This volume is the result of what was apparently a very successful symposium held at Delphi in July 2010. The volume offers an important contribution to the study of both Marathon and the Persian Wars in general but also, and just as importantly, to the debate on the historical and cultural significance of the wars. Few wars have been shrouded in more myths and politicised interpretations than the wars Greek city-states fought against Persia between 490 and 480–79 b.c.e., and few wars have been given the same deterministic significance as the wars against the Persians. The dominant interpretation of the Persian Wars repeatedly sees that the Greeks’ defeat of the Persians saved not only themselves and their culture but all western civilisation. Several books over the last decade have sought to show how the Greeks fought so heroically against a dark, despotic and uncivilised enemy and these books have helped to neuter the idea that the Greek victories in the fifth century b.c.e. and how western civilisation developed afterwards were closely interlinked. The volume challenges the glorious depiction of the battle and offers a far more balanced interpretation of the war, particularly its implications after the battle from antiquity up until the present day.

The book contains sixteen short chapters covering a wide range of themes from the role of the Spartans and the death of general Datis to the reception of the battle in modern western military history, such as the Iranian perception of Marathon and as an inspiration to Japanese freedom thoughts. The chapters are generally of a high standard of writing and well edited. M. Jung opens with a particularly interesting discussion of the authenticity of the late arrival of the Spartan forces and the Spartans’ following recognition of the Athenian's efforts and success in the battle. Jung asks whether the legend is true and draws attention to how neither Herodotus, Plato nor Isocrates reports that the Spartans were caught up in the festival to Apollo Karneios (pp. 16–17). Instead, Jung suggests that Plato's version, where the Spartans were busy putting down a Helot uprising, may be the real reason why the Spartans arrived late to Marathon. Jung points out how it was in the interests of Athenian commentators to underline that the Athenians fought and defeated the Persians on their own. Also, one way to invalidate Sparta's decisive part in the final victory was by underlining that the city took no part in the first war. Jung's contribution is important because it challenges some of the modern mythology that has determined how the battle has been interpreted and just as importantly it questions the tradition that Sparta was doing everything in its power to take part in the war.

Another interesting chapter is N. Giannakopoulos’ article on Marathon in the literary tradition of the imperial period. Giannakopoulos discusses how Greeks of the imperial period (Plutarch, Aristides and Polemon) used the Battle at Marathon as an example of a crucial battle where the Greeks, or the Athenians, fought for their freedom and won. In the second-century literary tradition often referred to as the Second Sophistic, Greek intellectuals focused their attention on the Greeks of the fifth and fourth centuries b.c.e., and on some of the game changing events of those years, such as the Persian Wars. Giannakopoulos points at not only how the focus on Marathon was used as a way to celebrate the Greek past, but also how Plutarch in particular took the opportunity to remind the empire's Greek population of how Greek freedom was a thing of the past and how it was Rome not the Greeks (who had proved unable to follow up on Marathon) that guaranteed Greek freedom. Greeks were free and safe under the rule of the Romans. Giannakopoulos offers a valuable discussion of Greek intellectuals in the imperial period and their views on the Greeks themselves; he underlines that the subject of Greek criticism was not always the Romans.

The last article to be discussed here is E. Venetis's chapter on Marathon and contemporary Iran. Venetis points out how no Persian sources for the Persian Wars or the politics of the Achaemenid dynasty have survived and how the attempt to reconstruct the Persian past relied on a Graeco-Roman tradition (pp. 269–70). To promote the Persian past, modern Persian academics drew attention to Iran's glorious past, emphasising Ancient Persia's significance for present and future Iran. The defeats and failures were minimised and Marathon was described as a negative aspect of Iranian nationalism.

Venetis points to the paradox that any analysis of the Persian War will have to rest on the Greek tradition, and also that the modern Persian portrayal of the Achaemenid dynasty largely rests on the tendentious and politicised writings of Greek authors who wrote their account in a mixture of rage, fear and pride for having repeatedly defeated one of the strongest powers of their time. Modern interpretations of the Battle of Marathon and the Persian Wars in general need to take into consideration that the other side of the story is unrecoverable, something that needs to be factored in when the Greek role in the war is analysed.

The book is a natural choice for undergraduate reading lists, a valuable supplement to many of the standard works on the wars against Persia.