The War

The Archidamian War

With the exception of Corinth, both Sparta and Athens were land-ruling powers. The war named after Sparta's king Archidamus II, started with Sparta accessing the regions surrounding Athens i.e. Attica. Athens mainly consisted of the peninsula of Attica and islands in the Aegean Sea. Athens had already removed their wealth from these islands and controlled them through navy.
Sparta thought that attacking the productive land of Attica, it would pressurize Athens to come forward to start the battle in a formal manner. Athens's army was definitely inferior to Sparta and allies. But this attack did not have much effect of Athens's because; their food supply mainly came from Egypt and Crimea.
The Spartan's attack on Athens lasted just forty days in 430 BC, because the soldiers wanted to go back home during the harvest season. Back home the Spartan control over their slaves (helots) could not be left loose.
Athens strategy was to rely was more on its fleet than on its army. Avoiding open battle with the hoplites, they went on successful victories at Naupactus. Then again in 430 BC, Athens was hit by an outbreak of Plague. Nearly 1/4th of its population died along with General Pericles (who lead the first two years of the war) and his sons. Manpower was considerably reduced and no one came forward to help fearing infection. Even the Spartan invasion was kept on hold for the same reason. After the death of Pericles started naval attacks on the coastal allies of Sparta, under the leadership of Demosthenes. Their attack on the port of Pylos helped them somewhat. This attack hit the Spartan, where it hurt the most, the helots. The helots looked after the fields while the citizens fought for Sparta. In 425 BC Athens captured 300-400 hoplites, which made Athens's position dominant.
But the Spartan's captured the colony of Amphipolis, which was used to finance the war, under the control of General Brasidas. In the consequent battles both Brasidas and Cleon (Athens's leader) died, leading to a truce.

Peace of Nicias:

The Peace of Nicias lasted for about six years. But small battles were fought around Peloponnese. When the Sparta avoided any interference in this matter a coalition of Argos, Mantinea and Elis. Argos revolted against Sparta. Spartan failed to break the coalition.
The Battle of Mantinea was the largest fought during the Peloponnesian War. It was the Lacedaemonians and the Tegeans against Argos, Athens, Mantinea, and Arcadia. Sparta won the battle, retained control over Peloponnese and reestablished their position.

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The War

The Peloponnesian War

 The War fought between the two leading city-states in ancient Greece, Athens and Sparta. 

Description:

The Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.) took place between the Athenian empire and Peloponnesian league lead by the Spartans. The Peloponnesian league was a coalition of the Thebes, Corinth and Sparta.

The war was divided into 3 phases: The Archidamian War, The Sicilian war and The Ionian or Decelean War: phase. The war commenced on 4 April 431 B.C. when the Thebans launched a surprise attack on Plataea, who as a partner of Athens. The war ended on 25 April 404 B.C. when Athens surrendered.
The Peloponnesian War remodeled the entire Greek state. The Athenian empire, which was a stronger side prior to the war, was reduced to a mere vulnerable slave of Sparta. After the war, Sparta was the ruling state of Greece. The war destroyed the economies and brought poverty and sufferings to the state. Athens could never gain its lost prosperity that it was proud of, pre-war.

Reasons:

The main reason for the launch of the war was the Spartan fear of Athens's growing power and prosperity. Athens rule over most of the Mediterranean region along with Greece/Hellas, 50 years preceding the war, instigated the war.
According to Thucydides, that after Athens became the leader of the Delian League, they became the supreme power known as the Athenian Empire. They nearly drove out the Persians from their regions of Aegean and occupied supremacy over a large number of territories. Athens naval power was also growing day-by-day endangering the bordering states.
During the Persian war in 480 BC, Athens power had grown by leaps and bounds and with the help of its allies continued its attacks on the Persian territories of Ionia and Aegean. Athens also constructed walls around its empire to save them from Spartan land attack, when the Persians fled Greece. This enraged the Spartans, who took no action at that time. 
In 459 BC Athens took advantage between the Megara and Corinth war siding with Megara. This helped them gain a foothold on the Isthmus of Corinth. This resulted in a war, known as the 'The First Peloponnesian War' fought between Athens and Sparta, Corinth, Aegean and other states. At the end of the war, however, Athens backed out from Greek mainland, due to an enormous attack by the Spartans. A thirty years treaty was signed between Athens and Sparta in 446 BC.

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The War

The Battle of Marathon

 

Herodotus writes the description of the 'Battle of Marathon'.
Athens was a famous city and the Persians wanted to attack Athens. So they took help of tyrant Hippias who originally a Greek, but was banished. He took support of King Darius of Persia. Filled with anger Hippias was waiting for such a chance. The battle started around 490 BC. Along with the army, they started moving towards Greece, looting and razing islands along their way. The army consisted of about 20,000 to 60,000 men.
Athens requested help from Sparta but was not entertained because the Spartans were not allowed to leave the city because of some religious reasons. So the only coalition was with the Plataeans, who as an ally of Athens since a long time.
The Greek commander in charge for the Battle of Marathon was Miltiades. His army consisted of about 11,000 people. The battle was delayed by five days, which was an advantage to the Greek's as they had more time on their hands to arrange for provisions. Miltiades ordered his army to attack the Persians at first sight. This prevented the Persians from taking position and attacking the Greeks in a systematic manner. The Greek hoplites were far superior to Persian for a hand-to-hand fight. The Greeks maintained their formation and when the Persians counterattacked they retreated in order. They closed in on the Persians. They were able to defeat their enemies and join forces behind the Persian center, surrounding it. The Persians were frightened and Greeks and broke down on them with great force. Huge amount of army and cavalry was killed. About 6400 Persians were died compared to 192 Athenians and 11 Plataeans.
It is said that a injure messenger traveled to Athens to inform the Athenians that they were victorious in the war. As soon as he delivered the message he collapsed and died on spot. This event is an inspiration for today's marathon.
After the battle ended the Persian commanders were given a signal of a raised shield. They wanted to catch the Athenian army unguarded and then traveled to Phaleron. The Athenians stationed two groups of their army at Phaleron and went back to Athens. The Athenian army in Phaleron welcomed the Persians. The Persians had to retreat back to their Asian base.

Importance of The Battle of Marathon:

The after effects of the Battle of Marathon were immense for both the Athenians and the Persians. The Athenins had proved their strength in front of Persia who was a strong enemy.
The Greeks started believing in their fighting power and after the Battle of Marathon many Greek states gave up their support to Persia and decided to stand by Athens and Sparta.
The Battle of Marathon was a big blow to the Persians who were such a powerful rulers. While the Ionian revolt and their weakness at the sea were one of the reasons, which were a threat to their power, Battle of Marathon was an indication to weakening hold on Western part of their holdings


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The war

The First Persian War

After the Ionian revolt ended, Darius decided to expand his empire's territories. In 493 BC the Persians defeated the remains of the Ionian revolt. This was a very good chance for Darius to extend his empire and he did so by acquiring the islands of East Aegean and the Propontis. After the revolt Darius selected his son-in-law Mardonius for resettlement of the cities destroyed in the revolt. This change was shockingly civil compared to the known cruel Persian rulers. Democracy was introduced, tax system was more liberal, and prisoners were released and sent back to hometowns. Darius civil attitude was a calculatory move to pressurize the Greek states to surrender, which did so. But Athens and Sparta were exceptions.
In 492 BC Mardonius tried to control as many Hellenic cities as he could. While the army was sent to capture Hellespont, he along with his navy took over Ionia. 
From there he joined his army in Hellespont, capturing Thrace and Macedon on his way. While Thrace surrendered without revolting, Macedon was reduced from an ally to a city-state. He then moved to Thassos but luck would have it, he faced a powerful storm where nearly 20,000 men of his army were killed.
Datis and Artaphernes gathered force to teach Attica and Eretria a lesson for supporting Ionia.
Traveling from Cilicia to Rhodes, they moved upto Samos and then to Naxos. The residents there surrendered themselves to Eretria. Eretria was captured and looted and then surrendered the city back.

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The Wars

The Ionian Revolt

The start of First Persian War?

 

The Greco-Persian Wars are a sequence of wars fought between the great empire of Persia and the coalition of Greek city-states. It lasted for about half a decade from 499 BC to 488 BC. Even as we say Greco-Persian Wars its not always that all of Greece fought against Persian as their strength and authority was much greater.
The Ionian Revolt initiated the First Major Persian War. During 539 BC Cyrus The Great ruled Persia and most of West Asia. During his reign his first captured Lydia, which lay along the coast of Anatolia. The cities that were dependent of Lydia automatically became helpless and Cyrus next move was to capture those cities. The residents of these were then called Ionians. Ionia is today based in Modern Turkey. Cyrus was cruel ruler. He increased the taxes and appointed tyrants in these regions.
His son Cambyses supported Cyrus and he too captured Egypt and some Greek islands between Anatolia and Greece, the most important one being the island of Samos.
Later Darius, Cambyses son who became the king, attacked the Scythians, but he lost. He along with his army returned back to Persia.Darius move proved useful to him, as the other Greek states thought that they were next in line to be attacked. Macedon sought a peace treaty with Persia in 510 BC. When Persia decided to attack Naxos, Aristagoras was appointed to lead the battle. Aristagoras was a tyrant of Miletus known to be close to King of Persia. But the Persians lost. Seeing that strong rulers like Persia could lose two consecutive times the Persian occupied Greek city-states decided to revolt. This is known as the Ionian revolt. But the Ionians were defeated in the Battle of Lade in 494 BC. The Ionian revolt lasted for about half a decade. 

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Olyimpic Games of Greece

Olympics Through time the history of the Olympic Games from the time when athletic contests were held during religious ceremonies until the First International Olympic Games in 1896
Little has changed about the design of Horse Racing Tracks from ancient Greece to modern times.

Olympic Games of Greece

The Greeks invented athletic contests and held them in honour of their gods. The Isthmos game were staged every two years at the Isthmos of Corinth. The Pythian games took place every four years near Delphi. The most famous games held at Olympia, South- West of Greece, which took place every four years. The ancient Olympics seem to have begun in the early 700 BC, in honour of Zeus. No women were allowed to watch the games and only Greek nationals could participate. One of the ancient wonders was a statue of Zeus at Olympia, made of gold and ivory by a Greek sculptor Pheidias. This was placed inside a Temple, although it was a towering 42 feet high.
The games at Olympia were greatly expanded from a one-day festival of athletics and wrestling to, in 472 BC, five days with many events. The order of the events is not precisely known, but the first day of the festival was devoted to sacrifices. On the Middle Day of the festival 100 oxen were sacrificed in honor of a God. Athletes also often prayed and made small sacrifices themselves..
On the second day, the foot-race, the main event of the games, took place in the stadium, an oblong area enclosed by sloping banks of earth.
At Olympia there were 4 different types of races; The first was stadion, the oldest event of the Games, where runners sprinted for 1 stade, the length of the stadium(192m). The other races were a 2-stade race (384 m.), and a long-distance run which ranged from 7 to 24 stades (1,344 m. to 4,608 m.).The fourth type of race involved runners wearing full amor, which was 2-4 stade race (384 m. to 768 m.), used to build up speed and stamina for military purposes.
On other days, wrestling, boxing, and the pancratium, a combination of the two, were held. In wrestling, the aim was to throw the opponent to the ground three times, on either his hip, back or shoulder. In ancient Greek wrestling biting and genital holds were illegal.

Boxing became more and more brutal; at first the pugilists wound straps of soft leather over their fingers as a means of deadening the blows, but in later times hard leather, sometimes weighted with metal, was used. In the pancratium, the most rigorous of the sports, the contest continued until one or the other of the participants acknowledged defeat.

Horse-racing, in which each entrant owned his horse, was confined to the wealthy but was nevertheless a popular attraction. The course was 6 laps of the track, with separate races for whereupon the rider would have no stirrups. It was only wealthy people that could pay for such training, equipment, and feed of both the rider and the horses. So whichever horse won it was not the rider who was awarded the Olive wreath but the owner. There were also Chariot races, that consisted of both 2-horse and 4-horse chariot races, with separate races for chariots drawn by foals. There was also a race was between carts drawn by a team of 2 mules, which was 12 laps of the stadium track.

After the horse-racing came the pentathlon, a series of five events: sprinting, long-jumping, javelin-hurling, discus-throwing, and wrestling.
The ancient Greeks considered the rhythm and precision of an athlete throwing the discus as important as his strength.
The discus was a circle shaped stone, iron, bronze, or lead. There were different sizes according to age groups. The javelin was a long wooden stick shape with spear head, similar height to that of a person. In the middle was bound a thong for a hurler's fingers to grip and guide to the correct angle it was thrown.
To Jump long distances athletes used lead or stone weights to increase the length of the jump. These weights were known as 'halteres' were held in front of the athlete during his ascent, and then swung behind his back and dropped during his descent to help propel him. 

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