Qualla: Marathon, Greece

Marathon, Greece: Introduction

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Alun Salt, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Soros stands ten meters high in the middle of the coastal plain. It is a tumulus - a burial mound - and beneath it lie the bones of 192 Athenian soldiers who died here on a September day in 490 BC, holding the line against an invading Persian army that outnumbered them perhaps three to one. The mound has been here for two and a half millennia. Visitors today can walk a short loop around it through a small park, with a marble memorial stele at the base inscribed with the names of the dead, family by family. The ancient Greeks did not normally bury soldiers on the battlefield - they were brought home for civic funerals - but at Marathon they made an exception. The dead at Marathon were honored where they fell. The mound is still there. The town goes about its business around it.

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Image: Alun Salt | CC BY-SA 2.0

Marathon, Greece: A Place Full of Fennel

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tomisti, CC BY-SA 4.0. The name comes from the herb. In Ancient Greek, fennel was marathon (μάραθον) or marathos (μάραθος), and Marathon literally means 'a place full of fennel'. The fennel still grows. Walk the coastal plain in late spring and you can crush the feathery leaves between your fingers and...

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Image: Tomisti | CC BY-SA 4.0

Marathon, Greece: Pheidippides and the Race

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kostasvic, CC BY-SA 4.0. The story most people know is mostly true and partly invented. After the Athenian victory in 490 BC, a herald named Pheidippides was sent to run from Marathon to Athens to announce the news - 26 miles, give or take, depending on the route - and supposedly collapsed and died after...

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Image: Kostasvic | CC BY-SA 4.0

Marathon, Greece: The Day Itself

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Anville, Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d' (1697-1782). Cartographe, Public domain. On the day of the battle, perhaps 10,000 Athenian and 1,000 Plataean hoplites faced a Persian invasion force estimated at 25,000 or more. The Athenian general Miltiades thinned his center and weighted his flanks, then ordered the line to charge across the plain at a run - unprece...

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Image: Anville, Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d' (1697-1782). Cartographe | Public domain

Marathon, Greece: Schinias and the Dilessi Murders

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Anville, Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d' (1697-1782). Cartographe, Public domain. Just southeast of town, the long sandy beach of Schinias stretches for kilometers along the Gulf of Marathon. It is one of Athens's favorite beaches, popular with windsurfers, and home to the Schinias Olympic Rowing and Canoeing Centre built for the 2004 Summer Olympics. The fore...

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Image: Anville, Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d' (1697-1782). Cartographe | Public domain

Marathon, Greece: Lake, Tower, and Antenna

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Pitichinaccio, Public domain. Drive west of the modern town and you reach the Marathon Dam, completed in 1929, which flooded a wooded valley to create Lake Marathon and supplied Athens with drinking water for thirty years. North of the lake, on the road toward Kapandriti, stand the ruined walls of a Frankish ...

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Image: Pitichinaccio | Public domain