Persian Wars

Persian War: The Greek cities of Asia Minor provided a third of the Persian navy for the 480 invasion of southern Greece. The Greek city states of central Greece provided a substantial part of the Persian army which fought the southern Greek armies.

Peloponnesian War: Athens and the cities in its empire fought the mainly Peloponnesian cities led by Sparta.

The Delian League of a couple of hundred Greek cities was formed under the leadership of Athens half-way through the Persian War to prosecute the defence against Persia - the war went on for another twenty years.

An excellent example of utilizing geographical features to great advantage over numerically superior forces would be the battle of Thermopylae where a Greek coalition used the narrow pass to delay a much larger Persian force .

Darius I --- King of Persian Empire during First Persian War, 490 BC.

Xerxes --- King of Persian Empire during Second Persian War, 480-479 BC.

Mardonius --- Persian general in both Persian Wars.

Datis and Artaphernes --- Persian generals at Battle of Marathon.

Miltiades --- Athenian general at Battle of Marathon.

Leonidas --- Spartan general at Battle of Thermopylae.

Themistocles --- Athenian admiral at Battle of Salamis.

Pausanias --- Spartan general at Battle of Plataea.

Athens led the Delain League of the 180 Greek city-states in Asia Minor and the Islands during the second half of the Persian War.

After the Persians agreed to leave them alone, Athens opportunistically turned the League into an empire of its own, and lived high on the annual tax it levied, by force where necessary, from those city-states. This money allowed Athens to maintain a large war fleet, which together with it walled city and port, gave it both raiding power and home security. Athens abused this power, bringing it into conflict with the Peloponnesian League led by Sparta in a destructive 27-year war which Athens lost and was stripped of its empire.

The Ionian War 499-493 BCe.

The failed attempted takeover of Eritrea and Athens 490 BCE.

The invasion of mainland Greece 480-479 BCE.

The ongoing battles in the Aegean Sea 478-450 BCE.

Peace agreement 449 BCE.

military conquest

First, in 498 BCE during the Ionian Revolt of cities within the Persian Empire, Athens sent across a force which became involved in the burning of the Persian provincial capital of Sardis, which attracted a Persian punitive expedition against it in 490 BCE, repelled at Marathon.

Athens was an early target in the Persian invasion of peninsular Greece a decade later. Exposed to immediate attack, it sent its population to refuge in the Peloponnesian cities and embarked its forces into its ships and fought at sea at Artemesion and Salamis. When the sea war was won, its soldiers joined the land forces for the land battles the following year at Plataia and Mykale.

After the invasion was repelled, Athens led the Delian League to harrass the Persians in Asia Minor and the Islands, for thirty years.

Callias, an Athenian negotiated a peace in 449 BCE which gave portection to the Greek city-states in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Armoured infantry (hoplites), light infantry and archers.

Salamis (sea), Plataea (land) and Mycale (sea-land).

Xerxes I was king during the Persian invasion of Greece in 480-479 BCE.

Darius III was king during Alexander's conquest of Persia 150 years later and, therefore, the last Persian King of the Hellenistic Period.

In both invasions of Greece by Persia, the Persian armies were defeated by Greek hoplites and soldiers. The major losses were the famous 300 Spartans and 1,000 Thesbians who defended Thermopylae to protect Athens.

For the 50 years of the War 499-449 BCE, most of the normal fighting between Greek city-states was diverted to opposing Persian attempts to bring peace to the Eastern Mediterranean.

At the end of the War, Persia gave up and the city-states went back to their normal fighting between each other.

The combined strength of the navies of the Greek city-states.

It destroyed Persian sea dominance at the battle of Salamis. This allowed the Greek cities to come from defending their cities , concentrate and defeat the Persian army the following spring.

It disappeared. Athens, at the forefront of introduction of democracy, rverted to oligarch in order to conduct the extended war effort and continued for another 20 years until it reemerged in the final stage of the 50 year war led by Ephialtes.

Pericles

After the invasion was driven back in 479 BCE Athens formed a defensive league of a couple of hundred cities which it led. It offerd to take cotributions of money from those cities which preferred this to providing expensive ships. Most paid, so Athens became rich and militarily strong on the proceeds. It kept this tribute flowing even after the Persian threat subsided, and lived high on the extorted proceeds.

Greece. There were two Persian Wars. The First Persian War in 490 BC had only one major battle (Marathon). The Second Persian War in 480-479 BC had three major battles (Thermopylae, Salamis, Plataea). Salamis was a sea battle. The sites can be found on a map of ancient Greece, and possibly even on a map of modern Greece.

There were two major groupings of city-states - the Athenian league/empire, and the Peloponnesian League led by Sparta.
Initially Athens which had led the Greeks in the second half of the wars, and when peace was arranged, turned the Greek coalition, which it led, into an empire of its own. It used this to try to dominate the Greek world, but over-reached itself and was defeated and stripped of it empire, leaving Sparta as dominant power until Thebes displaced it. All this so weakened the Greek cities that Macedonia was able to dominate them.

In the later stages of the war it led the Delian League to protect the cities against the Persians, taking financial contributions from the cities to maintain the fleet which protected them. When Persia finally agreed to stay away from the cities, Athens continued to collect the contributions from the cities and maintain a superior navy, and used the surplus to glorify the city and keep half its population on the public payroll, and using the war fleet to collect the funds by force if necessary, and effectively turning the League into an empire.

This, plus the walls it built around the city and its harbour, made Athens overconfident and interfering in other states, resulting in the Peloponnesian War in which the Greek world was devestated over 27 years, and a defeated Athens lost its empire and became a second rate power.

They shifted the Delian League treasury from Delos to Athens and promptly began to spend it on themselves, building the Parthenon etc.

They continued to extort money from the League, reducing the 'freed' cities to subjects.

They put half their populace on the public payroll, supplied from League funds.

The successful battle of Salamis in 480 BCE during the Persian War 499-449 BCE gave the Greek cities control of the sea, and this so weakened the Persian land forces that the Greeks were able to defeat them the following year at Plataia, and so turn bak the Persian invasion.

The Persian attempt to incorporate mainland Greece into its empire to enforce peace was terminated, and Athens converted the Greek city-states, who banded together to repel this bid, into an empire of its own.