Aristides and his men to their front.
They died hard.
When they stood, we slew them, and when they ran — some in panic, more just to find a better place to die — we chased them, tree to tree. Those with arrows shot us, and those without protected the archers. Some had spears and a few had aspides they’d picked up from our dead, and many had axes, and they fought like heroes.
No man who survived the fight in the olive grove ever forgot it.
Desperate, cornered men are no longer human. They are animals, and they will grasp the sword in their guts and hold on to it if it will help a mate kill you.
The fight eventually filled the whole grove, and some of them must have climbed the trees — certainly the arrow that killed Teucer came from above, straight down into the top of his shoulder by his neck. And Alcaeus of Miletus, who had come all this way to die for Athens, went down fighting, his aspis against two axemen, and I was just too far away to save him.
A Persian broke my spear, dying on it, and another clambered over his body and his short sword rang off my scales, but didn’t go through or I’d have died there myself. I put my arms around him and threw him to the ground, rolled on top of him to crush him, got my hands on his throat and choked the life out of him. That’s the last moment in the battle I remember — I must have got back on my feet but I don’t remember how, and then I was back to back with Idomeneus, but the fighting was over.
The fighting was over.
All the Persians were dead.
Idomeneus sank to the ground. ‘I’m done,’ he said. I had never heard those words from him, and never did again.
That was Marathon.
Equally, to be honest, I remember nothing of the march over the mountains to Athens, in the dark, save that there was a storm brewing out over the ocean and the breeze of that storm blew over us like the touch of a woman’s cool hand when you are sick.
I must have given some orders, because there were nigh-on eight hundred Plataeans when we came down the hills above Athens to the sanctuary of Heracles. And as each contingent came up, Miltiades met them in person. That part I remember. He was still in full armour, and he glowed — perhaps, that night, he was divine. Certainly, it was his will that got us safely over the mountains and back to the plains of Attica. The Plataeans were the last to leave Marathon apart from Aristides’ tribe, who stayed to guard the loot, and the last to arrive at the shrine of Heracles, and as we came in — not marching, but shuffling along in a state of exhaustion — the sun began to rise over the sea, and the first glow caught the temples on the Acropolis in the distance.
‘We’ve made it, friends,’ Miltiades said to each contingent.
Men littered the ground — shields were dropped like olives in an autumn wind, as if our army had been beaten rather than victorious.
My men were no different. Without a word, men fell to the ground. Later, Hermogenes told me that he fell asleep before he got his aspis off his arm.
I didn’t. Like Miltiades, I was too tired to sleep, and I stood with him as the sun rose, revealing the Persian fleet still well off to the east.
‘Even if they came now,’ he said, ‘Phidippides made it. See the beacon on the Acropolis?’
I could see a smudge of smoke in the dawn light. I nodded heavily.
‘By Athena,’ Miltiades said. He stood as straight as a spear-shaft, despite his fatigue. He laughed, and looked out into the morning. ‘We won.’
‘You should rest,’ I said.
Miltiades laughed again. He slapped my back, grinned ear to ear, and for a moment, he was not ancient and used up — he was the Pirate King I had known as a boy. ‘I won’t waste this moment in the arms of sleep, Arimnestos,’ he said. He embraced me.
I remember grinning, because few things were ever as precious to me as the love of Miltiades, despite the bastard’s way with money, power and fame. ‘Sleep would not be a waste,’ I said.
He shook his head. ‘Arimnestos — right now, this moment,
No — he was telling the plain truth to one man, and that man was me.
I remember that I didn’t understand. I do now. But I was too young, and for all my scars and the blood on my sword arm, too inexperienced.
He laughed again, and it was a fell sound. ‘I have beaten the Persians at the gates of my city. I have won a victory — such a victory.’ He shrugged. ‘Since Troy. .’ he said, and burst into tears.
We stood together. I cried too, thugater. I cried, and the sun rose on the Persian fleet, turning away in defeat. Many men were dead, and many more would die. But we had beaten the Great King’s army, and the world would never be the same again. Truly, in that hour, we were with the gods.
Epilogue
A day later, the Spartans marched in on the road from Corinth. Their armour was magnificent, and their scarlet cloaks billowed in the west wind, and the head of their column was just in time to see the last of the barbarian fleet as it turned away from the channel by Salamis and started back for Naxos.
They marched over the mountains to Marathon and saw the barbarian dead, and then they marched back to Athens to shower us with praise. I think most of the bastards were jealous.
Many men died at Marathon — my friends, and men who had followed me. And worse awaited me at home, although I didn’t know it.
As soon as our lightly wounded could walk, I took our men back over the mountains to Plataea. We still feared that Thebes might move against us. Indeed, Athens sent us a thousand hoplites to accompany us home, to show Thebes that they had backed the wrong horse. Athens could not do enough for us — to this day, thugater, the priestess of Athena blesses Plataea every morning in her first prayer — and within the year, we were made citizens of Athens, with the same citizen rights as Aristides and Miltiades, so that all those freed slaves were able, if they wished, to go back to Athens as free men.
We came down the long flank of Cithaeron, three thousand men, new citizens and old, and the valley of the Asopus was laid out before us, the fields like the finest tapestry a woman could weave in soft colours of gold and pale green.
At the shrine of the hero, Idomeneus halted his men — those who had survived — and we embraced.
‘Good fight,’ he said, with his mad grin.
We poured libations for the hero. Probably hundreds. It is odd, but one of my memories of that autumn day is the wine lying in pools before the hero’s tomb. I had never seen so many libations poured there, and the image of wine filling the wagon ruts is, to me, one of the strongest I associate with Marathon. We did not commit hubris. We gave thanks.
Then we went down into the lengthening shadows of the valley, and we halted under our own walls and formed the phalanx one more time. Thousands of citizens came out to see us — indeed, they’d known we were coming when the first glint of bronze was seen on the passes, and runners had long since brought them the tale of the battle and the number and names of the dead.
We formed one last time, and Myron came out of the phalanx.
I took off my helmet and handed him my spear. ‘We are no longer at war,’ I said. ‘I was the archon of war, and I return my spear.’
He took it. ‘Plataeans,’ he said. ‘I return you to your city, at peace.’
And they cheered — the hoplites, and the new citizens, and the women and children and even the slaves.
It would be good if I could leave it there.
