The West's first stand: Marathon: at the dawn of what was to become Western Civilization, the Athenians won an amazing victory over the Persians at Marathon.

The man ran along the dusty road, mile after mile in the blazing late summer Mediterranean sun. Past groves of olives and fields of wheat, past farms and villages, his body soaked with perspiration, his runner's frame never flagging, he ran without pause toward Athens, which lay more than 20 mountainous miles ahead. Even when curious knots of onlookers tried to stop him, the man ran on, his eyes riveted to the road. The news he bore was for the ears of Athenians alone, the greatest tidings that had ever sounded in any ears in Attic Greece since the legendary Theseus had founded the city of Athens untold centuries before.

Most of the onlookers that September afternoon probably guessed the runner's business, if not his message. For almost a week, a gigantic invasion force had been encamped on the narrow plain along nearby Marathon Bay, preparing to march on Athens. In that year, 490 B.C., the Persian Empire was the world's superpower, and for the past several decades had been relentlessly subjugating the Greeks. The founder of the Achaemenid Persian dynasty, Cyrus, had conquered most of Ionia, that portion of the Greek world that lay across the Aegean Sea from Athens on the peninsula of Asia Minor. His son and successor, the monstrous Cambyses, had annexed Egypt. The emperor Darius had conquered the northern Greek territories of Thrace and Macedonia two years before, and now had his sights set on Athens which, along with Sparta, represented the last major holdouts of Greek civilization on the Aegean.

Coming Collision

The collision between Athens and Persia had been building for many years. Ever since the Athenians had expelled the tyrant Hippias, in 511 B.C., the former despot had been making the rounds in the Persian court, seeking patrons who would reinstall him in Athens in return for a pledge of submission to the Persian "King of kings."

In 499 B.C., the Ionian Greek cities, led by the city of Miletus and its somewhat erratic leader Aristagorus, revolted against their Persian overlords. Aristagorus resigned his position as tyrant of the city and instituted popular rule. Other Ionian cities followed Miletus' example, and the cities of Athens and Eretria, impressed by what they perceived as a genuine attempt to replace autocracy with popular rule, sent ships and men to support the revolt.

At first, things went well for the Ionians and their allies. The combined Greek forces marched to Sardis, at the western ...