The Persian Wars and the Parthenon
I. The Persians
• 1. Cyrus the Great (circa 550-530 BCE)
• 2. A Multi-Cultural Empire and Religious Toleration– Persian rulers supported Zoroastrianism, but allowed
their subject peoples to maintain their own religions
– Captured Babylon 539 BCE; allowed Jews to return to their homeland
– Issued Decrees to rebuild Temple in Jerusalem
– Efforts to Conquer the Greek Mainland 490-80 BCE
• Persians came into contact with the Greeks at the end of the Greek Archaic period.
• Although the Greeks spoke related dialects and shared some religious beliefs and cultural practices they were divided into hundreds of different independent city states at this time.
Early Greek Civilization
• Minoan Culture (c. 2,000-1,500 BCE)
• Mycenaean Greece (c. 1,600-1,200 BCE)
• Dark Ages (c. 1,200-800 BCE)
• Homer?
• Archaic Period (750-500 BCE)
• Classical Period (500-327 BCE)
II. Reading the Parthenon (or any other building/work of art)
• 1. Without making inferences describe what you see.
• 2. Investigate the material context of whatever you are looking at. What is it made of, who made it, who paid for it?
• 3. Investigate the intellectual/cultural and political context. What ideas or conflicts provided the context?
3. Political Context
• Built between 447-432 BCE: After Greco-Persian Wars before Peloponnesian War on the site where the Persians had destroyed the previous temple.
• How did the Greeks and Persians come into conflict?
• Relevant Historical Developments– Greek Colonization throughout the Mediterranean
and Black Seas (750-550) along Anatolian coast of Ionia (cities like Miletus)
– Ionian Greek cities become part of Persian Empire during the campaigns of Cyrus c. 540-30s BCE
– Ionian Greek Revolt 499 against Persians• Sought help from Sparta and Athens; Athens participated
in sack of Persian provincial capital of Sardis in Anatolia
– Persians crush Ionian Revolt
– In revenge for Athenian support of Ionians Persian Naval Expedition 490 (See brown line on map)Battle of Marathon a small Athenian force successfully Greek phalanx to defeat Persians
– Xerxes’ Invasion 480 BCE; a massive army of 150,000 and 700 supply ships
• Out of 700 Greek city-states roughly 40 formed alliance to fight the Persians
• Battles of Thermopylae (300 Spartans and 5,200 other Greeks held the Persians for two days; allowed evacuation of Athens and preparation for Salamis)
• Effectively using their triremes the Greeks are victorious in the naval battle of Salamis and destroy the Persian fleet
• Without support Xerxes must withdraw the bulk of his army; the surviving forces are defeated in 479 at Platea
Hoplite
Phalanx
• After the defeat of Persian invasion Sparta withdrew from alliance leaving Athens as its main leader
• Athens and other maritime poleis form the Delian League an anti-Persian defensive alliance 477 BCE
• Athens coerced the transfer of the League treasury from the Panhellenic sactuary at Delos to Athens in 454; used money from other members to built the Parthenon
• The Political Relations of the Greek Poleis (449-431 BCE)– Growing Athenian Dominance (Imperial Ambitions);
neighbors and former allies viewed Athens as domineering and using League as the basis for its own empire
– The Parthenon symbolic of Athenian Imperial Ambitions
• Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta (431-404 BCE)
For the Thucydides Reading
• City-State: Sparta=Lacedaemon (region Peloponnese)
• City-State: Athens (region Attica)
• City-State: Mytilene (island of Lesbos)
• Hellas=Greece
• Hellenes=Greeks
• trireme=Greek battle ship