PERSIAN WAR Date: (492-447 B.C.

) The Persian War was an international war that was between Persia and Greece The Cause: (499-494 B.C.) Greece was divided into more than 100 city states in 500 BC, and many states had come under the rule of the Persian King, Cyrus of Persia. Persia, which lay east of Greece and stretched from the Aegean Sea to Indian Sea, and from Russia to Egypt, was Greeks biggest enemy and it overpowered Greece by population, land, and wealth. In the years 500 B.C. to 499 B.C, Ionians, from the city state Melitus, who was under the Persian rule, was tired of being ruled by Persia and rebelled against Persia. The city states Athens and Eretria came to the aid of Melitus and sent ships and soldiers over to help them. Then disaster struck for the Persians, as the Ionians destroyed Sardis, which was the base of the Persian government. The Persians overcame their defeat and as a punishment in 494 B.C. they destroyed the Ionians and burned Melitus and Erertria. King Darius, who was the king of Persia at the time, plotted to take over and invade Athens as a punishment for helping the Ionians. Battle of Marathon (490 B.C.) King Darius never forgave Athens for helping the Ionians rebel against him and in the year 490 B.C, King Dairus and his 60 000 foot soldiers landed on Marathon Bay, which is 20 miles north of Athens. Athens and her allies, made an army of 10 000 troops led by Miltidaues. Even though the Persians had more soldiers than Greece, the Greek hoplites were better than the Persian soldiers, and the Greeks won the battle of Marathon. Second Persian Invasion (Battle of Thermopylae) (480 B.C.) King Dairus had a son named Xerxus, and when Dairus died, Xerxus was determined to follow in his fathers footsteps and defeat the Greeks and Athens. Meanwhile, the Greeks knew that the Persians would invade again, so they prepared to fight. They did this by consulting an Oracle. In those days, when the Greeks had a question to ask, or a problem, they would visit an oracle, where special priests or priestess would speak for their gods. So they consulted an oracle, and were told that Athens would only be saved by a wooden wall. The Athenians interpreted that as meaning that the wall was actually wooden ships in a navy. So they prepared for a navel battle from the Persians. As the Athenians had predicted, the Persians did try to invade Athens, but a small army led by King Leonidas of Sparta tricked them to come to a narrow mountain named Therpyloe. So that Persian army

came to the mountain of Therpyloe, and met the army of Sparta, who were there to distract them from the Athenians and their war ships. A traitor from Athens showed the Persians another way out making it so that the Persians outnumbered the Spartans and killed 300 of them. Destruction of Athens (Interlude between Wars) After the traitor had showed the Persians a way out from Therpyloe, helping them defeat the Spartans, the Persians went south to attack Athens. Xerxes men went through the city of Athens, but when they got there, they found that it was almost deserted. That was because the Athenian Leader, Themistades, withdrew his troops from Athens so that they would be able to fight at sea. The Persians took that opportunity to seize Athens and the murdured the existing Athenisnans, ransacked the city, and burned all the temples leaving behind nothing. Then they went on to fight the Athenians at sea. Battle of Salamis. (480-479 B.C.) After they got defeated, the Persians sent in a naval force (as opposed to a army force) to attack the Greeks by sea. This sea battle took place in the island of Salamis, which is close to Greece. The Persians couldnt get past the Greeks in the narrow Isthmus of Corinth so the only way to get past was by sea. Themistalcles tricked the Persians into coming to a channel of water between Salamis and the mainland by sending Xerxus a secreat message to go to Salami. Xerxus fell into a trap, for the Greeks were there ready to pounce on the Persian ships. The Persians lost their ships in battle and Athens had defeated Persian at Salamis. Defeated, the Persians went back home. Battle of Plataea (479 B.C.) After they got defeated at Salamis, Xerxus and his army went back to Persia to plan their next attack. Xerxus left his army with general Mardonius, and went to hide. The Greeks werent frightened by the Persians anymore, since the Greeks had defeated the Persians already. In 479 B.C., the Greeks put together a huge army led by the Spartans, and defeated the Persian army and killed Mardonius at Plataea. At the same time, the Greek navy had attacked and burned the remaining Persian ships at Asia Minor. This led to the end of the Persian invasion, the Greeks defeating the Persians at last. Outcome + Final Conclusion (445 B.C.) The Greeks had succeeded in stopping the Persians from invading Athens again, but the wars didnt come to a complete end. Even though the Greeks had defeated the Persians, they stilled feared Persia and they continued to fight them over land.

PELOPONNESIAN WAR Date: (431-404 B.C.) The Peloponnesian war, unlike the Persian war is not a war against their common enemy, but instead it is a war between two Greek city states: Athens and Sparta. Cause: After the Persian War had ended, Athens had ended up in ruins with nothing to hold it together. Athens wanted to build up her city again so she asked all her allies to give them money and in return she would give them safeness against warfare. She began getting more and more powerful and fruitful, producing beautiful buildings, sculptures, and philosophers because of the money she kept demanding of the city states. Soon she was bigger than she had been before she was destroyed and she went on to building huge walls known as the Long Walls. Sparta had always been the opposite of Athens; Athens loved to produce philosophers and scientists whereas Sparta was more military oriented. Sparta began to get jealous of how much Athens was progressing and started to be afraid of Athens. In 448-447 B.C. Athens and Sparta began quarrelling with each other because Athens had begun building the Long Walls connecting {Athens with its port at Piraeuslook up later} Sparta thought that Athens was preparing for war, so they both decided to sign a peace treaty called the Thirty Years Peace. They still remained suspicious of one another, even after signing the peace treaty. Sparta was looking for any opportunity to attack Athens and proclaim war on her that when Corinth, an ally of Sparta, and Coroyra, an ally of Athens, broke into a fight, Sparta declared war on Athens, thus starting the Peloponnesian War. Start of the War Since Athens had began to get too arrogant after she had rebuilt her city, when the Peloponnesian War started many of the city states that used to be with Athens, went over to Sparta to give Sparta aid. Since she had an extremely strong army, but a weaker navy, Sparta started invading Athens on land instead of on sea. She did this by invading Attica, a city state inside Athens. This made the Athenians fuming mad because unlike Sparta who had a strong army but weak navy, Athens had a strong navy, but weak army, making it so that the Athenians would be hopeless fighting on land. When Sparta invaded Attica and burned all the crops, houses, and farms, the Athenians stayed in the protection of their long walls, importing food from the sea. The Spartans couldnt get through the long walls and they gave up when plague broke out in Athens.

Plague (430-427 B.C.) In the year 430 B.C. Plague broke out in Athens, which lasted four years. About a quarter of the population died including Pericles, the leader of Athens. Sparta and Athens were too tired to fight, so in the year 421 B.C., they signed a peace treaty to stop fighting. This didnt last too long though, and six years later, they were up fighting again. Sicilian Expedition/TRAITOR (415-413 B.C.) In the year 415 B.C. a politician by the name of Alcibiacles told Athens to attack the city of Syracuse in Sicily. The Athenians trusted Alcibiacles and started to work on attacking Sicily. What they didnt know, however, was that Alcibiacles was being charged by his enemies and so he betrayed Athens. Alcibiacles ran to Sparta and told Sparta how to defeat Athens. In 413 B.C. Athens went to Sicily, expecting to defeat them, but instead headed into an unexpected surprise. In Sicily, the Spartans were waiting for the Athenians, and the Spartans attacked the Athenians and destroyed half of all Athenians ships. The Athenians were defeated at Sicily. Politicalness in Athens (411 B.C.) All was not peaceful in Athens anymore. The defeat at Sicily had disturbed Athens and life became hectic. 400 men rebelled to abolish democracy and they got in control of power. After three months, and a lot of people defying the power, democracy was recovered, but everything was still in commotion and a lot of the allies of the Delian League withdrew. Things were looking worser and worser for the Athenians. Persia comes to help the Spartans (??? B.C.) In order to defeat Athenians navy, Sparta needed money to create a bigger navy. So Sparta made a deal with her former enemy Persia. Sparta gave city-states to Persia and Persia gave gold to help Sparta attack Athens on sea and on land. Sparta built more fleets and groups of ships that helped them defeat Athens navy. Battle of Aegospotami (405 B.C. ) In the year 405 B.C. a Spartan general named Lysander, surprised Athens by attacking an Athenians fleet at Aegospotami. Sparta captured 170 Athenian ships there and killed about 4000 prisoners. They defeated the Athenian fleet and Athens never recovered from that drastic blow. Outcome/Final Conclusion (405-404 B.C.) After the battle at Aegospotami, Sparta blocked ships from bringing in food to Athens. Athens had no food left and people began to starve. Athens, not wanting people to starve, surrendered to Sparta and in 404 B.C. Sparta had defeated Athens. As revenged from Athens, Sparta did four things to Athens. She destroyed the Long Walls of Athens, she ended the Delian

League, she eliminated democracy, and she installed a government called oligarchic, which was a small group of people to govern called the Thirty Tyrants.