some of us wondered why we didn’t just rush them when they had about a third of their men ashore — it was discussed, but we did nothing.
In fact, there was something awe-inspiring about the size of the Persian force and their fleet. They also had almost a thousand cavalry — deadly horse-archers, Persians and Sakai — who had been further north, filtering down from Eretria in pursuit of the last force in the field there, an army of Athenian settlers and Euboeans who had retreated in good order from the initial defeats but gradually died under the arrows of the Sakai. We had had no idea that they still existed until a runner came in on the third morning — a man with an arrow in his bicep who collapsed as soon as he entered the army’s agora.
When Athens had defeated Euboea in my father’s time, they had determined to hold the place thereafter, and they sent four thousand settlers, lower-class Athenians, to become colonists and to hold the best farms. There was no love lost between the settlers and the locals, but when the Persians came, they made a good force. They fought three small actions with the Persians, trying to break out, and finally they got fishing boats and shuttled across the straits, right under the noses of the enemy — but then the cavalry fell on them. Those men had been fighting — and running — for two weeks.
It was Miltiades’ day to command, and he summoned us all as soon as he heard what the messenger had to say.
‘One day’s march north, there are two thousand men — good men, and they’re dying under the arrows of the Sakai.’ He looked around. ‘I propose we take our archers and our picked men, and go and relieve them.’
Callimachus shook his head. ‘You cannot split the army,’ he said. ‘And you cannot defeat their cavalry. That’s why we camped here — remember, fire-breather? So that their arrows could not easily reach us.’
Miltiades shook his head. ‘With picked men, if we move fast and take archers of our own — we can beat them. Or at least scatter them, the way dogs can drive lions off their prey.’
Aristides nodded. ‘We have to try. To leave those men to their deaths — no one would ever speak well of us again.’
Miltiades looked around. ‘Well?’
‘I have a hundred Plataeans who can run the whole distance,’ I said. ‘And twenty archers to run with them.’
Miltiades smiled. But before he could speak, the polemarch shook his head.
‘If we must do this, then every man should go — in the dark. We can feel our way with guides, and be across the ridge before the Medes know we’ve gone. We’ll catch their cavalry napping.’ He looked around, the weight of the responsibility heavy on him. I think he would rather that the Euboeans had died at home.
But he was right. Miltiades wanted a heroic raid, but if we were all together, and we moved fast, we’d accomplish the mission with much less risk.
Everyone chose Callimachus’s method over Miltiades’.
We rose in the dark, hours before the morning star would rise, and we slipped away behind our temple precinct hill, leaving three thousand chosen men to hold the camp behind us. By the time the sun was up, our leading men — my Plataeans — were less than ten stades from the hilltop where our Euboean-Athenians were making their stand.
I wanted to run down the road with my epilektoi, but I knew that the only way to do this was with massed bodies of impenetrable spears. I hadn’t fought cavalry since the fight on the plains by Ephesus, but what I had learned there seemed pertinent — stay together and wait for the horsemen to flinch.
By mid-morning, we were spotting Sakai scouts, and Teucer brought one down with a well-aimed arrow. The next time we saw a party of them form, Teucer had a dozen of his light-armed men together, and they lofted arrows with a little breeze behind them. The Sakai rode out from under their little arrow shower, but their counter- shots fell well short, and after that, it was like a deadly game of rovers. Our archers could out-range theirs, and that meant that they couldn’t come in on us, and twice Teucer’s little band took one of the Sakai off his horse, or left the horse dead, and they gave us room.
The Athenians had a city archer corps, all dressed like Scythians. They were mostly poor men, but very proud, and they shot well enough. There were two hundred of them, and they were all together just behind my Plataeans, so that the one time an enterprising Mede worked around my flank in some hedgerows, he emerged into a veritable hail of arrows and ran off leaving two of his men in the wheat.
Casualties like that — ones and twos — don’t seem important when I tell a story as big as Marathon. But in skirmishes — in harassment — a dozen dead men can be as important as a lost battle. Our arrows were hitting them, and they weren’t reaching us.
So just before noon, their captain, whoever he was, decided that enough was enough and sent his best men to stop me.
I wish I could say that I saw what was coming — but it was more luck than anything that we weren’t caught naked.
As usual, I have to digress. Hoplites — heavy warriors — don’t wander the countryside all dressed up for war. It is hot in Greece, and the aspis is heavy, as is your thorax and your helmet and your spear. Once a man has the aspis on his shoulder and a spear in his hand, his speed is cut on the march.
Perhaps it is just that Greeks are lazy. I have, in fact, spent all day marching with an aspis on my shoulder. But in the old days, we seldom did it. Instead, we carried our weapons, and our servants — sometimes free hypaspists, sometimes slaves — carried our helmets and shields.
After the cavalry tried to work around our rear, I halted the column and ordered the Plataeans to arm. That actually increased my vulnerability for a while. Imagine two thousand men on the road, just two or three abreast, in no particular order. Then imagine that every second man is busy finding his shield-bearer and getting his aspis on his arm, his helmet on his head. Some men had their body-armour on and others did not. Some men had additional pieces of armour — thigh armour and arm guards, such as I wore. All of these were carried by servants.
In my case, I wore my scale cuirass all day, but the rest of my gear was in a wicker basket on Gelon’s back. I even considered changing my shoes — I had ‘Spartan’ shoes on my feet, and I considered, given the difficult fields on either side of the road, changing to boots.
Some men were sitting in the road, changing sandals. Others were stripping naked to change into a heavier chiton to wear under armour.
Got the picture? Chaos. I hate to think how long we were on that road without a single spear pointing at the enemy. I aged.
It is different at sea. At sea, you do not engage until you are ready. But on land — especially facing cavalry or light troops — they can hit you whenever they desire it. I was the leader, and I had fucked up. I could feel it. And now — too late — I was trying to retrieve my error. It was a lesson, if you like.
As soon as I had a party of men armed, I filled the road with them, regardless of their place in the phalanx. And as soon as the bulk of my men were armed, I started them filing off the road to the left, where I could see the shields of our Euboean refugees flashing among the rocks on the hillside.
Our guide, the wounded runner, pointed and gestured, and my eyes were on him when the Persian cavalry came for us. We had about a third of our men formed when they galloped around the corner of the field from behind a grove of olives. They already had arrows on their bows. Their leader was out in front on a big bay horse, and as he came around the corner he gave a whoop, leaned over and shot.
That arrow went into my shield and the head emerged on my side, a finger’s width, just over my wrist where my hand entered the antilabe.
‘Form close!’ I called, and I was scared — shocked silly. I had just enough nerve to tip my helmet from the back of my head over my face. Every man pressed into the centre of the front rank as the shields overlapped.
I cursed my failing in not forming up earlier, and I wondered how the rest of my column was doing, and I nearly shat myself in fear. These were not Lydians with spears. These were noble Persians, well led, with discipline and murderous bow-fire, and my men were unprepared.
The first hail of arrows hit our shields. A man screamed as an arrow went into his knee above the greave — his scream might have been my scream.
They came past us, close enough for us to see the markings on their horses and the embroidery on their barbarian trousers and to feel the earth moved by four hundred hooves.
The next storm of arrows broke over us like a big wave on a beach. I felt my shield lifted, moved, rocked as if
