Stefanie Nguyen

History
Per.3
2/28/18

The Battles of the Persian Wars

The battle of the Persian wars started with the Ionian Revolt. The Ionian Revolt marked
the beginning of the Persian wars. King Darius and the Persians conquered and took
the Ionian farmland and harbors. They even forced the Ionians to pay tributes or the
regular payment of goods. The Ionians didn’t like this. They were sick and tired of it.
They knew they could not defeat the Persians by themselves. So they decided to call
the Athenians for help. Which, they did. The Athens sent soldiers and a small fleet of
ships. Unfortunately, for the Ionians, the Athens went home after their success, leaving
the Ionian army to fight alone. However, in 493 B.C.E., the Persians defeated the
Ionians. To punish the Ionians for rebelling, they destroyed the city of Miletus. They
even sold some of its people into slavery.

After the Ionian revolt, King Darius wanted to conquer the city-states of mainland
Greece. He sent his messengers to ask for presents of Greek earth and water. The
presents meant that the Greeks agreed to accept Persian rule. But the Greeks refused.
Instead, they threw the messengers into pits and wells. They even shouted, “If you want
Greek earth and water, help yourselves!” Darius was very furious. He sent a large army
of foot soldiers and cavalry by boat to Greece in 490 B.CE. The army gather on the
plain of Marathon. In Greece, a general named Miltiades convinced the other Greek
commanders to fight the Persians at Marathon. Desperate for help, the Athenians sent a
runner named Pheidippides to Sparta. He ran there for two days and two nights. When
he got there, he saw the Spartans celebrating a religious festival. The Spartans told him
that they couldn’t leave until the next full moon. So unfortunately, the Athenians and
their allies had to face the Persians alone. For several days, both sides actually
hesitated to attack. Finally, Miltiades decided to attack. He told his army how to attack
and they were successful. Soon, the Greeks got the Persians running for their ships.
Then, after that, the Greeks went back to Athens just in time to defend their city from the
Persian cavalry. The Greeks had won their first victory.

When king Darius died, his son, King Xerxes, decided to do another attack on Greece.
He put together a huge army of more than 180,000 soldiers. He also decided to cross
the hellespont to get his army into Greece. He made bridges by roping hundreds of
boats together. He crossed all the way into Europe. Then, he marched west from the
Hellespont and then south. Several of the greek city-states were shock. Athens and
Sparta decided to work together to fight the Persians. The Athenians would try to stop
the Persian navy. The the Spartans and King Leonidas would try to stop the Persian
army. The Spartans chose to fight at a place called Thermopylae. They chose that place
because the Persian army would have to go through a narrow pass between the
mountain and the sea. Leonidas only had 6,000 to 700,000 soldiers. King Xerxes had
180,000 Persians. But when the Persians tried to get through the pass, the Greeks held
them back. It was so hard to fight. But the Greeks were very strong. They were stronger
than the Persians. Soon, a Greek traitor showed the Persians a secret path through the
mountains. This path allowed the Persians to attack the Greeks from the rear and front
at the same time. However, the Greeks refused to escape because they knew they had
to delay the Persians. So Leonidas told most of his troops to escape. He told the to
escape because he didn’t want his army to be destroyed. Now he only has 300 soldiers
left with him. When the Persians started to fight them, the Spartans were obedient. They
fought with their weapons. If their weapons broke, they fought with their hands.
However, in the end, all 300 of them died.