Greco-Persian Wars- the period of the most significant battles in the history of Ancient Greece, which played a large role in the formation of the state. As a result of half a century of military conflict, there was a redistribution of power on the continent: the once powerful Persian power fell into decline, while Ancient Greece entered its period of greatest prosperity.
General characteristics of the period
The Greco-Persian Wars were a protracted military conflict involving two independent states, Greece and Persia, during the reign of the Achaemenids. This was not a single battle, but a series of wars that lasted from 500 to 449 BC. e., and included both land campaigns and sea expeditions.
This historical period of time is called fateful, since the large-scale expansion of Persia to the west could have had great consequences for the entire ancient world.
Rice. 1. Army of Persia.
The main reason for the Greco-Persian wars was the desire Persian kings gain world domination. Possessing a huge army, inexhaustible resources and impressive territory, Persia planned to conquer Greece, thereby gaining free access to the Aegean Sea.
Tired of enduring the oppression of the Persian tyrant Darius I, in 500 BC. e. the inhabitants of Miletus raised an uprising, which quickly found a response in other cities. Large greek cities Eretria and Athens provided assistance to the rebels, but after several victories the Greeks were defeated.
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The enraged Darius vowed not only to take revenge on the Euebians and Athenians, but also to completely subjugate rebellious Greece. Many cities immediately expressed their submission to the Persian king, and only the inhabitants of Sparta and Athens resolutely refused to bow their heads to the despot.
Major battles of the Greco-Persian Wars
The Greco-Persian wars were not constant, and only a few major battles went down in history.
- Battle of Marathon (490 BC) . In 490 BC. e. The Persian flotilla approached Attica from the north, and the army landed near the small settlement of Marathon. Locals They immediately received reinforcements from the Athenians, but the Persians were far outnumbered.
Despite the significant superiority in troops, the Greeks, thanks to the military tactics of the commander Miltiades, were able to win a brilliant victory over the Persian army. This success incredibly inspired the Greeks, who destroyed the stereotype of the invincibility of the Persians.
According to legend, one of the warriors, trying to bring the good news of victory to the Athenians as quickly as possible, ran from Marathon to Athens. Without stopping for a minute, he ran a total of 42 km 195 m. Having notified the people of the defeat of the Persians, he fell lifeless to the ground. Since then in athletics a competition appeared in running this distance, which was called marathon running.
- Battle of Thermopylae (480 BC). The next battle took place only 10 years later. By this time, the Greeks were able to build an impressive fleet thanks to the discovery of a rich silver mine in Attica.
A new campaign in Greece was led by the new king Xerxes. The Persian army was advancing on Hellas from the north by land, and a huge flotilla was heading along the sea coast.
The decisive battle took place at Thermopylae. For two days, the Persians, who far outnumbered the Greek troops under the command of the Spartan king Leonidas, could not break through. However, as a result of the betrayal of one of the Greeks, enemy troops found themselves in the rear.
Leonidas gave the order to everyone to leave the battlefield, and he himself remained with 300 Spartans to die in an unequal battle. Later in memory of heroic act A statue of a lion was erected in the Thermopylae Gorge.
Rice. 2. Battle of Thermopylchus.
- Battle of Salamis (480 BC). After the victory at Thermopylae, the Persian army went to Athens. This time the Greeks had all their hope in a fleet of approximately 400 light and maneuverable ships. The battle in the Salaman Strait was incredibly fierce: the Greeks fought desperately for their freedom, the lives of their wives, children, and parents. Defeat for them meant eternal slavery, and this gave them strength. As a result, the Greeks won a brilliant victory, and Xerxes with the remnants of the fleet retreated to Asia Minor, but part of his army still remained in Greece.
Rice. 3. Ancient Greek fleet.
- Battle of Plataea (479 BC). In 479 BC. e. A major battle took place near the small town of Plataea. The Greek victory in this battle marked the beginning of the final expulsion of the Persians from Greece and the conclusion of peace in 449 BC. e.
The Greco-Persian Wars had great consequences for both states. The unbridled expansion of the Achaemenids was stopped for the first time, and the ancient Greek state entered the era of its highest cultural achievements.
Table “Greco-Persian Wars”
| Event | Date | Head of the Persians | Greek commander | Event value |
| Marathon Battle | 490 BC e. | Darius I | Miltiades | Victory of the Athenians. Destruction of the legend of the invincibility of the Persians |
| Battle of Thermopylae | 480 BC e. | Xerxes | Leonid | Huge losses for the Persians |
| Battle of Salamis | 480 BC e. | Xerxes | Themistocles | Defeat of the Persian fleet |
| Battle of Plataea | 479 BC e. | Xerxes | Pausanias | Final defeat of the Persians |
| Peace with the Persians | 449 BC e. | Restoring the independence of the ancient Greek state |
In Europe, some Greek cities were ready to recognize the government, but the largest and most significant city-states - Athens and Sparta - decided to resist. In 490 BC. e. The Athenian army under the command of the strategist Miltiades defeated the Persian army at Marathon. This victory, firstly, showed the Greeks that the supposedly “invincible” Persian army could still be defeated, and secondly, it prevented a possible capture. The Battle of Marathon, however, was not the end, but only the beginning of the Greco-Persian Wars.
The next, largest clash between the Greek states and the Persian power broke out ten years later. King Xerxes of Persia in 480 BC. e. not only transported a huge army to Greece, but also built a gigantic fleet, quite capable of competing with the combined fleets of all Greek city-states. The Persian king was opposed by an alliance of Hellenic city states, as before, led by Athens and Sparta. The Spartan king Leonidas decided to meet the land army of Xerxes on the narrow isthmus of Thermopylae in central Greece, but the Persians managed to discover a workaround. During the ensuing battle, King Leonidas and all his soldiers (according to legend, there were exactly 300 of them) died, but managed to stop the march of the Persian army. Meanwhile, the strategist Themistocles, who led the defense of Athens, decided to evacuate the city's population, transporting them to the island of Salamis. The Greek fleet was also located here.
The Persian land army captured and burned Athens, but the Persians suffered a crushing defeat at sea. Greeks at the end of September 480 BC. e. almost completely destroyed the enemy fleet at the Battle of Salamis. Seeing the further futility of the struggle, Xerxes ordered his army to retreat.
Last major battle in the history of the Greco-Persian Wars was the Battle of Plataea in 479 BC. e. The Persian army under the command of Mardonius was completely defeated by the united Greek army, led by the Spartan Pausanias. The Greco-Persian Wars finally ended in 449 BC. e. the signing of the so-called Callian peace (named after the Athenian ambassador who concluded the peace agreement). According to its terms, from now on she no longer had the right to send her ships to the Aegean Sea and keep ground forces closer than in three days routes from the western coast of Asia Minor. Athens undertook to withdraw its troops from those Greek cities whose inhabitants were recognized as subjects of the Persian rulers. From that moment on, the Persians tried to interfere in Greek affairs only secretly, with money and weapons, supporting the Hellenic city-states allied to the Persian power.
In the middle of the 1st millennium BC. e. Hellas (Greece) begins to play an increasingly prominent role in the history of the Eastern Mediterranean. By this time, the Greeks, despite the preservation of tribal divisions and peculiarities in language and way of life, represented an established nationality. The far-reaching process of property stratification, the growth of private property and the formation of classes undermined the old, clan organization. Its place is taken by the state, the specific form of which for ancient Greece there was a polis - an ancient city-state.
The polis was a civil community, membership of which gave its individual members the right of ownership to the main means of production of that time - land. However, not the entire population living on the territory of a particular policy was part of the community and enjoyed civil rights. Slaves were deprived of all rights; in addition, in each policy there were various categories personally free, but not full-fledged population, for example, immigrants from other policies, foreigners. Slaves and minors usually represented the majority of the population of the polis, and citizens were a privileged minority. But this is a minority, having completeness political power, used it to exploit and oppress slaves and other categories of dependent or disadvantaged population. In some policies, only the upper strata of citizens enjoyed political predominance (aristocratic policy), in others - more wide circle citizens (democratic polis). But both policies were slaveholding.
Greece on the eve of the Greco-Persian Wars
In ancient times, Hellas was a sum of independent and self-governing city-states, which, due to the historical situation, either entered into an alliance with each other, or, on the contrary, were at enmity with each other. A number of large Greek city-states arose on the coast of Asia Minor (Miletus, Ephesus, Halicarnassus, etc.). They early turned into rich trade and craft centers. In the second half of the 6th century. BC e. all the Greek cities of the Asia Minor coast fell under Persian rule.
Large Greek city-states also arose on the islands of the archipelago and on the territory of Balkan Greece itself. During greatest development Greek colonization (VIII-VI centuries BC) the framework of the Hellenic world expanded widely. The successful advance of the Greeks in the northeast direction leads to the emergence of a number of policies on the southern (Sinoda, Trebizond), and then on the northern (Olbia, Chersonesus, Panticapaeum, Feodosia) and eastern (Dioscurias, Fasis) coast of the Black Sea. Greek colonization is developing even more intensively in westward. The number of Greek colonies in southern Italy and Sicily was so large that this area was still in the 6th century. received the name "Magna Graecia".
The entire coast of the Gulf of Tarentum is surrounded by a ring of rich and flourishing cities (Tarentum, Sybaris, Croton, etc.), then the Greeks penetrate deep into southern Italy (Naples) and into the eastern part of Sicily (Syracuse, Messana, etc.). The city-states of Magna Graecia became an increasingly prominent political force in the complex international struggle that unfolded in the 6th-5th centuries. BC e. in the Western Mediterranean basin.
However, the center of development of this vast and widespread Greek world by the beginning of the 5th century. BC e. is Balkan Peninsula, the territory of Greece proper. Here, by this time, the two most significant city-states stood out - Sparta and Athens. The development paths of these states were different. The Spartan community was agrarian, agricultural in nature; trade and monetary relations were poorly developed here. Land divided into approximately equal plots (clairs) and in use individual families Spartiates, was considered the property of the community, the state as a whole, and an individual Spartiate could own it only as a member of the community. These lands were cultivated by the labor of a population without rights, dependent and attached to the clergy - the helots. Unlike the usual type of slavery in Greece, helots did not belong to individual Spartiates, but were considered the property of the community as a whole. In Sparta, there was also a special category of disadvantaged population - perieki (“living around”, i.e. not on the territory of the city of Sparta itself). Their situation was less difficult. They owned property and land on a private basis and were engaged not only in agriculture, but also in crafts and trade. Wealthy Perieci owned slaves.
Athens was a different type of slave city-state. The intensive growth of the productive forces of Athenian society, associated with the development of crafts and maritime trade, led to the relatively early disintegration of the community. In Athens, as a result of the struggle that unfolded between broad sections of the population (demos) and the tribal aristocracy (eupatrides), a slave state emerged, which received a rather complex social structure.
The free population of Athens was divided into a class of large slave-owning landowners and a class of free producers. The first of them should include, in addition to the eupatrids, representatives of the new trading and monetary nobility, the second - broad layers of the demos, i.e. peasants and artisans. There was another division of the free part of the Athenian population: into those who enjoyed political rights and those without full rights - into citizens and meteks (foreigners living in the territory of Athens). Below everyone on the social ladder were those absolutely deprived civil rights and personal freedom of the slave.
The government systems of Athens and Sparta also had significant differences. Sparta was a typical oligarchic republic. At the head of the community were two kings, but their power was severely limited by the council of elders (gerusia) - the body of the Spartan nobility - and the college of ephors, who played a major role in political life. Although the People's Assembly (apella) was formally considered the supreme body of power, in fact of great importance didn't have.
In Athens, as a result of transformations carried out in the 6th century. Solon and Cleisthenes established a system of slave-holding democracy. The political dominance of the clan nobility was broken. Instead of the previous tribal phyla, territorial phyla appeared, subdivided into padems. The role of the Athenian people's assembly (zkklesia) grew more and more. The main government positions were elected. The elected “council of five hundred” (bule) gradually pushed into the background the stronghold of the tribal nobility - the Areopagus, although the latter at the beginning of the 5th century. still represented a certain political force. A democratic body was created as a jury (heliea), the composition of which was replenished by drawing lots from among all full-fledged citizens. The economic and political system of the Greek states determined the nature of their military organization. In Sparta, a unique way of life and a system of militarized education, based on the institutions attributed to the legendary legislator Lycurgus, contributed to the creation of a strong and experienced army (Spartan infantry). Sparta subjugated Kynuria and Messenia and headed the Peloponnesian League, which included the Arcadian cities, Elis, and then Corinth, Megara and the island of Aegina. Athens, as a trading and maritime state, developed mainly shipbuilding. By the beginning of the 5th century. The Athenian fleet, especially the military one, was still small. However, everything economic development The Athenian state, and then the military threat hanging over it, pushed the Athenians onto the path of intensive fleet construction. Since service in the navy was mainly the lot of the poorest citizens, the growth of the Athenian fleet was closely connected with the further democratization of the political system, and the lower command staff and rowers of the fleet were the support of slave-owning democracy. Soon the question of the importance of the fleet for the Athenian state arose in full force. This happened in connection with the Persian attack on Greece.
The beginning of the Greco-Persian wars. Campaigns of Darius I in Balkan Greece
After suppressing the uprising of the Greek cities of Asia Minor, the Persians ruling circles They decided to use the fact that the Athenians provided assistance to the rebels as a pretext for war against the European Greeks. The Persians, as already mentioned, understood that they could strengthen their possessions in Asia Minor only after conquering mainland Greece. Therefore, in the summer of 492, under the command of Darius's son-in-law, Mardonius, the first land-sea campaign was undertaken along the Thracian coast to Balkan Greece. As Mardonius' forces approached the Chalkidiki peninsula, his fleet was caught in a storm off Cape Athos, during which up to 300 ships and their crews were lost. After this, Mardonius, leaving garrisons on the Thracian coast, was forced to turn back. In 490 BC. e. The Persians launched a second campaign against Greece. Persian troops crossed the Aegean Sea by ship, devastated the island of Naxos and the city of Eretria on Euboea along the way, and then landed on the Attica coast near Marathon. The danger of a Persian invasion loomed over Athens. Their appeal to Sparta for help did not produce the expected result: Sparta chose to take a wait-and-see approach. The Athenians themselves could field only 10 thousand heavily armed soldiers; about a thousand soldiers sent to their aid Plata, a small Boeotian city located near the border with Attica. We do not have reliable data on the number of Persians who landed at Marathon, but one can think that there were at least no fewer of them than the Greeks. At the council of Athenian strategists, it was decided to meet the enemy and give him battle at Marathon. This decision was determined not only by military, but also by political considerations. There were many aristocrats in the city, as well as supporters political regime, which existed in Athens under the tyrant Pisistratus and his sons. When enemies approached the city, they could go over to the side of the Persians. Command over the army that marched to Marathon was entrusted to strategists, including Miltiades, the ruler of Thracian Chersonesus who fled from the Persians, to whom the military techniques of the Persians were well familiar.
The Battle of Marathon took place in 490 BC. e. and culminated in the complete victory of the Athenians and their Plataean allies. The Persians could not withstand the attack of the closed formation of heavily armed Greek soldiers, were overthrown and put to flight. Herodotus says that they left up to 6,400 corpses on the battlefield, while the Greeks lost only 192 people killed. This victory, won by the citizens of the Greek polis, inspired by patriotic feelings, over the troops of the strongest power of that time, made a huge impression on all Greeks. Those of the Greek cities that had previously submitted to Darius again declared themselves independent. Almost simultaneously, unrest arose in Babylonia, and uprisings even broke out in Egypt and distant Nubia.
But the Persians did not think of abandoning their plan to conquer Greece. However, in 486 Darius died, and court unrest began due to the transfer of power to new hands. Therefore, only 10 years after the Battle of Marathon, Darius’s successor, King Xerxes, was able to launch a new big campaign against the Greeks.
The Greeks made poor use of the ten-year break to prepare for the resumption of war. The only exception in this regard was Athens. Here at this time there was an acute political struggle between aristocratic and democratic factions. The democratic group was led by Themistocles, one of the most courageous, energetic and far-sighted figures of this time. According to the Greek historian Thucydides, Themistocles, like no one else, had the ability to foresee “the best or worst outcome of an enterprise, hidden in the darkness of the future,” and was able in all cases to “instantly invent an appropriate plan of action.” Themistocles’ group, along with merchants and wealthy artisans, also included broader sections of the civilian population of Athens, who shared the so-called naval program he put forward - a broad plan for strengthening the naval power of Athens and building a new fleet. Their opponents, led by Aristide, found support among large landowners. In the end, the naval program was adopted by the people's assembly. Carrying out this program, the Athenians built about 150 warships (gprier) using income from the Daurian mines, previously distributed among citizens. After this, the Athenian fleet became the strongest in Greece.
Campaign of Xerxes
Military operations resumed in the spring of 480. A huge fleet and land army, consisting of both the Persians themselves and detachments fielded by the conquered peoples who were part of the Achaemenid power, moved, led by Xerxes himself, through the Hellespont along the Thracian coast along the route of Mardonius’s first campaign to Balkan Greece. The Greek city-states, who decided to resist, entered into a defensive alliance, headed by Sparta, as the state that had the strongest ground army. On the border between Northern and Central Greece, small Allied forces occupied the narrow Thermopylae pass, which was convenient for defense. Xerxes' troops attacked the defenders of Thermopylae many times, trying in vain to break through the defenses. But among the Greeks, there was a traitor who showed the enemies a bypass mountain path)". Along this path, a detachment of Persians went to the rear of the defenders of Thermopylae. When the Spartan king Leonidas, who commanded the allied forces, became aware of this, he ordered his troops to retreat, but he himself A detachment of 300 Spartan soldiers remained in Thermopylae. Surrounded on all sides by enemies, the Spartans fought to the last man. Subsequently, a monument was erected on the grave of Leonidas and his soldiers with the inscription:
Traveler, go and tell our citizens in Lacedaemono that, keeping their covenants, here we died in bones.
Having broken through Thermopylae, the Persians poured into Central Greece. Almost all the Boeotian cities, in which the Persophile-minded aristocracy was strong, hastened to submit to Xerxes. Attica was devastated, Athens was plundered. The Athenians evacuated children, women and the elderly to the Peloponnese and nearby islands; however, men capable of carrying weapons moved to the decks of warships. The Greek ground forces strengthened on the Isthmus of Corinth. The fleet that fought at Cape Artemisia (in the north of Euboea), in which more than half of the ships belonged to the Athenians, retreated to the Saronic Gulf.
The turning point in the war was the famous naval battle off the island of Salamis (480 BC). Having divided their fleet, the Persians attacked the enemy from two sides at once. The Greek ships moved towards them. In the narrow strait between the shores of Attica and Salamis, the Persians were unable to use their numerical superiority. With a rapid onslaught, the Greeks upset the battle formation of their ships, which were larger in size than the Greek ones and less capable of maneuvering; in the cramped conditions, the Persian ships collided and sank each other. By nightfall the Persian fleet was defeated.
The victory at Salamis was primarily the merit of the Athenians, led by the strategist Themistocles. The defeat that the Persians suffered here was a heavy blow for them. Although they still had a large and fully combat-ready ground army, its connection with the rear could easily be interrupted. In addition, the news of a major defeat of the Persian fleet threatened to cause unrest within the Persian state itself, primarily in Ionia. Therefore, Xerxes decided to return to Asia, leaving in Greece part of the army under the command of Mardonius. The following year, 479, Mardonius, who had wintered with his troops in Thessaly, returned to Central Greece and approached the Isthmian Isthmus. The combined forces of the Greek allies under the command of the Spartan Pausanias settled near Plataea. In the battle that took place here soon after, Mardonius’ troops were completely defeated and he himself was killed. In the same 479, the Greek fleet, led by the Athenian strategist Xanthippus and the Spartan king Leotychides, won a brilliant victory over the Persians in the battle of Cape Mycale (the coast of Asia Minor).
The end of the war and its historical significance
After Salamis and Plataea, the war was not over yet, but its nature had changed radically. The threat of enemy invasion ceased to weigh heavily on Balkan Greece, and the initiative passed to the Greeks. In the cities of the western coast of Asia Minor, uprisings against the Persians began; the population overthrew the rulers installed by the Persians, and soon all of Ionia regained its independence.
In 467, the Greeks dealt another blow to the military forces of the Persian state in a battle at the mouth of the Eurymedon River (on the southern coast of Asia Minor). Military operations, either calming down or resuming again, continued until 449, when in the battle near the city of Salamis on the island of Cyprus the Greeks won a new brilliant victory over the Persians. This battle of Salamis is considered the last battle in the Greco-Persian wars; in the same year, as some Greek authors report, the so-called Callian peace (named after the Athenian commissioner) was concluded between both sides, under the terms of which the Persians recognized the independence of the Greek cities of Asia Minor.
The main reason for the victory of the Greeks over the Persians in this historical clash was that they fought for their freedom and independence, while the troops of the Persian state consisted largely of forced soldiers who were not interested in the outcome of the war. Of utmost importance was the fact that the economic and social life Greece reached this time relatively high level development, while the Persian power, which forcibly included many tribes and nationalities, hindered the normal development of their productive forces.
The victory of the Greeks in the clash with the Persians not only ensured the freedom and independence of Greek cities, but also opened up broad prospects for further unhindered development. This victory was thus one of the prerequisites for the subsequent flourishing of the Greek economy and culture.
Greece is known to everyone as one of the most developed ancient states. Its inhabitants had to participate in many conflicts with other empires, but the largest among them are considered to be Greco-Persian wars described by Herodotus in his work “History”. What caused the clash between the two strongest powers of that time? How did events develop? All this and much more interesting facts you can find out right now!
Greco-Persian Wars. 499-493 BC e. Ionian revolt
Photo: obm.interfile.site.ruOne of the most common causes of war is the uprising of oppressed peoples dissatisfied with their situation: high taxes and neglect from the rulers of the empire force ordinary citizens to rebel. They are often supported by all kinds of military units and senior officials.
But the Greco-Persian wars did not simply begin because of an uprising by disgruntled citizens. Here the rulers had a hand, or as they were called at that time - tyrants, who were in fact Persian henchmen. First of all, this is the current head of Miletus - Aristagoras, who quarreled with the closest associates of the Persian Emperor Darius during the unsuccessful campaign against Naxos. Hestia, his cousin, who was in “honorable imprisonment” in the ruler’s palace, also contributed.
Aristagoras feared that the failed campaign would significantly affect his position. The tyrant gathers a military council, where a decision is made to start an uprising against the rule of the Persians. The seeds of war fell into fertile soil: the Ionian Greeks had long been dissatisfied with the huge taxes. The fact that he resigned as a tyrant and proclaimed Miletus a democratic republic also played in Aristogora's favor.
The leader of the rebels was not stupid: he understood that without allies his cause was doomed to failure. In search of comrades-in-arms, he goes to Greece. In Sparta, he receives a categorical refusal: King Cleomenes could not be won over to his side either by bribery or by the promise of rich profit. But the Athenians and Erythrians decided to help the rebels and allocated 25 ships.
Photo: otvet.mail.ru So, the Greco-Persian wars began with the destruction of the richest city in Persia - Sardis. Darius's troops, at that moment moving at full speed towards Miletus, were forced to change the direction of the offensive. There were no longer any rebels in Sardis, but the imperial army managed to overtake them near nearby Ephesus. In the ensuing battle, the rebels suffered a crushing defeat and lost a strategically important ally: the Athenians left the camp and went home. But Darius harbored a grudge against them, which largely became the reason for the continuation of the Greco-Persian wars.
Rebellions against imperial power broke out like wildfire in one city after another. But the Persians were inexorable: successively conquering Cyprus, Propontis, Hellespont, Caria and, finally, Ionia, they brutally dealt with the rebels and eliminated all sources of discontent. Miletus was the last to fall in the Battle of Lada, where, in fact, thoughts about liberation from the oppression of the emperor came from. But this event did not mark the end of the war. Vice versa. The most interesting things were just beginning...
Greco-Persian Wars. 492-490 BC e. Campaigns of Darius I
Photo: pinme.ru The Persian emperor was never able to forgive the Greeks for their participation in the Ionian uprising. The time has come for the inhabitants of the city-policies to defend their freedom - in 492, the army of Darius I crossed the borders of Persia and headed towards Hellas.
The first campaign was more of an expeditionary nature: the king wanted to know the strong and weaknesses your opponent. Nevertheless, it was not without the capture and destruction of cities: the Persian army, commanded by Darius’s comrade-in-arms Mardonius, conquered 13 Greek city-states, including Enos and Mirkin. He managed to capture Thrace and Macedonia, forcing Alexander the Great into an alliance with the Persians, but after an attack on the island of Thassos, the commander’s luck turned away: the fleet at Cape Athos was overtaken by a storm, as if Poseidon himself, heeding the prayers of the Greeks, sent misfortune to their opponents. The land army was defeated by the Brigs, a warlike tribe living in the area.
Mardonius himself was wounded in battle and fell out of favor. The king of the Persians, having made up for his losses, again gathered an army in 490 and sent it to Greece. This time he has two commanders: the Lydian Artaphernes leads the Persians on the sea, and the Mede Datis leads the Persians on land.
Soldiers sweep through Naxos like a hurricane, punishing the inhabitants for the recently raised uprising, besiege Eritrea and after 6 long months enter the city, set it on fire and plunder it, avenging the devastated Sardis. And they rush to Attica, crossing the Euripus Strait.
Greco-Persian Wars. 490 BC e. Marathon Battle
Photo: godsbay.ru 490 BC: Athens is in great danger. The Persians, having dealt with the uprisings in their own territories, began to attack their allies. A large army gathered on the Marathon plain, threatening the freedom of the Hellenes.
The location was not chosen by chance: the Persian cavalry, as the main striking force, could operate as efficiently as possible in such conditions. The Athenians, having asked for help from their allies (of which, however, only the inhabitants of Plataea decided to help; the Spartans, citing a divine holiday, did not appear on the battlefield), also settled down near Marathon.
Of course, it was possible to hide behind the city walls, but the fortifications of Athens were not very reliable. And the Hellenes were afraid of betrayal, like what happened in Eritrea, where the eminent citizens Philagrus and Euphorbus opened the gates of the city to the Persians.
The Athenians took a rather advantageous position: the height of Pentelikon, blocking the passage to the city. The question arose about further strategy. The opinion of the members of the military council, headed by Callimachus, was divided. But the most gifted and talented strategist, Miltiades, managed to convince everyone to go on the offensive. Tactics further actions was developed by him.
Photo: wallpaper.feodosia.net The Persians decided to avoid battle and moved towards the ships, intending to leave the Marathon field and land near Athens in the town of Falera. But after half of the armed Persian soldiers had already boarded the ships, the combined forces of the Greeks dealt a crushing blow: during the battle that took place in 490 BC. e., on September 12, about 6,400 Persians and only 192 Hellenes were killed.
The Persians set out to attack Athens, which seemed unprotected. But Maltiades sent a messenger, who, according to legend, ran 42 kilometers and 195 meters without stopping to report a grandiose victory and warn the city residents about a possible attack. This distance is currently included in the program Olympic Games, that’s what they call a marathon.
The commander himself and his army also quickly reached the city. The Persians, making sure that Athens was well protected, were forced to return to their homeland. Darius's punitive campaign failed. And a further attack on the Greeks remained just plans: a much more dangerous rebellion was brewing in Egypt.
Greco-Persian Wars. 480-479 BC e. Campaign of Xerxes
Photo: pozdravimov.ru Darius I died without taking revenge on the Greek offenders. But his successor Xerxes was not satisfied with this state of affairs. The suppression of the Egyptian uprising did not exhaust the enormous resources of Persia, which was at the peak of its power: it was decided to continue what Darius had started and capture rebellious Greece. Xerxes began to gather armies of conquered peoples under his banners.
But the Greeks also did not sit idle. On the initiative of the far-sighted politician Themistocles, the Athenians create a powerful fleet, and also hold a congress, where representatives of 30 Greek city-states are present. At this event, the Hellenes agree to act together against a common enemy. The army assembled by the Greeks is indeed very powerful: the well-armed Athenian fleet, which also includes ships sent by Aegina and Corinth, under the command of Eurybiades, a native of Sparta, is a formidable force at sea, and its warlike brethren, with the support of its allies, must resist the enemy's ground forces.
The Greeks had to prevent the advance of Xerxes' troops deep into Hellas at any cost. This could only be done by placing soldiers in the narrow gorge of Thermopylae and barricading the strait with ships near Artemisium, the cape next to which the path to Athens lay.
Photo: worldunique.ru Two battles: the Battle of Thermopylae and the Battle of Artemisium ended unsuccessfully for the Greeks. The most famous event of the first is the death of 300 Spartans led by King Leonidas, who heroically defended the narrow passage. The Greeks might have survived in the gorge if it had not been for the betrayal of the inhabitants, so typical of those times. Following the defeat on land was the retreat of the fleet. The Persians fought their way to Athens.
Thanks to the cunning of Themistocles, the Athenian orator, and the shortsightedness of the Persian king, the next battle between the opponents took place in the narrow straits near the island of Salamis. Here luck was on the side of the Greeks.
However, in 479 the Persians managed to occupy Athens (the inhabitants were evacuated to Salamis). However, not for long: in the Battle of Palatei they again lost their advantage, this time completely. The Greco-Persian wars were effectively over.
However, everything is not as simple as it seems at first glance. The Hellenes, having gained an advantage, began to advance into Persian territory. The Greeks were able to conquer vast territories and even reach the most troubled province that was part of the enemy empire - Egypt. The conflict will finally end only in 449 BC. e., 50 years after the events began. But this is a completely different story, and we will tell it next time...
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The wars began with the uprising of the Ionian Greek cities (on the western coast of Asia Minor) under Persian rule in 499 BC. Sparta refused the Ionians' call for help, but the Athenians, who feared that their former tyrant Hippias (he was then in Asia Minor and had plans to return) would not receive support from the Persians, decided to intervene and sent 20 ships. Together with the Eretrians from the island of Euboea neighboring Attica, the Athenians helped the rebels capture and burn the capital of the Persian satrapy of Sardis in 498 BC, but this detachment was soon withdrawn, and by 494 BC. the uprising was suppressed (however, the rebels managed to achieve some concessions).
In response, in 492 BC. Darius I, king of the powerful Persian Empire, sent his son-in-law Mardonius at the head of an army and fleet across the Hellespont (modern Dardanelles) to Greece. At the foot of Mount Athos (the Akta peninsula, protruding into the Aegean Sea from the north), the fleet was wrecked, and the ground army was forced to return.
Intending to punish Athens and Eretria for the burning of Sardis, in 490 BC. Darius sent to the Aegean Sea new fleet under the command of Datis and Artaphernes, who were accompanied by Hippias.
Marathon.
First, the Persians sailed to Eretria and, after a six-day siege, captured the city. Meanwhile, the Athenians sent the walker Pheidippides to Sparta with a request for help, but the Spartans replied that due to a religious festival they would not be able to set out until the full moon. Then 10 thousand heavily armed Athenian infantry, to whose aid only 1000 Plataeans came, occupied a narrow valley overlooking the Marathon plain not far from the coast, where the Persian fleet was expected to stop on the way to Athens.
Athenian strategists chose Miltiades as commander-in-chief because he was familiar with the military tactics of the Persians, who expelled him in 493 BC. from Thrace. Now Miltiades waited, remaining in place, while the Persian infantry and cavalry (about 30 thousand people) landed on the shore. The Persians were protected by thin armor and were armed with bows and short swords. When the enemy's arrows began to hit the Greeks, Miltiades ordered them to attack - running, so as to remain as little as possible under the hail of arrows. The Persians, not ready for hand-to-hand combat, retreated to their ships, suffering heavy losses(about 6,400 people killed), 192 people were killed among the Athenians and Plataeans. An attempt to attack Athens by surprise from the harbor of Phalera ended in failure, and the Persians returned to Asia. The Athenians built a high mound in honor of the dead, which is still visible on the battlefield of Marathon. They then, following the advice of the prominent Athenian politician Themistocles, began building a fleet. Themistocles counted on the fact that Greece was too small to feed the army of the conquerors, and therefore, if the fleet providing communications was destroyed, the enemy army would have to leave.
Thermopylae and Salamis.
When Darius died, his son and successor Xerxes was unable to set out immediately due to the rebellion in Egypt, but the Persians began preparing a new invasion. Since they had to move again through the northern part of the Aegean Sea, food warehouses were built in Thrace, a canal was dug across the isthmus near Mount Athos, and a floating bridge was built across the Hellespont (the crossing point from Asia to Europe); finally, a land army of approximately 100 thousand people and a fleet of 1000 ships were assembled.
This time Athens and Sparta performed together. Their strategy was to hold the Persian army in the north until both fleets met in battle. Therefore, the Spartan king Leonidas with 6,000 Greeks occupied the mountain pass of Thermopylae, while Themistocles, at the head of an allied fleet of about 300 ships, awaited the Persians at Cape Artemisium, the northern tip of Euboea.
Summer 480 BC Xerxes invaded Thessaly with his huge army. His warriors died by the thousands at Thermopylae, a narrow pass between the mountain range and the sea, until a Greek traitor showed them a secret path through the mountains. When Leonidas learned that the Persians were about to attack him from the rear, he released most of his Greek allies and fought until his death at the head of 300 Spartans and several hundred Thespians.
Meanwhile, a storm forced Themistocles to leave Artemisium. The Persians entered Athens and burned the city. However, two months earlier, most of the Athenians had been evacuated to Troezen in the Peloponnese. Themistocles and the Spartan commander Eurybiades stationed a fleet in the bay of the island of Salamis, neighboring Athens. By cunning, as if avoiding battle, they lured the Persians into a narrow strait, where they destroyed the Persian fleet.
Final victory for the Greeks.
Xerxes had to retire to Asia, but he left an army of 80 thousand people in central Greece. The following year (at the end of August 479 BC), these forces, with Mardonius at their head, were destroyed at Plataea in southern Boeotia by a united Greek army of 40 thousand people, commanded by the Spartan commander Pausanias. According to legend, on the same day the allied Greek fleet defeated the Persians at Mycale, a cape on the coast of Asia Minor, and the remnants of the Persian troops were defeated there on land. As a result, over the next two decades, most of the Greek population of Asia Minor was liberated from Persian rule.