Ancient history

first medical war

First Persian War

The campaign of 492

Darius I did not forget the help, even derisory, provided by Athens and Eretria to Miletus. He is therefore preparing a punitive expedition against mainland Greece. For this he instructs his son-in-law Mardonios to take over Macedonia and Thrace, theoretically subject but whose Persian garrisons had been evacuated during the revolt of Ionia. In the spring of 492, Mardonios gathered his fleet and his army in Cilicia then crossed the Hellespont and crossed Thrace and Macedonia. The fleet sails to Thasos, submits it to passage, and follows the European coast to Acanthos.

Assailed by a violent storm, when rounding the cape of Mount Athos, the fleet lost half of its ships. Then an attack of tribes of Païoiens surprising the Persian camp makes many victims. In total, the sources count more than 30,000 deaths between the two events. Of course, we must be wary of the figures for military personnel and the losses announced, which are often questionable, but it is clear that Mardonios must give the order for the retreat. This does not discourage Darius, he simply now considers it necessary to prepare the next expedition more carefully.

The Persian Expedition of 490

The whole year 491 was devoted to military and diplomatic preparations for this offensive. Many Greek cities receive ambassadors asking for their submission. Some comply, but both Athens and Sparta refuse and put to death (according to Herodotus) the Persian ambassadors, without however taking real measures to forestall the future offensive.

The Persian army, led by generals Artaphernes (army) a nephew of Darius and Datis (fleet), this time directly crossed the Aegean Sea, straight on Euboea and Attica, after however having taken the control of Naxos and Delos (490). There are 100,000 to 200,000 Persian soldiers depending on the version, but contemporary historians estimate that the real number is between 25,000 and 50,000, which is already considerable for the time. In total the Persian fleet probably represents 600 triremes. It reached the southern tip of Euboea, ravaged Carystos, which refused to open its doors, then Eretria, abandoned by its Athenian allies, destroyed and whose population was deported to Ardéricca near Susa, thus marking the first stage of the revenge of the Great King.

The Battle of Marathon

The Persian army landed, on the advice of Hippias, the former tyrant of Athens, at the beginning of September 490 on the beach of about 4 kilometers which borders the plain of Marathon forty kilometers from Athens. The Athenians do not wait for the enemy behind their ramparts but led by the strategist Miltiades, the Athenian and Plataean hoplites, about 10,000 men, go to meet the Persians. On September 13 the Persians decided to attack Athens by land and sea. Part of the Persian troops, including the cavalry, re-embarked, with the objective of landing at Phaleron in order to quickly reach the Acropolis. The remaining troops, about 21,000 soldiers, then crossed the Charadra, the small stream that crosses the plain of Marathon before losing itself in the coastal marshes, in order to prevent the return of the Athenian troops to the city.

These, with their allies from the city of Plataea, occupy two small heights, the Pentelic and the Parnes and await the reinforcements promised by Sparta, reinforcements which are slow. Faced with the evolution of the situation, the Athenians no longer had a choice:they had to beat the Persians in the plain of Marathon, then get ahead of the enemy ships and reach Athens to protect it. Miltiades, one of the ten Athenian strategists knows the weakness of the Persian army for having fought with them during the offensive against the Scythians. Indeed this army is made up of soldiers of different origins, not speaking the same dialects and not used to fighting together. In addition, the Persian weaponry, with wicker shields and short pikes, does not allow melee combat.

On the contrary, the armament of the Greeks is that of a heavy infantry, the hoplites, protected by a helmet, a shield, a cuirass, leggings and brass braces (bronze). Added to this are a sword, a long spear and a shield of skin and metal blades. Finally the hoplites fight in close ranks (phalanx) their shields forming in front of them a wall. Miltiades decides Callimachus the Polemarch to extend the line of Greek soldiers, so as not to be overwhelmed by numbers, and to strengthen the wings at the expense of the center. Indeed the Persians have their best troops in the center and it is therefore a question of surrounding them.

The Athenians therefore charge as soon as they come within arrow range. It is indeed improbable, given the heavy equipment of the hoplites, that they carry out a charge of more than 1500 meters as affirmed by the historians of the time. As expected, the wings of the Persian army, composed of scattered troops raised in the empire or poorly motivated Ionians, disbanded and climbed back in panic on board the ships. But the center of the Greeks is sunk and yields. The Greek troops positioned on the wings gave up pursuing the routed Persian troops and fell back on the center of the Persian army in a perfect pincer movement. This in turn collapses.

In total about 6,400 Persians are killed, most drowned while fleeing, and seven ships are destroyed, while the Athenians lose about 200 citizens. Such a difference is not extraordinary, even if the figure of the Persian losses is undoubtedly exaggerated. Indeed, there is frequently a ratio of one killed among the Greeks to 20 or 30 for the Eastern armies in the various battles opposing them to the peoples of Asia.

But it is necessary to prevent the second offensive of the Persians with the attack of the best elements of their army which had re-embarked before the battle of Marathon. The Persian fleet needs about ten hours to double Cape Sounion and reach Phaleron. By a forced march of seven or eight hours, with a battle in the legs, the Greek hoplites arrive approximately one hour before the enemy fleet. The Persians, seeing the failure of the maneuver, give up landing. Thus ended the first Persian War. This strategic victory became symbolic for the Greeks and conferred great prestige on Athens. In fact for the Persians it is mainly a failed landing and a minor failure. Their expedition succeeded in subjugating all the islands of the Aegean Sea, in any case a large number, to the power of Darius I.

According to some historians (whom Herodotus rejects), it was on this occasion that Phidippides (or Philippidès) would have run to announce the news giving its name to the marathon. However, the distance of the marathon chosen for the Olympic Games has nothing to do with the distance between Marathon and Athens, it is the distance between Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace, places where the first Olympic marathon was run. That said, whether the episode of Philippides is true or not, the sporting achievement here is collective with the forced march of the Athenian hoplites in order to prevent the Persian landing at Phaleron.

The reaction of Darius to this defeat is from the outset to prepare his revenge and a new expedition. It is impossible for the ruler of such an empire to dwell on a defeat. But a revolt then broke out in Egypt, led by the satrap Aryandès and occupied the last months of Darius. He died in -486 and was succeeded by his son Xerxes I.


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