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The Persian Wars
Hooker, Richard. “The Persian Wars.” 1996. Web. August 14, 2008.
http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/GREECE/PERSIAN.HTM
Like the Trojan War, the Persian Wars were a defining moment in Greek history. The Athenians,
who would dominate Greece culturally and politically through the fifth century BCE and through
part of the fourth, regarded the wars against Persia as their greatest and most characteristic
moment. For all their importance, though, the Persian Wars began inauspiciously [badly and/or
insignificantly]. In the middle of the sixth century BCE, the Greek city-states along the coast of
Asia Minor came under the control of the Lydians and their king, Croesus (r. 560-546 BCE).
However, when the Persians conquered the Lydians in 546 BCE, all the states subject to the
Lydians became subject to the Persians. The Persians controlled their new subject-states very
closely; they appointed individuals to rule the states as tyrants. They also required citizens to
serve in the Persian army and to pay fairly steep taxes. Smarting under these new burdens and
anxious for independence, the tyrant of Miletus, Aristagoras, began a democratic rebellion in 499
BCE. Aristagoras was an opportunist. He had been placed in power by the Persians, but when he
persuaded the Persians to launch a failed expedition against the city-state of Naxos, he began to
fear for his life. So he fomented [encouraged] a popular rebellion against the Persians and went to
the Greek mainland for support. He went first to the Spartans, since they were the most powerful
state in Greece, but the Spartans seem to have seen right through him. When he approached the
Athenians, they promised him twenty ships. In 498 BCE, the Athenians conquered and burned
Sardis, which was the capital of Lydia, and all the Greek cities in Asia Minor joined the revolt.
The Athenians, however, lost interest and went home; by 495 BCE, the Persians, under king
Darius I (r. 521-486 BCE), had restored control over the rebellious Greek cities.
And there it should have ended. But Athens had gotten the attention of the Persians, who desired
that Athens be punished for the role it played in the destruction of Sardis. The Persians also had
Hippias, the tyrant of Athens who had been deposed by Cleisthenes in 508 BCE. So in 490 BCE,
the Persians launched an expedition against Athens. They were met, however, by one of their
former soldiers, Miltiades. He had been an outstanding soldier in the Persian army, but he took to
his heels when he angered Darius. Unlike other Athenians, he knew the Persian army and he
knew its tactics. The two armies, with the Athenians led by Miltiades, met at Marathon in Attica
and the Athenians roundly defeated the invading army. This battle, the battle of Marathon (490
BCE), is perhaps the single most important battle in Greek history. Had the Athenians lost,
Greece would have eventually come under the control of the Persians and all the subsequent
culture and accomplishments of the Greeks would probably not have taken the form they did.
For the Athenians, the battle at Marathon was their greatest achievement. From Marathon
onwards, the Athenians began to think of themselves as the center of Greek culture and Greek
power. This pride, or chauvinism, was the foundation on which much of their cultural
achievements were built. The first great dramas, for instance, were the dramas of Aeschylus; the
principle subject of these dramas is the celebration of Athenian greatness. The great building
projects of the latter half of the fifth century were motivated by the need to display Athenian
wealth, greatness, and power.
The Persians, however, weren't done. For the Persians, Marathon barely registered; the Persians,
after all, controlled almost the entire world: Asia Minor, Lydia, Judah, Mesopotamia, and Egypt.
While Marathon stands as one of the greatest of Greek military accomplishments, it was really
more of an irritation to the Persians. The Persian government, however, was embroiled in
problems of its own, and it wasn't until Xerxes (r. 486-465 BCE) became king, that the Persians
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really got down to business and launched a punitive expedition against Athens. This time the
Persians were determined to get it right. In 481 BCE, Xerxes gathered together an army of some
one hundred fifty thousand men and a navy of six hundred ships; he was determined that the
whole of Greece would be conquered by his army.
The Athenians, however, were prepared. While many Athenians celebrated their victory at
Marathon and thought that the Persians had gone home permanently, the Greek politician,
Themistocles, convinced the Athenians otherwise. So while Persia delayed throughout the 480s,
Themistocles and the Athenians began a navy-building project of epic proportions. Themistocles
convinced the Athenians to invest the profits from a newly discovered silver mine into this
project [rather than distribute the money among the citizens, as was the usual practice]; by 481
BCE, Athens had a navy of two hundred ships.
When Xerxes gathered his army at the Hellespont, the narrow inlet to the Black Sea that separates
Asia Minor from Europe, most Greeks despaired of winning against his powerful army. Of
several hundred Greek city-states, only thirty-one decided to resist the Persian army; these states
were led by Sparta, Corinth, and Athens: the Greek League. Sparta was made leader of all land
and sea operations.
Themistocles, however, understood that the battle would be won or lost at sea; he figured that the
Persian army could only succeed if it were successfully supported by supplies and
communications provided by the fleet. He also understood that the Aegean Sea was a violent
place, subject to dangerous winds and sudden squalls. While he kept the Athenian fleet safe in
harbor, many of Xerxes' boats were destroyed at sea. He also waited his time; if the Persians
could be delayed on land, then he could destroy the Persian fleet when the time was right.
That time came in a sea battle off the island of Salamis. The Greeks had slow, clumsy boats in
comparison with the Persian boats, so they turned their boats into fighting platforms. They filled
their boats with soldiers who would fight with the opposing boats in hand-to-hand combat; it was
a brilliant innovation, and the Athenians managed to destroy the majority of the Persian fleet. The
Persians withdrew their army.
However, one Persian general, Mardonius, remained. He wintered in Greece, but he was met in
479 BCE by the largest Greek army history had ever known. Under the leadership of the Spartan
king, Pausanias, Mardonius was killed in the battle of Plataea, and his army retreated back to
Persia.
It's difficult to assess all the consequences of the Greek victory over the Persians. While the
Spartans were principally responsible for the victory, the Athenian fleet was probably the most
important component of that victory. This victory left Athens with the most powerful fleet in the
Aegean, and since the Persians hadn't been completely defeated, all the Greeks feared a return.
The majority of Greek city-states, however, didn't turn to Sparta; they turned, rather, to Athens
and the Athenian fleet. [This angered Sparta tremendously.] The alliances that Athens would
make following the retreat of the Persians, the so-called Delian League, would suddenly catapult
Athens into the major power of the Greek city-states. This power would make Athens the cultural
center of the Greek world, but it would also spell their downfall as the Spartans grew increasingly
frightened of Athenian power and increasingly suspicious of Athenian intentions.
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