To fully understand the accomplisment of the Greeks in the war against Persia it's important to remember that the Persians were obviously a formidable enemy, they had defeated the civilization of the Medes and had managed to create an enormous empire that at its height stretched from northern Greece to the banks of the Indus river in southeast Asia. In contrast, Athens, who assumed the leading role in the war, was a small and insignificant city in mainland Greece, which itself was only a fraction of the size of the Persian Empire.

The Persian Empire c.500BC

Around the mid sixth century BC a wealthy Greek king from the eastern city-state of Lydia named Croesus, united the cities in Asia Minor and most accepted his rule as he generally let them control their own affairs and live by their own laws. In 546 BC Cyrus the Great of Persia overthrew Croesus, who had united with other Greek states including Sparta in a vain attempt to stop him. Croesus was put to death and the cities of Asia minor fell under Persian rule, which before long the people began to resent. The oppressed Greeks began building walls surrounding their cities and making further preparations for war, but the army of Cyrus soon crushed their hopes, and many fled to the mainland and Italy while the rest were forced to submit to Persia. The Ionian Revolt          Eight years after the death of Cyrus the Great, a competent ruler known as Darius I ascended the throne in Persia, and in the year 500 BC the Greek cities in Asia Minor finally rose up in revolt against his rule. Led by a Greek tyrant named Aristagoras, each city managed to drive out the enemy garrison and a year later most had freed themselves from the control of Persia.          Darius, no doubt furious by these actions of the Greeks, mobilised his forces and eventually crushed the rebellion in 494 BC. A few years earlier however, the city-states in Asia Minor had appealed to the Greeks on the mainland for assistance and both Eretria and Athens had provided help. Their armies set fire to the local capital Sardes in 496 BC and had managed to expel all of the Persians from Asia Minor, but when Darius arrived with the full force two years later the Greeks were soon defeated.          In retaliation against Eretria and Athens for their part in the Ionian revolt, Darius sent an army to Greece under the command of his brother-in-law Mardonius. The Persians succeeded in capturing Thrace and Macedon, but their naval fleet was crippled by a large storm and eventually they turned back to Asia.         Two years later Darius sent another expedition to Greece which succeeded in destroying Eretria after a six day siege and then sailed across the straight to the mainland, landing 35km northeast of Athens at the Bay of Marathon. According to Herodotus the troops numbered around 30,000, but a modern estimate by Major General Gedeon of the Hellenic Army puts the Persian force at around 48,000.         In the period between the first and second attacks on Greece, Darius had sent diplomats to the Greek city-states, and according to Persian custom these men are said to have asked for "earth and water" as a token of submission. Many of the cities refused including Sparta and Athens, and while the Athenians threw the Persian emissaries off the top of the Acropolis and even killed the interpreter for defiling their language, the Spartan response towards a request for "earth and water" was to throw the Persian men into the nearest well and watch them drown.

The Battle of Marathon 490 BC         Hippias, the last tyrant of Athens who had been expelled by Cleisthenes, had joined with the Persian army and it was he who had suggested the landing site at Marathon. The plan was that Hippias with the help of his new allies, would defeat the Greeks and regain control of Athens as tyrant, and the city would then be incorporated into the Persian Empire.        When news reached Athens that the enemy had landed at Marathon, the generals immediately sent a man named Pheidippides to ask for help from the Spartans. Pheidippides left Athens and ran over 200kms to Sparta, incredibly arriving the next day only to be told that the Spartans wouldn't fight due to the fact that religious law prevented military action until the full moon. He then ran back to Athens where the people were terrified about what might happen to them and delivered the news, and when the generals received it they decided to advance regardless, without the help of any of the other city-states. Pheidippides became a legend and in the following years the Greeks commerated his heroic effort with a race they named the Marathon. There's many different versions of this legend though, but according to the Greek historian Herodotus, he did not run from Marathon back to the city to proclaim victory after the battle and there is no reference of him dying after his run, however there is another story where one of the exultant soldiers ran back to Athens after the battle, proclaiming "Nike!" (victory) and apparently died after this.          The Athenian phalanx was composed of heavily armoured men with long, heavy spears who held together in tight formation, protecting each other with their shields and moving together as they charged at the enemy. They made a taunting and eerie sound as they ran and the look of them with frightening figures blazoned on their shields and sinister looking bronze helmets gave a convincing impression of the passion with which the Greek warriors fought.           Around 10,000 hoplite soldiers had gathered out of a population of only around 30,000 and as they approached the battlefield, at the last minute they were joined by a small force provided by their allies the Plataens, who Athens had given military support to and who were now doing what they could to return the favour.           For eight days the two armies were camped facing one another about 5kms apart and neither side made a move, the Athenian generals debated the idea of facing such an overwhelming enemy and not wanting to advance into the plain where the Persians could unleash their cavalry and archers. But finally one night the Persian commander Datis, became so frustrated by the lack of action that he devised a plan to take most of the cavalry and a battalion of infantry in the direction of Athens, leaving the rest of his force in the command of Artaphernes. Datis embarked his force on the ships and set sail, but the Greeks got word of his movements, and their commander Miltiades, proposed the following plan to the war council.           He saw that this was the Athenian's prime opportunity to attack, with the cavalry and a large part of the Persian infantry missing, this was the moment that presented the best chance of victory for them and he eventually persuaded the other generals to advance. The decision rested on the last general who was known as the polemach (war leader) and Miltiades appealed to him by saying "With you it rests Callimachus, either to lead Athens to slavery or by securing her freedom to leave behind to all future generations a memory far beyond even those who made Athens a democracy. For never since the time the Athenians became a people were they in so great a danger than now."           Miltiades realised they would have to defeat the enemy quickly and then make it back to Athens in time to block Datis' contingent, and because the Persians were likely to cover them with a hail of arrows he knew their men would have to move fast on the battlefield. He drew up his army consisting entirely of heavily armoured spearmen with the Plataens on the left, and to compensate for the size of the enemy force they thinned out their front line and strengthened the wings. The Persian army stood facing the Athenians with their cavalry divided between the wings and their archers drawn in a line at the front, and they were quite confident that the Athenians were about to be subjected to the same fate as that of the Eretrians.          At dawn the bronze plated hoplites stared across the battlefield at the Persians. When Miltiades gave the order the soldiers marched forward some way, then they started moving faster, and finally they broke into a run, charging at the enemy with the utmost fury and passion.

The Persians thought that the Greeks were completely insane and that this could only be an act of suicide, but the hoplites certainly presented a terrifying sight, especially to the Persians who had never seen such an absurd concept of warfare and were not at all used to hand to hand combat. The Greeks chanted their haunting war cry and as they ran forward a voice cried out, "On sons of the Hellenes! Fight for the freedom of your country! Fight for the freedom of your children and of your wives! For the gods of your fathers and for the sepulchres of your ancestors! All are now staked upon the strife!"

The hoplites fell upon the Persians who fired a hail of arrows at them as they advanced, and when  the fighting broke out it was violent and furious. Miltiades applied a similar strategy to that of Hannibal at Cannae nearly three centuries later, while he allowed for the numerically superior Persian army to push through his weakened centre, he strengthened the wings which routed those of the enemy and then chased them towards the sea. The Athenian general then ordered these troops back and they fell upon the Persian centre, enclosing them on both sides. Finally when the Persians realised they had no chance of overcoming the Greeks who were baring down upon them with thousands of iron spears, they turned and fled toward the ships, and the Athenians chased them relentlessly all the way to the water. There the most intense fighting of the battle took place and many of the Greeks swam out after their terrified enemy, succeeding in the capture of seven ships and killing many of them although also inflicting heavy casualties on themselves.          The battle was over and the Athenians had defeated the greatest empire of their day. They had lost a mere 192 men but had killed around 6400 of the enemy, an overwhelming and decisive victory that would inspire the hearts of fellow Greeks for centuries. As soon as the Persians had been defeated, Miltiades marched the army quickly back to Athens where they arrived in time to block the advance of Datis. When Datis sighted them there he decided an attack would be too risky, choosing instead to wait for Artaphernes to arrive with the rest of the fleet. When they did sail down the coast to Athens and Datis saw the condition of the army and heard the news of the battle, the generals decided to withdraw and sail back to Persia.         The brilliant strategy of Miltiades played a large role in the defeat of the Persians at Marathon, as did the passion of the Greek soldiers fighting in the name of their beloved homeland. The superior armour of the hoplite and the shock tactics used on the battlefield also contributed largely to their victory - a high emphasis on discipline combined with brutal force, executed quickly and decisively at close range. These tactics when harnessed by the leadership of competent Greek generals, managed to overcome numerically superior Persian forces in every decisive encounter they fought during the wars. The Western way of warfare had proved victorious, and the Athenian legacy at Marathon had a profound inspirational impact on the Greeks for centuries to come.

Diagram of the battle