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When the message of the beacon was received on that August evening, the generals at once sent Pheidippides on his fruitless trip to Sparta, and a message for help was also dispatched to the tiny Boeotian city-state of Plataea, an unwilling member of the Boeotian confederation north of Attica and very friendly to Athens. The hoplites got ready to march up the coast road to meet their fate, and either left the city under cover of darkness or awaited the early summer dawn. Each man had a donkey and slave to carry his armor, weapons, and equipment for making camp.
The hoplite army entered the plain of Marathon and encamped beside a precinct or shrine to Heracles. It was a strong position with easy access to water at a spring in the hills and at Marathon village. Trees were felled and piled up on either flank as a protective barrier against the Persian horse. The first phase of a successful campaign had already been achieved, for the coast road to Athens was now guarded and the Persians were held to their beachhead. There was nowhere they could go but away, unless they were to beat the Athenians in battle.
A force of between six hundred and one thousand Plataeans arrived in the Athenian camp, a timely response to the previous day’s appeal. But there was bad news as well. Pheidippides had returned to Athens and it was now certain that the Spartans could not be expected for another six days or so.
At this point both sides had good reasons for holding off from a full, set-piece battle. The Athenians were waiting for the Spartans to finish their festivities and join them. Also, the generals were nervous of taking the field when the Persian cavalry and archers would be free to attack their infantry from the flanks and the rear.
As for Datis and Artaphernes, they were uneasy at the prospect of pitting their probably inferior infantry against the heavily armed hoplites with their reputation for invulnerability—the “bronze men” as they were nicknamed. Also, promisingly, they were in touch with Athenians who supported a return of the tyranny and were willing to betray the city and open the gates to them when the circumstances were right.
It has never been established who these potential traitors were. Many at the time believed they were the Alcmaeonids, but this seems unlikely. As Herodotus points out, the clan had been consistently hostile to the tyrants over the years. Its head, Cleisthenes, had been responsible for the introduction of democracy and in that way had ensured a continuing place for the Alcmaeonids in the public life of Athens. It is true that some members of the family were to be victims of ostracism in the coming years, but turning coat at this stage would have been extraordinarily shortsighted.
So for several days nothing happened. The armies faced one another two or three miles apart and waited. There was no word of the Spartans, but we may assume that Datis and Artaphernes were aware of their probably imminent arrival, an event that would tip the balance of advantage away from the Persians. But there was also no word from the pro-Persian conspirators in Athens.
The Persian high command decided to make a move. To all intents and purposes Athens was undefended; it was obvious that every spare soldier was at Marathon. On the night of August 11/12 Datis embarked a task force with some infantry and the bulk of the cavalry and set sail for the Athenian harbor at Phaleron. He intended to take the city by surprise. Luckily Ionian scouts on the Persian side slipped away from their posts before dawn and delivered an urgent message to the Athenian camp: “The cavalry has gone.”
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Suddenly Callimachus and Miltiades were short of time. In the absence of the Persian cavalry the prospects for a hoplite victory were much improved. It would probably take Datis and his fleet up to twelve hours of daylight sailing to reach Phaleron and a further hour or so to disembark. Would it be possible for the Athenians to fight and win a quick battle in the morning and then rush back and defend their city in the evening? Miltiades had no doubt that the answer to the question was a loud yes, but the ten generals were evenly divided. Callimachus as polemarch bravely cast his deciding vote for attack.
By about half past five in the morning the Greek army was drawn up across the plain and faced the Persians, who had left their camp and the great marsh behind them. If Miltiades’ plan was to work, the battle would need to be done and won by about nine o’clock. He guessed that, following the Persian habit, Artaphernes would place the best troops of his polyglot army in the center of the line with weaker formations on the wings. And so it happened.
Hoplites were usually massed eight deep, but the numerically superior Persians had a much longer front than that of the Athenians. So, to avoid being outflanked, Miltiades as operational commander thinned his center to three or four ranks at most while strengthening his wings.
He decided to make a virtue of necessity and laid a trap for the enemy. The Persian center would be allowed to press forward and the hoplites would gradually retreat. Meanwhile the Greek wings, one of which included the plucky Plataeans, would defeat the enemy forces in front of them and then wheel about to attack the Persian center from its sides and rear.
At the sounding of a trumpet, the Greeks set off in a brisk march. They broke into a run when they came within range of the archers. The battle proceeded exactly as Miltiades had designed it to do. His center fell back under pressure from the Persians. His wings routed the Persians. The Athenians and Plataeans, writes Herodotus,
having got the upper hand, left the beaten barbarians to make their escape and then, drawing the two wings together into a single unit, they turned their attention to the enemy troops who had broken through the center.
The last stage of the battle was butchery. The Greeks pursued the enemy to their camp and their ships, already launched and ready for departure. Callimachus was killed and the brother of the tragic poet Aeschylus, who was also present, had his hand cut off as he was catching hold of a ship’s stern. Many Persians were struck down and the sea went red with blood. We are told that 6,400 of them lost their lives, but only 192 Greeks.
The defeated general picked up his wounded and sailed away. He had long been waiting for a sign from the Athenian traitors and at last a bronze shield flashed from a mountaintop. Presumably this was a prearranged message, announcing that antidemocrats at Athens were now in a position to hand over their city to the aged Hippias. In response, Artaphernes was seen to turn his bruised armada southwards. A strong wind and a following sea blew them down to Cape Sunium. All might yet be well, he hoped.
It was not much after nine in the morning. A runner was sent to give the good news to Athens (perhaps the services of Pheidippides were used again) and the exhausted victors followed after him as fast as their legs would carry them.
When his ships hove to off Phaleron later that day, Datis spied to his dismay the hoplite army, travel- and battle-stained. It stood outside the city at the Cynosarges, an open-air gymnasium and shrine to Heracles, and looked southwards to the sea and the enemy. The Median commander saw he had lost the race, and also, he now knew, the campaign. There was nothing more to be done than for him and Artaphernes, who arrived with the main fleet, to set a course for home. With them went Hippias, whose expectation of a return to power was over for good. The traitors, whoever they were, kept their thoughts to themselves. For many years there were to be no more tyrants in Athens.