Persian Wars

• Greek colonization brought the city states in conflict with the Persian Empire

• Result was the Persian Wars (500-479 B.C.)

Ionian Rebellion• As Persian emperors Cyrus

and Darius tightened their grip on Anatolia, the Greek cities on the Ionian coast became increasingly restless

• In 500 B.C., they revolted and expelled the Achaemenid administrators

• Athens sent a fleet in support of their fellow Greeks and commercial partners

• In 493, Darius repressed the rebellion

Cyclades Islands

Persian Wars

• To punish the Athenians and discourage future interference, Darius attacked Athens in 490

• The Athenians repelled the invasion– Marathon

Battle of Marathon• The Persians landed

at the Plains of Marathon on September 9, 490

• For eight days, the two armies faced each other

• On the ninth day, the Persians started to advance, forcing Miltiades, the commander in chief of the Athenian army, to deploy his army of 10,000 Athenians and 1,000 Plataeans for battle

Battle of Marathon• The Athenians

surrounded the Persians in a double envelopment– Although the

Athenians were outnumbered, their spears were superior to the Persians’ bows and short lances

• The Persians fled to their ships

• Persians lost 6,400 men and seven ships

• Athenians lost 192

Battle of Marathon• However, Miltiades realized that the

Persian fleet could sail and attack the undefended city of Athens

• According to legend, he called upon Phidippides to run to Athens to tell them of the victory and warn them of the approaching Persian ships

• Phidippides ran the 26 miles from Marathon to Athens in about three hours, successfully warning the Athenians who repelled the Persian invasion

• Phidippides was exhausted from the fight at Marathon and the 26 mile run and died upon announcing the warning

Miltiades

Olympic Marathons• The marathon was part of

the 1896 Olympics– The course was from

Marathon to Athens (24.85 miles or 40 km)

• At the London Olympics in 1908, the Olympic marathon course was set at 26 miles, 385 yards (42.195 km) to accommodate the Royal Family’s viewing

• In 1921 the International Amateur Athletic Foundation made 42.195 km the official distance of a marathon

Xerxes

• Darius’s successor Xerxes tried to avenge the Persian losses by launching another attack in 480– Thermopylae

Thermopylae• The Greeks sent an allied

army under the Spartan king Leonidas to Thermopylae, a narrow mountain pass in northeastern Greece 

• The point was to stall the Persians long enough that the city states could prepare for later major battles after the Persians broke through

Persians attempting to force the pass at Thermopylae

Thermopylae• Twice the Greeks repelled the Persians• Then Ephialtes, a local farmer, traitorously led

a force of Persian infantry through a mountain passage and the next morning they appeared behind the Greek lines

• Leonidas ordered the rest of the army to withdraw and held the passage with just 300 Spartans

• As true Spartans, they chose death over retreat– Remember Lesson 17

• All died but they did hold off the Persians long enough to ensure the safe withdrawal of the rest of the Greek army. Leonidas

Thermopylae

• “Stranger, go tell the Spartans that we lie here in obedience to their laws.”– (Inscription carved

on the tomb of Leonidas’s Three Hundred)

Leonidas at Thermopylae by David

After Thermopylae• The Persians

captured and burned Athens but were defeated by the Athenian navy at Salamis

• In 479 the Persians were defeated at Plataea and forced back to Anatolia

Delian League• After the Persian threat subsided, the Greek poleis had

conflicts among themselves• The poleis formed an alliance called the Delian League

– Athens supplied most of the military force and the other poleis provided financial support

– Sparta did not join the league– In the absence of the Persian threat, eventually the other poleis

came to resent financing Athens’s bureaucracy and construction projects

• The resulting tensions led to the Peloponnesian War (431-404) in which the poleis divided up into two sides led by Athens and Sparta

The Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.)

• The war went back and forth until 404 when the Spartans and their allies forced Athens to surrender

• Conflicts continued however and the world of the poleis steadily lost power– Alexander the Great is

going to step into this power vacuum (next lesson)

“Failure of the Nerve”• Xenophon lamented that up to this point, “the

City-state, the Polis, had concentrated upon itself all the loyalty and the aspiration of the Greek mind. It gave security to life. It gave meaning to religion.”

• Then, however, “it was not now ruled by the best citizens. The best had turned away from politics.”

• Intellectual and imaginative life of 4th Century Greece gave way to an atmosphere of defeat– Gilbert Murray explains it as “a failure of nerve”

Philip II

• Ruled Macedonia from 359-336 B.C. and transformed it into a powerful military machine

Macedonia

Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great

• Philip intended to use Greece as a launching pad to invade Persia, but he was assassinated before he could begin his plan

• Instead the invasion of Persia would be left for Philip’s son Alexander who was just 20 when Philip was assassinated– “Alexander inherited from his father the most perfectly

organized, trained, and equipped army of ancient times.”

• J.F.C. Fuller, The Generalship of Alexander the Great

Conquests of Alexander

• Ionia and Anatolia 333• Syria, Palestine, Egypt 332• Mesopotamia331• Persepolis 331• King of Persia 330• India 327• Returns to Susa 324• Dies (age 33)323

Warfare in the Age of Alexander• Phalanx: A formation of infantry carrying long

spears, developed by Philip II and used by Alexander the Great

Warfare in the Age of Alexander

• Hoplite – The main warrior of

the Macedonian army. – Mainly in the phalanx

formation, creating impregnable lines that often left the enemy demoralized.

Hoplites in Action

Warfare in the Age of Alexander

• A variety of weapons

were built to hurl projectiles over city walls, scale or batter the walls, and transport soldiers over them.

Tyre• Old city on the mainland

was abandoned• New city built on an

island two miles long and separated from the coast by a half mile channel– Walls were 150 feet

high• Had two harbors

(Sidonian and Egyptian)• Alexander originally had

no ships so he built a mole across the channel

Tyre• Alexander collected a

fleet of over 200 ships and maneuvered them into moorings off the Sidonian and Egyptian harbors

• Blockaded the Tyrian fleet in its harbors and now was at liberty to use his siege engines to reduce the city’s walls

Composition of Alexander’s Fleet

No. of ships Origin 80 Sidon, Aradus,

and Byblus 10 Rhodes 3 Soli and Mallus 10 Lycia 1 Macedon120 Cyprus

Tyre• Finally the engines

penetrated the wall on the side toward Egypt

• The fleet had captured the north and south fronts of the city

5th Century Greek Battering Ram

Tyre

• After a seven month siege, Tyre fell

• 8,000 Tyrians were killed in the fighting– 2,000 more were hung

afterwards• 400 Macedonians

were killed in the siege and just 20 in the assault

The End of the Empire

"The Marriage of Alexander the Great

and Roxanna" by Ishmail Parbury

• Alexander– Married Roxanna and had his men

also intermarry– Adopted Eastern dress and habits– Publicly insisted upon his descent

from the gods– Began giving key positions to

Persians• The Macedonians were tired of

campaigning and resented the changes in Alexander’s behavior and become mutinous

• Alexander died in June 323, perhaps as a result of poisoning

After Alexander• After Alexander died,

his generals jockeyed for power and by 275 they had divided up his kingdom into three large states– Antigonus took

Greece and Macedon

– Ptolemy took Egypt– Seleuces took the

former Achaemenid empire

• The period of Alexander and his successors is called the Hellenistic period to reflect the broad influence of Greek culture beyond Greece’s borders