Persian Wars

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Persian Wars, a series of conflicts between the Greek states and the Persian empire, beginning in 490 BC, when the Persian king Darius invaded mainland Greece, and ending in 479 BC, when his son Xerxes, having suffered comprehensive defeats on land and at sea, was forced to withdraw from the Aegean (more loosely, the Wars can be said to extend from 499, when the Ionian Greek cities of Asia Minor rebelled against Persian rule, to c.449, when Greece and Persia agreed peace). After the rebellion, Persian rule in Asia Minor was restored in 494, and Darius decided to punish Athens and Eretria for the help they had given the Ionian colonists. In 492 the Persians conquered Thrace and Macedonia, but the Persian fleet was wrecked in a storm, bringing the expedition to an end. Two years later the Persians attacked again; they destroyed Eretria and landed an army in Attica in the Bay of Marathon. The Athenians appealed to Sparta for help (see PHEIDIPPIDES), but the Spartans arrived too late and the Athenians, numbering some ten thousand, had to face a far stronger enemy with help only from Platea, who sent all her hoplites (heavy infantry), a thousand men. Led by Miltiades, the Greeks won a great victory, utterly routing the enemy. According to Herodotus, 6, 400 Persians were killed, and only 192 Athenians. This was the end of the First Persian War, in reality a minor affair aimed only at Athens and Eretria, but in popular estimation soon acquiring mythical status. For Aristophanes and others sixty years later the ‘men who fought at Marathon’, Marathōnomachai, epitomized the stubborn virtues of the old soldier. The epitaph of Aeschylus the tragedian claimed as his only glory that he had fought in the battle.

Darius at once set about measures for a new invasion. He died in 486, but his son and successor Xerxes carried on the preparations on a huge scale and in 480 attacked by land and sea. The numbers given by Herodotus for the size of the Persian forces are fantastic; modern estimates are 200, 000 men for the army and 600 ships for the navy. The route of the Persian army lay through the narrow pass of Thermopylae, which was held by the Spartan king Leonidas. For two days he and his contingent held back the Persians and inflicted heavy losses on them. Then a traitor showed the Persians a mountain path by which they could outflank the Greek position. When Leonidas heard what had happened he dismissed his allies but remained with his 300 Spartans to die heroically in an impossible last stand (for their epitaph see SIMONIDES). The Persians now advanced into Attica, and Athens, which had been evacuated, was captured and burned in September 480. At sea, however, the Athenians remained strong, and within days of the sack of Athens the Greeks won a brilliant and crushing victory over the Persian fleet at Salamis. Xerxes, who had watched the battle from a throne on the mainland shore, returned to Persia, leaving a picked force to winter in Thessaly and continue the campaign by land. In the following year (479) the Greeks won a decisive victory near Plataea, during which the Persian commander Mardonius was killed. Meanwhile the Greek fleet had gone on to the offensive, and on the same day (it is said) as the battle at Plataea won another victory at Mycalē on the Ionian coast. These two victories ended the Persian threat, and until hostilities were formally ended by the Peace of Callias, the Greeks were on the offensive.

As a result of the Persian Wars, Greeks in general became increasingly conscious of their own nationality and superiority, and the Athenian city-state in particular gained enormously in pride and self-confidence. Our knowledge of these wars is derived mainly from Herodotus. Of contemporary evidence there are inscriptions, some epigrams of Simonides, and Aeschylus' tragedy the Persians. The Persian side of the story is unknown.