| The Persian Wars |
| In the 5th century BC the
vast Persian Empire attempted to conquer Greece. If the Persians had succeeded,
they would have set up local tyrants, called satraps,
to rule Greece and would have crushed the first stirrings of democracy in
Europe. The survival of Greek culture and political ideals depended on the
ability of the small, disunited Greek city-states to band together and defend
themselves against Persia's overwhelming strength. The struggle, known in
Western history as the Persian Wars, or
Greco-Persian Wars, lasted 20 years--from
499 to 479 BC.
Persia already numbered among its conquests the Greek cities of Ionia in Asia Minor, where Greek civilization first flourished. The Persian Wars began when some of these cities revolted against Darius I, Persia's king, in 499 BC. Athens sent 20 ships to aid the Ionians. Before the Persians crushed the revolt, the Greeks burned Sardis, capital of Lydia. Angered, Darius determined to conquer Athens and extend his empire westward beyond the Aegean Sea. In 492 BC Darius gathered together a great military force and sent 600 ships across the Hellespont. A sudden storm wrecked half his fleet when it was rounding rocky Mount Athos on the Macedonian coast. Two years later Darius dispatched a new battle fleet of 600 triremes. This time his powerful galleys crossed the Aegean Sea without mishap and arrived safely off Attica, the part of Greece that surrounds the city of Athens. The Persians landed on the plain of Marathon, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) from Athens. When the Athenians learned of their arrival, they sent a swift runner, Pheidippides, to ask Sparta for aid, but the Spartans, who were conducting a religious festival, could not march until the moon was full. Meanwhile the small Athenian army encamped in the foothills on the edge of the Marathon Plain. The Athenian general Miltiades ordered his small force to advance. He had arranged his men so as to have the greatest strength in the wings. As he expected, his center was driven back. The two wings then united behind the enemy. Thus hemmed in, the Persians' bows and arrows were of little use. The stout Greek spears spread death and terror. The invaders rushed in panic to their ships. The Greek historian Herodotus says the Persians lost 6,400 men against only 192 on the Greek side. Thus ended the battle of Marathon (490 BC), one of the decisive battles of the world. Darius planned another expedition, but he died before preparations were completed. This gave the Greeks a ten-year period to prepare for the next battles. Athens built up its naval supremacy in the Aegean under the guidance of Themistocles. In 480 BC the Persians returned, led by King Xerxes, the son of Darius. To avoid another shipwreck off Mount Athos, Xerxes had a canal dug behind the promontory. Across the Hellespont he had the Phoenicians and Egyptians place two bridges of ships, held together by cables of flax and papyrus. A storm destroyed the bridges, but Xerxes ordered the workers to replace them. For seven days and nights his soldiers marched across the bridges. On the way to Athens, Xerxes found a small force of Greek soldiers holding the narrow pass of Thermopylae, which guarded the way to central Greece. The force was led by Leonidas, king of Sparta. Xerxes sent a message ordering the Greeks to deliver their arms. "Come and take them," replied Leonidas. For two days the Greeks' long spears held the pass. Then a Greek traitor told Xerxes of a roundabout path over the mountains. When Leonidas saw the enemy approaching from the rear, he dismissed his men except the 300 Spartans, who were bound, like himself, to conquer or die. Leonidas was one of the first to fall. Around their leader's body the gallant Spartans fought first with their swords, then with their hands, until they were slain to the last man. The Persians moved on to Attica and found it deserted. They set fire to Athens with flaming arrows. Xerxes' fleet held the Athenian ships bottled up between the coast of Attica and the island of Salamis. His ships outnumbered the Greek ships three to one. The Persians had expected an easy victory, but one after another their ships were sunk or crippled. Crowded into the narrow strait, the heavy Persian vessels moved with difficulty. The lighter Greek ships rowed out from a circular formation and rammed their prows into the clumsy enemy vessels. Two hundred Persian ships were sunk, others were captured, and the rest fled. Xerxes and his forces hastened back to Persia. Soon after, the rest of the Persian army was scattered at Plataea (479 BC). In the same year Xerxes' fleet was defeated at Mycale. Although a treaty was not signed until 30 years later, the threat of Persian domination was ended. |
 Image courtesy of Ancient Greece:The Persian Wars |
The First Persian Wars The Second Persian Wars Alexander the Great's Campaign against the Persians |
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The Ionian Revolt Ionia, on the central Western coast of Asia Minor and the adjacent islands was settled by the Greeks about 1000 BC. Between the 8th and 6th centuries BC, the Ionian cities of Miletus, Sámos, Ephesus, led the rest of Greece in trade, colonization, and culture. The region was dominated by Lydia from 550 BC and then by Persian rule after Cyrus the Great's conquest in 546 BC. The Ionian revolt against Persian rule in 499 BC was to last for 6 years and end, not only in defeat for the Ionians but with the enslavement of much of its people, economic ruin, subjugation, and the comparative eclipse of a once thriving culture. |
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| The
Battle of Marathon (490 BC) The Persian Empire was more than a little annoyed when the Greeks encouraged the Ionians to revolt. After crushing the revolt King Darius decided to punish the upstarts. In 490 BC he led an army of over 40,000 soldiers into Greece. There they faced a force of 10,000 Athenians on the plains of Marathon. The Athenians surprised the Persians by charging them. The strategy worked, and they routed the much larger force, driving them into the sea. Battle of Thermopylae (480 BC) King Xerxes, son of Darius, ascended to the throne of Persia after his father's death in 486 BC. After securing the throne, Xerxes began to muster forces to invade Greece. By 480 BC, the army he assembled had approximately 100,000 to 180,000 men and a fleet of nearly 600 ships, quite a large army by Greek standards. This time, instead of an invasion by sea, this massive army would cross the Hellespont, and march around the Aegean sea and conquer Greece by land. The Greeks heard of Xerxes' army. Athenians and Spartans combined with about 29 other city-states, under the leadership of Sparta to oppose this powerful army, and the Athenians contributed a fleet of 200 triremes for their navy. Themistocles, an Athenian general, urged the army to stop the invasion as far north as they could. Finally, a place was chosen for the first defence of Greece. This place was Thermopylae, a pass where it was only 60 feet wide! This is only wide enough so that a single chariot could fit though the pass. The Persian army arrived at Thermopylae and the Greeks were there waiting. This battle is known as The Battle at Thermopylae. |
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| Battle of Cunaxa (401
BC) After the death of his father, Darius II, his son Cyrus laid claim to the title of King of Kings of Persia. He raised an army including over 10,000 Greek troops to do battle with his elder brother, Artaxerxes, who held the throne and the empire. The two armies met at Cunaxa near Babylon. |
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| Alexander the Great's Campaign against
the Persians Battle of Granicus (334 BC) Granicus was the first major battle during Alexander's rule against Persia. Alexander lead his troops while the Persians were lead by Arsites, one of Darius' III generals. Battle of Issus (333 BC) After defeating the Persians for the first time at the Battle of Granicus, Alexander went southwards throughout Ionia along the Mediteranian to free the Greek cities from Persian rule and to secure the coast of Asia Minor. This battle was important because it was the only way for Alexander to get to the coastal plain of Asia. Battle of Guagamela (331 BC) This battle was the last major battle in Persia. The exact location of this battle was the Persian village of Guagamela. It was the most famous and important of Alexander's battles. Alexander's victory at Guagamela means the ultimate defeat of the Persian Empire. |
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The Persian Army The Persian army was very multicultural in its make up. It consisted of trained regular units of Persian and Median infantry and cavalry supplemented by conscripts from subject nations within the empire and as well as hired mercenaries or garrison troops from within or from outside the empire. The full time regular soldiers such as the Immortals were supplied with arms and armour and so are uniformly equipped, many allied contingents supplied their own equipment and fought in their own style. Hordes of lightly armed bow and javelin-man and non fighting camp attendants, wives, concubines and slaves account for the vast numbers that were characteristic of the Persian army. |
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