Marathon: The Battle That Changed Western Civilization

By Richard A. Billows

Published to coincide with Marathon's 2500th anniversary, a riveting history of the historic battle

The Battle of Marathon in 490 B.C. is not only understood as the most decisive event in the struggle between the Greeks and the Persians, but can also be seen as perhaps the most significant moment in our collective history.

10,000 Athenian citizens faced a Persian military force of more than 25,000. Greek victory appeared impossible, but the men of Athens were tenacious and the Persians were defeated. Following the battle, the Athenian hoplite army ran 26.5 miles from Marathon to Athens to defend their port from the Persian navy. Although they had just run the great distance in heavy armor, the Athenians won the battle and drove the Persian forces from Attica. Greek freedom ensued and the achievements of the culture became much of the basis for Western civilization.

In this comprehensive and engrossing treatment, Richard Billows captures the drama of that day 2500 years ago and the ramifications it has had throughout Western history.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Group
• Release date: Nov 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781468303063

Richard A. Billows

Richard A. Billows is Assistant Professor of History at Columbia University.

Reviews for Marathon

[scvlad · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The author argues, probably correctly, that the battle of Marathon, where the Athenian army defeated a much larger force of invading Persians in 490 B.C.E., was one of the most important battles in Western history and that without it, the western world would be a very different place.Now, I've certainly heard of Marathon before and I understood that it was an important battle. But I was initially worried that Billows was going to have trouble with a book-length treatment of it. After all, though we know the broad outlines of the battle, we know very little of the details. I therefore suspected that the initial chapters were going to give important background, and I suspected that I'd already know quite a bit of that.I'm glad to say that was not the case. The initial chapters are indeed given over to background: Billows covers the development of the Greek city-states and their methods of war; the development of the Persian empire; the development of 5th century Athenian democracy; and the reasons for hostilities between the Greeks, especially the Athenians, and the Persians. But Billows gave a nicely detailed and nicely written account of all of these in which I learned quite a bit. Indeed this turned out to be one of the better summaries of pre-5th century Greek and Middle-Eastern history that I've read. The discussion of the battle itself is a little short on detail, but that's what we've been left with from the historical record so we can't fault the author for that. The final chapter on the legacy of Marathon and how the world would be different without it I probably could have done without: lots of speculation. However I certainly agree with the main conclusion that the world would have been a very different place now had the Athenians lost the battle on that August morning.