Marathon
3 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Marathon. All 3 are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a plain on the eastern coast of Attica. It is a short day's journey from Athens. It is famous for a victory won by the Athenians over the Persian army of Darius, 490 B. C. The Persians landed here to the number of 100,000 men, with the avowed purpose of leveling the walls of Athens and of putting its inhabitants to the sword or selling them into slavery. The Athenians sent swift runners to Plataea and Sparta. The messenger ran the distance to Sparta, 140 miles, in 36 hours, only to be told that the Spartan army could not set out before the full of the moon yet a week off. The sincerity of the reply is doubted. The Plataeans, however, sent their full force, 1,000 hoplites. Each of the ten tribes of Athens contributed 1,000 men. Ten Athenian commanders were entitled to command a day each in regular succession. They placed their small army under Miltiades, who, however, waited for his regular day, before he offered battle. He drew up his army in a long line and ordered a charge down a gentle slope upon the host of the Persians. The Greeks wore heavy bronze armor and were armed with long spears. They charged in platoons. The light-armed Persians, dressed in linen tunics, were no match for them. The Greeks plowed through the Persian ranks again and again. Sixty-four hundred Persians were slain before the mighty host fled to their ships. One hundred sixty two Athenians who fell in battle were accorded the honor of burial on the plain of Marathon. A great mound of earth was raised above them where it may yet be seen. Ten marble pillars surmounting the mound, one for each tribe, were inscribed with the names of those who fell for their country. The battle not only saved Athens, but gave the Greeks a feeling of confidence in their superiority over the Persians, then the great world power. It paved the way for Greek supremacy. See Thermopylae ; Salamis The mountains look on Marathon And Marathon looks on the sea . . . . . The flying Mede, his shaftless broken bow; The fiery Greek, his red pursuing spear, Mountains above, Earth's, Ocean's plain below, Death in the front, Destruction in the rear, Such was the scene. --Byron, Childe Harold.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a village on the E. coast of ancient Attica, 22 miles from Athens, long supposed to be the modern Marathona. It stood in a plain 6 miles long and from 3 to 12 miles broad, with a background of mountains in the W., and a marsh both on the N. and S.; it reached the sea-"The mountains look on Marathon, and Marathon looks on the sea." Investigations by Prussian officers identify the historic miles to the S., and locate the battle in village with that of Brana, nearly 22 the plain between the mountain Stavrokoraki and the sea, nearly 3 miles N. E. of Brana. The name of Marathon is gloriously memorable as the scene of the great defeat of the Persian hordes of Darius by the Greeks under Miltiades (490 b. c.) -one of the decisive battles of the world.
1000 Classical Characters (1900)
A village of Attica , celebrated for the victory which the Athenians and Plataeans, under the command of Militiades, gained over the Persian army, 490 B. C. Lord Byron, in Don Juan, canto iii. verse 86, alludes to Marathon, and the famous battle fought there: "The mountains look on Marathon, And Marathon looks on the sea; And, musing there an hour alone, I dream'd that Greece might still be free; For, standing on the Persians' grave, I could not deem myself a slave." Marcellus , Marcus Claudius. A famous Roman general. He was the first Roman who obtained some advantage over Hannibal. He conquered Syracuse, with the spoils from which, he adorned Rome. He was killed in battle in his fifth consulship.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
All three accounts treat Marathon purely as an ancient battlefield, and none mentions the footrace that now owns the word: the marathon was invented for the first modern Olympics at Athens in 1896, and the distance was fixed at 26 miles 385 yards in the 1920s, after Collier's went to press in 1921. Collier's uncertainty about the site ("long supposed to be the modern Marathona", with Prussian officers relocating it near Brana) has since settled: the battle is placed on the plain by modern Vrana and Schinias, and the burial mound Aiton's Encyclopedia describes was excavated in the 1890s, yielding ashes and pottery of about 490 BC — though the ten inscribed marble pillars Aiton says "may yet be seen" are not there, and the mound stands bare. The plain itself was altered in the 1920s by the Marathon Dam, which flooded a valley inland to supply Athens with drinking water, and the coast at Schinias hosted the rowing events of the 2004 Athens Olympics. Modern historians also cut Aiton's "100,000" Persians drastically, to something in the tens of thousands at most, while the 140-mile run to Sparta — which Aiton half-doubts — has been shown to be humanly possible by the Spartathlon race, run since 1983.
Written for this edition, 2026.