The alliance of Greek city-states, which included Athens and Sparta, won the Persian Wars against Persia from 490 to 480 BCE
Common Era
Common Era or Current Era, abbreviated CE, is a calendar era that is often used as an alternative naming of the Anno Domini system ("in the year of the Lord"), abbreviated AD. The system uses BCE as an abbreviation for "before the Common (or Current) Era" and CE as an abbreviation for "Common Era".
How did the Spartans defeat the Persians?
The Greeks fought the Persians with all their remaining strength. When their weapons broke, they fought with their hands and teeth (According to Herodotus). But the Persian soldiers vastly outnumbered them and finally the Spartans were overwhelmed with a volley of Persian arrows. At the end, the Persian lost at the very least, 20,000 men.
Did Sparta win the Peloponnesian War?
Yes Sparta won the Peloponnesian war. But instead of razing Athens, the Spartans decided to simply destroy the Athenian fortifications and install an oligarchic government in Athens. Athens never recovered from their loss against the Spartans.
Why did Sparta and Athens go to war?
However, the Spartans, along with the rest of the Peloponnesian League, agreed the Athenians had already broken the peace and that war was once again necessary. In Athens, politicians would claim the Spartans had refused to arbitrate, which would have positioned Sparta as the aggressor and made the war more popular.
How did Athens defeat the Persians at Artemisium?
At Artemisium, the Athenian-led navy was able to inflict heavy damages on the Persian fleet by luring them into tight corridors and using their more agile ships to defeat the Persians. However, once again, the Persian numbers were too great and the Greek fleet was in trouble.
Why is the Battle of Thermopylae so famous?
The Persians. One of the reasons the Battle of Thermopylae is so famous is because of the preparations the Persians took to fight it. After seeing his father defeated by a smaller Greek force at the Battle of Marathon, Xerxes was determined to not make the same mistake.
What did the Greeks do after Darius I defeated the Persians?
After defeating Darius I at the Battle of Marathon, the Greeks rejoiced but they did not relax. Anyone could see that the Persians would be back, and so most went about preparing for round two. The Athenians, who had led the fight against the Persians the first time around, began building a new fleet using silver they had recently discovered in the mountains of Attica. However, they knew it was unlikely they would be able to fend off the Persians on their own, so they called on the rest of the Greek world to come together and form an alliance to fight the Persians.
What was the name of the battle between the Persians and Greeks?
The Battle of Thermopylae was just one of many battles fought between the Greeks and the Persians in a conflict known as The Greco Persian Wars. Throughout the 6th century BCE, the Persians, under Cyrus the Great, had gone from being a relatively unknown tribe hidden away on the Iranian plateau to Western Asia’s superpower. The Persian Empire stretched from what is modern-day Turkey, down to Egypt and Libya, and all the way east almost to India, making it the second largest empire in the world at the time next to China. Here’s a map of the Persian Empire in 490 BCE.
How long did the Battle of Thermopylae last?
The Battle of Thermopylae lasted a total of seven days, but there was no fighting on the first four, as the Persians waited to see if the Greeks would surrender. The Greek army, despite being severely outnumbered, were able to fight back the Persians during two days of fighting.
What was the significance of the Battle of Thermopylae?
They became the archetype for the courageous last stand. It set an example for free men fighting for their freedom and that of their country.
Why are Spartans not famous?
The Spartans who fought at the Battle of Thermopylae had been trained at this school, but they are not famous because they were good soldiers.
Why did Xerxes send envoys to Greece?
The story goes that Xerxes, as he made his way into Greece, sent envoys to the still free Greek cities offering peace in exchange for tribute, which the Spartans of course refused. Herodotus – ancient Greek historian – writes that when Dienekes, a Spartan soldier, was informed that Persian arrows would be so numerous as “to block out the sun”, he retorted, “So much the better…then we shall fight our battle in the shade.” Such bravery doubtlessly helped to maintain morale.
What did Persian gold do to Sparta?
Persian gold subsidized Sparta in the later portions of the Great Peloponnesian War and allowed Sparta to build the navy they needed to defeat the Athenian navy. Sparta cut off Athenian food supplies and trade. Sponsored by Elated Stories. Seniors using loophole to save for retirement.
Why did the Spartan war not win?
After that the coalition lead by Athens fell apart as Sparta and allies took them oit one by one. Ultimately there was no winner of this war, though, because after 25 years of fighting there wasn't much the Spartans could take that they wanted.
What happened to the Athenians during the plague?
The plague killed a lot of Athenians and therefore Athenian military was severely depleted. Spartans took a lot of Persian money and they built a fleet with it. Using the fleet they disrupted Athenian trade enough for Athens to sue for peace. John Dewar Gleissner.
Why did the Peloponnesian War drag on?
For that reason it dragged is as long as it did, because none of the combatants could defeat the other in its area of strength. The Peloponnesian war went on roughly like this: When the campaign season started, the Spartans marched out of the Pelopponese into Attica and beseaged Athens. Spartan sold. Continue Reading.
Why did Sparta dragged?
For that reason it dragged is as long as it did, because none of the combatants could defeat the other in its area of strength. When the campaign season started, the Spartans marched out of the Pelopponese into Attica and beseaged Athens.
What was the difference between Sparta and Athens?
The Spartans had a strong constitution with checks and balances, the separation of powers and regular elections … while Athens vacillated with different popular regimes. The Spartans maintained a strong alliance system. Sparta had superior warriors and an earned reputation as the best army in the world.
How did Athens lose the war?
Athens in many ways lost the war by disastrous invasion of Sicily; plague in the early years of the war; a defensive attitude on land; their unsustainable tyranny over subject. Continue Reading. There were many reasons, since the war lasted 27 years: The Spartans did not have to pay their army, as it was a civic duty.
Why did Sparta attack Athens?
Because the Athenians had left Attica almost entirely undefended, and also because the Spartans knew they had a significant advantage in land battles, the Spartan strategy was to raid the land surrounding Athens so as to cut off the food supply to the city. This worked in the sense that the Spartans burned considerable swaths of territory around Athens, but they never dealt a decisive blow because Spartan tradition required soldiers, mainly the helot soldiers, to return home for the harvest each year. This prevented Spartan forces from getting deep enough into Attica to threaten Athens. Furthermore, because of the Athens’ extensive trade network with the many city-states scattered around the Aegean, Sparta was never able to starve its enemy in the way it had intended.
Why did the Athenians use their time on the floor?
The Athenians used their time on the floor to warn the Peloponnesian alliance what could happen if war resumed. They reminded everyone of how the Athenians were the principle reason the Greeks managed to stop the great Persian armies of Xerxes, a claim that is debatable at best but essentially just false. On this premise, Athens argued that Sparta should seek out a resolution to the conflict through arbitration, a right it had based on the terms of the Thirty Years’ Peace.
What was the alliance between Sparta and Athens?
Athens was part of the Delian League, an alliance of ancient Greek-city states led and funded mainly by Athens that eventually morphed into the Athenian Empire, and Sparta was a member of the Peloponnesian League. This alliance, made up mostly of city-states on the Peloponnese, the southernmost peninsula of the Greek mainland, ...
What was the common theme in Ancient Greece?
Fighting between Greek city-states, also known as poleis, or the singular, polis, was a common theme in Ancient Greece. Although they shared a common ancestry, ethnic differences, as well as economic interests, and an obsession with heroes and glory, meant that war was a common and welcomed occurrence in the ancient Greek world. However, despite being relatively close to one another geographically, Athens and Sparta rarely engaged in direct military conflict during the centuries leading up to the Peloponnesian War.
How long did the Peloponnesian War last?
As the name suggests, it was meant to last thirty years, and it set up a framework for a divided Greece that was led by both Athens and Sparta.
What were Sparta's imperial ambitions?
Athenian imperial ambitions that were perceived by Sparta as an infringement on their sovereignty and a threat to their isolationist policy. Nearly fifty years of Greek history before the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War had been marked by the development of Athens as a major power in the Mediterranean world.
Why did Athens feel Sparta was not contributing enough to the defense of ancient Greece?
At the time, Sparta had the most formidable army in the Greek world, yet it continuously refused to commit a significant amount of troops. This angered Athens so much that its leaders at one point threatened to accept Persian peace terms if Sparta didn’t act.
The Battle of Thermopylae: Fast Facts
Leading Up to The Battle
The Persians
- One of the reasons the Battle of Thermopylae is so famous is because of the preparations the Persians took to fight it. After seeing his father defeated by a smaller Greek force at the Battle of Marathon, Xerxes was determined to not make the same mistake. Xerxes drew upon his empire to build one of the largest armies the ancient world had ever seen. Herodotus, whose account of w…
The Greeks
- After defeating Darius I at the Battle of Marathon, the Greeks rejoiced but they did not relax. Anyone could see that the Persians would be back, and so most went about preparing for round two. The Athenians, who had led the fight against the Persians the first time around, began building a new fleet using silver they had recently discovered in the mountains of Attica. Howeve…
The Battle of Thermopylae
- Source The Greek alliance originally wanted to confront the Persian forces in Thessaly, the region just to the south of Macedon, at the Vale of Tempe. The Battle of Marathon had shown that Greek forces would be able to defeat the Persians if they could force them into tight areas where their superior numbers no longer mattered. The Vale of Tempe pr...
Battle of Thermopylae Map
- Geography played an important role in the Battle of Thermopylae, as it does in nearly any military conflict. Below are maps that show not only what the Pass of Thermopylae looked like but also how the troops moved around throughout the three days of fighting.
The Aftermath
- After the Battle of Thermopylae, things did not look good for the Greeks. The Persian victory at Thermopylae allowed for Xerxes’ passage into southern Greece, which expanded the Persian empire even further. Xerxes marched his armies further south, ransacking much of the Euboean peninsula and eventually burning an evacuated Athens to the ground. Most of the Athenian popu…
Conclusion
- While the Battle of Thermopylae has gone down in history as one of the most famous battles in the history of the world, it was really just a small part of a much larger conflict. However, the impossible odds the Greeks faced going into the battle combined with the legends surrounding Leonidas and the three hundred Spartans has helped turn this battle and its famous last stand in…
Bibliography
- Carey, Brian Todd, Joshua Allfree, and John Cairns. Warfare in the Ancient World. Pen and Sword, 2006. Farrokh, Kaveh. Shadows in the Desert: Ancient Persia at War. New York: Osprey, 2007. Fields, Nic. Thermopylae 480 BC: Last stand of the 300. Vol. 188. Osprey Publishing, 2007. Flower, Michael A., and John Marincola, eds. Herodotus: Histories. Cambridge University Press, 2002. Fr…