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<youtube>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cubGxusJhw</youtube> [[File: Miltiades_Munich.jpg|300px200px|thumbnail|left|Bust of the Athenian General, Miltiades]]__NOTOC__Few battles in the ancient world had as much impact on history as the Battle of Marathon. The battle has provided a fodder for numerous books, documentaries, and movies, which often portray the event as one of the an important battles battle in the existential struggle between European freedom and Oriental despotism. The reality of the Battle of Marathon marathons reality is much less hyperbolic and much more complex than the popular media often depicts, although it was just as important.
The Battle of Marathon was a turning point in the Greco-Persian Wars (499-449 BC) as it put a check on the mighty Achaemenid Persian military juggernaut that was threatening to inundate all of Greece and put the Greek people under their tyranny. The “Great King” Darius I (ruled 522-486 BC) of the Achaemenid Empire ruthlessly crushed the Ionian Revolt (499-493 BC) of the Greek-Anatolian city-states, which proved to be the first round of the Greco-Persian Wars and the event that placed the what was at the time the not so important city-state of Athens directly in the path of Persian aggression. The Athenians supported their Greek-Ionian cousins in the revolt, thereby making them the eternal enemies of Persians and causing Darius I to send a large amphibious invasion force to Athens in 490 BC. Despite being outnumbered, the Athenians pushed back the Persian tide on an inconsequential plain near a small town known as Marathon.
The Athenians were clearly underdogs at the Battle of Marathon, but achieved a convincing tactical and moral victory for a number of reasons that were both tangible and intangible. Among the tangible reasons for the Athenian victory were the high-quality of their commanders, especially Miltiades, who knew the capabilities and limitations of their force and what they could expect from the Persians. The Athenian commanders were familiar with the terrain and used it accordingly, as opposed to the myopic Persian commanders who relied almost solely on their numbers.
====The Ionian Revolt====
[[File: Darius.jpg|300px|thumbnail|right|Relief of Darius I from Persepolis]]
The event that placed Athens, and later Sparta and most of Greece, in the cross-hairs of the Persians was their involvement in the Ionian Revolt. The Greek city-states in the coastal region of the Turkey's modern nation-state of Turkey, which was known in ancient times as “Ionia,” were firmly under the control of the Achaemenid Persians at the beginning of the fifth century BC as a “satrapy” or province. Ionia was listed as an Achaemenid satrapy in Persian inscriptions from Persia to Egypt and was written about by the fifth century BC Greek historian Herodotus, who noted that the province was quite lucrative as it supplied a yearly tribute of 400 talents of silver. <ref> Herodotus. <i> The Histories.</i> Translated by Aubrey de Sélincourt. (London: Penguin Books, 2003), Book III, 90</ref> The mainland Greeks continued to trade with their Ionian cousins and maintained reasonable diplomatic relations with the Persians until events unfolded in Ionia in 499 BC that set them against each other permanently.
Things moved quickly in Ionia after Histiaeus – who was a Greek appointed by the Persians to rule the Ionian city of Miletus as a puppet tyrant – left the city on business and was temporarily replaced by a man named Aristagoras. The new tyrant looked across the Aegean Sea to Athens as inspiration as that city had recently overthrown its tyranny and replaced it with democracy—Aristagoras endeavored to do the same in Miletus. Soon, news spread throughout Ionia and all the Greek cities in Anatolia what Aristagoras had done and so many followed suit and expelled their tyrants. The actions were considered rebellion by Darius I who soon sent a large force to quell the growing disturbance. <ref> Forrest, George. “Greece: The History of the Archaic Period.” In <i>The Oxford History of Greece and the Hellenistic World.</i> Edited by John Boardman, Jasper Griffin, and Oswyn Murray. (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 37</ref>
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[[Category:wikis]][[Category:Ancient Greek History]]
Updated November 21, 2020
