- in Anatolia (across the Aegean Sea) - the Greek city-states - had been under Persian rule since Cyrus the Great (540 B.C.)
- 499 B.C. - Ionian Greek city-states rose in revolt against Persia - led by Miletus; Athens sent troops to help = > despite successes Athens => withdrew
=> the Ionian coalition broke down and was crushed by Persia (Miletus - besieged and destroyed, the other cities - lenient treatment)

Persia => punish Athens

490 B.C. - Darius I sent a naval expedition to Athens (25,000 infantrymen & 1,200 cavalrymen) => they landed at Marathon (24 miles from Athens)

Athens: sent 10,000 men (including 1,000 allies) to defend Marathon => superiority of the Greek phalanx => great victory for Athens (casualties: Persia - 6,400; Athens - 192)

The story: a messenger ran from the battlefield to the city of Athens with the news, Rejoice, we conquer! - is the inspiration for the modern marathon race - on a longer distance of about 26 miles

Persia - looked for a rematch
Darius - dies in 486 B.C. => Xerxes => a thousand ships + several hundred thousand soldiers and rowers => outnumbered the Greek opposition

Athens - under Themistocles (c. 525 - 460) => built a fleet of two hundred ships
Athens joined Sparta + 29 other Peloponnesian poleis - in a Hellenic League of defense ( Sparta - the lead); some poleis - neutral or likeThebe and Argos collaborated with Persia

Greek army: 300 ships and 50.000 infantrymen

480 B.C. - Persia - invaded Greece - victories
Thermopylae (central Greece) - Persians outflanked and crushed a small Spartan army (fought to the last man - including their king Leonidas) => this sacrifice added to the Spartan reputation for courage => BUT: left the road open => Athens was sacked

BUT:
Greeks lured the Persian fleet into the narrow straits between Athens and Salamis => big victory for the Greeks under the eyes of Xerxes (watched the battle from a throne on a hillside near the shore)

- the sea links - for the Persians - were cut => Xerxes and the remainder of his army - left for home => the united Greek army under Spartan leadership defeated the Persians on land : Plataea (479 B.C.)
=> at about the same time the Greek fleet defeated a reorganized Persian fleet near Mycale (off the Anatolian coast)

=> the Greeks sailed the coast and liberated the Ionians
=> after 480 - Greeks thought about Persians not only as enemies but as barbarians as well - i.e. cultural inferiors ; at the same time Greeks - more conscious of their own common culture

Did the unity last?

- unity: fragile and short lived => followed by a struggle in diplomacy and war among city-states arranged in leagues

- after the Greek victory over Persia:
    Athens expanded its power over a new security organization => the Delian League (founded on the island of Delos) => aimed at protecting Greek lands and at plundering Persian territory
- 477 B.C. - 150 allies
- 431 B.C. - 250 allies
Sparta - kept out (did not like to engage outside Peloponnesus) - did not like - Athenian power which boomed
- the major allies of the Delian League - afraid of a new titan (Athens) => rebelled one by one => Athens crushed each rebellion (rebels were executed and their wives and children - sold into slavery)
- Allied complains - would stir Sparta
- a conflict between Sparta (greatest land power)
and Athens (greatest sea power) - inevitable

431 B. C. : war (Peloponnesian War) => 404 B.C.

- WAR: bloody and bitter; battles between huge fleets, economic warfare, protracted sieges, epidemic disease, ideological struggle
- the war proved that the Greeks could not maintain their unity => they were destroying themselves

Democratic Athens
Oligarchic Sparta       ===>>>

sought to promote their respective ideologies

Outcome of the war?
Sparta - supreme on land
Athens - master of the sea   ===> the Peloponnesian
War remained undecided for 15 years
- the balance of power shifted after Athens expedition to conquer Sicily (415-413) => ended up into a defeat (thousands of Athenian casualties)
=> in the aftermath: most of the Athenian empire rose in revolt => Persia re-emerged and intervened on Sparta's side (in return for Sparta's restoration of Ionia to Persia) => Athens (was a wealthy polis) - capable to hold out until 404 B.C.

Sparta => won the war
    => could not establish a new Greek order
        - Spartans were trained as soldiers not diplomats, did not master the sea, lacked oratorical skills (valued by other Greeks) => Spartans made poor leaders
   => Sparta took over the Athenian empire => quickly had a falling-out with its allies (Persia, Corinth, and the Boeotian city -states like Thebes)
    => Sparta suffered a vast decline in the number of citizens: the problem was greed => rich Spartans preferred to get richer by concentrating wealth in fewer hand rather than open the elite to new blood => thousands of men could no longer afford to live as elite soldiers
===> the result: military disaster
371 B.C. - a Boeotian army crushed the Spartans (Leuctra) - killing 1,000 men including a Spartan king => in the next few years Boeotia invaded the Peloponnesus => freed the Messenian helots => restored Messenia to independence (after some 350 years of bondage) => it was a major blow to Spartan power
=> none of the Greek city-states had been able to maintain hegemony

- the wars of the city-states (4th century) - demonstrates the fatal excess of individualism in classical Greece
- left Greece weakened and prey to outsiders