Greece · 490 BCE
What Happened at the Battle of Marathon?
In 490 BCE, an Athenian army — with allies from Plataea, perhaps 10,000 men against a larger Persian expeditionary force — attacked and defeated a Persian landing on the plain of Marathon, about 40 km from Athens. Herodotus gives the casualties as 192 Athenians and 6,400 Persians, a lopsidedness that reflects heavy infantry in close formation against lighter troops caught against their ships. The victory ended the first Persian attempt on Athens and became the founding self-image of Athenian democracy: citizens defending their own city, successfully, against an empire. The famous run — a messenger dying after carrying news to Athens, the origin of the modern race — is a later story, not in Herodotus.
Key facts
- Herodotus, our main source, wrote around 50 years later. His numbers for the Persian force are not given clearly, and later ancient estimates of 200,000+ are not credible; modern historians usually suggest something like 20,000–25,000.
- The Athenians charged at a run across the last stretch to close the distance under archery fire — a tactic Herodotus presents as unprecedented.
- Their line was deliberately thinned in the centre and strengthened on the wings. The centre gave way, the wings held and wrapped around, and the Persian centre was enveloped.
- Sparta did not arrive in time. Athens sent a runner, Pheidippides, to ask for help — a real run of about 240 km — but a religious festival delayed the Spartans, and they reached the field after the battle.
- The marathon story is a conflation. Herodotus records Pheidippides running to Sparta, not from Marathon to Athens; the dying-messenger version appears centuries later in Plutarch and Lucian. The modern 42.195 km race was invented for the 1896 Olympics.
- Marathon delayed rather than ended the threat. Xerxes returned in 480 BCE with a far larger invasion — Thermopylae, the burning of Athens, then the Greek naval victory at Salamis.
Why Persia came
The immediate cause was Athenian interference. When Greek cities on the Anatolian coast revolted against Persian rule in the Ionian Revolt (499–493 BCE), Athens and Eretria sent help, and Athenian troops participated in the burning of Sardis. Darius I put down the revolt and then turned to punishing the mainland cities that had backed it — a limited punitive expedition rather than a war of conquest, though the distinction would have mattered little to Athens.
The Persian force sailed across the Aegean in 490 BCE, sacked Eretria, and landed on the bay of Marathon in Attica, guided by the exiled Athenian tyrant Hippias, who expected to be restored. The choice of Marathon suited cavalry and offered a beachhead; it also gave the Athenians the option of blocking the roads inland rather than fighting immediately, which is what they did for several days while the two armies watched each other.
The battle
The Athenian commanders were divided on whether to fight at all; Miltiades argued for attacking, and prevailed. On the day of the battle the Athenians formed up across the plain with a modification that decided the outcome: the centre of the phalanx was thinned to a few ranks so that the wings could be made deep and strong, and the line extended wide enough to prevent the Persians outflanking it.
Then they advanced at a run over the final stretch — Herodotus says about eight stades, roughly 1.5 km, though running the whole distance in armour is doubted; the sprint was probably the last few hundred metres to get through the arrow zone quickly. The collision favoured the Greeks: heavier armour, longer spears, and a tight formation against troops equipped for more open fighting. The Persian centre, their best troops, pushed the thinned Athenian middle back — and in doing so advanced into a pocket, while the strong Greek wings broke the flanks and turned inward. The Persians were driven back to the ships in a rout; Herodotus's 6,400 dead against 192 Athenians reflects a pursuit, not just a battle.
What it meant, and the run that did not happen
The Persian fleet then sailed for Athens itself, hoping to reach the undefended city before the army could return. The Athenian army marched back overland the same day and was in position when the ships appeared; the Persians withdrew. That forced march — a full army covering roughly 40 km after fighting a battle — is the genuinely astonishing feat of the campaign, and it is often displaced in popular memory by the messenger story.
The romantic version — a runner carrying news from Marathon to Athens, gasping "we have won," and dying — is not in Herodotus, who instead describes Pheidippides running to Sparta beforehand, a much longer journey now commemorated by the Spartathlon ultramarathon. The dying-messenger tale first appears in writers several centuries later, and the modern race was created for the 1896 Athens Olympics on the strength of it. Marathon's real legacy is political: it was the first time a Greek city defeated a Persian army in the open field, and Athens built an identity on it — proof that free citizens fighting for their own polis beat subjects fighting for a king. Ten years later Xerxes came back with an invasion on a wholly different scale, and the war would be decided at sea.
Frequently asked questions
Did a messenger really run from Marathon to Athens and die?
Almost certainly not as told. Herodotus, our earliest and best source, describes a runner named Pheidippides going to Sparta to request help — about 240 km — not from Marathon to Athens. The story of a messenger announcing victory and collapsing appears only centuries later in Plutarch and Lucian, and the modern marathon race was invented for the 1896 Olympics on that basis.
How did the Athenians win when they were outnumbered?
By formation and terrain. They thinned their centre to lengthen and strengthen the wings, so the Persian best troops advanced into a pocket while the Greek flanks broke the weaker Persian wings and enveloped them. Greek heavy infantry — better armour, longer spears, tight formation — also had a decisive advantage in close combat against troops equipped for looser fighting, especially caught against their own ships.
Did Marathon end the Persian threat to Greece?
No, it delayed it by ten years. The 490 BCE expedition was a punitive raid; after its failure, Darius's son Xerxes returned in 480 BCE with a vastly larger invasion that fought at Thermopylae, burned Athens, and was ultimately defeated at sea off Salamis and on land at Plataea in 479 BCE.
Sources & further reading
This article was written from the published record. Every link below was checked and is live:
- Perseus Digital Library, Tufts — Herodotus, Histories, Book 6 (the Marathon narrative)
- Livius.org — Battle of Marathon (490 BCE)
- World History Encyclopedia — Battle of Marathon
- Wikipedia — Battle of Marathon
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