monumental.
Since the topographical expeditions undertaken by the British consul Leake (19th century), a
hill measuring roughly 50 x 9 meters on the plain of Marathon has been associated with this
heroes’ grave, particularly since the size is extraordinary and the scattered finds in the area
surrounding it appeared (falsely) to be of ancient provenance. Many still view the burial
mound, which is often referred to as a ‘soros’, as a monumental grave in honour of the fallen
Athenians. Excavation of the hill has been undertaken repeatedly, Schliemann initially began
at the top (1884), followed by V. Staïs (1890) who also examined an additional section (26 x
6 m). Their analyses could, however, not produce clear results and provide the desired
information. This soros did, however, undoubtedly serve as a burial mound, as it was
possible to determine that a large number of burials had taken place there. In addition, none
of the funerary objects date from any later than 490 B.C.
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However, the ceramics that were used as funerary objects date, for the most part, from the
first half of the 6th c. B.C., as is the case with this Sophilos amphora from 580-570 B.C..
Since this is considerably earlier than the Battle of Marathon, they do not really come into
question as funerary objects for the dead that resulted from this event. During his
excavations, Staïs also found the remains of two females, an argument against a battle
related burial. Furthermore the excavator found two offering trenches in the section of the
soros that he excavated, evidence of a funerary cult practice that is more characteristic of the
Archaic period and which has otherwise almost never been in evidence for the period in
which the Battle of Marathon took place. Burial mounds with dimensions similar to those of
the soros, which was by far the largest known burial mound when it was discovered, have
since been found: during the Archaic period, such burial mounds served, above all, as tombs
for the private burials of a clan or an entire village community.
Since we are now forced to remove the soros from the list of Marathon monuments, the
question may be posed as to whether there are really any funerary monuments related to the
battle on the plain of Marathon?
In examining an additional burial mound (35-30m x 3m) in the area around Marathon in the
1970s, Marinatos found evidence of the burial of eleven males, three of whom clearly died as
a result of violent head injuries. The ceramics deposited in the grave all date from the turn of
the 6th to the 5th century. Thus it seems plausible that there was some connection between
these burials and the Battle of Marathon. Regardless of which Greek warriors were buried in
the tumulus, it allows us to justifiably assume that the soldiers who fell on the battlefield were
buried in a burial mound of the type associated with old rural funerary traditions. The fact that
fallen soldiers were not buried individually in this monument, which is by no means
monumental, indicates that the relationship to the combat troop clearly took precedence over
family or other social ties. This type of burial also determined how the dead were
commemorated: it can be assumed that, from that point on, those who fell at Marathon were
collectively remembered on the occasion of an annual festival in honour of a deity.
With regard to the question at hand, it can be ascertained that the process of coming to
terms with violent events related to the experience of war was already partially concluded
directly after the battle, when the dead were buried on the battlefield and were thus
consigned to a second – ‘symbolic’ – death in the form of the burial.
The tomb for the fallen Greeks represented the event of war – as the price of victory in a
certain sense. Conversely, the Persians that were killed, as later sources report, were buried
in a mass grave (the traveller and geographer Pausanias Paus. I, 32, 5). The remains of the
enemy were thus not used to symbolise the Greeks’ victory – i.e. the result of the successful
use of force – but instead consigned to obscurity.
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What else happened right after the battle?
The Marathon Tropaion
After the battle, weapons that had either been abandoned or belonged to the enemy dead
were collected. They were then used within the context of making a sacrificial offering to the
gods by erecting a symbol, a so-called tropaion. Some of the weapons obtained in this
manner were used for this purpose; our knowledge of this custom is based largely on
descriptions provided by the Greek historian Thucydides.
Tropaia were either made of wood onto which the spoils were nailed (handout: picture of
Nike, attaching a helmet to a tropaion) or took the form of a pile of weapons. The tropaion
was either erected where the battle began or where the course of a war took a fortunate turn.
Hence, the weapons that were actually used in the battle, which were both valuable metal
objects and a means of exercising force in Antiquity, were diverted from their intended use
and put together to form a ‘monument’. This gives rise to numerous associations: the enemy
is unprotected, robbed of his weapons, the weapons will no longer pose a threat to any
Greek, or the gods are thanked by means of this offering, which allows them to participate in
the spoils.
Because the monument was erected directly on the battlefield, the ‘tropaion’ maintains a
direct connection to the actual battle which is also maintained in the memories of the
contemporaries.
The Marathon Tropaion in Olympia
While the existence of a tropaion on the plain of Marathon, i.e. on the battlefield itself, can
only be postulated on the basis of historical sources and determined only in a general
manner, by means of archaeological finds, it can be assumed that there was at least one
more tropaion, which was also dedicated immediately after the Battle of Marathon, this one in
a sanctuary: Finds unearthed at the extensive sanctury of Zeus in Olympia, where not only
temple buildings where housed but also the Ancient Olympic Games were held, and were all
Greek city-states participated in religious rituals, could be used to reconstruct at least one
tropaion commemorating the battle.
In addition to a scattering of spearheads and quiver fittings, nearly 50 trefoil arrowheads
were found. Some of these exhibit evidence of having been bent on impact (Handout: trefoil
Persian arrowheads). The findspot of all these Persian weapons is extremely interesting
because it is located on the site of the Ancient Olympic Games, in the so-called late Archaic
stadium II, which was used in the first quarter of the 5th c., i.e. at the time of Marathon. The
Tropaion that consisted of weaponry and was dedicated to Zeus was erected in the area of
the finish line. A conical helmet that was found at the same end of the stadium seems to
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belong to the same tropaion: The inscription stamped into the helmet tells us that the
Athenians had taken it from the Persians and were now dedicating it to Zeus (Handout:
conical helmet). It was ritually deposited into a well (34 StN) when the late Archaic stadium
was rebuilt between 470 and 460, as the fill in of Elean ceramics attests.
In addition, a votive offering, a Corinthian helmet with the remains of an inscription that cites
Miltiades as donator, one of the Athenian generals in the battle of Marathon, was also found
in this area of the sanctury with the same terminus ante quem, as the tropaion (see handout).
This helmet an indication of additional private offerings to Zeus related to the battle of
Marathon.
To sum up: The military action that took place at Marathon is represented in the Olympic
sanctury of Zeus especially through the dedication of weaponry, mainly attack weapons.
At the same time, both the Athenian city state and individuals gave thanks to the highest
deity in this manner, paid their due to the god in order to not evoke his envy and also they
put symbolically some part of the battle into his hands. Whereas the individual dedication is
in keeping with the old aristocratic traditions the collective offering is a representation of
‘democratic’ Athens.
This ritual practice is generally familiar from other Greek battles and attested to in the
sanctuary in Olympia – thanking the gods, documenting the victory and, at the same time,
establishing a direct reminder of a violent conflict. The Athenian Marthon tropaion erected in
the region of the stadium’s finish line held a very prominent place in this sanctuary.
Especially during the Olympic games when they where used by the athletes form the
different Greek city states competing against each other, they where on public display for all
fellow Greeks to admire what spoils the Athenians had taken from the Persians.
Marathon monuments, second phase: Transformation of war into abstract form
Tropaion again: Partial Replacement of the battle’s remains
In the 1960s, ancient spoils that had been built into a medieval structure erected on the plain
of Marathon were found. By augmenting them, it was possible to reconstruct a monumental
column. Using the five non-fluted column drums and the Ionic capital, it was possible to
reconstruct a column measuring some 10 meters in height (handout picture). In addition,
grooves on the upper side of the capital indicate that the column supported a figure. The
asymmetrically elongated indentations for the plinth of a statue and a sculptural fragment of a
robe found with these building elements allow us to clearly narrow down the type of sculpture
that came into question: the column was originally crowned by the goddess of victory, a
striding Nike, similar to the one familiar to us from later tropaia of this type; by way of
illustration I refer to the most famous monument of this type in the handout, the Nike of
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Paeonios from Olympia (a monument of the Messenians and Naupactians, erected in the
420s B.C.).
The replacement of the tropaion erected using weaponry directly after the Battle of Marathon
with a stone monument at a date further removed from the battle is the first example of this
practice in Greek culture. It is also notable, because its outer appearance had nothing to do
with the real violence of the military action. What does this tell us with regard to how
monuments provided the Athenians in that period with a means of coming to terms with a
military altercation?
Due to the parallels in Ionic-Attic architecture, the Marathon Monument can be dated either
one or two decades after the Battle of Marathon. In formal terms, it stands in the tradition of
votive and funerary monuments. They seem to be quite closely related to the urban offerings
known to us from the various temple grounds since the Archaic period. And as was already
mentioned, the stone tropaion of Marathon is considered the first of its kind: similar columns
memorialising Greek battles against the Persians at Salamis and Plataea, a decade later (as
you can see on the timeline of the handout), have also been reconstructed. Earlier stone
tropaia on battlefields have, however, neither been found as references in the literature nor
as archaeological sources.
While the weapons of the first tropaion were material proof of a victory, here it is the
sculptural figure of Nike, the image of the goddess on the stone monument, that attests to
the victory. The direct references to the military action have disappeared, they are masked
by a perfect marble column, obscured.
While the first tropaion was replaced by the other monumentalised, the burial mound
continued to exist in its original form in the battle field of Marathon.
Another monumental memorial column is related to the marble tropaion in Marathon: this is a
private offering in the publicly accessible area of the Acropolis in Athens, the city’s main
sanctuary dedicated to Athena. It was donated following the Battle of Marathon, where it was
recovered from the so-called Persian rubble, i.e. from the layer that came from the Persian
destruction of Athens in 480 B.C., which allows us to determine the terminus ante quem.
This is again only a fragment of a column crowned by a striding Nike. The fragmentarily
preserved inscription establishes a connection between the votive offering and the Battle of
Marathon. Based on stylistic considerations, the Ionic capital and the figure can be dated to
the period directly around 490 B.C.: although the inscription does not tell us to whom it was
dedicated, but rather only where he was from, part of the word, ‘….marchos’, has been
preserved and it can be augmented to form the word Polemarchos. A polemarch is the
designation for a military commander elected by the people’s assembly and assigned to
assist the generals of the individual Athenian tribes during Marathon. The name of this
polemarch cannot be found on the monument today, however his origins in the Attic district
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of Aphidnai are still legible. This information ultimately allows us to attribute the monument to
the polemarch of the Battle of Marathon: Since he fell at Marathon, the monumental column
is seen as a votive offering posthumously erected by his relatives in the name of the military
commander.
But these where not the only Marathon memorials and Nike not the only personification
symbolising the battle:
The mythical Attic kings, idealised leaders of Attic troops
The Athenians used a part of the profits of the spoils from Marathon to make an offering to
the god Apollo. The fragmentary inscription that supports this assumption is found in the
sanctury of Apollo in Delphi, on a base, which, as the many indentations show, originally
carried a row of statues. This elaborate and costly votive offering was erected right next to
the Athenian treasury, which was completed in roughly 500 B.C.. Adjoining this building, the
base originally carried the statues of the gods and mythical heroes of the city of Athens and
also the ten mythical kings of Attica, which are depicted as idealised male figures (see
illustration in the handout). These mythical kings, also called phyle heroes, personified the
ten eponymous Attic tribes into which the citizens of Athens were organised after
Cleisthenes’ democratic reforms. Within the context of the Marathon monument at Delphi,
the phyle heroes seem to primarily symbolize the troops of the individual tribes that came
together to form the Attic army in the battle. The fighting force is not depicted here as the
mass of Athenians, but rather as the sum of ten brigades. During the battle, they acted as
independent tactical units, each led by its own general. This is reported by the historian
Herodotus, who also saw this principle, which was used to organise the fighting force, as a
decisive key to the victory over the Persians.
The phyle heroes, the idealized male figures, also represent the individual warriors who
participated in the battle. By focusing on the phyles as an identifying element for the
individual armies of the tribes, the Marathon Monument in Delphi is a precursor of something
that was later to become customary in Athens: as of the late 5th c., Athenians who fell in
battle were buried in a state tomb in Athens according to phyles, and the names of the dead
were inscribed in lists on publicly displayed tablets according to phyles.
Hence, what is the meaning of the Marathon Monument, which can be dated roughly to 465
B.C.?
Various interpretations are possible: the votive offering to the god Apollo was, of course,
errected ‘for the pleasure of the god’. However, this offering is justifiably seen as a
monument with a concrete political message: it served to demonstrate the new democratic
order in Athens and sent a message addressed to the other Greek city-states.
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Third phase: War monument and emotional response of the viewer
Political instumentalisation of the war event
In the 460s, i.e. after the Persians Wars, a structure was built on the Athenian Agora, thus in
the political centre of the city, the so-called Stoa Poikile or Painted Stoa. This was a new
building that was closed along one of the long sides and open to the Agora on the other (see
illustration in the handout). In this stoa, four paintings were exhibited for public viewing that
were planned as a cohesive ensemble from the outset. These depictions are known to us as
a result of descriptions found in classical sources (e.g. Aishines, Pausanias). They depicted
various battles, including the Battle of Marathon.
The first painting in the series showed the Athenian army marching off to the battle of Oinoe,
regarding which to this day there is little certainty as to which Athenian battle it was. It was
followed by two images of mythical battles: the battle of the Athenians against the Amazons
and a scene from the Trojan War. The gallery was completed by the painting of the Battle of
Marathon.
The schematic description on the handout depicts the order of various elements in the
painting.
The painting depicts the course of the battle. It shows the beginning: the Athenians leaving
the camp they established on the plain of Marathon, in the temple district of the mythical hero
Herakles. Aided by a troop from Plataea, they determinedly march against the enemy.
Particularly prominent in this picture are the individual clashes between Greeks and fleeing
Persians, man-to-man combat. As the last phase of the battle, the pictures show the flight of
the Persians, initially in hasty retreat through the swamps and finally attempting to embark on
their ships.
Various deities can be seen in the painting, including Athena and mythical heroes such as
Theseus and Herakles: they support the Athenians in battle with superhuman powers.
In addition, a number of “renowned Athenians” can be recognised in the picture and are
spotlighted in the battle scenes, mainly generals. The general Miltiades is depicted as
providing the Greeks encouragement in the opening phase of the battle, the polemarch was
characterised in the decisive phase of the battle as “continuing to fight to his death“.
Another strategist, Kynegeiros, is attempting to prevent a Persian ship from fleeing, which
ultimately leads to his arm being severed from his body by a Persian wielding an axe.
Thus the painting not only depicts the phases of the battle and the intercession of
superhuman forces, it also allows feats of heroism by individual historical figures to be clearly
recognised.
Hence, the Marathon painting is considered the first historical painting in Classical Antiquity.
Remarkably, it was created a decade before Herodotus’s historical work in which the
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individual episodes of the battle are described in a similar manner. Thus, Epizelos, an
Athenian who was blinded in the battle and saw a giant fighting on the side of the Persians,
is not only depicted in the painting on the Stoa Poikile, his story is also related by Herodotus,
who claims to have heard the story firsthand.
This is the first time that the violent struggle, combat, injury and death related to the Battle of
Marathon were depicted in the public sphere, and it undoubtedly gave rise to emotional
reactions on the part of the viewers.
This had never previously been the case with regard to all of the monuments and other
sources related to the Battle of Marathon. Exhibited alongside images of mythical battles, the
battle of Marathon was now so far removed from the present that it could be represented as
a violent event through the medium of painting. It can, therefore, be seen as the final stage or
step in the process of coming to terms with the event: From then on every later allusion to
Marathon in the public sphere, like the frieze on the Athena Nike temple on the Athenian
Acropolis seems to refer back to the painting in the Stoa Poikile.
The painting in the Stoa Poikile is also clearly represents the first instance in which the Battle
of Marathon was politically instrumentalised: exhibited at the centre of political life, no longer
connected to a sanctuary or dedicated to a god, it glorifies the Athenian victory. With the
complex emotional reaction it provoked in the contemporaries it could be used to motivate to
new military campaigns.
(Brief sum up follows, then☺
But, one wonders, happened in the private sphere? Weren’t there any reflections of coping,
or coming to terms with the battle of Marathon conceivable in the material culture of the
private sphere?
Coping with events of war as expressed in the material culture of the “private” sphere before
the 460s
In the material culture of the private sphere, on vases and vessels used in the home by men
during feasts and for drinking wine, depictions of man-to-man combat were a favoured motif.
The dynamics of these scenes, produced and used in the years immediately after the Battle
of Marathon, often show drastic depictions of violence, including traces of blood depicted by
using red paint, or the finishing off of an already wounded enemy. (See the picture of the
Brygos painter on the handout). Despite the clear increase in the number of such scenes
painted after the battle of Marathon, the fighters are interestingly not identified as Greeks or
Persians. Instead, the battles are idealised and shown to take place in the realm of myths, as
in the example of this drinking cup at hand, which is dated on stylistic grounds to the years
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490 B.C. to 480 B.C.. It shows the battle in which the Olympian gods triumphed over the
power-usurping giants.
Even though the connection to the battle of Marathon is not straightforward, one function of
these pictures is very clear: they where calculated to evoke an affective, emotional reaction
from those who saw them during Ancient times.
Only c. twenty years after the battle of Marathon the violance and combat is shown by
Athenian vasepainters in scenes where a Greek is fighting a Perisan.
To all who contributed to my appointment,
the board of the university,
the faculty board.
members of the Byvanck board and trustees of this special chair,
thank you all!
(Some more thanks and words to the students.)
Ik heb gezegd.
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