Chapter 11
When the two squadrons of the imperial fleet made contact off the SW shore of Attica, in the vicinity of Phaleron, their commanders met, discussed, perhaps exchanged blames and curses. Old Hippias knew he would never see Attica again, much less rule it and decided to go home, and not try an all-out landing for a rematch. While retiring east, they were letting the word out throughout the Aegean, as they decommissioned their fresh subjects to their islands, that the expedition had punished one of the two target cities and was bringing its inhabitants in fetters to the mercy of the king. As far as anyone was concerned, but the few eyewitnesses, there was no such thing as a defeat in the plain of Marathon. A small, clearly inconsequential reverse at most (Lazenby 1993), obviously due to low-quality vassals who compromised the victorious master-race that had advanced victoriously some distance further than it should, being overenthusiastic due to their success.
The Empire Repulsed
It is certain that the fleet, going back, released the new draftees of the islands and Carystus to their homes. But where did this fleet go? Somewhere in Ionia, or Cilicia? Or both, meaning that the satrapal troops were disembarked in Ionia and the rest to Cilicia? The latter is more probable, to save the army some months of walking and thus save the Crown expenses in provisions. The Ionian vessels probably had to go all the way, to assist with the transportation of the captives and the loot, although the heavy casualties might have made their presence – and thus all related expenses – redundant. Once on land, the royal part of the army must have followed the King’s Road to get straight to Susa, where the king demobilized it and debriefed the commanders. He planted the deported Eretrians in royal estates nearby. This clemency is very unlike Darius, who crucified insurgents by the thousands even in Herodotus’ too lenient account (Her III.159,1). It is more than possible that the pact between the two Eretrian traitors and the imperial generals – or rather Datis – provided for no further atrocities except for deportation and he fully respected it, both as a monarch sustained by the God of Truth and as a very dexterous diplomat. A subsequent round with the mainland Greeks was imminent and humane treatment would encourage surrender rather than stiffen resistance.
On this subject, one may wonder whether the deportation of the Eretrians was total, or focused on the party opposing the traitors’ own, allegedly the Aristocrats. Given the traitors’ social status (Her VI.101,2) and Persian social preferences, the deportation must have been focused against the popular party and affected a hefty proportion of the commoners. It was, after all, standard Persian policy to familiarise with the rich and terrorise the commoners (Holland 2005). The very fact that 10 years later there is still Eretria (fighting for the Greek Alliance) may have been a clumsy and gross intervention of Herodotus, intended to glorify one more traditional ally of Athens. Otherwise, it cannot be explained if a total depopulation is assumed: the Eretrians sought refuge massively behind their walls and did not scatter to the country to escape. The concept of selective and limited deportation, possibly by lists handed by the Medizers, explains this prodigy and also accounts for the issue of deck space in the invasion fleet reserved for the deportees from both Athens and Eretria, who would amount to tens of thousands (Sekunda 2002). For example, Athens had 30,000 voters (Her V.97,2) and just as many women and at least as many slaves and underage of both sexes for a total of more than 100,000, which means at least 150 prisoners for each one of the 600 triremes of the fleet (or less if transport vessels are taken into account) in a total deportation scenario which would have left Hippias lording over empty and deserted ruins.
The Athenians victorious
The Athenians celebrated their victory most reverently, which was of existential scale. They proceeded to no purges of the Medizers, defeatists and so on, although these were undoubtedly well-known. The victorious aristocrats wanted nothing more than to hammer their victory and reap the fruits. And respect was the ultimate fruit of victory. Purges were not initiated even against the medizing-remnants of Eretria, nor against Carystus, which had ultimately turned to the Empire as it surrendered after some rounds of devastation (Her VI.99,2). It is this magnanimity – or reluctance – that made Miltiades ask for an expeditionary force without saying where he was intending to go (Her VI.132); nobody in Athens had any stomach for further meddling with the Imperials, after having taught them a very good lesson. Thus, Miltiades was able to secure his campaign on grounds of profit and loot (ibid), not on strategy, security and good sense. The role of his target, Paros, to the medizing of the Cyclades is obscure; Naxos, nearby, was razed (Her VI.96) and Paros was no match. Many islands had medized and took part in the expedition of Datis, not entirely voluntarily. None suffered consequences and 10 years later they were faithful subjects of Xerxes, sending their vessel quota (Her VIII.46,3) but for a few exceptions (Her VIII.46,3 & 82,1). Thus, it must be true that it was a personal score of Miltiades, as Lysagoras, a distinguished Parian of unknown involvement but definitely Medizer, had slandered him to Hydarnes, one of the seven conspirators, and a very devoted subject and friend of Darius (Her VI.133,1). Lysagoras must have been the man who had informed the close circle of the King of Miltiades’ proposal to cut the bridges at Ister (Burn 1962), thus making the Athenian a lifelong fugitive and turning him into a hero against the Persian campaign to reconquer Ionia after the revolt.
The Athenians honoured their 192 Hoplites killed in action (Her VI117,1). They buried them on the spot, as moving them to the city under the sun would have taken a massive effort with unwanted risks for the decency of the deceased. They erected a tumulus and were offering yearly funerary rites and sacrifices (Paus I.32,4; Burn 1962) while the Plataeans were buried with the Athenian slaves killed in action, indicating that the Athenians thought of the gallant Boeotians as subjects and not as allies or fellow citizens (Paus I.32,3; Badian 1993). And this, even though they could have shirked their duty, remembering that the Athenian protection/overlordship had been extended to them not by the Democracy but by Hippias, who was riding with the Imperials (Burn 1962).
Next, the Athenians campaigned against Paros under the instigation of Miltiades as already noted and met with an epic fiasco (Her VI.135,1) that proved fatal for Miltiades due to a festered non-combat wound (Her VI.136,3), discredited him and almost had him executed (Her VI.136,1). Even if the account of Herodotus is even more hostile than usual and the expedition of Miltiades was partially successful as it probably targeted more islands than just Paros so as to cut the bridge of island-hopping to the empire (Burn 1962), as the allied Admiralty did in the wake of the battle of Salamis ten years later (Her VIII.111–112), the ultimate objective, Paros and its wealth escaped him. This fact poses a very troubling question on the ability of the Athenians to storm fortified places, as celebrated by Herodotus for their descendants in 479 BC (Her IX.70,2). One wonders what happened in these ten years so that the inept Athenians of 489 BC, who failed at Paros (Her VI.135,1), became the experts in storming fortifications that Herodotus has them to be, and, after all, did breach the Persian fort near Plataea (Her IX.70,2).
The latecomers. A matter of policy or politics?
The Spartans were to come to save Athens. Why? Democratic Athens had humiliated Cleomenes once (Her V.73,1) and he had tried in person to impose Isagoras (Her V.74,1) in order to get even. This was to no avail because of Demaratus and the attitude of the Corinthians (Her V.75). Cleomenes was probably the reigning king of Sparta at the time of the battle of Marathon; even if he had been already deposed, humiliating a Spartan king was never taken lightly by the Spartans – although for this king there might have been some peculiarities, as a war for power between him and the Ephorate was perhaps raging (Dickins 1912). A campaign at the time would have taken the fabled Spartan army away after a recent Helot war (Plato Laws 698E). Why (risk and) save Athens? After all, the Athenians were patently ungrateful, as maintained by Cleomenes, who witnessed no real gratitude for ridding them of the tyranny (Her V.90,1), no matter how mixed such blessing had been for the lower social class (Grundy 1901).
Sparta had already been at war with Persia. Even if the mission to Cyrus with the arrogant message to let the Greek colonies be at peace (Her I.152,3) had not been considered an act of war, which it had, the execution, or rather murder, of the herald of Darius, asking for Earth and Water (Her VII.133,1) in 491 BC meant that Sparta was at the crosshairs of the sovereign and would face him sooner or later, rather sooner. The ferocity and absurdity of this act implies the direct involvement of Cleomenes and no other Spartan, reverent by nurture if not by nature.
Medizm had been discouraged in Greece heavy-handedly by Sparta, as Aegina was to find out (Her VI.73). Athens had medized due to the threat of Cleomenes since the early 500s (Her V73,3). But that was another Athens. The current Athenian government, possibly including Themistocles (Green 1970; Burn 1962; Sekunda 2002), had welcomed Miltiades, the most wanted man in the list of Darius, and had him acquitted of all democratic charges and counts of ruling Chersonese as a tyrant (Her VI.104,2) – which he did, in the name of Athens (Her VI.140,1), similar to his predecessors (Her VI.36,1). Had the Athenians really murdered the Persian herald demanding Earth and Water from them (Her VII.133,1), Miltiades (Paus III.12,7) is a more probable culprit than Themistocles (Plut Vit Them 6,2). With this action he was making irreparable the animosity between Athens and Persia, something very important for his own survival; else he could be delivered in fetters to Darius as a token of apology and penance by the Athenian medizers. Of course, it may have been that Miltiades had the herald executed and Themistocles passed the vote for the interpreter. If Miltiades was indeed responsible for the murder of an imperial herald, the hatred of many Athenians, especially the Alcmeonids for ruining any further prospect of a friendly settlement with the empire for the issues of insubordination and the assistance to the Ionian rebels can be better appreciated and understood. He shoved them off the central stage, exposed them to peril by making them play the card of the traitor during the campaign and thus forced their hand for the virulent proposal of public execution, one of the worst disgraces of the Democracy.
Still, the Athenians probably had not committed such an atrocity (Bradford 1980). They are never mentioned to be bearing such a burden (Her VII.133,2) and probably they had never had a chance: a rebellious subject (Lazenby 1993) was not entitled to official proposals for voluntary surrender. This behaviour was deceitful, a lie according to the views expressed in Behistun (actually it was a lie, one surrendering spontaneously and then reconsidering); there would be punishment, swift and severe. Even if they had not performed such a heinous act, and retrospectively made such a claim only to match the Spartan action (Her VII.133,1) it is certain that the city provided clear signs of its determination to resist the invasion and this tradition, historic or not, is just that; a token of determination and commitment. The Athenians did everything to turn the Spartans against Aegina which had medized (Her VI.49) and then to assist them at their disciplinary actions (Her VI.73,2). Athens might have been the actual reason for Aegina’s deliberation to medize and bringing the proceedings of the island state to the attention of Spartans was probably caused by ulterior motives.
But at the time things were clear. This version of Athens was not medizing, helped against Medizers, had committed itself to defence and had the support of Sparta. One can put two and two together and conclude that this was a party opposite to Cleisthenes’ Medizers and Peisistratids’ new Medizers. Given that it is supported by the Hoplite corps, it must have been the rebooted aristocratic party, the one controlled by Isagoras and unsuccessfully counteracting Cleisthenes after the expulsion of Hippias (Her V.66,1). Isagoras might have been a dead weight due to his failure and many of his supporters were murdered by the Democratic party, after Cleomenes’ ignominious flight from Athens, when trying to expel the Alcmaeonids and Cleisthenes. But the basis of Isagoras’ party, the citizens of some substance, was there and was very reliable in Spartan eyes. The former, the ardent Democrats, had offered Earth and Water; despite chastising the representatives who did this (Her V.73,3), they never renounced the tokens (Holland 2005) thus maintaining an impression of Imperial protection, until ordered to accept once more the rule of Hippias (Her V.96,2). Their nuclear clan, the Alcmaeonids, had been no democrats by any measure: they had been best friends with the filthy-rich-and expansionist King Croesus of Lydia, who provided their wealth; they were close relatives of the tyrant of Sicyon, Cleisthenes and, not to be forgotten, had dealings with Peisistratus, for the division of autocratic power, which became null due to failure of a dynastic marriage (Grundy 1901).
The Spartan assistance arrived the next day, just after the battle (Plato Laws 698E), underlining the wisdom of Datis who had moved with some temporal leeway, as he could not have been certain of the swiftness of the Spartan expedition. The 2,000 Hoplites (Her VI.120), esquired by their helots, accomplished a feat of mobility across broken ground, and were most probably of the 20–30 age class, the flower of the Lacedaimonian army, sent to assist against an existential threat. The Spartans knew full well that their city was high on the list of the Persian monarch and could not afford to lose Athens (Bradford 1980; Burn 1962). They sent few troops to make as fast as possible; these troops, one should notice, were few but still enough to double the Athenian racers and move promptly, with speed and stamina, wherever the campaign would have them needed. They may have actually run the distance, or at least jogged it, as their time implies something like 100 km per day. In any case, they were the young age-classes, the standing army in full alert, but most importantly, of top endurance and speed. Time was of the essence as their arrival at Athens, not at Marathon, would safeguard the city from the traitors. The (prospect of) belated though prompt Spartan intervention made both the Persians and the Athenian traitors hurry their operations and thus fail. It is very probable that another installment, similarly to the campaign of Plataea eleven years later, would follow suit at a normal pace and once the news of the outcome at Marathon reached them by means of a runner, while they were probably on the move, they about-faced and returned to Lacedaimon without ever crossing the Isthmus (Burn 1962).
The first installment of Spartan reinforcements was late for the battle. But since they were already in Attica, they asked for permission to visit the battlefield (Her VI.120), a show of proper proceedings in a foreign territory. The Athenians, in their bragging mode and mood, happily obliged. Interviewing the Athenian veterans with the repulsive smirk, they could recreate the battle fairly accurately and could scrutinize the Imperial casualties. Not only outfit, weapons and clothing (Bradford 1980; Burn 1962), but the actual impact of Hoplite arms on their kit and bodies. The Spartans took a most valuable lesson, at no cost and they learnt it very well as Thermopylae and Plataea were to prove.
This Spartan inspection, coming on top of the Athenian roaming of the battlefield for spoils and then to collect and bury the Imperial dead, makes the number 6,400, as a round figure of course, uncontestable (Bradford 1980; Burn 1962). True, it includes not only line troopers, but possibly sailors of the captured vessels and support troops or non-combatants of the Persian camp. But it is also lower than the true total, not higher. Any Imperials, no matter what their status, killed in the shallows might have drifted not ashore but to the open water, and thus remained uncounted. The same goes for the fugitives who were drowned in the marsh (Paus I.32,7). Usually, such victims disappear altogether and thus were not counted.
The last issue is the attitude of Athens’ neighbours. In this campaign, the Boeotians are never mentioned to medize, and are not taking part, neither themselves nor their territory, in the proceedings of the campaign. Due to the attested dislike Herodotus felt for them, one may suppose that had they medized, Herodotus would have been quick and glad to mention it. Aegina, on the other hand, strategically placed just next to the front door of Athens, played no role. The Imperials could have landed there and used it as a base to thoroughly outdo the Athenians and cut them off from the Isthmus and the Peloponnesian reinforcements. After the battle, they could have done something similar, to cause at least some damage to their land and property. But they never landed there, obviously considering the island enemy territory, a tribute to the proactive and harsh policy of Cleomenes (Her VI.50,1) and proof of his good terms with the then Athenian government, possibly including Themistocles, the character, spirit, genius and unscrupulousness of whom Cleomenes would have approved of, appreciated and liked. It is possible that an understanding between Cleomenes and Themistocles led to whatever concerted action was to be between the two states and survived after the former’s demise to the kingship of his heir and brother Leonidas – a man so different from Themistocles, but able to combine and co-operate with the great Athenian scoundrel.