The charge made with regard to their conduct at this time was that they signalled to the Persian fleet at Marathon by means of a shield, that Athens, in the absence of the Athenian army, lay open, and that a party within the city would admit the invaders.

Herodotus does not deny the shield incident. He confines himself to asserting that the Alkmæonidæ could not have had anything to with it. It is noticeable that he makes no charge against any one else, for the apparent reason that tradition did not accuse any one else of the treachery.

The defence he gives is probably that of the Alkmæonidæ themselves.

The charge against the Alkmæonidæ does not seem to have been a late interpolation into the Marathon tradition. Pind. Pyth. vii. 15. Pindar, in one of his odes, which bears traces of having been composed shortly after 486, hints strongly that sinister reports on this subject were existent even at that time.

It is possible to fail to recognize the wide difference between the mental attitude of the European Greek to the Persian before and after the decade of 490–480. Before 490, Medism had not acquired the loathsome significance of twelve years later.

Nor, again, if the Alkmæonidæ and the faction which they led did Medize on this occasion, was the act without precedent in the case of Athens herself. Between fifteen and twenty years before, Athenian ambassadors had given earth and water to Artaphernes at Sardes. Their act had, indeed, been condemned upon their return; but there is no reason to suppose that the condemnation was unanimous; and there is every reason to believe that they would never have so acted, had they not had good grounds for thinking that a majority or a party of their fellow-country-men would approve of what they had done.

The sudden withdrawal of Athenian assistance from the Ionian revolt within a year of that assistance having been granted is most explicable on the assumption that within that year a philo-Medic party had once more acquired the ascendency.

The punishment of Phrynichos for his drama on the capture of Miletus looks very much like the work of the same party.

It seems clear that the democrats in Athens had not found that the expulsion of the tyrant Hippias had brought unmixed blessings in its train. They were thereafter face to face with a strong internal opposition, in the shape of a powerful aristocratic party; and threatened from outside by a Sparta which repented of the part it had played in Hippias’ expulsion, and was exasperated at having been fooled by Delphi at the instigation of the Alkmæonidæ. It is not, then, strange that the democrats should look abroad for help of which they saw no prospect nearer home.

The situation of the democratic party had been very unstable. Its sympathies had been balanced on a razor’s edge, ready to incline to the one side or the other on the slightest shifting of the weights in the political scale. The severities of the last years of the rule of Hippias, after the murder of Hipparchos, had been sufficient to make it passively acquiesce when the intrigues of the Alkmæonidæ against the tyrant were brought to a successful termination by the agency of Sparta; but they had not wholly blotted out the memory of the fact that the triumph of Peisistratos had been in a very real sense the triumph of democracy.

By the reforms of Kleisthenes, however, the Alkmæonidæ had made a strong and successful bid for popular favour; and from 509 onward the fortunes of the democratic party were closely linked with those of this powerful clan.

The opposition, backed by the influence of the repentant Sparta, was dangerously strong. First one side and then the other held the upper hand; but, in the years immediately preceding Marathon, the political fortunes of the democrats seem to have been at a low ebb. There had been one great trial of strength. Miltiades had arrived in Athens in 493, an exile from his tyranny in the Thracian Chersonese, driven out by the Persians. POSITION OF THE DEMOCRATS IN 490. He was not likely to sympathize with any party which had shown leanings towards Persia; he seems, indeed from the moment of his return, to have set himself up and to have been recognized as the champion of the aristocratic and anti-Persian party. As such he was attacked by the democrats, being prosecuted on a charge of “tyranny” in the Chersonese. His acquittal was a great victory for the aristocrats, and a severe blow for their opponents.

From 493 to 490 his party seems to have been in power. It is quite evident, at any rate, that he was the foremost man in Athens at the time of Marathon.

The outlook for the democrats was gloomy. It is not strange if they began to regret the past. The “golden age” of Peisistratos gained in glory from its being far. His tyranny had been more of a blessing than a curse to the mass of the people. The yoke it had laid upon them had been light; and, in return for their submission to it, they had attained to a prosperity they had never before enjoyed.

The present was full of possibilities in great contrast to that past. The reforms of Kleisthenes, that great measure, or series of measures, which had purchased their oblivion of a beneficent tyranny, seemed likely to be undone. The Demos was not bound any longer to forget, if it was like to be robbed of the price of forgetting.

Thus, not unnaturally, the thoughts of a section of the Athenians, headed by the Alkmæonidæ, turned to Hippias. His restoration would be a lesser evil than a return to the old oppressions of the days before Peisistratos.

It is a satisfactorily attested fact in the history of this time that there was “treason” at Athens; in other words, that there was a party in the state which would have welcomed the return of Hippias. Herodotus would have denied it if he could honestly have done so; but he emphatically admits the truth of it.67

Apart from the general political circumstances of the time, Hippias and the Peisistratidæ might reckon on the assistance of many old family adherents in Athens.

When it came to a question as to the possible means of bringing about the restoration, neither Hippias nor his adherents had any choice.68 It could only be accomplished through the instrumentality of the Persian—a dangerous means, perhaps, but the only means; and those who risked the danger were not, before 490, in a position to estimate the full extent of it. The real policy of Persia cannot as yet have been known to the Greeks.

Before proceeding to show in what way these political circumstances affected the strategy of the campaign, it may be well to glance at the general form which the Marathonian tradition took in later days.

Marathon greatly enhanced the reputation of Athens. Nor can there be any doubt that the Athenians were not slow in discovering this. Therefore the process of evolution by which the tradition became a tale of a great national effort would be an eminently natural one. As such the Athenian would present it to those outside the bounds of Attica. The ugly features of the story would certainly be, in so far as possible, suppressed in all editions of it given to the world in general.

Those features would, however, be certain to survive in an edition evolved in the party struggles within Athens itself, and the aristocrat would regard Marathon as excellent material whereon to base an attack on a political opponent.

Aristophanes, nearly three-quarters of a century after the battle, was much more inclined to emphasize its importance as a triumph of aristocracy over democracy, than as a victory of Greek over barbarian. With him the “party” tradition had more weight than the “national.”

Is it, then, to be assumed that the Athenian democrat had no honest claim to a share in the victory? This is a question which, on the extant evidence, is very difficult to answer.

One negative fact is quite certain. Marathon was not69 a crowning victory for the new democracy. The opposite was rather the case.

At the same time it is quite conceivable that, at the last moment, certain circumstances saved a large number of those in the plot from themselves, and so brought about its failure.

The Persians made a gross blunder in treating Eretria as they did, above all at that particular time. The news of what had happened there reached Athens before even the Persians landed at Marathon. The effect of the news would necessarily be to show the party supporting Hippias their error in supposing that the Persians intended, in case of success, to allow anything but their own feelings and their own interests to dictate their policy towards the conquered states. Such a disclosure must have given the resistance a solidarity which it would otherwise have lacked. Many of those originally in the plot must have been present in the army at Marathon. It is quite certain, apart from the necessities of the military levy, that Miltiades would not have left any considerable body of the malcontents in Athens. Yet there is no mention of any difficulties in the army itself when at Marathon; nor is there any “voluntary cowardice” in the battle. There the democrat seems to have fought just as well as his political opponent.

The fate of Eretria was a lesson which the Athenian democrat never forgot. Persia had undeceived him once and for all. The shock of awaking to the terrible nature of the danger in which he had involved his country by supposing his own interests to be identical with those of Persia was so rude that its effects were permanent.

But the Persians went to Marathon in the expectation that disaffection in Athens would do its work.

The position at Marathon offered several advantages.

(1) They could afford to bide their time there until they received word that the conspiracy in Athens was ripe for fulfilment, because the fact of the ground being suitable for cavalry would either deter the Greeks from attacking them, or would give them a great advantage in case they did so.

(2) If, as they no doubt hoped, and might well expect, the Greek army marched thither to meet them, the conspiracy in Athens might proceed unimpeded; and, when it was ripe, they might leave part of their army at Marathon, a long day’s march from Athens, to occupy the attention of the Athenians, while with the remainder they sailed round to occupy the capital.

This last seems, at any rate, to have been the plan which they attempted to carry out. It may or may not have existed in whole or in part at the time of the landing at Marathon.

The Persian did not want to fight at Marathon, though he was prepared to do so in case the Athenians decided to attack on ground of his own choosing.70

His great object was to get the Greek army as far as possible from Athens, and, if possible, to keep it there.

The fact that the Persians did not, in spite of their knowledge of the treachery within the town, attempt a direct assault on Athens, points to the same conclusion, which is suggested by other considerations, namely that the expedition was not on a very large scale. It was, indeed, formed, and it acted throughout, upon the assumption that it would receive a large measure of assistance from Athens itself.

On hearing that the Persians had landed at Marathon, the Athenian army marched to that place.

Before leaving the city, the generals had despatched a professional despatch runner named Philippides71 to Sparta, to summon assistance. H. vi. 106. He made a marvellously quick journey, for he is stated to have arrived at Sparta on the day after leaving Athens; and if, as would be presumably the case in a matter so urgent, he communicated his message immediately to the Spartan authorities, he arrived there on the 9th day of the month, and thus left Athens on the 8th.72

It is unnecessary to insist on the verbal accuracy of the message which is put into his mouth by Herodotus; but the matter of it contains what are, no doubt, the historic facts:⁠—

(1) That the news of the fall of Eretria reached the Athenians before they started for Marathon.

(2) That Philippides was despatched after this news arrived, but (inasmuch as there is no mention of the landing of the Persians in Attica) before the news of their landing had reached Athens.

The appeal to Sparta, and the Spartan answer, show that there must have existed some agreement between the two states, to the effect that Sparta would come to the aid of Athens in case of invasion. If, then, the Persians had reckoned that the presence of Hippias with their army would be sufficient to ward off Spartan interference, they had reckoned on the stable policy of a government whose policy was in those years most markedly unstable and uncertain.

But, though expressing themselves willing to come to the aid of Athens, the Spartans alleged that they could not, without breaking the law, start before the full moon; in other words, that their coming would be delayed at least a week.73

On what day of the month the Athenians received the news of the landing at Marathon, Herodotus does not say; but, inasmuch as the battle must have taken place about the 16th,74 and the armies were face to face with one another for several days before the engagement took place, the news can hardly have arrived later than the 10th day of the month.

On receipt of it, the Athenians started for Marathon. It would be a long day’s march, and a hard journey over the rugged upper road. On arriving there they encamped in the sacred precinct of Herakles.

An examination of the map will show how well the position was chosen. It lay high up the rocky valley of Avlona, so near the point where the two forks of the upper road to Athens from the Marathonian plain join one another, that it commanded them both. Moreover, the army in this position would threaten the flank of any body of troops who tried to march on Athens by the lower road, which left the plain between the foot of Mount Agrieliki, (to use its modern name), and the little marsh.

Herodotus’ account of the system of command existent at this time in the Athenian army service is confused, and contains at least one serious anachronism. It leaves the reader in a state of uncertainty as to whether the polemarch Kallimachos or the “general” Miltiades was the actual commander-in-chief.*

On the Command at Marathon.

*He says (ch. 103): “They were led by ten generals, of whom Miltiades was the tenth.” The last phrase closely resembles the quasi-official phraseology of Thucydides, where he is mentioning the generals in command of an expedition, and wishes to indicate the one who had been appointed first in command. Though the phraseology of Herodotus does not exactly correspond with that of the later author, yet the resemblance is so close that it seems probable that he was under the impression that the “strategi” of 490 held a position more closely analogous to that of the strategi of his own day than was actually the case. THE COMMAND AT MARATHON. It seems to imply that the command of the army lay with them, and that in 490, as in later times, one of them was appointed to be first in command for a particular expedition.

This last was certainly not the case. The ten strategi or “generals” in 490 seem to have been the commanders of the contingents of the ten tribes which Kleisthenes had instituted less than twenty years before; and, in so far as the control of the army as a whole was concerned, to have formed, under the presidency of the polemarch, a council of war.

In a later chapter (110), Herodotus says that each held a πρυτανηίη τῆς ἡμέρης. In whatever sense the term πρυτανηίη may have been used, it is plain from the context that Herodotus intends to imply that each of the strategi in rotation commanded the army for one day.

It is quite certain that Herodotus is mistaken in this view; but it is not easy to say how the mistake arose. The most probable explanation is that he was trying to account for the prominent part played by Miltiades in the version of the battle which he followed, by assigning him a much higher official position in the army than he actually held. Herodotus’ account of the events at Marathon is obviously taken from a source wholly different to that of his defence of the Alkmæonidæ. The former is a current tradition, relating the story from an aristocratic point of view. The other is an Alkmæonid (and therefore, in a sense, democratic) denial of a charge preserved in the “aristocratic” tradition.

Herodotus had more difficulty in understanding the position of Miltiades than we have at the present day.

His mistake with regard to Miltiades precludes him from giving any definite account of the position of the polemarch Kallimachos. He does not make any positive, direct statement as to his military rank, though he represents him (chap. 109) as a sort of chairman of the council of the strategi.

He evidently supposes that he is not commander-in-chief, though he mentions that he commanded the right wing, the post of honour, in the battle.

He further speaks of the polemarch as an official “chosen by lot.”

We know from the “Constitution of Athens” this choice of lot was not introduced into the selections for the archonship till 487. Herodotus’ statement is therefore an anachronism.

So far, then, as Herodotus’ meaning can be unravelled from the confused account which he gives of the system of command at this time, he seems to have supposed it to have been constituted on the following lines:⁠—

1. Supreme Control—Board or Council of War. Composed of—10 strategi + 1 polemarch (chosen, like the other archons, by lot), who is apparently President of the Board.
2. Command in the field—Held by each of the strategi in rotation for one day at a time.
3. Post of honour in the battle—Held by polemarch, as commanding the right wing.

It may be doubted whether Herodotus took any very great interest in the question of organization. It is quite certain that he had great difficulty in getting reliable information about the matter. It would, in fact, seem as if he had deduced the general system of command in 490 from⁠—

From (1) he drew the conclusion that the supreme control lay with the board of strategi, as it did in his own time.

From (1) and (2a) he concluded that the system prevalent in his time of appointing one of the strategi as superior to his colleagues in the command of some special expedition or department prevailed at the time of Marathon; that is to say, that Miltiades was in a position analogous to that which Perikles had held on several occasions in Herodotus’ own time.

Still, he is evidently uncertain on this point; and he accounts for Miltiades’ position by assuming a system of diurnal rotation in the command, H. vi. 110. and by representing that some of Miltiades’ colleagues surrendered their days of command to him.

From (2b) he draws the very important conclusion that the polemarch was no longer commander-in-chief.

He has ante-dated this particular application of the system of lot by three years. It is obvious that the Athenian citizen would not entrust his life when serving in the field to a commander appointed by such a method. His belief in Providence, as represented by the lot, had its limitations. Herodotus was probably well aware that, from the moment of the introduction of the lot into the election of the archons, the polemarch had ceased to command the army.

Perhaps, after all, the main difficulty which would be experienced by an inquirer in the latter half of the fifth century into the system of command existent in 490, would arise from the fact that that year fell within what was a comparatively brief period of transition in the Athenian army system, intermediate between the old organization existent before the reforms of Kleisthenes, and the completely new organization which was introduced between 490 and 480, probably in 487, and prevailed with hardly any modification during the rest of the century.

The reforms of Kleisthenes, by substituting ten tribes for four, had rendered a certain amount of army reorganization necessary. Thereafter the army was constituted in ten tribal regiments, each commanded by one of the strategi:75 “they chose the generals by tribes, one from each tribe.” What other novelties there were in the system we do not know; but of the system itself, as existent at Marathon, we derive a certain amount of knowledge from the Aristotelian treatise on the Constitution of Athens, and with its aid we may now proceed to set in order the confused and mistaken account of Herodotus.

That treatise distinctly states (Ch. 22) that the polemarch was chief-in-command at Marathon. This is, perhaps, a conclusion at which a close student of Herodotus’ uncertain account would arrive. H. vi.109. The attitude of Miltiades towards him at the celebrated Council of War is that of an official inferior. His command of the right wing would argue that he was, at least de jure, the chief of the army.

Of the position of the strategi the treatise says but little. It seems certain, however, that, in addition to commanding the tribal contingents, they formed, as Herodotus implies, a council of war presided over by the polemarch.

This council of war seems to have had considerable powers. The more important and general questions of war policy seem to have been decided by its vote, rather than by the orders of the polemarch.

It is, perhaps, to this feature that we may attribute the undoubted power which Miltiades exercised at this time. Herodotus sought to account for it by ascribing to him a higher official position than he actually possessed. He had not made up his mind what that position was, and limited himself to making two vague and inconsistent suggestions with regard to it. It is possible, however, to see that Miltiades’ prominence at the time arose from his being the author of a plan which he persuaded the council of war to adopt. It may be even the case that Kallimachos and the council, when once the plan was definitely adopted, left him with a free hand to carry it out; and that this feature in the history of the time has survived in Herodotus’ tale of the surrender to Miltiades by the other generals of their days of command.

The historian himself makes no positive pronouncement on the matter. He is aware that the victory was due to Miltiades, and he therefore seeks to invest that general with special powers such as could be conferred on particular generals at the time at which he wrote. Until the discovery of the treatise on the “Constitution of Athens,” an Aristotelian work, if not a work of Aristotle, the explanation of the difficulties in Herodotus could only be a subject of conjecture.

That treatise, however, states definitely that the polemarch was commander-in-chief at Marathon, and that the ten generals were elected one from each tribe. They were, in fact, commanders of the tribal contingents.

But they were more than this. They formed a council of war at which the polemarch presided. The major decisions with regard to all operations were made by the council and not by the polemarch; and Miltiades’ prominence at the time was due to his having persuaded the council to adopt his strategic and tactical plans. He seems, furthermore, to have been given, either by Kallimachos or by the council, a free hand in carrying them out.

It is not unnatural that this should have come to pass.

The plan was good enough to recommend itself; it seems, indeed, to have been one of the ablest designs traceable in the history of Greek warfare; and it was very ably carried out.

The designer was, moreover, at the time the most prominent and most powerful man in Athens. He probably enjoyed a far greater military reputation than any of his contemporaries, as having seen more service than any one else, and, above all, as being acquainted with Persian methods of warfare. He was eminently a man to whom Kallimachos might defer, although his titular position was not higher than that of the other generals.

While the Athenians were encamped at the sacred precinct of Herakles, they were joined by a contingent from the Bœotian town of Platæa.

Some twenty-nine years before this time the Athenians had taken the little city under their protection against its formidable neighbour Thebes, which had tried to force it to become a member of the Bœotian confederacy. It was out of gratitude for the aid then given, and for the protection afterwards extended to them, that the Platæans now shared the perils of their benefactors.

While the Athenian position at Marathon is clearly determined by the identification of the precinct of Herakles, the station taken up by the Persian army must remain a matter of uncertainty. No topographical detail by which it can be identified has survived. The “Soros” shows, indeed, where the actual fight took place; but it does not define the position of the Persian army during the days of waiting before the battle was fought. The only detail preserved in the various traditions of the battle which can be said to cast any light on the position of the original encampment of the Persian force is that the Persian fleet was “anchored” at Marathon, not drawn up on shore.76

The truth of the detail is rendered probable by the general history of events, in which it is conspicuously shown that the Persian design demanded that a portion, at least, of their fleet should be ready to start at a moment’s notice.

Except at the northern end, where the promontory of Kynosura forms a natural breakwater, the bay of Marathon is open and exposed. As an anchorage for vessels the northern end would naturally be chosen. It may be presumed that the army would be encamped in the immediate neighbourhood of the fleet; and, if so, its original position must have been north of the Charadra, hidden from the Greek encampment by the rise of the modern Mount Kotroni. Doubtless both sides had outposts in view of the enemy’s camp.

On their arrival at Marathon the Athenians held a council of war. Herodotus’ account of it, though it must be regarded as a valuable contribution to the history of the time, is somewhat distorted by the evident fact that he did not understand the nature of the circumstances by which the Greek generals were faced. He represents the question under discussion as having been of an absolute character, namely, whether the Athenians should take the offensive or remain on the defensive. He involves himself consequently in an inconsistency. Miltiades urges the immediate offensive, lest delay may give treachery time to do its work in Athens itself. The opinions of the ten generals are divided on the question; and it is to Kallimachos the polemarch, who has the deciding vote, that the earnest appeal of Miltiades is addressed. Kallimachos is persuaded, and not only that, but the four generals who have voted for Miltiades’ plan hand over their days of command to him. The latter, however, with singular inconsistency, though he has urged the immediate offensive, defers the attack until his own day of command has come round.

There can be no doubt that Herodotus, or the creator of the traditions which he followed, has misunderstood the position at the time. The question of the offensive, as discussed by the Athenian council of war, was not an absolute question, but was relative to circumstances which might at any moment supervene. Nor is it difficult to see what those circumstances were. It is also clear that the Greek generals must have been cognizant of them.

The Persians must have landed at Marathon some forty-eight hours before the Greeks arrived there. The news of their landing had to be carried to Athens; then the army had to march twenty-four miles over a rugged road to reach its position at the Herakleion. The Athenian generals must have started under the impression that the Persian army intended to march from Marathon upon Athens. Scouts would, however, inform them in the course of the march that the Persians showed no signs of moving. Arriving near Marathon, they would find the strong defensive positions in the passes leading from the plain unoccupied. Surely this would convince the quick-witted Greek that the Persian design was not what he had supposed it to be,—an immediate advance on Athens,—but that either the landing at Marathon was a mere feint, or that the Persian wished to choose his own ground for the battle. Once at the Herakleion the position would further develop.

Strategically the Greek had attained a highly advantageous position.

The Persian could not advance on Athens by land without either exposing his flank in an attempt to pass along the lower road, or committing himself to an assault on the strong position at the Herakleion, where he could not use his cavalry, and where the heavy-armed Greek would have an immense advantage.

Nor, on the other hand, could he embark and attempt the sea passage round Sunium, without exposing himself to serious danger in the process of embarkation.

From the purely military point of view, there was absolutely no reason why, unless circumstances developed in one of these two directions, the Greek should not bide his time. The only risk involved in so doing was the possible working of treachery in Athens, a risk which must have been very sensibly decreased since the arrival of the news of the fate of Eretria. On the other hand, every day’s delay rendered the arrival of the Spartans more possible.

The question debated by the council of war was not the mere abstract question of the offensive, but whether, in case the Persians attempted to move on Athens by land or by sea, they should be attacked in the attempt; or whether, at the first sign of movement, the Athenians should return to defend Athens.

The position on the Persian side was certainly less advantageous. Their design can only be judged of by the record of what they did and did not do.

Their omission to seize the passes leading from the Marathonian plain towards Athens, although they had plenty of time to do so, must be taken to imply conclusively that they never intended at any time to try to advance by land from Marathon.

Nor does it seem to have been their primary intention to fight the Athenians at Marathon. They were prepared to do so on ground of their own choosing, if the Athenians showed a disposition that way; but their main design was, having attracted the Athenians to Marathon, to keep them there while treachery in Athens had time to do its work. So far, they had everything to gain by delay.

But there was another factor on which they had to reckon, and that was the Spartan army. It is impossible to doubt that they were kept well informed by their friends in Athens of all that had passed. They must have known of the message sent to Sparta, of the reply received, and of the date at which the arrival of the Spartans might be expected. The Spartans would start at full moon, on the 15th of the month. To the Persian, then, the period of possible delay was limited.

During the days which followed the arrival of the Athenians at the Herakleion, the Persians must have waited impatiently for that signal which was to tell them that the conspirators had done their work in Athens,—that signal which never came until too late. Day after day passed, and still there was no sign. The Spartans would be starting now: it was the fifteenth. It was not merely a question of their arrival at Marathon: even if they reached Athens, the game was lost.

It was probably on the 16th day of the month that the Persians made up their minds that something must be done. Unless they acted promptly, they might as well not act at all. THE PERSIAN FORCE IN THE BATTLE. The Spartans might be expected at Athens on the 18th or 19th. They arrived there on the 17th, as a fact, making a march rapid beyond expectation.

It was probably on the night between the 15th and 16th that the Persian preparations were made. Herodotus knows little about what happened until the armies faced one another for battle. Yet there are indications and omissions in his story which point to the course which events followed.

On the day of the battle the Greeks in the valley of Avlona found a Persian army facing them in the southern part of the Marathonian plain. H. vi 111. It was evidently drawn up in battle array, for the Greek formation seems to have been modified to suit that of the enemy.77

What was this Persian force which faced the Greeks? There are two circumstances in Herodotus’ account which render it practically certain that only a moiety of the land army of the expedition actually fought in the battle. Herodotus never mentions the Persian cavalry as having played any part at all in it. They had been landed in Eubœa at the time of the attack on Eretria. H. vi. 102. Marathon had been chosen as a landing-place, because, says Herodotus, it was suitable for cavalry. Yet in the account of the battle they are never mentioned.78 Had they been in the battle they must have played a prominent part in it. It must, therefore, be concluded that they were not there. If they were not, where were they? Many conjectures have been made on this subject.

It seems almost certain that they were on the fleet; that they had been already embarked, together with a large, if not the larger, part of the Persian army.79

No rational estimate can, on the extant evidence, place the numbers of those who fought on the Persian side in the actual battle at much above 20,000. It might even be reasonably argued that they did not amount even to that sum.

Those numbers grew in the evolution of the tradition, until they reached an enormous magnitude. Herodotus is silent on the subject. He is fond of giving numbers on such occasions. It must be concluded that he was not satisfied with his evidence on this point.80

Tradition surviving in various authors later than Herodotus gives the number of the Athenians and Platæans at about 10,000 men. It is probable that few had been left in Athens, so that the major part of the levy would be present at Marathon. If any conclusion can be drawn from the number of Athenians stated to have been present eleven years later at Platæa it would seem as if tradition did not grossly underestimate the number of those present on the Greek side.81

On the available evidence, positive statement as to the proportion of numbers between the two armies which fought in the battle is impossible. All that can be said is that it is highly improbable that the Persians outnumbered the Greeks by two to one, and quite possible that the disproportion between the two armies was not very great.

It may be well now to form a conjecture as to the strategy which prompted the Persian general to make this disposition of their forces. It would seem that, fearing the arrival of the Spartans at Marathon, or even at Athens, they had determined to carry out the plan they had intended to put into operation as soon as they should receive the signal from their Athenian confederates. The signal had not been given; but they could not wait. They must take their chance at Athens, and hope to find the treason there in a sufficiently forward state to render their entrance into the city possible. So they divided their forces, leaving a sufficient number at Marathon to occupy the attention of the Athenians and to make it dangerous for them to move on Athens. These troops had also to cover the embarkation of the major part of the army, including the cavalry. With this latter part of their force they intended to sail round and to attack Athens before either the Athenians could come up from Marathon or the Spartans could arrive from Sparta.

It was for some such eventuality as this that Miltiades had been waiting. He and his colleagues must have seen clearly that the Persians could not afford to continue indefinitely a policy of delay. They must have divined also that the delay could have but one meaning, namely, that the enemy were waiting for a sign from their friends in Athens. It is not difficult to understand the motives which actuated either side at this crisis in the campaign.

The Persian troops left at Marathon had a double duty to perform.

They had to cover the embarkation of the rest of the army.

They had, also, to do everything in their power to detain the Athenian army at Marathon. Had not this second duty devolved upon them, they would doubtless have remained north of the Charadra, and would probably have defended the line of that stream-bed. But in that case the Athenians would have been given so long a start in their retirement upon Athens, that it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to harass and delay their march. Thus it became necessary to move nearer to the Athenian encampment. They crossed the Charadra, and took up a position prepared alike for battle or pursuit.

It is probable that the Persian generals reckoned rather on the latter alternative. At this time the balance of military prestige was greatly on their side. The conquerors of a continent were face to face with the army of a canton, and were, moreover, superior in numbers to the enemy. They may well have expected that the Greek would not dare to fight, or, if he did fight, would be badly beaten. The successes gained against them by the Ionians had not been on land; and they doubtless judged of the trained hoplite of European Greece in the light of their experience of the imperfectly trained Ionian hoplite they had recently had encountered in Asia.

It is now possible to conjecture the reasons which had induced them to re-embark their cavalry. The circumstances of transport forbid the supposition that they were numerically very strong in this arm. Had they left it at Marathon, it would not have been of service in pursuing the Greeks along the rugged upper road. Even had it been sent round by the lower road, its strength cannot have been such as to render it a formidable obstacle to a strong unbeaten army making straight for its goal at Athens.

But on board the fleet, cavalry might be of immense value for a dash on the capital immediately on the arrival at Phaleron. There every minute would be of importance; and, furthermore, in the open Athenian plain, it would be able to get round opposition, if unable to sweep it aside.

There is no evidence on the subject; but it is almost inconceivable that the lower road was not watched and guarded by some body of Athenian troops; and, though the road itself is easy, there are, even at the present day, places in the great tract of woodland through which it passes which an unsupported body of cavalry would find very difficult to force in face of opposition.

The situation of the Athenian army was more simple, in that the council of war had already provided for it. There was, indeed, as Miltiades had foreseen, no alternative but to attack. An attempted retreat along the rugged upper road, harassed by an enemy superior in numbers and lighter in equipment, might end in disaster, and must end in the army arriving at Athens too late to meet the force which was going round by sea.

Thus the battle was inevitable.

It must have been on the plain immediately off the entrance of the valley of Avlona that the Athenians formed their battle array.