The Greco-Persian wars: brief summary scheme

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The Greco-Persian wars are a series of conflicts fought by the Greek poleis (and in particular Athens and Sparta) against the Achaemenid empire and its allies, between 499 BC and 479 BC.

  • 1) Ionian uprising (499 BC – 493 BC) against the Persian empire;
    Athens and Eretria provided help to the polis who rebelled during the Ionian revolt;
  • 2) The rebel Ionian cities are reconquered by the Persians and severely punished;
  • 3) In 492 BC the Persian king Darius sent his son-in-law Mardonius to consolidate imperial power over Thrace and make Macedonia vassal;
  • 4) In 491 BC King Darius sends ambassadors to the cities of Greece to submit to him. Athens and Sparta, however, not only refused to submit to the Persians, but had the ambassadors sent by King Darius killed;
  • 5) The command of the Persian army and fleet that in 490 BC towards Greece is given to Dati and Artaferne. The army landed in Naxos, which had rebelled ten years earlier, and devastated it, enslaving the inhabitants. Later the Persians bring destruction to the Aegean islands, until they land near Euboea and besiege the city of Eretria, which capitulates in six days; so the city is sacked and destroyed, the population reduced in chains;

  • 6) The Persians land in Marathon; the Athenian general Miltiades manages to drive out the Persians, defeating them in the battle of Marathon. King Darius is succeeded by his son Xerxes, who, after a preparation of 4 years, begins the invasion from Abydos.
  • 7) Miltiades dies in Athens and begins the rise of Themistocles, who builds a fleet;
  • 8) The Spartan king Demaratus is deposed by his cousin Leotichida, who takes his place. Demaratus fled to the Persian empire and became an adviser to Xerxes;
  • 9) Themistocles gives orders to block the Persian army along the passage between Thessaly and Boeotia: the Thermopylae pass. In August 480 BC. Xerxes’ army reaches the pass, but the Spartans cannot fight for a sacred ban, and they only send King Leonidas I together with his bodyguard (300 men). Troops from other Greek cities also arrived; despite the heroic resistance of Greeks, the betrayal of Ephialtes of Trachis allows to circumvent the blockade and 2000 Greeks lose their lives trying to cover the retreat of the rest of the army, blocking the Persian army.
  • 10) Xerxes advances towards Athens and plunders it, while the population takes refuge in Salamis;
    Themistocles wins the naval battle at Salamis, gaining supremacy over the seas;
  • 11) Mardonius returns to Boeotia with the Persian army to spend the winter;
  • 12) In the battle of Platea (August 479 BC) the Persians face Spartans plus Athenians and their allies. The Greeks won, led by the Spartan general Pausanias, managing to kill Mardonius. The Persian army flees, while the Persian naval forces are defeated by the Greeks in the battle of Mycale.
  • 13) Conquest by the Greeks of the Thracian Chersonese, the island of Cyprus (but not permanently) and Byzantium;
  • 14) The conflict between the Greeks and Persians continue in the Delio-Attic League Wars (477-449 BC), which saw the victorious of the Greeks, who gained control of the Aegean Sea, but also of Thrace and the east coast of Asia Minor.