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Compare And Contrast The Persian Wars

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The Persian Wars created many opportunities for heroes to stand up in defense of Greece but out of all of them, Themistocles stands above them all. By any metric, Themistocles was a strong military tactician who used the Athens navy to strengthen ground combat. While Leonidas was a hero to Sparta and one of the heroes during the Persian Wars, his only true claim to the being the real hero can be found only in his sacrifice to Xerxes’ Army when he along with 300 Spartans made their stand.
Athens naval fleet was greatly bolstered by Themistocles after he built the Piraeus. This was a port that had been fortified in Athens and was one of the most extensive naval bases in all Greece. The construction of the Piraeus, the Athens’ maritime power in …show more content…

While most historian of the time overexaggerate the Persian navy, estimates put it around 500 ships. The Greek contingent could only bring around 300 ships to bare. 200 hundred of which were from Athens and were commanded by Thermopylae himself. Unlike Leonidas, Themistocles did not have easy access to terrain to help fight back against an enemy. The open water leaves no tactical advantages that can be exploited to overcome a greater force. This means that for a force to win while being outnumbered, it meant that for a commander to win while being outnumbered, they had to have a far better strategy. In this case, he sent word to the Persians that the Greek fleet was beginning to fall apart. This made the Persian fleet rush into battle to exploit the weakness they were told about. Which in turn allowed Themistocles to meet the Persians in a location closer to the shoreline and cliffs. This meant that Thermopylae took the open water off the Persian battle plans. Therefore, Themistocles’ win during the battle at Artemision was far better than the Spartan victory at Thermopylae.
After the naval battle at Artemision was over, Themistocles had pushed back a far larger Persian navy through the narrow strait. While the Persian navy traveled through the narrow straits, winds and a large swell would beat the ships making

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After this, the Persian navy continued to the isle of Euboea, where the expeditionary force attacked Eretria, one of the Greek cities that had supported Greek rebels in Asia Minor. Fighting continued for six days, but the town was betrayed on the seventh day. Its  inhabitants were carried off as prisoners. The part of Athenian territory opposite Euboea -and also the best ground for cavalry to maneuver upon- was at Marathon, and it was to this village that Hippias directed Datis, Artaphernes, and the 25,000 Persians.

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The most important factors that allowed the Persian empire to become great are their economy and their military. Document Three talks about how Persia built elaborate imperial centers, using art and architecture to demonstrate power. The building of imperial centers helped strengthen the empire by being central hubs. They allowed Persia to control the far reaches of their Empire. Military, Trading routes, and Communications were all aided by the imperial centers.

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This is an example of one of the major problems on Odysseus’ journey. He is always losing his men in battles. This doesn’t help him at all his manpower slowly dwindles down until just him remains. In the encounter with the Sirens Odysseus had to listen to Circe’s warning so he wouldn’t be lured by their song. Odysseus took the advice of Circe for his encounter with the Sirens:“ I carved a massive cake of beeswax into bits, rolling them out I then went down the line and covered the men’s ears heavily” (Homer 933).

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Charles Thomas Dr. Kostopoulos Greek Book Review Gates of Fire The Greek based novel that I chose to read and write about for this book review was Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield. Pressfield's inspiring and critically acclaimed novel tells the story about the battle of Thermopylae, which was the bloody battle fought between the Greeks and the Persians in Thermopylae, Greece in 480 BC. Normally a historically significant event like this would be told through a scholarly point of view, however Pressfield decides to put an entertaining twist as he decides to tell the story from the eyes of a young Spartan by the name of Xeones. The main theme that is presented in Gates of Fire is patriotism, which according to Dictonary.com is the “devoted

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He commanded the largest Greek contingent at the battle, but his control of his fellow Spartans wasn 't complete. A key moment of the battle came when the Greek army decided to move from an exposed position without easy access to water to a new position near Plataea. When the move began Amompharetus, 'lochagos of the Pitanata lochos ', one of the Spartan officers, refused to take part in the movement, on the grounds that Spartans didn 't retreat. Pausanias was unable to

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This is because Athens were better at commanding a successful naval battle, in a way the Spartans never could. Without Themistocles persuasion in his speech, echoing the words of Miltiades from the Battle of Marathon, ‘This is your chance to save Greece’, they would not have been able to afford the ‘heavy ships’ that worked as battering rams against the Persians lighter ships. Therefore, the Spartans do not deserve as much credit as the Athenians as the Athenians could still have won the battle of Salamis without Spartan aid. However, Herodotus claims that in Themistocles speech ot the allies, he states, ‘their land forces will keep pace with the fleet’. This acknowledges the fact that Themistocles, and in turn Athens, knew that this would not be the end of the battle.

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