Salamis.
The battle of Marathon was a result of the Persians under King Darius the First to punish the Greeks for supporting the Ionian Revolt where Sardis had been burned after capture . The battle was essentially where the Greeks defeated a Persian punitive expedition that failed .
There were several - the most notable were Salamis (in the Saronic Gulf between the island of Salamis and Athens in 480; Mykale in Asia Minor 479 BCE and Eurymedon in Asia Minor 466 BCE.
A few reasons, First, the Greeks had 7,000 men and the Persians had 15,000 Second, the Greeks fought the Persian Immortals which were histories most elite and powerful warriors. Third, the Persians found a route to outflank the Greeks.
Greeks could have attacked before the Persians but a lot of the evidence points to the Persians attacking first, the Persians were most likely to have fought when they got off their boats and when they encountered in the valley, but, the Greeks were to have probably ran away into the valley than to have been chased.
The Battle of Marathon was the first attempt , and first defeat , by Persian forces to subjugate Greece . The Persians were defeated by the Athenians at Marathon , Greece .
490 BC When a runner took a message to Athens with the news that the Greeks had won a battle against the Persians at Marathon
Darius the Great's commander Datis came to grief at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC (First Persian invasion of Greece) .
The Battle of Marathon was a turning point during the first Persian invasion of Greece. The Persians vastly outnumbered the Greeks on the battlefield, but the Greeks were able to defeat them. The Greeks charged the Persian troops with a thin weaker line, while the Greeks' left and right flanks consisted of stronger troops who quickly surrounded the Persian troops and attacked them on both sides. It was a crushing defeat for the Persians, and the battle convinced the Greeks that while the Persian Empire had vast armies and archers, it was possible to defeat them.
Marathon - it was the Athenians.
They first captured the Mediterranean sea coast to eliminate the Persian navy, They also slaughtered Greek mercenaries as a warning for Greeks not to work for the Persians, denying the Persians reinforcement of armoured infantry. They then defeated the Persian army at Gaugamela, using armoured soldier who out-performed the unarmoured Persian infantry.
The Persian War 499-449 BCE ended with a settlement where the Persians agreed with the anti-Persian Delian League to stay away from Greek city-states in the eastern Mediterranean littoral. The Persians had revenge when they helped the Peloponnesian League led by Sparta to defeat the empire Athens had turned the Delian League into. The Greek inter-city wars continued on unabated, and Persia re-established control over the Asian-Greek cities again as the mainland Greek cities were too busy fighting amongst themselves to worry about them.
were the Germans defeated in a major battle for the first time in the war?