- In 490B.C., a Persian fleet carried 25,000 men across the Aegean Sea and landed northeast of Athens on a plain called Marathon.
- Pheidippides Brings News
- though the Athenians won the battle, their city now stood defenseless.
- according to the tradition, army leader chose a young runner named Pheidippides to race back to Athens. He brought news of the Persians defeat so that Athenians would not give up the city without a fight. Pheidippides delivered this message, "Rejoice, we conquer." He then collapsed and died.
- Thermopylae and Salamis
- ten years later, in 480 B.C., Darius the Great's son and successor, Xerxes, assembled an enormous invasion force to crash Athens.
- the Greek were badly divided.
- some city-states agreed to fight the Persians; others thought it wiser to let Xerxes destroy Athens and return home; some Greeks even fought on the Persian side.
- fearing defeat, the Spartans held the Persians back while the other Greek forces retreated.
- the Spartans's valiant sacrifice - all were killed - made a great impression on all Greeks.
- Themistocles, an Athenian leader, convinced them to evacuate the city and fight at sea.
- they positioned their fleet in a narrow channel near the island of Salamis, a few miles southwest of Athens.
- After setting fire block both ends of the channel.
- the channel was very narrow, and the Persian ships had difficult tuning.
- smaller Greek ships armed with battering rams attacked, puncturing the hulls of many Persian warships.
- Xerxes faced another defeat in 479 B.C., Greeks crushed the Persian army at the Battle of Plataea.
- several Greek city-states formed an alliance called Delian League.
- they continued to press the war against the Persians for several more years.
- they drove the Persians from the territories surrounding Greece and ended the threat of future attacks.
- Consequences of the Persian War
- during the 470s, Athens emerged as the leader of the Delian League, which had grown to some 200 city-states.
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