2 days left before the journey begins!
Had the opportunity a few weeks ago to visit a big beach in the East part of Attiki, it was a nice ride, hopped on my motorcycle took the route through Penteli mountain and landed on the Marathon bay where Schinias is located.
This is actually a northerneast part of the famous Marathon battle that took place at 490 BC between the Athenians and the Persians (but only a handful of Greeks do actually give a damn about the historic value of the place).
I was happy to see no one had actually the urge to visit the beach that day so I had nearly all of the beach (which is quite huge) for myself!
Although there are no great photographic spots, a beach is always a beach and when the summer is close it always inspires people especially if there is a great historical twist behind it!
Right behind my back a few Kms away is the spot of the final battle of Athenians and Plataeans against Persians, one of most historical battlegrounds ever taken place in history. According to the historical facts 10000 Athenians and 1000 Plataeans stood against 25000 Persians and 1000 horse mounted Persians (Historians cannot estimate the number of Persians, but based on Historic facts of Herodotus, Simonides, Cornelius Nepos and Plutarch the number expands from 20000 Persians to 100000!!!!, with a huge number of troops other than the 25000 not landing and waiting in the Persian triremes).
The battle is one of the most significant battles in terms of tactics in modern history, 10000 hoplites charging against the vast army (but lightly protected) of Persians, it has been marked as landmark of bravery and fatigue when the 10000 Greek hoplites (a full armored Greek hoplite at that time carryed equipment exceeding 30 Kilos!! in weight) charged (to avoid the arrows) for a distance of around 300 meters in full speed! This is the first time ever in Greek history where full armored hoplites covered the distance between the 2 armies in a full speed run.
The clash was huge, the Greek sharp mind of Meltiades (Athenian general) had a master plan, to trap the Persian army in between the side of the Greeks. So he weakened the center column of his army and marched against the Persians patiently waiting for the center Greek column to collapse, once the center Athenian column started collapsing it slowly retreated luring the Persian side flanks to march towards the center. In a sweep and highly strategic move (one that has characterised by Historians as one of the first tactical moves in warfare since he had to order more than 5000 hoplites to execute a manoeuver in the same time, which was something only highly trained armies could perform) he ordered the sides (which where re-enforced) of the Athenian army to close on the center and trap the weaker Persian infantry.
The outcome of the battle still in now days remains as one of the biggest wins in history, 192 Athenians and Plataeans lost their lives but the Persian army casualties was so huge that struck a huge blow to the known ancient world(even the almighty and famous Spartan hoplites marched all the way to the battleground after the battle to witness what was told to them), counting more than 6400 dead and 7 triremes captured out of the 600(!!!)
The land you see in the distance is called Kinosoura (Kinos - Oura which means dogs tail) and it’s the place where the Persian fleet was anchored (Imagine that the triremes where occupying the full foreground scene).
Alas enough with the historic facts (I hope you enjoyed them though)…it was a pleasant evening, allowed me to wait for the light while imagining all of those scenes I had read so many times…2500 years before…that’s a huge timespan…

For prints visit my page on the untappedsource.com:
www.theuntappedsource.com/kpetrakis

Canon 5D
Canon 17-40L f/4
Shutter: 0.4sec
Aperture: f/16
Focal Length: 17mm
ISO: 100
Filters: Hitech 0.6 + 0.9 SE GND
Tripod: Benro C169 + Vanguard SBH-300 + Remote release + Mirror Lockup
Location: Schinias Beach - Attika - Greece
Date / Time: 19/05/2010 - 20:24pm