Greco-Persian Wars: The Rebellion that Lit Up Independence

In ancient times, one of the most powerful and largest states was the Persian Empire. Persian rulers conquered boundless territories, from the hot deserts of Egypt to the harsh mountains of Central Asia. Hundreds of peoples and tribes were forced to accept Persian rule and submit to a despotic regime. However, their attempt to conquer a small but proud ancient Greece suffered a complete defeat. How did liberty-loving Greeks defend their freedom and put their names in history? In the middle of the 6th century BC, the Lydian king Croesus, one of the richest kings of the world, spread his influence over the Greek cities in Asia Minor. The Ionian and other Asia Minor Grecians maintained self-government and paid a small part of the taxes to the Lydian treasury. The situation for the Asia Minor Grecians changed dramatically when the Persian state took Lydia. The rulers of Persia of the Achaemenid dynasty created the most powerful empire of the time through an aggressive expansion. Persia was a typical eastern despotic state, so the Greek cities were demanded for complete submission and payment of a great tribute. Moreover, the Persian authorities largely supported the Greek tyrants in their struggle for power in the polis, while the population sought democracy. In 499 BC, indignant Grecians from Asia Minor raised a revolt, the center of which became Miletus. The rebels asked for help from the European Greeks, but only a small part of the ancient Greek polis, led by Athens, supported them. In the beginning, the rebels scored a number of victories over the local Persian garrisons and even destroyed the Sardis, where the Persian governor's residence was located. But the Persian army had a considerable numerical advantage. They reversed the course of the confrontation by defeating the Greek rebels. Ionian cities were mercilessly robbed, men of the most rebellious polis were killed, women and children were sold into slavery. The Persian king Darius the Great had considerable conquering appetites and a number of reasons to invade Greece. First, Darius wanted to avenge the European Grecians because they supported their compatriots in Asia Minor. Secondly, the conquest would have made him the ruler of the Mediterranean, which means that all conquered peoples would have paid tribute to him. For the conquest of mainland ancient Greece in 492, he sent a large Persian army led by his brother-in-law Mardonius. The Persian army conquered southern Thrace and Macedonia for the second time, but near Mount Athos, their fleet was destroyed by a storm, and the army suffered losses in mountain battles with the Phrygian tribe. The Persian commanders feared losing their supply lines, so they decided to return home. Darius built a powerful new fleet and sent ambassadors demanding surrender. As per the customs of that era, the Persian king requested the dispatch of soil and waters from these lands, thereby acknowledging the king's reign over the lands and waters of the conquered territories. In Athens, the Persian ambassadors were simply executed. In Sparta, they were thrown into deep wells with the words that it is there that they can take soil and waters. Killing the ambassadors made Darius even angrier. In the summer of 490 BC, the Persian army with the help of the fleet quickly landed on the island of Euboea, conquered it, and captured the city of Eretria. The survivors were sold into slavery. Up to 26,000 Persians landed near Athens on the Marathon Plateau. The Athenians sent messengers to the allies and other Greek cities to ask for help, as their own military forces were several times smaller. The commander of the Athenian army was the strategist from Chersonesus, Miltiades. Minor reinforcements from Boeotia came to the aid of Athens, but the Spartans couldn't arrive in time due to religious festivities. In total, the Greek forces from that moment numbered about 10,000 soldiers. The Greeks decided not to rely on the strength of their city walls, but to defeat the Persians on their way to Athens. The hopes of the Grecians for victory were tied to the skill of the hoplites. These hardened soldiers of heavy infantry were bound in armor. They wielded great swords and spears and had a reputation as the masters of combat. The Athenians held position at the for several weeks. They noticed the departure of some Persian forces and launched a decisive attack. To compensate for the numerical minority and eliminate the danger of a cordon, Greek strategists concentrated their forces on the flanks. It was thanks to the frantic flanking pressure of the skillful Greek hoplites that the Persian lines closed and were crushed to the ground. The triumph of the Greek weapons was unconditional. According to Herodotus, the number of Athenians killed was 192. The number of Persians killed was over 6,000. Because of Plutarch's later hoax, a legend arose that the news of the victory in Athens was brought by the messenger Pheidippides. In honor of the distance he supposedly ran, eventually a new kind of race was established. Marathon. The unfortunate defeat upset Darius, but it did not significantly affect the military power of the Achaemenid Empire. At the same time, the Grecians became convinced of their ability to defeat a larger but less capable Persian army. Darius planned a second, larger campaign to conquer ancient Greece, but died before he could implement it. For some time, revolts were breaking out in different parts of the Persian Empire, in Babylon and Egypt, for example. The son of Darius, Xerxes, had to suppress them. A significant part of the Greek people were aware of the danger of the coming Persian invasion. For example, the renowned Athenian strategist Themistocles convinced the citizens of Hispolis to direct the revenues from the Lorien silver mines on building 200 new warships. In 481 BC, the Greeks also convened the Congress at the Isthmus of Corinth, which was attended by representatives from 30 Greek polis. It was dominated by the speakers of Sparta and Athens, who had the strongest land and naval forces in all of Greece respectively. However, not all ancient Greek polis decided to confront the invaders. A number of polis refused to participate in a potential war. Achaea, Argos, Thebes, Crete, and some others. Xerxes didn't waste any time and gathered a giant army, which included Persians, Medes, Bactrians, Assyrians, Saka, Thracians, part of Greeks from Asia Minor, and other peoples of the Persian Empire. Herodotus exaggerated the size of this huge army, saying that it included more than 2 million soldiers, while modern scholars estimate it to reach 250,000. However, the vast majority of these troops were lightly armed, lacked armor, and had a low morale. A fleet consisting mainly of Phoenician and Egyptian ships and numbering 700-1000 warships also took part in the campaign. On the way to Greece, the Persian army was attacked by a hurricane in the area of Hellespont. The storm destroyed pontoon ferries and killed thousands of soldiers. Eccentric Xerxes ordered to punish the stormy sea for this with whips. The march of a huge army of conquest continued through the lands of Thrace and Macedonia. The Grecians were considering several tactical plans to fight the enemy. Eventually, Greek strategists decided to try to stop the Persian invasion in the gorge near Thermopylae. Virtually the only land route from northern Greece to the south was through this narrow coastal plain. The narrowness of the passage would have allowed to use only a part of the Persian troops in combat at the same time. In addition, the Greeks built a small wall that served as additional protection. The Greek fleet would then cover the ground forces against a surprise landing of Persians in their rear. Various detachments of ancient Greece arrived at Thermopylae. About 65% of the soldiers were from Peloponnese. The famous Spartan king Leonidas I led the Greek army. He brought 300 elite soldiers from his hometown. The total number of Greeks was between 6,000 and 7,000. Before the battle, Xerxes tried to persuade the Grecians to lay down arms and surrender, to which the Spartans, according to the legend, answered, come and try to take our weapons. The Persian king switched to threats and, through messengers, conveyed that his army was so great that arrows thrown by Persian archers would cover the sun. Leonidas answered, fine, then we shall fight our battle in the shade. The two armies met in fierce battle in September 480 BC. On the first day, Xerxes threw hordes of Medes and Saka people on the Grecians. They were defeated by Greek hoplites. The same fate befell the elite Persian guard immortals. The Persian king was shocked and furious, especially as on the second day, the Persian army also suffered enormous losses, without any particular progress in the offensive. Moreover, time played on the side of the Greeks, because a large Persian army needed enormous amounts of food and fodder, which the Persians could only get by exploiting new territories. At the same time, the Persian fleet attacked the Greek ships at Cape Artemisium. However, the Greeks used a narrow strait between Euboea and the mainland to block the passage of numerous Persian ships. Although a significant portion of their fleet was drowned in a hurricane at the time, Persian ships still had an advantage in numbers and speed. Thus, the battle of Cape Artemisium had no winner. But suddenly, the Persians were helped by either a trader or a resident, who showed them a bypass through the mountains. Xerxes sent a part of his forces led by Hydarnes around. The Phocians, who had covered the path, saw the Persians and took a defensive position. But Hydarnes decided not to waste time destroying this small unit and continued his way. The Phocians managed to warn Leonidas of the Persian infiltration into the rear of the main forces. The Spartan king decided, at the cost of his life and his soldiers, to delay the Persian army. To save most of the Greek army, 300 Spartans, 700 Thespians, and 400 Thebes remained near Thermopylae. The rest withdrew to the Peloponnese peninsula. The Persian army surrounded and massacred the few Spartans and Thespians who fought heroically to the death. Thanks to their courage and self-sacrifice, these warriors have forever entered history. King Leonidas I was killed, and most of the Thebans surrendered into captivity. The main ground forces of the Greek army retreated to the Peloponnese peninsula. The inhabitants of Athens and some Attica polis, after much debate, evacuated to the island of Salamis. The Persian army moved south and destroyed the abandoned Athens and the surrounding area. At the same time, the Persian commanders learned that the Greek ships were stationed near Salamis. The Persian fleet had about 600 ships and was twice the size of the Greek fleet. If the Persians can defeat the Greek naval forces, they will decimate the Athenians, destroy the Greek trade and economy, and will get the means of landing on the Peloponnese. This implies the final victory over Greece. However, that wasn't so simple. The Greek trireme ships were more massive and robust, and the Grecians knew the surrounding straits way better than Persians. Themistocles' strategic ingenuity helped to use these trump cards in the best possible way. On 28 September, the Grecians defeated the Persians and destroyed more than 200 enemy ships. The decisive victory of the Greek fleet in the Battle of Salamis was a turning point in the Greco-Persian standoff, as the Greeks now controlled the situation at sea. Xerxes feared a potential landing of Greek troops in little Greece, which would have cut off his army's supplies, and the news of a disgraceful naval defeat could provoke new revolts of the So Xerxes and half of his army returned to Asia, leaving another part of the Persian army in Greece, led by Mardonius. The Persian army suffered from a shortage of food and was engaged in the liquidation of remnants of resistance in central and northern Greece. At the same time, Greek polis finally managed to gradually unite and form a powerful army, which, according to various estimates, numbered from 39 to 100,000 soldiers. At the end of August 479 BC, the enemy armies met in Boeotia near the town of Plataea. Both troops took up positions on the high ground. No one wanted to be the first to make a disadvantageous attack, and armies only occasionally exchanged small outbursts. On 9 September, the Grecians, led by Spartan commander Pausanias, decided to change their location because of a drinking water shortage. But they did it chaotically and without coordinated manner, so the Persians decided to attack the divided Greek forces. The Persians did not take into account the advantages of the Greeks in close combat, so they were defeated. Less than 40,000 of the Persians managed to escape the vengeance of the Greek hoplites, while others were killed or captured. Thus, the Persian army in Greece ceased to exist as a combat unit. At the same time, the Greeks took advantage of their domination at sea and landed in Asia Minor. The estimated strength of this ancient Greek force was 25,000. The Persian army, estimated from 40,000 to 60,000 soldiers, tried to stop the Grecian advance along the Ionian coast. But on 27 August 479 BC, the Greeks again defeated the Persians at the Battle of Mycenae. Ionian Greeks played a significant role in the Persian defeat. They fought in the Persian army, but many of them switched to the side of their fellow tribesmen during the battle. This victory blew up the military power of the Achaemenids for a long time and opened the way for the Greeks to liberate the Grecian cities of Asia Minor. Within a year, the Greeks liberated Byzantium, almost the entire coast of Thrace, the islands of the Aegean Sea, Rhodes. After this success, the leadership of Sparta decided that it was done and withdrew its troops. Undisputed leadership in reclaiming Greek-inhabited lands passed to Athens. At the initiative of the Athenians, they formed the Delian League, or the Athenian naval union, which continued to fight the Persians. The Grecians recaptured part of Cyprus, inflicting several defeats on the Persian-Phoenician fleet, but lost during the expedition to Egypt. In the mid-5th century, relations between Athens and Sparta, secretly instigated by Persia, escalated. Therefore, the Athenians and the Delian League were forced to conclude a truce with the Persians. Eventually, the Grecians defeated the more powerful Persian Empire and defended their freedom, but the majority of the Greek lands in Asia Minor remained under Achaemenid control.