Hello and welcome to another ancient warfare answers.

It's episode, I don't know how many.

165, Murray.

Have we asked that, answer that many questions?

I think we're getting distracted.

My name is Jasper Ortiz.

I'm the editor of Ancient Warfare Magazine.

With me is Murray Dom.

He's my assistant editor.

And today we are going to be answering the question, which was the fastest army

overland in the ancient world?

That is a very fabulous question.

I think probably the Spartans win that one, whether we believe that the Spartans

marching to marathon after the

battle, perhaps rushing to get there after the Karnia festival so that they could support the

Athenians as they were asked to do turning up, having marched, you know, 150 miles and three

days and then finding out that the battle had already been fought and won by the Athenians.

But, you know, there was no pressure on that march, but did the Spartans know that? Probably not. The Athenians, obviously

marching back to Athens after the Battle of Marathon to be there before the Spart, sorry, the Persian

fleet arrived off the Piraeus probably is a bit more impressive in the sense that they did the march after they fought a battle.

So, you know, and again at the Battle of Marathon, according to Herodotus, they ran for a mile to get to the Persian army.

That's explicit in book six of Herodotus, and no one believes that.

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