For other uses, see, series of conflicts between the Achaemenid Empire of Persia and poleis of the Hellenic world in the fifth century BC, Preliminary contacts between Persia and mainland Greece (507 BC), Early 480 BC: Thrace, Macedonia, and Thessaly, August 480 BC: Battles of Thermopylae and Artemisium, June 479 BC: Battles of Plataea and Mycale. [203] On the other hand, if there was indeed some kind of accommodation, Thucydides's failure to mention it is odd. For six days, the Persians attacked the walls, with losses on both sides; however, on the seventh day two reputable Eretrians opened the gates and betrayed the city to the Persians. [72] Miletus was then besieged, captured, and its population was enslaved. The Athenians eventually caught Artayctes, killing some of the Persians with him but taking most of them, including Artayctes, captive. End of the Persian Wars. [193] This disaster, coupled with ongoing warfare in Greece, dissuaded the Athenians from resuming conflict with Persia. [48][53] The 'hoplites' were foot soldiers usually drawn from the members of the middle-classes (in Athens called the zeugites), who could afford the equipment necessary to fight in this manner. The wars with the Persians affected ancient Greece greatly. Indeed, Xerxes' sacking of Athens was probably enough to allow him to present himself as a returning hero but, as with other wars, there are no written records by the Persians and so their view of the conflict can only be speculated. He then crossed the Bosporus and settled in Kolonai in the Troad, until he was again accused of collaborating with the Persians and was recalled by the Spartans for a trial after which he starved himself to death. [145] Athens thus fell to the Persians; the small number of Athenians who had barricaded themselves on the Acropolis were eventually defeated, and Xerxes then ordered the destruction of Athens. Miltiades. [18][19] Nevertheless, Thucydides's account can be, and is, used by historians to draw up a skeleton chronology for the period, on to which details from archaeological records and other writers can be superimposed. [142] Here the Allied fleet held off the Persians for three days; however, on the third evening the Allies received news of the fate of Leonidas and the Allied troops at Thermopylae. The war involved two major invasions by Persia, in 490 and 480 BC. [172][173], Shortly after Mycale, the Allied fleet sailed to the Hellespont to break down the pontoon bridges, but found that this had already been done. [23][24], A few physical remnants of the conflict have been found by archaeologists. Cyrus conquered one area after another, but allowed the conquered people to worship as they pleased, as long as they gave the great king annual tribute and military service. The Persian Wars were fought between the Greeks and Persians over two thousand years ago. After a series of political negotiations, it became clear that the Persians would not gain victory on land through diplomacy and the two opposing armies met at Plataea in Boeotia in August 479 BCE. This dual strategy was adopted by the congress. Furthermore, to prevent the Persians bypassing Thermopylae by sea, the Athenian and allied navies could block the straits of Artemisium. [60] Artaphernes asked the Athenians for "Water and Earth", a symbol of submission, if they wanted help from the Achaemenid king. Please do join us: https://www.patreon.com/FoxwedeHistoryThe Persian Wars (490 -... 3 more Patreon supporters and we will do a series on Mesopotamian mythology! These numbers are by ancient standards consistent, and this could be interpreted that a number around 1,200 is correct. From the Persian perspective, such terms would not be so humiliating as they might at first seem. Under the so-called "King's Peace" that brought the war to an end, Artaxerxes II demanded and received the return of the cities of Asia Minor from the Spartans, in return for which the Persians threatened to make war on any Greek state that did not make peace. [117] Aristides, Themistocles's great rival, and champion of the zeugites (the 'upper hoplite-class') vigorously opposed such a policy. [174] The siege dragged on for several months, causing some discontent amongst the Athenian troops,[177] but eventually, when the food ran out in the city, the Persians fled at night from the least guarded area of the city. Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, e.g. While the Greeks were euphoric in victory, the Persian Empire was not dealt a death blow by its defeat. Sparta and Athens had a leading role in the congress but the interests of all the states influenced defensive strategy. Greek-Persian wars At the time that the warrior was patrolling the seas, Persia controlled an empire that spanned the Middle East. The empire attempted to conquer the Greek city-states with greater numbers and a vast army. Greeks in these colonies revolted against Persian rule (they were used to ruling themselves—democracy) • Athens sent troops to support the revolt [91] Herodotus records that 6,400 Persian bodies were counted on the battlefield; the Athenians lost only 192 men. [205] The allies of Athens were not released from their obligations to provide either money or ships, despite the cessation of hostilities. He received it from almost all of them, except Athens and Sparta, both of whom instead executed the ambassadors. Updated February 02, 2019 The Persian Wars (sometimes known as the Greco-Persian Wars) were a series of conflicts between Greek city-states and the Persian Empire, beginning in 502 BCE and running some 50 years, until 449 BCE. Even before the start of the Persian Wars Aristagoras with the help of a map had tried to convince the Spartans of this possibility. Even after Athens fell, the Allied fleet remained off the coast of Salamis, trying to lure the Persian fleet to battle. Cite This Work Herodotus, who has been called the "Father of History",[6] was born in 484 BC in Halicarnassus, Asia Minor (then part of the Persian empire). King Darius was humiliated and wanted to continue on which caused the series of wars. Greek armies placed the emphasis on heavier infantry, while Persian armies favoured lighter troop types. [42] Some Teians also chose to emigrate when Harpagus attacked Teos, but the rest of the Ionians remained, and were each in turn conquered. While fighting the Lydians, Cyrus had sent messages to the Ionians asking them to revolt against Lydian rule, which the Ionians had refused to do. Last modified April 06, 2016. [60], The Ionian Revolt and associated revolts in Aeolis, Doris, Cyprus, and Caria were military rebellions by several regions of Asia Minor against Persian rule, lasting from 499 to 493 BC. [175] The Persian governor, Artayctes had not prepared for a siege, not believing that the Allies would attack. The Persians tried to invade Greece twice. Victory over the allied Greek states at the famous Battle of Thermopylae allowed the Persians to torch an evacuated Athens and overrun most of Greece. Within a decade, King Xerxes continued his predecessor Darius' vision, and in 480 BCE he gathered a huge invasion force to attack Greece again, this time via the pass at Thermopylae on the east coast. [44] In the past, Greek states had often been ruled by tyrants, but that form of government was on the decline. They wore a leather jerkin,[47][50] although individuals of high status wore high-quality metal armor. [46], In the Greco-Persian wars both sides made use of spear-armed infantry and light missile troops. Furthermore, certain tyrants might develop an independent streak and have to be replaced. With their longer spears, heavier swords, better armour, and rigid discipline of the phalanx formation the Greek hoplites won a great victory against the odds. [7] As historian Tom Holland has it, "For the first time, a chronicler set himself to trace the origins of a conflict not to a past so remote so as to be utterly fabulous, nor to the whims and wishes of some god, nor to a people's claim to manifest destiny, but rather explanations he could verify personally. The Persian Wars, also known as the Greco Persian Wars, were a series of battles fought between Ancient Greece and the Achaemenid Persian Empire in the 5th century BCE. [77], The first campaign, in 492 BC, was led by Darius's son-in-law Mardonius,[78] who re-subjugated Thrace, which had nominally been part of the Persian empire since 513 BC. The Greeks crushed the weaker Persian foot soldiers by routing the wings before turning towards the centre of the Persian line. After this battle, the Persians took an essentially passive role in the conflict, anxious not to risk battle if possible. Athens, and other Greek cities, sent aid, but were quickly forced to back down after defeat in 494 BCE. After Salamis Xerxes returned home to his palace at Sousa but he left the gifted general Mardonius in charge of the invasion which was still very much on. [117], The politician Themistocles, with a power base firmly established amongst the poor, filled the vacuum left by Miltiades's death, and in the following decade became the most influential politician in Athens. [171] The immediate result of the victory at Mycale was a second revolt amongst the Greek cities of Asia Minor. [119] Themistocles proposed that the silver should be used to build a new fleet of triremes, ostensibly to assist in a long running war with Aegina. Dying PersianMark Cartwright (CC BY-NC-SA). For the Greeks it was a great victory which ensured their independence – and they dined out on it … Continue reading → [178] The party of Oeobazus was captured by a Thracian tribe, and Oeobazus was sacrificed to the god Plistorus. [79] Mardonius was also able to force Macedon to become a fully subordinate client kingdom of Persia; it had previously been a vassal, but retained a broad degree of autonomy. [139] However, the Allied position was ideally suited to hoplite warfare, the Persian contingents being forced to attack the Greek phalanx head on. In 498 BC, supported by troops from Athens and Eretria, the Ionians marched on, captured, and burnt Sardis. It is possible that the Athenians had attempted to negotiate with the Persians previously. The loose alliance of city-states that had fought against Xerxes's invasion had been dominated by Sparta and the Peloponnesian league. This would prove to be the source of much trouble for the Greeks and Persians alike. However, in 486 BC, his Egyptian subjects revolted, and the revolt forced an indefinite postponement of any Greek expedition. [37] By 550 BC, the rebellion was over, and Cyrus had emerged victorious, founding the Achaemenid Empire in place of the Median kingdom in the process. [83] With Athens still defiant, and Sparta now also effectively at war with him, Darius ordered a further military campaign for the following year. [143], Victory at Thermopylae meant that all Boeotia fell to Xerxes; Attica was then open to invasion. [174] The Peloponnesians sailed home, but the Athenians remained to attack the Chersonesos, still held by the Persians. The situation was summed up by Aischylos, a participant in the battle of Salamis, when he presented Xerxes as uttering the eloquent line (405): nun uper pantwn agwn "everything is at stake in the present fight" It is not clear what this was, but it probably involved sailing into gaps between enemy ships and then ramming them in the side. The Persian Wars refers to the warfare between Greece and Persia within the 5th century BCE which worried invasions by using the latter in 490 and 480 BCE. [70], By 494 BC the Persian army and navy had regrouped, and they made straight for the epicentre of the rebellion at Miletus. [216], "Persian Wars" redirects here. [147] If Xerxes could destroy the Allied navy, he would be in a strong position to force an Allied surrender;[148] conversely by avoiding destruction, or as Themistocles hoped, by destroying the Persian fleet, the Allies could prevent conquest from being completed. The Persians then burnt the city and temples of the Naxians. In 494 BC, the Persians regrouped and attacked the epicenter of the revolt in Miletus. The final major existing source for the period is the universal history (Bibliotheca historica) of the 1st century BC Sicilian, Diodorus Siculus. There were two mainland invasions of Greece, in 490 (under King Darius) and 480–479 BCE (under King Xerxes). In what Holland characterises as, in essence, the world's first referendum, Aristides was ostracised, and Themistocles's policies were endorsed. Struggling to control the independent-minded cities of Ionia, the Persians appointed tyrants to rule each of them. Books Darius then began to plan to completely conquer Greece but died in 486 BC and responsibility for the conquest passed to his son Xerxes. to be both just and fair. 12 May 2021. [153], According to Herodotus, after the loss of the battle Xerxes attempted to build a causeway across the channel to attack the Athenian evacuees on Salamis, but this project was soon abandoned. 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