What did the battle of Marathon say about the Greeks?

Answer 1

It was about Athens and Eretria who had interfered militarily in the Persian Empire in Asia Minor. The Persian punitive expedition ha already taken Eretria helped by treachery within the city. The Persian attempt against Athens was also based on treachery within Athens.

The Persian plan was that it's army would land at Marathon to draw out the Athenian army to 26 mils north of the city. The Persian infantry would hold the Athenians and their Plataian allies there while the Persian cavalry was shipped around the coast to Athens, and would gallop up to the city where Athenian traitors would open the gates for them. The Athenian army would then be stranded in the open with nowhere to go between the city and the Persian infantry at Marathon.

The Athenian position was to hang around the hills at Marathon where the superior Persian cavalry could not get at them, waiting for the arrival of the Spartans who had promised to support them. However when they saw the departure of the Persian cavalry, they seized the opportunity and ran down and defeated the inferior unarmoured Persian infantry left without cavalry support. The Athenians then realised where the Persian cavalry was going, and their 9,000 heavy infantry ran back over the hills to Athens, forming up in front of the city just as the Persian cavalry was disembarking. Frustrated, the Persians went home. The Spartans, arriving too late, marched on to view the Marathon battlefield, congratulated the Athenians and went home.

Prior to all this, the Persians had put down the Greek Ionian Revolt in Asia Minor, where at the crucial battle of Lade half of the Ionian city contingents defected to Persian side.

All this says about the Greeks: beware treachery within their ranks, beware their steadfastness, opportunism, ruthlessness and ingenuity.