2.4 Greece at war & Alexander the Great -T-

• History
• Middelbare school
• havo, vwo
• Leerjaar 1

AGE 2. The Time of Greeks and Romans

2.4 Greece at war

&

Alexander the Great

What is this lesson about?

Warfare in Antiquity was a lot different than modern warfare.

The Greek poleis all had their own armies. Their soldiers are known as hoplites. Sometimes the poleis fought against each other.

But when Greece was attacked by a foreign enemy, all the poleis united and fought together to stop the enemy.

This happened in the 5th century BC during the Persian Wars.

Some 150 years later Alexander the Great became king at a young age and was a legend before he died. He took revenge on Persia and spread Greek culture to “the ends of the Earth”, or at least all the way to India.

What you can explain /  do after this lesson

• what a professional army is
• why a conflict arose between the Persian Empire and the Greeks
• which battles were fought during the Persian Wars.
• what the effects of the Persian wars were
• what Alexander the Great achieved in his life.
• what Alexander's empire was
• why his empire declined after his death
• what Hellenistic is

Word Duty

professional army: a permanent army, composed of full time soldiers who are paid by the government

infantry: foot soldiers

cavalry: mounted troops (soldiers on horses). Today: tanks and armoured verhicles

artillery: weapons, like catapults, to shoot big projectiles. Today: cannons and mortars

navy: branch the armed forces that fights on, under, or over the sea. Most navies keep a fleet, or group, of warships.

hoplite: Greek citizen soldier.

Ionians: Greeks who lived in Greek colonies at the west coast of modern Turkey.

uprising / revolt: when the people of a city or country fight against their own king 

because they don't agree with his rule.

allies: a group of persons or countries that work together to fight a common enemy.

Companion cavalry: an elite unite of young Macedonian nobles

Hegemon: leader of all Greeks

Persepolis: Persian capital, destroyed by Alexander the Great

Aristotle: philosopher from Macedon who became famous in Athens. Tutor of Alexander the Great

Diadochi: successors of Alexander the Great

KEY WORDS

people in this lesson

Darius I

king

Persia

Leonidas

king

Sparta

Themistocles

strategos

Athens

Xerxes 

king

Persia

Alexander

king

Macedonia

Greece

Persia

Aristotle

philosopher

Greece

Important dates in this lesson:

Persian Wars:

  - 499 BC: Ionian Revolt

  - 490 BC: Battle of Marathon

  - 480 BC: Battle of Thermopylae

  - 479 BC: Battle of Salamis

Alexander the Great:

  -  338 BC: King Philip II of Macedon conquers and unites the Greek poleis.

  -  336 BC: Philip II is murdered. Alexander becomes king of Macedonia 

  -  334 BC: Alexander departs for Asia

  -  331 BC: Alexander conquers Babylon

  -  323 BC: Alexander dies

End of Greece:

  -  146 BC: Romans conquer Greece. Greece becomes part of the Roman Empire

Today, each country has its own army. 

Armies are used to protect their own country, but sometimes also to attack another country. In that case, war is waged.

After a war, the winning country gets its way.

Modern armies

An army consists of several branches:

• infantry: common soldiers (foot soldiers)
• cavalry: soldiers on horseback (nowadays tanks and armored vehicles)
• artillery: soldiers who operate large cannons (formerly catapults and archers)
• navy: soldiers at sea on warships
• air force: soldiers in airplanes

Modern soldiers are often professional soldiers. This means that being a soldier is their job, 365 days a year.

They receive a salary from the government. The government also pays for their uniform, weapons and equipment.

modern Chinese army on parade. The soldiers belong to the infantry.

In the background are armoured vehicles.

Ancient warfare

In ancient times warfare was very different. Soldiers were not professional soldiers. They were citizens with a regular job. Only in times of war did they become soldiers. They paid for their own weapons and equipment and went to battle. After the war,  the soldiers returned to their daily work. Until a new conflict broke out.

In ancient Greece, all poleis had their own armies. The Greek soldiers are called hoplites, named after their large round shield, the hoplon.

Not everyone could become hoplite. Only citizens who had enough money to buy their own equipment. So poor people and slaves were never hoplites.

Take a closer look at the hoplite's armour and  equipment by clicking the hotspots in the next slide.

Sparta, a military society

Unlike their counterparts in the city of Athens, the Spartans didn't study philosophy, art, or theatre, they studied war. The Spartans were widely considered to have the strongest army and the best soldiers of any city-state in Ancient Greece. All Spartan men trained to become warriors from the day they were born.

You can see how this happened in this video. After watching the video you need to answer several questions.

The Persian Wars (492 BC - 449 BC)

As said before, the Greek poleis often fought against each other. But they united when Greece was threatened by a foreign enemy.

And that happened in the 5th century BC.

The enemy was the Persian Empire. And the wars between the Greeks and the Persians are known as the Persian Wars.

1. Who were the Persians?
2. Why did they attack Greece?
3. Which battles were fought?
4. Who were the leaders?
5. Who won?
6. What were the effects of these wars?

These questions will be answered in the next part of this lesson.

Herodotus was a Greek historian who lived in the 5th century BC. He wrote a history of the Persian invasion of Greece in the early fifth century B.C., known simply as The Histories of Herodotus. Herodotus was the first not only to record the past but also to treat it as a research project, that could yield knowledge of human behavior. His invention earned him the title "The Father of History" and the word he used for his achievement, historie, which previously had meant simply "research", took on its modern connotation of "history".

Who were the Persians?

The Persian Empire was the largest and most powerful empire in the world at the time of the Persian Wars. They controlled land that stretched from Egypt all the way to India.

From 522 to 484 BC, Darius I ruled as king of Persia. People later called him Darius the Great because he strengthened and expanded the Persian Empire. Darius put down many uprisings and fought several foreign wars. He also organized the empire and ordered many building projects. The Persian Empire was at its largest size when Darius died.

Darius I, king of Persia, is shown in a carving from Persepolis. Persepolis was a city in the ancient Persian Empire.

Why did the Persians attack Greece?

-The Ionian Revolt

The Ionians were Greeks that lived along the west coast of Turkey (the Ionian Coast). Their city states were Greek colonies. The inhabitants spoke Greek, worshipped the Greek gods and had a Greek culture.

When the Persians expanded their empire westward in the 6th century BC, they conquered these Greek colonies. Around 500 BC the Ionians revolted against king Darius, and they asked Athens and other Greek cities for help. Several Greek cities sent ships and weapons, but they were defeated by the Persians.

King Darius had full control of the Ionians again, but he wanted to take revenge on the Greek city states who had supported the Ionian Revolt.

With his enormous army, he planned an invasion of Greece.

The burning of Sardis during the Ionian Revolt of 498 BC. From the book: Hutchinson's History of the Nations, published 1915.

Which battles were fought?

1. The battle of Marathon (490 BC)

King Darius decided he wanted to conquer the Greeks in 490 BC. He gathered a vast army of soldiers that outnumbered any army the Greeks could muster. The Persian soldiers marched along the coastline towards Greece while the Persian fleet followed the army along the coast.

The Persian fleet landed at the Bay of Marathon, about 25 miles from the city of Athens. The Persians had a lot more soldiers, but they underestimated the fighting capability of the Greeks. The army of Athens routed the Persian army killing around 6,000 Persians and only losing 192 Greeks.

The burning of Sardis during the Ionian Revolt of 498 BC. From the book: Hutchinson's History of the Nations, published 1915.

THE FIRST MARATHON

The Greeks won the battle of Marathon; 6,400 Persians were killed but only 192 Greeks died.

The Persians ran to their ships and tried to escape. They tried to go to Athens to capture the Greek women, children and old people waiting there.

A soldier called Pheidippides was sent to warn the Athenians. He ran 40 kilometres to Athens to tell the Greeks that they had

won and to tell them that the Persians were coming.

He arrived at the city gates very tired. ‘Rejoice, we conquer!’ he shouted. Then he died.

‘Rejoice, we conquer!’

PUNISH THE HELLESPONT

When the Persian king Darius died in 484 BC, he was succeeded by his son Xerxes.

Xerxes wanted to take revenge for his father's defeat at Marathon, and he wanted to prove himself.

In 480 BC he marched a massive Persian army to invade Greece again.

Xerxes had two bridges built across the width of the Dardanelles in order that his huge army could cross from Persia into Greece. 

When the bridges were finished and his soldiers were ready to march, a violent storm broke out and the bridges were destroyed.

Xerxes was so angry that he decided to punish the sea: he gave the water 300 lashes with a whip. He also cut off the heads of the engineers who had built the bridges.

Xerxes orders to punish the sea

Which battles were fought?

2. Battle of Thermopylae (480 BC)

Ten years later, in 480 BC, the son of Darius I, King Xerxes, decided to get his revenge on the Greeks. He amassed a huge army of over 200,000 soldiers and 1,000 warships. This was the second Persian invasion.

The Greeks put together a small force, led by the Spartan King Leonidas and 300 Spartans. They decided to meet the Persians at a narrow pass in the mountains called Thermopylae. The Greeks held off the Persians killing thousands, until the Persians found a way around the mountains and got behind the Greeks. King Leonidas told most of his troops to flee, but stayed behind with a small force including his 300 Spartans in order to allow the rest of the Greek army to escape. The Spartans fought to the death, killing as many Persians as they could.

modern illustration of the Battle of Thermopylae

300, the movie

The film "300" is about the Spartans who fought at the Battle of Thermopylae.

You can watch the trailer:

Movie poster of the film "300"

Which battles were fought?

3. Battle of Salamis (479 BC)

The Persian army continued to march on Greece. When they arrived at the city of Athens, they found it deserted. The people of Athens had fled. The Athenian fleet, however, was waiting off the coast near the island of Salamis.

The much larger Persian fleet attacked the small Athenian ships. They were sure of victory. However, the Athenian ships, called triremes, were fast and maneuverable. They rammed into the sides of the large Persian ships and sunk them. They soundly defeated the Persians causing Xerxes to retreat back to Persia.

The Battle of Salamis, modern illustration

WOODEN WALLS 

After the defeat of the Spartans at Thermopylae, the people of Athens began to panick.

Who was going to stop king Xerxes now? How could they save the city of Athens?

A man was sent to the famous oracle at Delphi, a mysterious place where the god Apollo answered questions of humans. The response of the god was: "Only a wooden wall will save you".

The Athenians were puzzled. A wooden wall? How was that going to stop the Persian army? But general Themistocles had an answer of his own: the wooden wall, he argued, was nothing less than the fleet they had spent these last few years hurriedly constructing. A fleet of wooden ships would defeat the Persians.

Themistocles was right. The Persians were defeated at the great naval battle of Salamis. This caused Xerxes to flee and leave his army.

Themistocles

the Battle of Salamis

A GOLDEN THRONE

Xerxes was sure his fleet could easliy destroy the Greek fleet.

His army had just taken the city of Athens and destroyed it. The Acroplis lay in ruins.

But under the command of general Themistocles the Athenians had abandoned their city in time and they were building as many warships as they could.

Then they waited in the bay of Salamis for the Persian fleet to arrive.

King Xerxes was so sure that he would defeat the Athenians that he had his golden throne carried along so he could watch the Greeks be defeated by his army from a nearby hillside. He must have been pretty disappointed!

Xerxes watches the Battle of Salamis

The effects of the Persian Wars

As a result of the Persian wars, most of the Persian fleet was destroyed.

The Persian army retreated from Greece.

We learned that Greek poleis often fought against each other, unless they had a common enemy.

Well, that common enemy was now gone. So the Greek poleis started again to fight amongst themselves. Sparta and Athens even fought a long and bloody war which left both cities weakened.

In the meantime, a new power arose north of Greece. King Philip II of Macedon rose to power and, in 

338 BC, he rode south and conquered the cities of Thebes and Athens, uniting most of Greece under his rule.

But it was his son, Alexander, who would lead the Greeks into a whole new adventure...

The Battle of Salamis, modern illustration

Alexander III, king of Macedonia, is known as Alexander the Great. In his short life he conquered almost all parts of the world that were known to his people.

The Alexander Mosaic, dating from circa 100 BC, is a Roman floor mosaic originally from a villa in the Roman city Pompeii. It depicts a battle between the armies of Alexander the Great and Darius III of Persia and measures 2.72 by 5.13 metres. The original is preserved in the Naples National Archaeological Museum. The mosaic is believed to be a copy of an early 3rd-century BC Hellenistic painting.

Alexander the Great

Alexander was born in 356 BC in Pella, the capital of Macedonia, a kingdom to the north of the Greek states. The Greek philosopher Aristotle gave him lessons. But Alexander’s chief interest was war. 

In 338 BC Alexander’s father, Philip II, brought all the Greek city-states except Sparta under his rule. Young Alexander commanded one section of the Macedonian army.

In 336 BC Philip II was killed and Alexander became king when he was only 19 years old. He soon won the loyalty of nearly all the Greek city-states. In 334 BC he brought together a large army and invaded the Persian Empire. He freed the Ionians from Persian rule and made them his allies.

Alexander tamed a wild horse named Bucephalus when he was a kid. It was his main horse until it died of old age. Alexander named a city in India after his horse.

You can watch the scene from the 2004 movie Alexander how he tamed Bucephalus.

Movie poster of the film Alexander from 2004.

This video is no longer available

Welke video was dit?

An important factor in Alexander's success against the much larger Persian army was the use of the battle formation known as the phalanx.  You can see the phalanx in action in the movie clip from the film Alexander

Alexander conquers the Persian Empire

Here is the order of his conquests:

• First he moved through Asia Minor and what is today Turkey. 
• He took over Syria defeating the Persian Army at Issus and then laying siege to Tyre.
• Next, he conquered Egypt. Near the Nile River he founded the city of Alexandria.
• After Egypt came Babylonia and Persia, including the city of Susa.
• Then he moved through Persia and began to prepare for a campaign in India.

Alexander leads his army into the battle at the Granicus river. Modern illustration

At this point Alexander had accumulated one of the largest empires in history. He became "king of Asia". However, his soldiers were ready to revolt. They wanted to return home to see their wives and children. Alexander agreed and his army turned back.

Death of Alexander

Alexander only made it back to Babylon where he became suddenly sick and died. No one is sure what he died from, but many suspect poison. 

Alexander had no children to inherit his kingdom. So when he died his empire was divided up amongst his generals. These generals ended up fighting each other for many years as the empire fell apart.

Cutting the knot (de knoop doorhakken)

Sometimes we use phrases that are very familiar to us and everybody knows what they mean. But actually, they make no sense whatsoever.

Have you ever really cut a knot when you made a decision? Because that is what it means.

Many of these phrases come from stories or events from history. Cutting the knot comes from a story about Alexander the Great.

Check it out here

Alexander cutting the Gordian knot

The Hellenistic Period and the end of Greece.

As Alexander conquered Persia he built colonies and cities modelled after Greek cities. He left behind Greeks to rule these cities. Many Persians adopted the Greek way of living. They learned the Greek language, worshipped Greek gods and read Greek literature. In addition, Alexander also adopted Persian things. For instance, he began to wear Persian clothing and he brought Persian soldiers into his army.

Alexander hoped by mixing these two cultures that the Persians would not see Greek rule as alien. Thus they would not rebel against the Greeks.

Eventually, the Greek influence became so widespread that the period from Alexander’s rule to 146 BC became known as the Hellenistic Period. Hellenistic means “Greek-like”. The art and culture of the Hellenistic Period was a mixture of Greek and Eastern art and culture.

In 146 BC this period ended. A new power had emerged in Italy; Rome. The Romans conquered Greece in 146 BC.

Persian warriors, as seen on a part of the wall of Babylon, from before the 4th century BC.

summary part 1: Greece at war

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Summary part 2: Alexander the Great

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You have finished with this lesson, meaning:
- You have read the texts
- You have made the summary
- You have done the practise questions.
Are you well prepared for a quiz / test or do you need extra help?

If you still need help, if something is not clear, you can ask your question here.

congratulations

You are finished with this lesson.

If you want to see more about the Persian Wars, you can watch this video....