The Persian Wars, one of the most famous conflicts of Antiquity and perhaps the greatest conflict that the Hellenes faced. Wars that lasted more than half a century that pitted the Greeks against the Persians and demonstrated the military power of the Achaean polis.
Background
Persia, a great empire that was born thanks to the continued expansion of the Achaemenid king Cyrus I or Cyrus “the great”. In the middle of the 6th century BC, Cyrus created a great army based on Assyrian logistics and strategy, in this way he would be able to expel the Medes, a people located in present-day Iran whom the Greek historian Herodotus points out as subjugators of the Achaemenid people.
After the Persian victory against the Medes, Cyrus continued his expansion, first unifying all the Persian peoples and later, around the year 545 BC, he carried out a campaign against the neo-Babylonian empire, thus managing to defeat the Babylonian people. After this great victory, one can begin to speak of the Persian empire. By then all of Anatolia became Persian territory, but, unlike so many other cultures, the Achaemenids did not subjugate the peoples by imposing their own beliefs, but instead allowed the conquered peoples to maintain their religion, culture and administration, as long as they were under the imperial organization. Persian “benevolence” even appears in some passages in the Bible, specifically in those of Ezra and Nehemiah, which explains that Cyrus allowed the Jews to return to Judea and rebuild the temple.
Cyrus did not finish his work of expansion because in 530 BC he died fighting a revolt in the territory of Media and his son Cambyses replaced him. Cambyses II marked the maximum extent of the Achaemenid kingdom, conquering Egypt. He strengthened the Persian borders that went from the Mediterranean to India, specifically reaching the Hindu Kush mountain range. Cambyses II, died in 522 BC due to an alleged accident when he was traveling to stop a rebellion carried out by a Gaumata (Persian magician) in Egypt. Such was the importance of the uprising that Gaumata came to hold the title of Persian king for six months. Darío the following year together with a group of nobles close to his person joined together and managed to dethrone the “magician” and name himself King of Persia.
Darius, king of Persia, Babylon and Media, devoted much of his reign to maintaining the empire achieved by his predecessors, was benevolent and tried to avoid the struggle for power. To avoid confrontations he made use of the maxim “divide and rule”, causing disagreements between the subjugated populations, as happened in Ionia. To prevent the commercial growth of Asiatic Greece, Darius favored Phoenician trade and despised products of Greek origin.
This strategy worked for him at first, but after years of resentment, the Ionian polis rose up around 499 BC, led by a tyrant named Aristagoras, who ruled in Miletus. At first it may seem to us that it is nothing more than a simple uprising against the Persian empire by the subjugated, and so it was at first, but Aristagoras asked the Hellenic polis for help, provoking the anger of Darius. The rebels only received a dozen Athenian and Eritrean ships, which fought to recover Byzantium, while the rest of the Ionian polis lost to the Persian army. Darius would finally defeat the Greek fleet at Byzantium, thus stopping the uprising.
Medical Wars
First Medical War
The classical historian Herodotus comments in the nine books of History, that Darius, disgusted by the Hellenic help, asked who was that people who helped the rebels. After knowing the answer, he cried out for revenge and asked a slave to remind him a minimum of three times a day that he must take revenge against the Achaean people.
Seven years later, Darius would finally seize the initiative and order his generals Artaphernes, his nephew, and a nobleman known as Datis to retaliate against Athens and Eritrea. Meanwhile, the Athenians felt that retaliation for the Ionian rebellion was near so they began their fortification. The archon of the time, Themistocles, believed it necessary to fortify Piraeus, the famous port of Athens, in order to expand and strengthen the Athenian navy. Meanwhile other citizens were against the idea of fighting by sea against the Persian army. Men like Miltiades believed that the Achaean superiority was given by land and not by sea, thanks to the use that was made of the hoplites, ideal for mountainous territories such as Greece. Finally, Athenian democracy made its appearance and granted the defense of Athens to Miltiades, who in case of an Achaemenid attack would be the main general.
In the year 490 BC, the Persian army commanded by Artaphernes landed on Eritrean territory, the island of Euboea, annexing it as punishment for the help given to the revolt. After his conquest, he continued his journey towards Athens and landed on the plain of Marathon.
Miltiades emboldened the Athenians to stand up to the Persians by taking the initiative. It might seem crazy, since the Persian army was made up of about 200,000 men, of which 10,000 were cavalry, against about 10,000 Athenians. However, some historians cite that there were much fewer, about 6,000 Athenians, accompanied by a small garrison of 1,000 people from La Plata. It is also known that the slaves were freed before combat to be used as light infantry, but there is no record of their role in combat or their number.
Before the military confrontation, Miltiades sent a messenger named Phidipides to Sparta in search of military support, but the Spartans were celebrating the “Carneas”, a military truce that did not end until the appearance of the full moon, which at that time would take still ten days. Thus, Miltiades awaited the arrival of the Spartan forces for five days facing the Persian forces, until he finally seized the initiative and emboldened the Athenians to charge the army.
The Persians were surprised and panicked, causing the troops to withdraw back to the boats. According to Herodotus, before this attack the Persians lost about 6,000 men while the Athenians only 192 men. It could seem like an Athenian heroism or a pathetic Persian army, but the situation was that the terrain was in favor of the Achaeans and basing their army on phalanxes they were like a wall colliding with thousands of Persian archers, an outstanding army of the Persians. Artaphernes before the total withdrawal of his men took the rest and embarked for Athens, hoping to find it unguarded.
Plutarch says that a runner named Thersipus was sent after the battle to Athens to warn of the Persian arrival by sea and that after arriving and giving the news he died. Herodotus notes that the Athenian army rushed to Athens after victory to fortify themselves. Both stories give rise to the myth that we know today and the mythical endurance race known as the Marathon.
Be that as it may, Artaphernes arrived much later than the Athenian army and, faced with the dense fortification, decided to withdraw and return to Persia. Thus ending the first Medical War.
Second Medical War
Years after the Persian defeat, Darius “the great” died (486 BC) ceding his throne to his son Xerxes I, who for years prepared an invasion of Greece. In the year 480 BC he began the invasion of the Hellenic territories, after amassing an army of 500,000 men according to estimates. He crossed the Hellespont and on his way to Thessaly he conquered Thrace and Macedonia. But he was stopped at the pass of Thermopylae.
A year before the Persian attack, the Hellenic polis were united under a military truce where the armies would be commanded by Spartan generals. So, knowing what was coming and commanded by their king Leonidas I, they decided to stop the Persian advance at the pass of Thermopylae, for which 300 Spartans and 5,000 Greeks from all over the Peloponnese and Attica strengthened themselves at Thermopylae to block their way. The Greeks, thanks to their phalanx formation, which was perfect for the passage, managed to withstand the Persian charge for two days, which could only attack the Greek army head-on. But the Hellenes were defeated on the third day by a traitor named Ephialtes, who explained to Xerxes that there was a pass that would allow him to outflank the army. Wasting no time, the Persian king dispatched his elite troops, known as the Immortals, to outflank the Achaeans. Leonidas before the arrival of the Persian army on the flank ordered the withdrawal of the bulk of the army and anyone who did not have the courage to stay. Finally Leonidas together with 300 Spartans, 700 Thespians and 400 Thebans, withstood the last Persian charge to allow the retreat.
At the same time as the Battle of Thermopylae, a naval battle was fought to impede the Persian advance, the Battle of Artemisium, which the Greeks withstood for two days, but after learning of their defeat at the pass, they withdrew to Salamis.
After losing at Thermopylae, all of Attica and Boeotia remained in the hands of Xerxes, so all the cities were evacuated and all the citizens marched to Salamis. On this island they fortified themselves awaiting the Persian advance, while Xerxes destroyed all the cities he encountered, including Athens.
Xerxes, knowing that the Greek army and navy were in Salamis, sent a naval attack against them, but they were defeated thanks to the naval mastery of the Greeks and their coordination against the Persian navy, which was not in a position to attack. struggle. After this victory, the Greeks found themselves in superiority and prepared to face the Persian invasion. Thus, in the summer of 479 BC, the Greeks stood up to Plataea and Micala, emerging victorious and ending the Second Medical War.
Third Medical War
After the Second Medical War, the period known as Pentecontetia begins, fifty years from the Persian Wars to the Peloponnesian Wars in which Athens forms and leads the Delian League and begins its golden age, which will give rise to the era known as Periclean democracy.
The Athenians continued to stand up to the Persians, who at that time were ruled by Artaxerxes I. In 467 BC, the Athenians, seeing the Persians’ intent to invade, went ahead and battled them on their own territory. They fought in front of the Euridomonte river commanded by the son of General Milcíades, Cimón. Cimon manages to defeat them and thanks to this great victory, years later and after many other Greek fights against the Persians, Pericles signed the Cimon Treaty (448 BC) with the Persian empire, which stipulated the Persian obligation to reject the conquest of Greece.
The Medical Wars, which they fought for…