Battle of Marathon
- Date
- September 490 BCE
- Category
- Military & conflict
- Region
- Greece (Attica)
- Era
- Classical Antiquity
- Significance
In September 490 BCE an Athenian army, supported by a small Plataean contingent, defeated the first Persian invasion of mainland Greece on the plain of Marathon in north-eastern Attica.
King Darius I had despatched the expedition partly to punish Athens and Eretria for their support of the Ionian Revolt. Outnumbered and without Spartan help, which arrived too late, the Greek hoplites, with the general Miltiades the driving force, deliberately strengthened their wings and thinned their centre. When battle was joined the Persian centre broke through, but the Greek wings enveloped and routed the enemy, who fled to their ships. Herodotus reports about 6,400 Persian dead against only 192 Athenians, including the war-archon Callimachus. The victory, won by citizen-soldiers of the new democracy, had effects out of proportion to its scale: it shattered the myth of Persian invincibility, gave Athens enormous prestige and confidence, and bought a decade in which the Greeks prepared for the far larger invasion to come. The legend of a runner carrying news of victory to Athens later inspired the modern marathon race.
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Empires active in September 490 BCE
- Achaemenid Empire550 BCE – 330 BCE
- Roman Republic509 BCE – 27 BCE
- Scythians800 BCE – 300 BCE
- Carthaginian Empire650 BCE – 146 BCE
- Kingdom of Kush1070 BCE – 350 CE
- Zhou Dynasty1046 BCE – 256 BCE
Related military & conflict events
- Battles of Thermopylae and Salamis480 BCE
- Death of Cyrus the Great in Battle Against the Massagetaec. 530 BCE
- Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem and the start of the Exile587/586 BCE
- Darius I's Scythian Campaign North of the Black Seac. 513 BCE
- Alexander the Great invades the Persian Empire334 BCE
- Battle of Gaugamela destroys the Achaemenid Empire1 October 331 BCE
Further reading
The wider story
Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic
Gripping popular narrative of the Republic's fall.
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