primary sources for battle of marathon

[Martin Kealey]

Greetings all you students of Greek militaria and history. My daughter has an assignment on the Battle of Marathon. Part of the project requires references to primary sources, however I am no Greek scholar, strictly Roman and medieval. Could any of you point the way to primary sources? All the sources I am even remotely aware of (Thucydides, Herodotus) came long after. Thanks

[Mythos_Ruler]

Thucydides and Herodotus only came decades afterwards. Plutarch was centuries afterwards. There are no known contemporary accounts that survive. Others can be more precise.

[Jeroen Pelgrom]

Herodotus describes the Persian wars, including the battle at marathon. I don't know other Greek sources which describes the battle.

[hoplite14gr]

Except Herodotus amd Thukkidides
Plutarch in life of Aristedes
Pausanias in "Attika" amd Strabo in his Geography
Ailian in "Poikoili Istoria" mentions anecdotes.
The same with Cornelius Nepo

Kind regards

[Paullus Scipio]

Herodotus is the only actual account that describes fully what happened. He is the first and oldest 'historian' known and hence is called "The Father of History"
He came from Halicarnassus in Anatolia, and is almost contemporary and evidently spoke with people who had first-hand information.(most believe he was born about 484 B.C. He probably died about the first years of the Peloponnesian war 430 B.C aprox)
The others mentioned by Stefanos all make references to anecdotes, or in passing etc

[Muzzaguchi]

Hi Martin,

Herodotus 6.109-117 is the best known account.

The others mentioned above are Nepos's Life of Miltiades (chapter 5 although the only information he adds is that Datis had 100,000 infantry and 10,000 cavalry) He does have a curious phrase which might be the origins of a famous Shakespeare speech from Henry V ('A more glorious victory was never before won; for never did so small a band lay low so great a power' From the Loeb translation of John Rolfe.)

Both Plutarch and Nepos mention trees which Herodotus does not - Plutarch says trees were felled so that the Persian cavalry could not outflank the Athenians and Nepos says that the scattered trees prevented the Persian cavalry from surrounding them (both of these later accounts seem to misunderstand Persian cavalry tactics)

There is also available as Stefanos mentioned Aelian's Historical Miscellany (that is the Loeb volume's title) which has several Marathon related anecdotes

Cheers

Murray

[Sean Manning]

Most of the written ancient sources are available in English translation online. If you can't find any of them, let us know. A site called the Perseus Project has the most.

[hoplite14gr]

On the exact topograpy of the Marathon battle field 2500 years ago
I kindly ask you to search the "Greek section" with the word "Marathon".
You will be surprised.

Kind regards

[Martin Kealey]

My daughter thanks all of you for your assistance and input on the Marathon subject. The dearth of primary sources, however, has led her to choose the Baltic Crusades as her history project subject, since so many primary sources on the events there still exist. Again, thank you all.

[D B Campbell]

The dearth of primary sources, however, has led her to choose the Baltic Crusades as her history project subject, since so many primary sources on the events there still exist.

The what now?! hock:

[Sean Manning]

The dearth of primary sources, however, has led her to choose the Baltic Crusades as her history project subject, since so many primary sources on the events there still exist.

The what now?! hock:

The late medieval Germans spent a lot of energy fighting pagans in what are now the countries on the southern and eastern Baltic shore, adding Prussia among other places to Christiendom. A whole order of warrior monks, the Teutonic Knights, had these crusades as their primary function after the crusader kingdoms in the Holy Land collapsed. They were part of the 'glorious history' Adolf Hitler was thinking of when he ranted about finding liebensraum in the east. Martin can correct me on details, of course.

[Martin Kealey]

In a nut shell, the last post is the Baltic Crusades, although the idea of Christianising the Prussians, Latvians, Letts, etc was not limited to the Germans. Danes, Poles, and Swedes all had a hand in events in the area, with Livonia actually being part of Danish 'territory' for a while.

[artaxerxes]

Back to Marathon,

IIRC Aeschylus fought at Marthon but wrote about Salamis where he also saw action.

Regards

David B

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

Well,his brother died in Marathon.And i'm not sure in what extend the ancients of that time considered Marathon such a great victory.Of course some deceys later the Marathonomachoi were the ultimate Athenian heroes,but in any case Salamis was a much more "shining" event.
Khaire
Giannis