Military history
The Greco-Persian Wars were not a continuous campaign between two immutable blocs. They began with the revolt of Greek cities already incorporated into the Persian Empire, then spread across the Aegean and mainland Greece. Coalitions changed, as did their aims: after the invasions of Darius and Xerxes, Athens carried the war eastwards and gradually turned a naval alliance into an instrument of power.
The revolt of Miletus and several Ionian cities prompted a Persian response by sea and land. In 490, Hippias guided the expedition towards Marathon, a plain Herodotus describes as suitable for cavalry; the Athenians then left the city to bar the road, without having chosen the landing site themselves.
Xerxes crossed the Hellespont with an army and fleet whose ancient totals cannot be treated as modern headcounts. Thermopylae did not stop the advance. At Salamis, the choice of location and the naval coalition's fragile cohesion became issues in their own right before the battle.
After Plataea and Mycale, operations shifted to the Aegean, Cyprus and Egypt. The league whose treasury was initially kept on Delos came under Athenian leadership. Hostilities became less frequent around the middle of the century; the existence, date and exact terms of a ‘Peace of Callias’ around 449 remain disputed.
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Military history
5.28–126 [5.35–38; 5.97–103]
Outbreak and competing objectives of the Ionian Revolt, Athenian aid, the Sardis campaign and the Persian response.
View ↗7; 8.40–96; 9
Xerxes's invasion, constraints within the Greek coalition, choice of the Salamis strait, Persian withdrawals, Plataea and Mycale.
View ↗1.89–112 [1.95–100; 1.104–112]
Transfer of naval leadership to Athens, the Delian treasury, coercion of allies, Eurymedon, and the campaigns in Cyprus and Egypt.
View ↗Erga-Logoi 8.2 (2020): 7–22 [7–10; 15–19]
Debate over the authenticity, date and bilateral or unilateral nature of the peace attributed to Callias.
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