Marathon

Marathon, a village on the east coast of ancient Attica, 22 miles NE. of Athens, long supposed to be the modern Marathona. It stood in a plain 6 miles long and from 3 to 1½ miles broad, with a background of mountains in the west, and a marsh both on the north and south; eastward it reached the sea—'The mountains look on Marathon, and Marathon looks on the sea.' Recent investigations by Prussian officers identify the historic village with that of Brana, nearly 2½ miles to the south, and locate the battle in the plain between the mountain Stavrokoraki and the sea, nearly 3 miles north-east 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.