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Herodotus: The Ionian War

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During the greco-persian wars a very decisive battle took place on the plains of marathon in northeastern Attica. This battle was the first Persian invasion of Greece in september of 490 B.C. Most information we have on the battle is a historian named Herodotus who was a primary source of the event. It all started during the Ionian revolt where Athens and Eretria sent forces to help the Ionians. Athens succeeded in capturing and burning Sardis which is one of the important cities in the Persian empire. Darius the king of the Persian empire swore to burn Athens and Eretria so he charged one of his servants to say ‘master remember the Athenians’ three times before dinner. In 490 bc Darius sent a naval task force under the command of Datis and …show more content…

For the Athenian Military it was a Huge Success not only for winning the battle but it also show that there is potential in the hoplite phalanx. Since each city-state fought the same way there was no way of telling the strengths and weaknesses of the hoplite phalanx. The battle showed that the hoplite was very effective against lightly armed troops but was still very vulnerable to cavalry which would be a problem later on in the battle of platea but now shown if used in the correct circumstances the hoplite phalanx would be a very devastating weapon. The Athenians had a backup plan for both if they lost or won the battle. If the Athenians lost the battle word would get back to Athens quickly so the citizens would be able to flee to peloponnesus. However if they won the battle they knew that the persians would try to sail around attica and attempt to take the city while it was undefended. The battle of marathon was the invention for the marathon runs today due to a myth that Pheidippides ran from marathon to Athens to deliver the news of victory so he ran 26 miles in the summers heat back to Athens and after giving the news he fell over dead from exhaustion. When the first modern day olympics was finally a reality they needed a great and popularizing event recalling the ancient glory of Greece they came up with the marathon run which was inspired by the myth of

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