World history could have been very different than what it is today had the ancient Greeks not halted the expansion of Persia through a series of epic battles on land and sea. These took place in the 4th century BC.
Known as the Persian, or Greco-Persian Wars, the conflict between the vast Persian Empire and a coalition of Greek city-states lasted from 499 to 449 BC and ended with the Peace of Callias treaty. This was once all Persian garrisons had been expelled from Greece, nearby European territories, and the land of the Scythians.
Beyond securing European territory, the triumph of the Greek allied forces against Persia is widely considered to have safeguarded values, such as democracy, and the political system of Greek city-states. These were later adopted by the Romans and spread across Europe after the Renaissance and the revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries.
All the surviving primary sources for the Greco-Persian Wars are ancient Greek, the most important being Historia, written by the fifth-century Greek historian Herodotus. He is known as the “Father of History.”
Despite criticism from later ancient historians as well as contemporary scholars, Herodotus’ account of the events is largely corroborated by archaeological findings.
The reputation of some of the eponymous protagonists of these battles survived to the modern era when they became global symbols of bravery and heroism. Such has also been the case with the heroes of the Trojan War, which took place seven centuries prior to the Greco-Persian Wars.
The Greco-Persian Wars
After Aristagoras, the Greek ruler of Miletus, declared a constitutional government in his city, he went on to expel the occupying Persians from the other city-states in Asia Minor.
Aristagoras then sailed to the Greek mainland and requested help in fending off the inevitable Persian reprisal. The Spartans refused him, but the Athenians promised to send twenty triremes, and the Eretrians promised a further five.
The vessels arrived in 498 BC, and the Ionians swiftly attacked and burned the city of Sardis, situated in modern-day Cyprus. This move inspired rebellions in other places with ancient Greeks in the states of Caria, Bosporus, the Hellespont, and Cyprus all rising up against Persia.
However, the Persians did eventually reclaim Cyprus in 496 BC, and Persian army groups then went on to retake control of the Bosporus and the Hellespont. Employing a huge fleet of ships, recruited from Phoenicia, Egypt, and Cyprus, the Persians won a decisive victory at sea and then sequentially took back control over rebellious city-states on the coast. Miletus was captured in 494 BC, and the Ioanian revolt was put to an end in 493 BC.
Once they had put down the Ionian revolt, the Persians made plans to invade the Greek mainland and bring about a calmer state of affairs. However, before Greece could be invaded directly, preparations had to be made in the surrounding areas.
Preparing for the Invasion of Greece
Darius, the Persian ruler, gave his son-in-law Mardonius the responsibility of achieving this task in 492 BC. Despite losing many men to the sea during a violent storm, Mardonius was successful in securing the strategic approaches to Greece.
The Persians’ main expedition took to the waters in 490 BC under the command of Datis and another official called Artaphernes, the former being the son of a powerful Satrap (provincial governor in the ancient Persian Empire). The first target was the island of Rhodes just off the southern coast of Ionia. The Persians did try to besiege the city of Lindos, but they failed.
The island of Naxos in the Cyclades was the first to fall to the Persians, with settlements being burnt and the population either fleeing into the mountains or being taken as slaves.
After this, the Persians targeted the island of Delos, which—after Datis had demonstrated his power—was spared destruction.
The fleet then island-hopped across the Cyclades, taking hostages and soldiers until they reached the city of Karystos in Euboea on the mainland of Greece. The city refused to surrender hostages and was raided until the leaders gave in and submitted to the Persians.
The first major city the Persians reached was Eretria, which they attacked and captured after a week-long siege, enslaving its people.
The Battle of Marathon
The next goal of the Persian forces was to get onto the Greek mainland. They chose the beach at Marathon as their entry point and were met by an army of Greeks, mainly from Athens. A five-day standoff ensued.
Despite outnumbering the ancient Greeks by more than two to one, the forces of Persia chose to put their soldiers back onto their ships and select another place to land. Once the cavalry had been loaded, however, the Greek forces sprung an attack, routing the Persian flanks before declaring a decisive victory and demolishing any hopes the Persians had of continuing the campaign.
Interbellum (490 – 480 BCE)
Following the Persian loss, it was evident that a much larger army was needed to defeat the Greek city-states, particularly if they united. Darius set out on his task to build an enormous army to take on this task.
However Darius died in 486, and his son, Xerxes I, took over his work. By 481 BC, the army building was complete, and Xerxes began the march toward Greece.
The Second Persian Invasion of Greece (480 – 479 BC)
The second Persian invasion of Greece marked the height of the conflict. With an army ten times the size of Darius, Xerxes was confident he could take Greece. The Persian forces crossed the Hellespont on two enormous pontoon bridges. Modern historians suggest the army may have been around 200,000 soldiers strong. Furthermore, it may have been supported by a fleet of between 600 and 1,200 triremes.
August 480 BCE: The Battle of Thermopylae
The ancient Greeks strategically decided to defend the narrow pass at Thermopylae, positing that the bottleneck would reduce the numerical advantage of Persia. Led by Spartan King Leonidas, several thousand Greek hoplites defended the pass for two days.
When he intuited that the Persians were about to outflank the Greek force, he sent the main Greek force away and stayed behind with 300 Spartan warriors and 700 Thespians to delay the Persian advance. On the third day, the Persians took Thermopylae and killed Leonidas and his soldiers.
While the conflict in Thermopylae was playing out, the Greek fleet of 271 triremes defended the Straits of Artemisium in the Battle of Artemisium. This protected the Greek flank at Thermopylae. Following the defeat at Thermopylae, the badly damaged Greek fleet withdrew.
September 480 BC: Destruction of Athens and the Battle of Salamis
After forcing their entry to nearly all of northern Greece, the Persian army burned Athens. They had hoped they could induce a Greek surrender by destroying the Greek fleet. Under the lead of Themistocles, the Greek fleet retreated to the Isthmus of Salamis directly off the coast to the west of Athens.
It was there that the Persians suffered under their great numbers. This led to their being unable to maneuver effectively. After obliterating 200 Persian vessels, the Greeks secured a decisive victory.
From the Battles of Plataea and Mycale to the Wars of the Delian League
The Persian forces made an effort to draw the Greeks out into the open, where their larger army could make use of its cavalry. They set up camp north of a small river near the city of Plataea, where the Greek forces, heavily outnumbered, attempted to outmaneuver the Persians but were caught in the open and separated.
Despite the strategic error, the Greek hoplites were immensely powerful, and the Persian army was defeated at the Battle of Plataea.
Just a few days later, a Greek army at Mycale in Asia Minor won a victory over the Persian forces that were sent to face them. With the help of the Ionian Greeks who rebelled against their Persian commanders, the Greeks captured the Persian camp and burned the remaining Persian ships in another decisive battle.
Following the victories at Plataea and Mycale, the wars between Greece and Persia took a major turn, with the ancient Greeks now leading the offensive. The Athenians attacked and took the city of Sestos in 479 BCE in an effort to deny the Persians access to the Hellespont.
A year later, the Greeks sailed on Byzantium, which they captured after besieging the city. With control of Sestos and Byzantium, Hellespont and Bosporus were more or less denied to the Persian forces. This was an action that brought the second invasion of Greece to a close.
Following Xerxes’ failed attempt to conquer and subdue Greece, the Greeks continued their offensive in the Wars of the Delian League which lasted from 477 to 449 BC.
The Battle of Eurymedon and the Egyptian Revolt
On the southern coast of modern-day Turkey, the Persians had begun to regroup and rebuild their fleet. However, this fleet of around two hundred ships was destroyed by the Greeks in the Battle of Eurymedon sometime around 469 to 466 BC.
In the mid 480’s BC, the Egyptian Satrapy (area of Egypt ruled by a Satrap, a governor of the Persian Empire) rebelled against Persian rule. After roughly two decades, the Athenians chose to intervene on the side of the Egyptians, and the campaign ended in disaster when the Greek forces were besieged and destroyed in the 460s BC during the Egyptian Revolt.
A Peace Treaty Between the Ancient Greeks and Persia?
Historians are still in debate with one another as to whether a peace treaty took place, but the conflict appeared to die down, and actions were taken that suggest that some kind of agreement was reached. Thus, the conflict came to a close. A notable date suggested is 449 BC, when the Greeks exited the island of Cyprus.
The Greco-Persian Wars flared and calmed throughout their duration, and although the open war between the Greeks and the Persians came to an end, it was by no means an end to the struggle between the two powers. This also didn’t mean the end to the effects of conflict on the common people.
Persia participated in other battles, while Greece experienced a deadly war, known as the Peloponnesian War, between Sparta and Athens. It would be another century before Alexander the Great arrived on the scene and put an end to the Achaemenid Empire.
When did Persia become Iran?
Persia was historically the common name for the area of land known as Iran. However, on the Nowruz (holiday marking the Persian New Year) of 1935, then leader of the country, Reza Shah officially asked foreign delegates to use the Persian term Iran, the endonym of the country, in formal correspondence.
Henceforth, the people of Iran were referred to as Iranians rather than Persians.
How does Iran relate to Greece in the modern day?
Amid the escalating conflict in the Middle East, which was sparked by the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7th last year, Iran, which funds, trains, and provides weapons to Hamas, launched more than 300 drones and missiles against military targets into Israel.
The country did this in response to an alleged Israeli attack on Iran’s consulate in Damascus on April 1st, which killed Iran’s top soldier, Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, among other Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders.
The government of Greece issued a stern condemnation of Iran’s drone attack on Israel, labeling them as a “significant escalation.” Authorities in Greece are maintaining a state of alert and staying in close contact with Western allies, while Greek missions remain active in the wider region.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis expressed his condemnation of Iran’s attack and called for restraint to avoid a wider regional conflict.
“These are extremely unpleasant and very disturbing developments that are sparking a new conflagration in our wider neighborhood and of course in the Middle East,” Mitsotakis said.
“I want to start with the clear and unequivocal condemnation of the Greek Government and me personally against Iran’s attack on Israel,” he added in a message on social media.
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