Monday, 2/16: Marathon

Wake of Ionian Revolt

• European Greece still on Darius' mind, esp. Athens and Eretria
  • revenge, or concerned with Europe more generally?

Huge force assembled under Datis and Artaphernes

• 600 ships acc. to Hdt, set out from Samos
  • sent through central Aegean
  • subdued Naxos
  • reached Euboia
  • besieged Eretria, which was betrayed
    • enslaved the population
    • city burned as revenge for Sardis
      
• Moved from Eretria to Attica, at Marathon.
  • Hippias accompanies expedition; father had landed here on one of his attempts at tyranny

Athenian army

• Miltiades one of the generals
  • Had aided Darius in his Thracian expedition, but soon afterwards had fled back to Athens, now a firm opponent of the Persians.
  • Knows more about the Persians than probably anyone else at Athens or even in all of Greece
  • Persuades Athenian assembly to meet the Persians before they reach the city, rather than try to defend the city itself
• Sent messenger to Sparta for help
• Spartans have to wait until their religious festival ends
• Athenians march along the coastal road, encamp at the south end of the plain.
  • Seem to have been about 10,000 Athenians, including 600 Plataians
  • Polemarch was Callimachus, but Miltiades, one of the 10 strategoi for the year, seems to have been the primary planner.
  • Not enough to match the front that the Persians could put up (about 20,000?)
  • But Miltiades knew what to expect and was able to plan to compensate for weakness in numbers.
• The Persians in no hurry.
  • Hoping that dissident factions or Hippias sympathizers would work out some way of getting Athens to capitulate?

Details of Herodotus' account

• Athenians and Plateans were encamped at the sanctuary of Heracles
• Debate among generals
• Right wing commanded by Polemarch, then divisions of 10 tribes under their Polemarchs in the center, and Plateans on the left
  • Weakened center to cover Persian line
• Athenians advance at a run for over a mile
• Persians rush to be ready, amazed at the Athenian attack

Wednesday, 2/18: Marathon and Xerxes' Invasion

Marathon: filling in the gaps of Herodotus' account

• Background to the battle
  
  • Persian landing at Schoneia, camp to the north of great marsh -- good harborage, water supply, hills to NE.
    
  • Athenian camp harder to identify but probably in the foothils in SW of plain.
    
• The stalemate
  • Persians, with cavalry, don't want to attack Athenians in the foothills
  • Miltiades probably doesn't want to advance into the plain for the same reason
    
• Precipitation of the attack -- several possibilities:
  • Miltiades concerned that dissension among the generals and/or potential betrayal at Athens would prevent the Athenians from resisting the Persians at Marathon, anxious to engage before it's too late?
  • Persian cavalry away from the army temporarily, giving the Athenians an opportunity to attack? Cavalry plays no part in Hdt's account; why?
    • Persian army not with the Persian camp, probably in SW part of plain, to S of Athenian camp
      • Location of the camp not good for the cavalry to fight from
      • but cavalry might have had to return to camp periodically for watering
    • or cavalry might have been embarked on ships in anticipation of sailing around Attica to attack at Phaleron
    • or the ships might have left before the battle, though Hdt. says they left immediately after
  • Ionian Greeks in Persian army giving information to Miltiades?
    
• The engagement:
  • Athenians attack at a run
    • take the enemy unprepared?
    • minimize the damage from Persian archers?
  • Burial mound:
    • indicates position of Persian center, where most of the Athenian dead would have fallen
    • Initial orientation of lines?
  • Persian center breaks through Athenian line (Athenian center had been deliberately weakened)
  • Athenian wings prevail, reunite to attack Persian center
  • Persians routed, pursuit to Persian ships
    • Seven ships captured
    • Acc. to Hdt. 192 Athenians, 6400 Persians dead
      
• Persian fleet, acc. to Hdt. sails around Attica, planning to reach Phaleron while the Athenian army is still en route
  • Athenians rush back to Athens, beat the Persians
  • Persian fleet withdraws when it sees Athenian army, sails back to Asia
    • unwilling to risk further engagement?
    • need for winter quarters?
      
• Miltiades' Helmet?

486 -- Darius succeeded by son Xerxes, who eventually gets around to mobilizing an invasion of Greece

• This time, plan is to march a larger army over land, with support from fleet
  
• Hdt. puts the number of the Persian forces in the millions -- impossible!
  • Maybe 2-300,000 +/-?
  • 1,200 ships plus supply-craft
  • 70,000 cavalry
• In 480, after wintering in Asia Minor, the expedition gets going.
  • Bridges the Hellespont with a pontoon bridge
  • Digs canal through Athos peninsula to aviod the dangerous cape where Mardonius' fleet had been wrecked back in 492
  • Bridges the Strymon

Greeks hold congress at Corinth, with Sparta presiding:

• considerable strife: some states don't want to put their forces under Spartan command
  • Athens, despite its growing naval power, is willing to put its forces under the command of Sparta
  • Result is that the allied Greek forces end up amounting to Sparta and the Peloponnesian League, Athens, and a few other places.
• Cleomenes by now is dead -- Spartan king Leonidas is the major figure in command
• Leading Athenian general at the time is Themistocles, who has been persuading the Athenians to build up their fleet
  
• Uncertain where to make a stand:
  • Peloponnesians: Isthmus
  • Themistocles: need to protect Athens, Euboia, and Aigina to resist Persians on sea
  • Open battle on land unwinnable: possibility of holding a pass
• aborted attempt at Tempe
• expedtion to Thermopylae (Leonidas w/ c. 6000 Peloponnesians, 1000 locals)
• Sea approaches guarded at Artemesium (c. 200 ships at first)

Thermopylae: 'Hot Gates'

• narrow pass in antiquity
  • defensive wall near narrowest part of pass from earlier, local conflicts
• Xerxes encamped near Trachis
  • Period of waiting, scouts sent forward
  • fifth day, he sends troops into the pass to try to take the Spartans
    • fighting continues all day as the Greeks cut down wave after wave;
    • sends Hydarnes in with the Immortals, results no better
  • Same thing happens on the second day.

Friday, 2/20: Thermopylae, Naval Warfare, and Artemesium

Thermopylae continued:

• Third day:
• Ephialtes, local Greek, reveals flanking path to Xerxes
  • Anopaea: Herodotus' topographical checkpoints
• Hydarnes marches a detachment over the path during the night
  • At dawn, meet Phocian detachment guarding path, but no opposition
• Leonidas finds out the Persians are coming down the path
  • most troops dismissed, Spartans stay
• Mid-morning -- Xerxes moves forces down the main pass
  • Spartans move out in front of wall, where pass is slightly wider
  • Withdraw into narrow part when Hydarnes' troops arrive, make final stand on a small hill, where they were eventually overwhelmed by arrows

Greek naval warfare

• Sources:
  • pictorial representations
  • literary descriptions
  • some archaeological evidence
    • inscriptions describing inventories of ship equipment
    • ship-sheds (ship-sheds at Oiniadai)
    • bronze ram (Athlit ram)
      
• Triremes: basic Greek warship in the period:
  (The Olympias)
  • three banks of oars
  • square sail, not for battle
  • bronze ram at the prow, at the waterline
  • hull reenforced there to take impact
  • deck to carry troops
  • 115-120 ft x ca. 16 feet wide including outriggers, without, about 12, so a 10:1 ratio, long and thin -- meant for speed and manouvering.
  • c. 170 oarsmen, 20 other crew, 10 marines
    • Three banks of oars make the ship not especially sea-worthy --
      • stayed close to shore
      • went out mainly in summer, when weather was favorable
      • avoided action under unfavorable weather conditions

     

• Number of ways to fight by ship:
  • carry marines to board others: grappling hooks, etc.
  • mobile artillery platforms
  • ramming
    
• Trireme warfare focuses on ramming
  • break the hull of the enemy ship in order to disable it
  • ram at an angle to avoid getting ram stuck in the side of the other ship -- just want to cave in the hull of the enemy, not pierce it like an arrow.
  • troops on deck for when the two ships are close together, or in case you do get stuck together.
  • diekplous and periplous
    
• Development of Athens as naval power
  • Themistocles
  • Laurion silver boom 483
    • funds used to build Athenian fleet up to 200 triremes

Artemisium

• While Xerxes' army is moving south to Thermopylae, fleet is moving south along rocky coast of Magnesia
  • Storm destroys 400 ships
  • Remainder put in at Aphetae, opposite Artemesium, at the entrance to the gulf of Pagasae
    
• Greeks at Artemesium, under command of Spartan Eurybiades
  • 275 triremes, 9 penteconters
  • Backup fleet in Saronic gulf, at Athens and Artemesium
    
• Persians send detachment of 200 ships e of Euboia, to sail up the straits and cut off Greek retreat
  
• Greeks sail out in open water to make a trial of the Persian fleet
  • late in day, so engagement can't last too long and Persian numbers won't be as important
  • Persians meet them:
    • attempt to encircle Greek ships
    • Greeks switch from line abreast to an outward-facing circular formation
      • defensively, protects sides of Greek ships
      • offensively, puts Greek ships in position to attack sides of Persian ships as they move to encircle
  • Greek ships move out to attack Persian ships
  • capture 30 Persian ships by nightfall
    
• Following night, storm wrecks Persian detachment sailing down Euboia
• Next morning, 50 more Athenian ships arrive at Artemesium
  • Further skirmishing in which Greeks prevail
• Next day, Persian fleet puts to sea in a crescent formation
  • Greek fleet comes out at full force
  • playout of the engagement not clear
  • result indecisive, with heavy losses on both sides
• Next night, after word of Leonidas' fall at Thermopylae, Greek fleet retreats under cover of darkness.