prescribed battles:cause for battle

• Reasons for the battle for Thermopylae


  • The Persian king Xerxes was attempting to invade and subjugate Greece
  • This was the second time in a generation that a Persian army had attempted to invade Greece. The Battle of Thermopylae was a major conflict in the Second Greco-Persian War
  • Many Greek city states were in this region of Ionia and as such were a part of the Persian Empire. In 499 BCE, Greeks in this region rose up against Persian rule. This is known as the Ionian Revolt
  • Athens and other Greek city states sent help to the Ionian Greeks, but the revolt was put down in 494 BCE
  • The Ionian Revolt was significant as the first major conflict between Greece and the Persian Empire. King Darius (Xerxes' father) vowed to exact revenge against Athens, and developed a plan to conquer all Greeks in an attempt to secure the stability of his empire
  • This led Darius to wage the First Greco-Persian War from 492-90 BCE. He led an invasion of Greece that was ultimately turned back by the Greek resistance, who won a significant victory at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BCE
  • 10 years later, Darius had died and his son Xerxes decided to once again try to invade and subjugate Greece
  • The Persian Empire did not want to enslave the Greeks, nor to destroy their culture. As such, many Greek states welcomed the Persian invaders, preferring to be Persian subjects than to be slaughtered by Xerxes' massive army
  • A coalition of around 30 Greek states mounted a rebellion. The Battle of Thermopylae was an attempt to delay the advance of the Persian army
  • Xerxes' large army needed supplies to be brought by ship, but the Mediterranean Sea Is stormy in winter and the Persians could not risk going hungry because or a shipwrecked supply fleet. A swift conquest, before winter came, was therefore crucial to Persian strategy
  • The Greeks at Thermopylae knew they could not hold the Persian forces back forever. Their mission was to slow down Xerxes' advance enough to strain his supply lines and make a swift conquest impossible
  • The Greeks also wanted to buy time to evacuate the city states in the path of the Persians (including Athens), aiming to save as many lives as possible
• Reasons for the battle: Salamis

  • The Persian king Xerxes was attempting to invade and subjugate Greece
  • A large force was travelling from the Persian Empire (to the east of Greece) westwards through mainland Greece
  • After the Battle of Thermopylae in August 480 BC), the Persian army continued to march through mainland Greece towards Athens and the Peloponnese beyond
  • When the Persian land army broke through the pass of Thermopylae, the Greek navy sailed south to defend the Peloponnese
  • In September 480 BCE the Persians reached Athens. The Persians were keen for revenge against the city that humiliated them 10 years earlier at the Battle of Marathon during the First Greco-Persian War
  • The city had been evacuated , so there was little loss of life , but Xerxes ordered Athens to be burned to the ground. The Persians razed the Acropolis, destroying the Older Parthenon and the Old Temple of Athena
  • Many of the Athenian refugees went to the nearby island of Salamis
  • The allied Greek states each sent representatives to Salamis to decide what to do. The man in overall command was a Spartan called Eurybiades
  • The Greeks had to devise a strategy that would repel the Persian invasion. They could not be allowed to take control of the Peloponnese
• Reasons for the battle

  • Political rivalry between Octavian and Mark Antony, both trying to step into the power vacuum left by Julius Caesar's assassination in 44 BCE, by claiming to be his heir
  • Julius Caesar was a Roman general and senator, very popular with Rome's poor and the armies. He was the adoptive father of Octavian and Antony's close friend and political ally. He had a relationship with Cleopatra and they had a son together named Caesarion. Caesar waged a civil war against another politician (named Pompey the Great) and won, becoming the dominant politician in the Roman world. He forced the Senate to give him the powers of a dictator, for the rest of his life. After this, a group of senators assassinated him. The people of Rome were not sympathetic to the assassins - it was clear that there was an opportunity for another politician to rise to prominence, as Julius Caesar had done
  • Cleopatra's son with Julius Caesar (Caesarion) could be a problem for Octavian, as both had a claim to be Julius Caesar's son and heir
  • Egypt was a wealthy client kingdom with a very reliable grain supply. The Romans wanted to add them to their empire
  • Antony had married Cleopatra, had children with her, and had given lots of Roman-controlled land to them. This caused many Romans to suspect he was a traitor, whose loyalty laid with Egypt, not Rome
  • Octavian convinced the Senate that Cleopatra had bewitched Antony (proven by Antony's "will", which left her all his property and asked to be buried in Egypt with her)
• Reasons for the Trojan Campaigns

  • The Dacians had been troublesome for the Romans, attacking the Roman province Moesia in 69 CE. In 85-6 CE they attacked again, killing the Roman governor Oppius Sabinus
  • Emperor Domitian had attempted to conquer Dacia in 87-88 CE. He had suffered a humiliating defeat and was forced to retreat, paying cash to Dacia to secure peace. The following year Rome invaded again, more successfully, and Dacia was made into a client kingdom
  • The Dacian leader Decebalus was given annual payments from Rome to strengthen his defences, hoping that a strong Dacia would lead to a strong Roman border
  • Some believed that Decebalus had been using Roman money to build his own strength and make alliances with northern peoples so he could launch an attack on Rome. There were rumours that he was encouraging runaway Roman slaves to come to Dacia and recruiting Roman soldiers to his cause
  • When Trajan declared war on Dacia in 101 CE he said that concerns about the security of the border was the reason
  • Some scholars think Trajan wanted a campaign to raise morale of his legions
  • Others think Trajan wanted to make his mark as emperor, and a campaign would let him do this
  • Dacia contained gold mines. Conquering it would be very lucrative. Treasure is commemorated on Trajan's Column, supporting this view