Persian Wars
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.
Leonidas, king of Sparta, led
the force. 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. The threat of Persian
domination was ended.