The word "Marathon" is known in perhaps billions of households around the world. Most commonly, it invokes the 26.2-mile journey between an athlete and an Olympic medal. History enthusiasts may also associate it with the Battle of Marathon in 490 BCE against the Persian Empire. Yet despite the importance of both events, the region also plays an important role both in Mythology and in wider history.

In 490 BCE, the Persian Empire, the largest in the world at that time, sent between 400 and 600 triremes to land on the beachhead on the coast of Marathon, a mostly flat coastal plain in the region of Attica.