Marathon: Freedom or Death

saw — a stupid act of bravado that changed everything.

One of the groups of psiloi had crawled quite close to the Persian camp and found no one to fight, so they grew bored. Before they could crawl back, one boy leaped up on a stone wall — in full view of both armies — and bared his behind at the Persians, sitting on their horses by their camp. He made lewd gestures, and waved, and fanned his buttocks.

The Persian cavalry sat tight.

Everyone saw this exchange — everyone but Miltiades and me, of course. And in those moments, our light- armed felt their power. The barbarians felt their power. Every thrown rock made our boys bolder and every empty saddle made the Persians more afraid.

Before I limped back to camp — with my aspis on my shoulder and my helmet on the back of my head — we owned the fields of Marathon from the mountains to the sea, although I didn’t know it yet. And not because of our gentry and our hoplites.

It is funny, is it not? We went to rescue the Euboeans, and in succeeding, we almost wrecked our army. And then, to retrieve that error, we mounted the raid on the Persian camp. We all got lost in the dark, and accomplished nothing — but as a consequence of our intention, the ‘little’ men came to our rescue, and flooded the plain with stones and arrows, and the barbarians felt defeated.

Best of all, the elated little men came up the hill to the camp and bragged of their stone-throwing victories to their masters, the hoplites.

Shame is a powerful tonic with Greeks. So is competition and emulation. And no gentleman wants to face the idea that his servant may be the better man. Eh?

That was the day of the little men. Before it dawned, we were on the edge of defeat. After it, we had enough votes to stand our ground. And that, in many cases, was the margin.

Listen, then. This is the part you came for. The Battle of Marathon. But remember that we only stood our ground because the little men won it for us.

Wine for all of them, boys.

The first sign of change came while Miltiades was drying his eyes and restoring his demeanour. I had bound his leg and he was using a scrap of my old chiton to wash his face.

My brother-in-law walked up as if his appearance were nothing extraordinary. I wrapped him in an embrace that he still remembers, I’d wager.

He looked sheepish. ‘We got lost,’ he said.

That made me laugh. And laughter helps, too.

I think that was the turning point. Antigonus came in with seven of our missing men — not a wound on them. They’d gone to ground at the break of day, but as our psiloi gradually drove the barbarians off the fields, his little party got bolder and managed to move from field to field. They’d even kept their shields.

Ajax came in without his aspis and with a serious wound in his thigh, carried by a trio of Athenian freedmen who asked for payment.

‘Stands to reason, don’it, lord? We gave up lootin’ to carry your frien’, eh?’

I could barely understand the man, but I gave him a silver owl and another to each of his friends, and then I got Miltiades to send his doctor. The arrowhead was still lodged deep in Ajax’s thigh. The doctor brought a selection of what appeared to be arrowhead moulds — long, hollow shafts with a hollow for the head of an arrow at the end. They split in half. He used them with ruthless efficiency — rammed the tool into the wound, got the little mould around the arrowhead, so that the barb of the arrow was neatly surrounded with smooth, safe metal, and pulled the shaft free. There was a great deal of blood, but Ajax stopped screaming as soon as the shaft came clear, and he managed a watery smile.

‘Ares’ cock,’ he grunted. ‘I think I’m fucked.’ His eyes rolled, and he panted, shaking with the exhaustion that only the panic of pain can cause.

‘Don’t be a whiner,’ the doctor quipped and shook his head. ‘Don’t try and run the stade for a few days,’ he added, and smiled. Then he poured raw honey — a lot of it — straight on the wound, and wrapped it so tight I saw his arms bulge with the effort.

Miltiades watched, fascinated — all forms of making and craft fascinated him. By then, more and more of the psiloi were coming up the hill, and the camp had started to buzz.

I heard laughter, and the unmistakable sound of a man bragging. And then more laughter.

I looked at Miltiades. ‘They don’t sound beaten,’ I said.

Perhaps it was the rest and the wine, but Miltiades, a man fifteen years older than me, leaped to his feet. He looked alive.

He went out from the stand of trees, and the next I looked, he was standing in the middle of a group of the Athenian archers, with Themistocles, and they were laughing. Leonestes saw me and beckoned, and I went over.

‘Just telling our tale,’ Leonestes said. ‘How we rescued you. How you charged the Persians-’

‘Medes-’

‘Barbarians — all by yourself. Like a loon.’ He grinned.

Miltiades raised an eyebrow. Then he stepped up on the dry stone of the sanctuary wall and peered out over the plain towards the Persian camp. ‘They aren’t stirring,’ he said. ‘I can see a line of mounted men, right close to their camp. Nothing else.’

I think that’s when the light dawned on all of us.

‘I think they’re scared,’ I said.

‘They’re a long way from home,’ Antigonus added with a nod at their ships.

Miltiades agreed. ‘It’s hard to put yourself in the enemy’s place, isn’t it?’ he said.

Themistocles fingered his beard. ‘Have we won, do you think?’ he asked.

‘Won?’ Miltiades asked. ‘Don’t be silly. But we’ve pushed them off the ground, and our supplies can reach us. And maybe we’ve made them feel what we feel. But won?’ He looked at the cavalry far across the plain. ‘We won’t win until we put a spear into every one of them, Themistocles. These are Persians.’

Themistocles was looking at their fleet. ‘We should never have let them land,’ he said. ‘But that’s for another day. What’s the plan now?’

Miltiades laughed. He seemed ten years younger than he had a few minutes before. ‘First, we win the vote,’ he said. ‘Then, we fight.’

By mid-afternoon, the vote was a foregone conclusion. The hoplites were shamed by their servants. There’s no other way to put it. Every gentleman needed to wet his spear, and that was that.

There were more than three thousand men, by my reckoning, around the altar that evening as we gathered for the vote of the strategoi. They shouted for the vote and they demanded that the army make a stand.

Leontus tried his best. First he demanded that I be excluded from the vote, as I was a foreigner. The polemarch allowed that. I thought that Miltiades would explode — but then the massed hoplites and not a few of their servants started to chant.

Fight, fight, fight!

Miltiades relaxed.

But when it came to the vote, the result was a shock — five strategoi for fighting, and five for marching back to Athens.

The massed hoplites began to chant again — fight, fight, fight!

Someone threw a rock that hit Leontus. Athenians can be bastards. Other men threw rotten figs and eggs, too.

Callimachus raised his arms, and even the loudest hoplites fell silent.

‘Don’t be children,’ he said, in his powerful voice. They didn’t make him polemarch for nothing. Grown men — spear-fighters — flinched at the admonition in his voice. ‘This is the life of Athens we discuss here. These are the men you appointed as strategoi. Act like citizens.’

So they did. And I was afraid that Callimachus, so calm and so in command, was going to carry us right back to the city.

Callimachus ordered the strategoi to vote again, but the result was another tie. War and politics make for strange alliances. Cleitus of the Alcmaeonids voted with Aristides the Just and Themistocles the democrat and Miltiades the would-be tyrant. The fifth vote for battle was Sosigenes, a well-known orator.