The battle that saved Democracy and west civilization.

[Siciid85]

The Battle of Marathon: Took place 2500 yrs ago today.
490 B.C.: The invasion force from the empire of Persia (embracing most of the modern Middle East) swept across the Aegean Sea to attack the city-states of Greece, especially defiant Athens. Six hundred ships carrying 300,000-plus infantry, cavalry and projectile throwers beached in a curving bay near the little town of Marathon (MarathDnos), 25 miles from Athens. Five days later, the battle was fought that is said to have saved democracy. It was also indirectly the origin of a great running event -- the marathon.

It happened exactly 2,500 years ago, in late summer 490 B.C.

As the armies prepared, the outnumbered Athenians sent a plea for help from the rival city of Sparta. A professional messenger ("dayrunner") called Pheidippides (pronounced "Fee-di-pea-dees") covered the mountainous 150 miles in about 30 hours. But he had to run back with the grave news that the Spartans decided to delay, for religious reasons related to the full moon.

In the mountains on the return trip, Pheidippides met the nature god, Pan (the half-goat one), who complained that the Athenians had been slack in their worship, but promised to help them in the coming battle.

That's the whole story, according to Herodotus, whose history of the war is the source for the heroic messenger. Maybe the encounter with Pan was the delusion of a sleep-deprived runner. My own suspicion is that the Greek generals dreamed it up to boost troop morale, when the news arrived that the Spartans would not be showing up. All we know for sure is that Pheidippides ran to Sparta and back, and that the Athenians shocked the invaders with a sudden downhill running attack by their superfit citizen soldiers ("hoplites") and won the battle against the odds. So Marathon was also a victory for the Athenians' enlightened higher education system of combining a liberal arts college with a track and field coaching camp.

[Siciid85]

Most of Western historians exaggerated the Greek forces ration to that of invading Persians. The less biased historians depict the Greek numbers defending Athens around 10k and the Invading Persians around 150k. It's still impressive by any measure of what the Greek's accomplished but that is not to say the Persians were no where near the 1millions invading forces as depicted in the movie 300 and other fictional books.

btw...looking forward to reading a book I ordered; it's a newly published book talking about this significant battle in history. The book is titled "Marathon".

[gurey25]

utter bullshit..

The persian empire was more liberal than the Greeks.
Life as a subject of the emperor was much better, freer and richer than in greece.

only a small percentage of the greeks were free males and could vote, the rest were slaves..

and a slave in the persian empire lived better and had more rights than even a Greek citizen.

[gurey25]

and dont buy the democracy bullshit..
greeks were as democratic as the confederate states, and aparthied south africa.

truley free and democratic states preceded the greeks,

example, caria in anatolia, and several emalite states like Kish, lagesh were more democratic 3 hundreds of years before any greek state.

[Siciid85]

Democracy does not necessarily equal the right to live freely in my belief. But that is beside the point. Do you agree that had the Greeks been defeated in the battle of "marathon" that would spell the end of the beginning of Western "civilization" as claimed by the author?

[gurey25]

not necessarily..

contrary to western thinking, the reality was the greeks were really backward country hicks.
all thier science and technology were imported from mesopotamia and mainly egypt.
Solon thier greatest lawmaker spent years as a student in egypt, he is one of many..

The greeks had potential though i agree, but civilization would have reached the west one way or another..

[Siciid85]

Very informative.

[AsadSL]

Siciid85 is so full of shit.

[Siciid85]

Siciid85 is so full of shit.

why inadeer. Maxaan kaa haleeyey ee aad iiga tabanay saa?

btw...Gurey Persia was so much better name that Iran. According to an article I read Iran stems from the term "Arian' race. Apparently Persia was convinced by Nazi Germany to change its name from Persia to Iran. How accurate is this?

[gurey25]

Persia and Afghanistan and the ferghana valley(uzbekistan, tajikistan) was the land of the aryans.
and was called aryana.
afghanistans airlines are still called aryana

[gurey25]

A common trend in european history also goes back to the Greeks.
Disunity is strenght.
sounds like a conflicting sentence does it.

The greeks were divided into dozens of polis (city states) and several alliances, all in this small area of land, that was mountanous and yet very accesable tot he sea.
This disunty lead toallot of warfare, never ending simmering conflict that doesnt lead to mass destruction appears to be the main factor among many other that leads to an open society that is open to new thoughts and is dynamic.
The never ending simmering warfare lead the greeks to develop the most effective fighting forces in the ancient world, what made it effective was the adaptability of the greeks and thier aquired discipline.

They were not isolated , so they absorbed all the technology and science from thier nieghbours and even started on the road to developing the sientific method that the Islamic civilization later invented after perfecting greek science.

When unleashed on the world they were decisive,
The persians were richer had a much larger population something like 20 to 1 in population.
They had better metal technology, thier swords and armour were better, they had better cavalry,
thay had better archers, better siege tactics..
and they had a 5 to 1 advantage in numbers but still the greeks went through them like a knife through butter..

Why were they so succefull?
the main factor is non stop war at a medium level for hundreds of years.
This is why europeans rule the world today,
they were not the most civilized, infact in some areas they were embarrasingly primitive, like personal hygiene..(taking a bath , basically washing yourself became a regular activity sometime in the late 1800 to early 1900, prior to that they didt wash..

everybody from indians to chinese to japanese, were shocked, how could someone so filthy defeat them??

europe only had peace during the early middle ages, 1200 to 1400 only 200 years.
from 50bc to 1200 there was constant war.

from 1350's till 1945 non stop war...


and the europeans had the luck of receiving mature technology in gunpoweder, canons and hand canons form the arabs.
The chinese invented gunpoweder but the arabs developed the right mixture to use, and then the chinese got this in turn from the arabs. during the southern Sung Dynasty.
The first canons appeared simultanoulsy in both the muslim world and china in the mid 1200's.
The muslims specialized in grenades(introduced to europe from Granada), incendiery weapons (basically gunpowder bomb covered in vaseline(distillied from crude oil).
The chinese took a liking to canons and they ane the koreans of the Goryoo dynasty produced the best cannons in history till the french in the 1650's modernized thier canons.

the europeans recieved all these mature technologies and ran with it.
They had better land, could support higher populations, and the non stop wars forced them to develope the best fighting skills..

So when for example the british defeat the Indians at panipat,
while outnumbered 7 to 1, and while indian muskets and canons were superior, bieng lighter, more range, less powder.

Only the Ottomans gave them a run for thier money, and maybe the japanese samurai during the sengoku.The ottomans succeeded becuase they were allways fighting the europeans, the moment the decide to relax and enjoy their conquests they fell behind.

by the time the europeans finished thier 30 year war and made the peace of westphalia.
They invented tactics that outclassed the ottomans, and this was put to practice immiedietly after the last siege of Viena.
within 30 years the ottomans suffered defeat after defeat, and it has been going on since,

To sum it up..
disunity and constant war as long as it doesnt lead to mass destruction is actually conducive to
progress and millitary strenght.

this classic science fiction short story sums it up.
written by the master himself Isaac Asimov.(a peacenik jew and he was inspired while studying the greeco -persian war)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_a_Good_Cause%E2%80%94
http://www.torrentz.com/f5d0b90631c2a04 ... b1ef13e9bc
or go to your local library and borrow the nightfall anthology. by Isaac asimov.