Final Essay
Name: Long Ananpanha ID: 12248
Topic: Three excellent victories, Greeks drove out the Persians away
The two Graeco-Persian Wars were the military confrontations between the most powerful empire, the Persian Empire and its colonial, Greece. The goal of the wars was to punish Athens by the Persian Empire (Microsoft Encarta Reference Library 2009/ Persian wars). However, the Persian Empire, had been led by many powerful emperors since 521 BC, was known to be the most powerful and the largest empire with many forces and had conquered much of Egypt and some areas in Mediterranean. “In the Graeco-Persian Wars, Persians out numbered the Greeks by 3 to 1, there were only 40,000 Greeks to fight back with 120,000 Persians at the war; however, the Persians were unable to defeat the Greeks.”1 Mostly people don’t understand why Greeks could defeat the Persians. Huge army, but lost the battle, why? Hence, reasons the first failure battle in 490 BC, the Battle of Marathon, led by king Darius I for the Persian Imperial Army, and reasons of the second failure battles, led by his son, Xerxes I, which were the Battle of Salamis in 480 BC, and the Battle of Plataea in 479 BC, are the reasons of the three victories motivate the Allied Greek to defeat the Persian Imperial Army and made the Persians were driven out of Greeks. There were several reasons for the Greek victory from the first invasion of the Persians at the battle Marathon which are stated below; In the first battle, the Battle of Marathon, the Greeks were led by Athenians superior commander, Miltiades and his allied, the Plataeans and the Persians were led by king Darius I. Before the Persians fought the Athens, Darius I led his armies to destroy the Eretrians and the result was well done. According to the Herodotus book, (The History p156, Herodotus) the Persians which existed with so very extremely high proud, moved against Athens, and convinced that the Athens would behave like the Eretrians. However, Darius I’s expectation was not success because of great techniques of the super commander of Athens, Miltiades, who convinced the Athenians to be fully with hope in order to fight back against the Persian. “It is so necessary to go out to fight and not to stay within the walls,” he said.2 Started from the first beginning, the Persians were trapped on the shore of Marathon so that their first problem was how to pull out from there without being attacked while embarking,
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Yahoo Answer: Why were the Greeks able to defeat the Persians besides out numbered? http://www.derafshkaviyani.com/history/miltiades.php
and their second problem was to see whether they could land in some more suitable location. The first problem was solved by embarking at night so that the Persians forces were so tired. Anyway, after the victorious against Eretrians, Persian armies needed some relax for planning strategies against Greeks and also couldn’t move beyond Marathon immediately; as a result, the Athenians had enough time to send a messenger to Sparta for asking some help and were waiting for the arrival of the Sparta forces on time. Therefore, the Athens was helped by Sparta and became the Greek League, led by Miltiades. Moreover, after surely know that Persians were shore all armies on the shore near Marathon, the special area for preparing the defensive strategy for Greece forces, Miltiades set up his forces by aligned them across the valley of Vrana because the place was the higher and rocky; moreover, his troops were in a protected position on north by Mount Agrieliki and on south by Mount Kotroni. In contrast, the Persians were forced to align their forces along the shore in front of their ships that were either beached on the sandy beach of the bay of Marathon. It meant that the Persian forces were in lower place than the Greek forces; as the result, the Persians couldn’t move from their position easily to fight or surprise the Greeks by using their strong cavalry. The super power of the Persian Empire was the cavalry, yet they couldn’t use it against their enemy, so in the absence of the cavalry, the Persian wings were unusually weak. Luckily for the Greek line was strong on the wings and weak at the center. It all means that the Persians were strong to fight at a distance or on horseback with bows and arrows; Greek hoplites was strong to fight hand to hand, on foot, with heavy armor. In addition; in the ancient warfare, the cavalry was so important because the function of the cavalry was to protect the wings and to harass the enemy wings. “Miltiades planned to lead his forces to the center of the Persian formation till they reached the range of the Persian archer, attack in double times, and retreat the draw the Persian into the center. And about his major armies, he deployed at the wings, Athenians could enveloped the Persians.”3 Hence, King Darius I could known that his forces couldn’t win so that he finally decided to be back, and tried to embark his forces quickly. The infantry could be embarked quickly, yet the cavalry must have been a lengthy operation. While their embarking; the Persians were surprised by the forces of Miltiades. The surprise move of Miltiades had achieved a victory without a fight on the battle against the Persian Empire. According the report of Herodotus (The History p 245, Herodotus), the surprise of the Athenians by used heavily armor forces that could kill approximately 6400 Persians at a loss of 192 of the Athenian forces and 11 of the Plataeans. Furthermore in the first battle or another battles, Greeks had a very great motivation by nationalism; however, the Persians didn’t had any motivation. It means that all of Greeks
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http://www.iranchamber.com/history/articles/persian_wars4.php
people united to fight because of the nationalism and didn’t let other countries to invade their border easily; in contrast, the Persians were strongly forced to fight because of the power of their kings and if someone did not go to fight, one choice for them was death. Addition in the first battle, the Battle of Marathon, the king of the Persian Empire, king Darius I was so conceited. Because as in the first mentioned, the strong power of the Persian was the cavalry. More details, the cavalry that was in that time, just one part of all his cavalry armies. It means that the cavalry of the Persian was divided into 3 parts; first part was in the Persian Empire, second was in Eretrians and third was there. “We can win for all battles without the cavalry, the cavalry is off” 4 king Darius I said. As the result, he lost the war and made the Persians suffered heavy losses which included their best fighters, yet the Athenians could only captured seven ships of the Persian Empire. Despite the defeat at Marathon, the Persian Emperor, king Xerxes didn’t abandon the plan from his father for punishing Athens such as in 480 BC, the Battle of Salamis and 479 BC, the Battle of Plataea. “Xerxes, king of the kings said that he was not going to make the same mistakes as his father in the battles again.”5 Anyway, “according to the figure of modern scholars’ book, in the second invasion, Xerxes had 200,000 forces with 1,200 navy forces and 600 warships.”6 However, he still had not gotten any victories at the battle; the failures of his invasion in the Battles of Salamis were from; In his first invasion, he had 1200 triremes with 240,000 men as crew to fight against 300 triremes of Greece; he still had lost because of the incredible achievement by brilliant strategy in the victory of Greek super naval commander, Themistocles. After surely knew that the Persians would come back to fight again, so Themistocles convinced Athens and the Aegean island states like Aegina, Spetses, Andros, Chios, Karpathos to build ships, triremes in order to prevent the raids of the Persians; moreover, Themistocles spread the rumor that the Greek fleet was in disarray; hence, after unconsidered believing, Xerxes ordered his super commander to lead the Persian forces to destroy the Greece by shoring the ships at the shore of Salamis island and went to the Greek city-state. The Persian forces arrived to the Greece, yet they found no Greek ships because Themistocles had sailed it into the Salamis Straights. Anyway, the Persians also could not find people, either because Themistocles had evacuated his people around 100,000 to the island of Salamis. In the shore, the Greeks, led by
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http://www.iranchamber.com/history/articles/persian_wars4.php http://www.emersonkent.com/history_notes/xerxes_I.htm
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The Ancient Greek History p190, vol. 5 by Boardman J, Bury JB, Cook SA, Adcock FA, Hammond NGL in 1998, Cambridge University Press
Themistocles, burned down ships of the Persians that were shored on the island; hence, Greeks could destroy one part of the Persian fleet. However, Xerxes after knew about the strategy of Greeks, led his fleet by himself in order to destroyed all everything in Greek city-state, and the battle started; in the battle, the skillful strategy of Themistocles was that the Greek fleet drew up in battle formation facing Heracleion on the shore of Attica, with the Athenians taking the left wing and the Aeginetans the right. The Greek fleet had some 300 warships at its disposal. In Salamis or Plataea, the places were so small and were not suitable for large member forces of the Persian to shore at the same time, so the Persians needed to shore one by one; as a result, it was the great time for the special allied Greeks to kill the Persian forces and protect their country. “On the morning of the battle, the Persians deployed with their right wing held by the Phoenicians and the Ionian ships on the left. While still trying to get into position, the Persians were attacked by the Greeks by force leading Persian ships back upon their comrade and making disarray in the Persian formation.”7 This was immediately followed by an Athenian flank attack on the Phoenician ships which were pushed back into the Persian center and onto the coast of Attica. Eventually the Greeks made an encircling movement behind the Persian center which proved decisive, and the Ionian Greeks, with their resistance broken, retreated. Xerxes' navy had suffered heavy losses, and according to report of Herodotus, the Persian had remaining only 200 ships, and withdrew to Phaleron, from whence it returned eventually to Hellespont. “Anyway, the defeat of the Persian at the battle of Salamis was caused by a combination of superior of Greek tactics with the triremes’ superior speed and maneuverability and the Persians' own ineptitude in tactical and strategic planning.”8 Also, Xerxes failed to see that independence was a powerful motivating cause for the Greeks. As the result, the brilliant strategy of intelligence Greek super commander, Themistocles made the Persian forces to lose the war again against the Greeks. Even the Persian Empire had some revolts of its colonies, king Xerxes still wanted to invade the Greek by ordered his commander, Mardonius to punish Greek city-state; as a result, Mardonius was killed, and the Persian still lost the war; the Graeco-Persian Wars were finished at the battle of Plataea in 479 BC last forever by the reasons; After the defeat at Salamis, Xerxes was forced to return to his Empire to prevent widespread revolt encouraged by his defeat. He left of the Imperial army in Thessaly, Thrace, and
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http://www.history/org/persian_wars/salamis.php http://www.iranchamber.com/history/articles/persian_wars7.php
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Macedonia under the controlled of his commander, Mardonius, while he was taking the bulk of his armies back to across the Hellespont to restore control on his Eastern Aegean Coast. Because of Mardonius had in his forces with 12,000 cavalry and about 50,000 infantry; he started to continued threat to Greek independence and the Greeks soon made the plan to deal with him. Mardonius started his first invasion by set fire to Athens and destroyed all forest around the Greek city-state, while Sparta was advancing through the Corinthian Peninsula in 479 BC. By this motivation, Athens and Sparta became the strongest league by making an agreement for an immediate offensive against the invader. Also, it was felt that any time Xerxes might send his troops to assist Mardonius. On the next day, mardonius immediately attacked with his cavalry and infantry against the Greeks on ground that was not suitable for a cavalry action. As a result, the Persian cavalry was lost the action and was forced to retreat. On the war time, King of Sparta, Pausanius, lined his force by the Spartans held the place of honor on the Greek right while the Athenians and Plataeans held the left of the line. The other Greek 5,000 hoplites from Corinth were in the centre. In contrast, Mardonius lined up his Persians on his left wing with 1,000 Guard troops against the Spartans, and other contingents of Medes, Indians and Scythians formed his centre while opposite the Athenians he formed up his Theban. And there was anything, it is meant that both of Greeks or Persians could get better than each other, and it was spent eight days for the battle. Until, Pausanius held his troops on the ridge against, first, the Persian cavalry then ever was increasing numbers of Persian archers. The disciplined troops held their line as volleys of arrows were directed at them. The Persian infantry stood behind a fence of shields and their depth and hence ability to maneuver steadily increased. The Tegeans on the Spartan left could stand it no more and advanced down towards the Persians. Pausanius then ordered a general advance to strongly fight. The fight was extended but the Spartan troops cut their way through the Persian forces. The 1,000 elite troops fought bravely surrounded Mardonius who inspired his troops from horseback. Finally, Mardonius was killed and the Persians lost heart and fled towards their camp. On the other wing the Athenians had defeated the Thebans after a hard fight in which the Theban Sacred Band was wiped out. The Persian camp was subsequently taken by storm and many Persians died there. It appears that substantial numbers of troops escaped from the battle and made their way back to Asia but the Persian army had been destroyed as an effective fighting force and the Persians had been driven from Europe for the last time.
In Conclusion, victorious at the Battle of Marathon, the Battle of Salamis, and the Battle of Plataea, made the allied Greek to drive out the Persian invaders and entered a new era of military might. Greeks could end all danger from the Persians invasions of Europe. During the remaining period of the Persian wars, the Greeks in the Aegean islands and Asia Minor, under Athenian leadership strengthened their position without seeking conquest. By my own idea, I think that the victories of Allied Greek are happened by the great intelligent of the Greek leaders with highly leaderships, by great unity of all Greek citizens, by great motivation of nationalism, and great hard working with special talent. And the victories of Greek are so very important because it can make all countries to have their own encouragement in order to prevent their own country. Hence, great intelligence, great unity, great nationalism, and great hard working are the key factors that can make people to achieve everything in their life-time. In any circumstance, those factors are always being happened at the same time in order to have a successful achievement. Moreover, in named of Cambodian citizens, I would like to request all Cambodia people to stand up and fight back against all invaders who want to invade our lovely country, Cambodia by following the great motivation of Greek people.
References:
III"History of Iran: The Persian Wars." Iran Chamber Society. . "Persian Wars Facts, information, pictures | Encyclopedia.com articles about Persian Wars." Encyclopedia - Online Dictionary | Encyclopedia.com: Get facts, articles, pictures, and video. . "Persian Wars." The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Encyclopedia.com. . "Xerxes I 519-465 BC." World History for the Relaxed Historian. .
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