The Persian Wars

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The Persian Wars

• Lecturer Wu Shiyu

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The Rise of Persia

• Cyrus (600 BC530 BC ) The model of a good king.
• Under his own rule expanded vastly and
  eventually conquered most of Southwest Asia and
  much of Central Asia, parts of Europe and
  Caucasus.
• From the Mediterranean sea and the Hellespont in
  the west to the Indus River in the east, to
  create the largest empire the world had yet seen.

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• Very successful model for centralized
  administration and establishing a government
  working to the advantage and profit of its
  subjects

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The Rise of Persia

• Darius (550 BC-486 BC) ascended the throne by
  assassinating the alleged usurper Bardiya with
  the assistance of six other Persian noble
  families Darius was crowned the following
  morning. Proved to be a very competent leader,
  and quelled rebellions.
• held the empire at its peak, then including
  Egypt, northern India, and parts of Greece.
  Darius organized the empire, by dividing it into
  provinces and placing satraps to govern it.
• Invaded Greece The Battle of Marathon (490 BC)

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Darius
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The Rise of Persia

• Xerxes (519BC-465BC) took the empire to its
  height and set on its path of decline and
  ultimate demise.
• Invasion of the Greek mainland
• The Battle of Thermopylae (in August or September
  480 BC )
• The Battle of Salamis (September 29, 480 BC)

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• And the story of Pythius.
• Xerxes roars out, How dare you make such a
  request like this? Here I am, leading the army
  myself, and you are asking your son to stay
  behind. Alright, I grant it. Let him stay behind.
  
• With a great sword, the executioner splits the
  son right down the middle, and one side of the
  body was placed at one side of the gate, and the
  other side, the other part of the gate, and
  through the sliced body of the son of Pythius,
  the mighty army marches out.

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• Now again, the lesson from Herodotus What is it
  like to live under a despot? Even the highest and
  richest man who the king might behold for favors,
  has no security of life or property.
• And Pythius is not only a symbol of what it is
  under a tyrant, but also hybris.

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• Hellespont has his engineers lay a bridge over
  boats to cross it.. Suddenly, a storm comes up,
  but he still wants to cross. Xerxes now is rolled
  out into the Hellespont, and lashes the waters
  with his whip, You briny stream, how dare you
  stand before me? And he beat the water over and
  over and over again, and of course executed the
  engineers. And another bridge is laid down. And
  he crosses.

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Hellespont
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• The superb cavalry, men and horse wrapped in
  armor, his immortals, ten thousand Persians
  carrying their spears, golden and silver
  pomegranate at the end, marching across, his body
  guards, and then the troops of the far ranging
  empire. His Arabs on horseback, Sythians with
  their bows and savage spears. Ethiopians, their
  bodies painted half white, half red, carrying
  spears all crossing in majesty. And it seems
  nothing can stop this expedition.

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The Beginning of the Persian War The Ionian
Revolt

• When Lydia and also many other Greek cities in
  the north were subjugated by Cyrus, they were
  however quite unhappy about the Persians
  control.
• Taxes were heavy and the Ionians resented the
  puppet tyrants.

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The Ionian Revolt
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• By 499B.C. the Ionians were ready to rise up.
  Aristagoras, tyrant of Miletus, having noticed
  the restlessness of the Ionians, decided to unite
  them in revolt. The Ionians showed their
  enthusiasm and did overthrow most of the tyrants.
  
• Aristagoras decided to go and seek support from
  the Spartans (army), was rejected.
• Aristagoras then went to Athens and had better
  luck with the Athenians (agreed to send troops).

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• Aristagoras presented before the Spartan king
  Cleomenes a bronze map of the world and showed
  him the prospect of conquering the wealthy
  peoples and liberating the Ionians.
• But when Cleomenes heard it would take the
  Spartans three months time just to get to the
  Persian kingdom, Cleomenes cut short Aristagoras
  saying, Get out of Sparta before sundown,
  Milesian stranger, for you have no speech
  eloquent enough to induce the Lacedemonians
  (Spartans) to march for three months inland from
  the sea. (The Histories 550 Blanco)

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• Aristagoras was not yet willing to give up and he
  followed Cleomenes to his house,. As the
  suppliant sat in Cleomenes house, he noticed
  Cleomenes young daughter, Gorgo (8 years old),
  standing by his father. He asked Cleomenes to
  send his daughter away, but Cleomenes declined
  and told him to say whatever he liked.
• Aristagoras then started by promising ten talents
  if he Cleomenes could send help. When this was
  rejected, Aristagoras kept adding up the amount
  until it reached fifty talents.
• At this time, the child cried out, Father, this
  stranger will corrupt you with a bribe if you
  dont get up and leave! Delighted with the
  childs advice, Cleomenes withdrew into another
  room and Aristagoras failed in his attempt to
  gain help from the Spartans.
• Foreign customs, cautious, conservative, and wary
  of foreign adventures, and who allowed their
  women to be assertive.

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• In 498B.C., the ships from Athens and Eretria
  arrived. Aristagoras led the Milesians and
  Athenians to launch a surprise attack on the
  Persians in Sardis. They captured the city,
  burned the sanctuaries, and dashed back to Ionia,
  where they found a Persian force waiting for
  them. In the following fight, the Ionians were
  defeated the Athenians barely escaped
  destruction and had to return home.
• Not surprisingly, Darius was furious. As a
  revenge for the destruction of Sardis, Miletus
  was ruined. Its women and children were enslaved,
  and the men were relocated to the mouth of the
  Tigris. Miletus, which had been one of the most
  cultured cities as it was home of the
  philosophers Thales, Anaximander, and
  Anaximenens, and the geographer Hactaeus, was
  wholly wiped out.

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The First Persian War

• Darius thought Athens should also be punished for
  their role in aiding the Ionians in their revolt.
  
• The Athenians was aware of the situation. They
  began to worry that the mainland Greece might
  have the same fate as Miletus.
• Themistocles, a very capable Athenian leader, was
  then elected archon. He persuaded the Athenians
  to turn the Piraeus harbors into a fortified
  naval and commercial base.

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The Battle of Marathon (490BC)

• In 490B.C. Darius sent an army straight across
  the Aegean Sea. Along the way, many other Greek
  cities offered earth and water as recognition of
  the kings supremacy. Upon the same request,
  however, Sparta and Athens, among others, refused
  to submit to the Persian king. Then, under
  guidance of Hippias, the Persians landed on
  Marathon in northern Attica.

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• The Athenians knew what was coming and they were
  now under a critical situation (betraying). The
  Athenian forces were heavily outnumbered (more
  than two to one ) and Plataea, the only neighbor
  who sent help, had only an army numbered in the
  hundreds.
• Still, the Athenian Assembly immediately voted to
  send their forces to meet the Persians.
• Also a messenger was sent to Sparta to ask for
  help.

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• Greece rugged terrain, so rocky and steep that
  runners instead of horsemen were often sent to
  convey message between cities.
• The runner named Philippides who was sent off to
  request Spartan help covered the distance of a
  little over 200 kilometers between Athens and
  Sparta in about thirty-six hours, which was quite
  remarkable. More remarkable, the Spartan army, in
  full battle gear, covered the same distance in
  three days.

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• However, the Spartans could not send their troops
  immediately (celebrating a festival of Apollo,
  the Carneia, and the ritual requirement forbade
  them to send an army into the field until the
  moon was full, which would be six days later).

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• The Persians had landed at Marathon, twenty-odd
  miles from Athens, on the other side of Mt.
  Pentele, where there was a small plain suitable
  for cavalry operations, a Persian strength.

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• At the time when Philippides was sent to Sparta,
  the Athenian army quickly marched to block the
  two exits from the plain of Marathon under the
  guidance of Miltiades, who had the greatest
  experience of fighting the Persians.
• The Persians were prevented from moving inland
  for the time being. Both the Athenians and the
  Persians seemed to have been unwilling to take
  the initial risk of attacking, and for
  approximately five days the two armies confronted
  each other in stalemate across the plain of
  Marathon.

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• The Persian forces cavalry, archers, and
  skirmishing troops.
• The Athenian and also the Spartans fought as
  hoplites, or heavy infantry, armored in
  greaves, helmet, and breastplate, and bearing a
  substantial hoplon or shield.
• They deployed in closely packed lines, each
  hoplite bearing a thrusting spear overhand on his
  right and shielding his comrade to the left. The
  resulting phalanx was a formidable formation,
  but vulnerable to the flank attack from cavalry.
• And so, it could be seen that the Persian cavalry
  would be the major threat to the Athenian
  hoplites.

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• Ten Athenian strategoi (generals) at Marathon,
  Miltiades being one of them. Elected and each
  took in turn a day to command the army.
• In addition, a war archon in overall charge,
  elected by the whole citizen body. The war archon
  was Callimachus. As there was disagreement among
  the ten Athenian strategoi whether to wait or
  attack soon, they had a debate. Arguments went on
  until they learned that the Persian cavalry was
  suddenly missing and probably heading for
  Phaleron.
• The general Miltiades, who had been eager to
  attack, tried to persuade his colleagues to
  launch the attack immediately. The ten strategoi
  came to a draw of five to five, thus the decision
  fell upon Callimachus, the war archon, who had a
  vote when the ten strategoi could not reach a
  majority vote. Miltiades tried to win

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• Callimachus, it is up to you, right now, to
  enslave Athens or to make it free, and to leave
  for all future generations of humanity a memorial
  to yourself such as not even Harmodius and
  Aristogiton have left. Right now, Athens is in
  the most perilous moment of its history. Hippias
  has already shown what we will suffer if we bow
  down to the Medes, but if this city survives, it
  can become the foremost city in all Greece.

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• Now, Ill tell you just how this is possible and
  how it is up to you --- and only you --- to
  determine the course of events. We ten generals
  are split right in two, with half saying fight
  and the other half not. If we dont fight now, I
  am afraid that a storm of civil strife will so
  shake the timber of the Athenian people that they
  will go over to the Medes.

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• But if we fight now, before the cracks can show
  in some of the Athenians, and provided that the
  gods take no sides, why then we can survive this
  battle. All this depends on you. It hangs on your
  decision --- now. If you vote with me, your
  country will be free and your city will be first
  in all of Hellas, but if you choose the side of
  those who urge us not to fight, then the opposite
  of all the good Ive spoken of will fall to you.

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• Obviously Callimachus was persuaded and voted in
  favor of Miltiades, and the Athenians decided to
  attack.

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• Miltiades ordered the two tribes forming the
  center to be arranged in the depth of 4 ranks
  while the other tribes at the flanks in ranks of
  8. Thus the Athenian army was formed into a long
  line, thin in the center but thick in the flanks.
  In this way the Athenian Phalanx formation would
  have no worry of being outflanked. When the line
  was ready, Miltiades gave a simple signal At
  them.
• The distance between the Athenian and Persian
  armies was about 1,500 meters. Herodotus implies
  that the Athenians ran to the Persian lines the
  whole distance. The Persians tried to stop the
  Athenians with the arrows, but in vain, as the
  Athenians were protected for the most part by
  their heavy armour. Finally the Greek line
  collided with the Persian army. The hand-to-hand
  battle revealed the advantage of the Athenian
  phalanx formation, heavier armour and longer
  spear over the Persian army.

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• The Persians, after the initial surprise, tried
  to break through the center of the Athenian line
  and almost succeeded. At that time Athenian
  flanks had defeated the inferior Persian wings
  and began to envelope the Persian center.
• The Persian army broke in panic and began to run
  back to their ships, perused by the Greeks. Some
  of them ran towards the swamps and drowned for
  ignorance of the local terrain.
• The Athenians chased the Persians back to their
  ships and captured seven of the ships, though the
  majority were able to escape. Cynaegirus, brother
  of Aeschylus the tragedian, charged into the sea,
  grabbed one Persian warship, and tried to tow it
  back to the shore.
• A member of the crew cut off his hand, and
  Cynaegirus died in the sea. Herodotus records
  that the Persians bodies counted on the
  battlefield were 6,400, not including those that
  perished in the swamps. The Athenians lost 192
  men, among whom was the war archon Callimachus.

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First phase of the battle
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The Second Phase of the War
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• Herodotus reports that after the Battle of
  Marathon a signal was given from Athens, urging
  the Persians to rush to Athens. But when they
  arrived at Athens, the Persians found that the
  Athenian army was also there, ready for defense.
  The Persians then decided to leave and went back
  to Persia. The Spartans arrived too late for the
  participation of the fighting, but they were able
  to visit the battlefield and survey the Persian
  corpses. After congratulating the great victory
  of the Athenians, they went back to Sparta.

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• The defeat at Marathon was a minor event for the
  Persian empire, yet it was an enormously
  significant victory for the Greeks. It was the
  first time that the Greeks beat the Persians, and
  showed that the Persians were not undefeatable.
  The Athenians took great honor in their victory
  of the Battle of Marathon. To commemorate the
  triumph, the Athenian dead were cremated and
  buried on the site of Marathon, instead of in the
  main Athenian cemetery. On the tomb of the
  Athenians, the epigram composed by Simonides
  reads

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• The Athenians, as defenders of the Hellenes, in
  Marathon
• Destroyed the might of the golden-dressed Medes.

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• Very importantly, the victory of Marathon gave
  the Athenians an immense burst of self
  confidence. Such influence was enduring and could
  be seen in the next two generations, the golden
  age of Athens, of Pericles, of Phidias, of the
  Parthenon, of Herodotus and also of Greek
  tragedy.
• The playwright Aeschylus, who also participated
  in the battle, took part in the drama competition
  in Athens in 472 B.C. with his play the Persian
  and won first prize. The play represents the
  growth of Athenian political, military, and
  cultural power after the victory. After his
  death, Aeschylus epitaph reads
• The glorious grove of Marathon can tell of his
  valor --- as can the long-haired Persian, who
  well remembers it.

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The Second Persian War

• After the Battle of Marathon, Darius began
  collecting a huge new army. He was now determined
  to completely subjugate Greece, but was delayed
  in 486 BC when his Egyptian subjects revolted.
• While still preparing to march on Egypt, Darius
  died and passed the throne to his son Xerxes, who
  crushed the Egyptian revolt, and very quickly
  re-started the preparations for the invasion of
  Greece.
• Xerxes, Darius son and successor, made up his
  mind in 484B.C. to attack Greece.

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• When everything was ready, in 480, Xerxes led his
  huge army to march on road, which was believed to
  be the largest army ever assembled. Though the
  figure was not certain, historians estimated
  there were at least 500,000 Persian soldiers.
• Besides, the Persian fleet amounted to 1294
  warships. Before Xerxes was marching out, he had
  sent heralds to the Greek cities, asking for
  earth and water, a token of compliance with the
  Persian army. Many cities, out of fear, submitted
  earth and water to Persia. Xerxes did not send
  anyone to Sparta and Athens, though, as
  messengers had been evilly treated there at the
  time of his fathers.

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• All the cities on the Greek mainland, only 31
  have resisted him. All the rest have sent him the
  sign of submission. He sent diplomats demanding
  earth and water.

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• And he sees before him spears glittering in the
  sun, 7000 warriors from the Peloponnese with the
  core of 300 Spartans. What means this, says the
  Persian king. An exile from Sparta is called and
  Xerxes asked, Who are these people?

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• The exile says, Sire, these are not just the
  bravest warriors in Greece, they are the bravest
  warriors in the world.
• Xerxes says, Are you telling me that 300
  Spartans can resist my hundreds of thousands? Why
  dont you, you are from Sparta, fight a dozen of
  my men and see who wins?

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The Battle of Hot Gate

• Thats not it, Sire, it is the fact that these
  men fight signally brave, but fighting together,
  they are invincible, for they fear only the laws
  of Sparta and for that they will pay any price.
• But Xerxes in his ate of moral blindness, will
  sweep on, to the battle of 300 Spartans at
  Thermopylae.

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• the Oracle at Delphi had revealed the following
  prophecy
• O ye men who dwell in the streets of broad
  Lacedaemon!
• Either your glorious town shall be sacked by
  the children of Perseus,
• Or, in exchange, must all through the whole
  Laconian country

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• Leonidas was fully aware of the message and was
  convinced he was certainly going to die since his
  forces were not adequate for a victory, and so he
  deliberately selected the Spartans with living
  sons.

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• Then Xerxes against sent a messenger to Leonidas
  to negotiate with him, saying he would offer the
  allies freedom and the title Friends of the
  Persian People but the terms were rejected by
  Leonidas. Then the messenger asked him to lay
  down his weapons, upon which Leonidas' famous
  response was Molon Labe, meaning Come and get
  it. As the Persian messenger returned
  empty-handed, battle became inevitable.

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• Then probably on August 18, 480 B.C., the war
  broke out. The Greeks withstood the Persian army
  for three days though enormously outnumbered. In
  the narrow confines of the pass, Xerxes could not
  make use of his cavalry, and his overwhelming
  numbers could not be brought to bear. On the
  third day, however, a Greek traitor betrayed a
  secret path over the mountains leading to the
  rear of the Greek forces. On learning they were
  to be facing enemies at both sides, Leonidas
  dismissed the forces. Three hundred Spartans and
  also less than one thousand Thebans and Thespians
  remained there to give a hopeless defense. Still
  they killed many Immortals, the Xerxes
  personal guards, including two brothers of Xerxes
  before being killed themselves. This was seen as
  the Spartans finest hour, and their hopeless,
  suicidal defense galvanized Greece.

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The Battle of Salamis

• Though Leonidas was able to withhold the Persians
  for several days, the final victory went to the
  Persians. The Persians had slain the king of the
  leading Greek states, Sparta. The Persian army
  was then pouring unopposed now toward Athens.
  With several other city-states gone over to the
  Persian king, like Thessaly, there was no armed
  force between the Persian king and the borders on
  Athens. Athens was at its critical moment.

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• Themistocles also tried to persuade the Athenians
  to abandon their city. In the end, though
  reluctant, the Athenians made their calm decision
  to evacuate their country. Both homes that had
  been there for generations, the shrines (??) of
  their gods, the tombs of their ancestors were all
  to be evacuated. Since, Themistocles insisted
  that the wood walls in the words of the Oracle
  of Delphi only the wooden walls would survive
  meant the ships, Athenians loaded their women,
  their children, some of the older men onboard
  their ships and ferry them across to Salamis and
  also the city of Trizin, an allied city which
  agreed to give them shelter.
• So, as Themistocles managed to persuade the Greek
  fleet from Artemesium to land at Salamis, by
  August 26 480 B.C. all were evacuated from Athens
  with the exception of only a few die-hards and
  priests at the Acropolis.

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• The Persians then rushed into Attica and entered
  the deserted city of Athens. The Persians gazed
  in wonder at what they saw in Athens and then
  after robbing the houses, set fire, and burned
  all the most beautiful buildings to ashes
  including the old temples in Acropolis for the
  revenge of burning the Sardis.
• 8.5.4.2 War at Salamis
• At the same time, the Persian fleet arrived at
  Phaleron on August 29, which at the time served
  as the main port for Athens. With the falling of
  Athens, the Peloponnesians led by Sparta were
  even more eager to withdraw to the Isthmus of
  Corinth. Themistocles warned that the Athenians
  would pack up and head off to southern Italy to
  start over if the Peloponnesians left. The ally
  then stayed for the Greeks had no chance of
  winning at sea without the Athenian fleet.

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• But as time passed, the disagreement remained. In
  the heated debate, Themistocles skilled himself
  just for a moment, sent off his most trusted
  servant, taking to Xerxes his secret message. The
  message was that Themistocles himself was now on
  the side of the Persians and was providing Xerxes
  valuable information ---the Greek fleet was about
  to leave, and if Xerxes would block the west wood
  isle, the Greeks would be trapped like fish in a
  barrel. Xerxes took the advice and sent off his
  fleet to bottle up the Greeks to the west. The
  Greeks then were forced to prepare for battle in
  the Salamis narrows.

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• The Persians spent a busy night, dispatching his
  troops and preparing their assault. Some of his
  best ships, his Phoenician and Ionian ships, were
  blockading the east outlet, Egyptian ships the
  west side, and the whole battle would be fought
  there at the east outlet. Xerxes even sent off
  hoplites on a small island near Salamis to kill
  any Greeks who tried to swim the shores. The
  Greeks, however, were able to take a rest before
  entering into battle. Themistocles demonstrated
  his prowess again by trying to lure the Persians
  into the narrows from the Phaleron the east for
  he knew that the Persian ships were lighter and,
  more maneuverable. In the narrow waters of the
  straits, their maneuverability would be limited
  and it would also be hard to bring their superior
  number into play.

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• causes sizable waves to develop. Then, the
  Persian ships would set higher in the water than
  the Greek triremes, and such waves would flow
  them off.
• As the light begins to break, the Persian ships
  began to row in. Xerxes, meanwhile, had set
  himself up on the mainland with a good view of
  the whole channel, believing that his presence
  would encourage his sailors and marines to
  perform best. The Greek did not immediately
  engage the Persians, instead they rowed backward
  further into the bay to draw the Persians even
  further. In the early morning around 730 or 8,
  the wind really came up and waves began to rise.
  In mid-early morning the Greeks moved forward to
  battle, shouting as Themistocles tells us, row
  for your fathers, row for your children, row for
  your ancestors, row for freedom!.

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• The Athenians triremes fought very bravely they
  rowed up to the enemy ship, pulled the oars on
  one side and then slided by, cutting off the
  enemys oars, disabling it, and making it lurched
  in the water. The Persians superiority in
  numbers was in effect a hindrance (??) in the
  narrows, but the ships began to run afar of one
  another and they are drawn ever further in by the
  Greeks, and the Greeks, on the other hand, could
  dart in and out, slashing, ramming, boarding,
  cutting off the oars of the Persian ships, and
  then seeking other water. And so it went on.

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• By the end of the day, the Persians had suffered
  a great lossroughly 200 ships to Greek losses of
  forty or so. Themistocles proved right the
  narrows were the place to fight, and, in the end,
  wooden walls had saved Athens.
• Xerxes watched from his throne, got furious and
  his reaction was to execute his Phoenician
  captains for alleged cowardice in the battle,
  without realizing it was his own fault to have
  caused the defeat. Soon enough the bulk of the
  Persian land forces withdrew and began the slow
  march back to Asia. Xerxes left his
  brother-in-law Mardonius, an able and experienced
  Persian commander, as commander of a force of
  300,000 men. His plan was to renew the land
  offensive the following spring in northern
  Greece.

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• The Greeks were over joyous over their naval
  victory at Salamis. The Greeks would ever honor
  the memory of these men who had fought the
  Salamis, honoring them with simple little epitaph
  (???), like we once lived in Corinth, and now we
  lie dead hereat Salamis. The youth of Greece
  given its life for freedom.
• A year later, in 479 B.C., the two forces, one
  led by Pausanias, the successor of Leonidas, and
  one led by Mardonius, met in the Battle of
  Plataea. Mardonius was killed and the Persian
  army was totally defeated. Meanwhile, the Greek
  fleet led by the other Spartan king, Eurybiades,
  chased the Persian navy eastward and destroyed
  the Persian fleet at the Battle of Mycale near
  Miletus, eventually liberating the Ionians.
• The victories at Plataea and Mycale marked the
  end of the war that had begun with Xerxess
  invasion. Celebration broke out across the Greek
  world. It is said that no dead in history were
  honored more than the dead of Marathon,
  Thermopylae, and Salamis.

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• Why the Greeks Won
• As mentioned in the beginning of this chapter,
  sources on the Persians Wars are mainly from the
  great book Histories by Greek great historian
  Herodotus. Reading his Histories, we could see
  that Herodotus seems to attribute largely the
  loss of the Persians in the war, especially the
  war of Salamis to the character flaws on the part
  of Xerxes, mainly his hybris. We, however, could
  see that there should be more than that though
  Xerxes, a Persian despot, in fact committed
  foolish errors.
• It is beyond this book to give a thorough
  analysis for such an issue. But by reading
  Herodotus Histories, we could easily draw the
  essential distinction between Greeks and
  Persians. Such a distinction seen from the
  perspective of Herodotus is that the Greeks are
  free and the Persians are not. The Persians,
  courageous, honest, capable, filled with all
  sorts of virtues though, are not free. In
  Herodotus view, even though they were vastly
  outnumbered, the Greeks won the Persian Wars, and
  finally deserved to win, because they were free.
  That is what sets the Greeks apart and, what is
  more, that is also what brings about the Greeks
  Golden Age after their victory in the Persians
  Wars, the flourishing of their great cultures.

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