Trying to write coherent military history about a battle that occurred almost 2,500 years ago is a daunting and problematic task. Written sources are few and often unreliable or fragmentary. Terrain can change so drastically over such a long period that simple things like determining the exact location of key events can be impossible. Artifacts such as weapons, equipment and human remains have usually deteriorated so much over the centuries that their use as interpretative tools is difficult and controversial. No one can argue that the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC - where Greeks defeated the first Persian invasion of their land - was a historically important action. Had the Greeks lost then or ten years later against the second invasion, there would have been serious historical repercussions on the development of later European culture and society. However, the task of writing a coherent Osprey campaign title on that subject is another matter. In Osprey's Campaign series volume 108, Marathon 490 BC, Polish archaeologist Nicholas Sekunda has decided to attempt this difficult task. Unfortunately, Sekunda's effort falls flat for a number of reasons - primarily because the volume is too oriented toward archaeological issues rather than military history. However another telling weakness is the slippery slope of interpretation built by every author who ever attempted to study Marathon; as Sekunda writes just before he begins his narrative of the battle, "the reader should be warned that virtually every account of the battle written reconstructs it [the battle] differently." If it is true as Sekunda suggests, that different authors could write different narratives of this battle due to the controversial and fragmentary nature of the evidence, then why should anyone read this account?

Marathon 490 BC begins with short sections on the origins of the campaign, opposing commanders, opposing armies and opposing plans. The campaign narrative is 55 pages in length, but the battle itself is covered in less than 6 pages. The volume concludes with a short aftermath, notes on visiting the battlefield today, a campaign chronology and a bibliography. Marathon 490 BC includes three 3-D "Birds Eye View" maps (the Battle of Marathon in three phases - deployment, Greek charge and Persian rout), and five 2-D maps (the Aegean in 499-492 BC, the campaign in the Cyclades, the campaign of Marathon, the plain of Marathon in 490 BC, and Marathon today). Three battle scenes by Richard Hook are also in the volume: Philippides before the Spartan ephors, the Athenian charge and the Athenian reach the Herakleion after the forced march back to Athens.

Reading Marathon 490 BC, several facts soon become apparent. First, that Sekunda is very well-versed in archaeology, very familiar with classical Greece and very familiar with the Marathon topography. Second, Professor Sekunda's methodology is erudite, but uninformative. He spends far too much time using the limited space of an Osprey volume to contest or illuminate various archaeological issues about the battle - issues that properly belong in an archaeological journal article, not a campaign summary. At the very least, Sekunda could have include some of his major points in an appendix, rather than choking the campaign narrative with tedious explanations of various diggings. Third, Professor Sekunda does not know how to write military history or to analyze facts of a military nature. For example, Sekunda advances the poorly-supported theory that the reason that the Persians divided their forces at Marathon was that they could not employ their cavalry advantage due to the possible Greek use of abatis obstacles. This is patently silly for several reasons that Sekunda obviously failed to grasp. The Persians were on the battlefield for almost five full days before the Greek army arrived, so the Persians could have employed their cavalry before the abatis were in place. Furthermore, where would the Greeks get the materials for abatis - Sekunda notes that the battlefield was mostly beach and marshland, with few trees. On the other hand, Sekunda also fails to ask the blindingly obvious question of why didn't the Persians employ obstacles to their front on the beach. Persian control of the sea meant that they had the time and the means to bring in material from elsewhere and construct earthworks, which would have hindered an assault by hoplites. On the main issue - why did both Persian flanks collapse under the Athenian charge - Sekunda offers not a wit of insight. Sekunda ends up telling the reader what he already knows - that the Greeks won - but he cannot explain why this occurred.

The only really strong point of this book is the order of battle data, which does a good job pointing out the relative strength, composition and disposition of each army. The three battle maps are decent, but given the very small area of the fighting and conflicting evidence, they really can't show much but general movements. In the end, Marathon is just one more of those historical events of which many of the pertinent facts have now been lost to posterity.