FREE ESSAY ON PERSIAN WARS

PERSIAN WARS

Andy Chiabotta
West. Civ. 2301.01
October 27, 1998
The Persian Wars
In the 5th century BC the vast Persian Empire attempted to conquer Greece. If the
Persians had succeeded, they would have set up local tyrants, called satraps, to rule
Greece and would have crushed the first stirrings of democracy in Europe. The survival of
Greek culture and political ideals depended on the ability of the small, disunited Greek
city-states to band together and defend themselves against Persia's overwhelming
strength.
The struggle, known in Western history as the Persian Wars, or Greco-Persian Wars, lasted
20 years--from 499 to 479 BC. Persia already numbered among its conquests the Greek
cities of Ionia in Asia Minor, where Greek civilization first flourished. The Persian
Wars began when some of these cities revolted against Darius I, Persia's king, in 499 BC.
Athens sent 20 ships to aid the Ionians. Before the Persians crushed the revolt, the
Greeks burned Sardis, capital of Lydia. Angered, Darius determined to conquer Athens and
extend his empire westward beyond the Aegean Sea.
In 492 BC Darius gathered together a great military force and sent 600 ships across the
Hellespont. A sudden storm wrecked half his fleet when it was rounding rocky Mount Athos
on the Macedonian coast. Two years later Darius dispatched a new battle fleet of 600
triremes. This time his powerful galleys crossed the Aegean Sea without mishap and
arrived safely off Attica, the part of Greece that surrounds the city of Athens. The
Persians landed on the plain of Marathon, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) from Athens.
When the Athenians learned of their arrival, they sent a swift runner, Pheidippides, to
ask Sparta for aid, but the Spartans, who were conducting a religious festival, could not
march until the moon was full. Meanwhile the small Athenian army encamped in the
foothills on the edge of the Marathon Plain.
The Athenian general Miltiades ordered his small force to advance. He had arranged his
men so as to have the greatest strength in the wings. As he expected, his center was
driven back. The two wings then united behind the enemy. Thus hemmed in, the Persians'
bows and arrows were of little use. The stout Greek spears spread death and terror. The
invaders rushed in panic to their ships. The Greek historian Herodotus says the Persians
lost 6,400 men against only 192 on the Greek side. Thus ended the battle of Marathon (490
BC), one of the decisive battles of the world.
Darius planned another expedition, but he died before preparations were completed. This
gave the Greeks a ten-year period to prepare for the next battles. Athens built up its
naval supremacy in the Aegean under the guidance of Themistocles.
In 480 BC the Persians returned, led by King Xerxes, the son of Darius. To avoid another
shipwreck off Mount Athos, Xerxes had a canal dug behind the promontory. Across the
Hellespont he had the Phoenicians and Egyptians place two bridges of ships, held together
by cables of flax and papyrus. A storm destroyed the bridges, but Xerxes ordered the
workers to replace them. For seven days and nights his soldiers marched across the
bridges.
On the way to Athens, Xerxes found a small force of Greek soldiers holding the narrow
pass of Thermopylae, which guarded the way to central Greece. Leonidas, king of Sparta,
led the force. Xerxes sent a message ordering the Greeks to deliver their arms. Come and
take them, replied Leonidas.
For two days the Greeks' long spears held the pass. Then a Greek traitor told Xerxes of a
roundabout path over the mountains. When Leonidas saw the enemy approaching from the
rear, he dismissed his men except the 300 Spartans, who were bound, like himself, to
conquer or die. Leonidas was one of the first to fall. Around their leader's body the
gallant Spartans fought first with their swords, then with their hands, until they were
slain to the last man.
The Persians moved on to Attica and found it deserted. They set fire to Athens with
flaming arrows. Xerxes' fleet held the Athenian ships bottled up between the coast of
Attica and the island of Salamis. His ships outnumbered the Greek ships three to one. The
Persians had expected an easy victory, but one after another their ships were sunk or
crippled.
Crowded into the narrow strait, the heavy Persian vessels moved with difficulty. The
lighter Greek ships rowed out from a circular formation and rammed their prows into the
clumsy enemy vessels. Two hundred Persian ships were sunk, others were captured, and the
rest fled. Xerxes and his forces hastened back to Persia.
Soon after, the rest of the Persian army was scattered at Plataea (479 BC). In the same
year Xerxes' fleet was defeated at Mycale. The threat of Persian domination was ended.