The 33 Strategies of War

by Robert Greene

The victory at Marathon and race to Athens were perhaps the most decisive moments in Athenian history. Had the soldiers not come in time, the Persians would have taken the city, then certainly all of Greece, and eventually they would have expanded throughout the Mediterranean, for no other power in existence at the time could have stopped them. History would have been altered irrevocably. Miltiades’ plan worked by the narrowest of margins, but it was based on sound and timeless principles. When a powerful foe attacks you in strength, threatening your ability to advance and take the initiative, you must work to make the enemy divide its forces and then defeat these smaller forces one by one—“in detail,” as the military say. The key to Miltiades’ strategy was his intuition to take the battle to Marathon. By placing himself at the pass that led to Athens, he occupied the central position in the war instead of the southern periphery. With the entire army holding the pass, the Persians would have a bloody time forcing their way through, so they decided to divide their forces before the Spartan reinforcements arrived. Once divided, and with their cavalry diluted, they lost their advantage and the central position from which they could dominate the war.