Aim: What would have happened had Athens not lost the Peloponnesian War?

Do Now: When is a war justified? When is it not justified?

NY State Standards 2,3Common Core RS 2

I The Greek ColoniesA) On the eve of its golden age, Greece was in peril. Xerxes, king of kings and ruler of the Persian Empire, which stretched from the Indus River to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, and from the Caucasus to the Indian Ocean. Persia was, in the truest sense, the greatest superpower of its day. Cyrus the Great launched the era of Persian expansion in the 6th century BCE, and his successors held dominion of much of the known world for nearly three centuries. With Persia at the height of its glory, Xerxes ruled peoples of great diversity. Phoenicians, Egyptians, Medes, Cypriotes, Syrians, Levantines and Ethiopians were his subjects, as were those Greeks who had ventured forth from their mainland and established cities on the islands of the Aegean Sea, along the coasts of the Black Sea and Asia Minor.

The Persian Empire was BIG

II The Persian Wars

A) In 500 BCE the Ionian Greeks, who had settled in the western coast of Asia Minor, rose up against Persia's King Darius I. In support of the Ionians, the Athenians burned the Persian city of Sardis. After six years of fighting, the Ionian insurrection was finally put down. Darius vowed to punish the Athenians. Persian forces on land and sea advanced toward Greece in 491 BCE, but the fleet was mauled in a storm off Mount Athos and the expedition was called off.

Help!

AGH!Those Greeks will pay for this!

Persian King Darius is VERY ANGRY

I am very, very angry.

The Persian Wars Continued…B) In 490 BCE, under King Darius, the Persians captured the island of Euboea and used it as a base for the invasion of the Greek mainland. The Persians the landed on the plain of Marathon. Athens decided to send an army to confront the Persians, rather than concentrate on defending the city. A runner, Pheidippides, was sent to seek help from Sparta. He completed the journey of 150 miles in two days. The Spartans agreed to cooperate but a religious ceremony prevented them from setting off until the next full moon, in six days' time. At Marathon 10,000 Greek hoplites confront 25,000 Persians (most were cavalry; men on horseback). The Persians waited for the Greeks to attack across the plain. The Greeks creep forward, night after night, with a ruse to frustrate the Persian horsemen. At dawn the Greek hoplites charge in an extended line across the open ground. Their bronze armor and long spears proved too much for the lightly armed Persians. Even so the Persian advantage in numbers meant that the battle is hard fought, making Herodotus' account of the casualties (192 Athenian dead to 6400 Persians) somewhat hard to believe. The Persian survivors were rescued from the beaches by their fleet of ships, which then moved south to threaten Athens. The Athenian army marched rapidly home to defend the city, and the Persians decided against an assault. They withdraw across the Aegean Sea. A day or two after the event, 2000 Spartans arrived.

The Persian Wars Continued…Following the Persian invasion, Athens dispatched a runner, Phidippedes, to Sparta to ask for help. Phidippedes ran the 140 miles through rugged mountains to Sparta, who told him they could not help due to a religious festival. Phidippedes ran the 140 miles to Marathon where the Athenian soldiers were waiting. When the Persians were retreating to their ships, Phidippedes then ran 26.2 miles to Athens, to warn the Athenians of a possible Persian attack by sea. According to legend, he dropped dead immediately after delivering his message.

The modern marathon is 26.2 miles in honor of Phidippedes!

The Persian Wars Continued…C) After the First Persian War, the Persians left the Greeks alone for 10 years. However, Darius’s son Xerxes wanted revenge. Since attacking by sea had failed, Xerxes decided to attack by land. In 480 BCE he led the Persians across the Hellspont by building a platoon bridge. This led to the Second Persian War, fought at Thermopylae. Herodtus listed 1,700,000 soldiers , including 80,000 cavalry. They were accompanied by a fleet of 1207 triremes, each with 200 men on board. These wildly improbable figures suggest the scale of the renewed threat as perceived in Greece. At a central point of mainland Greece, the Isthmus of Corinth, 31 poli (Greek city-states) met - in 481 and 480 BCE- to devise a strategy. It was agreed to combine their resources, both military and naval, in a common force under the command of Sparta. The immediate question was where to make a stand against the advancing Persians. The chosen site was Thermopylae, a long narrow valley through which any army must pass if moving down the coast towards Athens. Leonidas, one of the two Spartan kings, was in command of the Greek army when the confrontation came. His Spartan contingent had only an advance guard of 300 men. He stationed them at the narrowest part of the pass. The Persian army has at its head the emperor himself, Xerxes, son of Darius. In the hope of a large reward a Greek informed Xerxes that a hidden path through oak woods would bring troops, unseen, to the other side of the pass. A Persian contingent took that route during the night…

The Persian Wars Continued…Before dawn, spies brought Leonidas news of the imminent danger. He prepared, with his 300 Spartan hoplites, to face an onslaught from both ends of the pass at Thermopylae . All the 300 Spartans died. As the Persian army moved south towards Attica, the debate in Athens was whether to defend the city or make a strategic withdrawal. Themistocles, who has already persuaded his fellow citizen to invest in a navy, urged withdrawal. His advice was accepted. Athens was evacuated by ship across the narrow strait separating Athens from the island of Salamis. Only a few Athenians remained in Athens behind a wooden barricade. Reaching Athens, the Persians fired blazing arrows into the wooden barricade. Then, they assaulted the steep acropolis. After slaughtering those sheltering in the temple, they seized the treasures and demolished the buildings. Athens was reduced to rubble. Meanwhile the Greek fleet was gathered in the narrow stretch of water between Salamis and the mainland. The Greek fleet was smaller than the Persian. It numbered only 380 triremes (of which about half are Athenian), and the Greek ships were slower. Themistocles plan depended on the Persian fleet being enticed into the strait at the eastern end of the island of Salamis. The Persians fall into the trap. As the Greek triremes begin to ram and sink them, panic spread among the constricted Persian ships - making them ever more vulnerable. The Greek victory was overwhelming.

Xerxes vs. Xerxes

Pontoon Bridge

A pontoon bridge is a temporary bridge that

you make by lining up a lot of boats crossways across the river, and then putting wooden

planks over the boats to make a bridge.

This is a photograph of a pontoon bridge during the American Civil War.

The Persian Wars Continued…D) The Persian navy retreated across the Aegean Sea. The Greek colonies in Asia Minor remained under Persian control. However, the Greeks liberated of Byzantium, at the mouth of the Black Sea, in 478 BCE. Sparta was not interested in naval expeditions against the Persians in Asia, so the leadership of the Greek forces passed to Athens, which organized and headed the Delian League, an alliance of Greek poli (city-states). The treasury originally was on the island of Delos, but soon Athens moved the treasury to Athens. Athens only kept 1/60 of all of the money coming in. However, as the wealth of the treasury grew, Athens grew incredibly wealthy. From its control of the treasury, Athens was able to form an Empire.

Age of Pericles 460 – 429 BCEPericles was a strong, political leader of Athens during this time. He used Athens’s increased wealth to fund public buildings (such as the Parthenon) and great works of art. He strongly believed in Athenian democracy.“We alone, regard a man who takes no interest in public affairs, not as harmless, but as a useless character.”

III The Peloponnesian WarA) The Delian League members became upset at the increasing wealth of Athens. B) Sparta organized the Peloponnesian League, to counteract the Delian League.E) 431 BCE the Peloponnesian and Delian Leagues were officially at war. This was the start of the Peloponnesian War.

IV The Peloponnesian WarA) 431 BCE Sparta invaded Athens by land. Pericles allowed the Athenians to hide inside their city walls.B) Unfortunately for Athens, a plague broke out and killed 1/3 of its citizens, including Pericles.

C) Sparta and the Peloponnesian League became allies with Persia! Why? Sparta needed the help of the Persian navy, and Persia still had a

grudge against Athens for winning the Persian Wars.D) 404 BCE Sparta won the Peloponnesian War.

“All the birds and beasts that prey upon human bodies, either abstained from touching them (though there were many lying unburied), or died after tasting

them…” - Thucydides

The Peloponnesian War Continued…E) As Sparta won the Peloponnesian War, Athens lost its empire and much of its wealth.F) The Peloponnesian War reshaped the Ancient Greek world. Athens, the strongest city-state in Greece prior to the war's beginning, was reduced to a state of near-complete subjection, while Sparta became the leading power of Greece. Poverty became widespread in the Peloponnese, while Athens found itself completely devastated, and never regained its pre-war prosperity. Civil war on the Greek mainland became common, making the Greek poli vulnerable to invaders from Macedonia (such as Philip II and his son Alexander the Great!)

CAUSES MAIN BATTLES/STRATEGIES CONSEQUENCES

PERSIAN WARS

PELOPONNESIAN WAR

Key VocabularyAsia MinorBattle of MarthonBattle of SalamisBattle of ThermopylaeColonyDelian League IoniaKing CyrusKing DariusKing Xerxes

MacedoniaPeloponnesian LeaguePeloponnesian WarPericlesPersiaPersian WarsPhidippedes