Herodotus, The Histories Book 6, Marathon

Herodotus, The Histories Book 6, Marathon

102

Once they had overcome Eretria, they spent a few days there and then sailed towards Attica in good spirits, expecting to have the same success against the Athenians. Hippias the son of Peisistratus led them towards Marathon, which was the part of Attica nearest to Eretria and most suitable for cavalry.

103

When the Athenians learned about this, they came to meet them at Marathon. The Athenian forces were led by ten generals, of whom the tenth was Miltiades. As it happened, his father Cimon, son of Stesagoras, had been banished by Peisistratus, son of Hippocrates. While he was in exile he was lucky enough to win the chariot race at Olympia; by this victory he achieved the same honour as his half brother Miltiades. At the next Olympic festival, he won again with the very same horses, but allowed Peisistratus to be announced as the winner; because of this he returned to his own land with the agreement of Peisistratus. With the same horses he won again at another games, but he was killed by the sons of Peisistratus once Peisistratus himself had died. His sons sent some men to kill him at night by the Council House. Cimon is buried outside the city, on the other side of what is called the ‘hollow road’; opposite him are buried his horses, with which he won three Olympic victories. One and only one other team of horses belonging to Euagoras the Spartan had already achieved this distinction. The older of Cimon’s children was then living with his uncle Miltiades in the Chersonese, while the younger (who was named after Miltiades who set up the settlement in the Chersonese) was living with Cimon in Athens.

104

This then was the Miltiades who had returned from the Chersonese, having escaped death twice, and now was one of the Athenian generals. The Phoenicians had pursued him as far as the island of Imbros, very keen to capture him and bring him to the Persian king. After escaping from them he arrived home safely as it seemed; but his enemies were waiting for him and took him to court, prosecuting him for his tyranny in the Chersonese. After he had been acquitted, he was chosen as an Athenian general by the people.

105

While they were still in the city the generals sent to Sparta a herald called Pheidippides, an Athenian and an experienced long-distance runner. As Pheidippides himself reported to the Athenians, the god Pan met him on Mount Parthenion above Tegea, and after calling out his name, told him to ask the Athenians why they did not show respect to him, when he was well-disposed towards them and had often been useful to them in earlier times, and would be again in the future. The Athenians, once their situation was again secure, as they believed this story was true, dedicated a shrine to Pan beneath the Acropolis and worshipped him from that time onwards every year with sacrifices and a torch-race.

106

Pheidippides was sent by the generals this time, when he said that Pan appeared to him, and reached Sparta on the day after he left Athens; when he came before the Spartan magistrates he said: ‘Men of Sparta, the Athenians ask you to come to help them and not to allow the most ancient city of Greece to be thrown into slavery by foreigners; for already Eretria has been enslaved and Greece is now weaker through the destruction of a notable city. In this way Pheidippides did what he had been told to do; the Spartans wanted to go to help the Athenians, but it was impossible for them to do so immediately, as they did not wish to break their laws. For it was the ninth day of the month, and they said they could not march out on the ninth until the moon was full.

107

The Spartans waited for the full moon, while Hippias, the son of Peisistratus, led the barbarians towards Marathon; the night before he had had a dream in which he seemed to be sleeping with his mother. He interpreted this to mean that he would return to Athens and recover control of the city, ending his life as an old man in his own country. The next day he was showing the Persian forces the way; the slaves taken from Eretria were put ashore on an island belonging to the city of Styra, called Aegilia. Then he took the ships to Marathon where they came to anchor, and he organised the troops when they had disembarked. While he was doing this he happened to sneeze and cough more violently than usual; as he was fairly old, the majority of his teeth were loose, and he coughed with such force that one came out of his mouth; it fell on the sand, and Hippias made every effort to find it. When the tooth could not be found, with a groan he said to those who were with him: ‘This land is not ours and we will not be able to bring it under control; my tooth now has whatever part of it was mine.’

108

That was how Hippias reckoned his dream had turned out. The Athenians had taken up position in the sanctuary of Heracles, and the Plataeans came to help them with their whole army. For they had made an alliance with the Athenians some years before this, and the Athenians had already helped them on many occasions.

109

The opinions of the Athenian generals were split: some did not wish to engage with the enemy (for the Athenians were few in number to fight with the army of the Persians), while others (among them Miltiades) were ready to fight. This division persisted and the weaker tactic was on the point of being chosen; there was an eleventh member of the war council, the man selected by lot to be the War Archon (for in the past the Athenians used to give the War Archon the same voting rights as the generals); at this time it was Callimachus from the deme Aphidnae, so Miltiades went to him and said: ‘It is down to you, Kallimachos, either to enslave Athens or to make her free and to leave a memorial of yourself for the whole span of human history greater than even Harmodios and Aristogeiton. For now the Athenians have come to the greatest crisis they have ever faced, and if they submit in slavery to the Persians, it is clear what they will suffer when handed over to Hippias; but if this city survives, it will be able to become the most powerful of all the Greek cities. How these things can be brought about and how the decision about what to do has fallen to you, I will now tell you. We generals are ten in total and we have different opinions about what to do, some wanting to engage the enemy and others not. If we do not fight, I expect that the Athenians’ resolve will be shaken and they will go over to the Persian side. But if we fight before this rot has entered any Athenian minds, if the gods give us fair fortune, we are able to be victorious in the battle. Everything now depends on your decision, and on you alone. If you accept my opinion about what to do, our fatherland will be free and will be the first city in Greece. But if you choose to vote with those who do not wish to fight, you will achieve the opposite of what I have just said.

110

By saying this, Miltiades won over Callimachus; with the support of the War Archon, the decision to fight was agreed. After this, as each of the generals who had voted for engaging with the enemy became commander for a day in turn, they surrendered their position to Miltiades. Miltiades accepted their offer, but did not make the decision to fight until he was commander for the day in his own right.

111

When it was Miltiades’ turn, the Athenians were drawn up for battle, with the War Archon commanding the right wing; this was the usual practice in Athens at this time. The tribes then took up their positions in their usual order, and the Plataeans were drawn up last on the left wing. Ever since this battle, when the Athenians are performing sacrifices at their four-yearly festival, the herald prays that both the Athenians and the Plataeans may be granted good fortune.

As the Athenians were getting into position at Marathon, it turned out that the Athenians kept their battle line as wide as the Persian one, with the result that the middle was a few rows deep (so the line was weakest there), but both wings were strong.
112

When they were ready for battle and the omens were favourable, the Athenians were sent into battle and hurried forward at a run towards the barbarians. There was about a mile between the two armies. When the Persians saw them charging at a run, they got ready to receive them, considering the Athenians both mad and bent on self-destruction, especially as they had no support from either cavalry or archers as they rushed onwards. But the Athenians when they joined battle with the barbarians all along the line, fought in a manner worth remembering. For they were the first of all the Greeks we know about who engaged with the enemy at a run, and they were the first to carried on when they saw Persian clothing and the men wearing it. Until this battle even the name ‘Persian’ caused fear in men that heard it.

113

The fighting at Marathon lasted a long time. In the centre of the battle, where the Persians themselves and the Sacae were stationed, the barbarians were winning, and once they had broken through the Athenian ranks, they pursued them inland; but on both wings the Athenians and Plataeans were victorious. Once they were successful, they allowed the fleeing enemy to escape, and drawing together both wings they engaged with the Persians who had broken through in the middle, and the Athenians were victorious. They pursued the Persians as they fled, cutting them down, until they came to the sea, and then they called for fire and grabbed hold of the ships.

114

During this struggle the War Archon Callimachus, a brave man, was killed, together with one of the generals, Stesilaus the son of Thrasylaus. Cynegeirus, the son of Euphorion, took hold of a ship’s stern with his hand, and was killed when his hand was severed by an axe; and so too many other notable Athenians.

115

The Athenians captured seven ships in this way, but the Persians retreated with the rest of their fleet, and once they had picked up the Eretrian slaves from the island where they had left them, they began to sail round Sunium, intending to get to the city of Athens before the Athenian force did. Amongst the Athenians the reason that the Persians thought of doing this was blamed on the Alcmaeonidae; for it was said that they had made an agreement with the Persians and had signalled to them with a shield when they were already on their ships.

116

The Persians were sailing round Sunium, and the Athenians returned as quickly as they could to help the city, and managed to arrive back before the Persians, and, having left one sanctuary of Heracles at Marathon, drew up their line of battle when they arrived in another, this time in Cynosarges. The barbarians lay at anchor off Phalerum (for this was the main port of Athens at the time), and then sailed back to Asia.

117

In the battle fought at Marathon about 6400 Persians were killed, while the Athenians lost 192. During the fighting a wonderful thing happened: Epizelus the son of Couphagoras, an Athenian man, was engaged in close combat and was fighting bravely when he lost sight in both eyes, even though he had not been struck on the body by sword or arrow, and he remained blind for the remainder of his life from that time onwards. I heard that he told a story about his experience: it seemed as if a great warrior stood before him, whose beard covered his whole shield; this apparition went past him and killed the man standing beside him.

118

As Datis was making his way with his army back to Asia, when he was at Myconos, he had a dream. What the dream was is not recorded, but, as soon as day had dawned, Datis made a search of the ships and found in one of the Phoenician ships a golden statue of Apollo; he asked where it had been taken from, and when he learned from which temple it came, he sailed in his own ship to Delos. The Delians had returned by that time to the island, so he placed the statue in the temple and ordered the Delians to take it back to the Delium which is part of Theban territory: it is on the shore opposite Chalcis. After he had given these instructions, Datis sailed away, but the Delians did not take back this statue, but twenty years later the Thebans themselves brought it back to Delium because of an oracle.

Herodotus Strengths:
We know that Herodotus was well travelled.
Spoke to people who fought
Herodotus also seems to have visited the battle fields because he knows the geography.
Herodotus Weaknesses:
“Father of Lies” he makes up conversations between important people.

More interested in gossip than facts/ battles

Importantly Herodotus was most probably not born or very young when the battle took place.

Over the next two lessons we are going to plan and prepare an exam question
‘Without Miltiades the Athenians would have lost at Marathon.’ Using Herodotus’ account, explain how far you agree with this view.
• give an account of the battle of Marathon and Miltiades’ part in it;
• compare the part Miltiades played with other factors which led to victory;
• use relevant sections of Herodotus to support your answer;
• consider how reliable you think Herodotus is.
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