Greece’s War With Persia

Athens and Sparta didn’t have much in common except for their language and their gods. As a matter of fact, they fought with each other. Sometimes the Athenians attacked Sparta. Sometimes Sparta attacked Athens.

But then something frightening happened. The Persians started to invade Greece. After all, the Persians had conquered almost all the rest of the land around them! Greece was one of the few countries that didn’t obey the Persian empire. And the Persians wanted Greece too.

At first, the Persians just sent messengers to Greece. The messengers came to Athens and Sparta and announced, “We are from the great king of the Persians! He wants you to be part of his empire. If you agree, send him back some earth and some water from your cities. Then he won’t attack you.”

The Athenians and the Spartans were furious. How dare the king of the Persians demand that they surrender without even a fight? So they grabbed the messengers and threw them down a well. “There!” they said. “There’s plenty of earth and water for you down there!”

After that, Persia was determined to attack. The Persian army advanced on Greece. Athens and Sparta decided that they had better stop fighting each other, and become friends and allies so that they could defend themselves against the Persians.

The war against Persia began around 500 BC/BCE. It dragged on for years and years. Athens and Sparta fought battle after battle against the Persian invasion.

One of the most famous battles of the war was the Battle of Marathon. Marathon was a little village near the coast of Greece, close to the Aegean Sea.

One day in the year 490 BC/BCE, a ship came to Athens with frightening news: The Persians were coming! They were sailing from Asia Minor across the Aegean Sea, straight for the village of Marathon.

The Athenians were outnumbered. There were too many Persian soldiers for the army of Athens to defeat alone. But the men of Athens had no choice. They marched from Athens to Marathon and waited for the Persians to land.

When the Persian army landed, they launched thousands of arrows at the Athenian army. But the men of Athens charged through the arrows and attacked the Persians. The Persians were so startled and disorganized that they lost the battle. They were forced to retreat.

When the Athenians saw that they had won the battle, they sent a runner back to Athens, to tell the people who were anxiously waiting at home that the Persian threat had been driven back. The runner, Pheidippides, ran over twenty-six miles, up steep hills and through rough country, to reach Athens. When he arrived at the city, he gasped out, “We have won!” And then—according to legend—he died of exhaustion.

Today we have a race named after the village of Marathon. The race is a little over twenty-six miles long, and it is called the marathon. It is run in the Olympics in honor of the brave Athenian who ran from Marathon to Athens with the good news of victory.

The Battle of Marathon didn’t end the war, though. The Persians and Greeks went on fighting until the Greeks finally defeated the Persians, once and for all, in a great sea battle at a place called Salamis. After the Battle of Salamis (which took place in 480 BC/BCE) the Persians finally gave up attacking Greece. The Greek cities would remain free and independent from Persia.