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    Week 3 - East Versus West

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    yusufsajjad59
    Week 3 focused on the Persian Wars between East and West in the 5th century BCE. Key events discussed included: 1) Cyrus the Great defeating Croesus of Lydia in 546 BCE and expanding the Persian Empire into Egypt. 2) The Ionian Revolt in the 490s BCE prompting Darius I of Persia to invade Greece, leading to the famous battles of Marathon and Thermopylae. 3) Xerxes I's massive invasion of Greece in 480 BCE, including burning Athens and the decisive Greek naval victory over the Persians at Salamis. 4) The final defeat of the Persians at the battle of Plataea in 479

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    Week 3 - East Versus West

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    yusufsajjad59
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    Week 3 focused on the Persian Wars between East and West in the 5th century BCE. Key events discussed included: 1) Cyrus the Great defeating Croesus of Lydia in 546 BCE and expanding the Persian Empire into Egypt. 2) The Ionian Revolt in the 490s BCE prompting Darius I of Persia to invade Greece, leading to the famous battles of Marathon and Thermopylae. 3) Xerxes I's massive invasion of Greece in 480 BCE, including burning Athens and the decisive Greek naval victory over the Persians at Salamis. 4) The final defeat of the Persians at the battle of Plataea in 479

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    Lecture Notes

    Original Title

    Week 3 – East versus West

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    Week 3 focused on the Persian Wars between East and West in the 5th century BCE. Key events discussed included: 1) Cyrus the Great defeating Croesus of Lydia in 546 BCE and expanding the Persian Empire into Egypt. 2) The Ionian Revolt in the 490s BCE prompting Darius I of Persia to invade Greece, leading to the famous battles of Marathon and Thermopylae. 3) Xerxes I's massive invasion of Greece in 480 BCE, including burning Athens and the decisive Greek naval victory over the Persians at Salamis. 4) The final defeat of the Persians at the battle of Plataea in 479

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    4 views3 pages

    Week 3 - East Versus West

    Uploaded by

    yusufsajjad59
    Week 3 focused on the Persian Wars between East and West in the 5th century BCE. Key events discussed included: 1) Cyrus the Great defeating Croesus of Lydia in 546 BCE and expanding the Persian Empire into Egypt. 2) The Ionian Revolt in the 490s BCE prompting Darius I of Persia to invade Greece, leading to the famous battles of Marathon and Thermopylae. 3) Xerxes I's massive invasion of Greece in 480 BCE, including burning Athens and the decisive Greek naval victory over the Persians at Salamis. 4) The final defeat of the Persians at the battle of Plataea in 479

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    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 3

    WEEK 3 -

    10/10/2023

    Week 3 – East versus West

    Pre-reading -

    Seminar 3-Persian Wars.docx

    Lecture -

    - Herodotus of Halicarnassus
    o Prevent traces of human events from being erased by time
    o A collector of stories as he travelled very much
    o Wrote to preserve the stories he heard, preserve the most important stories of Greeks
    and non-Greeks
    o Unusually even handed despite having his biases
    o Covers the cause of the Greco-Persian hostilities
    - Kingdom of Lydia had coinage, figured out the world of trade
    - Iran/Iraq growing against Lydia
    - 546 – Cyrus defeats Croesus of Lydia
    o Spread East and West
    o Cyrus buried in Persia
    o His death did not slow Persian’s down
    o Spread into Egypt
    o At this point, Persia is a conquest people – not exactly an empire
    o “Hard dangerous bastards” - Gwynn
    - Herodotus is relatively even-handed
    o Despite he likes telling stories, a lot of what he says we can confirm from archaeology
    - Iran – Naq-I-Rustman -
    - Behistun Inscription (Darius)
    o Zoroastrianism
     Duelist religion, believes in two divine beings
     Good being, Bad being
     There is also free-will, to choose good or bad
     Ahura Mazda – God of light and fire
     Use this duality to fight for good
     Empire was so big, taking an army across would take a 4-month journey
    - The Immortals
    o Excellent cavalry
    o Elite inventory – known as the 10,000s
    o 10,000s of (badly) equipped archers
    o Persian advantage lies in numbers
    - THE WARS
    o Starts with the Ionian revolt
    o Cities unite and kill their Persian governors
    o Ionian’s get defeated on land and at sea
    o Darius starts thinking how he could expand further
    o 492 – Darius invades the north Aegean – abortive invasion of Mardonius
    o 490 – Battle of MARATHON (Marathonomachoi)
     Persians are twice the size of Athenian army
     Sale to bay of Marathon
     Athenians on their own, delayed support from Sparta
     Athens sent all their soldiers
     20-25,000 men + horses hard to feed, potential famine – Persians had to move
     Athens closed in, archers no longer have impact
     Hoplites take their impact and drive Persians into the sea
     Athenians win the battle of Marathon
     (THE SOROS OF MARATHON) - burial site of all Athenians death in this war
     Sparta arrived after the war, congratulated Athens but then turned back home
     The win at Marathon is the first Athenian win alone – significant for Athens /
    Athens find new confidence
    o 486 – Death of Darius – then revolt of Egypt
    o 484 – Discovery of the new Laureion solver vein (Themistocles) - new found Sparta
    riches
    o Used the silver they found to build 200 Trireme – this turned them into the strongest
    power in the Aegea
    o “Hubris” - Herodotus'’ reason for the downfall of Xerxes
    o Xerxes, army of 100,000 – needs to feed army / relies on army and navy to work
    together
    o BATTLE OF THEMOPYLAE
     Sparta message was that they would not back down
     This battle confirms that the Sparta were indeed in the war
    o Athens then get levelled by Persians
    o BATTLE OF SALAMIS
     Persian fleet get caught in the currents Athenians knew their waters better
     Athens then destroys the Persian fleet
     Xerxes sent most of his army home, Xerxes also leaves
     Mardonius was left behind with 40,000 soldiers
    o BATTLE OF PLATAEA
     Even numbered
     Greeks on both sides – city of thebes fighting for Persia
     Athenians and Thebes faced each other
     5,000 Spartans – beat the Persians
     Spartans lethal when they commit
     Lakedaimonians (Sparta)
     Greek cities won as they were united and never gave up

    Seminar -

    - The Persians lost due to the unity of Greece


    - Herodotus is a moral historian
    -

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