The Battle of Marathon in 490B.C. is not only the
most decisive event in the struggle between the Greeks
and the Persians but, arguably a defining event for
Western civilisation. John Stuart Mill famously proposed
"the Battle of Marathon, even as an event in British
history, is more important than the Battle of Hastings."
Richard A. Billows starts by providing a rich and
detailed overview of the Greek world at a time leading
up to Marathon, including an examination of the Greek
concept of 'bestness' and a look at a prosperous,
democratic Athens under Kleisthenes, which could, for
the first time, deploy a citizen army in full panoply,
to devastating effect against the lightly outfitted
Persian infantry, despite its greater numbers. Key
players include the Athenian general Miltiades, who,
from the point of view of military history, was the
first to utilize a totally oufitted hoplite phalanx to
its fullest and develop the groundbreaking battle
tactics in advance of the contest that provided the
fulcrum for the Greeks' victory over King Darius'
Persian army. The legend of the Greek messenger
Philippides running twenty-six miles from Marathon to
Athens with news of the Greek victory is the inspiration
for our modern day marathon race, introduced at the
Athens Olympic Games of 1896. Billows suggests, however,
that the sources present it differently; with two runs-
the messenger running 280 miles round trip to Sparta to
ask for aid, and the entire Greek army in full panoply,
after fierce ad exhausting fighting, marching at a rapid
speed back to Athens in the event they were needed to
defend its port. In this riveting work, Richard A.
Billows fully creates the atmosphere of the times,
engrossingly captures the drama of the day of battle,
and convincingly demonstrates that the flowering of
classical Greek culture - and the extraordinary
influence it had on Western culture - would almost
certainly not have occured had not the Athenians,
against the odds, defeated the Persians at
Marathon.
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