The Battle of Marathon

The Battle of Marathon, which took place in 490 BC, was the last part of an attempt of King Darius I of the Persian Empire to conquer the rest of Greece to secure the weakest part of his western border. Almost all of what we know today of the battle came from Herodotus.

Darius sent Mardonius by land in 492 BC to Europe to strengthen Persia’s hold of Macedon and Thrace, regions that had been weakened during the Ionian Revolt. This succeeded but most of the force was lost in a storm off Mount Athos. The rest of the force returned to Asia.

In 490 BC Datis and Artaphernes were sent to subjugate the Cyclades islands in the central Aegean Sea as well as punish Athens and Eretria for their part in the Ionian Revolt. Eretria fell, at which point the Persian fleet arrived in Marathon Bay. Despite greater numbers, they were then defeated by a small force of Athenian and Plataean hoplites. The current usage of the word marathon was inspired by the long run the messenger took when he brought news of the victory to Athens.

It is believed that the fleet Darius sent to Marathon had 500 to 600 triremes. There was no estimate by Herodotus of the size of either army. Simonides, a poet, claimed the force to be 200,000, while another writer claimed 300,000. Modern historians believe it was actually much less than that. The Athenian army was believed to have had 7,000-10,000. The Battle of Marathon was significant because it was the first time the Greeks were able to defeat the Persians on land.

The Peloponnesian War

The Peloponnesian War, which took place from 431-404 BC, was an Ancient Greek conflict fought between Athens and the Peloponnesian League, led by Sparta. The war has usually been separated into three phases, the first being the Archidamian War ending in 421 BC.

In the Archimadian War, Sparta launched invasions of Attica, with Athens taking advantage of its naval dominance to raid the coast of the Peloponnese and attempting to get rid of signs of unrest within its empire. The Archimadian War ended in 421 BC after the signing of the Peace of Nicias. The treaty ended up being undermined when new fighting broke out in the Peloponnesus.

In 415 BC Athens send a large expeditionary force to attack Syracuse in Sicily. The attack ended up in the destruction of their entire force in 413 BC. This marked the start of the last part of the war, the Ionian War. Sparta at this point was receiving support from Persia and supported rebellions in Athens’ subject states in the Aegean Sea and Ionia. This deprived Athens of its naval supremacy leading to the destruction of the Athens fleet at Aegospotami that ended the war after Athens surrendered.

The Peloponnesian War was important because it reshaped Ancient Greece. Athens went from being the strongest city state in Greece to being in near complete subjection. Sparta, on the other hand, became the top power in Greece. The war also made civil war common in Greece, leading to atrocities against each other on a large scale in many instances.