The Battle of Marathon: Part 4 - The Finale

I left you with Persia poised to attack Greece, forcing a number of Greek cities to surrender out of the sheer threat of violence. As you remember from 300 (man, I can't stop linking it back to that movie even though it's not even the same battle) the Persians came in and demanded earth and water - in which Leonidas heroically power-kicks him into a seemingly endless pit of death while yelling "THIS - IS - SPARTA!", a line that has now been relentlessly parodied. That is how the Persians went about it. They would send an emissary (probably not Peter Mensah in the real life version) and he would demand earth and water, a symbolic gesture of surrender. While many turned it over and submitted, Sparta and Athens refused, bringing them to war.

The Persian infantry, possibly the
famed Immortals. With that name they
best make sure they're really good.

So how would Athens and Sparta stand a chance against the Persian horde, especially with a number of Greek cities at least kind of on the side of Persia? Their first step was to make the new-found allies of the Persians fear the Greeks more than their new overlords. They went very different than it is now; food cannot be airdropped, proper sanitation is a dream, disease can very well kill more of your army than the enemy ever will.
about trouncing the traitors, preventing the Persians from having cities to land in and host their massive armies while they prepared for the onslaught. Keep in mind that war back in the day was

Before I get to Persia landing on Greece, I would like to establish just how much of a superpower they were. Their total landmass stretched over 7.5 million square miles with 40 million people in their civilization. Athens and the surrounding area was was less than 4,000 and only 150,000 citizens lived within. Now, it's important to note that the larger a civilization gets it's reasonable to assume that they won't be able to control everything as well as a smaller one. Not to mention Athens is fighting on their home turf, so they'll be able to bring in more of their soldiers than the opposition. They also wouldn't be able to send the entirety of their military overseas, especially at once. The author of the book I'm getting this from (see the bottom of the page) makes an educated guess that there were 14,000 Athenian hoplites, 9,000 of those showing up at Marathon with the possibility of slaves added in as well. As for the Persians, they likely had 35,000 infantry and archers with the addition of 1,000 cavalry with the addition of all of the sailors that would accompany the boat (which is more than you'd think - about 50,000). So, in a nutshell: Persia is massive, but cannot bring the entirety of their force to the doorstep of Athens. Athens is significantly smaller, but can bring a much higher percentage of their force. Nevertheless, Persia still has the far superior numbers.

A modern depiction of a hoplite. If I were a horse, I
wouldn't want to go near that either.

So who had the advantage? There are a number of factors to throw in here, and if I were a betting man at the time I'd stay the heck out of it entirely. The Greek defense was a strong, veteran force, the victors of a great number of battles in recent history, allowing their generals to become well-versed in tactics. They were well prepared to git-er-done. In addition to this, the Greek's armour and weapons were vastly superior. They had bronze breastplates, much better suited to keeping them alive than the scale and leather (and sometimes even wooden helmets, apparently) that they would be up against. A persian shield, typically made of wood, could perhaps stop an arrow but it sure as heck was not able to stop a hoplite spear. Now you could argue the cavalry would make a huge difference and tip the tides in favour of the Athenians, but here's the thing - horses don't like running into large numbers of pointed sticks. A phalanx formation, in which all the hoplites essentially go shoulder to shoulder and form a nearly impenetrable wall, prevent the horses from ever wanting to go full throttle in there and scatter the ranks. The Persian fighting style needed the cavalry to displace the enemy infantry, allowing the archers to pick them off afterwards - but against a solid, well-trained force that holds formation, they were going to have to go toe to toe.

While all this looks overwhelmingly in favour of the Greeks now, there are a few things to note; Athens did not bring any archers nor cavalry. They were strictly an infantry force. How would they survive the first initial volleys of arrows that the Persians typically use to slow up a force to allow the cavalry to move through? Second, Sparta (who was vehemently religious) was having a festival and refused to meet them at Marathon during that time. It's like they asked for help during Christmas, but they assured them they'd show up after boxing day. In addition to all this, Persia was not an army to be trifled with. In 300, they were essentially fodder trained in death screams and slow motion falling, but in reality these were battle-hardened soldiers that have been rolling through pretty well everything in their past for the greater part of the past century. They were going to put up a fight.

So where we stand: Persia lands with a huge force, Athens is at their gates ready to meet them soon but not yet leaving their city. Here's how the battle goes.

A... plate? depicting a Persian and Greek fighting.
Dinner must have been a violent event.

Persia was actually in some logistics trouble; running short on food and having far too small of places to crap (this is actually a much larger issue than you'd think, going back to the whole disease thing I mentioned earlier) and they were planning on temporarily retreating back to their boats. They started loading stuff up, most notably the cavalry. Imagine trying to pack 1,000 horses in and out of boats - it's a brutal task, and one that would take a very long amount of time. The Athenians knew they had to attack then, before the cavalry could be set up, and damage their force enough that they would no longer wish to return or at least be so damaged when they did they'd have a better chance. So they moved out of their city and got in battle formations. The Persians were at this point not too worried about this; they did this fairly often, almost as a way of keeping the enemy on their toes. But this time something was a little different; the Athenians started to sing.

Now this wasn't some campfire singing stuff, this was battle hymn, terrify the enemy and bolster your forces kind of singing. That's when they started walking. The Persians were not horribly ill-prepared, the archers having been in place but the cavalry mostly absent. The Athenians crept closer, and as they moved they broke out into a light jogging pace. This is the time the Persian archers would typically shine; they'd level the forces as they approached, leaving room for the rest of the army to take care of the rest. But that's when the Athenians went into full battle mode and decided it was best to run, full sprint, right at the enemy. Having never seen this before, the archers greatly mistimed their shots and most sailed off into nothing, missing their marks due to the the speed throwing them off. The Greeks met them with such force they practically rolled over the Persian army, breaking through and finding the relatively defenseless archers. The Persians moved into full retreat, with a resulting resounding Athenian victory. 6,000 Persians were killed at the cost of 192 Greeks.

The Greeks sent a messenger back to Athens to tell them of their victory, and if he actually did run the length of a marathon (probably slightly less) and then die after declaring the win is a little muddled. Without getting into a massive discussion on if this actually happened... lets just leave it at a "maybe".

The Spartans arrived the following morning to see the devastation. It makes you wonder if they were disappointed they missed the show.