what happened when sparta and persia went to war

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Why did Athens and Sparta disagree over the Persian Wars?

The disagreement emerged for two main reasons: 1 Athens felt Sparta was not contributing enough to the defense of ancient Greece. At the time, Sparta had the most... 2 After the Persians were defeated at the Battles of Plataea and Salamis, Spartan leadership felt the pan-Greek alliance... More ...

Why did Sparta lose the Peloponnesian War?

Sparta needed Persian support in the Decelean War but had little to offer, received nothing, and lost its reputation as liberator of Greece. In the first phase of the Peloponnesian War, the Archidamian War, the Spartans had been unable to achieve their aim: dissolving the Delian League.

What was the first war fought between Athens and Sparta?

While the main conflict fought between Athens and Sparta is known as The Peloponnesian War, this was not the first time these two city-states fought. Shortly after the end of the Greco-Persian War, a series of skirmishes broke out between Athens and Sparta, and historians often call this the “First Peloponnesian War.”

What part of Greece did Sparta surrender to the Persian Empire?

The treaty stated that Sparta surrendered all of Greece outside the Peloponnese. The Persian king Cyrus the Great had subdued all "Yaunâ" living in Asia (ca.545), Darius I the Great had conquered Thrace and Macedonia (c.512), to which king Xerxes had briefly added Thessaly, Boeotia, and Attica in 480-479.

Who Won the War between Sparta and Persia?

The PersiansThe Persians won the battle of Thermopylae against fierce resistance from just 300 Spartans and their allies in 480 BCE.

Did Sparta win the Persian War?

In 440 B.C. the bones of Leonidas were transferred to Sparta. His tomb there can be seen near the modern city of Sparta today. After Thermopylae, the Greeks went on to achieve great victories at Salamis and Plataea where they decisively defeated the Persians.

When did Sparta and Persia go to war?

The Battle of Thermopylae was a battle in 480 BCE in central Greece at the mountain pass of Thermopylae. It was fought between Greek and Persian forces during the Greco-Persian Wars.

Who betrayed Sparta?

EphialtesIn the 1962 film The 300 Spartans, Ephialtes was portrayed by Kieron Moore and is depicted as a loner who worked on a goat farm near Thermopylae. He betrays the Spartans to the Persians out of greed for riches, and, it is implied, unrequited love for a Spartan girl named Ellas.

Who defeated Sparta?

In 371 B.C., Sparta suffered a catastrophic defeat at the hands of the Thebans at the Battle of Leuctra.

What was the result of the Persian War?

The result was that Athens won the Persian wars and that they stopped Persia from conquering Europe.

What were the effects of the Persian War?

Aftermath of the Persian Wars As a result of the allied Greek success, a large contingent of the Persian fleet was destroyed and all Persian garrisons were expelled from Europe, marking an end of Persia's advance westward into the continent. The cities of Ionia were also liberated from Persian control.

How did the Spartans fall?

Spartan political independence was put to an end when it was eventually forced into the Achaean League after its defeat in the decisive Laconian War by a coalition of other Greek city-states and Rome, and the resultant overthrow of its final king Nabis, in 192 BC.

How did Sparta help to win the Persian war?

That all changed around 525 B.C., when the Persians began to use more sophisticated ships, the Trireme, to invade and conquer Egypt. The Spartans prevented the Athenians from forming an alliance with the Persians between 605-511 B.C. to stop the growing empire from nearing Greece and finding Greek allies.

Who won the first Persian war?

First Persian invasion of GreeceDate492 – 490 BC.LocationThrace, Macedon, Cyclades, Euboea, AtticaResultPersian victory in Thrace and Macedon Persian failure to capture AthensTerritorial changesPersia conquers Macedon and the Cycladic Islands, re-subjugates Thrace, and establishes supremacy over the Aegean Sea

How did the Persian war end?

In 449 bce the Peace of Callias finally ended the hostilities between Athens and its allies and Persia. In exchange for peace, Artaxerxes I of Persia recognized the liberty of the Greek states in Europe and Asia and vowed to keep the Persian fleet out of the Aegean.

Did Greece lose to Persia?

As the war progressed, however, the Greeks managed to join forces. Though the Athenians had battled with the Persians alone in 490 BC in Marathon, they were still victorious. Since the Athenians were victorious, this held off the Persians for about ten years before they launched another wave of attacks.

How did Xerxes attack the Greeks?

First, he ordered 5,000 archers to shoot a barrage of arrows, but they were ineffective; they shot from at least 100 yards away, according to modern day scholars, and the Greeks' wooden shields (sometimes covered with a very thin layer of bronze) and bronze helmets deflected the arrows. After that, Xerxes sent a force of 10,000 Medes and Cissians to take the defenders prisoner and bring them before him. The Persians soon launched a frontal assault, in waves of around 10,000 men, on the Greek position. The Greeks fought in front of the Phocian wall, at the narrowest part of the pass, which enabled them to use as few soldiers as possible. Details of the tactics are scant; Diodorus says, "the men stood shoulder to shoulder", and the Greeks were "superior in valour and in the great size of their shields." This probably describes the standard Greek phalanx, in which the men formed a wall of overlapping shields and layered spear points protruding out from the sides of the shields, which would have been highly effective as long as it spanned the width of the pass. The weaker shields, and shorter spears and swords of the Persians prevented them from effectively engaging the Greek hoplites. Herodotus says that the units for each city were kept together; units were rotated in and out of the battle to prevent fatigue, which implies the Greeks had more men than necessary to block the pass. The Greeks killed so many Medes that Xerxes is said to have stood up three times from the seat from which he was watching the battle. According to Ctesias, the first wave was "cut to ribbons", with only two or three Spartans killed in return.

What was the pass at Thermopylae used for?

Tactically, the pass at Thermopylae was ideally suited to the Greek style of warfare. A hoplite phalanx could block the narrow pass with ease, with no risk of being outflanked by cavalry. Moreover, in the pass, the phalanx would have been very difficult to assault for the more lightly armed Persian infantry. The major weak point for the Greeks was the mountain track which led across the highland parallel to Thermopylae, that could allow their position to be outflanked. Although probably unsuitable for cavalry, this path could easily be traversed by the Persian infantry (many of whom were versed in mountain warfare ). Leonidas was made aware of this path by local people from Trachis, and he positioned a detachment of Phocian troops there in order to block this route.

How wide was the Pass of Thermopylae?

In fact, as noted below, the pass was 100 metres wide, probably wider than the Greeks could have held against the Persian masses. Herodotus reports that the Phocians had improved the defences of the pass by channelling the stream from the hot springs to create a marsh, and it was a causeway across this marsh which was only wide enough for a single chariot to traverse. In a later passage, describing a Gaulish attempt to force the pass, Pausanias states "The cavalry on both sides proved useless, as the ground at the Pass is not only narrow, but also smooth because of the natural rock, while most of it is slippery owing to its being covered with streams...the losses of the barbarians it was impossible to discover exactly. For the number of them that disappeared beneath the mud was great."

What are the two main sources of the Battle of Thermopylae?

On the Battle of Thermopylae itself, two principal sources, Herodotus' and Simonides ' accounts, survive. In fact, Herodotus' account of the battle, in Book VII of his Histories, is such an important source that Paul Cartledge wrote: "we either write a history of Thermopylae with [Herodotus], or not at all". Also surviving is an epitome of the account of Ctesias, by the eighth-century Byzantine Photios, though this is "almost worse than useless", missing key events in the battle such as the betrayal of Ephialtes, and the account of Diodorus Siculus in his Universal History. Diodorus' account seems to have been based on that of Ephorus and contains one significant deviation from Herodotus' account: a supposed night attack against the Persian camp, of which modern scholars have tended to be skeptical.

What was the Persian invasion?

The Persian invasion was a delayed response to the defeat of the first Persian invasion of Greece, which had been ended by the Athenian victory at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC. By 480 BC, Xerxes had amassed a massive army and navy and set out to conquer all of Greece.

How many Spartans were there in the Battle of the Pass?

Furthermore, the numbers changed later on in the battle when most of the army retreated and only approximately 3,000 men remained (300 Spartans, 700 Thespians, 400 Thebans, possibly up to 900 helots, and 1,000 Phocians stationed above the pass, less the casualties sustained in the previous days).

Where was the Battle of Artemisium?

The battle took place simultaneously with the naval battle at Artemisium. It was held at the narrow coastal pass of Thermopylae ("The Hot Gates") in August or September 480 BC.

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.

What was the name of the battle that Sparta won?

Sparta's supremacy was broken following the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC. It was never able to regain its military superiority and was finally absorbed by the Achaean League in the 2nd century BC.

Why did Sparta go to war with Athens?

Within six years, Sparta was proposing to its allies to go to war with Athens in support of the rebellion in Samos. On that occasion Corinth successfully opposed Sparta and they were voted down. When the Peloponnesian War, finally broke out in 431 BC the chief public complaint against Athens was its alliance with Corinth's enemy Korkyra and Athenenian treatment of Potidea. However, according to Thucydides the real cause of the war was Sparta's fear of the growing power of Athens. The Second Peloponnesian War, fought from 431–404 BC would be the longest and costliest war in Greek history.

How many people died in the Spartan earthquake?

The Sparta earthquake of 464 BC destroyed much of Sparta. Historical sources suggest that the death toll may have been as high as 20,000, although modern scholars suggest that this figure is likely an exaggeration. The earthquake sparked a revolt of the helots, the slave class of Spartan society.

Why did Sparta send an army to the moon?

After hearing a plea for help from Athens who were facing the Persians at Marathon in 490 BC, Sparta decided to honor its laws and wait until the moon was full to send an army. As a result, Sparta's army arrived at Marathon after the battle had been won by the Athenians.

What was Sparta's role in the Persian Wars?

Dorian Sparta rose to dominance in the 6th century BC. At the time of the Persian Wars, it was the recognized leader by assent of the Greek city-states.

How many delegates were appointed to go with Thermenes to Sparta?

A board of nine delegates was appointed to go with Thermenes to Sparta. This time the delegation was allowed to pass. The disposition of Athens was then debated in the Spartan assembly, which apparently had the power of debate, of veto and of counterproposition. Moreover, the people in assembly were the final power.

When was Sparta founded?

The History of Sparta describes the destiny of the ancient Dorian Greek state known as Sparta from its beginning in the legendary period to its incorporation into the Achaean League under the late Roman Republic, as Allied State, in 146 BC, a period of roughly 1000 years. Since the Dorians were not the first to settle the valley ...

What was Leonidas' plan for the Persians?

Leonidas established his army at Thermopylae, expecting that the narrow pass would funnel the Persian army toward his own force. For two days, the Greeks withstood the determined attacks of their far more numerous enemy. Leonidas’ plan worked well at first, but he did not know that there was a route over the mountains to the west of Thermopylae that would allow the enemy to bypass his fortified position along the coast. A local Greek told Xerxes about this other route and led the Persian army across it, enabling them to surround the Greeks. Much of the Greek force retreated rather than face the Persian army. An army of Spartans, Thespians and Thebans remained to fight the Persians. Leonidas and the 300 Spartans with him were all killed, along with most of their remaining allies. The Persians found and beheaded Leonidas’ corpse–an act that was considered to be a grave insult.

What battles were held at Thermopylae Pass?

Did you know? The Thermopylae pass was also the site of two other ancient battles. In 279 B.C., Gallic forces broke through Greek forces there by using the same alternate route that the Persians did in 480 B.C. In 191 B.C., the Roman army defeated an invasion of Greece by the Syrian king Antiochus III at Thermopylae.

What did Leonidas sacrifice?

Leonidas’ sacrifice, along with that of his Spartan hoplites, did not prevent the Persians from moving down the Greek coast into Boeotia. In September 480 B.C., however, the Athenian navy defeated the Persians at the Battle of Salamis, after which the Persians returned home. Nonetheless, Leonidas’ action demonstrated Sparta’s willingness to sacrifice itself for the protection of the Greek region.

What weapon did Leonidas use?

Like all male Spartan citizens, Leonidas had been trained mentally and physically since childhood in preparation to become a hoplite warrior. Hoplites were armed with a round shield, spear and iron short sword.

What was the largest city in Greece?

Ancient Greece was made up of several hundred city-states, of which Athens and Leonidas’ Sparta were the largest and most powerful. Although these many city-states vied with one another for control of land and resources, they also banded together to defend themselves from foreign invasion. Twice at the beginning of the fifth century B.C., Persia attempted such an invasion. In 490 B.C. the Persian king Darius I (550-486 B.C.) instigated the initial such attempt as part of the First Persian War, but a combined Greek force turned back the Persian army at the Battle of Marathon. Ten years later, during the Second Persian War, one of Darius’ sons, Xerxes I (c. 519-465 B.C.), again launched an invasion against Greece.

Where did the Persians go to get to Attica?

To reach its destination at Attica, the region controlled by the city-state of Athens, the Persians needed to go through the coastal pass of Thermopylae (or the “Hot Gates,” so known because of nearby sulfur springs). In the late summer of 480 B.C., Leonidas led an army of 6,000 to 7,000 Greeks from many city-states, including 300 Spartans, in an attempt to prevent the Persians from passing through Thermopylae.

Why was Leonidas so famous?

Leonidas achieved lasting fame for his personal sacrifice. Hero cults were an established custom in ancient Greece from the eighth century B.C. onward. Dead heroes were worshipped, usually near their burial site, as intermediaries to the gods. Forty years after the battle, Sparta retrieved Leonidas’ remains (or what were believed to be his remains) and a shrine was built in his honor.

Overview

• This was outrageous. The treaty stated that Sparta surrendered all of Greece outside the Peloponnese. The Persian king Cyrus the Great had subdued all "Yaunâ" living in Asia (ca.545), Darius I the Great had conquered Thrace and Macedonia (c.512), to which king Xerxes had briefly added Thessaly, Boeotia, and Atticain 480-479. The Spartan government ...

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Analogues

Sources

Background

Prelude

There are several analogous battles.
Similarities between the Battle of Thermopylae and the Battle of the Persian Gate have been recognized by both ancient and modern authors, which describe it as a kind of reversal of the Battle of Thermopylae, calling it "the Persian Thermopylae". Here, on Alexander the Great's campaign against Persia in 330 BC to exact revenge for the Persian invasion of Greece, he face…

Opposing forces

Strategic and tactical considerations

Battle