| The Persian Wars
The consolidation of the Persian
Empire under Cyrus the Great in the sixth century B.C. posed a major
threat to the fledgling states of Greece. The resolution of the
clash between East and West was to shape the entire future of the
region. For the Greeks, it was a question of survival; for the
Persians, on the other hand, occupation of Greece was simply part of
their imperial plan. Nonetheless, the Persian Wars are significant
because they resulted in a separation between Greece and the Near
East after centuries of fruitful interaction.
The First Persian War in 490 B.C. was
a brief affair. Intending to punish Athens for its participation in
a raid in Asia Minor, Persia sent a small force by Persian
standards, about 20,000 infantry and 800 cavalry. The Greeks met
this force with 10,000 troops at the plain of Marathon on the west
coast of Attica. The combination of Greek tactics, the superiority
of their armor, and the new phalanx formation proved decisive in the
battle; the Persians were routed.
The Second Persian War of 481-479
B.C. was a very different proposition. Persia's king, Xerxes,
planned to lead a huge expedition to conquer all the Greek states.
The Greeks formed the Hellenic League, which included Sparta and its
allied states. Other Greek states went over to the Persian side.
In 480 B.C., Xerxes invaded Greece
with a huge fleet and an army of over 100,000 men. After overcoming
fierce Spartan resistance at Thermopilai, the Persians occupied
central Greece and the Greeks retreated south to the Peloponnesus.
The Attic Peninsula was taken and Athens sacked. On the seas,
however, the Greeks completely destroyed the Persian fleet in the
Bay of Salamis. Xerxes retreated hastily to Asia then suffered a
great land defeat the next year at the Battle of Plataia, in which
the superiority of Greek armor and tactics was the deciding factor.
Persian expansionism never threatened Greece again.
The most important result of the
Persian Wars was a barrier between Greece and the Near East that
ruptured a vibrant cultural zone including Phoenicia, Lydia, Egypt,
and other cultures of the Near East. The barrier would not be broken
until the middle of the next century, and the concept of a divided
Asia and Europe became permanent.
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