Western Civilization - History Of European Society

(Marvins-Underground-K-12) #1
Ancient Greece to the End of the Peloponnesian Wars37

They could hold land in their own right and were capa-
ble of dealing with hostile and rebellious helots. Their
courage, like that of the Spartan men, was legendary.
In spite of their military virtues, the Spartans were
not an aggressive power until late in their history. The
constant threat of helot insurrection made them wary
of foreign entanglements, and Spartan policy was tradi-
tionally defensive and inward-looking. This changed in
the course of the fifth century B.C. when the Persian in-
vasion and the subsequent expansion of Athens forced
them to take a more active role. They would eventually
be drawn into a fatal rivalry with the Athenians, whose
army was inferior but whose superior navy and greater
wealth made them formidable antagonists. The story of
those struggles forms the political background of the
Greek classical age.





The Persian War

The Greeks developed their unique civilization in large
part because for centuries they were isolated from the
turbulent politics of the Asian land mass. That isolation
came to an abrupt end in the Persian War of 499–479
B.C. (see map 2.1). The tiny states whose competition
with one another had long since become traditional
now faced the greatest military power the world had
yet known.
The Persians were an Indo-European people from
the Iranian highlands who emerged in the sixth century
B.C. as the dominant power in the vast region between
Mesopotamia and India. By the end of the sixth century
B.C. the ruling elite had adopted Zoroastrianism, a reli-
gion preached by the prophet and reformer Zoroaster

0 100 200 Miles

0 100 200 300 Kilometers

WALLSLONG

PHALERUM WALL

ACROPOLIS

PIRAEUS

Cep

hisu

s

SaronicGulf

0 1 2 Miles

0 1 2 3 Kilometers
Athens

Sicily

415-413 SyracuseB.C.

The Peloponnesian Wars
Sparta and its allies
Athens and its allies
Persian Empire
Neutrals

Persian War battles
Invasion route of
Xerxes's army
Invasion route of
Xerxes's navy

CorinthGulf of

Aegean

Sea

Ionian

Sea

Propontis

Sea of Crete

Hellespont

Sparta

Corinth

Delphi

Thermopylae
480 B.C.
Plataea
479 B.C.

Eretria

Salamis
480 B.C. Miletus

Athens

Marathon
490 B.C.

Lesbos

Chios

Delos

Corcyra

Euboea

Crete

Melos

Samos

Naxos

Potidaea

Amphipolis
422 B.C.

Sardis

Aegospotami
405 B.C.

Thasos

PELOPONNESUS

ATTICA

MACEDONIA THRACE

THESSALY

IONIA

BOEOTIA

ASIA MINOR

MAP 2.1
Greece in the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars
Free download pdf