A separate chapter in the history of mankind marked the wars of ancient Greece and the Persian state. Outstanding land and sea battles, ingenious and bold strategies that allow you to win over superior enemy forces, great personalities whose courage and intelligence will forever remain in the memory of descendants - all this is like beautiful stories. However, this is part of the actual history of our civilization, so let's find out how events developed during the Greco-Persian wars.
First V in. BC e. a formidable external danger hung over Greece. By this time, the Persian state of the Achaemenids was experiencing a period of prosperity. Its ever expanding political and military expansion directly affected the Greek world. First, the Hellenic policies of the western coast of Asia Minor and the nearby islands were conquered by the Persians. And soon the Persian fleet and ground forces made the first attempt to carry out the occupation of the south of the Balkans.
In 493 B.C. e. troops under the command of Mardonius, son-in-law of King Darius I (521-485 BC), invaded the lands of the Thracian tribes that inhabited the coastal regions of the Northern Aegean, and along the way captured some of the Greek colonial cities located there. The rulers of neighboring Macedonia were also forced to recognize the power of the Persians over themselves.
The reason for the direct invasion of mainland Greece was the help that Athens and Eretria (on the island of Euboea, which lies near Attica) had previously provided to the Hellenes of Asia Minor, who were rebelling against the despotic power of the Achaemenids. The leading policies of Hellas responded to the ultimatum demand of Darius I to obey him with a decisive refusal. After that, the Persian expeditionary force landed on Euboea and devastated it.
Then he crossed over to Attica and on the plain of Marathon fought against the vastly outnumbered Athenian militia, to whose aid only detachments from the Boeotian city of Platea managed to come. The outstanding commander Miltiades, who led the Athenian army, correctly assessing the difficult combat situation, overturned the flanks of the enemy formation with a swift blow, after which the main Persian forces, which at first were successful in the center, were utterly defeated. The remnants of the enemy troops in a panic fled to the ships.
A messenger was immediately sent to Athens with the joyful news of the victory. The warrior ran more than 42 km without a break and, having informed his fellow citizens about what had happened, fell dead. The Athenian army also hastened to their native city. And, as it turned out, not in vain. The Persian fleet tried to take the Athenians by surprise and attack the city, almost devoid of defenders, but was too late and met the same victorious militia under the command of Miltiades at the proposed landing site, after which they went back to Asia.
Neither Darius I nor his son Xerxes (485-465 BC), who succeeded him to the Achaemenid throne, could reconcile themselves to the failure that befell the Persians in the southern Balkans. For a long time and carefully prepared a new campaign against Hellas. Finally, in 480 BC. e. preparations for it are over. A huge army gathered, which included military contingents from all the lands and peoples subject to the Achaemenids. In addition to the Persians, there were Medes and Parthians related to them, Bactrians and Sogdians (from Central Asia), Assyrians and Armenians, Phoenicians and Arabs, Egyptians and Ethiopians, Indians and many others. These multi-tribal hordes crossed the strait to the European coast along two giant floating bridges. But this was only possible on the second attempt:for the first time, the storm swept away the structures, and the Persian king, who personally led the campaign, became furious and ordered the executioners to whip the water surface of the Hellespont (Dardanelles) with whips for her disobedience to the great ruler. A mass of armed people flowed like an iron stream along the northern shore of the Aegean Sea all spring and summer, until they entered the territory of Northern Greece.
By that time, a coalition of Hellenic cities opposing the Persians had taken shape. The supreme leadership in it was given to Sparta, as having the most combat-ready land army. But no less important role was played in practice by Athens, which had the most significant naval forces. The initiator of the creation of a strong Athenian fleet was the most prominent politician and military leader Themistocles.
The first encounter between Xerxes' army and the Greeks was at Thermopylae. In this place, extremely convenient for defense, where the road from Northern to Central Greece ran along a narrow passage between rocky mountain steeps and a swampy seashore, the Hellenic commanders hoped to stop the advance of countless enemy hordes. However, forces sufficient to carry out this task were not prepared in a timely manner.
True, the Spartan king Leonid I, who commanded the Greek contingents concentrated here, organized the defense of Thermopylae so skillfully that the Persians, despite their continuous attacks and huge human losses, could not overcome this unexpected and a seemingly insignificant obstacle. Only when one traitor from among the locals, counting on a generous reward from Xerxes, showed the enemies a bypass path leading through the mountains, everything was decided by the overwhelming numerical superiority of the Persian troops.
Leonid, realizing the hopelessness of the situation, let go of all allies. He himself and with him 300 selected Spartan warriors, as well as volunteers from the Boeotian city of Thespius, remained to cover the retreat of their own, and every single one fell with glory in an unequal battle.
The way to Central Greece was then opened for the Persians. The largest policy of Boeotia - Thebes, which had previously leaned towards Xerxes, now hastened to recognize his authority. The whole of Attica was devastated, Athens lay in ruins, and their inhabitants were urgently evacuated to the nearby islands - Salamis and Aegina, as well as to the city of Troesena (in Argolis). The Spartans and their closest allied neighbors concentrated on Isthma (Isthmus of Corinth) in order to protect the only land route leading to them on the Peloponnesian peninsula.
The Athenians, who found themselves in the most distressed situation, did everything to ensure that the general battle of the Hellenic fleet with the Persian one took place. It began in the Strait of Salamis off the coast of Attica on September 20, 480 BC. e. The lighter and more maneuverable Greek ships, among which the Athenian ones prevailed (with crews who knew the local water area, which was full of pitfalls and shoals), unanimously and decisively attacked the enemy, inflicting a crushing defeat on him. Themistocles played a decisive role in the preparation and successful conduct of this historically important battle.
Fearing after the defeat of Salamis that the Greeks would destroy the pontoon crossing he built across the Hellespont and deprive him of the opportunity to return to Persia, Xerxes hurried to start a retreat along the now familiar path along the western and northern shores of the Aegean Sea . In Greece, he left Mardonius with a large army, who retreated to the north for the winter - to Thessaly, allied with the Persians.
In the next campaign, 479 B.C. e. in fact, the fate of the Hellenic policies of the south of the Balkans was decided. In the spring, the offensive of the Persians resumed, acting together with the Thessalians and Thebans. Mardonius invaded Attica, and its population was again forced to seek refuge in Salamis. But the recapture of Athens was the last success of Mardonius.
In order to force the Peloponnesians to go on the offensive instead of passively defending Isthmus, the Athenians, Plataians and Megarians, in fact left to their own fate, threatened their allies with a separate peace with the Persians. The threat worked:Sparta and other policies of the Peloponnesian Union finally sent a fairly large army led by Pausanias, the nephew of the hero Thermopylae, King Leonidas, behind Isthmus.
Mardonius then retreated to Boeotia. There, near the city of Plataea, a fierce slaughter took place, in which the commander-in-chief of the Persians died and his army was killed almost entirely (its remnants hurried to the Hellespont).
About the same time, September 479 BC. e., there was a battle at Cape Mycale (on the coast of Asia Minor, opposite the island of Samos), during which the landing force, landed from Hellenic ships, destroyed the main base of the Achaemenid fleet. From this moment, a radical turning point occurs in the course of the Greco-Persian wars:the threat to the independence of the Hellenic cities of the south of the Balkans disappears, and the question of the liberation of the Hellenic cities of Asia Minor is on the agenda.
Sparta is now out of the fight. Athens assumes the main role in the anti-Persian coalition. In 478 BC. e. a defensive-offensive alliance is created, the center of which is proclaimed Delos - an island in the heart of the Aegean, revered as the sacred possession of the god Apollo. Within the framework of the new political unification, the role of hegemon is assigned to Athens.
With the formation of the Delian (First Athenian) alliance, hostilities against the troops of the Achaemenid state either fade, then become active again. The most significant milestones in the final stages of the Greco-Persian wars are the naval victories of the Athenians at the mouth of the Eurymedon River (in the southwest of Asia Minor) in 469 BC. e. and near the city of Salamis (in Cyprus) in 449 BC. e. Their final result was the recognition by the Achaemenids of the complete independence of all the Hellenic policies of the Aegean. It was recorded in 449 BC. e. The Kallia world, which got its name from the name of the noble Athenian ambassador who concluded it with the king of Persia.
According to the historical encyclopedia.