Ethiopians and Arrowheads: Marginal Perspectives on The Marathon Soros

This chapter traces responses to flakes of obsidian which were found in the Marathon soros by northern European travellers from the late eighteenth and the nineteenth century and which were initially interpreted as flint arrowheads belonging to Ethiopians who fought in the famous battle of 490 BCE. It argues that these “arrowheads” were central to creating a tangible link for the travellers between the battle of Marathon and aspirations for the freedom of Greece from Ottoman rule, and that they largely determined interpretations of the contents of the Marathon soros, even after official excavations at the end of the nineteenth century. At the same time, the plain was idealised as a place of agriculture rather than conflict by the travellers, and local populations were denied a voice in explicating its meaning. Nevertheless, hints of attitudes towards the soros or to Ethiopians held by locals and more marginal figures are uncovered in travel accounts, in communications from indigenous groups, in folklore traditions, and in official edicts from the new Greek government.