Overcoming The Greco-Persian Wars

The Ancient Greek city-states of the 5th century BCE took on one of the most powerful and dangerous empires of the ancient world in a struggle to maintain independence from the Persians. The Persians represented the opposite in ideals of everything that is Greek and threatened the end of political sovereignty, higher thinking, and innovation. Overcoming the Persians was a critical accomplishment by the Greeks in the Greco-Persian wars of the 5th century and can be attributed to their superior strategizing and exceptional leadership in time of crisis.
The Persian wars got its start in 499 BCE on the eastern shores of the Aegean Sea. The Greek colonies of Iona had been taken over by the king of Persia, Darius, and it was not long before they
revolted. This revolt has come to be known as the Ionian Revolt. The Greek city-states of Athens and Eretria were called to aid their kinsmen during the opening year of the revolution but soon withdrew. The Ionians held their own until 494 BCE when the Persian navy destroyed the Ionian navy in the Battle of Lade. The Athenian and Eretria involvement in the revolt angered King Darius and four years later he assembled a force to retaliate. In July of 490 BCE his fleet with army on board left Cilicia landed on the shores of Naxos. The Persians destroyed and burned the Naxos and moved on to Eretria where they met heavy resistance but were victorious after 6 days. With the first of the campaign's main objective's accomplished the army moved to Marathon which is about 26 miles from Athens.
The battle of Marathon is one of the three most important battles of the Persian Wars.
The Persian army, under King Darius, camped on the beach of Marathon and planned on marching to Athens and overwhelm them with their superior numbers. Mobilizing their troops quickly, the Athenians swiftly assembled in the hills above the beach directly in the path of the Persians. Instead of attacking immediately the Persians camped on the beach for several days, allowing the Athenian generals to hold a council and decide on a course of action . The Council wisely put Miltiades in charge of the conducting of the eminent battle and he was able to find a solution to the problem of being outnumbered by the Persians. His main concern was of being enveloped by the enemy. He decided to weaken his center lines of troops and put the extra men on the flanks of his three pronged formation. When the battle started the Persian center was able to break through Miltiades center but their flanks were overwhelmed and the Persian phalanx collapsed upon itself. The two flanks met in the center and subdued the entire army due to Miltiades strategy and execution. The Athenians were able to capture 7 Persian ships, kill 6,400 Persians, and only lose 192 men; it was a complete
victory.
Athens sent the Persians and King Darius back to Persia after the battle of Marathon with its tail between its legs. He was out-smarted by the Athenian general Miltiades even with the advantage of numbers. In 486 BCE Egypt revolted and the next year Darius died. It was not until 484 that Xerxes, his son, subdued Egypt and was able to organize a second European campaign.
"Xerxes spent more than four years gathering soldiers and stockpiling supplies from every corner of his empire. The resulting host amounted to a colossal cosmopolitan army of armies." His army was so immense that it was very possible that he did not expect to have to engage in any major battles in Greece. He assumed that upon sight of his magnificent army that city after city would agree to surrender rather than meet sure destruction. He sent messengers ahead of him to Greek city's and commanded them to surrender or be annihilated except for Athens and Sparta for whom he would show no mercy .
His Army's first obstacle was that of nature not of man; they attempted to cross the Hellespont which is a strait "…about 40 miles long and four miles wide that connects the Aegean sea with the Propontis." To do so they constructed floating two bridges spanning the straight out of ships tied and anchored together. The first used 360 ships set on an angle to reduce stress and the second was made of 314 ships. Just before the bridges were to be used, however, a gale destroyed both and Xerxes had the engineers beheaded for their idiocy and ordered new ones built. This is a good example of the Persian's poor strategy and lack of quality leadership.
The Greeks decided to make a stand at Thermopylae where they knew they could have a chance at holding off the Persians long enough to take on their navy.
This was the second important battle of the war. Thermopylae was chosen as the site for a stand because it would be a bottle-neck for the Persians, making it hard for them to utilize their strength in numbers. Only a small force of 300 elite Spartan warriors and 700 Thespians held off the Persians for four days of grueling fighting until they were eventually overwhelmed . Although they were defeated in Thermopylae, it was not a complete lose. The Persians suffered heavy casualties, delayed the advance of the enemy, and became a unifying heroic legend that helped to make the Greek city-states pull together and fight
harder.
A silver deposit in Athens was discovered and upon the urging of Themistocles, a persuasive politician, it was used on the building of 200 state of the art battle ships for the Athenian navy. This was a very important decision that probably made the difference between the winning and losing of the war for the Greeks. Themistocles convinced the other city-states to force a sea battle with Persia rather than take on Xerxes huge army. This meant that the evacuation of Athens was necessary and a retreat to the bay of Salamis. This was a small channel that would ruin the Persian fleet's formations and allow the Greeks navy to have a better chance of taking on the navy with out being outflanked. They had a combined fleet of only 380 ships against 1000 Persian ships, but the narrows of Salamis made the less agile and bulky Persian crafts ineffective . Themistocles knew that Xerxes would not be able to resist attacking the Greek strong hold at Salamis and have to opportunity to end the war quickly before bad weather made getting supplies to his troops impossible. He counted on this fact and was proven to be correct in his assumption when the Persians were lured into the straights like he wanted. The Persian navy was defeated in the last great battle of the Greco-Persian Wars at Salamis and Xerxes great plan for the conquering of Greece was ruined to his astonishment. As a last half hearted effort Xerxes left behind an "imposing force" which met with 38000 Greek soldiers at Plataea who handily crushed them in 479 BCE completely ending the Persian campaign in Europe.
The victorious Ancient Greek city-states accomplished the unthinkable. They overcame insurmountable odds by taking on the Great Persian Empire and forever ensuring the security of their homeland from further Persian invasions. They relied on their strong leadership, cooperation, and strategy to defend themselves. Important leaders in time of crisis like Themistocles and Miltiades proved that sheer numbers was not enough to topple the people of Greece and prevent them from entering their Golden Ages.