The second Persian invasion of Greece (480–479 BC) occurred during the Greco-Persian Wars, as King Xerxes I of Persia sought to conquer all of Greece. The invasion was a direct, if delayed, response to the defeat of the first Persian invasion of Greece (492–490 BC) at the Battle of Marathon, which ended Darius I's attempts to subjugate Greece. After Darius's death, his son Xerxes spent several years planning for the second invasion, mustering an enormous army and navy. The Athenians and Spartans led the Greek resistance. About a tenth of the Greek city-states joined the 'Allied' effort; most remained neutral or submitted to Xerxes.
The invasion began in spring 480 BC, when the Persian army crossed the Hellespont and marched through Thrace and Macedonia to Thessaly. The Persian advance was blocked at the pass of Thermopylae by a small Allied force under King Leonidas I of Sparta; simultaneously, the Persian fleet was blocked by an Allied fleet at the straits of Artemisium. At the famous Battle of Thermopylae, the Allied army held back the Persian army for three days, before they were outflanked by a mountain path and the Allied rearguard was trapped and annihilated. The Allied fleet had also withstood two days of Persian attacks at the Battle of Artemisium, but when news reached them of the disaster at Thermopylae, they withdrew to Salamis.
After Thermopylae, all of Euboea, Phocis, Boeotia and Attica fell to the Persian army, which captured and burnt Athens. However, a larger Allied army fortified the narrow Isthmus of Corinth, protecting the Peloponnesus from Persian conquest. Both sides thus sought a naval victory that might decisively alter the course of the war. The Athenian general Themistocles succeeded in luring the Persian navy into the narrow Straits of Salamis, where the huge number of Persian ships became disorganised, and were soundly beaten by the Allied fleet. The Allied victory at Salamis prevented a quick conclusion to the invasion, and fearing becoming trapped in Europe, Xerxes retreated to Asia leaving his general Mardonius to finish the conquest with the elite of the army.
The following spring, the Allies formed the largest hoplite army ever assembled and marched north from the Isthmus to confront Mardonius. At the ensuing Battle of Plataea, the Greek infantry again proved its superiority, inflicting a severe defeat on the Persians and killing Mardonius in the process. On the same day, across the Aegean Sea an Allied navy destroyed the remnants of the Persian navy at the Battle of Mycale. With this double defeat, the invasion was ended, and Persian power in the Aegean severely dented. The Greeks under the Delian League would now move to the offensive, eventually expelling the Persians from Greece, the Aegean Islands and Ionia. The wider conflict came to an end in 449 BC with the Peace of Callias.
Sources
The main source for the Great Greco-Persian Wars is the Greek historian Herodotus. Herodotus, who has been called the 'Father of History',Cicero, On the Laws I, 5. was born in 484 BC in Halicarnassus, Asia Minor (then under Persian overlordship). He wrote his 'Enquiries' (Greek—Historia; English—(The) Histories) around 440–430 BC, trying to trace the origins of the Greco-Persian Wars, which would still have been relatively recent history (the wars finally ending in 450 BC). Herodotus's approach was entirely novel, and at least in Western society, he does seem to have invented 'history' as we know it. As Holland has it: "For the first time, a chronicler set himself to trace the origins of a conflict not to a past so remote so as to be utterly fabulous, nor to the whims and wishes of some god, nor to a people's claim to manifest destiny, but rather explanations he could verify personally".Holland, pp. xvi–xvii.
Some subsequent ancient historians, despite following in his footsteps, criticised Herodotus, starting with Thucydides.Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, e.g. I, 22. Finley, p. 15. Nevertheless, Thucydides chose to begin his history where Herodotus left off (at the Siege of Sestos), and therefore evidently felt that Herodotus's history was accurate enough not to need re-writing or correcting. Plutarch criticised Herodotus in his essay "On The Malignity of Herodotus", describing Herodotus as "Philobarbaros" (barbarian-lover), for not being pro-Greek enough, which suggests that Herodotus might actually have done a reasonable job of being even-handed.Holland, p. xxiv. A negative view of Herodotus was passed on to Renaissance Europe, though he remained well read. However, since the 19th century his reputation has been dramatically rehabilitated by archaeological finds that have repeatedly confirmed his version of events.Holland, p. 377. The prevailing modern view is that Herodotus generally did a remarkable job in his Historia, but that some of his specific details (particularly troop numbers and dates) should be viewed with skepticism. Nevertheless, there are still some historians who believe Herodotus made up much of his story.Fehling, pp. 1–277.
The Greek historian Diodorus Siculus from Sicily, writing in the 1st century BC in his Bibliotheca Historica, also provides an account of the Greco-Persian wars, partially derived from the earlier Greek historian Ephorus. This account is fairly consistent with Herodotus's.Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica. , XI, 28–34. The Greco-Persian wars are also described in less detail by a number of other ancient historians including Plutarch, Ctesias, and are alluded by other authors, such as the playwright Aeschylus. Archaeological evidence, such as the Serpent Column, also supports some of Herodotus's specific claims.Note to Herodotus IX, 81.
Background
The Greek city-states of Athens and Eretria had supported the unsuccessful Ionian Revolt against the Persian Empire of Darius I in 499–494 BC. The Persian Empire was still relatively young and prone to revolts among its subject peoples.Holland, p. 47–55. Moreover, Darius was a usurper and had spent considerable time extinguishing revolts against his rule. The Ionian revolt threatened the integrity of his empire, and Darius thus vowed to punish those involved (especially those not already part of the empire).Herodotus V, 105. Darius also saw the opportunity to expand his empire into the fractious world of Ancient Greece.Holland, 171–178. A preliminary expedition under Mardonius, in 492 BC, to secure the land approaches to Greece ended with the re-conquest of Thrace and forced Macedon to become a fully subordinate kingdom part of Persia.Herodotus VI, 44. It had previously been a vassal as early as the late 6th century BC, but remained having autonomy and was not fully subordinate yet.
In 491 BC, Darius sent emissaries to all the Greek city-states, asking for a gift of "earth and water" in token of their submission to him.Holland, pp. 178–179. Having had a demonstration of his power the previous year, the majority of Greek cities duly obliged. In Athens, however, the ambassadors were put on trial and then executed; in Sparta, they were simply thrown down a well. This meant that Sparta was also now effectively at war with Persia. (Later, in order to appease Xerxes, who was about to launch the Second Persian invasion of Greece after succeeding his father, Darius, two Spartans were voluntarily sent to Susa for execution, in atonement for the death of the Persian heralds sent earlier by Darius.)"Two Spartans of noble birth and great wealth, Sperthias son of Aneristus and Bulis son of Nicolaus, undertook of their own free will that they would make atonement to Xerxes for Darius' heralds who had been done to death at Sparta. Thereupon the Spartans sent these men to Media for execution." in This self-sacrifice occurred shortly after Darius' reign ended, when Xerxes was imminently to invade Greece in the Second Persian Invasion. As Herodotus writes: "But to Athens and Sparta Xerxes sent no heralds to demand earth, and this was the reason: when Darius had before sent men with this same purpose, the demanders were cast at the one city into the Pit32 and at the other in case of a well, and bidden to carry thence earth and water to the king. For this cause Xerxes sent no demand. What calamity befell the Athenians for thus dealing with the heralds I cannot say, save that their land and their city was laid waste.."
Darius thus put together an ambitious task force under Datis and Artaphernes in 490 BC, which attacked Naxos, before receiving the submission of the other Cycladic Islands. The task force then moved on Eretria, which it besieged and destroyed.Herodotus VI, 101. Finally, it moved to attack Athens, landing at the bay of Marathon, where it was met by a heavily outnumbered Athenian army. At the ensuing Battle of Marathon, the Athenians won a remarkable victory, which resulted in the withdrawal of the Persian army to Asia.Herodotus VI, 113.
Darius therefore began raising a huge new army with which he meant to completely subjugate Greece; however, in 486 BC, his Egyptian subjects revolted, indefinitely postponing any Greek expedition.Holland, p. 203. Darius then died while preparing to march on Egypt, and the throne of Persia passed to his son Xerxes I.Holland, pp. 206–207. Xerxes crushed the Egyptian revolt, and very quickly restarted the preparations for the invasion of Greece.Holland, pp. 208–211.
Persian preparations
Since this was to be a full-scale invasion, it required long-term planning, stock-piling and conscription. It was decided that Xerxes' Pontoon Bridges were to be set up to allow his army to cross the Hellespont to Europe, and that a canal should be dug across the isthmus of Mount Athos (rounding which headland, a Persian fleet had been destroyed in 492 BC). These were both feats of exceptional ambition, which would have been beyond any contemporary state.Holland, pp. 213–214. However, the campaign was delayed one year because of another revolt in Egypt and Babylonia.Herodotus VII, 7.
In 481 BC, after roughly four years of preparation, Xerxes began to muster the troops for the invasion of Europe. Herodotus gives the names of 46 nations from which troops were drafted.Herodotus VII, 62–80. The Persian army was gathered in Asia Minor in the summer and autumn of 481 BC. The armies from the Eastern satrapies was gathered in Kritala, Cappadocia and were led by Xerxes to Sardis where they passed the winter.Herodotus VII, 26. Early in spring it moved to Abydos where it was joined with the armies of the western satrapies.Herodotus VII, 37. Then the army that Xerxes had mustered marched towards Europe, crossing the Hellespont on two pontoon bridges.Herodotus VII, 35.
Size of the Persian forces
The numbers of troops that Xerxes mustered for the second invasion of Greece have been the subject of endless dispute because the numbers given in ancient sources are very large indeed. Herodotus claimed that there were, in total, 2.5 million military personnel, accompanied by an equivalent number of support personnel. The poet Simonides, who was a contemporary, talks of four million; Ctesias, based on Persian records, gave 800,000 as the total number of the army (without the support personnel) that was assembled by Xerxes.Ctesias, Persica While it has been suggested that Herodotus or his sources had access to official Persian Empire records of the forces involved in the expedition, modern scholars tend to reject these figures based on knowledge of the Persian military systems, their logistical capabilities, the Greek countryside, and supplies available along the army's route.