Listed 5 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for destination: "MARATHON Ancient demos ATTICA, EAST".
A coastal plain inhabited from very earliest times down to the end
of antiquity. Home of the Marathonian Tetrapolis (Philochorus FGH 328 F 94, 109),
it is best known as the site of the famous battle of 490 B.C. (Hdt. 6.102-16),
though Peisistratos also landed there ca. 545 (Hdt. 1.62). Pausanias described
the area in the 2d c. A.D.
The remains date from the following periods: Neolithic (cave of Pan,
Nea Makri), Early Helladic (Tsepi), Middle Helladic (Vrana), Late Helladic (tholos
tomb), archaic and Classical down to Roman (Plasi) at the presumed site of the
ancient deme. Many of the landmarks of the great battle have been securely located,
the most conspicuous of which is the soros, the tomb of the Athenians; also, the
Herakleion, the trophy, the tomb of the Plataians in Vrana (?), the charadra,
the great marsh, the Makaria spring. The estate of Herodes Atticus, or better
of Regilla, has also been found.
W. F. Wyatt Jr., ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Nov 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains 26 image(s), bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
Marathon. A deme of Attica, belonging to the tribe Leontis, was situated
near a bay on the east coast of Attica, twenty-two miles from Athens by one road,
and twenty-six miles by another. It originally belonged to the Attic tetrapolis,
and is said to have derived its name from the hero Marathon. This hero, according
to one account, was the son of Epopeus, king of Sicyon, who having been expelled
from Peloponnesus by the violence of his father, settled in Attica; while, according
to another account, he was an Arcadian who took part in the expedition of the
Tyndaridae against Attica, and devoted himself to death before the battle.
The site of the ancient town of Marathon was probably not at
the modern village of Marathon, but at a place called Vrana, a little to the south
of Marathon. Marathon was situated in a plain, which extends along the sea-shore,
about six miles in length, and from three miles to one mile and a half in breadth.
It is surrounded on the other three sides by rocky hills and rugged mountains.
Two marshes bound the extremity of the plain; the northern is more than a square
mile in extent, but the southern is much smaller, and is almost dry at the conclusion
of the great heats. Through the centre of the plain runs a small brook. In this
plain was fought the celebrated battle between the Persians and Athenians, August
12th, B.C. 490. The Persians, numbering some 100,000 men, were drawn up on the
plain, and the Athenians, 10,000 strong, under Miltiades, on some portion of the
high ground above the plain; but the exact ground occupied by the two armies cannot
be identified, notwithstanding the investigations of modern travellers. The Athenians
lost 192 men, the Persians 6400. The tumulus or mound, raised over the Athenians
who fell in the battle, is still to be seen. It is an isolated knoll in the plain,
about 40 feet in height and 600 feet in circumference. Excavations made by Schliemann
and others yielded nothing until 1890, when, under the direction of the Greek
Archaeological Society, a number of vases of the fifth century B.C. and burned
bones were found, undoubtedly those of the Athenians slain in the battle. The
mound is now called the Soros.
This text is cited Oct 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
This part of Attica, the four cities being Oenoe, Marathon, Probalinthos, Tricorythos
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