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CLAS 201 (Handout Six)
Now that we have covered Athens and Sparta (their respective political systems) let us
examine the wars that 1) brought many Greek city-states together, 2) proved (to the
Greeks at least) that the Greek way of life was superior to the „Barbarian‟ one and 3)
jump-started the Athenian state, leading it down the road of power, wealth and culture
(disaster too). I am referring to the Persian Wars of course.
HERODOTUS
Our source for the Persian Wars is Herodotus of Halicarnassus (a city in Asia Minor).
Although Herodotus will travel extensively (across Greece and outside Greece as well),
his place of birth is possibly meaningful from a historiographical perspective. First off,
Asia Minor means that Herodotus would have met his share of non-Greeks. Perhaps his
upbringing in such a cosmopolitan locale accounts for his „multi-cultural‟ perspective (an
anachronistic term no doubt but I‟ll used it anyway). As the very first lines of his famous
Histories reveal (see handout) Herodotus appreciated brilliance whether it was Greek in
origin or barbaric (i.e. non-Greek). Indeed, a later historian, Plutarch, would call
Herodotus „philobarbaros‟ („a lover of barbarians‟), the implication being he was too
enamoured with barbarian ways and insufficiently Greek in outlook.
Herodotus too grew up very close to Miletus which, as we shall see, was in some ways
the birth-place of Greek philosophy. This possibly explains Herodotus‟ rationalizing
tendencies. Whereas his history-writing predecessors (people whom he describes as
logographoi - roughly translated as a writers of tall tales) all too often accepted legend as
a respectable basis for their histories, Herodotus worked consciously to draw a firm line
between fact and fiction; the mythological past and the true history.
We see this in his treatment of the various legends that depict tensions between „Asians‟
(anyone from places east of Greek territory) and early Greek communities. Mythology
describes the travails of Io: a Greek princess who was seduced by Zeus and, through the
jealousy of Hera, forced to wander the world in the guise of a cow only to end up in
Egypt. Herodotus feels this Io was a flesh and blood Greek princess from Argos who was
kidnapped by Phoenicians and taken to Egypt. Gods had nothing to do with her drama.
The story of Europa, Medea and Helen of Troy can be rationalized in the same way. Gods
played no role in these dramas; instead Greeks snatched Asian women because their
women had been snatched by Asians. In other words, the Persian Wars (the focus of
Herodotus‟ history) were the product of a rivalry that extended into the distant past and
were the latest manifestation of Greek-Asian rivalries.
LYDIANS
Before we embark upon the tensions between Greeks and Persians, we have to discuss an
intermediate population – the Lydians – together with their last king, Croesus.
Lydian territory lay between Ionia (home of the Greeks) and Media (later Persia).
Croesus had conquered a large number of populations in Asia Minor (including the
Ionian communities). He was fantastically wealthy (hence the English expression „rich as
Croesus‟) and rather conceited. According to Herodotus he was visited by Solon of
Athens (while the latter was enduring his self-inflicted exile). Having asked Solon who
was the most blessed man he could think of (and expecting his name to be mentioned)
Croesus was disappointed to learn that the most blessed man was Tellus the Athenian,
followed by Bito and Cleobis of Argos. Why these man and not Croesus? Because their
lives were blessed from start to finish. “Know the end before you judge,” Solon advises
Croesus (a very Greek point of view). Incidentally, statues of Cleobis and Bito have been
unearthed at Delphi, proving that Herodotus was mentioning historic figures.
Instead of dealing harshly with the Greeks, he was interested in their customs and
abilities and ruled them moderately. Then Croesus heard that a king by the name of Cyrus
had taken control of the Median empire northeast of Lydia and was on the march with a
large army. He debated whether he should meet Cyrus in battle. Being of mixed minds,
he did what anyone would do when faced with a difficult problem to solve: he consulted
the Delphic Oracle. Let‟s pause and consider this institution briefly.
DELPHIC ORACLE
The oracle is located in Delphi, on the slopes of Mt. Parnassus. It was dedicated to the
god Apollo and was a site of Panhellenic importance – all Greeks consulted the oracle.
According to legend this oracle originally belonged to Gaia (Earth) and was handed on to
her child Pytho (an enormous snake-like creature). Apollo attacked and killed this
creature and claimed the precinct for himself.
Why was the Oracle so important? Apollo was the god of prophecy (in addition to
archery, light, music and healing). His temple and oracle was open for business ten
months of the year but only for a day each month. If people wanted to reach a decision, to
gain approval for a new law-code (e.g. Lycurgus‟ Great Rhetra), to receive blessings for a
new colony, to know why problems were besetting a city (e.g. plague in the case of the
Oedipus Rex) or, on a more personal level, why one‟s wife was barren, they could
consult the oracle.
On a day when the oracle was open for business, Apollo‟s priestess, the Pythia (named
after Pytho), would be bathed in water from the Castalian Spring (a fair distance from
Delphi). She would descend into the Adytum, a rocky recess beneath Apollo‟s temple.
There she would take a seat on or near a tripod (the symbol of her office). According to
some sources, she would breathe in some fumes (either emanations from the earth itself
or fumes from burning laurel leaves, the laurel being sacred to Apollo). Whether she
breathed these fumes in or not, Apollo would possess her. On hearing a question from a
petitioner, he would speak through the Pythia (she would perhaps be raving by now) and
other priests would write these rantings down, in elegant Greek verse. The answer was
often ambiguous. Receiving the answer to his question, the petitioner would go on his
merry way.
The Delphic Oracle was viewed as a true authority and had a great deal of influence on
the political landscape of ancient Greece. In some ways it was like the Vatican: it
represented the voice of the god on the one hand, but was careful to adjust itself to certain
political realities on the other.
To return to Croesus: the Lydian king consulted the Oracle. Archaeology bears
Herodotus‟ account of Croesus out: votive offerings from the king to the Oracle have
been uncovered. Unfortunately his contributions to the Oracle did not stand him in good
stead. The answer he received from the Pythia was that if he attacked Cyrus, a great
empire would fall. He attacked (546 BCE) and, sure enough, a great empire fell: his own.
Croesus‟ fall meant that his territory now belonged to Cyrus and Persia. This included the
Greek cities in Ionia. Many of these were ruled through local tyrants (all Greeks) who
enforced the Persian king‟s wishes.
IONIAN REBELLION
Flash forward 50 years. Cyrus was gone, as was his successor Cambyses (who extended
Persian rule to Egypt). Darius I succeeded Cambyses. In the early part of his rule, he
succeeded in defeating the Thracians (a population that lived due north of Greece) but did
not invade Greece itself.
And then Aristagoras, the tyrant of Miletus (an Ionian city-state) approached him. He
proposed that the king lend him the use of part of the Persian navy. With it he would
conquer the island of Naxos (a powerful city-state): he himself would become the tyrant
of Naxos (in addition to being tyrant of Miletus); the king would have extended the range
of his rule into the Mediterranean. Darius agreed but attached one Magebates ( a Persian)
to Aristagoras‟ campaign, to keep an eye on the Greek. Megabates was jealous and, in an
effort to sabotage Aristogoras‟ plans, warned the Naxians in advance of his plans and so
ruined his chances of succeeding.
Aware that failure against Naxos could result in his death, Aristagoras decided to become
a freedom fighter. He incited the Ionian city-states to rebel under his authority. The
agreed (499 BCE) and the Ionian Rebellion began.
In the course of this rebellion, Sparta and Athens were visited and asked to assist. The
Spartans said no (because it was across the seas and they were careful where they sent
their troops). Always ready for an adventure, the Athenians said yes. They sent a number
of boats and took part in actions against the Persians. Indeed, Darius felt they had a large
part of play in the burning of Sardis (a rich city and the capital of Lydia‟s empire).
By 494, in spite of Athenian involvement, the Persians prevailed (after setting Miletus to
the torch). Having restored his rule over the Ionians, Darius wished to get even with the
mainland Greeks who supported the Ionians, notably the Athenians. A former Athenian
taking refuge at his court was egging him on – Hippias the former tyrant of Athens.
FIRST PERSIAN WAR
In 490 Darius sent a large navy of 600 ships to crush the Athenians (and other city-states
that had participated in the rebellion). The leaders of the expedition were Datis and
Artaphernes. They sailed across the Aegean and landed at the town of Marathon in
Attica. (This was after they had laid waste to Euboea, an island near Attica).
The Athenians were alarmed when the enemy landed in Attica in such numbers. They
sent word to Sparta, seeking assistance. The Spartans made the right noises but said that
they couldn‟t come right away as they had a religious festival to attend to. While the
Athenians had boxed the Persians in to some degree – the latter couldn‟t leave the plain
of Marathon – there was a fear that the enemy would land somewhere else with its fleet.
Miltiades was a former tyrant of city states in the region of Thrace and a participant in the
Ionian revolt. In the wake of revolt‟s collapse, Miltiades had sought refuge in Athens. He
had been voted in as one of the ten strategoi. He proposed that the Athenians should
attack the Persians. Callimachus the polemarch backed this suggestion. The Athenians,
together with a contingent of Plataeans, marched against the Persians. Their victory was
stunning. 192 Athenians fell (and were buried in a common tomb right near the
battlefield). Some 6400 Persians died. A later tradition describes how Pheidippides ran
from the battlefield to the city, to announce the victory. He died while delivering his
message. And so was born the Marathon.
The battle of Marathon marked the start of Athenian confidence. From this point on
Athenian ambitions will soar. The men who fought the in the battle were called
Marathonomaxoi and had the same reputation that we associate with the Greatest
Generation (i.e. the men who fought in WWII). The poet Aeschylus insisted that his
tombstone be inscribed words to the effect that he fought at Marathon, not that he was
Athens‟ primary dramatist.
PERSIAN WAR II
Marathon ended the first Persian War and caused the Persian fleet to sail home. Darius
wanted a rematch. He made plans for just such an undertaking but, before he could
launch the invasion, he died. His son Xerxes took over.
According to Herodotus Xerxes amassed an enormous force. To count the men he had
10,000 fully armed troops stand together. He built a wall around them, evacuated the
compound then filled it again, knowing it contained roughly 10,000 troops. He filled this
182 times. Then there were the sailors, the logistical staff, concubines etc – over two
million souls. This is an unreasonable number. Modern historians feel it is much closer to
300,000 which would still be a huge invasionary force.
They started marching from Sardis in the spring of 480 BCE and proceeded up the coast
of Asia Minor. The Persian fleet sailed alongside the army. Eventually they reached the
Hellespont (Dardanelles Strait). To cross this body of water, Xerxes had a bridge of boats
constructed at the Bosphorus (a strait that connects the Sea of Marmora and the Black
Sea). The first such bridge was destroyed by the Hellespont, and therefore a second one
was built. Xerxes was reportedly so incensed with the collapse of the first bridge that he
had the body of water beaten – a sign of his arrogance and (according to the Greek
perspective) an upcoming fall.
Once the troops were over the Hellespont, they moved across Thrace then south into
Greece.
The Greek Response
The Greeks caught wind of the invasion a couple of years before it was launched. They
therefore had time to prepare. The relevant points are as follows.
In Athens, the politician Themistocles had come to the fore. He had served as archon in
494 and (possibly) served as a strategos at the Battle of Marathon. In the wake of the first
Persian War he worked hard to transform Athens as a land power into a naval one. He did
this by moving the city‟s harbour from Phalerum (where the fleet was vulnerable) to the
Piraeus which was easily fortified (and which serves to this day as Athens‟ port). In 483 a
rich vein of silver was discovered in the Laureion mines. A debate ensued on how the
money should be spent. One politician insisted it should be disbursed to the public;
Themistocles insisted it be used to build two hundred triremes (or three-benched ships
that require something like 180 rowers, sails being cumbersome at this stage and not
continuously deployed). Themistocles‟ plan was the one the Athenians eventually
embraced.
It is worth noting that Themistocles was from the lower classes. His political support
came from this segment of society as well. His decision to turn Athens into a naval power
wasn‟t based exclusively on military calculations. He realized (too) that a fleet would
require lots of rowers. Rowing equipment was very cheap (unlike the cost of a suit of
armour) and therefore the lower masses could be admitted into the Athenian military with
the development of a fleet. And down the road the rowers would be paid a daily wage to
participate in the fleet. These initiatives were very popular with the lower classes and
therefore guaranteed Themistocles had lots of popular support.
Greek Congress
Understanding that the Persian army could destroy any single state that met it in battle, a
number of Greek city-states did the unthinkable: they entered into an alliance or congress
with each other. Athens and Sparta, being the largest states, were the most influential.
The majority of states did NOT enter this congress however. City-states in northern
Greece (e.g. Thessaly) were too exposed for the congress to defend them. Therefore they
handed over to Persian emissaries samples of local earth and water – a sign that they had
capitulated and were servants of Persia.
The creation of this congress implied that there would (under certain circumstances) be a
coordinated effort on the part those city-states that were intent on resisting the Persians. It
was understood that the Spartans would take charge of any land army.
That being said, the Spartans had a default plan. If push came to shove, they would build
a wall on the isthmus connecting the Peloponnese to the mainland (at its narrowest point).
The idea was they could hold such a position indefinitely with the full force of the
Peloponnesian League behind them (although this defensive position would leave the
Athenians out in the cold).
Thermopylae
Once Xerxes troops were marching south from Thessaly, it was understood these forces
had to be opposed. Athens was more vulnerable than Sparta and needed time to finish
strengthening its fleet. In spite of the fact that Sparta was more secure than Athens, it was
realized that, without a fleet, the Spartans would be vulnerable to forces that the Persians
could ferry to various points on the Peloponnese. Because both the Carneia festival and
Olympic Games were taking place at this time (festivals that prohibited military action),
the Spartans felt they could only put a token force into the field – 300 hoplites under the
command of King Leonidas. As they marched north to Thermopylae, they were joined by
another 5000 – 7000 soldiers.
Why Thermopylae? It was heavily fortified and positioned at the junction point of several
mountains. This meant only three men could pass through the narrows at a time and
would prevent Xerxes from deploying his vast army at once.
The battle lasted approximately ten days (with fighting on just some of them). Leonidas‟
forces are thought to have killed 25,000 Persians, while suffering 2,500 deaths. Finally
the Immortals (Xerxes‟ personal body guard) were led behind the Greek forces by a
Greek traitor named Ephialtes. Surrounded by the enemy, Leonidas dismissed most of the
troops. The Spartans and another 1500 troops remained. Most of them perished.
Although Thermopylae was a defeat, it was a glorious one. It has been commemorated in
the famous lines of Semonides (see handout) and in a number of films.
Artemisium
Due east of Thermopylae is the promontory of Artemisium. At the time of the battle of
Thermopylae the Persians beached their ships here. A storm destroyed some 400 of them.
A sea battle then ensued in which neither side could get the upper hand.
Salamis
After the defeat at Thermopylae, the Spartans were intent on retreating behind a wall on
the Isthmus – this would leave Athens completed exposed. The Athenians, for their part
refused to surrender. They did, however, retreat from their city to the nearby island of
Salamis. The Persians sacked the city but the citizenry were safe.
Xerxes was the duped by Themistocles into sending his heavy ships into the Saronic
Gulf. The lighter, more manoeuvrable triremes wound up sinking many of the Persian
ships with a large loss of life. Salamis was a decisive Greek (and Athenian) victory.
Plataea
This loss spooked Xerxes. He decided to retreat with half his army. The other half was
placed in the hands of his general Mardonius. After wintering in central Greece, these
Persian troops met a huge Greek force in battle in 479 BCE (summer). The Spartans
(under Pausanias) commanded the forces and dealt a severe loss on the Persians. The
army was annihilated.
Mycale
At the same time as Plataea, the Battle of Mycale was fought. The Persians had drawn
their fleet up on the coast of Asia Minor (near the island Samos). A Greek force was in
the area and the two armies clashed (on land). The Persians were defeated and their ships
were burned.
In the wake of Salamis, Plataea and Mycale, the second Persian War came to an end.
There would still be exchanges of violence between the two populations – indeed the
famous Delian League would come into being – but the threat of invasion had passed.
CONSEQUENCES
The Persian War demonstrated (in the minds of the Greeks) that their way of life was
superior to the Persian model, and that their democratic spirit was superior to brutal
monarchy that the Persians lived under. At the same time the wars brought the Greeks
together and caused many of them to stop their internecine wars if only temporarily. Most
important, the wars led to the remarkable growth of Athens, not just as a military and
economic power, but as a cultural one as well. Let us turn our attention to two
manifestations of this cultural growth, drama and philosophy. But first a word on the
symbols of Greek victory.
There is only one surviving Greek drama whose plot is centered around an historical
event: Aeschylus‟ Persae. It casts Xerxes‟ decision to invade Greece as a mark of ate
(delusion) and Xerxes‟ defeat as divine vengeance.
The Persian defeat was also commemorated in various temple friezes. These sculptures
show Amazons being defeated by Greeks, Centaurs being defeated by Lapiths or Greeks
defeating barbarians. All contests symbolize the fight (and victory) of the Greeks over the
Persians.
TERMS
Greeks vs Barbaroi, Herodotus (c. 485), Halicarnassus, Multiculturalism, Rationalism
(Io, Zeus, Hera, Europa, Zeus, Medea, Jason, Helen, Paris), Croesus, Lydia, Ionia,
Medes, Persians, Cyrus (c. 560), Delphic Oracle, Apollo, Gaia, Pytho, prophecy, Pythia,
Castalian spring, adytum, tripod, laurel, Solon, Bito and Cleobis, Darius (521-486),
Thrace (512), Aristogoras (499), Naxos, Megabates, Rebellion (499-494), Sardis burned,
Miletus, 1st Persian War (490), Athens, Eretria, Artaphernes, Datis, Marathon, Miltiades,
Callimachus, Carneia, Olympic Games, Pheidippides, Aeschylus, Marathonomachoi,
Xerxes (486), Themistocles, Phaleron Bay, Piraeus, Triremes, oarsmen, thetes, thalassa,
pontos, diekplous, Hellespont (Bosphorus), bridge, Hellenic Congress, 2nd Persian War
(480), isthmus, Thermopylae, Leonidas, 300 Spartans, Artemisium, Immortals, Athens,
Salamis, Mardonius, Plataea (479), Pausanias, Mycale, Aeschylus‟ Persians, Greek
heroes vs Amazons, Greeks vs Trojans, Lapiths vs Centaurs