Why do the Persians and the Greeks react differently to the end of the Persian War?

Answer 1

Persia withdrew into its own boundaries and run a peaceful empire.

Greek cities could then safely get back to their usual occupation of fighting each other.

Answer 2

The Persians went back to keeping peace in their empire, the Greek city-states went back to fighting each other. Why? That was the way they were naturally.

Answer 3

The Persians had entered the wars in an attempt to bring the Greek city-states under control to stop then promoting uprisings within the Persian Empire. When the Greeks, who interrupted their internal wars and banded together to repel the Persians, after the war went back to their own internal wars, the Persians concentrated in maintaining peace and prosperity within their Empire, while the Greek cities were busy tearing themselves apart.

Answer 4

The Persians were reliant on their fleet to do two things:

• to threaten the Greek cities with amphibious attack so that they kept their armies at home to defend themselves, and so could not concentrate against the Persian army which could then pick the cities off one by one.
• to protect their supply line from the Greek ships, which in those days of slow, low capacity wagons, had to be by sea transports.

The Greeks centred their attention on the Persian navy to try to destroy it and with it the Persian plan. They blocked the pass at Thermopylai, which forced the Persians into a sea battle to outflank the block. This failed, so they tried again at Salamis which was successful, and the remnant of the Persian fleet was withdrawn to Mykale in Asia Minor, leaving the Persian army without adequate supplies in such a poor country as Greece.

Now unable to supply his army during the winter, Xerxes took half home and withdrew the rest to the north where they could get supplies. Next spring the southern Greek cities, the threat to their homes gone, were able to concentrate their force at Plataia and defeat the reduced Persian army and its Greek allies. They went on to destroy the remnant of its fleet at Mykale.

Sea power was the key to the campaign. The Greeks, with inferior ships and ship numbers set battles in narrow waters where they neutralised the superior number and size of the Persian ships, and won the key Salamis battle. They were boosted by the fact that they were fighting for hearth and home, while the Persian fleet was made up of contingents from subject cities of Phonecia, Asian-Greeks and Egypt, who really didn't have the same motivation.

Popular stories of the war usually omit the central theme - that both sides had well defined and clever plans of action. Both had their successes. The Greek victory at Salamis turned the result decisively in their favour.

Answer 5

The object of the Persians was to maintain peace within their empire, which included a couple of hundred Greek city-states, which were restive, encouraged by their mother cities in mainland Greece.

The object of the Athenian-led Delian League was to prevent Persian rule of their cities.

When peace was sealed in 449 BCE, both sides agreed to stick to their own territory. This left Athens with the revenue from the League, and it spent it on beautifying its city and keeping its citizens on the public payroll, including maintaining a fleet of warships to extort the League contributions from the cities which now felt less and less like contributing to a war fund with no war but an Athens used to living off the fund.

So the Persians went about promoting stability, Athens went about imposing its will on the League, and also diverted its power to interfering in cities outside the League. To counter this, the Peloponnesian League was formed, and in due course war erupted between the two leagues for 27 years.

Persia meanwhile enjoyed the diversion of the Delian League/Athenian Empire from itself, and late in the war financed the Peloponnesian League to get rid of Athens.

Answer 6

The Greek city-states were freed to go back to their endless wars amongst each other, with horrendous effect on the populace. Athens benefited temporarily by converting the alliance it had led against the Persian Empire into an empire of its own, and lived high on the hog on the proceeds, until it lost the Peloponnesian War and was stripped of its empire.

Answer 7

The war ended when Persia agreed to stay away from the Greek cities in Asia Minor. Persia had intervened when the Greek cities in Asia Minor revolted against their rule and attempts to promote peace and prosperity, and the war spread to mainland Greece. After 50 years in 449 BCE of fighting, the Persians gave up and concentrated on running its empire. This left the independent Greek city-states to return to their usual fighting amongst themselves.

Athens, which had in the second half of the wars led the Delian League against the Persian Empire, now opportunistically converted the League into an empire of its own, ruling it ruthlessly and using the proceeds to enrich itself. It also used this imperial power to intervene in the affairs of Greek cities outside its empire, which brought it into conflict with the Peloponnesian League led by Sparta, resulting in a destructive 27-year Peloponnesian War. Persia in the latter stages of this war gave support to the Peloponnesians, who won and stripped Athens of its empire. Persia then reclaimed control of the Greek city-states it had lost after the Persian War.

Answer 8

Very understandable - they were adversaries.

Answer 9

They first put on hold the wars they fought between each other, and when the Persians were seen of, they went back to fighting each other with increased ferocity.