The General Who Saved Athens …
When it comes to ingratitude, few can rival ancient Athens, which often screwed over her heroes. Miltiades (550 – 489 BC) was one of the earliest examples of that unfortunate tendency. He was a formidable general best known for his victory at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC, which took place a decade before the events depicted in the movie 300. It was an upset win against a numerically superior force, that saved Athens from Persian conquest. Miltiades was born into a wealthy aristocratic family. So wealthy, that it owned a private kingdom in the Chersonese (today’s Gallipoli Peninsula), which Miltiades inherited in 516 BC. When Persia’s King Darius I invaded the Chersonese in 513 BC, Miltiades surrendered and became a Persian vassal. Then, in 499 BC, the Ionian Greeks of Asia Minor revolted against Persian rule.
Miltiades marched against the rebels, but secretly supported their cause and funneled them aid from Athens. That set in a motion a chain of events that led to the Battle of Marathon. Athens sent an expeditionary force to help the Ionian Greeks. The Athenians joined the rebels in a march to the Persian governor’s seat in Sardis, which was put to the torch. The Persians eventually crushed the revolt in 495 BC, and discovered Miltiades’ betrayal. He fled to Athens, where he was elected one of its ten generals. The Persians determined to punish Athens for aiding the Ionians, and sent a punitive expedition which landed on the plain of Marathon north of Athens, in 490 BC. It numbered at least 25,000 infantry, 1000 cavalry, and thousands of archers. To face them, the Athenians fielded about 10,000 hoplites – armored heavy infantry – without cavalry or archers.