The Role of Themistocles in the Greek Defeat of the Persians in 480 - 479 BC. At the beginning of the 5th century BC, the Persian Empire extended from modern day India to western Turkey and as far south as Egypt. The Persian ruler, Xerxes, fuelled by his father Darius' past defeats, vowed to extend the empire further west into the lands of Greece though was unsuccessful. His failure is largely attributed to the foresight and strategies of a respectable, wealthy Athenian citizen, Themistocles. Themistocles' strengthening of the Athenian navy and unification of Greek states in the Panhellenic League along with his strategies in the battles of Thermopylae, Artemisium the pivotal Greek naval triumph at Salamis, all contributed to the ultimate defeat of the Persians in 480 - 479BC. During these battles, Themistocles lured the Persian force into narrow, close range battlegrounds suited to the Greek style of hand to hand, close range combat. Themistocles was born to an Athenian aristocrat father and a non-Greek mother in the Lycamidace family without any support from the ruling class. By 493 BC, age of 35, he had secured the supreme post of the nine archons as Archon Eponymous. According to Bradley, it was as an archon that Themistocles began the fortification and improvement of the new Piraeus whose three natural harbours would be more efficient than the open bay at Phalerum. Bradley also identifies how Themistocles persuaded the Athenian assembly to use the surplus wealth generated from the recently discovered silver mines at Larium to build more trireme ships to expand the Athenian navy. According to Herodotus, 200 trireme ships w... ... middle of paper ... ...o knew the Persians would be eager to secure a victory at Salamis to avoid the fast approaching winter. It is clear then, the Greek strategist and archon Themistocles played a vital role in the defeat of the Persian army in 480-479 BC. His improvement of the Greek harbour of Piraeus, vision of the Athenian navy as the future of Athenian battles and unification of Greek states in the Panhellenic League combined with his strategies and foresight in the battles of Thermopylae, Artemisium and most importantly the Greek naval triumph at Salamis, were all part of his vital role in defeating the Persian force. His tactic of fake tyranny in the battle of Salamis also played a vital role in splitting the Persian army into two sections luring of the reduced fleet into the narrow straights where the Greek fleet was waiting.
In early fifth century BC Greece, the Greeks consistently suffered from the threat of being conquered by the Persian Empire. Between the years 500-479 BC, the Greeks and the Persians fought two wars. Although the Persian power vastly surpassed the Greeks, the Greeks unexpectedly triumphed. In this Goliath versus David scenario, the Greeks as the underdog, defeated the Persians due to their heroic action, divine support, and Greek unity. The threat of the Persian Empire's expansion into Greece and the imminent possibility that they would lose their freedom and become subservient to the Persians, so horrified the Greeks that they united together and risked their lives in order to preserve the one thing they all shared in common, their "Greekness".
Throughout history, many great figures possessing extraordinary qualities have reshaped the past and have manipulated historical events. Such an example is Themistocles. Themistocles, thriving from 524-459 BCE, was an Athenian politician who was renowned by many as a great leader who obtained intellect, courage and integrity. Also known as being the saviour of Greece, the profound individual believed that the entirety of the human political experience could be reduced to symmetry and order. In order to unleash his true potential, though, he was forced to relocate from the remoteness of eastern Africa into the city, marrying the daughter of Lysander of Alopeke. Thus, it can be stated that Themistocles was a profound politician who possessed
Themistocles, an Athenian statesman, general, politician and naval tactician. He was crucial to the Greek’s victory in the Persian Wars, and was one of the central persons that lead to Greece’s survival. (Burn, 2016) (Cartwright, 2016) His contribution towards Greece was more than that of any other individual, however, there are others that had a significance throughout the Persian wars.
Works Cited Robinson, C.E. (2007). Hellas – A Short History of Ancient Greece. Pantheon Books Bury, J. B.; Russell Meiggs (2000). A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great Lazenby, JF. The Defence of Greece 490–479 BC.
If Athens and Melos went to battle against each other, the gods, if they favored anyone, would favor Athens. We have now examined Thucydides' strongest arguments for Athenian rule. It is clear that Athens had a stronger claim to rule than the Melians had to remain sovereign. We also know that Athens' claims hold up when we examine them for validity. Thucydides beliefs in Athens' claims were therefore well founded.
In the sixth century B.C, the land that we now call Iran was the center of the largest empire in the world. The kings of Ancient Persia( such as Cyrus the Great) were the leaders of a great civilization that made amazing advances in laws, goverment and communication. Founded in 550 B.C by King Cyrus the Great, the Persian Empire spanned from Egypt in the west to Turkey in the north, and through Mesopotamia to the Indus River in the east. Unlike most empires at that time, the Persian kings were benovelent rulers, and allowed a diverse variety of diffrent people with diffrent ethnic backgrounds. The Persian empire was split into three diffrent empires with three diffrent time periods but the first empire was called the Achaemenid Empire. It began with King Cyrus the Great and ended with King Darius III.
Herodotus was an interesting historian. His way of displaying a historical event such as the Persian War is different from how I expect a modern day historian to write it. He does not try to focus only on the Persian war but he goes into detail some times of the lineage of the rulers of the city-states even though that serves little relevance to the actual war. The accounts of history I am used to reading are more focused on the bigger issue and the historians do not deviate on long trains of side thoughts such as Herodotus does. Herodotus style of writing had me confused because he often would start on one topic and in the next couple of sentences move on to another topic before coming back to his main point about a paragraph down. I had to
Themistocles was a man like any other man in ancient Greece, power hungry, strong, and a lover of life. Themistocles was a powerful general and politician who fought in the battles of Marathon, Thermopylae, and Salamis. Themistocles showed true leadership during his lifetime. He was from Ancient Athens, Greece, and lived from “524 BC to 459 BC” . He was born in Athens, Greece and finally ended up dying in Persia, the country that he defeated years earlier. Interestingly enough he only ended up in Persia because he was ostracized by his own people. But before I give too much away, let’s start at the very beginning.
Greece and Persia are two of the four great empires that rose to the top rapidly. Both empires have well organized political systems that greatly influenced the way later governments were structured in the United States and Europe. Greece and Persia empire’s structures weighed greatly on their development and growth, but the diverse topographies of Greece and Persia also made a vast impact. These features affected the cultures and even how the political government changed overtime.
While the army reached Thermopylae intact, the fleet suffered at the hand of two storms, with Herodotus attributing them to God attempting to equalize the opposing forces . The disparity between the size of the Persian and the size of the Greek forces was huge – thus, the Greeks’ strategy relied on geography . Holding the narrows at Thermopylae and the concurrent straits of Artemisium meant that Xerxes’ numerical superiority was reduced. It was here, on land and sea, that Greece showcased the superiority of it...
In the years following the Persian Wars in 479 B.C., Athens had come out on top being the most dominantly powerful of any Greek city with a navy that had superior strength that increased day by day. The Athenians “ruled with heavy-handed, even brutal force as well as with reason” (Kagan 2). This was due largely to the fact that Athens had a stable and effective government, which only increased their advantage in proving themselv...
The Greeks were able to continue living the way they had done so. Themistocles, though, let his ambitions overpower him. This then resulted in a rage of the assembly. He was banned from Greece and forced to flee to the country he once had fought, Persia. There he became a Persian, being able to speak Greece and also serving as one of the administrators for the Persian king. The Persian war has a significant importance because if they would have lost this war then the values that we know even till today would have been lost. They extraordinary values gave us what is known to be the Classical
Kaltsas, Nikos E. Athens-Sparta. New York, NY: Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation (USA) in Collaboration with the National Archaeological Museum, Athens, 2006. Print.
Herodotus. “Greece Saved from Persian Conquest.” Readings in Ancient History. Eds. Nels M. Bailkey and Richard Lim. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002.
In the year approximately 500 B.C., the Greek civilization came upon a time of peace. Because of the tranquil times, the civilization’s society had more time to focus on writing, math, astronomy, and artistic fields, as well as trade and metallurgy. Out of all the city-states of Greece, two excelled over all the rest, Sparta and Athens. Even though they were the most advanced and strong civilizations, they were bitter enemies. While Athens focused mainly on the people’s democracy and citizen rights, Sparta were ferocious and enslaved its original inhabitants, making them unable to leave