Battle Of Marathon Research Paper

Why is it so hard to reconstruct the battle of Marathon? Why did the Athenians win?

In the following essay the difficulties in reconstructing the battle of Marathon deceased and the reasons the Athenian winning this battle will be examined. The battle of marathon is difficult to reconstruct because there is a lack of archeological evidence and also the account of the battle given to us by Herodotus is bare bones in its description of the actual battle. Through the evidence and primary sources that are available it can be shown why the Athenian won this battle. The Athenians won because they used superior military tactics, were better outfitted and had information about the military tactics of the persian. In this essay the primary source of

Doenges ‘The Fault, however, was not Herodotus’ but can be credited to the uneven quality of the information available to him years after the event’. Herodotus constructs his narrative of the battle of marathon from the popular logoi (Opinion or account of the event) of Athens which had been transformed by Athenian internal politics and by the interests of family status and international prestige. Evans pg279 The popular account of the battle would have undoubtedly been changed by the family of Militdes for greater status and the Athenian would gain much by changing the story to show Athens to be the savior of all of Greece. Evan 279-281 As the account of Herodotus focuses more on the popular logoi of the time and less on the facts of the battle Herodotus’ narrative of the Battle of Marathon becomes inexact. In his description of the battle of Marathon there is no mention from Herodotus to the size of the Persian force. doenges pg5 Not knowing the number of troops involved in the battle of Marathon makes it difficult to reconstruct the battle and work out who had the size advantage, though it was most certainly the persian force which was at least somewhat bigger as

In Herodotus one fact that he gives about the battle is that the Athenian forces camped at a temenos (Sanctuary) of Hercules upon arriving at the Marathon. Herodotus 6.108 But this is no help in reconstructing the battle of marathon as repeated surveys of the plain of Marathon have not been able to find the location of the sanctuary of Herakles. Since 490 B.C.E several feet of silt has been deposited over the plain of Marathon making it impossible to locate the sanctuary as no structure on the entire plain has survived which can to securely dated to the 5th century B.C.E. doenges pg8 As it is not possible to locate the temenos of Herakles with absolute certainty, the location of the Athenian camp is not known making any effort to reconstruct the battle that must harder. In Pausanias’ description of the Poecile Stoa, he mentions that the painting shows ‘ the foreigners in flight and pushing one another into the morass (muddy ground or marsh)’. This marsh which he is describing is important to the reconstruction of the battle as it gives as some more information about where the battle happen on the plain as the direction and route of the Persians flight from battle. Hammond 18 But locating this marsh is harder to locate then first expected as the plain was drained and also because