Greco-Persian Wars Essay

The Greco-Persian Wars

In the 6th century BCE, the city-states that existed on mainland Greek and the surrounding islands, were threatened by the Persian Empire, who came from the area that is now Iran. As the Persians expanded their empire westwards, they eventually encountered the city-states that existed on the west coast of Asia Minor. These city-states had been trading with the Greek city states for some time, and were eventually conquered by the encroaching Persian expansion in 546 BCE. In 500-499 BCE these Ionian city-states were discontent and sick of Persian rule, and rebelled. They were helped by the naval forces of Athens and Eretria. While the Ionian city states were successful at first, the Persian army eventually crushed the revolt. Persia may have crushed the Ionian revolt, but the Persian King Darius were very upset that the Greek city-states would dare oppose him. This set in motion the wars and battles between the Greeks and Persians that stretched from 490 BCE, with the battle of Marathon to the battle of Salamis and Plataea in 480 BCE.

In 490 BCE, the Persian

army led by King Darius landed in Northern Greece. They immediately laid siege to the city-state of Eretria. The Eretrians made no attempt to stop the Persians from landing or advancing and allowed themselves to be besieged. For six days, the Persians attacked the walls, with losses on both sides; however on the seventh day two reputable Eretrians opened the gates and betrayed the city to the Persians. The city was razed, and temples and shrines were looted and burned. According to Darius's commands, the Persians enslaved all the remaining townspeople.

The Battle of Marathon

The Persian fleet sailed south down the coast of west Greece. They landed in the bay of Marathon roughly 25 miles (40 km) from Athens. The led Athenian general in charge Miltiades was placed in charge as he was considered the most experienced of all the Athenian generals at fighting Persian’s. The Athenian army marched to block the two exits from the plain of Marathon. Stalemate ensued for five days, before the Persians decided to continue onward to Athens, and began to load their troops back onto the ships. After the Persians had loaded their cavalry (their strongest soldiers) on the ships, the 10,000 Athenian soldiers descended from the hills around the plain. The Greeks crushed the weaker Persian foot soldiers by routing the flanks of the Persian formation before turning towards the centre of the Persian line. The remnants of the Persian army fled to their ships and left the battle. Herodotus records that 6,400 Persian bodies were counted on the battlefield; the Athenians losing only 192 men (this may have been an over exaggeration as Herodotus was Greek himself, and had a natural bias towards the Greeks). The Greek army immediately returned to Athens in time to prevent the remaining Persian soldiers from landing in Athens. The Persian General in charge Artaphernes realizing the battle was lost fled with the remaining Persians, back to Asia Minor.
After the failure of the first invasion, King Darius began raising a huge new army which he intended to use to conquer Greece once and for all. However in 486 BCE parts of Egypt revolted postponing his planning of the next Greek invasion. King Darius died while preparing to crush this revolt, and so his son Xerxes I became the next king of the Persian Empire. Xerxes crushed the Egyptian revolt, and immediately resumed preparations for the second invasion of Greece. In 481 BC, after roughly four years of preparation, Xerxes began to muster his troops to invade Greece. Herodotus gives the names of 46 nations from which troops were drafted. 
The Persian army was gathered in Asia Minor in the summer and autumn of 481 BC.

The armies from the Eastern provinces were gathered in Kritala, Cappadocia and were led by Xerxes to Sardis where they passed the winter. Early in spring, it moved to Abydos where it was joined with the armies of the western provinces. Then the army that Xerxes had mustered marched towards Greece, crossing the Hellespont on two pontoon bridges. The numbers of this Persian army range from Herodotus’ unrealistic figure of 2.5 million, to the more realistic number of around 200,000 soldiers that most modern historians agree on. At a central point of mainland Greece, the Isthmus of Corinth, thirty-one city-states meet, in the autumn of 481 and again in the spring of 480 to devise a strategy. It is agreed that they will combine their resources, both military and naval, in a common force under the command of

Sparta.

Major Greek City States
Athens
A year after the battle of marathon Miltiades was prosecuted by the Alcmaeonid family. He died weeks later from his wounds. The politician Themistocles rose to fame through the power vacuum left behind by Miltiades, supporting the expansion of Athens’s navy. In 483 BCE a large seam of silver was found in the mines at Laurium. Themistocles suggested that this silver should be used to build a new fleet of triremes, to assist in a long running war with Aegina. Greek historian Plutarch suggests that Themistocles deliberately avoided mentioning the threat of a future Persian invasion, and that this new fleet was to counter it. His motion was passed, and the new fleet immediately began production. It is not known if the fleet was actually originally 100 ships and that a second vote was made to increase these levels.
Athens at the time of the Greco-Persian wars was entering its golden age. They had founded their own unique system of government; democracy. They also like most other city states used the elite hoplites as the fighting force of their army.
Sparta
The Spartan king Demaratus had been stripped of his kingship in 491 BC, and replaced with his cousin Leotychides. Sometime after 490 BC, the humiliated Demaratus had chosen to go into exile, and had made his way to Darius's court in Susa. Demaratus would from then on act as an advisor to Darius, and later Xerxes, on Greek affairs, and accompanied Xerxes during the second Persian invasion. Sparta was placed in overall command of the Greek forces. Their elite army (the Hippeis) were the main force that helped hold the line against the Persian army in the battle of Thermopylae, and lead to the legend of the 300 Spartans that fought to their deaths.
The Spartans were very different not just from the Persian Empire, but from almost every other city-state. They were extremely militaristic and they had a very regimental population. They had a very large slave population like most other city-states. They were also uniquely ruled by two kings, each from the Agiad and Eurypontid families. Children who had un-desired characteristics were infamously killed by the city elders. Not all inhabitants of the Sparta were considered to be citizens. Only those who had undertaken the Spartan education process known as the agoge were eligible. However, usually the only people eligible to receive the agoge were Spartiates, or people who could trace their ancestry to the original inhabitants of the city. Others in the state were the perioikoi, who were free inhabitants of Spartan territory but were non-citizens, and the helots, the state-owned serfs. Descendants of non-Spartan citizens were not able to follow the agoge and Spartans who could not afford to pay the expenses of the agoge could lose their citizenship. These laws meant that Sparta could not readily replace citizens lost in battle or otherwise and eventually proved near fatal to the life of the state as the number of citizens became greatly outnumbered by the non-citizens and, even more dangerously, the helots. This led to many revolts led by helots.
Greek and Persian armies