Tom Holland

And Herodotus describes the oil as black and giving off a revolting stench.

So it's one of the earliest descriptions in history of petroleum.

And the Eretrians are settled there and there is no return home for them.

And even centuries later, tourists would go and visit their descendants and some of them would still be speaking Greek.

So, you know, for a Greek to be parted from his homeland is a terrible thing.

And that might, of course, have the Athenians lost the Battle of Marathon.

That might have been the fate of the Athenians.

Their city burned, their sons castrated, the survivors exiled.

And the fact that Athens had been spared that fate, it was a cause of enormous relief to them, obviously, but it is a cause of the most immense pride as well.

Only 192 died at Marathon, most of them on the beaches.

And the Athenians...

saw them as heroes of the city, men who had died for freedom.

And so for the first and only time in Athenian history, they are buried on the field where they had fallen.

And a great tomb is raised over the ashes of the 192 dead Athenians, and it's adorned with marble slabs listing the fallen.

And you can still visit the site of that mound to this day.

It's a very moving place to visit.

And on the Acropolis, a great new temple is begun,

which effectively is designed as a colossal war memorial.

Yeah, because that sense, I think, of a kind of instinctive cringe before the Persians has gone.

And although there remains fear of what the Persians might be able to do, that fear is now kind of tinged with a sense of contempt.