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Ingratitude Was All These People Got For Doing the Right Thing

Khalid Elhassan August 28, 2023 32 min

Ingratitude - Ignaz Semmelweis washing his hands in chlorinated lime water before operating — Ignaz Semmelweis washing his hands in chlorinated lime water before operating. NPR

From Collaborator to Resistance Hero

Once the Persians discovered Miltiades’s treachery, he was forced to flee to Athens. There, the Athenians elected him as one of their ten generals. It was in that role that he saved Athens. The Persians determined to punish Athens for aiding the Ionians, and sent a punitive expedition which landed on the plain of Marathon north of Athens, in 490 BC. The Athenians marched out with a force of about 10,000 hoplites – armored heavy infantry – with no cavalry or archers.

To oppose the Athenians, the Persians fielded a force of at least 25,000 infantry, plus thousands of archers and 1000 cavalry. The Athenians, who had ten generals and a rotating command system by which each general held command for a day, wavered. For over a week, they simply watched the Persians from heights overlooking Marathon, until Miltiades’ turn to take command. He convinced a closely divided war council to give battle. As seen below, the resultant battle saved Athens from Persian conquest. His reward was a massive dose of ingratitude.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.