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History Custom Essays samples
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|  Greco-Persian Wars |
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| The Greco-Persian Wars or Persian Wars were a series of conflicts between the Greek world and the Persian Empire that started about 500 BC and lasted until 448 BC.
At the end of the 6th century BC, Darius the Great ruled over an immense realm, from Western China to Eastern Europe. In 513 BC Darius for the first time conquered Thrace and Macedonia. Macedonian king Alexander I became his vassal. But the conquest of Asia Minor (546 BC) left the Ionian Greeks under Persian rule, while the other Greeks were free, a state of affairs that was going to cause trouble sooner or later. Persian satraps (governors) of Asia Minor installed tyrants in most of Ionian cities and forced Greeks to pay taxes for the "King of Kings".
In 499 BC, instigated by Aristagoras in Miletus, the Ionian Revolt broke out; Ionian cities threw out the "tyrants" that the Persians had set over them, formed a league, and applied for help from the other Greeks. Athens sent twenty ships and Eretria five, and the fleet helped spread rebellion all along the coast. In 498 BC the Greeks captured and burnt Sardis, thereby requiring a Persian response in the form of an invasion. The Greek fleet was crushed at the Battle of Lade in 494 BC, and the Ionian cities sacked, although they were permitted to have democratic governments afterwards.
In 492 BC, an army commanded by Darius's son-in-law Mardonius overran Thrace and Macedonia, followed in 490 BC by the punitive expedition of Datis and Artaphernes. The islands of the Cyclades surrendered, Eretria was captured, and the expedition landed in Attica near Marathon. Phidippides got the message for help to Sparta in record time, but in the end the Athenians and Plataeans alone defeated the Persians in the battle of Marathon. |
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