Why did the Persians Fail to Conquer Greece?
As usual the references in the text have had to be left out but I'm sure you can imagine where they'd be
Why Did The Persian Army Fail To Conquer Mainland Greece in 480 B.C.?
The Persian wars have been the subject of a great deal of scholarly endeavour. One particular element of discussion involves the search for the explanation as to how the massive Persian army came to be decisively defeated by a meagre federation of small city-states. It is unsatisfactory to take the ancient approach of Herodotus by merely placing the Greek forces as a superior fighting force or casting Xerxes as a foolish general who ruined the campaign. I intend to take a close look at both of the militaries involved before analysing the engagements and their consequences. It is imperative to understand the military of both combatants before any analysis of the battles can be made for the sole reason that taking the usual conception of Xerxes’ large but poor army will lead to a misunderstanding of the engagements involved. Since the weakness of the Persian army has dominated so much of the reasoning behind the Persian defeat I intend to intensely analyse the fighting forces of Xerxes. Due to the great similarity of the methods of naval warfare it is therefore possible to spend less time on the nature of the respective fleets. In the wider context of the results of certain battles contributing to the overall defeat of the Persian army I also want to identify why the battles went in favour of the victor.
In 480 B.C. The Great King of the Persian Empire mounted a campaign that hoped to subdue all of Greece as a new Satrapy. However he was spurred on to this end by preceding events which had occurred during the reign of his father. During the reign of Darius the Persian Empire faced a revolt of the Ionian cities in the West of Asia Minor. In 499 B.C. the Ionians attempted to cede from the empire but they realised they would need the help of mainland Greek city-states in order to survive. To this end Aristagoras persuaded the Athenians and Eretrians to sail to Ionia and take part in the war against Persia . During the course of this expedition the Athenians and Eretrians managed to assault Sardis, the chief city of Asia Minor, and set it ablaze. Despite the Persians being able to exact revenge on the Greeks at the battle of Ephesus, it appears the Persian kings used this attack as a pretext for the invasion of mainland Greece . After the re-conquest of Ionia, Darius began to make expeditions further west. The first, under the command of Mardonius, was the successful incorporation of Thasos and Macedonia into the Persian Empire. This success was however marred by the storm off of Mount Athos that crippled the fleet and also an attack by the Brygian Thracian tribe that then had to be subdued . Even in this northern campaign Herodotus tells us that the Persians were using the acts of war from Athens and Eretria as the justification for their invasion . Two years later in 490 B.C. Darius ordered another expedition headed by Datis and Artaphernes to conquer the islands of the Aegean and restore Hippias to power in Athens. Herodotus would have us believe that this expedition was mounted in order to subdue all the Greeks who had refused Darius’ diplomatic overtures . However the force itself was too small for an invasion of that magnitude and furthermore the objective given to them was to place Hippias in power not a Persian satrap. The Persians succeeded in subduing the islands of Naxos, Delos and Euboea. However they were repulsed by the Athenians at Marathon. Nevertheless Darius had secured both the northern land routes and the maritime approaches to mainland Greece. With the success of these two campaigns he was now in an excellent position to make the final expedition to subdue all of Greece. However after four years of preparation he died leaving Xerxes on the throne. After dealing with rebellions in Egypt and Babylon, Xerxes was finally in a position to take advantage of the preparations that his father had made.
If we want to understand why Xerxes was unable to complete the task of subduing Greece we must thoroughly examine the soldiers with which he endeavoured to succeed with. The traditional view of the Persian military offers little praise to their training, discipline or armament. Even the most recent of the books written about Xerxes’ invasion paints a dismal picture of the Persians being easily crushed by the Greek hoplites at Marathon . However a careful look at first the soldiers themselves and then their performance against hoplites will clearly show a contrasting image. It is often taken for granted that Greek soldiers were simply more disciplined than their eastern counter parts because they fought in a phalanx and the Persians did not. Green even comments that the Persian soldiers lacked any coherent discipline ! The universally overlooked point of contention is that the Persians also used a sophisticated formation on the battlefield. It simply wasn’t a phalanx.
The Persian army was organised along a very strict decimal organisation that ran right from divisions of ten thousand men, known as a Baivarabam, to ten man squads which included two officers . The reports on the decimal organisation of the Persian army come from Herodotus’ description of Xerxes’ march out of Sardis and Xenophon who had the fortune of both fighting against and alongside the Persian military . His testimony is confirmed by Persian ration tablets found at Persepolis which give us both the original Persian names for the unit divisions and also confirm the evidence given to us that they were organised by tens . This level of close supervision ensured that a high level of military discipline and loyalty was maintained throughout the army as a whole. Moreover the command structure ensured that no soldier was far from an authority figure with the correct orders. This system worked all the way up to the supreme commander or even the Great King himself so no division, regiment or ten-man squad was left without orders or leadership. It also meant that the loss of the supreme commander did not mean ultimate loss for the rest of the army. It is traditionally supposed that the Persian army was too reliant on its commander’s presence on the field. This supposition comes originally from Herodotus’ description of Mardonius’ death at Platea but also the later examples of Darius III at the battles of Issus and Gaugamela. However this interpretation has found its way into modern scholarship as well . By contrast to this ideal we have multiple examples of the Achaemenid Persian army being able to maintain discipline and even fight on to victory after facing the loss of their commander. During the Ionian revolt the Persian general Artybios was charged with the re-conquest of Cyprus. During the land battle Herodotus specifically describes the death of Artybios at the hands of Onesilos and his Carian shield bearer but then goes on to state that Persians were able to go on to win the battle . Whilst the fate of the battle was certainly sealed by the retreat of Stesenor it is clear that the Persian force was able to maintain discipline and finish the fight without Artybios. Moreover, the command structure of the Persian army allowed for the allocation of separate theatres of battle to separate commanders. Because of this, Artabazos was able to keep his division in order after the rout of the Persians at Platea and get the entire corps to safety . Even during the retreat from the Spartans towards the Persian camp the Persian army was sufficiently disciplined by the remaining sub-officers to order the cavalry to screen the infantry’s retreat and get the infantry to rapidly mount the defences of the palisade before the raging Greek army was upon them. Thanks to the initiative and quick action of the army in flight the Persians were able to mount a heavy resistance at their camp until the walls were taken and despair overtook them . Finally the battle of Mycale paints an incredibly disciplined picture of Persian soldiers maintaining their position in the battle line and fighting on despite being assailed by the enemy and their previous allies . The last element of the command structure that was of great importance was the Persian system of field signs and standard bearers. Xenophon tells us that each commander had his own colours for his regiment . This is confirmed by the large amount of attic pottery depicting Persian standard bearers in states of defeat by hoplites . These field signs allowed both orders to be given easily and for messengers to find commanders quickly. Sophisticated communications systems can only be the mark of a well organised and disciplined war machine rather than the stereotypical mass of levy spearmen.
The command structure of the army simply took the smallest tactical unit and scaled up to a strategic level. As such, to acquire a better understanding of the particular discipline the Persian army adhered to it is important to analyse their basic tactical unit named the Satabam. The Satabam was a one hundred man unit comprised of a combination of archers and spearmen commanded by a Satapatis. The spearmen formed up a solid shield wall whilst the remaining archers drew up in ranks behind them. Xenophon tells us the spearmen made up only the front two ranks of the unit . The one hundred men were divided into ten squads of ten men. This squad was called a Dathabam and was commanded by a Datapatis with his second in command, the Pascadatapatis. Under the supervision of these two command units the Dathabam was ordered into ranks and able to maintain the high level of discipline needed to sustain both a shield wall, an effective close quarters squad and a missile barrage in the same unit. The unit’s aim was to deploy within bowshot of the enemy and discharge their arrows as the enemy moved to engage them. The missile barrage was intended to throw the enemy into disarray and lower their morale before the shield bearers, or Sparabara, in the front ranks of the Satabam engaged and finished the enemy off with the help of flanking cavalry movements. However the Satabam was a flexible unit that could be used for multiple operations. During the Persian wars Iranian contingents fighting in the Satabam formation were deployed to fight exclusively as close quarters troops at Thermopylae, ahead of the heavily armed Lydian hoplites, Ionian hoplites or the well-armoured Assyrian soldiers, albeit with little success . This sort of organisation, even on a low level, is the opposite of the image that Green would have us believe.
The individual arms of the Sparabara were light for the most part. Herodotus tells us that helmets were only worn by the cavalry of the Persian army . The Persian infantryman wore instead a felt cap upon his head. It is again another misinterpretation to say that the Persians went to war without defensive armour. Herodotus states the lack of Persian armour was the reason for their defeat at Platea . However earlier on in his description of the regular line infantry of the Persian army he states that they wore scale iron corslets . Masistus wore this same style of scale armour during a cavalry raid against the Greek position at Platea. What is interesting is that the Greeks were unable to pierce his armour with their spear thrusts and had to stab him in the eye . The most likely explanation for this contradiction is that the front two ranks of Spearmen in the Satabam wore this scale armour whilst the archers to the rear were much more lightly armoured. This corresponds exactly to many examples of attic pottery depicting the Persian invasion that show Persian archers wearing what appear to be linen cuirasses being assailed by hoplites . From the reliefs at Persepolis we can see that the Persian spear was about 2.2 metres long and had a counter weight at its butt instead of a spike . The feared Persian bow is also seen to be of the powerful re-curve design . The Persians are noted not have worn greaves like their Greek counterparts however the shields they took to war were of the tower design and as such covered their legs . The spara shield was designed primarily to protect the spearman against incoming missile fire from enemy troops. However it appears to have only been able to serve as viable protection for a short while against concentrated enemy heavy infantry. The battle of Mycale is an excellent example of the Persian Spara being very effective whilst upright but prone to crumble after repeated efforts to break though . What we can infer from this is that the Persian line infantry were not supposed to be engaged in a melee for prolonged periods of time. Instead, when facing close combat troops the Persian line was to hold until the cavalry could flank the enemy, charge and win the day. This was exactly how a Persian army defeated Histaios and his army of hoplites at Malene . The cavalry of the Persian army were in Herodotus’ words “armed like the infantry .” However, Xenophon’s later description of the Persian cavalry has them using javelin’s rather than bows and arrows. This is in accordance with the seal of Cyrus the first, which depicts a mounted soldier discharging javelins at his enemy and also a document of the later 5th century describing the equipment a cavalryman was supposed to carry including two spears . In this way it is possible that the Persian cavalry included units using both the Javelin and the bow. Herodotus specifically states that the cavalry Mardonius commanded fired both at the Greeks however the mounted archers would likely have been the Scythian contingents which Herodotus praised as the best of the horsemen.
The reason for the development of the Persian infantry as light armed in comparison to the Greek hoplites has very much to do with the geography of their homeland and the social structure of their society. Unlike a Greek city-state, the Persian feudal society left very little room for a comfortable middle class to emerge that could afford sophisticated arms and armour. By contrast the Persians relied on a system of granting land to subjects in return for military service. The King would grant certain subjects a military estate named as either a “Bow Estate,” “Horse Estate” or “Chariot Estate.” The mention of “chariot estates” almost certainly means the system of military colonisation, known as the “Hatru” from the Murasu archive, was present before the Persian conquest under the Assyrians . The commoners would be rewarded after their military service which Strabo , Xenophon and Herodotus all maintain that Persian youths undertook once they had matured. Whilst they disagree upon the age that the Persian youths would be incorporated into the army, they all agree that after their years of service they would be de-mobilised but remain liable for military service. It was during this period of demobilisation that the Persians were rewarded with land grants that identified how they fought. The King thus kept his people dependent on him and tied to the land which he personally granted them. As such the class divisions that arose came specifically from those on estates large enough to support a cavalryman’s wage against those on a simple infantryman’s plot. Above all of this of course being the nobility with their personal estates and retinues. Examples of these noble units and bodyguards are plentiful in Herodotus as his description of Xerxes’ army on the march shows us four separate regiments, or Hazarabam, of one thousand noble Persians . Moreover he describes possibly one of these regiments or Mardonius’ personal retinue fighting at Platea . Herodotus describes this noble Hazarabam with much praise, which suggests that they could afford far better equipment and a greater level of training in war. However for the simple soldier tending a “Bow estate” there left very little room for personal aggrandizement and the development of a class able to afford more luxuries or battle equipment than that which they were accustomed to. Nonetheless the geographical nature of the Persian Empire dictated that the light equipment of the Sparabara and archer was in fact the most efficient and tactical for the jobs at hand. All too often it is assumed that the Greeks were simply technologically superior to the Persian army and this was the reason that they favoured heavier arms . However this completely ignores the fact that on the wide-open and sun-smitten plains of the Middle East, a heavily armed and armoured infantryman was simply a very slow and undoubtedly exhausted target for cavalry and light missile troops. When Xenophon’s ten thousand mercenary hoplites of the ill-fated expedition to mount prince Cyrus upon the throne found themselves on a perilous journey home through Asia, Xenophon wisely ordered the creation of both a cavalry unit and the promotion of the use of missile weapons like the sling . Thusly the fugitive Greeks were able to ward off harassing cavalry and missile attacks from their enemies on the plains. Hence what we can note is that the Persian army evolved its equipment to face as many different types of combat as there were different types of terrain in the empire. The idea that they were unable to compete with the advanced Greek methods of war is hence invalid.
As has been mentioned, Persian society lacked the means to produce a middle class capable of affording better quality arms and armour. However the Persian Kings dealt with this inherent problem in feudal monarchy by creating and supporting a standing army that was in attendance of the Great king. The so-called “Immortals” constituted a Baivarabam of picked Persian infantry that was armed and adorned by the richest standards in the army after the nobility . However the name “Immortals” is almost certainly a mistake on Herodotus’ part. Weishofer believes that Herodotus mistook ‘Anusyia,’ the Persian word for ‘attendant’, for ‘Anausa,’ meaning ‘Immortal .’ What is interesting to note is that Herodotus’ clear distinction made for these soldiers is that their unit was always kept up to full strength. This hints at the idea that the other Persian Baivarabam’s were prone to falling under strength. This is a theory that is confirmed by some Aramaic documents found in the Persian garrison at Aswan. Ration documents issued to the soldiers allow us to reconstruct the number of men present and shows that at least one Satabam had fallen to only fifty or sixty men . Their repeated depiction in the Persian royal palaces of Susa and Persepolis suggest that during peacetime they were in permanent attendance on the King. As such they did not have farms to return to or harvests to collect. The repeated colour schemes on the reliefs at Susa have given rise to the idea that the King issued them uniforms and as such their armour and equipment could well have been personally provided by the king as well. Even if this were not so it is clear from Herodotus that they were afforded large salaries and luxuries and as such would clearly have been able to afford the sort of scale cuirasses that Masistus wore and Herodotus describes for the Persian infantry. Moreover the Persepolis reliefs show the guardsmen depicted with wooden shields rather than wickerwork Spara. It is clear these shields are wooden since they are rimmed with metal and embossed with a circular bronze emblem in the centre. One such boss, which clearly mimics the designs at Persepolis, was found at the Heraion of Samos . In this way we can see that this regiment was equipped to be able to sustain much more protracted melee battles as well as being able to discharge missiles.
It is not necessary to dwell on the subject troops, which Xerxes levied for the great expedition as only the Iranian contingents, and those who fought in their style, along with the Scythian horse archers ever actually engaged the Greeks. Now that we have a good understanding of the troops which Xerxes relied upon to win his battles we must investigate the troops that he expected to defeat. Unlike the Persians the Greeks were not a unified state that was able to present a single concentrated military effort. On the contrary the Greek city-states were a collection of warring factions with a great history of enmity. To this end the Greeks were obviously not united in their desire to fight Xerxes’ army and there were many cases of Greek states joining the Persians if only to gain a great advantage in fighting their rivals. Thebes is an excellent example of a state that committed itself to Xerxes in order to assert supremacy over the Athenians . The two states which presented the greatest threat to the Persian expedition were Athens and Sparta. Moreover these states mainly took the prestige of commanding the defence of Greece. As such it is important to investigate the structure and armament of their militaries but since the other Greek city-states fought in a similar fashion to the Athenians it is not necessary to cover all of them. The Athenian army was structured around the commander, or Polemarch, a body of generals, or Strategoi, and the hoplites at their disposal. There were ten Strategoi, in the Athenian army at Marathon, who were elected to their position by the citizen’s assembly. Burn stresses that the Athenian Polemarch was originally an elected position that gave permanent authority over the war council. Herodotus actually reports the opposite however Burn illustrates that the method of selecting the Polemarch changed in 487 B.C. and Herodotus was unaware of the old system . The method of selecting the Polemarch during the time of Xerxes’ great invasion was the selection by lot for the position from five hundred prominent Athenian citizens . The Polemarch did not have the supreme authority of a Persian general but was instead a strong voice on the Athenian council of war. Herodotus reports the Athenian army at marathon was the victim of much delay due to the inability of the generals to agree until the Polemarch overruled their stalemate. On the field it appears the Polemarch took command of the rightwing and the rest of the Athenians were drawn up according to their tribes along the battle line with the Strategoi acting as sub officers . The Greek method of making war was essentially to draw up the troops in a battle line and march to engage the enemy at close quarters until they could be broken. As such the Greeks of this era had little use for field signs or standard bearers since they were never expected to perform battlefield manoeuvres more complex than the initial charge.
The Athenian battle line was almost exclusively made up of hoplites that formed up as a single hoplite phalanx. This formation was designed to present a unified and unbreakable front of spears to destroy the enemy in close combat. The staple element of the phalanx was the hoplite’s shield. The large Aspis was held up and positioned in a way which meant that its mass protected half of the carrier’s body and half of the soldier to his left . In this way the Greeks encouraged and affected a very tightly packed formation covered by a wall of large wooden shields overlaid with bronze. The hoplite’s spear was around 2.5 metres long, giving him about a three-foot advantage in length against the Persian troops of Xerxes. The hoplite phalanx’s ultimate purpose was to charge with great ferocity at the enemy and force them to rout. For hoplites the ‘charge’ phase of the battle appears to have been most decisive with entire battles sometimes depending on the courage and strength of a line to withstand the charge and not break in fear . The ability to deploy in the phalanx formation required a high level of discipline. Not only in order to retain the cohesion of the unit, but also to keep the soldier focused during the horrifying moments of the initial clash . The phalanx relied so utterly upon unity that a single man breaking and abandoning his post in the line could shatter the entire enterprise through either the spread of panic or the exploitation of the gap in the phalanx by the enemy . However if the line presented a united front it was incredibly difficult to break head on. The typical hoplite was armed with a spear and shield as we have seen but he also carried a thrusting sword in case his spear broke. His defensive means rested largely upon his and his comrade’s shields; nonetheless he also wore a heavy bronze helmet of varied design. In addition to this the hoplite wore bronze greaves on his shins and a cuirass over his chest. During the time of Xerxes’ invasion leather or linen jerkins reinforced with metal scales were becoming more predominant than the heavier bell cuirass’ of bronze . Comparatively, a hoplite was far more heavily armoured than the Persians of Xerxes’ army due mainly to the use of the helmet and large bronze covered shield rather than the actual cuirasses worn. It was this distinction that led Herodotus to remark that the Persian lack of defensive armour was their downfall at Platea . Quite why modern authors like Green have taken this literally is a matter of great confusion . Nevertheless the hoplites training and armour were directed specifically and solely for close combat fighting. When the Greeks were able to offer battle on terms that negated the Persians their use of manoeuvre and cavalry the hoplites were then able to restrict the battle to purely head on, close quarters terms in which they held the advantage. In situations such as Thermopylae this was precisely what the Greeks did and why they were able to fight so successfully on the first two days. The key point is that the Greeks were better armed and trained for a specific and limited type of warfare not simply better trained. The typical hoplite’s training was in the rudimentary battle drills needed to form a battle line . Indeed one of the most telling sources for the training of hoplites in Greece is that the Spartans were not conspicuous for having been trained so heavily, but for having been trained at all . The Spartans were a great exception amongst the Greeks for the level of military training and courage they displayed. They were armed and armoured in very much the same way as the rest of the Greeks. They even fought in exactly the same hoplite phalanx. What distinguished them from their neighbours was their utter devotion to perfecting the phalanx and honing themselves to be perfect warriors. Thucydides highlights the fact that from birth they endured a great amount of training in the ways of war and contrasts this with the comparative lack of training the Athenians enjoyed . Their devotion to following orders to the point of sacrificing their lives is a point illustrated with magnificence at Thermopylae and their discipline is well attested by Herodotus throughout his work . Their command structure differed from the Athenians in that they followed the orders of the King who was on campaign with them. However, no general in Greece could have had experience for the sort of full-scale war which Xerxes was bringing to them.
The respective navies of the two forces used very similar technology. Both navies utilised the trireme, which was a warship of considerable ingenuity. It allowed for one hundred and fifty oarsmen to take positions on a ship no larger than the outdated Pentekonter that only allowed for fifty oarsmen . The Persian fleet reputedly carried thirty marines aboard their ships but it has been asserted that there is no reason for this to have been more than the Greek ships . A major difference between the constructions of the two navies is the assertion by Herodotus that the Greek ships were of a heavier build . However the main difference between the forces was the comparative size of the Persian fleet. Herodotus gives us the figure of 1,207 triremes but scholars such has Hignett bring that figure down to just 600 warships . The exact figure is not necessary to illustrate how they came to be defeated but what is important is that at the outset the Persians held a convincing numerical advantage over the Greeks.
The greatest misconception about the reason for the defeat of Xerxes in Greece is the, sadly still evoked, idea that the hoplite phalanx was a shocking new discovery to the Persian army in mainland Greece . It is a theory that relies on both the idea that the phalanx was utterly superior to the Satabam but also the absurd notion that the Persian army had never seen or fought a hoplite phalanx before they began operations in mainland Greece. It is unfortunate that only Lazenby addresses this problem head on and identifies specifically the cases of Persian victories over Greek arms . Holland’s notion is the extreme form of a simpler misconception that the hoplite phalanx was the superior formation and the Persians were foolish not to adopt it after Marathon . Both of these ideas attempt to explain away Xerxes’ defeat by asserting that the Persian army simply couldn’t stand up to a phalanx formation either because they had never seen one before or because they refused to adapt to it. However we have ample evidence to prove that the Persians faced hoplite phalanxes on multiple occasions before the expeditions of Darius and Xerxes and moreover specific examples of victory in every case bar one. The Persians first encounter with hoplites was almost certainly in the war between Cyrus and Croesus of Lydia. Herodotus specifically states that the Lydians of Xerxes’ army fought in a manner “very closely resembling the Hellenes ” but even more overt is the reference to the Ionian Greeks in Croesus’ army . After this encounter the Persian army was then used to conquer the Greek cities on the coast of Asia Minor and also the nation of the Carians who are reported to have pioneered essential parts of the hoplite’s panoply like the shield handle which positioned the shield over only half of the soldiers body . The Carians thus having been described as fighting with armour and spears but also the essential hoplite’s shield can be said with some certainty to at least have resembled a hoplite phalanx. At the very least they appear to have been heavily armed close combat troops and thus exactly the sort of troops that the Persians are still said to have been unable to withstand . Under the leadership of Cambyses the Persians engaged and defeated the Egyptian army of Psammenitos which Herodotus specifically tells us contained Greek and Carian mercenaries . A fact that the most modern of commentators on the Persian wars discreetly passes over . The Persians were still defeating hoplite armies in the field much closer to the time of the expeditions onto the mainland. During the Ionian revolt the Persian general Daurises is reported to have defeated a large Carian army at the river Marsyas inflicting ten thousand casualties on the armoured soldiers . If this were not proof enough the same general was able to defeat the surviving Carians and their newly arrived Milesian allies causing even more casualties than the previous battle . Even if we do not cast the Carians as hoplites it is very clear that the Greeks from Miletus were worsted by the Persian method of making war. Lastly the case of the battle at Ephesus tells us that the Ionians were not simply inferior troops to the mainland Greeks as Athenians too were defeated by Persian arms in Asia . As such we have to dismiss entirely the view of Green and others that the Persians were worsted in Xerxes’ invasion by the inherent superiority of the phalanx and it’s heavily armed troops . A final note on the superior armament of the Greeks concerns Hignett’s view that the Persians refused to learn their lesson after their defeat at Marathon and this was Xerxes’ downfall. This view does not take into account the assessment that the Persians would have made of the defeat. In the centre of the battle where the Iranian contingents were actually placed they had been triumphant over the Athenian phalanx . To the Persian high command the battle was lost by the halfhearted performance of the Ionians they had conscripted to fight on the wings . The Persians had absolutely no reason not to be confident in their forces as they marched into Greece and Xerxes could be assured that he was going up against an enemy which Persians had faced and defeated many times in the past.
Now that we have identified and defeated the largest misconceptions about the reasons for the Persian defeat we can turn to the real reasons for the failure of Xerxes’ army. The campaign itself began brilliantly with the slow march into Europe being uncontested for a great deal of time. Since the Greek army sent to defend the north of Greece had found the Tempe gorge indefensible the route to Greece had been left open all the way to the joint defence of Thermopylae and Artemision. The battle to turn the pass of Thermopylae would prove to be the first real challenge to Xerxes’ expedition outside of the prior logistical preparations that had to be made. The battle was to be the site of history’s most famous ‘last stand .’ For some, the incredible display of self-sacrifice made by the Spartan’s final stand has led modern scholars to desperately try to find some cause or achievement that Leonidas aimed for. Cartledge in particular espouses the idea that Leonidas’ heroism inspired the surviving Greeks to unity and courage . Thus we are brought to the idea that the Persian army was driven out of Greece in failure because the last stand of the Spartans had steeled the nationalist Greeks to fight even more patriotically against the invader. In truth, however, the aftermath of Thermopylae would see the Greeks fragmenting and some even advocating all out flight. Herodotus tells us that as soon as the Greek fleet at Artemision had heard of the disaster at Thermopylae they retreated south. They got there only to find that the Peloponnesians had abandoned Attica and Athens with it to her fate . The Peloponnesians who had been expected to make a stand in Boeotia for all of Greece had instead bottled themselves up behind the Isthmus. After Athens was aflame the fleet was on the verge of disintegrating. Some commanders endeavoured to escape before a council could even be taken . The council itself meanwhile was fraught with argument and even threats of fleeing all the way to Italy . Thus we see the effect that Leonidas and his brave few men had on the remaining Greeks. The real inspiration for the stand at Platea was the Athenian’s furious warning that they would be forced to surrender without allied help . In the end it took the threat, however sincere, to betray the Greek cause to unite the Greeks to stand at Platea rather than a heroic gesture of patriotism . Green suggests that the battles offered at Artemision are greatly worthy of mention as contributors to the Persian defeat. Burn agrees if not simply for the casualties inflicted by the Greeks themselves but mostly because of the terrible storms that the Persians were forced to endure in that position . Moreover the casualties that the imperial fleet took at this juncture proved to be instrumental in deciding the course of the war. Since the Persian fleet had lost four hundred ships trying to force their way through Artemision they were now unable to split their naval forces and attack the Greeks from separate directions because they would be left at almost equal numbers with the allied Greek fleet . Herodotus specifically has Demaratus outline an excellent plan for the success of Xerxes’ invasion only to have Achamenes deny the idea due to the losses incurred at Artemision . However, the greatest losses the navy incurred were suffered during a storm on the way to Artemision . A route the Persian fleet would have had to have taken whether the Greek navy was awaiting them or not. Moreover the one hundred and twenty ships that were destroyed by a storm whilst attempting to flank the Greek position seem to be an entirely implausible story. Hignett superbly argues that the Persian fleet had just escaped a disastrous storm and the last thing they would have ordered was a very long and exceedingly exposed voyage to flank a foe that had not even been tested in a straight fight . With these considerations in mind the battles at Artemision and the affect the Greek position and on the outcome of the war boil down to the extent of casualties inflicted by the fleet itself. In the first battle Herodotus tells us the Greeks captured thirty Persian ships . However in the second we are only left with the impression that both sides suffered heavy casualties. As such we cannot state that the Greek fleet did a great deal of damage to the Persians without suffering a great amount itself and in a war of attrition the larger Persian fleet had the advantage. Nonetheless it is essential to identify the fact that after breaking through Artemision the Persian fleet no longer had enough warships to attempt what could have been a very powerful divide and conquer strategy. This can to a great extent be put down to the terrible storm that devastated the Persian fleet. However it is equally plausible that the great demonstration of seamanship displayed by the Greek navy was disconcerting enough to the Persian high command for them to refuse to engage the Greek fleet without a convincing advantage in numbers.
Whilst the events at Artemision ensured the Persian fleet could no longer divide its forces the battle at Salamis well and truly ensured that the Persian fleet would have to retreat from Greek waters. The key point in the battle of Salamis is whether the Greeks skilfully won a great victory or the Persian command’s decisions created the disaster for Xerxes? A popular theory for the defeat at Salamis concerns the idea that the Persians had no need to even fight a battle and did so only out of pride . Lazenby argues the Persians were too eager to finish the Greek navy off and thus entered a battle which offered all of the advantages, bar numbers, to the enemy fleet. If we accept this theory then, since Salamis had a large affect on the campaign as a whole, we can attribute a great deal of the blame for the failure of the campaign on Xerxes himself for ordering the attack. However Hignett argues that a victory at Salamis was necessary to the Persian campaign’s progress. Since the Greek fleet had taken up a position that flanked the Persian advance Xerxes couldn’t order an attack on the Isthmus without exposing his fleet and supply ships . Thus the Persians were left in a position where they had to defeat the Greek fleet before they proceeded. In fact Hignett’s theory hinges on the idea that an army group detached to engage the Greeks at the Isthmus would have to rely on naval re-supply rather than overland routes. If Mardonius was capable of surviving in Greece entirely without the fleet then an army group with overland supply lines could quite easily march to the Isthmus and make do if the rest of the army was utilising the supply fleet’s resources. Since we have Herodotus reporting that most of the Greek fleet was originally eager to escape to the Isthmus and avoid battle at Salamis we also have to take the idea of Salamis as a strategic masterstroke lightly . Thus we are left with the simpler idea that the Persians were too eager to be done with the sea fight and wilfully entered a battle that negated the advantages of their more manoeuvrable ships. If we accept the view of Hignett that the Persian fleet at Salamis was only of a marginally larger size than the Greek then the tactical error of Xerxes is even more glaring . However it must be noted that the Persians could have quite possibly have believed the Greeks to have undertaken a strategic position at Salamis. The battle itself was won by the heavier ships superior ramming capability that was the main factor of any sea battle in confined waters. To this end Lazenby highlights the lack of mention of any Greek vessels capturing Persian ships by boarding them . Whilst the Greeks expected the Persians to fight the next day , this tells us the Persian fleet still contained considerable numbers, it appears the Persian admiral’s spirit was broken. Or quite possibly the Greeks had underestimated the amount of casualties they had inflicted on the Persians. Whatever the cause the Persians had decided that after the battle of Salamis they were forced onto a defensive war at sea and withdrew to guard against attacks in Asia Minor and the empire itself . The flight of the Persian warships meant that the naval supply ships were no longer safe in the Aegean and Xerxes’ logistical operation was now in great jeopardy. With the supply train diminished and the empire itself under suspicion of attack or revolt Xerxes too was forced to retreat with the main part of his army to maintain an imposing presence in Ionia. Thus the great success the Greeks won at sea directly impacted the fight for supremacy on land. The battle of Salamis is regarded by many as the turning point in the war because at this point, with the Isthmus heavily guarded, it would be extremely difficult to conquer Greece whilst the city-states remained united .
What we are left with is the final confrontation that sealed the fate of the Persian expedition. The usual arguments for why Platea was a Greek victory lie in the realm of Greek military advancement and inherent superiority. These arguments have been soundly dealt with above and as such cannot be taken into account when analysing the battle at Platea. However, perhaps the greatest reason for the defeat of the Persian army was the very ideal of Greek unity in the face of the barbarian. Mardonius offered Athens an exceedingly prestigious place in the Persian empire if they defected to the king and since the Peloponnesians had boarded themselves up behind the Isthmus the Athenians had a great deal of occasion to accept the Persian offer. However, in a move of inspiring patriotism the Athenians refused on the plain terms that they simply would not accept any foreign rule . With this brave stroke the Athenians denied Mardonius the use of their fleet and crushed his hopes of turning the defences at the Isthmus. Nonetheless the Athenians were forced to use these diplomatic overtures to sting the Peloponnesians into action and march north to face the Persians in open battle . The course of the campaign became a stalemate as both commanders realised that if they advanced to attack they would be offering battle on terms that favoured the enemy . The two great reasons for the Persian defeat at Platea are recorded by Herodotus as Mardonius’ stubborn and overly aggressive offensive and the lack of defensive armour for the Persians . However Hignett points out that Herodotus is relating the story of Platea without considering the events of the Greek fleet in Asia Minor. Thus Mardonius justifiably needed a swift and superb victory to crush all thoughts of rebellion by the Greeks in the empire . We have already dealt with the idea that the Persians fighting with the Spartans were un-disciplined and un-armoured but it remains to be clarified as to why Herodotus would say this. The most likely explanation is that they were simply un-armoured in comparison to the Spartans since they disdained helmets and greaves. The question of discipline can be answered by the idea that Herodotus’ use of the word discipline refers specifically to the use of the phalanx rather than overall military discipline. The Spartan victory depended on breaking the Persian line head on. However Herodotus clearly states the battle raged for a long time which would obviously contradict the idea that the Persians were completely undone by the heavy phalanx. The length of the battle can be easily explained by the fact that the Spartans had to fight through two ranks of armoured spearmen before they got to the ranks of archers which would adequately fit Herodotus’ description of un-armoured troops. Since the turning point of the battle is described as the point at which Mardonius is killed it can be argued that Mardonius was to blame for allowing himself to be put into danger. However the lack of cavalry mentioned during the melee stage of the battle means that Pausanius must have had the foresight to halt his retreating troops at a position that secured his flanks . Hignett supposes that the Persian cavalry would not have intervened during the melee as they were missile troops but this is at complete variance with our account of the battle of Malene. With his flanks secure Pausanius had restricted the battle to a head on melee. The Spartans held every advantage in this sort of fight and as such the Spartan victory was a matter of time whether Mardonius was alive or not. On the right wing the Athenians were arrayed against fellow Greeks fighting for Persia. The phalanx battle that took place favoured the Athenians. Burn indicates that the reason for the Athenian victory was in fact the return of the Greek central units that distracted the Theban cavalry . With the Persians defeated on the left wing and the Medizing Greeks routed on the right by the diversion of their cavalry to the Greek centre, we have to wonder why the Persian centre refused to engage. With a force that could have tipped the battle in the favour of the Persians Artabazos instead hung back and withdrew once the Persians had been routed . This behaviour has not been characterised as cowardice but either an inability to reach the battle in time or the fact that his force was checked and marked by the Greek centre . The theory that he had to march up the Asopus ridge and was thus slowed down lends credence to the idea that he was too slow to reach the fighting but we have already heard Herodotus say the battle lasted a long time. What remains is possibly a delayed march by Artabazos followed by indecision as to where to intervene because of the returning Greek centre. It is also possible that whilst Artabazos waited for the Persians to rout he may have been expecting it to happen since the Spartan position was so secure. In short the fighting at Platea was decided by the excellent discipline of the Spartans in halting or affecting a fighting retreat towards secure ground before they engaged the Persian infantry. The fighting on the Persian right flank was decided by the lack of Artabazos’ troops that led the Thebans to thin their chances of success by attacking the approaching Greek centre. We cannot lay the blame on Mardonius who was pressured into the attack or the weakness of the Persian soldiers who were simply fighting out of their element on unsuitable terrain.
In conclusion the causes for the Persian defeat in Greece were set in motion by the terrible storms en route to, and the casualties inflicted during, the battle of Artemision that meant the Persians could no longer split their naval force. At this juncture the Persians believed they were forced to neutralise the Greek fleet before they could continue the fight on land at the Isthmus. The heavier Greek ships and their superior ability to ram in confined waters won the battle of Salamis. The consequences of this battle forced the Persians out of the Aegean and left the expedition in the hands of Mardonius and his reduced land army. At this point the courage and firm resolve of the Athenians saved all of Greece by refusing Mardonius’ offers. Spartan arms at Platea won the final victory where they contrived to fight the Persians in circumstances that gave them the advantage.
Bibliography -
Herodotus, The Histories, 5.97, Barnes and Noble Classics, 2004
A. R. Burn, Persia and The Greeks, Edward Arnold Publishers Ltd, 1962
J. F. Lazenby, The Defence of Greece, 243, Aris and Phillips Ltd, 1993
C. Hignett, Xerxes’ Invasion of Greece, Oxford University press, 1963
Peter Green, The Greco-Persian Wars, University of California Press, 1968
Paul Cartledge, Thermopylae, Macmillan, 2006
J. F. Lazenby, The Spartan Army, Aris and Phillips Ltd, 1985
Tom Holland, Persian Fire, Little, brown, 2005
Jack Cassin-Scott, The Greek and Persian Wars, Osprey Publishing, 1977
Strabo, Geography,William Heinemann Ltd, 1930
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, Penguin Books Ltd, 1954
Robin Waterfield, Xenophon’s Retreat, Faber and Faber Ltd, 2006
Nicholas Sekunda, The Persian Army 560–330 BC, Osprey Publishing, 1992
Josef Weishofer, Ancient Persia, I.B Tauris and Co Ltd, 1996
Pierre Briant, The Persian Empire From Cyrus to Alexander, Librairie Artheme Fayard, 1996
Maria Brosius, The Persian Empire From Cyrus to Artaxerxes, The London Association of Classical Teachers, 2000
Arrian, The Campaigns of Alexander, Penguin Classics, 1958
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Originally Posted by rez
), I presume this is your dissertation? 
Re: Why did the Persians Fail to Conquer Greece?
The only obstacle is my laziness
