The first and most important battle of the Persian War, and one of the
most momentous in history, was that of Marathon. At the plain of
Marathon, near Athens, a small Athenian force of about ten thousand men
(with the help of six hundred men from Platæa), under the famous general
Miltiades, routed a Persian army of perhaps one hundred and ten
thousand, in 490 B. C. This memorable battle, resulting as it did in the
defeat of the power which had conquered the greater part of the known
world, first taught the Greeks their own strength and gave Athens a
position in Greece which it had never yet held. The leading men in
Athens at this time were Themistocles and Aristides.
The death of Darius, in 485 B. C., prevented him from renewing the
Persian attack on Greek liberties, and the task was bequeathed to his
son Xerxes. The invasion of Greece by Xerxes took place ten years after
the battle of Marathon with an immense force by sea and land (two
million five hundred thousand men according to Herodotus).