the enemy can’t shoot back, I find.
The Persians to our front weren’t in any hurry. The cavalry
gave up on our right flank – a poor, hasty decision and just the
kind of thing that happens in war. They got low on their horses’
necks and rode across our front, and one of our archers with a
Persian bow emptied a saddle as they crossed us – heading for
our left flank, closer to the hils and the camp.
In war, people make mistakes, just as they do in peace. A
few minutes ago, these self-same Persians had been chasing
someone across our right flank. We’d put a stop to that – and in
the to and fro of combat, our Persian adversaries had forgotten
their original foes.
The cavalry rode hard to get around our left, and then
suddenly they were fleeing, and they had empty saddles – and
there were men behind them throwing spears, and other men
with armour running at them.
This transformed our fight – one moment, the Persians were
exchanging slow, careful shafts with our best archers, and the
next, they were running to get their mounts before our friends on
the left captured the lot. It was close, but the Persians won the
race and rode away.
They rode about a stade, puled up and were hit by an
invisible hand that plucked a couple of them from their saddles
and made al the horses scream – slingers. Only a dozen of them,
and made al the horses scream – slingers. Only a dozen of them,
as I later learned – but that was the final straw for the Persians,
and they raced for their camp.
That’s the part of the fighting that I saw. I stayed out there,
with the archers, for an hour or more, and men came past us –
little men, as I say – dozens of them, with javelins and bows and
slings, and a few with nothing but a sack of rocks.
No one wil ever fuly explain that morning. Word went out
that Miltiades was in trouble, I guess. Or Themistocles asked
them to go out and support the archers. Who knows? It wasn’t
part of any master plan, that much I know. However it came
about, a couple of thousand Greek freedmen and light-armed
men – men too poor to have a panoply and fight in the phalanx,
but citizens too proud to abandon Greece – flooded the fields
and hedgerows and stone wals. I estimate that, with the
Athenian archers added in, they might have kiled three hundred
of the enemy. Nothing, you might say.
Nor was there any glory to it. When you are naked and have
no weapon but a bag of rocks, you don’t go walking out in the
open. No – you crawl along hedgerows and share the stone
wals with the foxes and the tortoises, too.
But the Persians and their alies simply didn’t have a horde of
light-armed men to keep our light-armed men at bay, and they
couldn’t afford the steady casualties it would have taken to clear
the field. And our little men made those fields a nightmare.
As the morning wore on, our light-armed began to take
losses. If they were too bold, in their little groups, the enemy
would cut them off and slaughter them. Al told, I would bet that
if the gods made a count, then the barbarians actualy kiled more
Greeks than we kiled barbarians that day.
But again – as I keep saying – war is not about numbers.
War is about feelings, emotions, fatigue, joy, terror.
I got up the hil to our camp and was thronged by men who had
to clasp my hand or slap my back.
‘We lost you!’ Idomeneus was weeping. ‘Oh, lord, I am
ashamed.’
I shook my head. Who would not be delighted by this display
of loyalty?
Teucer had it the worst. ‘I was right at your shoulder, lord,’
he said, clearly unhappy. ‘And then I found that I was by another
scaled shirt – and it was Idomeneus. I had lost you in the dark.’
‘Al dirt comes out in a good wash,’ I said. ‘How many did
we lose?’
Idomeneus shook his head. ‘Too many, lord. Almost twenty.
And your brother-in-law, and Ajax, and Epistocles, and
Peneleos.’
Ares, that hurt. Not Epistocles – his loss was Plataea’s gain.
But the rest – Pen would kil me for losing her husband, and
Peneleos . . .
I lay down, my spirits low. It always happens after a fight, but
this was worse. I hadn’t done anything except get my men lost –
I had scarcely bloodied my spear. But I’d lost twenty of my best
I had scarcely bloodied my spear. But I’d lost twenty of my best
– irreplaceable men with heavy armour and fighting skils. Ajax
was as good a spearman as I was – or he had been.
I was lying in the shade, feeling bad, when Miltiades came.
‘You’re alive, then,’ he said. ‘Praise the gods.’
That made me smile, because Miltiades so seldom invoked
the gods – not in that voice.
‘I’m alive,’ I said. ‘And unwounded. But I lost a lot of men.’
He stil had his shield on his shoulder – you can reach a point
of exhaustion where you simply forget to strip kit off. In fact, I
was lying in my scale corslet. I clambered to my feet to embrace
him. He was looking beyond me, back towards my camp.
‘I never got near their horses,’ he said, in disgust. ‘We waited
for your diversion, and when it came, we struck whatever was
nearest.’ He gave me a grim smile. ‘I missed their horse lines in
the dark, and we were in among the Sakai. We kiled a few, I
suppose.’
I had never seen Miltiades so down.
‘And Aristides?’ I asked. I was suddenly struck with fear.
What if Aristides was dead?
‘He made it to the horse lines,’ Miltiades said bitterly. ‘But
accomplished nothing, and lost twenty hoplites getting away. He
may have kiled twenty of their horses.’
‘But he lives?’
Miltiades nodded heavily. ‘He lives.’ He shrugged. ‘It is
chaos out in that field. Half the hoplites wil have lost their shield-
bearers before this debacle is over. Better if we’d fought a field
battle.’ He stared at the ground. ‘How did it go so wrong?’
battle.’ He stared at the ground. ‘How did it go so wrong?’
I had my canteen, and I poured him a cup of water, and he
dropped his shield and sat heavily. He had a gash on his leg – he
wasn’t wearing greaves. I washed his leg myself, and when
Gelon came up I sent him for an old chiton I could rip to shreds
for wrapping.
I didn’t want him to see that Miltiades was weeping.
You can see, from the hindsight of forty years, that al was not
lost – but trust me, thugater, while Miltiades sat on his aspis and
wept, I felt like joining him. We had lost many good men – and
to our minds, schooled in the war of the phalanx, we had
accomplished nothing.
We had not robbed the Persians of their cavalry, and we had
not put heart into the phalanx with a bloodless victory.
But while Miltiades wept, the light-armed started coming in
from the fields – and the barbarians did nothing to stop them.
Indeed, had I gone to the edge of the field, I’d have seen
something that five thousand other Greeks 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
wal – in ful 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
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 al 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 al, the elated little men came up the hil 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
Marathon. But remember that we only stood our ground
because the little men won it for us.
Wine for al 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 stil
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 gradualy 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 stil lodged deep in Ajax’s
thigh. The doctor brought a selection of what appeared to be
arrowhead moulds – long, holow shafts with a holow for the
arrowhead moulds – long, holow shafts with a holow 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 puled 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
roled, 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 – al forms of making and craft
fascinated him. By then, more and more of the psiloi were
coming up the hil, 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
with Themistocles, and they were laughing. Leonestes saw me
and beckoned, and I went over.
‘Just teling our tale,’ Leonestes said. ‘How we rescued you.
How you charged the Persians—’
‘Medes—’
‘Barbarians – al by yourself. Like a loon.’ He grinned.
Miltiades raised an eyebrow. Then he stepped up on the dry
stone of the sanctuary wal 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 al 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 sily. 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
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-afte
rnoon, 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 alowed 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.
Calimachus raised his arms, and even the loudest hoplites fel
silent.
‘Don’t be children,’ he said, in his powerful voice. They
didn’t make him polemarch for nothing. Grown men – spear-
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 Calimachus, so calm and
so in command, was going to carry us right back to the city.
Calimachus ordered the strategoi to vote again, but the result
was another tie. War and politics make for strange aliances.
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 wel-known orator.
The dissenters were just as disparate, and the split belied any
notion that men had been bought by barbarian gold, despite al
the muttering after the battle. Men were voting from actual
conviction, and that is when politics grows most heated and most
dangerous.
I happened to be next to Calimachus after the second vote.
‘By Zeus, lord of judges,’ he said. ‘I should never have
alowed that smooth-tongued bastard to exclude you, Plataean.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I’d have fixed this.’