The Battle of Marathon
A Persian punitive expedition against Athens is stopped cold on a beach 26 miles from the city
Quick facts
- Persian commanders
- Datis and Artaphernes
- Athenian commander
- Miltiades
- Persian force
- About 25,000
- Reported casualties
- 192 Greek dead vs. 6,400 Persian, per Herodotus
What happened
In 490 BCE Darius sent his generals Datis and Artaphernes on a seaborne expedition with roughly 25,000 Persian troops to punish Athens and Eretria for their role in the Ionian Revolt. The Persian force landed at Marathon, on the coast northeast of Athens, chosen partly because it offered good open ground for Persian cavalry. The Athenians, joined by a small contingent from Plataea, fielded around 10,000 hoplites under the general Miltiades, who according to livius.org's account of the sources had a personal grudge against Persia after being forced out of his own territory near the Hellespont. When the Persian cavalry appears to have been re-embarking on transport ships, possibly to strike undefended Athens directly, the Greek hoplites advanced and broke through the weaker Persian center before enveloping both flanks. Herodotus records Greek losses of 192 dead against roughly 6,400 Persian dead, a ratio ancient historians later treated with some skepticism but that no source seriously disputed as an overwhelming Greek victory. Datis and Artaphernes abandoned the campaign and sailed home.
Why it matters
Marathon was the first time a mainland Greek army defeated a Persian force in the field, and it showed heavy infantry could beat Persia's larger combined-arms armies under the right terrain conditions. Darius began preparing a far larger invasion in response, one his death in 486 BCE left to his son Xerxes to carry out.
How we know
Herodotus is the primary narrative source, writing within living memory of participants' children; the specific casualty figures come from his account and are treated by modern historians as an order-of-magnitude estimate rather than an exact count.
Sources
- Livius.org (Jona Lendering). Marathon (490 BCE) · Reputable sourcelivius.org · The domain "livius.org" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- World History Encyclopedia. Battle of Marathon · Reputable sourceworldhistory.org · The domain "worldhistory.org" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
See something wrong? . Corrections with a source get fixed fastest.
Related timelines
- Ancient Greece → · The Athenian side of the battle that stopped the first Persian invasion of Greece