Assess the reasons for the victory of the Greeks in the Persian War
480-479B.C.E
Herodotus claims that the Persian defeat of the invasion
of 480-479 B.C.E was due to their inferior arms and
equipment.
He also states that Xerxes ‘had many men, but
few soldiers’.
However, the merit of the leadership of
Themistocles, Eurybiades, Leonidas and Pausanias as well
as the superior skill of the Greeks cannot be ignored.
From the product of their athletic lifestyles also came
part of the reason for their victory.
Patriotism in
fighting for their own land and country, liberty and
their morale also attributed to their success.
Though the Persians had the ten thousand immortals,
cavalry and archers, most of the army was a disorganised
amount of different nationalities.
Ionian Greeks were
forced to fight against their own kin, Egyptians,
Phoenicians, Thebans, Thespians, Macedonians, Bactrians,
Indians as well as men from Cyrpus, Caria, Lycia and
other medizing countries under Persian control were in
their army and navy.
In arming these men, they had
leather helmets, bronze helmets as well as javelins,
spears, axes, bows, short swords and hide-covered wicker
shields.
The Immortals, however, were armed with a
covering of metal scales under a loose fitting tunic as
well.
This was shallow protection as compared to the
Greeks.
The Greeks wore bronze helmets, breastplates,
and greaves, using short swords and spears while holding
hoplite shields.
Contrasted with the hoplite was the
Greek cavalrymen, who were few in number, wore no armour
and carried no shield and used spears or javelins.
Also
in the Greek ranks were the peltastai, light-armoured
troops who were mainly used for scouting or raiding in a
hit-and-run tactic.
The tactic of using the archers on
the Persian side proves that they were more used to a
ranged attack, whereas Greeks were well-renowned for
their abilities in a close-up attack.
Greek formations
included the phalanx in which each hoplite held his
shield over his left side and the right side of his
neighbour.
The long lances of the rear rank projected
beyond the shields of the front rank to confront the
enemy.
Once the formation was broken, however, the
advantage was lost.
Another tactic was the wing
formation, used in Marathon in a previous invasion.
The triremes were also evident and important in the
success of the Greeks over the Persians.
They had three
rows of oarsmen drawn from the thetes class of society,
who were usually highly trained professionals.
These
ships were light and unstable, so the rowers were
expected to throw javelins and sling stones from a
sitting position.
The crew also included 200 archers and
hoplites to repel enemy boarders.
At the front of the
ship was a bronze ram for breaking oars of other ships
and possibly bashing in holes into enemy ships.
In a
naval battle, a formation called the kyklos was used.
This was a defensive tactic adopted by outnumbered sleets
and formed a circle with the rams pointing outward.
The military leaders from Thermopylae, Artemisium,
Salamis, Plataea and Mycale were praised for their
successes in these battles and the tactics used.
During the meeting of the Greek forces in 480, they had
decided to defend narrow mountain passes to further their
own advantage.
Leonidas led his Spartan men and many
Athenian men to defend the pass at Thermopylae while
Eurybiades and Themistocles were stationed at Artemisium
to keep the Persians away in a combined effort.
Themistocles’ decree suggests that these battles were
merely delaying actions to reduce the numbers of the
enemy and give Athens time to evacuate their city.
This
explains why so few Spartans were present at Thermopylae
– only 300 amongst the 7000 Greek troops. Another reason
for so little Spartans was that there was a festival on
during this time in the city-state, as well as the fact
that the Spartans were unlikely to have subjected their
main army in Boeotia.
Themistocles’ decree suggests a
bold and daring plan in which both Athens and Sparta were
to carry out their agreed tasks – the Athenians
sacrificing their city and Leonidas giving his life.
Herodotus tells us of the honour paid to the Spartans who
defended Thermopylae: ‘Go tell the Spartans you who read,
We took their orders and are dead.’
Prior to this, Themistocles had left messages for the
Ionian greeks to change sides and join the Athenians.
These are called the Trozen inscriptions and were of
great import at the time.
Themistocles part in the
Persian invasion of 480-479 can not be undermined in that
it was he who convinced the Athenians to spend the profit
from the silver minds at Laurium on triremes.
In this,
he was able to hold out at Salamis in one of the most
momentous turning points in the war.
Having abandoned
the battle at Artemisium due to the fall of Leonidas’
troops, Xerxes then marched south.
The evacuation of
Athens was complete and the ships from Artemisium lay off
the island of Salamis.
Many of the Greek alliance were
in favour of defending only the Peloponnese, but as
Plutarch states, Themistocles did not agree as the sea
around the Peloponnese was wide and it would give the
Greek’s a major disadvantage due to their smaller
numbers.
The narrow bay of Salamis offered the natural
protection that the Greek navy needed.
Plutarch claims
that Themistocles deliberately chose the time of day
‘when the wind usually blows fresh from the sea’.
Plutarch further states that the breeze did not disturb
the Greek fleet, as those ships were small and lay low in
the water, but the breeze caught the Persian vessels,
which were ‘difficult to manoeuvre with their high decks
and towering sterns, and swung them around broadside.’
After the battle of Salamis, Xerxes returned home to the
Asian continent and left Mardonius in charge of the
destruction of Greece.
Following this was the battle at
Plataea where Pausanias, Leonida’s nephew, led the army.
Herodotus tells us that the Spartans ‘dispatched a force
of 5000 Spartan troops, each man attended by seven
helots’.
The battle at Plataea involved a lot of
retreating to more advantageous areas and waiting for the
other side to attack, which nerved the Spartans, but
eventually Pausanias positioned himself near the
foothills closer to Plataea.
This also gave them better
access to a water supply and some protection from Persian
attacks.
IN surprise, Mardonius engaged his troops,
whose sight of the Greeks were obscured by the hills and
they believed that they had them on the run.
At this
point the Greek allies of the Persians, the Thebans and
Boetians, cut off the Athenians of the left and there
they fought a pitched battle.
When the Boetians realised
their defeat was imminent, they retreated.
At Mycale, a Greek fleet of 250 ships were led by the
Spartan king Leotychides.
This was the first offensive
battle led by the Greeks against the Persians.
Other
reasons for this battle included an attempt to liberate
the Ionian Greeks, to incite revolt amongst them, to
prevent the Persian troops from joining Mardonius at
Plataea and to ensure that no further Persian invasions
occurred.
Greek spies from Samos, the headquarters of
the Persian fleet reported that the Persian ships were in
poor condition.
Upon reaching Samos, the Greeks
discovered that the Persians had sailed to Mycale and
pursued them.
Herodotus asserts that ‘this day saw the
second Ionian revolt from Persian domination.’ however,
Mycale occurred about the same time as Plataea so
historians discount this claim.
Patriotism, liberty, morale and their athletic lifestyle
also contributed to the Greek success.
The Ionian revolt led to the Athenians learning of
Persian tactics as well as realising the threat to their
own land by Persian allied Greek tyrants.
Athens had
only recently engaged in the rule of democracy, though
still developing from plutocracy they had disbanded the
tyranny that had held them.
This incited them to help in
the Ionian revolt as well as defend their country with a
strong patriotism.
As the Persian’s invaded, it became
more evident that the knowledge of the land assisted in
the Greek success.
Salamis.
Examples of this are Thermopylae and
In fighting in their own land did the Greeks
use this advantage to its fullest.
The stamina in which the Greeks under took these battles
leant itself very much to their lifestyle.
The Olympic
Games is a clear indication of this widespread belief in
the athletic.
At the games at Olympia was included a
hoplite event in which a runner would run with heavy
armour on or carrying a hoplite shield on their arm.
The
Spartans also had a lifelong military regime in which
their skills became superior and renowned.
The performance of the hoplites and the Athenian
Pheidippides is honoured in today’s society with the
‘marathon races’.
The hoplites ran, carrying about 32kg
of armour into battle.
After hard fighting, they hurried
back to Athens more than 33km away to prepare another
resistance to Persian landing.
Phiedippides ran from
Athens to Sparta, covering 245km in two days in an vain
attempt to summon help.
The morale gained by the battle of Marathon was one of
the most uplifting events for the Greeks as the small
amount of Plataeans and Athenians were able to drive back
Persian attack in 490 under the leadership of Miltiades.
The battles in which the Greeks undertook in 480-479 were
successful in driving back the Persians due to their
superior skills, armour, patriotism, unity as well as
their belief in liberty and their own morale gained at
Marathon and Salamis.