The Persians
(in the photo decoration from Darius' palace in Persepolis).
The Persians, unlike the Greeks, submitted to a ruler whose power was absolute. In 546 B.C., Cyrus the Great, King of Persia
attacked Croesus King of Lydia, and ruler of the Asia Minor. He then attacked and occupied the Greek colonies and made the local tyrants subordinated to Persians provincial governors. In 490 B.C., Darius I who had succeeded to the Persian throne, sent two generals with 600 ships and a large and well equipped army, to the bay of Marathon, outside of the city of Athens. The Athenians
quickly organized an army, under the order of Miltiades, and attacked them, killing 6.400 Persians. Miltiades dispatched a runner to
Athens with the news of the victory, who run non-stop the distance of 34km to gasp out the message, and fall dead.
For the next 10 years the Greeks had a respite. Darius was succeeded by his son Xerxes, who prepared an army of 200.000 men and 800 warships and, in 480 B.C., decided to proceed towards Europe. The Greeks, this time united, decided to confront the Persian army in a narrow, between mountains and sea, called Thermopile. Here three hundred Spartan warriors, with their King Leonidas, fought to death. With Thermopile taken Xerxes moved towards the evacuated Athens. As the main force of the Greek army was fortified in the Corinthian Isthmus, Themistocles was trying to engage the Persian navy in the narrow channel between the island of Salamis and the mainland, where the smaller Greek fleet could move easier. He sent a message to Xerxes and pretending sympathy warned him that the Greek fleet was frightened. In response Xerxes ordered his navy to attack the Greek ships and the battle of Salamis was begun. Although outnumbered, the Greek ships were better managed and with the help of favoring wind, forced the Persians to retreat, distracting the biggest part of their fleet.
After Salamis Xerxes went back home, living a sizable, well-trained force under the command of Mardonius. A combined Greek force 100.000 under the general Pausanias, moved against them near Plataea. In the violent battle Mardonius was killed and his army distracted. On the very same day, the remainder of the Persian navy, followed by the Greeks into the harbor of Mycale, on the coast of Asia Minor, was also destroyed.
