Talk:Battle of Marathon
From Academic Kids
- A Winner of the August 2004 West Dakota Prize
This entry has won the West Dakota Prize for successfully employing the expression "legend states" in a complete sentence.
The text of this article states, "Darius learned through Hippias that the Alcemaeonidae, a powerful Athenian family, were opposed to Miltiades and ready to help reinstate Hippias."
This sounds doubtful. The Alcmaeonidae included some of the leading supporters for the democracy, didn't they? In that case they would hardly have wanted to reinstate Hippias, and Miltiades was never really in charge of anything.
The text also states, "Hippias, tyrant of Athens, had been expelled in 510 BC by his people, with the assistance of Cleomenes, King of Sparta. He fled to the court of Darius to seek assistance." The link for Hippias goes to Hippias of Elis, a Sophist. The article there gives no hint that Hippias of Elis was also the
"tyrant of Athens." I presume that these were two different people, so the
link is incorrect. If they were in fact the same person, then the article about Hippias of Elis should be updated.
- Well, the Hippias problem is fixed...as for the rest, Hippias may have been lying to Darius to convince him to invade, but I don't really know that particular aspect of the story. Adam Bishop 04:17, 29 Oct 2003 (UTC)
07/19/2004--- News out now that the battle date is possibly off by 1 month. The source I read put the date at August 12, explaining why the runner died after running the distance--heat stroke.
- Link for that. (http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mystery_marathon_0407191.html) It talks about it being a month earlier than the current Sept. 12 thinking, but I think that would be a lunar month, rather than a 30 or 31 day month. So it would probably be more like Aug. 13 to 15 or so.-- John Owens (talk) 19:10, 2004 Jul 19 (UTC)
That info about the moon and the Spartan calendar is interesting, but I wouldn't want to change the date based on the Phidippides story, which may never have happened anyway...I think there should be some corroborating sources as well, this sounds like the sort of thing that might have been published in a journal somewhere. Adam Bishop 03:25, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)
This was recently added:
- "According to a new interpretation of the legend, Philippides was retreating from the battlefield of Marathon after the Persians gained the upper hand. According to the Dipakavani (an ancient commentary recently found in the Deccan Plateau of India), Philippides was being chased by a battalion on horseback, and could cover the said distance only because of his tremendous skill as a runner, presumably honed while on job as a professional messenger. The original legend concerning the message to be delivered seems to be a corruption entertained by Herodotus as a result of the known resume of Philippides, who was famed as a Olympian runner."
Through Google, at least, there is no evidence for this; Dipakavani does not show up at all. If this has been published anywhere, then we can put it back. Adam Bishop 16:09, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
The number of Persian soldiers is exaggerated. They were no more than 20,000, more probably 15,000. These numbers can be derived by the fact that the Greeks, in order to have a front line equal to the Persian one, were compelled to deploy the central tribes on 4 ranks, instead than on 8, as usual: counting the Platea contingent, the Greek army had a front line of about 1,500 m. We can therefore assume the same length for the Persian army. The latter was formed by the 'artisbara' in the middle, the opilites (about 4,000) and the other Persian troops (about 5,000) on the wings, and the Scitian archers (2,000) in front of the 'artisbara'. Subtracting the front of the winger troops from the total (about 450 m) the result is the length of the 'artisbara' formation: about 1,000 m. Even adopting two ranks for the 'artisbara', they could be no more than 10,000 men, that is a 'baivarabam'. The total amount is therefore about 20,000 men. --Panairjdde 17:02, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
- Well presumably the 26 000 comes from adding up the numbers in Herodotus. If so, that's a surprisingly accurate guess, if your estimate is 20 000 - usually Herodotus would have a wildly exaggerated number. Adam Bishop 07:06, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)
