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Attica

The territory of Athens in south-eastern Greece, invaded by Persian forces, 490-479 BCE

In the game: Level 8: The Bay of Marathon

Attica was the peninsula ruled from Athens, with Marathon on its north-east coast and the plain of Athens inland. Persian forces landed there in 490, took Athens in 480, and returned under Mardonius in 479. Greek writers made these events central to their memory of the wars.

In the game: Attica has no level or mechanic of its own. The game names it in the Chronicle and in the event articles on Marathon, the capture of Athens and Plataea.

Marathon in 490

Ancient account

Herodotus says the Persian fleet under Datis and Artaphernes landed at Marathon on the Attic coast, guided by the exile Hippias, who knew the ground. The Athenians marched out to meet them rather than wait behind their walls. Herodotus gives the Athenian dead as 192 and the Persian dead as 6,400.

Herodotus 6.102-117

Athens taken in 480

Ancient account

Herodotus says the Athenians moved most of their people to Salamis, Troezen and Aegina as Xerxes' army advanced. The Persians entered a largely empty city and took the Acropolis, where a small group of defenders held out for a time behind a wooden barricade. Herodotus says the Persians then burned the sanctuaries there.

Herodotus 8.41-53

Mardonius returns in 479

Ancient account

Herodotus tells that after Salamis Mardonius wintered in Thessaly and Boeotia. In 479, when Athens rejected the offer brought by Alexander of Macedon, he marched into Attica again and found the city once more abandoned. He then withdrew into Boeotia before the Greek army gathered.

Herodotus 8.136-144; 9.1-13

Burnt remains on the Acropolis

In the record

Excavations on the Acropolis found destruction debris from the Persian sack, including damaged statues and architectural pieces. The Athenians later buried much of this material in fills when they rebuilt. Such finds agree with the Greek accounts that the sanctuaries were burned in 480.

Excavation reports on the Acropolis

Why Persians chose Attica

Disputed

Herodotus presents the 490 expedition as punishment for Athenian and Eretrian help to the Ionian rebels at Sardis. Some modern historians think the Persians also aimed to restore Hippias and to bring the Aegean islands and Euboea under control. The size of the force is also argued: Herodotus gives 600 ships, and historians generally treat the numbers of men in later sources as unreliable.

Herodotus 6.94-95; P. Briant, From Cyrus to Alexander, 2002