The Persian Wars (499 - 449 BC)

Even during the height of Greek cultural accomplishments, Greece was beset by conflict that would shape its future. Soon after the democracy had been established in Athens the Greek people as a whole had to face a severe invasion by the Persian Empire – an aggregation of peoples that was more than thirty times larger than the Greeks.

In the 6th century, the Greek Empire was under the threat of the Persian Empire, under King Xerxes rule who had views on invading Greece. The Hellenic league, under the leadership of Athens and Sparta decisively defeated the Persians at the battles of Marathon, Salamis and Platea. This conflict was known as the Persian Wars and was of great importance because they resulted, after centuries of trade and cultural relations, into the separation between the Greek Empire and the Near East including Phoenicia, Lydia, Egypt, and other cultures.

Then, Sparta left the Hellenic League and Athens gain the total leadership of the League with Themistocles and Kimon. The new Alliance was created that took the name of Delian League. A military force started to be built by using monetary contribution from other member states like its rival Sparta, head of the Peloponnesian league.

In revenge for assistance given by the Athenians and one or two other of the Greek peoples to a revolt against the Persian monarch in Ionia, across the Aegean Sea, Darius, the "Great King" of Persia, sent a naval expedition to punish the offenders. The brunt of the attack fell upon Athens. Darius, it seems, expected to be aided by the dissident antidemocratic party of Hippias, but although the latter was apparently willing to play traitor, it was unable to give him much assistance. The tactics adopted by the Persians were not well suited to the conditions, and the army which landed near Marathon in 490 B.C. was severely defeated by the Athenians, aided by the Plataeans, but without much support from any other of the Greeks. During the battle the Persians could not decide whether to use their superior navy to take Athens directly or to aid their land troops which were being beaten. This indecision meant the defeat of the entire expedition. The navy was unable to take Piraeus, the port of Athens, and returned to Persia.

Darius bequeathed the chastisement of the Greeks to his son Xerxes, who spent the next ten years in preparing a huge army which was expected to overwhelm the Greeks. In the meanwhile, however, the great Athenian leader Themistocles, well aware of the impending expedition, had persuaded the Athenians to use all their surplus money to build a fleet. But Themistocles did not have at his disposal from the citizenry of Athens a really worthwhile army. He therefore attempted to persuade the Spartans of the great danger that all the Greeks were in from the aggressive intentions of the Persians. The Spartans, however, were very jealous of the Athenians and had different notions on the strategy that ought to be employed against the Persians. Indeed, they went so far as to suggest that Greece north of the Peloponnesus was indefensible, and that a wall should be constructed to the north of the peninsula beyond which the Persians would not be able to march. Nothing had been settled when the Persian army in 480 B.C. crossed the Hellespont and proceeded into Greece from the north, receiving the submission of almost all the Greeks in their path. Too late the Spartans sent the flower of their army to stop the Persians but were overwhelmed on the third day at the battle of Thermopylae, after a traitor had betrayed to the Persians the path over the mountains by which the Spartan soldiers could be taken in the rear. The Spartans were killed to the last man, winning undying fame, but not holding up the Persians for any significant period of time.

Athens was now wide open to the invaders. By winning a great naval battle at Salamis, the Athenians prevented the Persian fleet from invading the Peloponnese. But Athens itself was captured and its citizens took refuge on the island of Salamis, just outside the Athenian harbor. The next year, for the first and almost the only time in Greek history, all the Greeks who had not submitted to the Persians joined together, and under Spartan leadership they defeated the Persians at the decisive Battle of Plataea (479 B.C). The Athenians performed their part of the bargain by again defeating the Persians on sea at the Battle of Mycale. This proved to be the end of the Persian threat until almost a century later. In the late fifth century Persia had her revenge by subsidizing and assisting the Spartans to win the Peloponnesian War, and throughout much of the fourth century it was, to a great extent, Persian intrigues and money that kept most of the Greek states in constant enmity with one another.