Greco-Persian Wars Worksheets
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Summary
- Historical Background
- The Ionian Revolt (499–494 BCE)
- First Persian Invasion (492–490 BCE)
- Between the Invasions (490–480 BCE)
- Second Persian Invasion (480–479 BCE)
- Wars of the Delian League (477–449 BC)
- Aftermath
Key Facts And Information
Let’s know more about the Greco-Persian Wars!
The Greco-Persian Wars, also known simply as the Persian Wars, were a series of battles between the Persian Empire and the Greek city-states that took place from the late 6th century to the mid-5th century BCE. The wars started when the Greek cities in Asia Minor, called Ionia, rebelled against Persia. Persia wanted to punish Athens and its allies for helping the rebels. This led to several Persian invasions of Greece.
The Greeks were able to win important battles and remain free. After the wars, Athens took charge of the Delian League to continue resisting Persia and to defend the Greek cities in the Aegean. These conflicts prevented Persia from conquering Greece and allowed Athens to become more influential and powerful.
Greek and Persian warriors fighting
Historical Background of the Greco-Persian Wars
- By the 6th century BCE, the Persian Empire had become one of the biggest and strongest in the world, covering the Middle East and parts of Asia. It was led by powerful kings like Cyrus the Great and later Darius I, who aimed to make the empire even larger.
- At the same time, Greece was not a single country but a collection of independent city-states, such as Athens and Sparta. Each city-state had its own government, laws and army. Many Greeks had also settled in Asia Minor, in an area called Ionia, after leaving mainland Greece during the dark age following the collapse of the Mycenaean civilisation. The Ionians founded cities along the coasts of Lydia and Caria. Although these cities were independent, they shared a cultural identity and met at a central sanctuary called the Panionion.
- These Ionian cities were first conquered by the Lydian kings. When Cyrus of Persia defeated the Medes and then Croesus, Lydia fell to Persia. The Ionians were expected to submit to Persian rule, but some chose to leave their cities rather than be subjects. Others were conquered by the Persian general Harpagus, and Persian-appointed tyrants were installed in each city. These rulers often faced hatred from their fellow citizens. By the start of the Greco-Persian Wars, many Ionian Greeks were unhappy and ready to rebel.
- Around 507 BCE, Athens sent representatives to the Persian governor Artaphernes, offering ‘Earth and Water’ to show they would obey him in exchange for protection from Sparta. At first they agreed, but later they refused to bring back their old ruler, Hippias, and chose to stay a democracy. The Persians may have seen this as disobedience.
Comparison of Greeks and Persians:
Timeline of the Greco-Persian Wars:
- 499–494 BCE: The Ionian cities in Asia Minor rebelled against Persian rule in the Ionian Revolt, but the Persians eventually defeated them.
- 492 BCE: Persian general Mardonius invaded Greece, reconquering Thrace and forcing Macedon to submit, but storms and local attacks caused the campaign to fail.
- 490 BCE: Persia invaded again, destroyed Eretria, but the Athenians won a major victory at the Battle of Marathon.
- 486 BCE: King Darius I died, and his son Xerxes I became king of Persia.
- 480 BCE: Xerxes launched a massive invasion; the Spartans fought at Thermopylae but were defeated, while the Greek navy won an important victory at Salamis.
- 479 BCE: The Greeks defeated the Persians at Plataea on land and at Mycale at sea, ending the invasion.
- 477–449 BCE: The Delian League, led by Athens, continued campaigns against Persia, winning battles like Eurymedon and Salamis-in-Cyprus.
- 449 BCE: Peace was reached with Persia, ending the Greco-Persian Wars and leading to the rise of Athens as a major power.
The Ionian Revolt (499–494 BCE)
- The Ionian Revolt was the first major conflict between the Greeks and the Persians. It started in 499 BCE when the Greek cities in Ionia, on the coast of Asia Minor, rebelled against Persian rule. The people were unhappy with the Persian-appointed rulers, called tyrants, and also with the actions of two Milesian leaders, Histiaeus and Aristagoras.
- Aristagoras, the tyrant of Miletus, first tried to gain more power by joining the Persians in an attack on the island of Naxos. The mission failed, and he feared losing his position. To save himself, he encouraged all of Ionia to revolt against the Persian king Darius I. Other nearby regions joined the rebellion too.
- In 498 BCE, the Ionians marched on the Persian city of Sardis and burned it. On their way back, however, Persian forces caught them and defeated them at the Battle of Ephesus. After this, the Ionians mostly went on the defensive.
- The Persians fought back. In 497 BCE, they attacked the rebellious areas in three groups. The biggest Persian army went to Caria, where it was first successful but then defeated in an ambush at the Battle of Pedasus. This caused a stalemate for a few years.
- By 494 BCE, the Persians had rebuilt their army and navy and attacked Miletus. The Ionian fleet tried to defend the city but lost at the Battle of Lade after some Samians switched sides. Miletus was captured, and many people were enslaved. Other cities surrendered, and by 493 BCE, Persia had full control over Ionia again.
First Persian Invasion (492–490 BCE)
- After the Ionian Revolt, the Persian king Darius I wanted to punish the Greeks who had helped the rebels and make sure Greece could not cause trouble again. In 492 BCE, he sent his son-in-law Mardonius with an army to attack. Mardonius re-conquered Thrace and forced Macedon to become fully under Persian control.
- But the campaign ran into problems. A storm destroyed much of his fleet near Mount Athos, and Mardonius was injured in a raid by local indigenous groups. He had to return to Asia Minor without completing the invasion.
- The next year, Darius sent ambassadors to all the Greek city-states, asking them to submit. Almost all obeyed, except Athens and Sparta. Both cities executed the ambassadors, which meant they were now at war with Persia.
- In 490 BCE, Darius sent a new force under the general Datis and Artaphernes, son of the Persian governor of Sardis. They sailed through the Aegean Sea, attacking islands along the way. They tried and failed to take Lindos on Rhodes, punished Naxos for resisting a previous Persian expedition, and enslaved people while burning the city and its temples.
- They also took hostages from other islands before landing on the Greek mainland at Eretria. The city was besieged for six days, but on the seventh day two citizens opened the gates and betrayed Eretria. The Persians burned the city and temples and enslaved the people.
- The Persians then sailed to the bay of Marathon, about 40 kilometres from Athens. The Athenians, led by the general Miltiades, blocked the Persian army. After a few days of stalemate, the Greeks attacked while the Persians were loading their ships. The heavily armed Greek soldiers crushed the Persian army, killing 6,400, while the Athenians lost only 192 men. The remaining Persians returned to their ships, and the Athenians quickly marched back to Athens to prevent a landing there.
Between the Invasions (490–480 BCE)
- After the Persian defeat at Marathon in 490 BCE, Greece was not safe. Darius I wanted to invade again, but in 486 BCE the Egyptians rebelled, and he had to deal with them. Darius died while preparing to fight Egypt, and his son Xerxes became king.
- Xerxes crushed the Egyptian revolt and started planning a full invasion of Greece. He gathered a huge army and built a large fleet. He even planned to bridge the Hellespont so his army could cross into Europe and to dig a canal across Mount Athos, where the Persian fleet had been destroyed earlier. The invasion was delayed again because of more rebellions in Egypt and Babylonia.
- Xerxes gathered soldiers from all over his empire in 481 BCE. Ancient writers say there were troops from 46 nations. Modern scholars think the army had about 200,000 men and 600–1,200 ships. The army stayed in Sardis for the winter, then crossed the Hellespont into Europe in the spring.
- In Greece, Athens and Sparta were getting ready. Miltiades, the hero of Marathon, had died after a failed campaign. Themistocles became the leading politician in Athens and pushed to build a strong navy. In 483 BCE, a new supply of silver was found, and Themistocles used it to build triremes. These ships gave Athens a powerful fleet to fight the Persians. Sparta also prepared its soldiers.
- In 481 BCE, many Greek city-states met at Corinth to plan their defence. They created an alliance called the Hellenic League, led by Athens and Sparta. Although only 70 of almost 700 city-states joined, it was remarkable because Greeks often fought each other. This group helped Greece prepare for the next Persian attack.
Second Persian Invasion (480–479 BCE)
- In 480 BCE, Xerxes I led a huge Persian army and fleet to invade Greece. His army crossed the Hellespont on bridges and marched through Thrace, Macedonia and Thessaly. The Greek city-states first tried to block him at the Vale of Tempe, but the pass could be avoided, so they retreated.
- Themistocles suggested a new plan: the Greeks would block Xerxes at the narrow pass of Thermopylae, while their navy blocked the sea at the Straits of Artemisium. The Peloponnesian cities also prepared to defend the Isthmus of Corinth, and women and children from Athens were sent to safety.
- At Thermopylae, King Leonidas and 300 Spartans, with other Greek allies, held the narrow pass for two days against the Persian army. A local guide showed the Persians a path around the Greeks, and most of the Greek army escaped. Leonidas and about 2,000 men stayed to fight and were all killed. At the same time, the Greek navy held off the Persians at Artemisium, then retreated to Salamis after hearing about Thermopylae.
Map showing events of the first phases of the Greco-Persian Wars
- After this, Xerxes captured and destroyed Athens. The Greek navy prepared to fight in the narrow straits near Salamis. At the Battle of Salamis, the Greeks tricked the Persian fleet into the narrow waters, where the ships could not move properly. The Greeks attacked and destroyed or captured many Persian ships, forcing Xerxes to retreat to Asia. He left his general Mardonius with part of the army to continue the fight.
- In 479 BCE, the Greeks defeated the remaining Persian forces at the Battle of Plataea. The heavily armed Greek soldiers defeated the Persian army, killing Mardonius and forcing the rest to flee. At the same time, the Greek navy destroyed the remaining Persian fleet at the Battle of Mycale. These victories ended the Persian invasion, kept Greece free, and showed that the Greek city-states could fight together successfully.
Wars of the Delian League (477–449 BCE)
- After the Persian invasions, the Greek city-states wanted to keep fighting Persia to make sure it could not return. After the Spartans withdrew from Asia Minor, Athens became the leader of the Greek alliance. In 477 BCE, a new alliance of city-states was formed on the island of Delos, called the Delian League. Its main goal was to punish Persia and protect the Greek cities in Asia Minor. Members could either provide ships and soldiers or pay money to the League’s treasury, and most chose to pay.
- During the 470s BCE, the League campaigned in Thrace and the Aegean to remove the remaining Persian garrisons. The Athenian commander Cimon led most of these campaigns. Later, Cimon campaigned in Asia Minor. At the Battle of the Eurymedon, the Greeks destroyed the Persian fleet and then landed to defeat the Persian army, winning a major victory. After this, Persia mostly avoided battle.
- Towards the end of the 460s BCE, Athens tried to help a revolt in Egypt against Persia. The Greek forces had some initial success, but they could not capture the Persian garrison in Memphis. The Persians counterattacked, and the Greek force was besieged for 18 months before being destroyed. After this failure, Athens focused on other matters.
- In 451 BCE, Cimon led a campaign to Cyprus. He died while besieging Kition, but the Athenians won a victory at the Battle of Salamis-in-Cyprus and then withdrew. These campaigns ended the fighting with Persia and finished the Greco-Persian Wars.
Aftermath of the Greco-Persian Wars
- After the wars of the Delian League, the Greeks drove Persia out of the Aegean Sea and Asia Minor. Athens became the most powerful city as it led the League and controlled a strong navy. Over time, the League turned into an Athenian Empire, with other member cities continuing to pay tribute and provide ships even after the fighting ended.
- Some sources say a peace agreement, called the Peace of Callias, was made with Persia around 449 BCE. According to this, the Greek cities in Asia Minor were allowed to govern themselves, Persian troops could not come too close to the Aegean, and Persian ships could not sail west of certain points. Athens agreed not to attack Persian lands, which let both sides keep some control while avoiding further war.
- In Greece, the First Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta ended with a thirty-year truce in 445 BCE, but tensions remained. Over the next decades, internal fighting among Greek city-states weakened them, allowing Persia to regain influence.
- Persia used deals, bribes and alliances to make the Greek cities fight against each other instead of Persia. In 387 BCE, Persia regained control of the Greek cities in Asia Minor through the King’s Peace, undoing much of what the Delian League had achieved.
Frequently Asked Questions About The Greco-Persian Wars
- What were the Greco-Persian Wars?
The Greco-Persian Wars were a series of conflicts between the Persian Empire and various Greek city-states from 499 to 449 BCE. They began when Persia sought to expand its control over the Greek world and ended with Greek victories that preserved their independence.
- What caused the wars?
The immediate cause was the Ionian Revolt (499–494 BCE), when Greek cities in Asia Minor rebelled against Persian rule with help from Athens and Eretria. Persia viewed this as defiance and sought to punish these cities—especially Athens—triggering larger invasions.
- What happened after the wars?
Greece formed the Delian League, led by Athens, to defend against future Persian attacks. Athens grew wealthy and powerful—eventually leading to tensions with Sparta and the Peloponnesian War.