Greco-Persian Wars

At issue: Whether Greece would succumb to Persian domination

Date: 499-448 b.c.e.

Location: Persia, Greece

Combatants: Persians vs. Greeks

Principal commanders: Persian, Darius I the Great (550-486 b.c.e.), Xerxes I (c. 519-465 b.c.e.); Greek, Leonidas (d. 480 b.c.e.)

Principal battles: Marathon, Artemisium, Salamis, Plataea

Result: Greece preserves its independence from Asia

Background

War between the fiercely independent Greek states and the growing Persian Empire was perhaps inevitable. Ambitious Persian king Darius I the Great feared that if he did not expand his realm, not only would his reputation be overshadowed by the reputations of his predecessors but also the realm itself would begin a process of disintegration. After a successful foray into Thrace and an unsuccessful one into Scythia, the fractious Greek states would have appeared an easy target for an imperial war of aggression.

Action

The Ionian Greeks of the eastern coast of the Aegean had been conquered in the preceding half century by Cyrus the Great and were ruled by petty tyrants appointed by the Persian king. Aristagoras, a resourceful and manipulative Greek of Miletus, stirred up rebellions in Ionia (499 b.c.e.) and enlisted as allies Athens and Eretria. In a swift raid on Asia, a combined force of these Greeks swept inland and burned Sardis (498 b.c.e.), then an important eastern provincial city of the Persian Empire. Darius swore revenge and sent ambassadors to Greece demanding “earth and water,” traditional symbols of obeisance.

At first, revenge seemed easy. Persia reconquered Cyprus and won a major naval battle at Lade (495 b.c.e.). In the same year, Persia sacked Miletus, the largest and most important cultural Greek city on the coast, home to the first Greek philosophers. The psychological effect of the fall of this city was immense, and perhaps the pall from that loss stirred the independent Greeks to work together or face annihilation by Persia.

A few years later, Darius sent an army to Athens and Eretria, and so began a series of engagements that would continue for forty years. A classic David and Goliath struggle ensued between a weak and vastly outnumbered Greek confederation and the most powerful army in the world. During these years, some of the most famous battles in military history took place.

The Persian expeditionary force succeeded in taking Eretria and expelling its population to Persia. However, with help only from tiny Plataea, Athens defeated the Persians at Marathon (490 b.c.e.), sending them scurrying back to Asia. Two funeral mounds, with the corpses of the Athenians and Plataeans who fell during the battle, remain as hallowed ground on the battlefield. Darius realized that to succeed against Greece, he would need a much larger force.

Rebellions in Egypt and Babylonia distracted Persia from executing an immediate assault on Greece, as did Darius’s death in 486 b.c.e. By 481 b.c.e., however, his successor Xerxes I had settled affairs sufficiently to organize a large attack on Greece. After building a pontoon bridge over the Hellespont, Xerxes led a huge force into Europe (millions, according to Herodotus; much smaller, perhaps only 200,000, according to most historians). Xerxes also sent a huge fleet.

Fortunately for the Greek world, Athens was led by Themistocles, who had persuaded Athens to use new wealth from its silver mines at Laurium to construct a fleet of warships. A naval battle at Artemisium (480 b.c.e.) showed that though Persia might have a vast number of ships, it lacked the skill to use them effectively. The contemporaneous Battle of Thermopylae, in which a small band of Spartans under King Leonidas retarded the advance of the Persian army, lifted the morale of the Greeks, despite the loss of every soldier. Athenians abandoned their city to seek safe refuges, and the Persian armies razed an essentially empty city. In the naval Battle of Salamis (480 b.c.e.), the Greeks destroyed the major part of the Persian fleet and forced the remnant to flee to Asia. A final land battle in Greece, the Battle of Plataea (479 b.c.e.), ended the hopes of Persia for victory in Europe. A final Persian naval defeat at Mycale foreshadowed the dominance of the Athenian navy.

The decision to work together under a Spartan commander was a major factor in the Greek victories. This decision meant that Athens would suppress its own ambitions, a restraint that would not often be repeated. Argos, by contrast, refused to participate in the alliance against Persia because it was excluded from the general command.

Aftermath

Fear of another attack from Persia dominated Greek politics for the next half century. Athens organized the Delian League, a defensive alliance, to protect the island states from attack. In 466 b.c.e., the brilliant Athenian admiral Cimon won the Battle of Eurymedon River, liberating the remaining Ionian cities from Persian rule and thus restoring Greeks to an independence they had not known since before the conquest of Lydia a century earlier. The relative amity among the Greek cities, a result of their fear of the common enemy Persia, lasted until a general peace with Persia was negotiated by Callias in 449 b.c.e.

For Europe, the Greco-Persian Wars were of extraordinary lasting importance. The defeat of Persia allowed Greece, particularly Athens, to develop those institutions that were to shape the Western world. In the fifty years following the war, a period celebrated as the Pentecontaetia, democracy, tragedy, comedy, rhetoric, history, philosophy, and medical science all came into their own. A century later, the Greco-Persian Wars provided an excuse to Alexander the Great to reignite hostilities with the east, again making world domination a goal for ambitious states.

Bibliography

Belcer, Jack Martin. The Persian Conquest of the Greeks, 545-450. Konstanz, Germany: Universitatsverlag Konstanz, 1995.

Hanson, Victor. Hoplites: The Classical Battle Experience. New York: Routledge, 1991.

Lazenby, John Francis. The Defense of Greece 490-479b.c. Warminster, England: Aris & Phillips, 1993.