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Cape Sunium

The southern cape of Attica, which the Persian fleet rounded after Marathon, 490 BCE

In the game: Level 8: The Bay of Marathon

Sunium is the cape at the southern tip of Attica, with a sanctuary of Poseidon on its heights. After the battle of Marathon the Persian fleet sailed round it to reach Athens before the army could march back. In 480 the Greeks dedicated a captured Persian trireme there after Salamis.

In the game: Sunium is the turning point of the sea race in the Marathon level's second front, and named in its victory card and chatter.

Round Sunium

Ancient account

After the fight at the ships, Herodotus says, the Persians took the Eretrian captives aboard and sailed round Sunium, hoping to reach Athens before its army. A shield was shown to them from the heights, and the Athenians marched back in time.

Herodotus 6.115-116

The sacred ship

Ancient account

Herodotus says that before Marathon the Aeginetans waylaid the sacred ship the Athenians sent to a four-yearly festival at Sunium and took the leading Athenians aboard prisoner. The raid was part of the war between Athens and Aegina in those years.

Herodotus 6.87

The trireme of Salamis

Ancient account

After Salamis the Greeks chose three Persian triremes from the spoil to dedicate to the gods: one at the Isthmus, one at Sunium and one to Ajax on Salamis. Herodotus says the one at the Isthmus was still there in his time.

Herodotus 8.121

The temple

In the record

The marble temple of Poseidon whose columns stand on the cape today was built about 440. Beneath it lie the remains of an earlier temple, begun about 500, which was unfinished or destroyed when the Persians came in 480. Archaic kouroi were found in the sanctuary.

Sunium excavations; National Archaeological Museum, Athens