Herodotus, a Greek from what is now Bodrum in Turkey, wrote The Histories in the fifth century BC to explain how the Persian empire and the Greek cities came to blows. This is Book 6, called Erato. In Book 5 the Ionian Revolt had already begun: Greek cities on the Asian coast rose against Darius, the Great King, Athens and Eretria sent ships, Sardis burned, and Persia did not forget.

Here the revolt breaks at Lade, a sea-fight off Miletus. The city is sacked; the boys are killed and the women marched inland. Darius has a servant say three times at dinner, Master, remember the Athenians. Datis and Artaphernes beach at Marathon, with Hippias, Athens’s expelled tyrant, in the fleet. Miltiades, an Athenian who once ruled the Chersonese (the Gallipoli peninsula), draws up the tribes at dawn. The center yields; the wings close. The Persian horse never get into the fight. They sail for Phalerum and are gone. A small city has beaten the Great King in its own fields.