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490 BC. On the plane of marathon, an Athenian army stands ready to do battle. A sizable

Persian force stands across from them, having sailed across the Aegean from Anatolia, intent

on punishing the Athenians for a past foray into their lands, supporting an anti-Persian revolt.

This battle would mark the climax of the first Persian invasion of Greece

and become immortalised through the ages as the day Athens defied the superpower.

It's The Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host. Today we're releasing

the first of a series of episodes exploring the Persian Wars with not one but two leading experts

in the field, Dr. Rool Caninandike from Lincoln College, Oxford University and Professor

Lloyd Llewellyn Jones from Cardiff University.

In this first episode, we are covering the story of the first Persian War.

Think the Battle of Marathon of 490 BC.

We'll explore the run-up to the conflict, the emergence of the Persian Empire and how it came into contact with the Greek world in Western Turkey.

We'll explore how the Persians

view to the Greeks and vice versa, before ultimately get into the narrative of Marathon itself,

preserved in the writings of the ancient Greek historian Herodotus, known as the father

of history. You'll hear Herodotus' name quite a bit in today's chat. Every once in a while, we release special episodes with two interviewees,

as we know how much you enjoy them.

With Roulin Lloyd being fan-favorant guests of the podcast, brilliant experts,

and with this being such an interesting topic,

...