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The Shield Signal at the Battle of Marathon

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

P. K. Baillie Reynolds
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Extract

So much has already been written about the battle of Marathon that it is only with great hesitation that the present writer ventures to make another contribution to the subject. But it seems that in spite of the various conjectures and explanations that have been advanced, there is still a solution of the shield signal which has escaped notice hitherto, and which simplifies the story.

For the general scheme of the battle this paper follows in the main the first reconstruction by Mr. J. A. R. Munro (J.H.S. xix. p. 185), with which Dr. Grundy is in substantial agreement (The Great Persian War): the essential feature in this version is, of course, the division of the Persian forces at Marathon after a delay of several days. It is only in the interpretation of the shield signal that any claim to originality can be made, and the view of the signal here given is based on the acceptance of the Herodotean story that a shield was flashed, and that it was flashed when the barbarians were already in their ships.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 49 , Issue 1 , 1929 , pp. 100 - 105
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1929

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References

1 I find myself unable to accept the second reconstruction recently put forward by Mr. Munro in the Cambridge Ancient History; but the meaning of the shield signal here suggested is not incompatible with that version.

2 Always excluding the view of the late Prof.Bury, , that it was flashed by a detachment of Persians (Cl. Rev., March, 1896)Google Scholar. If it had been so, some earlier Alcmeonid apologist would have got hold of the fact.

3 Herodotus, IV–VI. App. x.

4 I follow the usual tradition which makes Datis the real if not the titular commander of the expedition. In Herodotus he survives the battle (very probably because he was not present at it), and the story of his death is an accretion to the ‘Marathon legend.’ Mr. Munro would put Artaphrenes in the ship and leave Datis to fight the battle.