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