The Battle of Marathon, 490 BC ⚔️ First Persian Invasion of Ancient Greece 

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30 years ago my wife and I had a holiday in Greece. We stayed at Neo Makri (which - back then - was a small town just getting to grips with the fact that they were becoming a small holiday destination for Europeans... Brits in particular. We rented a couple of bicycles and rode out to the small (burial?) mound/hill at Marathon. I stood with my back to that mound and looked out towards Athens... trying to imagine that incredible run to Athens by the messenger Pheidippides. I was covered in goose-bumps... to be so close to such an important event in European history was amazing! Greece just drips with history.

Possibly the most important battle in History for Western civilization. Allowed Athens to lay the foundation of who we are today. I always found that the most overlooked part of the battle is the most amazing. All over the world the Marathon race in held in honor of Phidipides but the whole army did it after the battle to be ready on show when the Persian fleet arrived in Athens and scared the off.

Absolutely love learning about ancient Greece, most pivotal battles and early tactics that we use today.

You’ll never know when leg day might pay off.

This battle and Salamis were two of the most decisive battles in History!

"Marathon was won because amateur soldiers found the courage to break into a trot when arrows began to fall, instead of grinding to a halt" - Paul Cartledge

Just read about this battle in a book and I decided to look it up. what an unbelievably high quality video absolutely amazing thank you it cleared up a lot of misconceptions I had about the battle

Among others, the great tragedian Aeschylos took part in this battle. Also his brother, who died horribly (but also heroically), refusing to let go of a persian ship.

Well done Oscar!! I really enjoyed this episode on the Battle of Marathon.. Keep up the great work!😃

We Run! .. Aeschylus, Athenian father of tragedy and veteran of the battle. Thanks for the video!

Great video as always!

Wow, top tier content! You're so underrated!

Thanks for the video.

Superb video, as usual!⚔🙏👍

Great video, as always

This was very well done and referenced! I really enjoyed this video!

Great video!

Excellent work here Sir and your Team

Thanks for sharing 👍🏻 😊

This was a nice video. I just hope we get to see the next video on Frederick the Great soon.

Thank you for your effort! Great video 🙏 The battle that encourage the Greeks to stand against Persians

The best description of the Battle of Marathon is in the book "The 15 Decisive Battles" by Creasy...

Would love to see an episode on the Scythian defeat of the Persians

Amazing video mate!!! :) Very famous battle indeed, who knows what greece/rest of europa would look like if they lost here.

I have my own theory regarding this battle, it goes as follows: the Persians had 25,000 infantry at Marathon... we don't know how many but a good portion of them plus their cavalry re-embarked on the ships to sail for Athens, possibly thinking the remaining forces will pin down the Athenian army (it's possible that the landing at Marathon was meant as a diversionary maneuver with the purpose of drawing the Greek army away from Athens). We don't know if this was a deliberate strategy on the part of the Persian commander or if he intended to re-embark the whole army and sail to Athens... it could be that a portion of the army did not have time to get back on their ships before the Greeks saw an opportunity to strike an unprepared enemy, meaning the Persians had to hastily form up in battle formation in a last ditch attempt to defend themselves. Because it is said, that something triggered the Greeks to charge the Persians after several days of stand-off. In any case, it was a gamble on the part of the Persian commander that failed. Now even if 10,000 Greeks engaged with say 10,000 Persians, the losses by modern estimates by Peter Krentz are as follows: anywhere from 1000-3000 dead for the Greeks, 4000-5000 for the Persians. Even with this more realistic casualty figure the Persians have suffered more losses than the Greeks at Marathon. Whatever is left of that demoralized broken force manages to get back on the ships and escapes instead of joining up with the other force. The main Persian force of 15,000 is still on the way to Athens (who possibly have gathered reinforcements from other parts of Greece to defend the city). At arrival they see the main Greek force have returned by force marching, and so they realize that another battle will mean fighting a replenished Greek force ready to defend their city and having lost the advantage of surprise as well as lost an earlier chance to inflict a decisive defeat on the Greeks at Marathon by employing their entire force, they lose all motivation and decide to sail home. So in summation, the Persians very likely fought the Greeks with approximately less than half their force at Marathon. Otherwise with 25,000 men on the field, even with a few thousand losses, they wouldn't have retreated. The Greeks waited for majority of Persian troops to sail some distance away then attacked.

Loved it

Great presentation. But why does your map show Sparta as the same color as (i.e. part of) the Persian empire? Between what dates was Sparta incorporated in the Persian empire?

10.49; To be correct; The Greek army lost 192 men,and the army that came from Plataea (about a 1000 strong) lost 11 men. Callimachus,from Plataea and,one of the Greeks in high command,died on the battlefield. The Persians lost 6 400 men (and seven ships).

Hoc est bellum covers the ionian revolt that was previous to this battle.

I have been enjoying watching your videos esp Frederick the Great's series. Can you plz make videos on Timurlane unknown while he did so much in such a short period of time. Please if possible do it but not like the Ottoman series if time allows then make it like Freidreck one

Darius the Great sent a small force to Greece which didn't even include any of his main and elite corps. Greeks totally exaggerated this event. this type of exaggeration in storytelling was so easy and quite common in the ancient world. There was no real fact check, so anyone could say anything and others believed it if they were satisfied

cant believe you only have 150k subs

great job great video. It is important to note that all the Greeks were hoplites and not psili (light infantry who were poor athenians and fought as archers and slingers) or cavalry. It is something that hasnt been answered in history. For the Marathon race there are two opinions the first is with the messanger Philipides that he was the one who did the race. Also Phillipides few days before had run to Sparta to request assistance. Today we have the Spartathlon (245 km from Athens to Sparta) and the Phillipidion race (490 km Athens-Sparta and back). The second is because the Persian fleet went to west shore of Athens to Phaliro the Athenians hoplites after the battle run full gear from Marathon to Phaliro. Of course the distance is greater than 42 km. But these are the two opinions concerning the Marathon race. The tomb of the Athenians and the Platecians who died in the battle is still standing in Marathon while on the Athens Archeological museum you can see Miltiades helmet that he offered it to Parthenon for his victory.

At 2:16, a word-to-word translation would be "Defending in behalf of the Greeks the Athenians in Marathon, gold-worn Persians castrated their power"

I'll never understand how a hoplite is going to charge light infantry. Just slowly walk away and they'll never touch you? it seems insanely easy to outflank or outmanouvre the hoplites xd

Fuck yeah this just randomly popped up, let’s go 😎

Athens, you were so great!

Interesting how different people tell Marathon. I thaugt they engaged imidiately on arrival and Ran so fast The first arrows missed their targets and no More volleys manageT to Be launched before Miele.

Very nice but it's not Eritrèa but Erètria the accent falls on the 2nd e and it's pronounced E -rè -tri- a Also astonishing are the numbers of casualties relevant to the battle 203 greek casualties 192 athenians and 11 Plataieis to over 6000 dead Persians

i dont think you gave the Athenians the due they deserved for Marathon. the double fists on the wings, i understood to be a last minute decision before the actual battle as they watched part of the Persian army sail for Athens. They had been happy to sit and wait until this point. i understood the Spartans to be on their way. the battle was a race against the Persian navy which meant attack was their only option but they didnt have a large enough force to attack. which was when they thinned the centre and reinforced the wings in an attempt to envelope a larger force. Something Hannibal accomplished 150 yrs later but in reverse. even when they won a hard pressed and brutal battle, killing as many Persians as they could before having to form up and speed march back to Athens to defend it against the Persian navy. the Athenians were well trained and disciplined.

Good video but here are some points: Persians actually allowed their conquered lamds to have a great degree of autonomy. They only took taxes and manpower when needed. The rest was 90% of the time on the Satraps and their own minor rulers. Persians gave Ionians rights to choose their own rulers after the Ionian revolt( which is very interesting & unexpected.) Darius' campaign against Scythians wasn't like that. His retreat was a pretty normal one. He wasn't even engaged by Scythians. He retreated because of their refusal to give battle and instead harassments of his army.( He neither won nor lost) I do not understand the "becoming a slave" argument by Greeks though. Persians never made a "slave source" out of their occupied lands but satrapies with great autonomy. I think the enslavement was a propaganda.

Sparta was a city. The state was called Lacedaemon

If Darius the Great had taken this battle seriously, history and even today the world would have been different

Weak center with best troops and strong sides? This is the classic! I already knew how this was going to end just by hearing this!

I love your videos. I would like to request that the camera rotation stop or atleast diminish. Makes my head hurt every time.

Solid rock

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Why is the Peloponnese shown as part of the Persian empire?

You failed to mention that Miltiates was thrown in jail first

And you didn't mention that all the sources are 1 side from greeks, specially from the Herodotus the novelist

Did the greeks know about horses and their superior speed compared to humans?

Ayy the Greeks they were known for having tree trunks for legs bro they could really drive forward

Callimachus was brother of Aeschylus. Callimachus death was horrified. He grab a persian ship.with his arm..and a Persian cut it ..then he grab it with the other hand...That.cuted too...Then with his teeth and Persian cut it off...

I am particularly interested in the topic of US submarine warfare against imperial japan from 1941-1945. Especially how US subs crushed japan merchant shipping. What were the major forces opposing each other, trade routes, resources and most importantly military and economic strategy! Thx a lot mate!

Really great work! Very professional! I just want to say that Persians were often depicted by Greeks as "evil". However, we must not forget Achamenid Empire did not have slaves while the Spartans did

Heroes fight like Greeks

"NIKE!" Victor in Greek!

Hellas forever

What do you have, of the original hungariens,going back half a million years.

How RU-vidr's such as yourself think that White Text on a White/Pale background is a good idea? I'll never know. Fantastic work

I was taught that the runner screamed Nike then died. Nike being a goddess of victory not the shoe but I do believe that Nike means victory in Greek or Latin.. meh

Great courage and tactics from those great Greeks that day

Persian expansion in India is over extended in the map, they never reached that far...

Well..... You have yet to cover Napoleon's Rise as a Military Master, or Hannibal or Julius Caesar. The best I guess.

Consider why this didn't work.

Respect to Miltiades

Further, from what we know about the battle, it turns out that the Persian ships were standing right on the shore near Marathon. If this is so, then 600 triremes moored side to side would occupy a space of 3.3 km. But no one moored side to side - you also have to work with oars. Accordingly, 600 triremes would occupy a space of at least 15-20 km. Which is unreal. Another thing is that mooring could be done with a ledge - when some of the ships were on the shore, and some at anchor - this type of mooring was used by the Persians at Artemission. But then the question arises of where the Persians fled, and why the anchored ships did not sail away, but actually evacuated their soldiers. And why didn’t the Persian ships washed ashore go to the Greeks? And that's exactly what happened. Let's go further. We know that the Greeks defeated the Persians, losing 192 soldiers. Moreover, a significant part was lost precisely during the assault on the Persian ships - it was there that the polemarch Callimachus was killed. A total of 7 ships were captured. Persian losses are allegedly 6,400 people. 200 to 6400. One to 32 - not bad, right? You can make a film about 200 Athenians... However, this is also an obvious lie. The same as the description of the battle itself. Think about it - Herodotus says in all seriousness that the Greeks ran 8 stadia (1.5 km) to the Persians. One and a half kilometers of running in full gear, with a shield, spear, and armor! And all these one and a half kilometers these hoplites maintained formation! Not just a lie, but a lie squared. To attack an enemy prepared for defense without formation, running 1.5 km in the September heat... In general, all these nonsense that Herodotus piled up led to the fact that the number of myths around Marathon multiplies in stacks. How could events actually develop? I believe that everything was as follows. Having received information about the Persian landing, the Athenians sent an army to Marathon. The goal and task of the army is to demonstrate readiness for battle and, possibly, negotiate good terms of surrender. The pro-Persian and anti-Persian coalitions are approximately equal in strength, so they send people and messengers to Sparta. At the same time, the Athenians could not seriously rely on the Spartans - after all, quite recently Sparta had seized power in Athens. And the pro-Persian forces, just like in Attica, felt at ease in the Peloponnese. And the support that the Lacedaemonians could provide to the Athenians could hardly have been (and was in reality) so significant that it would have radically changed the balance of power. Indeed, Sparta sent 2000 hoplites, who covered the distance between the city and Athens in 3 days, but they set out, it seems, only on the 9th day after the arrival of the messenger. The addition of 2,000 hoplites to the 10,000 Athenians and Plataeans could only be decisive if the Persians did not outnumber the Greeks very significantly. However, the Athenians, having arrived at Marathon, set up camp and wait. It’s not very clear what they are waiting for, but they are waiting for a long time. Datis is also waiting for something, without starting an attack (and yet, according to Justin, he has as many as 600 thousand soldiers)! They wait, wait, wait, wait, and suddenly, the 10th day comes, when power over the army passes to the strategist Miltiades (he was the tenth strategist, and the strategists took turns commanding), and immediately he shouts “Alga”, and everyone runs 1, 5 kilometers to the Persians, who, in turn, are fleeing from the Greeks to the ships. All supposedly 600 thousand. Yeah. The delusional nature of this version does not need to be considered at all. But why could the Athenians decide to attack? Why did they decide to run 1.5 kilometers to the Persians? Why were Athenian casualties only 192? The answer to this question is perhaps quite simple. The Persians, indeed, received some kind of sign (whether from the Alcmaeonids or from other supporters is unknown) and began to board ships to sail to Athens. It was this - the fact of loading onto ships - that forced the Athenian strategist Miltiades to send Greek troops to the Persian camp. Moreover, it was hardly the idea to break in there at the very beginning of the collapse and withdrawal of the Persians. Most likely, the Greeks waited until most of the troops were already on the ships, and they sailed. The attack was carried out on a small part of the army that remained on the shore. Considering that only 7 ships fell into the hands of the Greeks, it is quite possible to imagine that it was a barrage detachment of two hundred warriors and one thousand and a half sailors and oarsmen, whom the Greeks cut down amid enthusiastic cries, managing even in such a situation to lose 192 soldiers. Perhaps only with the idea of ​​easy robbery could Miltiades force the Athenian soldiers to rush into that fight. This is the only reason they could not wait for the Spartans. That's the only reason they could decide to break the formation. This is the only reason they could run 8 stages to the enemy... After which, of course, the army had no choice but to return to the policy, setting up a camp and awaiting the arrival of the Persian fleet, which, I repeat, sailed from Marathon in perfect order. The fact that the Persians did not consider themselves defeated at all is evidenced by the fact that, having sailed from Marathon, they did not run home to lick their wounds, but, having taken captive slaves on Euboea, they headed to Athens, where their supporters were located. True, having heard about the skirmish at Marathon, the Athenian supporters of the Persians did not dare to speak out. The Persians circled around Athens and went home without eating. And Darius began preparations for a land invasion of Greece. The Spartans, having arrived at Athens some time later, looked with surprise at the broken military camp of the Athenians, marched to Marathon, examined the battlefield, and retired to Lacedaemon. By the way, it cannot be ruled out that the Spartiates hoped that the Persians and Athenians would beat each other up so much that Athens could be taken with their bare hands. But it didn't work out.

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It wasn't an invasion That army was sent to punish Athens and Eretrians because they supported the Ionian revolt If Darius really wanted to conquer Greece, he wouldn't have sent only 26,000-30,000 men

God damn, this John Frederick Charles Fuller wrote some real cringey stuff not gonna lie.

That’s was the first double envelopment in history except that I wish you was studying better the history of that battle first the numbers of Persians was much way bigger second the Greek hoplites they changed to Persian ranks the last few hundreds meters in full run! just to avoid the Persian arrows in single formation not separate in 3 different groups as you showed on the video except that after the battle the hole army marched back to Athens in quick pace to prevent the Persians landing and take the city but when they come close and upon seeing the army waiting them they lost heart and set sai back

Come back to this video with a real voice actor someday

Here in this video the understanding of English is poor. The wrong words are used, example "they retreated to the shores" As there is and was only one shore then it is singular ~ "They retreated to the shore" ~ several simple mistakes throughout ..like this.. you need a native English speaker to help edit

Lmao saying the greeks didn't have a militaristic culture except for the spartan. You're sure you studied history?

A narrated history in which both the individual word stress and sentence stress is so rushed that whole phrases are lost to the listener, an unecessary criticism ? All criticism is thought of as rude by the younger generation now. Use this constructive criticism to improve, or education will be lost to your children.

Garbled narration, practically incomprehensible. How about re-recording the soundtrack using a native speaker of English ?

I would've supported the persians..

LOL HE SAID THE GREEKS DIDNT HAVE A MILITARISTIC CULTURE. Dude Xerxes just wanted a token sign of earth and water 😅

Lol i don’t think 200 dudes with modern swords could kill 6000 unarmed middle schoolers