The Athenian Assembly Of Build A Fleet Of Triremes

The first battle of the Persian War, the Battle of Marathon, took place in 490 BC. King Darius sent troops to Greece which stopped at each Greek island along the way demanding "earth and water," which both literally and symbolically represented submission to the Persian empire. The Battle of Marathon exemplifies the heroic action of the Greeks. The Athenians, led by one of their ten generals, Miltiades, unflinchingly faced the Persians, an army over twice the size of theirs, and triumphed. The Athenians won the Battle of Marathon because they employed superior military strategy. There are some discrepancies, however, between different literary sources about how the Greeks fought the Battle of Marathon. For instance, Herodotus claims that the ten Athenian generals could not decide whether to go into battle. He writes that Miltiades talked the other generals into fighting. Herodotus writes that they waited for days for Miltiades to lead the army, and then they went into battle (Hdt. 6.110-111.2). According to Nancy Demand, however, Herodotus, unaware of the right of the polemarch to make all final decisions, wrote that Miltiades decided when to lead the men into battle, because the longer they delayed the battle, the better chance the Athenians had that the Spartans would make it in time to help. Regardless of any conflict between sources, the heroism of the Athenians cannot be denied. Marathon represents "the victory of a small contingent of men fighting

A large Persian contingent of about 200 ships was destroyed while on maneuver to get behind the Greek navy. More tragedy would strike the Persians when stormy weather struck and damaged their ships during the Battle of Artemisium.

Themistocles was aware that the only way to defeat the Persians was to cut of their naval power, so he devised a plan. He sent a slave to the Persians with a message that they were escaping, and the Persians sent ships to meet there escapees. The Athenian ships were prepared to face them. Their specialty in sea battles, along with the narrowness and swirls of the sea gave the Athenians an advantage. This strategy is what ultimately brought victory to the Greeks, as it left the Persians without a supply line and weakened their forces. The two events, the battle at Marathon and the battle at Salamis, showed that Athens was a great contributor to the war, both land and sea.

The Role of Themistocles in the Greek Defeat of the Persians in 480 - 479 BC.

The battle between Sparta's well-built army and Athens's exemplary navy was like a battle between a bear and a shark. If the bear goes into the water, the shark wins. However, if the shark enters land, the bear will kill it. The Athenian general and military genius Pericles knew this. Therefore, he devised a strategy that was based on the strength of his navy and the Spartan inability to battle him on sea; he devised a strategy of attrition where they would sit at home, and outlast the enemy (Kagan 52). In his mind, if Athens disregarded the Spartan land attacks, and instead survived off sea trade from their allies, the enemy would be unable to cause much damage. He wanted to drain them out psychologically, to get them to surrender from attacking the Athenian Empire (Kagan 52). One of the most important steps in doing this was to connect Athens to its navy city and their port. They did this by building walls that connected them, later known as the Long Walls (Kagan 9). Back then, walls were almost impregnable to attacks, and were one of the best defenses in the ancient world. Therefore, the addition of the Long Walls made both Athens and the port extremely hard to crack; they were ready for any Spartan land attack that would come their way. When the war finally started and the Spartans did come, they found that their attacks were not going to work. Their strategy of totally crushing the Athenian Empire and fighting a battle of annihilation was countered by the

The Athenian Empire was a more voluntary alliance of city-states that were impressed by the Athenian Navy's prowess in the Persian War and were willing to pay for its protection. Athens used this revenue to further improve its navy, as well as improve its own infrastructure and defenses. Included in these improvements was the construction of large walls around the city and down to the port at Piraeus, home of the Athenian Navy.

The reasons for the Greek victory against the Persians in 490 to 480/479 BC was a mixture of exceptional leadership, skilful tactics and strategy, superior weapons and soldiers, and Greek unity. Strong leadership was the most important aspect of the Greek defence, as without the intelligence and bravery of the leaders, the Greeks would have been easily defeated. As a result of the excellent leadership; Greek tactics, strategy, and unity were greatly strengthened. Combined with their better weapons and soldiers, the Greeks held the advantage and seized opportunities at the perfect moment. Also, with each

The great Athenian general Miltiades came up with a shrewd battle plan. He decided to thin out the ranks in the center of the phalanx to strengthen the wings. During the battle, the Greek wings crushed the Persian wings and forced them to retreat. At the same time, the Persians in the middle managed to break through the weakened center of the phalanx. Instead of pursuing the retreating Persian wings, the Greek wings moved backward to attack the Persians that had broken through the Greek defenses. The Greek center then turned around so that they had the Persians surrounded. The Persians were slaughtered (5). According to the Greek historian Herodotus, the Persians lost 6400 men while te Greeks lost only 192 (4).

The Persian Wars were a series of destructive and malevolent battles which occurred in the time frame of 490B.C and 480 – 479B.C. The Greek victory over the Persians in the Persian Wars cannot be attributed to only one factor, more it was a commixture of factors. Such factors include unity, leadership, strategy, tactics and the pre-eminence of the Greek soldier. Each contributing factor was to play a distinctive and pivotal role in the various battles to come, which ultimately would lead to the subsequent demise of the Persians.

Themistocles was responsible for the Greek victory in the Persian wars to a considerable extent. The key to Athens' strength in the 5th Century BC was in this general and statesman and therefore, as Greek victory relied so heavily on Athens, Themistocles vitally contributed to the outcome of the Persian king’s invasion of 480-479 BC. His early life reflects the character and skills developed that were responsible for these contributions. Five pivotal roles he undertook were of varying degrees responsible for Greece’s success against Xerxes. Themistocles possessed an incredible foresight

Darius’ troops under Datis and Artapherrnes, which included Ionians and other subject peoples as well as Persians, captured several island towns and took Eretrea on Euboea by treachery. The fleet then crossed the narrow strait from Euboea to the Greek mainland and disembarked about 25000 men, both cavalry and infantry, on the beach at Marathon in northeastern Attica. Here there was fine shelving sand that would make it easy to haul up the large Persian warships and disembarked their horses. Hippias, the tyrant of Athens who had been exiled in 510 BC accompanied the Persians. His “inside information” was obviously useful. The location also provided natural protection on the landward side, an easy line of retreat by sea, and good grazing for the Persians’ horses.

His force further had innumerable archers. It was with this in mind that the Athenians made the “fateful” decision to train 40,000 men for 200 ships in 481BCE. This force was relatively inexperienced compared to the Persian contingent, which included skilled Phoenician sailors (D.S 11.18.1). The Persians had light, fast boarding ships compared to the Greeks who had stout, strongly built ramming ships (8.10,60). This would prove critical later at the crowded straits of Salamis in 480BCE. If it were not for this fleet, the “Persian conquest of Greece would have been assured.” (7.139). If Persia had control of the sea, defeat by land would quickly have followed due to the inability of the city-states to hold a united front. The halt in city-state squabbles and the creation of the Hellenic League was “no small achievement” and was to the great disadvantage of Xerxes. This clearly was a factor in the overall demise of the campaign. The construction of the Athenian fleet, advocated by Themistocles, was a precursor to this.

In 480 BC, when the Persian horde, estimated by some historians to range from 300,000 to 1.7 million soldiers, landed on the shores of Thermopylae, the Persian King Xerxes sent emissaries to the leaders of the Greek city-states demanding their surrender and patronage to the Persian Empire (Frye, 2006). Despite the massive threat that was encamped on the shores off the Gulf of Maliakos in small town known as Trachis, the Greeks refused. Sparta, known for their superior military might, were chosen by the Greek leaders to lead a coalition of Greek warriors to defend their homeland from the invading Persian army (Frye, 2006).

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.

Lysander was appointed Spartan navarch for the Aegean Sea in 407 and undertook the major project of creating a strong Spartan fleet which could take on the Athenians and their allies. Lysander collected 70 triremes and took them to Ephesus; Lysander pitched camp there and ordered for merchant