Download The Persian Wars

The Persian Wars
• Wars between Greeks and
Persians in 5th century BC
• Roughly from 492 – 448 BC
• Two main invasions of Greece by
Achaemenid kings of Persia
• Herodotus – primary historian
Map pf Persian Empire
Battle of Marathon
• Ionian revolt and other battles
• 490 BC - Darius I “The Great” sent about
25,000 men to plains of Marathon
• Darius preceded by Cyrus the Great and
Cambyses
• 10,000 Athenians and Plataeans under
Callinachus and Miltiades
• First victory for Greeks
Battle at Thermopylae
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480 BC
Xerxes – King of Persia, son of Darius I
70,000 Persians bridged the Hellespont
10,000 “Immortals”
Themistocles led navy at Athens
Athens and Sparta form alliance
Decide to defend at Thermopylae
Leonidas I and 300 Spartans and 1000 Boetians
Map of Thermopylae invasion
Battle of Salamis, also 480 BC
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Athens evacuated after Thermopylae
Athens burned
Navy waiting around island Salamis
Themistocles’ ruse
Confined waters around Salamis
Egyptians, Phoenecians, Ionian Greeks
40 Greek ships lost, 200 Persian ships lost
Queen Artemisia of Halicarnassus
Map of Battle of Salamis
Battle of Plataea, 479 BC
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Xerxes I had left a land army under Mardonius
Spartans and Athenians rode up
Met at isthmus of Corinth
Mardonius fled
The Delian League, 478 BC
• Ionian city-states joined for mutual protection
• Treasuary on island of Delos, Aristides leads
Athens
• Athens in charge due to naval supremacy
• Pericles leads Athens during Golden Age
• Parthenon, Long Walls built
• Sparta captures Athens in 404 BC
Peloponnesian Wars
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Begins in 431 BC between Athens and Sparta
429 BC – Pericles dies of plague
Three stage war
Most of Delian League sided with Sparta
404 BC – Sparta wins war with defeat of Athenian
navy at Aegospotami by Lysander with help from
Persia
• Lysander installs 30 rulers at Athens, later known
as the “30 Tyrants”
The Thirty Tyrants
• Spartan hegemony
• Long Walls destroyed
• Athenian oligarchy appointed by Sparta led by
Critias
• Leading democrats exiled
• Council of 500 were the judiciary
• Only 3000 Athenian had citizenship
• Many sentenced to hemlock
End of Thirty Tyrants
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Other city-states helped exiled democrats
Retook Piraeus by force
Sparta did not come to help
Democracy restored in 403 BC
Rise of Macedonia
• Philip II