Dr. Roel Konijnendijk

That is really where Xerxes comes to the fore in book 789 as the main character.

So it's this huge campaign narrative, right?

And this is the first time we actually get a detailed campaign narrative in any source.

So Marathon in 490 BC is the first battle for which we have an actual description, right?

A description of what happens and how it was won.

That's the champions though, but the Spartans are those heroes.

But you don't know how it was won, right?

So you get battles that are mentioned.

No, but this is a very good point.

Obviously, there are battles that are mentioned and the outcome is mentioned, but you don't get any sense of like, okay, how were the troops deployed?

What kind of decisions did the generals make?

What happened in the thick of it?

You don't really get much of that.

So there is no earlier battle for which we have any account like that.

And we mostly rely on sort of references and poetry about what battle was like in general, rather than the specifics of what was done in order to win a particular battle, defeat a certain opponent, solve a certain tactical problem, whatever.

Yeah.

Marathon is the first one of those.

And then the Persian Wars, or rather the invasion of Xerxes is the one where we get this full detailed account of like, okay, how do they march?

How do they build their camps?

Where do they decide to move?