Two main factors led to the Persian Wars. First, there was Persian expansion into the West. Second, Solon's reforms and Peisistratus’ seizing control of Sigeum had made Athens especially sensitive to any threats to its grain route from the Black Sea. Further complicating this was the fact that several Athenian nobles held lands in the North Aegean. The Ionian Greeks submitted to Persian rule and lived under appointed Greek tyrants since Cyrus the Great; however, in the early 500s, the Ionians raised a revolt and drove their tyrants out. The realized they needed help against Darius and appealed to the Spartans for aid. The Spartans denied their request, but Athens and Eretria sent ships and soldiers. Everything eventually led to a naval battle
In early fifth century BC Greece, the Greeks consistently suffered from the threat of being conquered by the Persian Empire. Between the years 500-479 BC, the Greeks and the Persians fought two wars. Although the Persian power vastly surpassed the Greeks, the Greeks unexpectedly triumphed. In this Goliath versus David scenario, the Greeks as the underdog, defeated the Persians due to their heroic action, divine support, and Greek unity. The threat of the Persian Empire's expansion into Greece and the imminent possibility that they would lose their freedom and become subservient to the Persians, so horrified the Greeks that they united together and risked their lives in order to preserve the one thing they all shared in common, their
Sparta was also a contributor to the defeat of the Persians. They were renowned for their great military strength and discipline on land. This gave fear to everyone who was facing the Spartans. In the battle at Marathon, the Persians had to attack soon, knowing that if they didn?t, the superior Spartan warriors would arrive. This fear forced the Persians to hurry their operations, which was why the cavalry was sent off by ships to attack Athens and allowed the Athenians to win at Marathon. The battle at Thermopylae was also another contribution to the war. The Spartans, along with the other Greeks were able to hold off the Persians, but when the enemy found a secret passage around the mountain, many of the Greeks retreated, except for the
The Peloponnesian War pitted the Athenians against the Spartans. The Peloponnesians’ were an alliance of city-states controlled by Sparta. These two powerful city-states became locked in a struggle for dominance of the eastern Mediterranean area. The roots of the conflict and in particular this expedition is highly complex. As Thucydides says in his history of the war, the underlying cause was Spartan fear of Athens' expansive power. But, the triggering event was Athens' aggressive behavior towards Corinth, an ally of Sparta.
Herodotus’s The Histories uses the culture of different peoples as a category of historical explanation in order to explain the entire story behind the conflict between the Greeks and the Persians, though his conception and account of culture has been a topic of debate for many decades. Herodotus’ method when exploring the culture of other peoples is to compare them to the known culture, his own culture, of Greece. Through the comparison of ‘the other’ to Greece, Herodotus not only explains the culture and traditions of other countries or people, but he also affirms Greek identity by constantly comparing or relating to Greek customs in order to show the likeness or stark differences of cultures. Many scholars have, however, criticized Herodotus for doing this; naming him an ethnocentric for introducing all other peoples and cultures as inferior to his own. This essay will seek to expose whether Herodotus is an ethnocentric or a cultural relativist by exploring the ways in which Herodotus refers to ‘the other’ and the customs and culture of these people. Through the exploration of the Egyptians and the Scythians in Herodotus’s The Histories, this essay will determine that Herodotus’s conception of culture develops from a cultural relativist perspective rather than an ethnocentric point of view, where he uses his own well-known culture as a basis for explaining other cultures and customs, while respecting their difference as being of equal value in their own land, as Greek
The Persian War was fought by the Greeks and the Persians, and if the Greeks lost, we would not have democracy, science, or education. The war was started when the Greeks helped rebels in a city state near Persia burn a Persian city. The Greeks used strategy and their surroundings to their advantage to win the Persian War. The Persian War had three main battles: Marathon, Thermopylae, and Salamis
The Persian Wars were a series of conflicts fought between the Greek states and the Persian Empire from 500-449 BC. It started in 500 BC, when a few Greek city-states on the coast of Asia Minor, who were under the control of the Persian Empire, revolted against the despotic rule of the Persian king Darius. Athens and Eretria in Euboea gave aid to these Greek cities but not enough, and they were subdued by the Persians. The Persians became determined to conquer Hellas and make Athens and Eretria pay for helping the Ionian cities. In 492 BC, the first Persian invasion had its fleet crippled by a storm before it could do any damage. King Darius sent another Persian expedition in 490 which destroyed
“Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object” – Abraham Lincoln.
These wars occurred during and after Pericles and lasted until the end of Alexander the Great. It ended with the defeat of Athens. The Persian wars were fought because Darius I was out to attack the land of the Greeks. Their were two Persian wars that occurred. The first was the Battle of Marathon, under control of Darius I was a battle of Persia vs Athens. During the first war the Athenians used phalanx formation which meant they had long spears to defeat the Persians. The second war was when Persia was under control of Xerxes I. The Persians invaded them so badly that Athens was to weak to fight back on their own. They had to request help from other city-states. Athens asked Sparta to be their allies in war and Sparta agreed to help defeat the Persians. The Battle of Thermopylae was the next when it was the Persians against the Spartans. They fought the battle in the mountain of Thermopylae. The Spartans distracted Persian troops
The Greeks closest to the Persian Empire after the war created the Delian League to protect them from the Persians. The Greeks chose the Athenians to lead them. The Spartans were originally asked to lead them, but the kind was very arrogant, so they retracted their offer. The Spartans then created the Peloponnesian League because they didn’t think the Athenians should lead the Delian League because they were getting too much credit for defeating the Persians in the war. The two leagues didn’t get along at all. This rivalry eventually turned into the Peloponnesian War. This war went on for about 30 years. After the war, the government changed in Athens.
The Persians wanted to conquer the Greeks after the Greeks were allies to Aristogoras. Darius, the king of Persia, started to send agents to determine any potential allies in the Greek city-states. They found Argos and supplied the with men and money to get the job done. They failed as Spartans sliced and diced every soldier, as shown in the movie “300.” Spartans always came out on top due to their aggressive and “perfect” military. Athens had their entire fleet destroyed and were controlled by Sparta from there on
The political failure of the Greek led the country to a great war. According to Herodotus, who dedicate his life writing real ancient stories in the fifth century BC shows that the catalyst was a political conflict in Miletus started Persian war. Athens, Sparta and other polies
The Persian Wars (499-479 BC) put the Greeks in the difficult position of having to defend their country against a vast empire with an army that greatly outnumbered
How: The Persian war was the prevailing force. At the point when the Greeks defeated them, they got to be overwhelming and Greek beliefs and culture was spread all through the world.
The First Persian War took place at the Battle of the Marathon near Athens and it was known as one of the infamous battle between the Athenians and the Persians. In 501 B.C.E., a Greek tyrant named Aristogorus provoked the Persian rulers by instigating an uprising in Miletus and Ionia to revolt against the Persian Empire. In order to ward off the Persian Empire’s wrath, Aristogorus reached out to his compatriots on the mainland in Greece of Athens and Sparta. “Sparta refused, but Athens sent twenty ships-enough just to anger the Persians, but not to save Miletus.” Nevertheless, the Athenians conquered the Persian’s capital of Lydian in Sardis in order to steal the golds, but they accidentally ended up burning down the richest capital of Sardis.
Moreover, in the Battle of Thermopylae, Persian forces led by Xerxes outnumbered the Greeks yet again. However, the militant Spartans took up arms and were able to defeat the large Persian army. Thermopylae allowed the Greek forces to come up with various tactics and strategies in order to defeat Persia. Next, the Battle of Salamis was a naval battle between several Greek city-states and Persia. This battle forms the turning point of the Greco-Persian Wars since it ultimately “saved Greece from being absorbed into the Persian Empire and ensured the emergence of Western civilization as a major force in the world.” The ending of the Battle of Salamis left the Persian army trapped in Greece, which paves the way for the final battle of the war, the Battle of Platea. In the battle, the “Greek army came and defeated the weakened Persians, the Persian Wars were over”. The mark of the ending of the Greco-Persian wars gave way to Athens arising from the ashes as the dominant and central city-state of Greece, which then provides political and cultural advancements during its golden age.