53: One By Land

The Death of Masistios as imagined by M.A. Barth in 1832

After a year of relative success, the Persian occupation of northern Greece received its second massive defeat. For the first time, the Hellenic League managed to field the full might of a Greek army against the occupation force commanded by Mardonius. They clashed repeatedly in the plains surrounding the small town of Plataea until their maneuvers drew both sides into a decisive and bloody confrontation.
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Interview: Sean Manning

Armed Force in the Teispid-Achaemenid Empire: Past Approaches, Future Prospects by Sean Manning (Franz Steiner Verlag, 2021).

I sat down with Dr. Sean Manning, author of the new book: Armed Force in the Teispid-Achaemenid Empire: Past Approaches, Future Prospects to discuss the military might of the Persian Empire (and why it’s so hard to find anything written about it). That includes both the academic nuances of which sources deserve primacy, and ever exciting topics of arms, armor, and tactics.

Dr. Manning’s research represents an invaluable resource for anyone trying to engage with the military history of Achaemenid Persia – especially when we try to disentangle it from the Greek Wars.
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52: The Adventure Continues

Cylinder seal depicting a Persian King (probably Darius I or Xerxes) killing a Greek warrior via Wikimedia Commons

At the end of 480 BCE, there was a lull in the conflict between the Greeks and Persians, but not a stop. The Peloponnesians went home. The Athenians raided the Aegean. Xerxes took most of his troops back to Lydia while Mardonius stayed in Greece, and Artabazos lead a Persian army back from Lydia to Thrace. All of them had their own adventures along the way.
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51: Defeat from the Jaws of Victory

September 480 BCE marked the high point for the Persian army in Greece. Athens was the smoldering fire at the heart of the Persian army’s camp. The Greek army had retreated all the way to Corinth and their fleet was in limbo with the Athenian refugees on Salamis. After some deliberation, Xerxes sent his navy to clear out the Greek ships only for the land and sea themselves to turn against the Great King.
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Episode 49: Breaking Through

Late in the summer of 480 BCE, the Persian invasion force under King Xerxes came to blows with the Greek Allies for the first time. The famous twin battles at Thermopylae and Artemisium played out surrounded by a series of smaller sacks and skirmishes. After three days of fighting, the Greek attempt to block the Persians in narrow passes failed and the Persian army pushed south, conquering Phocis, Boeotia, and ultimately: Attica and Athens. By the end of September 480, Xerxes nominally controlled all of Greece north of the Peloponnese.
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Casting Through Ancient Greece

48: What is your profession?

Promotional image from 300 featuring Gerard Butler’s Leonidas moments before he is killed by the Persians.

Before launching into the actual warfare between the Persian Empire and Greek city states, it’s worth examining how the Greeks prepared for war. Athens prepared by building a navy, everyone prepared by planning to deploy their armies, and we’ll explore the whole history of the famous “300” Spartans.
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47: Preparing The Way

From 484-481 BCE, Xerxes directed his subjects to prepare for war in Greece. This didn’t just mean assembling soldiers and ships, but also preparing the infrastructure of the western empire to receive one of the largest armies ever assembled. 200,000 soldiers from across the Persian empire converged on the Hellespont in the spring of 480 and began the march to Hellas.
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Catalog of Nations from Herodotus

Episode 38: The Last Battle

Nearly a decade after Aristagoras first went into revolt, and longer since the Athenians had reneged on their offerings of earth and water, the Persian Army came to take Darius’ revenge on Athens. For the first time, a Persian army landed on the Greek mainland. They made their camp on an unremarkable open plain that would soon be seared into Greek history forever: Marathon.
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Episode 37: Greece Awakens

A map of all the major Persian offensives against Greeks. Mardonius’ Thraco-Macedonian campaign is marked in green. The Greek campaign of Artaphernes and Datis is marked in brown. Via Wikimedia Commons

Even once the Ionian cities themselves were defeated, the consequences of their Revolt were ongoing. In 492 BCE, a new general, Mardonius, took to the field to settle matters in the Balkans. Two years later, the Persians turned their sites on Athens and Eretria in retribution for the aid they sent to the Ionians. In 490, Artaphernes and Datis launched the first Persian invasion of mainland Greece.
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Episode 36: Return of the Tyrannoi

A modern reconstruction of a Greek trireme, the standard war ship of the ancient Mediterranean via Wikimedia Commons

Even with Miletus defeated, the other rebel cities in shambles, Cyprus under control, and their armies victorious, the Persians had not heard the last of Ionian resistance. While the Greek rebels were fighting against the Persian Empire, the deposed tyrant Histiaeus was making plans to try and carve out a new niche for himself in Persian territory.
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