56 THE GREEKS
Astymeloisa does not answer me at all,
but holding the wreath
like a star flying through radiant heaven
or like a young golden plant, or a soft feather... she moves through on slender feet
... the moist, delectable pefume of Cypriot Cinyras
clings to her maiden locks.
(Parthenaion, 3. 61–72, translated by Bonnie MacLachlan,
Women in Ancient Greece, Continuum, 2012, pp. 33–34)
But not long after, in the sixth century, at about the time that Athens was beginning
to assert her cultural identity with new buildings, splendid festivals and beautiful
pottery, Sparta was going in the opposite direction towards the life of simplicity and
austerity to which she has given her name. By the time of the Persian Wars, the
divergence between characteristic Spartan and Athenian values was already plain
to see.
The Persian Wars
Some time after 1000, Greeks from the mainland had migrated across the Aegean to
settle on the coast of Asia Minor. These settlements had lived freely on peaceable
terms with the unaggressive Lydian empire to their east. In 546, however, the
Persians, who had already conquered the Medes, moved further west and their king,
Cyrus, defeated Croesus, king of Lydia. Cyrus then annexed the Greek states. When
in 499 the Ionian cities rose in revolt against Persian domination, they appealed to
mainland Greeks for support. Only Athens and Eretria responded. In 498 they sent a
force, which together with the Ionians, marched on Sardis, the former capital of Lydia;
during their occupation, the city was burnt down. Herodotus tells us that when the
Persian king learned of the disaster, he did not give a thought to the Ionians, knowing
that their punishment would come. Instead, the first thing he did was to ask who the
Athenians were. Then he commanded one of his servants to repeat to him the words
‘Master, remember the Athenians’ three times, whenever he sat down to dinner
(5, 105).
The revolt was finally subdued in 494, and in 490 Darius mounted an expedition
against the European Greeks, demanding from their cities the gifts of earth and water,
tokens of submission. Many of the mainland Greeks and all of the islands submitted.
The invading Persians in retribution against the Eretrians for aiding the Ionian revolt
of 498 burnt their city and enslaved its inhabitants. Accompanied by the exiled
Athenian tyrant Hippias, the Persians now landed their army at the bay of Marathon.