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