The Persian Wars: Greece Unites In Conflict

      The Greeks took longer to recover from the serious political and economic turmoil at the end of the second millennium than their Near Eastern neighbours the Assyrians, Phoenicians, Babylonians, and Egyptians, all of whom quickly began accumulating wealthy and territory. After centuries of great wars, it was the Persians, along with their close neighbours, the Medes, who emerged as the most powerful empire. By the sixth century BCE, the Persians threatened the Greek homeland itself. Somehow,the fiercely independent Greek city-states need to find a way to cooperate to beat back the menace from the est.
      Compared with the huge empires of the Near East, particularly Persia, Greek city-states were tiny. Even a coalition that included every Greek town would only equal a fraction of this eastern power. The fact that the Greek states were weekended by fighting among themselves and rarely agreed on anything long enough to act together, made defense against a mighty empire appear impossible. On the positive side, Greek soldiers were tough, their battle tactics and weapons inferior to none, and when they were finally ready to cooperate, they found good leaders.
      The empire of the Persians and Medes had expanded northward toward the eastern Greek (or Ionian) cities in the early sixth century BCE, but was stopped by the wealthy power of the Lydians in west-central Asia Minor. While the Lydians acted as a buffer, keeping the Medes and Persians away from the Aegean for another 40 years, eventually the  Lydians themselves took over the eastern Greek cities, which were unable to unite even to resist a foreign invader. King Croesus of Lydia, fro example, was famed for his generosity to Greek sanctuaries:

      Croesus now attempted to win the favour of the Delphian Apollo by a magnificent sacrifice, ,,, he melted down an enormous quantity of gold into one hundred and seventeen ingots about eighteen inches long, nin inches wide, and three inches think; four of the ingots were of refined gold weighing approximately a hundred and forth-two pounds each: the rest were alloyed and weighed about a hundred and fourteen pounds. He also caused the image of a line to be made of refined gold, in weight some five hundred and seventy pounds.

Herodotus Histories 1.50-51

      In 559 BCE, a great king and general rose to the throne of Persia -- Cyrus the Great.  Cyrus gained power over the Medes as well, and continued to expand the Persian Empire, which already stretched across Asia in the east to the shores of the Mediterranean in the west. A chance to expand further occurred when Croesus of Lydia decided to attack Cyrus across the old boundary between their eepires bou 546 BCE. We are told that the oracle at Delphi proclaimed that if Croesus crossed the Halys river, he would destroy a might empire. Little did Croesus know that it would be his own!
      The fall of Sardis, capital of Lydia, brought the Ionian Greek states face to face with the "barbarian" Persians. Unable to secure favourable peace terms, the Greeks tried to fight, but again enough to achieve any  success. The Ionian states then surrendered to the Persians and accepted service in the Persian army. When the Greek a revolt among the Ionians in 499 BCE, a cal for only 20 warships from Athens and five from Eretria in 494 BCE ended the revolt. The Persians destroyed the city, killed many of the men, and sent the rest of the population into exile.

The Battle of Marathon

      In 490 BCE, Darius, now King of Persia, sent a fleet with about 20 000 soldiers to punish Athens and Eretria for helping in the Ionian Revolt. After first burning and plundering Eretria, the Persian fleet sailed south to the eastern coast of Attica where a sheltered beach and small plain provided a perfect base for the Persian army. The plain was called Marathon.
      The Athenians sent a professional messenger ("all-day runner") to Sparta, 250 km away, pleading for help. He returned about four days later saying that the Spartans would only come after the full moon, still a week or more away. So the Athenian citizen army of 9000 warriors went alone to Marathon to meet the Persians. Eventually, the only help to arrive was less than a thousand soldiers from Plataea, a close neighbor to the north.
      After much debate, Miltiades, one of the Athenian generals, convinced his fellow commanders to attack, and thus won the Athenians everlasting glory. The Greeks in their heavy armour charged the Persians on the run and cut them down as they fled to their ships. Herodotus says 6400 Persians were killed but only 192 Athenians. Archaeological excavation of the burial mound of the Plataean dead has yielded less than a dozen bodies, including a young boy, perhaps their piper. The Persian threat had been beaten back, but its empire was far from destroyed.

Thermopylae: Greek Cooperation Defeats Persia

      The victory at Marathon provided the mainland Greeks with ten-year break from further Persian attacks. Then in 480 BCE, Xerxes, the Persian king who succeeded Darius, crossed the Hellespont (the narrow strait between the Greek mainland and Asia Minor). Xerxes did this by having win bridges constructed of boats held together by cables made of linen and papyrus as thick as a human torso! Herodotus says that the Persian infantry alone numbered 1.7 million soldiers, and that with the fleet, cavalry, and other contingents and attendants, over common with ancient writers, these figures are no doubt vastly exaggerated -- Xerxes's army probably consisted of about 200 000 soldiers, still an immense force for the time.
      The Greeks had done little to prepare themselves for this latest Persian attack, and many of them intended simply to accept Persian domination without resistance. Athens, at least, had used the money from a rich new strike of silver at its mines near Laurion to build a strong fleet of 200 ships, and gathered with Sparta fro a congress at Corinth to plan the strategic decision was made to defend a narrow pass in central Greece called Thermopylae (the Hot Gates) through which the Persians had to pass.
      A small force of 4000 soldiers led by King Leonidas of Sparta and his bodyguard of 300 was sent to hold the pass until the full Greek army arrives. This small force was backed by the Greek fleet waiting just offshore. The Spartan stand was heroic but a local Greek shepherd betrayed them by showing Xerxes a mountain path around Thermopylae. Leonidas and about a thousand soldiers who refused to escape the Persian trap died fighting bravely. The epitaph at the site where the Spartans died read, "Go tell at Sparta, thou that passest by, that here obedient to her word, we lie." The Persian army poured southward through Boeotia to Athens and took revenge on the city for its defeat at Marathon.

Salamis and Plataea

      The combined Greek fleet of over 300 triremes (fast Greek ships with three levels of rowers) remained at Salamis, a large island just off the coast of Attica to the west of Athens. After much delay, about 600 Perisan ships were enticed into the straits where they were attacked by the swift, well-crewed Greek ships. Xerxes could only watch in despair from his throne set high on a hill above the action. Aeschylus, a Greek playwright who probably fought at Salamis, puts these words into the mouth of a Persian messenger in one of his plays:

First, then, the torrent of our Persian fleet bore up; but when the press of shipping jammed there in the strait, then none could help another, but our ships fouled each other with their rams, and sheared away each other's banks of oars. But the Greek ships, skillfully handled, kept the outer station, and struck in; till hulls rolled over, and the sea itself was hidden, strewn with their wreckage, dyed with blood of men. The dead lay thick on all the reefs and beaches, and flight broke out, all order lost; and all our eastern ships rowed hard to get away. 

Aeschylus The Persians 412-423

      The battle was a severe loss for the Persians. Xerxes himself escaped from Greece but he left behind his army under the general Mardonius. 

      In the new year (479 BCE), Mardonius took up a position on the southern edge of the Boeotian plain near the town of Plataea. Here, the united army of the Greek city-states, led by the Spartans, met the barbarians in all-out battle. The Greeks were victorious. Mardonius was killed, a vast amount of Persian wealthy and luxury goods was captured, and the remnants of the great invasion force hastily retreated from Greece. After Plataea, the Greek navy attacked the Persians again in Asia Minor and freed the Ionian Greeks. 

Writing: ECHOES from the past published by McGraw-Hill Ryderson Ltd.