It was not indeed by one defeat, however signal, that the pride of Persia could be broken, and her dreams of universal empire dispelled.  Ten years afterward she renewed her attempts upon Europe on a grander scale of enterprise, and was repulsed by Greece with greater and reiterated loss.  Larger forces and heavier slaughter than had been seen at Marathon signalized the conflicts of Greeks and Persians at Artemisium, Salamis, Plataea, and the Eurymedon.  But, mighty and momentous as these battles were, they rank not with Marathon in importance.  They originated no new impulse.  They turned back no current of fate.  They were merely confirmatory of the already existing bias which Marathon had created.  The day of Marathon is the critical epoch in the history of the two nations.  It broke forever the spell of Persian invincibility, which had previously paralyzed men’s minds.  It generated among the Greeks the spirit which beat back Xerxes, and afterward led on Xenophon, Agesilaus, and Alexander, in terrible retaliation through their Asiatic campaigns.  It secured for mankind the intellectual treasures of Athens, the growth of free institutions, the liberal enlightenment of the Western world, and the gradual ascendency for many ages of the great principles of European civilization.

EXPLANATORY REMARKS ON SOME OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE BATTLE OF MARATHON

Nothing is said by Herodotus of the Persian cavalry taking any part in the battle, although he mentions that Hippias recommended the Persians to land at Marathon, because the plain was favorable for cavalry evolutions.  In the life of Miltiades which is usually cited as the production of Cornelius Nepos, but which I believe to be of no authority whatever, it is said that Miltiades protected his flanks from the enemy’s horse by an abatis of felled trees.  While he was on the high ground he would not have required this defence, and it is not likely that the Persians would have allowed him to erect it on the plain.

But, in truth, whatever amount of cavalry we suppose Datis to have had with him on the day of Marathon, their inaction in the battle is intelligible, if we believe the attack of the Athenian spearmen to have been as sudden as it was rapid.  The Persian horse-soldier, on an alarm being given, had to take the shackles off his horse, to strap the saddle on, and bridle him, besides equipping himself (Xenophon), and when each individual horseman was ready, the line had to be formed; and the time that it takes to form the Oriental cavalry in line for a charge has, in all ages, been observed by Europeans.

The wet state of the marshes at each end of the plain, in the time of year when the battle was fought, has been adverted to by Wordsworth,[50] and this would hinder the Persian general from arranging and employing his horsemen on his extreme wings, while it also enabled the Greeks, as they came forward, to occupy the whole breadth of the practicable ground with an unbroken line of leveled spears, against which, if any Persian horse advanced, they would be driven back in confusion upon their own foot.