even on the plains the Inka could have won. Foot soldiers have often drubbed mounted troops. At the battle of Marathon in 490 B.C., the outnumbered, outarmored Athenian infantry destroyed the cavalry of the Persian emperor Darius I. More than six thousand Persians died; the Greeks lost fewer than two hundred men. So dire had the situation initially appeared that before the fight Athens sent a messenger to Sparta, its hated rival, to beg for aid. In the original marathon, the courier ran more than a hundred miles in two days to deliver his message. But by the time the Spartan reinforcements
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