The Savior Generals: How Five Great Commanders Saved Wars That Were Lost—From Ancient Greece to Iraq Read Online Free Page B
Author: Victor Davis Hanson
Tags: Non-Fiction
city of Eretria on the large nearby island of Euboea. Next, sometime in mid-August 490, they landed on the nearby eastern coast of Attica itself—at the plain of Marathon, just twenty-six miles from Athens.
There, in a set-piece infantry battle, the outnumbered but more heavily armed phalanx of the Athenians and their allies, the Plataeans, won a crushing victory over the lighter-clad Persians. The invaders had foolishly advanced into the enclosed plain of Marathon without much, if any, cavalry support. Despite numeric superiority, the Persians were trapped by the Athenians’ double envelopment. Although the Athenian and Plataean defenders may have been outnumbered three to one, and had to weaken their center to envelop the larger Persian wings, the combined Greek forces nonetheless managed to kill more than 6,400 of the enemy—at a loss of only 192 dead. Heavy armor—and the discipline, solidarity, and columnar tactics of Greeks fighting for their own soil—had smashed apart the more loosely deployed, lighter-clad Asian invaders and explained the one-sided slaughter.
Most Greeks, especially the conveniently late-arriving Spartans, who had stayed away from the battle, still could not quite fathom how just two Greek city-states had turned back an invasion by the enormous Persian Empire. Athenian spearmen had ensured the land victory and then immediately made a miraculous march to circumvent an amphibious landing. Amid the general euphoria, Sparta, the preeminent land power in Greece, was nowhere to be found. 8
Themistocles himself had fought at Marathon. Indeed, he had been elected a magistrate, or archon, of the young democracy three years before the battle (493), allowing him a preeminent position in establishing Athenian foreign policy. But credit for the victory properly belonged to the more conservative Miltiades, commander in chief of the Greek infantry generals on the day of the fighting. Before the Greeks ran out to battle, Miltiades drew up the risky but winning strategy of weakening the Greek center to draw in and envelop on the wings the charging Persian mass—achieving the elusive dream of a double envelopment by a numerically weaker force. That moment of victory was immortalized later in a vast painting on the monumental Stoa Poikile at the north end of the Athenian Agora. The playwright Aeschylus’ brother died in this glorious Marathon moment. Aeschylus himself chose to record his own service at the battle—not his fame as a dramatist—in his own epitaph.
A national myth quickly arose that an entire Persian invasion had been thwarted by a single glorious battle won by better men in bronze. The Athenians were determined never to forget who had won the battle—and how. For each Athenian or Plataean infantryman who fell, thirty-three Persians perished. Both the infantry victory and the subsequent famous twenty-six-mile march to beat the Persian fleet back to Athens were immortalized as proof of the nobility of traditional agrarian Athenian hoplites, and the proper way for landowning citizens to defend their city. No walls or ships were needed to save Athens from Persian hordes; courage, not just numbers, mattered. That Athenian hoplites had won without the crack troops of Sparta made the victory all the sweeter. Sixty years later the comic poet Aristophanes could still talk nostalgically of the old breed of
Marathonomachoi,
“the Marathonfighters,” whose courage over the subsequent century was never later surpassed. In short, Marathon became a sort of shorthand for the triumph of traditional values, and was thought to have put an end to the Persian danger. 9
Yet despite the immediate Athenian ebullience, Marathon proved not quite to be the final victory that it seemed at the time. A worried Themistocles, almost alone among Athenian leaders, drew quite different lessons from the victory—and all would prove vital for the survival of the Athenians in the years to come. While others celebrated the
There, in a set-piece infantry battle, the outnumbered but more heavily armed phalanx of the Athenians and their allies, the Plataeans, won a crushing victory over the lighter-clad Persians. The invaders had foolishly advanced into the enclosed plain of Marathon without much, if any, cavalry support. Despite numeric superiority, the Persians were trapped by the Athenians’ double envelopment. Although the Athenian and Plataean defenders may have been outnumbered three to one, and had to weaken their center to envelop the larger Persian wings, the combined Greek forces nonetheless managed to kill more than 6,400 of the enemy—at a loss of only 192 dead. Heavy armor—and the discipline, solidarity, and columnar tactics of Greeks fighting for their own soil—had smashed apart the more loosely deployed, lighter-clad Asian invaders and explained the one-sided slaughter.
Most Greeks, especially the conveniently late-arriving Spartans, who had stayed away from the battle, still could not quite fathom how just two Greek city-states had turned back an invasion by the enormous Persian Empire. Athenian spearmen had ensured the land victory and then immediately made a miraculous march to circumvent an amphibious landing. Amid the general euphoria, Sparta, the preeminent land power in Greece, was nowhere to be found. 8
Themistocles himself had fought at Marathon. Indeed, he had been elected a magistrate, or archon, of the young democracy three years before the battle (493), allowing him a preeminent position in establishing Athenian foreign policy. But credit for the victory properly belonged to the more conservative Miltiades, commander in chief of the Greek infantry generals on the day of the fighting. Before the Greeks ran out to battle, Miltiades drew up the risky but winning strategy of weakening the Greek center to draw in and envelop on the wings the charging Persian mass—achieving the elusive dream of a double envelopment by a numerically weaker force. That moment of victory was immortalized later in a vast painting on the monumental Stoa Poikile at the north end of the Athenian Agora. The playwright Aeschylus’ brother died in this glorious Marathon moment. Aeschylus himself chose to record his own service at the battle—not his fame as a dramatist—in his own epitaph.
A national myth quickly arose that an entire Persian invasion had been thwarted by a single glorious battle won by better men in bronze. The Athenians were determined never to forget who had won the battle—and how. For each Athenian or Plataean infantryman who fell, thirty-three Persians perished. Both the infantry victory and the subsequent famous twenty-six-mile march to beat the Persian fleet back to Athens were immortalized as proof of the nobility of traditional agrarian Athenian hoplites, and the proper way for landowning citizens to defend their city. No walls or ships were needed to save Athens from Persian hordes; courage, not just numbers, mattered. That Athenian hoplites had won without the crack troops of Sparta made the victory all the sweeter. Sixty years later the comic poet Aristophanes could still talk nostalgically of the old breed of
Marathonomachoi,
“the Marathonfighters,” whose courage over the subsequent century was never later surpassed. In short, Marathon became a sort of shorthand for the triumph of traditional values, and was thought to have put an end to the Persian danger. 9
Yet despite the immediate Athenian ebullience, Marathon proved not quite to be the final victory that it seemed at the time. A worried Themistocles, almost alone among Athenian leaders, drew quite different lessons from the victory—and all would prove vital for the survival of the Athenians in the years to come. While others celebrated the
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