The Campaign of Marathon

Abstract

All modern commentators are agreed that the account of the campaign of Marathon left us by Herodotus is often inconsistent, and that as often it is difficult to reconcile it with probabilities. In seeking to disentangle fact from fable in the story of Marathon we have a harder task than in the case of the story of Xerxes' invasion of Greece, for we have much less material at our disposal, and the dilemma of deciding what to accept and what to reject of Herodotus' story is very real. There are, however, some guides through this dilemma. Herodotus wrote with the greater event of Xerxes' invasion between him and the campaign of Marathon. Persia had ceased to be the terror to Greece which she had been in the year 491 B.C., and the memory of Athenian fears and hesitations had been obliterated by pride of achievement. It is some guide in the process of selection from Herodotus' story to imagine the kind of tales of Marathon he would be likely to have heard, when making his inquiries, and the kind of event which would be forgotten or concealed.