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Marathon Outline 4/12/2012 11:30:00 AM There were many events that led up to the Battle of Marathon. There were many events that led up to the Battle of Marathon. For one, Darius, the Persian King, wanted revenge on Athens because the Athenians had burned one of his prize cities to help the Ionian Greeks in their revolt against him. Ionia was at that time under Persian control and the revolt failed. Darius also wanted control of the Mediterranean sea. Conquering Greece would be very helpful in expanding his empire. “Control of the Mediterranean Sea was extremely important and was the reason for many wars in the times before and after the Persian Wars,” says Patty Schell Kuhlman, an amateur classicist who studied Ancient Greek and Roman civilization, including, history, languages and literature in the original languages. The Persians sent envoys to the Greek city-states demanding “earth and water” (meaning that the Greeks were to give up the rights to all their land and the products of it). Most of the other Greek citystates caved in, knowing what the Persians had done to the Ionian Greeks; the Ionian Greek’s cities were completely destroyed by the Persians after they revolted. The Athenians and Spartans, however, refused. The Athenians threw the envoys into a ravine used for executing criminals, and the Spartans threw the second pair down a well and told them to help themselves to all the earth and water they wanted. Because the Athenians had angered him more than the Spartans, decided to attack them first. But before the Persians attempted to attack Athens, they also trashed Eretria, a city that had helped burn Sardis (one of Darius’ prize cities, as mentioned above) with Athens. The Eretrians put up a strong fight, but were beaten in the end. When the Athenians heard that the Persians were coming, they quickly mobilized all their troops to meet the Persians in battle. Their force amounted to about had 10,000 hoplites and about the same number of freemen who couldn’t afford hoplite armor. They also had a similar number of slaves. The Athenian’s exiled tyrant, Hippias, had run to Persia for revenge against Athens because he hoped to regain his kingdom. Darius agreed to set him back up as ruler of Athens once he conquered it. Darius didn’t care what regime was set up in the conquered land, as long as the people obeyed him. In return, Hippias told Darius the perfect place for a Persian attack, the plain/beach of Marathon. So the Athenians marched to Marathon, where they were joined by the 1,000 hoplites and their entourage from the small city-state of Platea. The Plateans amounted to about 3,000 men altogether including their hoplites. When the Athenians and Plateans set up camp at Marathon, they noticed the Persian camp on the beach and saw with their own eyes the size and magnificence of the Persian army. The camp was about 100,000 men strong, with about 60,000 actual soldiers. The rest were mariners or camp followers. Sparta was the most militarily powerful city-state in Greece. The Athenians sent a runner, named Pheidippides to ask for help. Pheidippides ran the 150 to 160 miles between Athens and Sparta in two days. When he reached Sparta, he delivered his message. Said Pheidippides to the Spartans, "Men of Sparta, the Athenians ask you to help them, and not to stand by while the most ancient city of Greece is crushed and subdued by a foreign invader; for even now Eretria has been enslaved, and Greece is the weaker by the loss of one fine city." The Spartans said they would be glad to help, but they were having a religious festival and could not march until the full moon, which was about one week away. Why did the Greeks use runners? The Greeks generally used runners to deliver messages instead of horsemen due to the mountainous terrain of Greece. There were many kinds of runners, including Pheidippides, who was a day runner, someone who could run all day long without stopping. The Battle of Marathon began. The Greeks were in a very strong position if the Persians attacked. The Perisans, knowing this, did not attack, and the two armies stared each other down. After facing each the Perisans in a nervous standoff for a couple of days, the ten Athenian generals and the polemarch, Camillimachus voted not to wait for the promised Spartan reinforcements, but to fight immediately. It was a tough vote, though. It was five to five when Miltiades (who was for fighting) talked to Camillimachus and Camillimachus broke the tie and voted to fight. So, the Athenians went into battle against the Persians, and Miltiades was given command of the army. The Greek’s battle tactics were quite different from the Persians. The Greeks were trained for phalanx-to-phalanx combat, where most of both side’s spears would shatter on first contact. The Persian’s battle tactics involved having the Persian archers pour thousands of arrows into the enemy as they advanced, and by the time the enemy got close enough to fight hand-to-hand. The idea was that the Greeks would only be a shattered remnant of the force that had attacked, and then the Persian light skirmisher troops and cavalry would rush in to finish them off. The cavalry, however, were on a ship traveling to Athens. While the Athenians debated, the Persian commander, Datis, had decided to break the deadlock by loading all of his cavalry and some of his infantry onto his ships and leaving his most trusted general, Artiphernes, with a holding force of about 12,000 men. Then Datis sailed around to attack an undefended Athens. o The Persian general at Marathon, Artiphernes, put his best troops in the center of his army. The Persian army did not share a language though, which made communication hard. o o In order not to be outflanked (surrounded) by the much vaster Persian army, Miltiades thinned out his phalanxes (Greek battle formation) in the center, so that it was four men deep instead of the customary eight. On his flanks, however, he kept the eight strong regular phalanxes. His troops then marched toward the Persians. The Greeks countered the Persian tactics by breaking into a run as soon as they got within arrow range, (about 300 yards away from the Persians). o o The As the Greeks attacked, the Persians sent arrows flying, but due to the Greeks coming in at a run, most of them mistimed their shots and most of their arrows flew harmlessly over the Greeks. The Persians were astounded. The nature of the phalanx stated that it usually went into battle at a sedate pace. Surely the Greeks would be exhausted before they even got close enough to fight. However, the Greeks had trained for this. There was actually an event in the Olympics called the race in armor. Contestants would put on a suit of full Greek armor and race each other around a track very fast. There was a British historian who built himself a suit of hoplite armor, went to Marathon, and ran the distance the Greeks ran to prove that it was humanly possible. o When the Greeks reached the Persian battle line, they massacred the lightly armed Persian skirmisher troops. The Persian archers still poured arrows into the Greek troops, but they were now so closely packed with the Persian troops that the archers were bound to hit their own soldiers. In Herodotus’s Histories, Herodotus wrote about that first contact: “The enemy directly in their path ... realized to their horror that [the Athenians], far from providing the easy pickings for their bowmen, as they had first imagined, were not going to be halted ... The impact was devastating. The Athenians had honed their style of fighting in combat with other phalanxes, wooden shields smashing against wooden shields, iron spear tips clattering against breastplates of bronze ... in those first terrible seconds of collision, there was nothing but a pulverizing crash of metal into flesh and bone; then the rolling of the Athenian tide over men wearing, at most, quilted jerkins for protection, and armed, perhaps, with nothing more than bows or slings. The hoplites' ash spears, rather than shivering ... could instead stab and stab again, and those of the enemy who avoided their fearful jabbing might easily be crushed to death beneath the sheer weight of the advancing men of bronze.” The strong Greek phalanxes on the wings (each side of the Greek line) easily beat back the weaker Persian flanks (the fighters on each side) and finally routed them. However, they had no time to congratulate themselves. The strong Persian center was pushing back the much weaker Greek center. “Tactics were not so important in those days. It was more just the guts to stand… shoulder to shoulder with your mates… and carry on the fight.”-Steven Pressfield, author of “The Virtues of War” Each phalanx moved as one unit and could easily turn and march without becoming disorganized. Thus, the stronger phalanxes used this strength to immediately turn around and attack the Persian center from behind. “And then that whole center of the Persian army became essentially a killing zone.”-Richard Billows, Ph.D. a Greek history professor at Columbia University The Persians were now surrounded and were hurling themselves at the Greek phalanxes, trying to find a way to break through. But they couldn’t and finally broke and ran in all directions. The Persians were unaware of the local terrain and unknown numbers ran into the swamps surrounding Marathon and drowned. The Greeks chased the routing Persians to their ships and succeeded in disabling four of the ships. Most of the Persian ships got away, though, and sailed for Athens to meet their Commander’s fleet. The Greeks collapsed with exhaustion on the beach. They had little time to rest, though. It had taken them only three hours to defeat the Persians at Marathon, but that whole time Datis had been sailing closer toward Athens. Miltiades ordered his troops to Athens, a forced march of 22 miles (in full armor and summer heat). They managed to get to Athens before Datis and formed up on the shore just as the Persian sails appeared over the horizon. When the Persians saw the Athenians on the beach, they sailed away. “When they saw those Athenians waiting for them, they just didn’t have the heart to have another go at these guys who had just inflicted this disastrous defeat on them.” Richard Billows. Athens was saved! Supposedly, the Miltiades sent a runner ahead with news of victory. According to legend, it was Pheidippides again. When he reached Athens, a huge crowd was gathered. He shouted, “Rejoice! We have won.” Then he fell to the ground dead from exhaustion. His run to Athens was most likely a myth though due to the way that stories get mangled as they get passed down. o o The aftermath of the Battle of Marathon: The Spartans turned up late and missed the battle, but they were curious to see what a Persian soldier looked like. They marched to Marathon and inspected the dead. “They say that the Spartans were sort of like sightseers, toured the battle afterwards and that they were pretty shaken up to see what great work their rival [Athens] had done. I think it really did eat at the Spartans’ guts, that these foppish Athenians had polished off the Persians.”-Pressfield The battle of marathon was significant in other reasons, not just the importance of Athens in Western Civilization. “If the Persians had won the battle [of Marathon] and had occupied Athens, they would then have had a basis in mainland Greece for further campaigns, and that might well have changed the course of history.”-Hans Van Wees, University College, London o The battle also had significance in the history of military strategy. “Marathon was a true battle. A real battle that was decisive, and that threw back an invading enemy.”-Pressfield The Western Way of War, supposedly, is 5 principles that first became obvious at Marathon: The use of superior technology to compensate for superior numbers. The exaltation of discipline, which turns individuals into organized units capable of unified action and sustaining horrendous levels of punishment An aggressive military tradition that seeks decisive battle. The ability to change, adapt, and innovate over time as required by changing circumstances. The creation of dynamic financial systems able to accommodate the expense of this type of technologically intensive and highly destructive warfare. The battle of marathon was a great victory for Greece. “The fame of Marathon is in my view, imperishable. It was an extraordinary victory. But for Marathon, you wouldn’t then have had the ensuing civilization of the Greeks.”-Paul Cartledge, a professor of Greek culture at Cambridge University “The fact that the Greeks won the Persian Wars was a decisive turning point in world history. Much of how we think and what kind of government we have in the Western world (Europe and then the United States and South America) came to us from the ideas of the Greeks.” -PK o Democracy was given a chance to evolve The Athenians called democracy democratia. We now call it democracy. “Herodutus’s Histories” provide most of our information o How do we know it happened the way it says in the books? “We don’t really. There is archaeological evidence of a tomb at Marathon and of other things the Greeks wrote about. We only know that Herodotus was serious about trying to separate myth from what really happened and that he was writing the story as he had heard it about 50 years after it had happened. I have read Herodotus and he tries to tell you who he talked to or how he found out the story he is telling… So, I tend to feel Herodotus’s story is at least close to what really happened.” - PK o “Herodotus is called the “Father of Lies” as often as he is called the “Father of History”” –Jim Lacey This is due to the fact that Herodotus read his stories to the Athenians for pay, and he was paid depending on how much he made the Athenians look good, so if something embarrassing happened to Athens, he would leave it out of his accounts. “Herodotus’ account of the battle is the earliest one we have and yet present historians will tell you that his story is probably inexact and already included the way in which the story had changed in the fifty years since the battle happened.” -PK o “It is important to explain how we know about the Battle of Marathon from Herodotus who was recording what he heard from others and not what he saw with his own eyes. This helps us think about history and how stories are passed along. I would like to read what the Persians wrote about the battle, but I am not sure anything survives.” - PK Pheidippides’ run is remembered at every Olympics and when ordinary people run the marathon.