Tom Holland

But if I were an Athenian, I would vote for the Athenian victory because everything is in the balance for Athens.

And I think that there is something heroic and noble about what

the Athenians represented on the battlefield of Marathon, even with the caveats that I've given.

So as a Greek, ignorant of what is going to come, no, I wouldn't.

I would have wanted the Persians defeated.

Of course I would.

But looking ahead to what happens in the Peloponnesian War and all the horrors that are consequent on Athens' rise to greatness, I might, perhaps.

I don't know.

But I think none of this is to diminish, I think, the glory of what the Athenians achieved at Marathon.

I think the admiration of the ages is justified.

They were fighting for their liberty, if not necessarily for the liberty of Greece.

And I think that their courage in going down that slope into the plain to meet with an enemy that no Greek army had ever defeated before, I think it is

I mean, if that's not heroic, then nothing is heroic.

And so I think that their victory at marathon, even though it is reductive to cast it as the victory of the West over the East or of Europe over Asia or of freedom over despotism, I think it is a battle that is both epic and glorious.

And, you know, I've found it kind of a stirring narrative since childhood.

And it still stirs me to this day, I have to say.

Dominic, of course, we've talked about this is a battle for freedom and liberty and it's heroic and everything.

Not every war is heroic, is it?

There are wars that are bogged down in mud and stalemate.

Thank you very much.