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The Greco-Persian Wars (also often called the Persian Wars) were a series of conflicts between the Achaemenid Empire and Greek city-states that started in 499 BC and lasted until 449 BC. The collision between the fractious political world of the Greeks and the enormous empire of the Persians began when Cyrus the Great conquered the Greek ...
At the Battle of Plataea, the Greek army won a decisive victory, destroying much of the Persian army and ending the invasion of Greece. [131] Meanwhile, at the near-simultaneous naval Battle of Mycale, they also destroyed much of the remaining Persian fleet, thereby reducing the threat of further invasions. [132]
The Ionian Greek contingents in the Persian army defected, and the camp was assailed, with a large number of Persians slaughtered. The Persian ships were then captured and burned. The complete destruction of the Persian navy, along with the destruction of Mardonius' army at Plataea, allegedly on the same day as the Battle of Mycale, decisively ...
The Greek army inflicted a crushing defeat on the more numerous Persians, marking a turning point in the Greco-Persian Wars. The first Persian invasion was a response to Athenian involvement in the Ionian Revolt , when Athens and Eretria sent a force to support the cities of Ionia in their attempt to overthrow Persian rule.
Based on Plutarch's statement that the infantry of both sides engaged after the Macedonian phalanx crossed the river, Ernst Badian likewise believes that non-Greek infantry was part of the Persian army and posted directly behind the cavalry. In this light, he considers 20,000 a reasonable estimate for the total number of infantry.
Alexander's right wing became the crux of the battle, as at Gaugamela two years later, where Parmenion held the left wing long enough against superior Persian numbers for Alexander to make his calculated cavalry strike against Darius and break the Persian army. [8] The infantry of the Greek left flank was commanded by the general Craterus, in a ...
Famously, the much smaller Greek army held the pass of Thermopylae against the Persians for three days before being outflanked by a mountain path. Much of the Greek army retreated, before the Spartans and Thespians who had continued to block the pass were surrounded and killed. [30]
The Battle of Plataea was the final land battle during the second Persian invasion of Greece.It took place in 479 BC near the city of Plataea in Boeotia, and was fought between an alliance of the Greek city-states (including Sparta, Athens, Corinth and Megara), and the Achaemenid Empire of Xerxes I (allied with Greek states including Boeotia, Thessalia, and Macedon).