Transcript The Persian War

The Persian War
Cause
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Persian Empire included Greek citystates in Ionia (present day Turkey)
Greek revolt against the Persians
Persians crush the revolt and Darius
I wants revenge against the Greeks
• Decides to invade Greece
Battle of Marathon
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Greeks use the Phalanx
• Phalanx designed by Miltiades
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Greeks outnumbered 12 to 1
Greeks win
Phidippides runs 26 miles from battlefield
to Athens to announce victory
• Phidippides announces victory and then dies
• A marathon is named after this run
Greek Hoplite
Aspis
Hoplite
Spear
After Marathon
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Darius I still wants to conquer Greece
482 B.C. – Darius’s son, Xerxes, takes a
massive army to Greece to conquer the
Greeks
• Herodotus, know as the “Father of History”
(world’s 1st great historian), writes the
Persians had 1 million men
• Xerxes takes these men across the Hellespont
by building a massive pontoon bridge
Battle of Thermopylae
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Xerxes has many more men than the
Greeks
Greeks realize that they cannot fight
the Persians
King Leonidas of Sparta volunteers
himself and 300 Spartans to protect
a Greek retreat
Thermopylae
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Thermopylae, means “Hot Gates,” is
a narrow mountain pass that
neutralized Persian numbers
Xerxes asks Leonidas for surrender
• “Come and Get Them”
• “So much the better, we fight in the
shade”
Thermopylae
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Leonidas fights the Persians in the
pass
Greeks are betrayed by Ephiliates, a
fellow Greek, who shows Xerxes a
path around the pass
• Xerxes surrounds Leonidas and asks
Leonidas for surrender
• Leonidas fights till death
After Thermopylae
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Xerxes moves his
army towards
Athens and sacks
Athens
Greek generals
meet to try and
defeat Persians
Battle of Salamis
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A major naval battle between Greeks and
Persians
Battle plan designed by Themistocles, an
Athenian commander and head of the
Greek Navy
Themistocles lures Persians into shallow
water and runs their ships aground
• Greek Triremes stay much shallower in the
water
Ship Drafts
Draft – How much of the ship is below water
Persian ships – deep draft
Greek ships – shallow draft
Greek Trireme
Battle of Platea
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After Salamis, the Greek city-states
join forces to form a massive army
This Greek army meets the Persians
on the field of Platea
The Persians are completely
destroyed and the war ends
Major Greek Military
Advancements and
Inventions
Helepolis
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Name means “The Taker of Cities”
• Invented Demetrius the Conqueror
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A massive siege tower used during
the siege of Rhodes
130 ft. high, 65 feet wide
• Divided into 9 stories
• Each story equipped w/ a catapult
The Ram Tortoise
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A gigantic, armored battering ram
The ram tortoise was pushed by a
team of men
The ram tortoise was covered to
protect men from arrows
• Also had a platform on top to allow
archers to shoot at opposing defenses
The Death Ray
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Invented by Archimedes, a Greek
mathematician
Used to defeat the Roman at
Syracuse in 214 B.C.
Archimedes used concave mirrors to
refract sunlight
The Steam Cannon
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Also invented by Archimedes
Archimedes regulates the flow of
steam through a series of tubes
When the pressure built up, it fired a
cannon ball out of the cannon
The Archimedes Screw
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Also invented by Archimedes
A hallow pipe with a
spiral tube
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The screw scoops up
water as it is turned
and carries the water
up the spiral
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• Once the water reaches the top, it drains from the pipe