How far can you run?

During the Battle of Marathon the Greek runner called Pheidippides (that's a mouthful) had to run all the way from Marathon all the way to Sparta to seek help from the Spartans.

Why did the Athenians need help? Who were they fighting?


This week in history, Year 5 have been studying a little about Greek warfare and the video below may help answer your questions.

We looking forward to reading your interpretation of The Battle of Marathon.

Here are some of our pieces of writing, while the rest are in the comments:

My day in the battle

 

You know what I can’t stop thinking about….

Those weak Athenians won the battle of the marathon!  They could have done much better if the mighty strong Spartans were there (of which I am one.) Now everyone will think that they’re the greatest of them all!  I mean when have we ever been mean to them?  All we did is fight them in the Peloponnesian war and that’s about it!  How could they even fight with less men in their army!  We can’t just leave it as it is or else we will be called the weak Spartans in history! That will be an even bigger problem!

Emilia Hermecz 5B

 The battle of marathon (looking at it as a Spartan)

“I can’t believe those wimpy Athenians won the battle against the Persians, tell me all about it.” ordered the Spartan king.  So this is what happened.  The Persian invasion at Marathon took place on September 9, 490 BC. For eight days, the two armies stood challenging each other face to face. On the ninth day the Persians started to get ready. Facing Miltiades the commander in chief of the Athenian army to get his army of 10,000 Athenians and 1,000 Plataeans ready for battle. When the Persians saw the Athenians coming down on them without cavalry or archers and less in numbers, they thought them as an army of madmen running towards them in full armor according to the historian Herodotus. The Athenians were able to surround the Persians whose bows and short lances were no match for the strong spears of the Athenians. The feared Persians turned their backs and ran away as the Athenians chased them back to their ships resulting 192 Athenian deaths and 6,400 Persian deaths.  The Persians lost seven ships to the Athenians. However Miltiades and his Athenian army realized that the Persian fleet could sail and attack the undefended city of Athens. He called upon Phidippides to run to Athens to bring the news of victory and a warning of the approaching Persian ships. Phidippidesran a 26 mile run from Marathon to Athens, the first marathon ever, was successfully completed in about three hours. Phidippides was dying from exhaustion after fighting all day and completing the run. However he successfully warned the Athenians and when the Persian fleet arrived at Athens the Athenian soldiers were ready to protect their land. Seeing the prepared Athenian army the Persians turned and sailed back to Persia in defeat.  “How did they do that?” said the Spartan king puzzled.   

Taimoor 5B        

 

We Athenians stood assembled on the plain of Marathon, preparing to fight to the last man. We will fight against the outnumbered Persian army. We were aided by a small force from Plataea. We were surprised when we saw how many people were in the Persian army. We could not hope to face the superior Persian cavalry. But we still fought them. We were very fierce and ready to attack. We fought with anger but we thought we couldn’t beat them. So we called the Spartans and ask them for help but we thought they didn’t come. By the time they came we already won the Persians.We bet the Spartans felt jealous because they thought that we are weaker than them but we won the battle against the Persians.Spartans were a bit scared because they thought we were going to attack them once they saw how we attacked the Persians. We Athenians never knew that we could defeat the Persians but actually we could.

Bianca 5B

Ha. Those Athenians are going on a battle against the Persians, but they can’t  even beat us. Well we are have a religious party to thank the gods.  We will go and help the Athenians after midnight.  

Slave: The Athenians have defeated the Persians, Sire!

 What? That’s impossible. They can’t even beat us! Slave: Sire they also killed one of their kings.

Sire: [furiously saying] set the alarm they might attack us.

Athenian

We went to war with Persians.

 We went to the lake waiting at the hill for Persians to attack. We were there for four days waiting for them to attack. We heard there plan of going to Athens to attack. So we attacked them the war was for three hours. They lost 65000 men we lost 200 men. We did ask for Spartans help but they did not come. We marched home with victory we got there in a nick of time the Persians were there they wouldn’t dare attack so they went to Persia. We built a temple to celebrate.

Sadie Gordon 5B

 

Hello,

I’m one of the Athens and I just finished a battle it was hard to

fight with my heavy armour but I still had to try I felt dizzy while we were

fighting and I thought I would die so I ran to the back luckily no one saw me.

As I was 10^th most strongest people don’t want me to leave,

so I wasn’t looking behind me someone came to attack me luckily while there put there sword up my friend came in front of me to save me and he

got killed he is brave. I ran to the front and noticed no one was fighting in the front so I stayed until I was okay and then I ran and started killing

people I killed about twenty then I ran back to the front after the war I was glad I was home and couldn’t         believe what I saw!!!

My friend got saved he was alive!!!!!!!! I was so happy he became the third strongest and I say he deserves it. Well that’s it I have to go to sleep for a new war tomorrow.

Areesha 5B

 The Marathon Battle

We thought we were doomed. When we were standing ready to fight we saw twice as many Persians but we thought maybe we would win. So we ran to the Persian army and started to fight. Then we realized that the Persian army’s weapons were useless. Soon the Persian army had less men then we had. The Persians were shocked that they were running back to their boats. They had gone to Athens and saw our army and freaked out. They couldn’t even land so they set back to Persia. Soon the Spartans arrived to battle but they were too late. We had killed them all. This was a victories victory for us.

Sahil 5B

 Hello I am a Spartan. I was surprised the Athenian army defeated the Persians. The Athenians only had 10’000 soldiers and the Persians had 80’000 soldiers. We were celebrating then an Athenian messenger said that they really needed help but we were celebrating so we said no. after the war was over we marched for a long time to marathon because we really wanted to see what a Persian soldier looked like. We saw a lot of Persians lying dead on the ground and now I know what a Persian soldier looks like. I am a bit concerned that the Persians might attack us and the Athenians won’t help us but I think we are going to win. Now I’m a bit scared of the Athenians because they might attack us and we will lose because they defeated the Persians.

Mohammed

5B