History From Below

Over on the Forbes blog, I have posted a day-by-day reconstruction of the events leading up to and including the famed Battle of Marathon in 490 BCE. I did this with the help of UT-Knoxville Classicist Thomas Rose (also a ASCSA alumnus & fellow marathoner). The battle was the basis for the modern day Marathon race (26 miles from the plain of Marathon to Athens), but the victory of the Athenians and Plataeans over their Persian foes was also a story of David over Goliath. Using the ancient sources and their references to the moon phases, we can now approach a timeline for the battle and reconstruct this instantly mythical struggle for students and interested readers alike.