Aristides bellowed for his men to hold the shield line, but it was impossible. What had felt like a battle became a rout in moments. Helots pushed past him, wild-eyed, making him stumble and almost fall. The Athenians felt their panic and, in that terrible chaos and blindness, they too began to edge back from an implacable and countless enemy. They could not win, not that day. Death stood with them. The last of the helots went through, but the panic and chaos were still spreading. Aristides could not stop the enemy sensing weakness and rushing forward.

‘Phalanx! Form phalanx! Eight ranks!’ he roared across his people. ‘By Athena, come in! Shield lines! Lock shields!’

His people stared into the merciless faces of Persians and they were afraid. He heard rather than saw his men try to form eight ranks deep in that place. With the helots in full rout, there was no need to make a wide line. The phalanx could still bristle with spears and keep them alive. He prayed for that.

Aristides wrenched his head round as a great howl came from his left. He realised he had been turned in the fighting. The damned dust made it almost impossible to know where he was on the plain. Yet he heard Persian horns sound and knew with a sick certainty that his hoplites had been swallowed up in the great host. Where was Pausanias? The helots had all run, their miracle drained away. The caravan had bolted somewhere, the animals spooked by the smell of blood and the sounds of war. Aristides rubbed sweat from his eyes. He needed reinforcements or he was done. Every time the dust moved, he peered for some glimpse of red cloaks. All he could see were his own men in bronze, spears quivering, surrounded by the enemy.

27

Xanthippus was sweating by the time he clambered up the dunes. The Persians waited just a little way beyond. They had not run. Instead, the crews and soldiers of sixty ships had lined up in rough ranks, on flat ground. A breeze blew from where they stood, carrying an odour of spices and memory. Xanthippus found himself thinking of Marathon, eleven years and a lifetime before. He had been younger then, certain of his own strength. Still, there was no doubt in him. He had followed the Persians home to make sure they never came again. Their fleet burned at his back, so that he marched as if out of an inferno. His hoplites may have been few, but they were armoured and trained men. The king of Sparta was there with them, as well as Greeks from all the cities that had refused to bow, to give water and earth.