The Battle of Marathon in 490 b.c. has long held the attention of scholarship.Footnote ¹ Some scholars have recently highlighted an overlooked aspect—the possibility of Asiatic Greek troops in the armies of Datis and Artaphernes—and asserted that these levied troops fought as hoplites on the Persian side.Footnote ² Hyland observed how this challenges the long held assumption, taken largely from Herodotus (5.49, 97, 7.211, 9.62–3), of the technical superiority of the Athenian and Plataean hoplite at Marathon.Footnote ³ These recent observations have been made briefly and in passing, however, usually without supporting evidence, and raise more questions than they solve. Who were these Asiatic Greek troops? Did they provide ships (with their crews) only, or fight on the battlefield? If the latter, can we be certain they fought as hoplites? The purpose of this short article is to offer points for consideration to invite further discussion into the possibility of Greeks fighting in the Persian army at Marathon.

Herodotus mentions once, abruptly, that ‘Ionians and Aeolians’ (Ἴωνας καὶ Αἰολέας, 6.98.1) sailed with Datis against Eretria prior to landing at Marathon, possibly identifying Asiatic Greeks in Datis’ force. But Ionia (alongside Caria and the Hellespont) had, according to Herodotus, only recently been devastated by the Battle of Lade (6.7–17) and failure of the Ionian Revolt (6.18–22.2, 25.1, 31.1–42.2), its cities burned and the population of Miletus killed or deported. Such a catalogue of calamities calls into question the supposed extent of this Ionian–Aeolian presence. Nevertheless, there are several points to consider:

1. (1) Lade was a naval battle (albeit including contingents of marines), meaning local land armies may have still been available. This is suggested by Histiaeus’ ability to lead an army of ‘many Ionians and Aeolians’ (Ἰώνων καὶ Αἰολέων συχνούς) following Lade (6.28.1–31.1), although much of this force was soon killed (6.28.2–29.1).

2. (2) Neither Ephesus, Colophon, Lebedos, nor any Aeolian poleis (except the island of Lesbos) dedicated ships to Lade.

3. (3) All but eleven ships of the Samian fleet immediately deserted (6.9.3–10.1, 13, 14.2), as did the Lesbian fleet and most of the Ionians (6.14.3), and Samos was spared punishment by the Persians (6.25.1; cf. 6.22–4).

4. (4) Ionian cities of the mainland were not ‘netted’, and none suffered as severely as Miletus (6.31–2).

5. (5) Recent revisionist scholarship examining fifth-century Ionia (notably Miletus) finds the region was not as devastated as Herodotus leads us to believe,Footnote ⁴ especially considering (a) Herodotus’ noting that earlier in the revolt the Milesians were significantly defeated in Caria (5.119–21) but were soon able to man the walls of their city alone and provide the second largest contingent to the allied fleet at Lade,Footnote ⁵ and (b) the Ionian role in the second Persian invasion of Greece and Milesian presence at Mycale (9.99.3; 104).

Thus since Ionia was less devastated by the revolt than often assumed, Ionians–Aeolians were probably able to supply levies, in some capacity, to the Persian force. It is never specified who these ‘Ionians and Aeolians’ were, and attempts to define them are largely speculative. The Samians had fled Lade, sparing most of its fleet, and were rewarded by the Persians for doing so (6.25.1). The Persian fleet then departed from Samos in 490 (6.95.2), possibly implying some levied Ionians–Aeolians were Samians. Ephesus would also probably have been able to field levies, and Aeolian Lesbos could have dedicated its fleet since it too fled Lade. In fact, only Chios (alongside Miletus) can be perceived as unable to supply ships (with their crews) and/or troops since Herodotus particularly emphasizes their losses at Lade and to Histiaeus (6.15–6, 26–7).

Scholarship often attests an (undefined) ‘Ionian’ presence at Marathon when using the Suda (χ 444 Adler) as reliable evidence in debates over the presence of Persian cavalry, but fails to acknowledge the consequences of using this as evidence, since, like Herodotus, these Ionians are subsequently never discussed again.Footnote ⁶ The Suda entry itself cannot be used as evidence of Ionian presence either, since it is of a much later date, with an unknown author and unknown source, and Evans has already highlighted uncertainties in the passage’s translation.Footnote ⁷ Sekunda and Hook did note the presence of levied Asiatic Greeks (outside of the Suda), asserting, to explain their lack of mention in battle, that they were part of the Persian force embarked on the ships to sail to Athens early (while it was undefended).Footnote ⁸ But evidence in support of this embarkation is problematic and disputable since it is of a much later date.Footnote ⁹ Tuplin also acknowledged but dismissed Greek presence in Datis’ army, noting ‘there is no sign in Herodotus of Ionians and Aeolians doing anything’ and ‘nothing suggests that Herodotus thought they played any role in the battle’.Footnote ¹⁰ Neither, however, is there sign of the Persian cavalry, despite Herodotus’ reference to the transport of horses (6.95.1–2), the unloading of horses on the way to Marathon at Temenos, Choereae and Aegilia in preparation to attack (αὐτίκα ἵππους τε ἐξεβάλλοντο καὶ παρεσκευάζοντο ὡς προσοισόμενοι τοῖσι ἐχθροῖσι, 6.101.1), and its role in the decision to land specifically at Marathon (6.102.1). Because of this, scholarship has long fought over the question of Persian cavalry and many have asserted its presence at Marathon.Footnote ¹¹ Should we thus be so dismissive of levied Greek presence in the Persian force just because Herodotus does not mention them in the fighting?

As when he was writing about the Persian cavalry, Herodotus repeatedly mentions Greek levies prior to Marathon: the Ionians and Aeolians (above), levies from Delos (6.98), the Cycladic islands (6.99.1) where Herodotus states the Persians gathered levied ‘troops’ or an ‘army’ (στρατιήν τε παρελάμβανον), and possibly levies from Carystos, although they are never defined (6.99.2).Footnote ¹² Datis thus actively sought out to levy additional Greeks into his force (alongside the Ionians and Aeolians already gathered). Tuplin also asserted that, if Greeks were involved, they were probably levied for ships rather than landed infantry,Footnote ¹³ since Paros is later defined as having contributed a trireme to the Persian fleet (6.133.1). Yet Herodotus states that Datis gathered ‘troops’ from the islands (above) and later distinguishes between providing στρατιάς and providing νέας (ships).Footnote ¹⁴ The Ionian–Aeolian presence is also never described as naval or landed (6.98.1), nor are any other of the levied Greeks (other than Paros), meaning we cannot rule out the possibility that Datis sought to levy infantry, or both ships and troops.

If Greeks were levied for landed infantry, how did they fight? By the time of Marathon, the ‘hoplite panoply’ had spread to the peripheries of Greece and beyond, and the Ionians–Aeolians had been wielding its components since the seventh century.Footnote ¹⁵ Revisionist scholarship has, however, rightly pointed out that: (a) the term ‘hoplite’ was a fifth century invention,Footnote ¹⁶ although an agreed alternative designation has not arisen; (b) the ‘hoplite panoply’ was not uniformly adopted until after the Persian Wars, with hoplites still using varying degrees of equipment and both lighter throwing and thrusting spears; and (c) the exclusive, organised ‘phalanx’ was also not yet a reality for Greeks of the Persian Wars, with warriors still fighting in more open, fluid formations mixed amongst other troop types.Footnote ¹⁷ One should thus not assume the levied Greeks, if indeed they were used as infantry, were uniformly ‘hoplites’,Footnote ¹⁸ and there may well have been mixtures of Greek archers and light-armed infantry alongside ‘hoplites’ in the Persian army. That said, this mixed levied Greek infantry would still have resembled their Athenian–Plataean counterparts,Footnote ¹⁹ so Hyland’s argument regarding the misguided assumptions of Athenian–Plataean technical superiority still stands.Footnote ²⁰ It is thus unlikely that Persian loss at Marathon stemmed from a technical inferiority. After all, the Persians repeatedly defeated the Greeks and Carians during the Ionian Revolt (5.97.3–103.1, 108–10.1, 112–16, 119–21, 122–3) and routed the Athenian centre at Marathon (6.113.1). Rather, Herodotus emphasizes the numerical strength of the Athenian–Plataean wings (τὸ δὲ κέρας ἑκάτερον ἔρρωτο πλήθεϊ, 6.111.3), which he credits with achieving Athenian victory (6.113). This suggests victory stemmed from a numerical superiority of troops on the wings, something that would also explain why the Athenians were routed in the centre (where the Persians and Sacae were arrayed) since it was thin in numbers (6.111.3, 113.1).

We will never know for certain why Herodotus omitted mention of the Greeks in the Persian army at Marathon. The omission may, however, be tied to the period in which Herodotus was writing, when Marathon had already attained an almost mythical status. As van Wees observed,Footnote ²¹ Herodotus’ account of the battle pushes historical reality to its heroic extremes. Including fellow Greeks among the enemy ranks would have undermined the narrative of a heroic triumph, one in which the Greek hoplite stood alone against the Persian foe.