What was the main conflict between the Persians and Greeks?

Answer 1

Persia was the superpower of the ancient world (before the rise of Rome); as the Greeks started to experiment with dangerous ideas such as democracy (Persia was autocratic) and citizen armies (Persia relied on mercenaries) it was inevitable that the two systems would come into conflict.

The Achaemenid kings of Persia (Cyrus the Great, Darius I, Xerxes I) were overall successful in expanding their empire, but Darius and Xerxes were aware that their sphere of influence was contained in the west by Hellenic domination of the eastern Mediterranean.

Both Darius and Xerxes accordingly mounted military expeditions against the small Greek city states, assuming that a huge empire such as Persia could simply brush these tiny democracies aside.

The Persian empire eventually spread to include the Greek cities in Asia Minor, the Islands and around the Black Sea. The cities were ruled by Greek tyrants appointed by the Persian provincial governors. As these cities were colonies of cities in mainland Greece, when they tried to throw off Persian rule, they called for help from the mother cities. Miletus did this, and Eretria and Athens responded with military force, which overstepped the mark by burning the Persian provincial capital of Sardis (modern Ankara). Persian emperor Darius mounted a punitive expedition against these two cities to try to put an end to interference in his empire. Eretria was captured and the inhabitants enslaved, but Athens turned back the expedition at Marathon and then in front of the city (490 BCE). Darius decided that, as the Greeks would become more cocky with this victory, the only way he could put an end to the unrest was to absorb mainland Greece and so establish an ethnic frontier. He planned a major expedition to subjugate all the cities there and install puppet tyrants as he had done in Asia. Darius died, however his son Xerxes continued with the idea, and invaded in 480 BCE. This too failed after defeats at Salamis (480 BCE), Plataia and Mykale (479 BCE). Thereafter there were subsequent confrontations with battles at Eurymedon and the Nile delta. It was all eventually resolved a century later by Macedonia when Alexander conquered the Persian empire.

Answer 2

The invasion by Persia in 480 BCE. It resulted in Persian naval defeat at Salamis in 480 BCE and land defeats at Plataia and Mykale in 479 BCE.