III.

The First Phase of the Persian Wars

In 521 bc the Persian king Darius I crushed all resistance to his accession to the throne after a brief but bloody civil war. While playing a central role in reorganizing the empire, he also worked to secure and expand its outer borders. In 513 bc the Persians captured the major Greek islands of Khíos, Sámos, and Lésvos. Also in 513 bc Darius himself crossed over to Europe and conquered the area between the Danube and the Aegean coast to the borders of Macedonia. Many historians believe that these gains were part of the normal process of imperial expansion and that Darius eventually intended the conquest of Greece and the Aegean.

In 499 bc his forces attempted to capture the island of Náxos as a first step towards dominating the central Aegean. This attempt failed and it helped to precipitate a revolt of the Ionian Greeks living along the coast of Asia Minor. This revolt, caused by dissatisfaction with economic and political conditions under the Persians, lasted from 499 to 494 bc. The revolt was at first successful but the Ionians were eventually thwarted by a crucial defeat at sea and the immense superiority of Persian numbers and organization.

Athens and the lesser mainland state of Eretria had provided naval help to the Ionian rebels during the revolt. This intervention convinced Darius that Greece itself must be subdued to guarantee Persian security in the west. In 492 bc the Persians launched an expedition to gain control of the central Aegean and to punish Athens and Eretria for assisting the Ionian rebels. After initial successes in northern Greece the Persians moved against Athens but were turned back when most of the ships were lost in a storm. In the summer of 490 bc a second Persian expedition sacked Eretria and then landed at Marathon less than 40 km (25 mi) northeast of Athens. The Athenians had appealed for help to other Greek states and especially to Sparta, but in the deciding battle faced the Persian force almost alone. Due to the strategy of Athenian general Miltiades, the force of about 10,000 Greek infantrymen defeated a much more numerous enemy. The battle showed the decisive superiority of the heavier armored Greek infantry over their Persian opponents in close combat.