The Battle of Marathon (490 BCE)

In the centuries that followed the Battle of Megiddo (1457 BCE), the ancient world was shaken by thousands more battles. It's impossible to know how many – some were recorded in written sources, but many of these conflicts have been lost to the passing of time.

While these battles raged, civilizations collapsed. In 1069 BCE, even the Egyptian New Kingdom came to an end, mainly due to a succession of weak pharaohs who had failed to match the accomplishments of rulers like Thutmose III.

At the same time, other civilizations rose. In approximately 800 BCE, one of these appeared not far from Egypt, in the region now known as Greece.

When people think about Ancient Greece, they often imagine a single, unified entity. But the reality was very different.

Ancient Greece was a collection of independent city states, each with its own system of government. There were several hundred states in total, some more dominant than others. There was Thebes, with its famous seven-gated walls, and Sparta, with its fierce warriors.

But the most famous of Greece's ancient states was Athens: a sprawling city with the Acropolis citadel at its core.

For hundreds of years, all of these states were run by unelected leaders. But in 507 BCE, the Athenians took the brave decision to trial something new. They created the world’s first democracy, a term which derives from demos and kratos, the Greek words for ‘people’ and ‘rule’.

Athenian democracy was based on the boule: a council of 500 adult citizens chosen at random from the city’s male population.

When the Athenians established their system of democracy, it came at the expense of Hippias – a tyrant whose family had ruled over Athens for decades.

In his early years, Hippias was kind and mellow. But this changed when his brother was brutally murdered at an Athenian religious festival. Hippias spiraled into a state of grief, and as time went on, this grief contorted into a bitter hatred of the world.

He took it out on the people of Athens: biting taxes, ruthless exiles, even torture and executions.

Eventually, the Athenians decided that enough was enough. They rose up against Hippias, and chased him away. It's no surprise that they decided to try a democratic system instead.

When Hippias lost power, he found refuge in the court of Darius the Great. Darius was the leader of the Persian empire – a ravenous superpower that stretched all the way from India to the borders of Greece. Darius himself was tall and powerful, with long dark hair, and a heavy beard to match.

Hippias asked Darius to help him reclaim his former position of power. Darius refused – Athens was of no concern to him.

But between 499 BCE and 493 BCE, a number of Persian-controlled cities launched popular revolts. Athens sent troops to support the cause, and Darius the Great was outraged.

That's when Hippias stepped forward again, carefully clearing his throat. This time, Darius agreed to support him. He gathered an army of 20,000 men, and sent them to launch an immediate attack on Athens.

In 490 BCE, the Persian army surged across the Mediterranean. They landed at Marathon, a scrubby plain to the west of Athens, ringed by mountains and rustling groves of olive trees. Hippias accompanied the Persian army, impatient to overthrow Athenian democracy, and reclaim his former throne.

According to Herodotus, an ancient historian, Hippias had a dream on the night of the invasion. In this dream, he “slept with his mother”, and Hippias interpreted this as a positive omen. Supposedly, it symbolized a successful reunion with his mother-city: Athens.

It's hard to know if this dream really happened, or whether it was the product of hearsay. But in either case, Hippias must have been confident of victory. He had the might of the Persian Empire behind him – a military power which was far superior to anything the Athenians could muster.

After hearing reports of the Persian invasion, the Athenians gathered a defensive force of 10,000 soldiers.

With half as many men as the Persians, their hopes of victory were slim. But they were desperate to protect their newfound democracy, and refused to give up without a fight. They also elected ten brave generals, along with a single civil official. This team would lead the army together, and put important decisions to a vote.

They marched to Marathon, and looked down at the Persians from the mountains at the edge of the plain. They saw a glittering mass of soldiers, with warships floating in the briny surf beyond.

The Athenian generals gathered together. Now that the Persian army was in sight, they needed to make a choice.

They could launch an immediate attack on the Persians, potentially catching the enemy by surprise. Or they could set up defensively at the top of the mountains, and wait for the Persians to make the first move. After a tense discussion, the ten generals put this decision to a vote.

It resulted in a fifty-fifty split. So the deciding vote was given to the civil official. He drew a breath... then voted to launch an immediate surprise attack.

The Athenians surged down the mountainside, driving towards the Persian army where it camped at the edge of the plain.

As they went, the Athenians twisted into an unusual military formation. They deliberately weakened the center of the army, overloading the wings instead.

This formation meant that the startled Persians found themselves sucked towards the soft center of the army, where Athenian resistance was weakest. Spears clattered shields, and battle cries filled the air.

But while the Persians clashed with the Athenians at the center, the overloaded flanks wheeled in from both sides. The Persians found themselves surrounded – and to their horror, they were forced to run back to the ships in a hasty, ragged retreat.

More than 6000 Persians were killed at Marathon, while the Athenians lost fewer than 200. Hippias managed to reach the ships, but he was injured on the way, and died, gasping, on the journey back to Persia.

When the Athenian army traveled home from Marathon, they were greeted as returning heroes. The battle hadn't just saved their democratic system – it had also validated that democratic system, and proved it could compete with autocratic entities like the Persians.

Other cities took note, and democracy began to spread through Greece like wildfire. Wherever it went, culture flourished, as people were empowered to express their thoughts and open their minds to others. Classical philosophers like Aristotle and Socrates were children of democratic society. Because of all this, many historians view the victory at Marathon as the start of an Ancient Greek ‘golden age’.

Back in Persia, when Darius heard what had happened, he let out a roar of anger. He started to gather another army. This time, he planned to lead the troops himself. But before he had the chance to attack, he succumbed to illness, and abruptly passed away.

Our main source of information about the Battle of Marathon comes from Herodotus. He is often called the ‘Father of History’, because his adherence to research and reliable sources was unlike anything that came before him.

He wasn’t actually present at the Battle of Marathon, but he interviewed a number of witnesses, and used their testimony to build his account. Because of this, his writings are generally well respected by historians.

Herodotus’ modern approach to history also owes itself to the Golden Age which flourished after Marathon. Without the open-mindedness of democratic society, his ground-breaking Histories might never have been written, at least not in quite the same way.

The golden age of democratic Greece continued for hundreds of years. But it didn't last forever. Greece was eventually colonized by the Romans, who reinstituted autocratic rule in its place.

For many Greeks, this transition was painful. But democracy wasn’t truly dead.

More than two thousand years later, in the 18th century, scholars began to cast admiring glances back towards Ancient Greece. In many countries, a form of democracy was introduced for the very first time, inspired by the system formerly used in Athens.

Isaac Asimov, writing in 1985, said that Ancient Greece was a “peak whose fruits we moderns have inherited.”

So what would have happened if the Battle of Marathon had gone differently?

Imagine, for a moment, that the civil official had voted to let the Persians make the first move. The Persians surged forward, overwhelmed the Athenians, and went on to claim the city. Hippias regained his former throne, and lashed out at all who'd opposed him.

Other states would have come to see Athenian democracy as a failed system – a reckless experiment that doomed the Athenians to defeat. The Greek Golden Age might never have happened, and modern scholars looking back on the era could have dismissed democracy too. Instead of switching systems, these modern countries might have pushed ahead with an autocratic approach.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, the German philosopher, had this to say about Marathon: “history hung trembling in the balance.” This view is common among historians. If the Persians had defeated the Athenians, the world wouldn't have been the same.