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Historical Context

Greco-Persian Wars

The wars between the Achaemenid Persian Empire and the Greek city-states, from the Ionian Revolt to the mid-fifth century BC. Heavily armored hoplites fighting in the phalanx proved decisive against Persia's lighter, bow-armed infantry at Marathon and Plataea, while the trireme fleets fought it out at Salamis.

499 – 449 BC

Overview

The Greco-Persian Wars began when the Greek cities of Ionia, on the coast of Asia Minor, rebelled against their Persian overlords in 499 BC with help from Athens and Eretria. Darius I crushed the revolt by 493 BC and sent an expedition to punish Athens, which was defeated at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC. Ten years later his son Xerxes led one of the largest armies the ancient world had seen into Greece. A small force under the Spartan king Leonidas held the pass at the Battle of Thermopylae for three days before it was destroyed, the Athenians abandoned their city, and the Greek fleet won the naval battle of Salamis. In 479 BC the combined Greek army defeated the Persian land forces at Plataea, and a Greek fleet destroyed the Persian ships at Mycale. The war then turned into a long Greek offensive in the Aegean under the Athenian-led Delian League, ending around 449 BC.

Weapons of the Greeks

The Greeks fought as hoplites: citizen soldiers in bronze armor, each carrying the great round Greek Aspis shield and the Hoplite Dory thrusting spear, with the Greek Xiphos or the curved Greek Kopis as a sidearm. The bronze Corinthian Helmet and a cuirass of bronze or layered linen, the Linothorax, completed the panoply. Packed shoulder to shoulder in the phalanx, eight ranks deep, they were very hard to stop at close quarters.

Weapons of the Persians

The Persian infantry, including the royal guard known to the Greeks as the Immortals, was built around the bow. Its soldiers carried large wicker shields, short spears, the Persian Akinakes dagger and powerful composite bows, and they usually wore little metal armor. Their method was to break an enemy with arrows before closing in, supported by excellent cavalry. Against hoplites who could cross the killing zone quickly, as at Marathon, or who held a narrow front, as at Thermopylae, that method failed.

Legacy

The wars fixed the hoplite's reputation for a century and led directly to the Athenian empire and the Peloponnesian War. Herodotus wrote his Histories to record them, and in doing so he founded the writing of history. A century and a half later, Alexander the Great's invasion of Persia was presented as revenge for Xerxes' invasion.

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