Persian Wars (499-479 BCE):
Ionian Revolt to Erymedon
“So, as it stands now, a man who declares that the Athenians
were the saviors of Greece would hit the very truth.”
~ Herodotus, 7.139
Persepolis--Aerial View
Apadana Staircase--Persepolis
Xerxes’ Gate
Persepolis
Achaemenid Persian Empire
Persian Monarchs and the Achaemenid Empire
 Rise of Persia
 Cyrus the Great (559-530 BCE)
 Cambyses (529-522 BCE)
 Darius (521-486 BCE): centralized authority
(Susa/Ecbatana); road network; satrapies (20);
canal linking Nile and Red Sea
Ionian Revolt (499/8-494 BCE)
 Asia Minor Greeks as part of Yauana
Satrapy
 Burning of Sardis and Athenian Naval
Support (Herodotus 5.105)
Ionian Revolt (499/8-494 BCE)
 Causes of the Revolt
 disruption of established trade routes
 Egypt conquered 525 BCE (Naucratis in decline)
 Scythian expedition of 513/512 BCE and Black Sea
trade
 destruction of Sybaris in 511/510 BCE (Milesian
trading post in west)


Persian rule comparatively harsher than
(Hellenized) Lydian rule
Personal motives? Histiaeus and Aristagoras
(Herodotus 5.35)
Darius and the Burning of Sardis
Herodotus, 5.105
 “When King Darius was informed that Sardis had been
captured and burned by the Athenians and the Ionians…he
first (so the story goes), when he heard the news, made no
account of the Ionians--for he knew well that they would
surely not get off scot-free for their rebellion--but he put the
question, “Who are the Athenians?” and, having his answer,
asked for a bow. He took it, fitted an arrow to it, and shot it
into the sky, and as he sent it up he prayed, ‘Zeus, grant me
the chance of punishing the Athenians.’ Having said that, he
ordered one of his servants that, as often as a meal was set
before him, the man should says three times, ‘Master,
remember the Athenians’.”
Darius’ Empire
First Persian Expedition
Battle at Marathon (490 BCE)
 Modern estimations of the size of the Persian
expedition around 20,000 troops
 Darius attempts to form “fifth columns” among
the aristocracies in the Greek poleis (cf.
Herodotus 6.48)--medizing
 Objectives: Eretria on Euboea and Athens
 September 490: Battle at Marathon (Attica)-Herodotus 6.112; casualties = 6,400 Persians; 192
Athenians (Herodotus 6.117)
Battle of Marathon (490 BCE)
Marathon--Phases of Battle
Herodotus on Marathon
“The lines were drawn up, and the sacrifices were favorable; so
the Athenians were permitted to charge, and they advanced on
the Persians at a run. There was not less than three quarters of
a mile in the no-man’s land between the two armies. The
Persians, seeing them come at a run, made ready to receive
them; but they believed that the Athenians were possessed by
some very desperate madness, seeing their small numbers and
their running to meet their enemies without the support of
cavalry or archers. That was what the barbarians thought; but
the Athenians, when they came to hand-to-hand fighting, fought
right worthily. They were the first Greeks we know of to charge
the enemy at a run and the first to face the sight of the Median
dress and the men who wore it. For till then the Greeks were
terrified even to hear the name of the Medes.” (6.112)
Xerxes (486-465/4 BCE) and
Second Persian Invasion (480-479 BCE)
 Interim: Egyptian revolt (486/5-484 BCE); Laurium silver
mines discovered (482 BCE); Themistocles and
construction of Athenian naval fleet
 Athenian Fleet, thetes, and Development of Athenian
Democracy
 June, 480 BCE: Second Persian Expedition (50,000175,000 troops); Autumn, 481 BCE = Defensive Alliance of
Greek states headed by Sparta and Athens
 King Leonidas, 300 Spartans, and Thermopylae
 September, 480 BCE: Sack of Athens, 9/20/480 BCE:
Salamis and Athenian trireme
Xerxes’ Route
Bust of Themistocles
Athenian Trireme Reproduced
Greek Offensive





Battles at Plataea and Mycale (479 BCE)
Ionians stage rebellion against Persia
Athenians capture Sestos (end of winter 479/8 BCE)
Foundation of Delian Confederacy (477 BCE)
Cimon captures Eion on Strymon river (Persian
stronghold)--476/475 BCE
 Cimon’s victory at Eurymedon river (466 BCE?)
Creation of the Persian Wars Myth
“Indeed upon the Asian land
no longer are they subject to the Persians
nor do they yet pay tribute
through the master’s crushing necessity
nor are they ruled falling prostrate before the king.
For the kingly strength has perished.”
~Aeschylus, Persians, lines 584-97
produced 472 BCE
Creation of the Persian Wars Myth
“Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by
that here obedient to their words we lie.”
Inscription at Thermopylae
reported by Herodotus, 7.228
Henry Miller on Greek Character
“Everywhere you go in Greece the atmosphere is
pregnant with heroic deeds….For stubbornness, courage,
recklessness, daring, there are no greater examples
anywhere. No wonder Durrell wanted to fight with the
Greeks. Who wouldn’t prefer to fight beside a
Bouboulina, for example, than with a gang of sickly,
effeminate recruits from Oxford or Cambridge?”
~ The Colossus of Maroussi (1941) pg. 37
Perpetuation of the Persian Wars Myth
“In terms of world history, the ramifications of the Greek triumph over the
Persians are almost incalculable. By repulsing the assault of the East the
Hellenes charted the political and cultural development of the West for an
entire century. With the triumphant struggle for liberty by the Greeks,
Europe was first born, both as a concept and as a reality….The freedom
which permitted Greek culture to rise to the classical models in art, drama,
philosophy and historiography, this Europe owes to those who fought at
Salamis and Plataea….If we regard ourselves today as free thinking people,
it is the Greeks who created the condition for this.”
~H. Bengtson, History of Greece (Ottawa 1988) pg. 106