1. THE PERSIAN WARS The Rise of Classical Greek Civilization

2. The Persian Empire By the end of the 5 th century BCE the Persian Empire had expanded to include Mesopotamia, Northern India, Eastern Egypt and Anatolia (modern day Turkey)

3. The Persian Empire  In 500 BCE, the Persian Empire was the largest of its day – stretching from Asia across to North Africa and beginning to assert itself in Europe.  The Greek city-states came into conflict with the Persians when they convinced several Greek cities in Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey) to refuse to submit to Persian taxation and control.  In reality, the Persians were fairly “open” in their treatment of subject peoples – life in the Persian Empire was pretty good…

4. First Persian War 490 BCE Marathon  The Persian King, Darius, led a force of 80 000.  They first occupied the city of Eritrea then came ashore on the Greek mainland at Marathon – a plain about 42 km north of Athens.  An Athenian messenger, Pheidippides, ran 225 km in 36 hours to ask the Spartans for help, but the Spartans were in the middle of a religious celebration and could not assist Athens.  The Athenian general, Miltiades, noticed that the Persians grazed and watered their cavalry horses at the same time each day – he decided to attack the Persians when they were without their cavalry.  The Greeks were far more heavily armoured and their phalanx formation was much more disciplined than the Persian forces.  The Athenians won the battle and inflicted huge losses on the Persians  The battle helped to create a sense of Athenian and Greek pride and showed that the Athenians could fight the Persians and be successful despite being outnumbered.

5. First Persian War 490 BCE Marathon

6. Second Persian War 480 BCE Thermopylae  A decade after the defeat at Marathon, the new Persian king, Xerxes, led another expedition against the upstart Greek city states.  In the years since Marathon, the Athenians had built a navy of over 200 ships to defend against Persian assault.  The Persians, with over 600 ships, and 200,000 men posed a greater threat this time.  The Athenians and Spartans agreed to work together to try to defend all of Greece.  They tried to halt the Persian advance at a narrow mountain pass called Thermopylae. When a traitor showed the Persians another way around the pass, the Greeks were trapped. Most of the Greek forces escaped but a group of 700 Thespians and 300 Spartans stayed behind to slow the Persian advance and fought to the death.  This sacrifice allowed the Athenians to evacuate their city, which the Persians burned to the ground, but the Persians had still not won the war.

7. Thermopylae

9. Second Persian War Salamis  After the burning of Athens, the Persians still had to defeat the Athenian navy and once again, the Greeks showed they were tactically more astute than the Persians.  The Athenian general Themistocles, ensured false information got to the Persians that the Athenian navy was in a narrow strait at Salamis and that they were about to depart.  The Persians, fearing that the Athenian navy would slip away rowed for 24 hours to get to Salamis. Xerxes was so certain that his navy would prevail that he had a gold throne positioned on the hills above the water so that he could watch the victory.  The Persians rowers were exhausted and couldn’t manoeuvre and the Athenians destroyed many of the Persian boats. Most of the Persians couldn’t swim and the Athenians were fighting for their homeland.

10. Salamis

11. Second Persian War Plataea  After the defeat of his navy at Salamis, Xerxes sent his navy back home. He also sent home a large portion of his land forces. The best soldiers in the Persian army stayed in Greece and wintered there.  In the Spring of the following year, the Persians met the Greek forces in battle on the plains of Plataea.  This time, it was the Spartan hoplites who proved decisive. They were far too disciplined and experienced for the Persians and the combined Greek army of around 50 000 men routed the 80 000 Persians.  The combined Greek forces had convincingly defeated the greatest power of their age. Ironically, the Persians had succeeded in uniting the bickering, independent Greeks.  The Greeks began to see themselves in a new light; as a great people and a great civilization.  Sparta emerged as the greatest land power in the region, and Athens emerged as a great naval power. Athens would use its navy to strengthen and expand its overseas merchant empire and would slowly alienated most of the other Greek city states with its arrogance and aggression.  Sparta and Athens would grow apart steadily and eventually they would become deadly enemies.

12. Greek hoplites and the Phalanx

13. Greek Hoplites and the Phalanx

14. Greek hoplites and the Phalanx