Greek Success in Persian Wars - Essay Example

Greek success in Persian Wars Your The Persian Wars also known as the Greco-Persian Wars are a series of battles that took place from 490 BC to 449 BC. The wars were fought between the Persian Empire of Achaemenid and the states of Classic Greece. The wars started as a consequence when Ionia was conquered by Cyrus the Great in 547 BC and in order to try to control the people of the free minded cities of Ionia, dictators were chosen to rule over them. These dictators not only were harsh to the Greeks but also started being troublesome for the Persians as well. The Persian Wars resulted in the victory of Greece. The Persian Empire under the rule of Xerxes and Darius were defeated. There was a series of battles which took place in the Persian Wars, some lost by the Greeks, and some won. Following is a short account of how the Greeks managed to win most of the battles in the Persian Wars.1i The Siege of Naxos: The Siege of Naxos took place in 499 BC. This battle marks the start of the Persian Wars which lasted for about fifty years. The Milesian tyrant Aristagoras had the full support of Darius the Great of the Persian Empire in the futile attempt to take over the island of Naxos in the name of the Persian Empire. This attempt of Aristagoras however failed horribly. Aristocrats who had been exiled from the island of Naxos and were looking for a way to go back to their land contacted Aristagoras. Aristagoras saw this as an opportunity to make his position in the Miletus stronger. For assistance in this matter, Darius the Great and Artaphernes the local satrap were consulted and plans were made to conquer Naxos. The Persians agreed to g on the mission of conquering Naxos and a force of 200 triremes was assigned to Megabates. The mission however soon turned out to be a complete disaster. On the way to Naxos, Aristagoras and Artaphernes broke out into a quarrel and the Naxians were informed about the oncoming force beforehand, quite possibly by Artaphernes. Upon the arrival of Persians at the gate of Naxos, they encountered Naxos as a city which was prepared to the fullest to undertake and go through a siege. The attackers were obliged to attack in spite of the great defense as they had travelled a long way but after four months of no success in the battlefield they ran out of money and resources and had to retreat back to Asia Minor. Aristagoras sensed that after this disaster he would no longer be appointed to rule and so he turned the people of Ionia against Darius the Great and rebelled against him. The Ionian Revolt and the failed attempt to conquer Naxos angered Darius the Great and he decided to take his revenge from Athens and Eretria who had been supportive of the Ionian Revolt. The result of Darius the Great’s vow was the invasion of Greece in 492 BC. 2 The Battle of Marathon: The next destination of the Persian task force was the bay of Marathon which could be reached by heading down south towards the coast of Attica. The bay of Marathon was within the region of 40 kilometers or 25 miles away from Athens. Of the Athenian army battling furiously against the Persians, General Militades was the one who had the greatest experience- fighting the Persians and fighting in general as well. Under his command the armies of Athens walked up to the two gates exits of the Marathonan grounds and barricaded them. This resulted in the development of a deadlock which carried on for five days, at the end of which the Persians made up the decision of going onwards in the direction of Athens and started the loading of the groups back onto the fleets to go onwards starting with the cavalry who were the best of the soldiers first. The hills which surrounded the plains of Marathon had 10,000 soldiers from Athens on it who, while the cavalry was being loaded, descended into the plain and killed the weaker soldiers who were not yet loaded onto the ships and were on foot, by steering their wings on them before they headed for the rest of the Persians and straight for the center of the line of the cavalry. The Persian who survived abandoned the battle and ran into their ships. According to Herodotus’ account of the battle of Marathon, the battlefield was covered with Persian soldiers the number of whom may reach up to 6,400 as compared to the only 192 soldiers from Athens who died in the battlefield.3 When the few who had survived from the Persian troops had left and sailed away, the Athenian troops as soon as they could, headed back to Athens. Their arrival was just in time and they were not too late to stop Artaphernes from taking over a landing in Athens. Accepting defeat he gave Athens up as a lost cause and went back to Asia, marking the end of his crusade for that year. In the Persian Wars, the Battle of Marathon turned out to be a cutting point proving that the Persians could be defeated by the Greeks. It represented that if the soldiers utilized their strengths wisely, their potential would see no end. The Battle of Marathon proved that Greek soldiers who were a lot more heavily adorned with armors and shields on the battlefield were much superior to the ones who were not. The Battle of Marathon is incidentally the battle which provided the insight for the Marathon races.4 The Battle of Salamis: When the Persian were victorious in the battle of Thermopylae, Boeotia also was taken over by Xerxes and that left Attica vulnerable and anyone could attack and conquer it. The people of Athens who were left behind were withdrawn and sent to Salamis with the help of Allied task forces. The Peloponnesian Allies started the preparation of a defense line in the form of a wall protecting the Isthmus of Corinth. The road from Megara was also tore down, which left Athens at the mercy of the Persians. This is how Athens came to be conquered by the Persians. The few Athenians who had put themselves on the Acropolis as an obstruction also saw defeat at the hands of the Persians. When every Athenian was under the Persian control, Athens was ordered to be annihilated by Xerxes. 5 Most of Greece was now under the control of the Persian Empire but Xerxes had not kept into account the rebellious nature of the Greeks before invading. All he wanted to do after conquering Athens was to get over with the war and the battles as soon as he could. Had Xerxes been able to obliterate the Navy of the Allied task force, he could have easily forced the Allies to give up and surrender without any further damage. It was the hope of Themistocles that the Persian fleets would be destructed and the Allies will prevent their capture from reaching its completion mark. 6 The Persians made their way to obliterate the Allied Navy Fleets and the Allied forces having the full knowledge of the incoming Persians refused to move and stayed at their points, off the coast of Salamis. The fleets did not falter or changed their positions even after the fall of Athens, hoping that they would get a chance to fight with the. Both the Persian and Allied Navies clashed at the Straits of Salamis. Due to the large number of Persian ships, it became hard for them to stay organized and they could not move tactically. Taking advantage of the opportunity the Allied fleets attacked the Persians and were victorious. At least 200 Persian ships were either taken over or sunk and the Peloponnesus was secured.7 Herodotus in his account writes that after losing that battle Xerxes tried to construct a land bridge to attack the Athenians evacuating and leaving for Salamis but gave up on it. Without the presence of Persian Navy, Xerxes was afraid of the prospect that the pontoon bridges of Hellespont will be destructed by the Allied task forces. Xerxes with the larger portion of his troops left back for Asia with Mardonius and a few troops who had voluntarily stayed behind in charge and to complete the invasion. Mardonius took cover in Boeotia and Thessaly while the people of Athens returned to their burned down city for the winters. The Battles of Plataea and Mycale: As the winters passed there was some unease between the Allied parties especially the Athenians, who were no longer under the protection of Isthmus and had the key fleet which ensured that Peloponnesus was secure, were starting to feel that they were being treated unfairly and they also rejected the request of joining the Allied Navy that spring. Mardonius did not leave Thessaly as he was aware that there would be no point in attacking Isthmus when there were no Allied armies outside Peloponnesus. Mardonius made an attempt to break the impasse by trying to offer peace to the citizens of Athens, the in-between being Alexander I of Macedon but the peace offering was not accepted by the Athenians, in the presence of a delegation from Sparta. The Persians took over Athens again and the Athenians had to leave their city once again. Mardonius tried to make a peace offering with the Athenians who had taken refuge on Salamis. Representatives of Athens, Plataea and Megara were sent to Sparta asking for assistance and threatening to agree to the Persians if they were not assisted. As a result, a large army was called for from the Peloponnese which went to face the Persians. Upon hearing of the advancing army of the Allies Mardonius went back to Boeotia in an attempt to attract the Allied armed forces to a vantage point where his cavalry could have an upper hand. However the Allied armies which were under the order of the Pausanias countered the attempts for such tactics by staying well above the ground on Plataea which resulted in a several day long deadlock. Getting tired of this the Allied armies were ordered to go back to the position where they originally were. This retreat caused the Athenians, Spartans and Tegeans to be left separated on different hills far from each other. The Persians considered this to be their best chance of getting to the Allied forces and the entire army was ordered to advance upon the Allied forces. The Greek soldiers were heavily adorned with armors and the Persian forces could not bring much harm to them. The Spartans furiously cleared their path through the Persian forces, eliminated Mardonius’ guard and killed him. This resulted in a riot in the Persian forces and they scattered looking for escape routes. 40,000 Persian soldiers fled by the way of the road to Thessaly while the remaining retreated to their camps where they were captured and killed by the Greeks marking their victory. 8 As recounted by Herodotus, the same afternoon the Battle of Plataea took place, there was a rumor that the Allies had been victorious which reached the Allies Navy which was off the Ionian coast of Mount Mycale. This rumor lifted the morale of the Allied soldiers and they fought with a renewed zest and were victorious in the Battle of Mycale as well and the remaining Persian fleets faced severe destruction and the naval power of Xerxes was put out of action. The Battle of Sestos: Not much time had passed after Mycale when the Allied task forces sailed to the Hellespont to cause destruction at the pontoon bridges but upon arrival, discovered that they were too late and someone had already beaten them to it and broken down the bridges. Of the Allied forces Peloponnesians left and headed back home while the Athenians stayed back and planned to take back the control of Chersonesos which was under the control of Persians. The Persians along with their allies took off to take control of the most powerful town of that area, Sestos. Oeobazus of Cardia carried with him the cables and other necessary equipment which had been taken from the destruction of pontoon bridges and was among the Persian allies headed towards Sestos. The governor of the Persian empire, Artayctes, was not ready for a siege and had made no preparations accordingly as it did not occur to him that the Allies might attack them. This made it easier for the Athenians to put a blockade down and surround Sestos with it. the blockade took place over a period of many months which caused restlessness among some of the troops of Athens but there came a time when the city ran out of supply of food and the Persians had no other choice but to flee from the city at night from an area which was the least heavily guarded by the Athenian troops. The Athenians took over the city of Sestos the next day that the Persians fled. 9 Out of those Athenian troops, some immediately set out to follow the Persians. The troops of Oeobazus fell into the hands of a Thracian tribe which captured them all and made a sacrifice to the God Plistorus in the form of Oeobazus. Not much longer after that, Artayctes was also captured by the Athenians. The Athenians had to kill some of the Persians but the larger numbers of Persians were kept as captives, Artayctes among them. The people living in the town of Elaeus requested that Artayctes should be crucified as he had looted their town while he was governing Chersonesos. Only the region settled back down peacefully, the Athenians left back for Athens. With them they took the cables and equipment from the pontoon bridges as a symbol of victory. 10 The Battle of Byzantium: The fleet of Greek ships sailed to the city of Byzantium after that. The city was brought under siege by them and in due course it was captured by them and was under their control. The Greeks now had captured both Sestos and Byzantium and this control gave them the power and authority over the channel which passes between Asia and Europe. This channel had been used by the Persians to cross and come to Europe. In addition to that, this channel had made it possible for them to access the Black Sea and its merchant trade. The siege however turned out to be a source of great trouble for Pausanias. Although the exact details are not known clearly, Thucydides had let on a few of them. Thucydides related that Pausanias with his arrogant and violent nature, and illogical capricious deeds, managed to push away a number of allied parties especially those who had recently gained independence from the harsh Persian dictators. This resulted in the demand of Athenians by Ionians and others, to step up and take lead of the people and the operation. The Athenians agreed to this readily. Upon hearing of this event, the Spartans immediately called on Pausanias and he was put on trial for being charged with taking sides with the enemies and abandoning his own people. The court set free Pausanias but his reputation was ruined for life and he could never regain his command. In 477 BC Pausanias came back to Byzantium, not as a leader, but as a private citizen of the state and took command by force which resulted in his expulsion from Byzantium by the hands of the Athenians. After being expelled from Byzantium, Pausanias left for Colonae, crossing the Bosporus and settling down in the Troad. In Troad as well, he was charged with siding up with the Persians and the Spartans recalled him to a trial after which he killed himself with starvation. It is estimated that Byzantium was in the possession of Pausanias till 470 BC.11 On the other hand, Dorkis was sent to Byzantium along with a force not very big by the Spartans so that he could take charge of the allied forces. Upon his arrival he came to know that the Allies were not going to accept a Spartan as a leader and he had no choice but return back home. The Battle of Euremydon: This battle took place near the river Euremydon. The Persians were defeated here by Cimon in 466 BC. And not only were the Persians defeated once, but twice. During the day, the Persians were defeated at the estuary of the Euremydon and during the night, Cimon without prior notice attacked the Persian camps and they were defeated as they were defenseless and off guard but in spite of that, the Persians fought fiercely. King Xerxes was murdered as this of their double defeat news sent panic throughout the Persian courts back home. The town of Aspendus was located on the west bank of the river Euremydon. Cimon ordered his fleets to head towards the Persian navy which was on the banks of the Euremydon River King Xerxes had an illegitimate son, Tithrafstes, who was also a part of the fleets as a naval commander. The Persian fleets were waiting for the reinforcements to arrive but Cimon attacked them before their arrival and after resisting for a while the Persians had to give up waiting and fight in the battle. The Athenian won and took several of the Persian ships and the defeated Persian forces retreated into their camps. But when the nightfall came Cimon attacked the Persian base and a battle ensued. Both the sides were heavily wounded and suffered casualties. Finally the Persians were defeated and the victorious Athenians captured many Persians and took off in the reinforcements that they Persians had been waiting for earlier the same day. The battle was more like a guarantee that Athenian - led Delian League was secure. They should no longer be scared of Persian fleets on the waters of Aegean Sea. Cimon attacked the remaining Persian forces which were present in the Thracian peninsula and the Aegean Sea was completely secured by Athenian generals for many years to come. 12 BIBLIOGRAPHY Bradford, Ernle. 1980. The battle for the West: Thermopylae. New York, Düsseldorf: McGraw-Hill. Green, Peter. The Greco-Persian Wars. University of California Press, 1998. Harris, Nathaniel. History of Ancient Greece. Chancellor Press, 2003. Herodotus, Aubrey De Sélincourt, and John Marincola. 2000. The histories. Norwalk, Conn: Easton Press. Pausanias, . Description of Greece. Pausanias, , Diodorus Siculus, and Strabo. Guide to Greece. Plutarch, . On Sparta. Penguin, 1985. Plutarch, . The Rise and Fall of Athens: Nine Greek Lives. Penguin, Sealey, Raphael . A History of the Greek City States 700-338 B.C.. University of California Press, 1976. Thucydides, Rex Warner, and M. I. Finley. 1972. History of the Peloponnesian War. Harmondsworth, Eng: Penguin Books. Xenophon, . Hellienika . Penguin, 1979. Xenophon, . Anabasis . Penguin, 1979. Read More