THE FUNDAMENTALS OF ANCIENT HISTORY
The Greco-Persian Wars
Lesson 5. The Second Greco-Persian War
a. Introduction
Hi everyone and welcome to the fifth lesson of the Academia.edu course THE
FUNDAMENTALS OF ANCIENT HISTORY: THE GRECO-PERSIAN WARS.
In this fifth video we are going to describe what happened in the ten year gap between the
first and the second Persian invasions, as well as to analyse the early Persian victories and
their eventual defeat against the courageous League of Greek city-states.
b. Interwar period (490-480)
After the failure of the first campaigns to mainland Greece, Darius began raising a huge new
army with which he intended to subjugate Greece completely. However, in 486 BC, uprisings
within the Persian empire in Egypt and Babylon delayed the second expedition. Darius died
while preparing to march on Egypt, and the throne of Persia passed to his son Xerxes
I. Xerxes crushed the revolts, and very quickly, beginning in 483, resumed the preparations
for the second invasion of Greece. This time the Great King himself took on the leadership
of about 100,000 men and 600 triremes.
Since a return of the Persians had to be expected, Athens tried immediately to get a foothold
in the Aegean and it developed a vigorous war policy at home characterised the construction
of a modern fleet of triremes ordered by the famous general Themistocles. He also lead the
strategy, which was, on the one hand, to construct a defensive barrier near the narrow pass of
Thermopylae. This could easily be blocked by the Greek allies despite the overwhelming
number of Persians. And, on the other hand, to prevent the Persians from bypassing
Thermopylae by sea, the allied navy blocked the straits of Artemisium off the island of
Euboea.
c. Advance of the Persians: Thermopilae and the destruction of Athens (480 BC)
In the summer of 481 BC, after years of preparation, Xerxes began to muster the troops to
invade Europe. The Great King led them to Sardis where they passed the winter. Early in
spring of 480, it moved to Abydos where they crossed the Hellespont on two pontoon
bridges. Having crossed into Europe, the Persian army began its march to Greece. They took
roughly three months to travel unopposed from the Hellespont to Therme, in the Chalcidice,
then he began clearing paths around Mount Olympus, and thus intending to march towards
Thermopylae.
When the Greek Allies received the news from the scouts, it was the period of truce that
accompanied the Spartan festival of Carneia (held in honor of Apollo) around mid-August,
during which warfare was considered sacrilegious. Nevertheless, the Spartans considered the
threat so grave that they despatched their king Leonidas with his personal bodyguard, the
famous Spartan 300 men. Besides, Leonidas was supported by contingents from the
Peloponnesian cities allied to Sparta, and other forces that were picked up in the way to
Thermopylae. The Allies proceeded to occupy the pass at the narrowest point and waited for
Xerxes's arrival.
Reportedly due to the treason of a Greek called Ephialtes in the hope of a large reward,
the Persian army was able to go around the defile of Thermopylae. This enabled the Persians
to circumvent the Greek army under Leonidas and attack it from the rear. As a consequence,
they were completely annihilated and then marched directly to Athens. Regarding the
simultaneous naval clash at the Straits of Artemisium, initially, the Greek ships successfully
stood up against a Persian fleet which had been weakened considerably by storms, but they
retreated to Salamis on the third day where they concluded the evacuation to Salamis of the
Athenian population, which had been decided well before and had already begun. Athens
thus fell to the Persians; the small number of Athenians who had barricaded themselves on
the Acropolis were eventually defeated, and Xerxes then ordered the destruction of the polis,
so the Acropolis was razed and the Older Parthenon as well as the Old Temple of
Athena were devastated.
d. The defeat of the Persians: The Battles of Salamis, Plataea and Mycale (480-479)
The destruction of Athens made the situation appear hopeless and made a retreat behind
the Isthmus appear advisable. However, Themistocles persuaded the Spartan supreme
commander, to engage in a naval battle and, reportedly through a ruse, made the Persians
stage an attack in the narrow sound of Salamis. In fact, the Persians were forced to seek
decisive action because it was already late in the season: it was already the end of September
of 480. So at this moment and place, both sides were prepared to stake everything on a naval
battle in the hope of decisively altering the course of the war. The outcome was that the 400
Greek ships defeated the slightly stronger Persian fleet with Xerxes looking on from a mount
in the coast.
Thereupon, Xerxes returned home with the remainder of his fleet probably in order to pre-
empt unrest which threatened to occur as a result of the defeat. Nevertheless, Mardonius and
his army took winter quarters in Thessaly and, after fruitless diplomatic efforts to make
Athens join the Persian side by offering peace, self-government and territorial expansion,
they succumbed in 479 in the battle of Plataea to the Hellenic confederacy army led by the
Spartan Pausanias. The key moment was when Pausanias ordered a night-time retreat towards
their original positions, for Mardonius, seeing that he might never have a better opportunity
to attack, ordered his whole army forward. However, as at Thermopylae, the Persian infantry
proved no match for the heavily armoured Greek hoplites, and the Spartans broke through to
Mardonius's bodyguard and killed him. Consequently, the Persian force dissolved, and a
glorious victory was assured.
At the same day, according to Herodotus (which is obviously a legend or a sort of a war-
myth), a Hellenic fleet at that time off the coast of Mount Mycale in Ionia, not far from
Miletus, attacked and destroyed the remnants of the Persian ships, which already were in a
poor state of repair. The Persians, seeking to avoid a battle, beached their fleet below the
slopes of Mycale, and, with the support of a Persian army group, built a palisaded camp. The
Greek commander decided to attack them anyway, landing the fleet's complement of marines
to do so. Finally, although the Persian forces put up stout resistance, the heavily armoured
Greek hoplites again proved themselves superior in combat, and routed the Persian troops,
who fled to their camp.
e. Summary
To sum up, in this fifth lesson we have learned the following topics:
- What happened between the first and the second Greco-Persian Wars? Darius and
then his successor Xerxes prepared a major expedition to mainland Greece.
- How started the Second Greco-Persian War? The Persians won the Battle of
Thermopilae and destroyed Athens.
- Which was the response of the Hellenic allies? They successfully engaged in the sea
battle of Salamis and the next year in the plain of Plataea as well as in Mycale, their
own lands.
And that would be all for now, thank you for listening.
In the final lesson is time to consider the general outcome of the Greco-Persian Wars. See
you there.
