Battle of Marathon | Animated History

it is a bright sunny day on the beautiful Greek island of euboea but the city of Eritrea is burning foreign soldiers Murad through the streets looting and destroying temples setting fire to houses and abducting any civilians they find to sell into slavery Eritrea is utterly destroyed but this act of brutality will not satisfy the attackers thirst for vengeance they have one more city to burn [Music] before we start the battle I'd like to take a moment to highlight our sponsor Squarespace ever since merchants in ancient Greece first began crying their wares at marketplace people have understood the need for an effective means of mass communication Squarespace is the ideal modern solution offering all the tools one needs to go about promoting a business we're establishing a presence online so make sure to stay until the very end of the video where we'll be mentioning an exclusive offer from Squarespace just four armchair historian fans but for now the Phalanx awaits hi I'm Griffin Johnson the armchair historian today's video the Battle of Marathon a battle that saw the forces of the city-state of Athens and its allies face off against the might of the Persian Empire pop culture tends to portray Marathon as a glorious triumph of the brave heroes of the Western democracy soundly defeating the evil forces of Eastern tyranny but in reality the Battle of Marathon was far more complicated further muddied by many conflicting historical accounts now let's dive in our story begins in 490 BCE the year that Persian King Darius the first dispatched an armada of 600 ships carrying an army of 26,000 disciplined soldiers into the Aegean the expedition set out to destroy or subjugate several Greek islands and city-states but their main targets were the cities of Athens and Eritrea the reason nine years before those two cities had sent troops and ships to support a rebellion of several Greek cities in the Persian Empire a conflict known as the Ionian revolt the revolt was eventually crushed but not before Ionian forces captured and destroyed a Persian city of Sardis the fiery destruction of Eritrea was not a random act aggression but one of retribution a city for a city but Darius's expedition was not solely motivated by revenge the Athenians and Eritrea --nz had not only helped burn a Persian city they had presented a challenge to the Persian kings Authority darius having spent years securing his throne after usurping it in 522 could not let such a challenge stand he demanded pay back the army he assembled to do the job was led by generals Dottie's and art a furnace consisting of light infantry and heavy cavalry that Persian troops were drawn from all over the vast multicultural Persian Empire before pursuing their main goals the Persian Force spent some time island hopping across the aegean sea beyond simple conquest and securing supply lines taking the islands allowed the Persian generals to engage in a bit of propaganda after burning the Defiant city of Naxos and enslaving its inhabitants the Persian fleet sailed to Delos which surrendered immediately danti's proceeded to make lavish sacrifices to the Greek god Apollo before leaving the occupied city intact soon after the Persians reached a defiant Eritrea and we all know how that went the message was clear surrender would be respected but resistance would be crushed after destroying Eritrea the Persian forces sailed down the coast of Attica and landed at the plain of Marathon about 40 kilometres 425 miles northeast of Athens and it is here that the fate of Athenian independence would be decided the athenians scrambled to respond hastily dispatching their army from the city to intercept the vast Persian force before it could establish a foothold on the Greek mainland the Greeks arrived with a force numbering about 11,000 hoplite infantry 10,000 from Athens and 1,000 provided by their ally Plataea the Athenian soldiers in keeping with Athens then newly established Democratic traditions were led by ten generals one from each of the ten tribes of Athens in addition there was one senior general or Paul Marsh in charge of all the tribal commanders at this time the polemarch was a man named calamitous about whom very little is known likewise most of the tribal commanders are unknown with the exception of a rather famous character by the name of mill tidings mill tidies was born in Athens in 550 BCE to a noble family and in five sixteen he came to rule over a Greek city on what is now the Gallipoli Peninsula in Anatolia milt Heidi served for a few years as a Persian vassal after Darius the first conquered the region but fled to Athens after falling out of favor with the king ancient accounts claimed that the other generals at marathon all deferred to mill tidies given his first-hand knowledge of Persian tactics but there is reason to be skeptical of this detail mill Tidy son Simon was a leading figure in Athenian politics in the decades after the battle with this in mind it's easy to see why we know so much about mill tidies and why we should take some of the claims about him with a grain of salt when the Greeks arrived at marathon they quickly moved to block the Persian army from advancing further inland as soon as they set up their camp the Greeks realized they were at a serious disadvantage their army had no cavalry who were skilled archers to match those in the Persian army and they were outnumbered more than two to one looking to even the odds the Athenians sent a runner to request reinforcements from Sparta and great news the Spartans agreed to send aid not right away an important religious festival was ongoing at the time and the Spartans couldn't interrupt the festival by going to war without breaking divine law the Spartans may have taken war very were just as serious about their parties therefore the Athenians couldn't expect Spartan reinforcements for another ten days at this point both sides were reluctant to force an engagement despite Persia superior numbers and flexible army composition the Greeks boasted a strong defensive position in the hills with both of their flanks secured the bristling Spears of the Greek balance also presented a very persuasive argument against a direct assault and likewise the widely feared heavy cavalry and trained archers of the persians presented an equally persuasive argument against a greek assault across the plain a retreat back to the safety of athens walls might have made strategic sense at this point but it was politically unsafe moat IEDs and calamitous knew that there was a strong faction in athens that supported persia and wanted to turn the city over in exchange for mercy and political power for themselves the commanders needed a decisive victory over the Persians at marathon to silence these sympathizers retreat was not an option and so the two armies simply waited staring each other down for eight days straight this delay benefitted the Greeks much more than the Persians as every day they waited brought the Spartan Army closer and the Persians only had so much food to sustain their large army what finally broke the stalemate is uncertain ancient sources are divided on the details and modern historians haven't been able to reach a consensus either we do know two things though that the Greeks most likely attacked the Persians and the Persian cavalry was not present for the battle the question of where the Persian horses went has been debated by scholars for centuries and there are two main theories the cavalry was either reembarked or it had been sent away from the rest of the army to forage equally uncertain is why the Greeks chose to attack when they did ancient sources again contradict each other but it is likely that something forced the Greeks to attack be it the to Athens from the Persians reembarked away whatever the case the cavalry was gone and melt IEDs seized the initiative he ordered the army into formation stretching out his forces to match the width of the Persian line by thinning the center ranks and concentrating his troops on the flanks the long line and thickened flanks were meant to prevent the larger Persian army from enveloping the smaller creeks force in melee if the Greeks were surrounded they would be slaughtered having arranged his forces melt IDs promptly began the attack the Greeks marched steadily across most of a 1,500 meter or 4900 foot gap between them and the Persians then upon entering the roughly 200 meter or 650 foot effective range of the Persian archers the Greek surprised the Trojans by breaking into a full run toward the enemy thanks to their large shields farmer and the momentum of their charge the Greeks were able to shrug off most of the Persian arrows as they ran and soon entered melee with the enemy for a moment it seemed as though Milt Heidi's attack would fail however since the Greek center ranks were thinner the Persians were able to break through the line there and push forward but the thicker Greek flanks succeeded in starting around allowing them to attack the advancing Persian force from the sides and the rear enveloping them a happy accident note IDs tactic to avoid envelopment by the Persians had allowed the Greeks to envelop their allies instead and soon they inflicted heavy losses by doing so the envelopment eloped the Persians morale and soon Arau among the entire Persian force started as they quickly began retreating to their ships all the while the Greeks continued to slaughter them by the time the Persians had withdrawn 6400 of them lay dead by either drowning in the nearby Marsh to escape or by being cut down in the retreat by comparison the Athenians lost a measly 192 men but among the Greek dead was the polemarch calamitous who according to legend died with so many Persian Spears through his body that he remained upright after death though the Greeks had won a remarkable victory at marathon they had no time to celebrate the rest of the Persian army was now sailing toward a defenseless Athens and the Greeks had to march through the night to make it back to the city in time to protect it they arrived just in time to see the Persian ships approaching finding the city fully defended Dottie's turned his fleet around and abandoned the expedition ending the first greco-persian war while the Persian expedition had successfully annihilated Eritrea and expanded the territory of the Persian Empire the surprising victory by the Athenians at marathon carried huge symbolic importance the Athenians capitalized on this using widespread propaganda across the Greek world to inflate the importance of the relatively minor victory as a result the influence and prestige of Athens grew exponentially after marathon propelling them to prominence among the city-states of Greece you may be wondering by now what this ancient battle has to do with the marathon race well the legend goes that after the Battle of Marathon the Greeks needed to let the people of Athens know that the Persians had been defeated to prevent the pro Persian faction from surrendering the city so they sent a runner back to Athens to announce the victory the messenger ran a whole 26 miles or 42 kilometers back to Athens proclaimed the Greeks had won and then immediately died of exhaustion true or not the story was compelling enough that 2,000 years later the planners of the first modern Olympics used it as inspiration for the marathon race now that the Persians have been driven off let's conclude with a word from our sponsor Squarespace Squarespace provides everything you need to build a website online storefront or community hub it includes easy links to all common social media platforms integrated analytics and support for podcasts personalized email campaigns and mailing lists above all Squarespace focuses on being easy to use allowing anyone of any skill level to quickly design something visually appealing and simple to navigate go to squarespace.com to start a free trial today and once you're ready to launch go to squarespace.com slash armchair historian for 10% off of your first purchase of a website or domain although the truth of what happened at marathon is clouded by time propaganda and conflicting accounts it is undeniable that the Athenians overcame the odds to push back the Persian army but in the grand scheme of things the Battle of Marathon was little more than a small skirmish with in a much larger conflict the Battle of Marathon looms so large in history today only because the Athenians wanted it too proclaiming themselves the saviors of Greece allowed the Athenians to dominate it themselves if you want to learn more about the greater context of the greco-persian wars then I can highly recommend you watch a video over on and Victor's channel hey and Victor could you tell us what you'll be covering hey Griffin so in my video where we take a look at the macro-level perspective of the greco-persian wars and seek to answer the question why did the Persians failed now to do so we're gonna be giving you some context on well what was the persian objective in greece anyways to what extent was that objective achieved and then ultimately why did they fail now traditionally the narrative goes that the persians failed mostly because it's like a quantity versus quality you know that typical matchup of which is better and it's portrayed through history and even by the greeks that well the persians had this quantity millions upon millions of these chaffed type troops who butted heads against the small but elite greeks and that's kind of a simple narrative but in my video we dive into the details of why that's not necessarily accurate so we are gonna look at comparative army qualities we're going to be looking at troop numbers over the course of the war and then also we're gonna be looking at battle performance and track record so there's a lot of factors that are you know kind of hidden below this surface-level narrative and that's what we're really getting into in my video so if that's something that interests you definitely check it out [Music]

Channel: The Armchair Historian

Views: 346,333

Rating: 4.9136071 out of 5

Keywords: The Battle of Marathon, 300 Spartans, Hold at Marathon, 300 2, 300 the sequel, Greek history, persian history, athenian history, spartan history, the hoplite, the phalynx, persian cavalry, persian archers, spear wall, ancient battle, decisive battle, animated battle, war in greece, war in turkey, the persian empire, the greek empire, marathon, running a marathon, history of marathon, Why the Persians Failed to Conquer Greece, Misunderstood Moments

Id: 2cubGxusJhw

Length: 16min 59sec (1019 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 20 2019