What was at stake: The survival of democracy.
Callimachus studied his Persian opponents from the heights above the plain of Marathon. As expected, there was a lot of cavalry—mostly horse archers. There were also foot archers and infantry spearmen. It was hard to estimate their number, spread out as they were. There had to be at least as many as the 10,000 Athenians and 1,000 Plateans he commanded. There were prob-ably many more. The Great King had unlimited resources. The Persian infantry were not as well armored as the Greeks, and their spears were shorter. But the Persian strength was always their cavalry, both lancers and horse archers.
Plains like Marathon made it possible to use cavalry effectively, but plains were scarce in Greece. That was most likely why the Persians chose to land here, a two-days-march away from Athens. If only the Spartans would arrive soon. With Spartan reinforcements, the Greeks, although all infantry, might be able to drive the Barbarians into the sea. (To the Greeks, all foreigners were "barbarians," who made sounds like "bahbahbah" instead of speaking Greek.)
The Greeks had sent Pheidippides, a professional runner, to ask for Spartan assis-tance. The Spartans were willing, but they said that because of a local religious festival they'd have to delay their departure. Meanwhile, the Athenians and their Platean allies had been holding the mountain passes. The 10 generals, each commanding an Athe-nian regiment, could not agree whether they should continue holding their ground or whether they should attack the Persians. Although Callimachus was polemarch, or titular commander, he had only one vote in the counsel of war. Field command, when it came to fighting, rotated among the generals, each one having a day to command the entire army. Miltiades, one of the generals, was rabidly anti-Persian.
He had been badgering Callimachus to vote in favor of attacking. So far the pole march had not made up his mind.Callimachus could think of no Athenian general who ever had to make such a momentous decision. It might determine the fate of an idea that was radically new in the civilized world—rule by the people, democracy. For as long as anyone could remember, Icings, who claimed some sort of connection with the gods, ruled Greece. Then most cities overthrew their kings and accepted rulers (strongmen called tyrants) who claimed no divine connection. Now Athens had deposed its last tyrant, Hippias, and passed laws against tyrants.
The whole situation was very strange. The Great King, Darius, had ordered his son-in-law, Mardonius, to depose tyrants among the King's Ionian Greek subjects. The tyrants had led the subject Greeks in an unsuccessful revolt. Darius replaced the tyrants with pseudo democracies. The Ionian citizens could make their own laws, but all would have to be approved by the Great King. One of the tyrants deposed was Miltiades, the general who so ardently wanted to attack the Persians. Miltiades had a personal grudge. Born in Athens, he was an Athenian citizen. But he had become tyrant of the Cheronese (modern Gallipoli).
When he fled back to Athens, he was tried under the anti-tyrant law. But while tyrant, Miltiades had conquered the island of Lemnos and given it to his home city. This earned Miltiades enough favor in Athens to win him not only acquittal, but election as one of the generals. There was still, however, a faction in Athens that despised the former tyrant.Athens and Eretria had helped the Ionian rebels, which, the Persians said, was why they were there. They were going to punish Athens and Eretria for their med-dling. But Callimachus knew that Darius wanted all of Greece, and many Greek cities had already submitted to him. The biggest holdouts were Athens and Sparta.Suddenly Callimachus saw movement in the Persian army.
The Barbarians had begun moving their horses toward the shore where their 600 ships were beached. Callimachus made up his mind. It was time to attack now, Spartans or no Spartans.
The Great King
The Greeks called Darius, the Emperor of Persia, the "Great King." In Susa, his capital, he waited for word from the Aegean. The Greeks were a headache. As long as some were outside the empire, they would incite those who were inside, to rebel. But conquest of Greece would not be easy. Mardonius had learned that. After putting down the Ionian revolt, he continued into mainland Greece. Thessaly had submitted, but the semi-nomadic Thracians had put up a stiff fight before they accepted Persian rule. Then the sea intervened. A tremendous storm wrecked the Persian fleet that had been supplying the Persian army. Mardonius had to withdraw.
Greece was mostly barren and mountainous. The Greek cities depended on commerce for food. No large army could live off the land in Greece. Such an army would have to be supplied by sea. But the sea was treacherous. And the Greeks were worse. Just 45 years earlier, the warships of one small Greek city, Phocaea, had destroyed a Carthaginian fleet twice its size. The Carthaginians were colonists of the Phoenicians, who supplied Persian naval power. Greek sailors had colonized not only the Ionian coast of Asia Minor, but the Dardanelles, the Crimea, Cyrene in Africa, Massillia (modern Marseille), and both the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts of Spain.
If the Greek cities united, they could wipe out any fleet Darius could muster.Fighting Greeks on land was not much easier. The Greeks had devised a military system that was ideal for their narrow mountain valleys. It was all infantry, based on heavy infantry protected from head to foot by heavy armor. The Greek hoplite wore a bronze helmet that covered everything but his eyes and mouth, an armor corselet, and greaves to protect the part of his legs visible from behind a huge bronze-faced shield. Arrows would not penetrate his armor except at close range.
He carried a long spear, with a short sword as a secondary weapon. The Greek heavy infantry attacked in long, straight lines many ranks deep, called a phalanx. They marched in step, keeping time with the music of flutes. Greek mercenary hoplites were in demand all over the civilized world. Man for man, they were the best infantry in the world.Greece, then, could only be conquered with overwhelming numbers, which would have to be supplied by sea. But depending on ships, in the face of Greek naval power and the stormy Aegean, was risky in the extreme. The conquest of Greece would require subtlety.But Darius had not gotten to where he was by being stupid.
He had usurped the throne of Persia, restored Cyrus the Great's crumbling empire, and extended its borders into India, across the Hellespont into Europe, up into the barren steppes of Turkestan and down the Nile into the deserts of Sudan. Darius would not try to overwhelm the Greeks. He would wage war on their minds.
By posing as a patron of democracy, Darius had convinced many Greeks that Persian overlordship was no bad thing. They had given his envoys earth and water as tokens of submission. But the Spartans had thrown his envoy into a well to get water, and the Athenians dropped Darius's representative into a pit to gather earth.Psychological warfare against Sparta was almost impossible. The city-state was run like an army; dissent was also impossible. But Athens had opposing factions. Darius sent agents to the Athenians who hated Miltiades.
They pointed to flourishing democracies in Ionia and promised that if the Athenian out-party opened the city gates to Persian troops, they would be the in-party. The Athenian dissenters pointed out that there was no way they could do that while the in-party controlled the army. The Persian agents promised to lure the army out of the city. The Athenian traitors agreed to help.Darius's plan called for a swift strike directly across the Aegean. The expeditionary force would be comparatively small—only what could be transported on 600 ships. It would quickly take tiny Eretria, then lure the Athenian army away from the city.
With their troops away, the Athenian traitors would let the Persians in, and Athens would be conquered before help arrived from Sparta or anywhere else.
Mardonius had been wounded on his expedition to Greece, and he hadn't been notably successful. Darius gave the command to his nephew, Artaphernes, and a Median general named Datis. Datis, a brave and experienced soldier, would actually command.
The military mind
Datis was a good commander. He had to be to have achieved his rank without being an ethnic Persian. But he wasn't subtle. When he attacked Eretria, on the island of Euboea, the Eretrians resisted for six days. Then traitors opened the city gates to the Persians. It is not known whether or not Persian agents had approached them before the attack, but it seems likely. What is known is that Datis, once inside, followed standard operating procedure. He sacked the city, burned the temples, and car-ried the inhabitants off into slavery.
Then Datis embarked for the trip to Marathon.He waited for the Athenian army to appear, as expected. Then he waited for the signal telling him the gates of Athens would be open. He waited and waited. He knew that if he didn't get the signal soon the Spartans would arrive and there would be hell to pay.If he had a bit more imagination, Datis would have known that sacking Eretria after traitors had opened the gates was not a good way to encourage the Athenian fifth column.
Finally, Persians and Greeks both saw someone signaling the Persian army by flashing sunlight from a polished bronze shield. Datis ordered his army to embark.
Dunkirk for Datis
The cavalry, Persia's greatest strength, went first. Meanwhile Callimachus had voted in favor of attack. As luck would have it, today was Miltiades' day to command. Miltiades lined up his troops with the center only four ranks deep in order to make his line as long as the Persian line. He kept the wings eight ranks deep in order to repel flank attacks by any cavalry that hadn't embarked. The flutes tootled, and the hoplites set out with their traditional slow march, keeping all ranks dressed, each man crowding behind the shield of the man on his right.
When the Greeks were about 200 yards away, the Persian archers began shooting at the bronze glacier approaching them. Their arrows bounced off the Greeks' armor. And the glacier turned into an avalanche. The Greek array switched to double-time and swept down on the Persians.Ethnic Persians and Sakas (Iranian nomads related to the Scythians) held the center of the Persian line. They fought desperately against the weakened Greek center, suffering appalling losses. The Greek spears were longer and their armor was heavier. The Persians actually climbed over the Greek shields to hack at the shield-bearers with axes and daggers. The Greek center bent back.
Meanwhile, the Greek wings, eight ranks deep instead of four, continued to advance. As the Greek line bowed in the center, the wings turned inward. The Persians were caught in a double envelopment, crowded into a dense mass where their bows were useless.The Persians turned and fled back to their ships. The Greeks pursued. They only captured seven of the ships, which shows that a great mass of the Persian army got away. It was now headed for Athens, and sea travel was faster than marching over the mountains.
The great race
Miltiades, Callimachus, and the rest of the Greeks knew about the signal. It seemed that in spite of the fate of Eretria, traitors were ready to surrender Athens to the Persians. They called on Pheidippides, who had run to Sparta to ask for help, to inform Athens of the victory. Speed was absolutely essential, the generals emphasized. The professional runner had never run so fast. He staggered into Athens crying, "Nike, Nike!" and dropped dead. The traitors knew now that the Athenian army had beaten the Persians and was on the way home. Any notion of welcoming Darius's troops was forgotten.
The Athenian army made a forced march over the mountains in one day. The Persians found the city closed and their enemies ready for another fight. They went home.Darius's son, Xerxes, decided to have another go at the Greeks. This time, he sent an enormous army into Greece. The Persians swarmed down the peninsula, over-whelming opposition and burning Athens. Then the disaster Darius had foreseen occurred. A Greek fleet, following the directions of Themistocles of Athens, lured the Persian navy into constricted waters near the island of Salamis and wiped it out. Xerxes had to withdraw the bulk of his army. He left Mardonius with a small force he believed could subsist on the countryside. The next year the combined phalanxes of many Greek cities annihilated the Persian army. Democracy did not die.
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