S8_The Persian War and Athenian Empire

• The Persian Empire faced a crisis in the succession when the son of Cyrus, Cambyses, died without an heir. Darius I (the Great), leader of the king’s bodyguards, seized the throne.
• Many peoples subject to Persian rule used the confusion to revolt. Among the rebels were the Greek Ionian cities. The Ionian Greeks were ethnically related to the Athenians. A leader of Miletus, the most powerful Ionian city, Aristagoras, appealed to Athens for aid in the revolt. The Athenians sent some money, troops and supplies.
• In 497, Ionian Greek rebels sacked Sardis, the former Lydian capital and the Persian provincial capital for the region. The Persians responded by defeating the Ionians at the battle of Lade in 494, crushing the revolt. The Persians resolved to punish Athens for aiding the rebels. The Persian general Mardonius conquered all of Thrace and Macedonia in 492.
• In 490, Darius sent his general, Datis, with 30,000 men to punish Athens. They intended to install Hippias as leader in Athens again. As the Persians bore down on Athens, the Athenians sent the runner Philippides (or Phidippides) to ask Sparta for help, but they were involved with a religious festival and could not send assistance in time.
• The Athenians managed to put 9,000 men into battle. The battle was to occur on a plain near Marathon.
• In the Battle of Marathon, the Athenians did receive some help from the small city of Plataea, which sent 1,000 additional soldiers.
• During the Battle of Marathon, the Athenian strategos (general) Miltiades was in command. The Athenians, like all Greeks, organized their army into phalanxes, manned by hoplite soldiers, armed with long spears and all equipped with good armor.
• In the Battle of Marathon, Miltiades, acting through or with the polemarch, Callimachus, made his center weak and thin, and put his best soldiers on each wing. The Persians in the center advanced forward, but the Athenians swept through the Persian wings and caught the Persian center in a trap.
• At the end of the Battle of Marathon, the Persians were not able to overcome the superior hoplites and 6,400 Persians perished. Only 192 Athenians (and Plataeans) were killed. Philippides ran the 26 miles to Athens in full armor. He said one word to the Athenians. “Nike!” Victory! And he died.
• The victory at Marathon showed Persia that it would require a massive commitment to have a chance to conquer Greece. It showed the effectiveness of the phalanx. It raised Athenian pride in themselves and their prestige among other Greeks. Finally, it made the new Persian king Xerxes, who succeeded Darius (his father) after Darius’ death in 485, determined to bring the necessary force to punish all of Greece.
• In Athens, a new institution called ostracism, from the word ostrakon (meaning vessel, as in a clay vessel) came into being. If a majority in the Ecclesia voted for a person to be ostracized, they were forced into exile for ten years.
• The first person to be so exiled was Hipparchus (the politician and rival of Cleisthenes, who still had great power in Athens, not the dead tyrant son of Pisistratus) in 487.
• Themistocles began to become the most-powerful Athenian statesman around this time. He crafted the ostracisms of Megacles, Xanthippus, and Aristides, in 486, 484, and 482, respectively.
• In 483, a rich vein of silver was discovered in Laurion, in Athenian territory. Themistocles convinced the Athenian assembly to use the wealth from the silver mine to increase the navy’s size. The result was an Athenian navy of 200 triremes, a new type of warship that had recently replaced the old pentaconters. This made the Athenians, who were already a great commercial power, also the greatest sea power in Greece.
• Ever since the Persians had begun to threaten Greece, some individuals and even some cities had sided with them. This was called “medizing”.
• In 481, Xerxes organized his campaign against all of Greece. He brought more than 200,000 soldiers supported by 800 ships. Faced with such odds, many northern Greek cities, which would have to face the Persians first including Thebes, medized on the hope of mercy. A naval delaying action was fought at Artemisium early in 480. Athens recalled all its ostracized citizens in the spring of that year.
• The Greeks who resolved to resist the Persians decided to fight a delaying action in July of 480 at Thermopylae, a narrow mountain pass where the Persian numerical superiority would mean nothing.
• Some 7,000 Greeks soldiers, including 300 Spartans, all under the command of the Spartan king Leonidas, were sent to Thermopylae to defend the pass against 200,000 advancing Persians.
• Ephialtes (the Greek equivalent of Benedict Arnold) told the Persians of a narrow trail around the pass at the Battle of Thermopylae. Xerxes sent his 10,000 Immortals, his best soldiers, along the trail. The Greeks saw that they would be surrounded. Leonidas ordered all the Greek soldiers except the 300 Spartans and 1,100 allied Greek troops to retreat.
• When a retreating Greek told a Spartan that Persian arrows would block out the sun, the Spartan replied that he preferred to fight in the shade. Ultimately, the Battle of Thermopylae resulted in two of the brothers of Xerxes himself slain by valiant Spartans, and every single Spartan was killed, including Leonidas.
• Following the Battle of Thermopylae, the Persian army advanced towards Athens. The oracle told the Athenians to put their trust in the wooden wall. Themistocles interpreted that as meaning that the Athenians should put all their hopes on the navy.
• Themistocles is said to have tricked the Persians by pretending he was a traitor and sending them false information, causing Xerxes to order battle in the straits of Salamis (480). The Phoenician ships of the Persians were larger and therefore at a disadvantage in the narrow straits.
• Before the Battle of Salamis, a Carian queen, Artemisia, gave advice against giving battle in the straits. The battle was hard-fought, but the Persian lines crumbled. Greece was effectively saved by an Athenian-led naval victory at Salamis.
• In 479, the Persian army was defeated by a Spartan-led Greek army at Plataea. The Spartan regent, Pausanias, commanded and the Persian commander Mardonius was killed in the battle.
• Later in 479, the Greeks won a battle at Mycale where the retreating Persian army was camped. Leotychidas commanded the Greeks. The Greeks won the Persian wars.