The First Clash (30 page)

With no other options, Datis gave the next day’s orders—break camp and return to the ships. It was the most dangerous operation conceivable, one that invited attack. It would take all night to break camp and move the ships into place. The job was made more difficult by the necessity of hiding these preparations from the Athenians. From past experience, Datis knew that getting the cavalry on board ship would be the hardest part of the job, so they would have to board before daybreak, working in the early morning hours as the rest of the army stood guard. If that went well, he would collapse his perimeter back toward the narrow strip of beach where the marsh protected one flank and the ocean the other. Here his elite Persians and Saka could hold the line, under the protection of thousands of archers, while the rest of the army boarded ship. It was dangerous, but it
was the only option left. As Datis studied the line of men whom the Great King had ordered destroyed, he must have thought one more time: If only the Athenians would attack.

That night, the Athenians heard unusual sounds coming from the Persian camp. Callimachus must have guessed what was happening, but he needed to be sure. He sent out spies, and soon enough confirmation came back: The Persians were preparing to depart.
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The Greek generals understood that they must not allow the Persians to depart unhurt. If they did so, their next action would be both unpredictable and dangerous. A number of options were available to the Persians. From the Athenian perspective, none of them were pleasant. They might sail north to Thebes, which was never a friend of Athens and had offered earth and water. From there, they could have enlisted the support of Theban hoplites to supply the heavy infantry they lacked and together march on Athens. Alternatively, they could land at another point and march on Athens before the hoplites could assemble or hit numerous points along the coast to scour Attica with damaging raids. Even more dangerous, they might find common cause with Aegina and winter on that island, recouping their strength for another descent on Attica the following year. Even joining with Argos and first removing the Spartan threat was a possibility. With all of these possibilities, it became clear to Callimachus that if Athens was going to survive, the Persians needed to be injured as much as possible before they left the shores of Marathon.

Callimachus knew the Spartans had set out and were marching hard to his aid. But time had run out, and Athens could not keep its men under arms forever. It was now or never. He called together the ten tribal generals and gave his orders. The army would muster before dawn for battle. Previously, he had briefed them on his novel plan for victory, based on his observation that the elite of the Persian army was always placed in the center of their battle line. This was the force Callimachus aimed to destroy, for only it was irreplaceable. The Athenian hoplites would also need to stretch their line as far as possible to avoid being outflanked by the more numerous Persians, but they could use even this to advantage. The Athenian line would be eight deep on each flank and only four deep in the center. The plan called for the flanks to win, while the center drew the elite Persians deep into a trap. It was a tremendous risk, for if the center broke before the flanks had done their job, disaster was all but certain.

It was a brilliant plan, but Callimachus was a brilliant general.

BATTLE

F
ew slept that night, as even veterans found it difficult to doze off on the night before battle. Slaves kept themselves busy polishing shields and armor to a high shine. Slingers engraved their lead pellets with obscene phrases.
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The few archers present in the Athenian ranks prepared their strings and arrows. All around, hoplites repeatedly and nervously handled and sharpened their weapons, while the generals made their rounds. They stopped at each group, told a funny story or two, offered some encouragement, called attention to someone’s past heroism, and did what they could to soothe pre-battle jitters. But mostly they went over the plan time and again. Victory on the morn depended on three things: courage, every man knowing the plan and his part in it, and iron discipline.

Before dawn, the Greeks mustered. As usual, the men ate no breakfast.
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Instead, they turned silently to the task of donning their armor. Then, after hefting heavy
hoplon
shields onto their shoulders, they singularly or in
small groups made their way through gaps in the defensive barrier. The full moon had passed, but there was still enough light to make it possible for each man to find his place in formation. Men took their places noiselessly. Only the sounds of thousands of shuffling feet and the periodic clang of
hoplons
striking each other broke the silence. All along the line, veterans whispered encouragement to younger men about to engage in their first fight, urging them to keep close and shelter themselves as much as possible behind their neighbor’s shield. Here and there, someone would, as a Greek playwright said, “let the water run down his legs” or even void himself uncontrollably. Men would chuckle about that later, but for the moment little was said. Fear was natural. It was forgiven, as long as the man stayed in the line.

Dawn broke.

The holy paean was sung.

The order came—advance.

Peering through the tiny slits in their helmets, men could see a bit better now and could make out friends—or in some cases enemies, who for today put aside their quarrels. In the center was the Leontis tribe, commanded by its general, Themistocles, later to become the savior of Greece when Xerxes returned to finish what Darius had begun. Beside him was the general of the Antiochis tribe, Aristides. Both men already despised each other, and Themistocles would soon have Aristides ostracized from Athens, only to see him recalled just in time to command the Athenian army at the Battle of Plataea in 479 BC. But for today, their tribes stood arrayed adjacent to each other, both tasked with the day’s most difficult and dangerous mission. Any chance the Athenians had for victory rested on the valor of both generals. In the event, they met the challenge, as Plutarch comments: “[Both] ranged together fought valiantly.”
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On the far right, with their flank on the ocean, stood the Aiantis tribe. Here, Stesileos stood beside his father, Thrasylaos, the tribe’s general. Stesileos would not survive the day, dying within arm’s reach of his father. With the men of Aiantis marched the polemarch, who was one of them and by virtue of his position stood on the far right of the army. He was also fighting his last battle, as he would die at the climax, pierced by so many spears that his body did not fall. Also standing in the ranks of the Aiantis men was Greece’s greatest dramatist, Aeschylus. Today he would fight bravely but also witness the savage death of his brother Cynegeirus, struck down just as the final victory was won.
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As dawn broke, the Greeks were clearly visible to the Persians, as had
been the case for several days previously. Today, though, the Greeks were silent. There were none of the taunts of previous days. Did Datis, preoccupied with the job of getting his boats loaded, note the silence? Maybe not. The night loading had not gone well. How could it, as his men had never tried it before? The camp was mostly broken down, but the collected booty had still not been removed. The Persians, at least, had managed to get most of their ships into the water, but by dawn the horse loading was only partially complete.

But Datis was an experienced commander. He must have seen that the Athenian lines were tighter today, more disciplined. Possibly he could see that the shields and body armor were polished to a higher shine than in previous days. Did that mean anything? If he or any of the other Persians actually sensed anything was different, it did not cause them to change their daily routine. As they had done every morning since landing at Marathon, they formed to face the Greeks. There seemed no reason for haste. After all, they still had three times the Athenian numbers. Even the Greeks were not crazy enough to attack against such odds.

In unison, the Greeks began to sing the holy paean. The Persians looked on, befuddled.

When the song ended, the hoplites stepped off. For the first few steps they walked, but then the pace picked up, first to a fast walk and then to a trot. The hoplites crushed together, shoulder to shoulder and shield to shield, as each covered as much of his exposed right side behind his neighbor’s shield as possible. Dread and fear melted away now that the army was advancing. Men who had soiled themselves in the line drew strength from the surging men surrounding them. At six hundred yards’ distance, the mass of men began to scream their fierce and nerve-shattering battle cry:
Alleeee!

The Persians could not believe what they were seeing. The Athenians had no cavalry or archers. This attack was madness. But the Athenians were coming on, and they were coming fast.

Hastily, the Persian commanders aligned their troops. Men holding wicker shields went to the front as thousands of archers arrayed themselves in the rear. In another moment, these archers would release tens of thousands of deadly bolts into the sky, and that would be the end of the Athenians. Despite the speed of the Athenian attack, the Persian army showed no panic. They, too, were professionals, victors of dozens of bloody battles. What they saw coming at them was new, but none of them doubted they would make short work of the charging hoplites.

The Persian spearmen were on line now. Patiently, they waited to release the hail of arrows that would darken the sky and decimate their foe. That done, the infantry would advance to slaughter the shattered remnant.

But a different kind of war was charging down on them now. And it was arriving at almost incomprehensible speed, for at two hundred yards’ distance the Athenian trot became a sprint. Athenian hoplites had learned the art of war against other hoplites, and their kind of war was not decided by a hail of arrows. A collision of wooden shields and deadly iron-tipped spears wielded by heavily armored warriors settled matters. It was a horrible and terrifying confrontation of pushing, screaming, half-crazed men who gouged, stabbed, and kicked at their opponents until one side could bear the agony no longer and broke. Then the real slaughter would begin, as men released of fear would feel the surge of bloodlust propelling them forward in murderous pursuit of the fleeing foe.

Finally, the Persian archers let fly. But to no effect. Never having seen such a rapid advance, many of the archers mistimed their shots. Masses of arrows missed their targets entirely. Most of those that did strike the Athenians bounced off shields and heavy armor. Hastily the archers reloaded, as the shield bearers and protecting infantry, seeing that ten thousand metal-encased killers were almost upon them, uneasily began inching backward.

The screams of
Alleeee!
were ear-shattering now, but even that could not compare with the incredible noise of thousands of shields clanging off one another as the compressed Greek ranks came within striking distance.

In a shuddering instant, the hoplites smashed into the lightly protected Persians and convulsed their defensive line. Wicker shields were trampled down, and the first rank of Persian infantry died in an instant. Most of the spears did not shatter on impact (unusual for a hoplite battle), for the Persians were without serious armor. Again and again, Athenian spears lunged forward, more often than not finding targets. Men screamed, fought, and died. But soon enough, the hoplites had passed through the protecting infantry and gotten amid the archers.

Now the real killing began.

The flanks, where Callimachus had massed his hoplites eight deep, made rapid progress. In a very short time, the Persians facing the men of Aiantis on the Greek right and the Plataeans on the left lost their cohesion and will to resist. In places, unprotected archers drew their short swords and daggers and made a stand. But they made little impression on the
locked shields of the Greeks. Like a heavily armored tank, the phalanx rolled over the opposition, killing as it came on. Some in the Persian army fell, only wounded. The front line of Greeks stepped over them, intent on killing or maiming those still standing to their front. They knew that other hoplites coming behind them would dispatch the wounded men by raising spear points high and then plunging the metal spikes at their spear’s base into their prostrate victims. Any Persian who survived would be stabbed to death by the swarm of light troops following in the phalanx’s wake. When the Persian flanks could no longer stand the horror of hoplite warfare, they broke and ran desperately to the rear in hopes of reaching the safety of the ships.