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PERSIAN TIMELINE
2000-1800 BC, Aryan migration from
Southern Russia to Near East The Medes Deioces, 728BC - 675BC
Phraortes (Kashtariti?), 675BC - 653BC Scythian interregnum
Cyaxares, 625BC - 585BC Astyages, 585BC - 550BC 628
BC, Birth of Zartosht, Zoroaster, the Persian Prophet
Achaemenid Dynasty
Achaemenes Teispes
Cyrus I Cambyses I (Kambiz)
Cyrus the Great, Start of Achaemenid Empire, 559BC -530BC Kambiz
II, 530BC - 522BC Smerdis (the Magian), 522BC
Darius I the Great, 522BC - 486BC Xerxes I (Khashyar), 486BC -
465BC Artaxerxes I , 465BC - 425BC
Xerxes II, 425BC - 424BC (45 days) Darius II, 423BC - 404BC
Artaxerxes II, 404BC - 359BC Artaxerxes III, 359BC - 339BC
Arses, 338BC - 336BC Darius III, 336BC - 330BC
Helenic Period Alexander (III), 330BC - 323BC
Philip III (Arrhidaeus), 323BC - 317BC Alexander IV, 317BC - 312BC
Seleucids
Seleucus I, 312BC - 281BC Antiochus I Soter,
281BC - 261BC (coregent) Seleucus, 280BC - 267BC (coregent)
Antiochus II Theos, 261BC - 246BC Sleucus II Callinicus, 246BC - 238BC
The Persian Empire dominated Mesopotamia from 612-330
BC. The Achaemenid Persians of central Iran ruled an empire which comprised Iran, Mesopotamia, Syria, Egypt, and parts of
Asia Minor and India.
Their ceremonial capital was Persepolis in southern
Iran founded by King Darius the Great (522-486 B.C.). Persepolis was burned by Alexander the Great in 331 B.C.
Only the columns, stairways, and door jambs of
its great palaces survived the fire. The stairways, adorned with reliefs representing the king, his court, and delegates of
his empire bringing gifts, demonstrate the might of the Persian monarch.
THE PERSIAN WARS
In the 5th century BC the vast Persian Empire attempted to conquer
Greece. If the Persians had succeeded, they would have set up local tyrants, called satraps, to rule Greece and would have
crushed the first stirrings of democracy in Europe. The survival of Greek culture and political ideals depended on the ability
of the small, disunited Greek city-states to band together and defend themselves against Persia's overwhelming strength. The
struggle, known in Western history as the Persian Wars, or Greco-Persian Wars, lasted 20 years--from 499 to 479 BC.
Persia already numbered among its conquests the Greek cities
of Ionia in Asia Minor, where Greek civilization first flourished. The Persian Wars began when some of these cities revolted
against Darius I, Persia's king, in 499 BC.
Athens sent 20 ships to aid the Ionians. Before the Persians
crushed the revolt, the Greeks burned Sardis, capital of Lydia. Angered, Darius determined to conquer Athens and extend his
empire westward beyond the Aegean Sea.
In 492 BC Darius gathered together a great military force and
sent 600 ships across the Hellespont. A sudden storm wrecked half his fleet when it was rounding rocky Mount Athos on the
Macedonian coast.
Two years later Darius dispatched a new battle fleet of 600
triremes. This time his powerful galleys crossed the Aegean Sea without mishap and arrived safely off Attica, the part of
Greece that surrounds the city of Athens.
The Persians landed on the plain of Marathon, about 25 miles
(40 kilometers) from Athens. When the Athenians learned of their arrival, they sent a swift runner, Pheidippides, to ask Sparta
for aid, but the Spartans, who were conducting a religious festival, could not march until the moon was full. Meanwhile the
small Athenian army encamped in the foothills on the edge of the Marathon Plain.
The Athenian general Miltiades ordered his small force to advance.
He had arranged his men so as to have the greatest strength in the wings. As he expected, his center was driven back. The
two wings then united behind the enemy. Thus hemmed in, the Persians' bows and arrows were of little use. The stout Greek
spears spread death and terror. The invaders rushed in panic to their ships. The Greek historian Herodotus says the Persians
lost 6,400 men against only 192 on the Greek side. Thus ended the battle of Marathon (490 BC), one of the decisive battles
of the world.
Darius planned another expedition, but he died before preparations
were completed. This gave the Greeks a ten-year period to prepare for the next battles. Athens built up its naval supremacy
in the Aegean under the guidance of Themistocles.
In 480 BC the Persians returned, led by King Xerxes, the son
of Darius. To avoid another shipwreck off Mount Athos, Xerxes had a canal dug behind the promontory. Across the Hellespont
he had the Phoenicians and Egyptians place two bridges of ships, held together by cables of flax and papyrus. A storm destroyed
the bridges, but Xerxes ordered the workers to replace them. For seven days and nights his soldiers marched across the bridges.
On the way to Athens, Xerxes found a small force of Greek soldiers
holding the narrow pass of Thermopylae, which guarded the way to central Greece. The force was led by Leonidas, king of Sparta.
Xerxes sent a message ordering the Greeks to deliver their arms. "Come and take them," replied Leonidas.
For two days the Greeks' long spears held the pass. Then a Greek
traitor told Xerxes of a roundabout path over the mountains. When Leonidas saw the enemy approaching from the rear, he dismissed
his men except the 300 Spartans, who were bound, like himself, to conquer or die. Leonidas was one of the first to fall. Around
their leader's body the gallant Spartans fought first with their swords, then with their hands, until they were slain to the
last man.
The Persians moved on to Attica and found it deserted. They
set fire to Athens with flaming arrows. Xerxes' fleet held the Athenian ships bottled up between the coast of Attica and the
island of Salamis. His ships outnumbered the Greek ships three to one. The Persians had expected an easy victory, but one
after another their ships were sunk or crippled.
Crowded into the narrow strait, the heavy Persian vessels moved
with difficulty. The lighter Greek ships rowed out from a circular formation and rammed their prows into the clumsy enemy
vessels. Two hundred Persian ships were sunk, others were captured, and the rest fled. Xerxes and his forces hastened back
to Persia.
Soon after, the rest of the Persian army was scattered
at Plataea (479 BC). In the same year Xerxes' fleet was defeated at Mycale. Although a treaty was not signed until 30 years
later, the threat of Persian domination was ended.
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