2500th Battle of Marathon Anniversary AAR

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2500th Battle of Marathon Anniversary.  Boardgame AAR. 

26.2. The stickers are everywhere. If you do a web search for what the heck it means, you’ll get plenty of answers, and they’re accurate enough: it means that person runs in marathons. 26.2 miles of running to be exact.

But literal precision isn’t necessarily a complete answer, as many military historians know. Most of the world knows what a marathon is. But what of the Battle of Marathon? You know, the one where the Cradle of Democracy triumphed over the totalitarian Persians? Oh, yeah. That one.

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Earlier this year marked the 2,500th year that the Battle of Marathon was fought, and despite the lack of attention paid by the sporting world, there is some significance to that battle. It is, of course, a battle where the Persian Empire attempted to crush a budding democratic city-state of Athens. Athens won, and the Persians were chased into the sea. Jolly good show and all that, but recently Kevin Sharp re-enacted the battle using a boardgame. His After Action Review (AAR) is definitely worth checking out and can be found here: http://meshtime.com/2011/05/24/marathon-2500th-anniversary-redux/

And be sure to check out our own Map of the Month featuring the Birth of Athenian Democracy! http://armchairgeneral.com/map-of-the-month-birth-of-athenian-democracy-5th-century-bc.htm