ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the inferences usually drawn with regard to Marathon from the behaviour of the Persian cavalry at Plataea. It proposes without attempting to go into all the problems raised by the battle of Marathon, to offer a few reflections on one or two of the salient points in modern reconstructions of that battle. If the Persians, argues Munro, had intended to march on Athens from Marathon, they would have occupied the passes: they did not occupy the passes, therefore they did not intend to march on Athens. Casson has compared the action of the Persians at Marathon with that of Von Kluck in the great German sweep of 1914. A literal interpretation of the mile run at Marathon may be disproved in spite of what Hauvette declares himself to have witnessed in the case of French soldiers.
