The Battle of Marathon

In the annals of world history, there are few things that stir the soul of generations to come as a battle in which the underdog stands up for his faith, his belief, and his country. There have been quite a few landmark battles that have altered the course of civilization. Incredibly, the Greeks figure in two of them. My personal favorite is the battle of Thermopylae in which a handful of Spartans defied the might of the Persian army.

Today, we revisit the battle of Marathon in which a meager Athenian army took on the Persian soldiers who were better armed and better clothed as well. They routed the Persians who broke center, got surrounded, and then massacred all the way to the seashore where the Greeks set fire to the numerous Persian ships.

Historians are united in their opinion that the battle of Marathon is easily the most crucial military engagement in the history of Europe; that is saying a lot. Putting the battle above the battle of Hastings and the numerous wars that the Europeans fought amongst themselves, not to mention the two world wars. The reason here is simple. If the Persians had won that engagement, the consequences would have been earth-changing. We wouldn’t be communicating in English but Persian. There probably would not have been civil society in the Western world as we know of today. Most importantly Athens would not have had a chance to experiment with democracy; where would we be without it?