The Roles of Greek Heroism and the Gods in the Persian Wars Essay

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

The Greek ground forces achieved some strategic success as well. They were able to affect the will of the non-regular

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 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.

Amidst an interlude in the fierce struggle for power between the two dominant Greek poleis, Athens and Sparta, the Peloponnesian war, there was unrest. Despite the Peace of Nicias, belligerence between the two states did not cease, but rather took on a new face. While careful to remain within the parameters set several years before in the peace treaty, Athens moved cautiously, but aggressively in establishing alliances, albeit coerced, and strengthening its empire. It was at this juncture that it made its move toward securing the small, weak island-state of Melos, which in its neutral independence suggested danger to the Athenian empire. In a move not of fairness, but of survival, Athens offered the Melians an ultimatum: to be subjugated

Athens and Sparta were both dominant powers in ancient Greece. However, a legendary rivalry existed between the two. When Athens ended its alliance with Corcyra in 433 B.C. and began to surround Potidaea, it threatened Corinth’s position. Sparta feared that Athens was becoming too powerful and tried to avert war. The Spartans believed that peace was possible if the Athenians would revoke measures against Sparta's ally, Megara. The Athenian leader, Pericles, refused to concur with this because Sparta and Athens had earlier agreed that conflicts would be solved by negotiation. If the Athenians would yield to Sparta's request, they would in fact be accepting Sparta’s orders. This was unacceptable, and as a result, war broke out. Athens and its Delian League were attacked by Sparta and its Peloponnesian League. Diodorus mentions that the Spartans did not just declare war, but sought additional support from Persia.

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

Contrasting with Persia's arrogant and assuming leaders, Greece produced the finest leadership after Marathon. Themistokles was an example of excellent leadership, as he prepared for the possibility of renewed attacks from Persia. He fortified the Piraeus bay, and used surplus to build 100 new triremes to fight against the Persians.

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).

Hence, the tactics and the paramount strategy devised by Miltiades in the Battle of Marathon as well as the unification of the Greek forces, both effectively crushed the Persian onslaught and significantly increased the confidence of the Greeks to incline themselves in a common cause if the Persians attacked again.

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

Who/What: The Persian war was a war between Persia and Greece That was led by King Darius I

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).

when the Persia’s fleets of 20,000 soldiers and their top generals sailed across the Aegean Sea to reach the plain of Marathon, north of Athens. As a result, the Athenians sent Philippides, the fastest runner, “who ran approximately 150 miles in two days to request the help of the Spartans.” However, the Spartans insisted on “celebrating the religious festival of Artemis-Carneia” before going into battle. After the Athenians received the dreadful news, the Athenian general named Miltiades and his outnumbered Athenian soldiers marched to the top of the hills of the Marathon. The Athenian soldiers and Miltiades charged down the hills in unison using the hoplite technique as they smashed into the lightly armed Persian’s defense lines and they strengthened their two wings as they pushed the Persian’s soldiers around and back into the sea. Most of the Persian’s soldiers were either killed in battle or drowned in the sea, but some of Persian soldiers escaped back to their ships. The Athenian soldiers who fought heroically to try to climb over the side of the Persian’s ships were praised and honored for their amputated right hand when they returned home to Athens.

Through the manuscripts of Herodotus, an ancient historian who hailed from the mountainous lands of Greece, modern day historians have been granted the ability to piece together the multitude of events that supposedly transpired during the years 480 and 479 BC between the Persian empire and the city-states of the classical Greece (Herodotus). The second Persian invasion of Greece, which took place in the previously mentioned years, was a part of the many series of battles and encounters that made up the Greco-Persian Wars. This invasion in particular, however, probably saw one of the most distinguished battles in ancient European warfare befall. As a whole, the second Persian invasion of Greece consisted of several battles that transpired within a close proximity of one another chronologically. The war itself was fairly short-lived, even for its time, lasting only the course of approximately one year. The battles themselves took place in Thermopylae, Artemisium, Salamis, Platae, and Mycale (Setzer). The Persian invasion forces were led by King Xerxes I of Persia, the son of Darius I of Persia. Prior to the reign of Xerxes I, King Darius I had wanted to take control of ancient Greece. As such, he ordered two campaigns which made up the first Persian invasion of Greece. Much to his hindrance, however, Darius I breathed his last breath before he was presented with the opportunity to carry out a second invasion.