The Persian Wars

1. The Persian Wars West. Civ. Mr. Lawrence

2. The Persian Empire • The largest Empire in the know world • One of the Most powerful empires in History • Worshiped the King as God

3. The Persian Army • Made of thousands of lightly armored, fast troops • Built for Desert Warfare • Made of Veteran Troops who had never lost a War • The Immortals • The Kings Personnel Body Guard • Always numbered 10,000 men

4. Greek Forces • Small in number but extremely well trained • Iron weapons and Armor • Slow Moving built for mountain fighting • Fought in the Phalanx formation which would become the most powerful fighting formation of the Ancient World

5. The First Persian War • Fought between Athens and Persia • Over the Spread of the Persian Empire into Ionia • The Persian King at this time was Darius the Great • The Athenians Defeated the Persians land forces at the Battle of Marathon • The Persians greatly out numbered the Greeks • However the Phalanx and Iron armor of the Greeks was to powerful for the Persian forces

6. The Second Persian War • Lead by King Xerxes to conquer all of Greece • The Persians formed the Largest Army the world had ever seen and marched across the Hellespontinto Greece • The Greeks United to face this threat

7. Timeline of War • The First Major Battle was at Thermopylae (480 BCE) • The Persian Forces burnt Athens (480-479 BCE) • However, they land forces were defeated at the battle of Plataea (479 BCE) • The Persian Navy was destroyed at Salamis (480 BCE)

9. The Consequences of the War • The Greeks Glorified in their victory • The Athenians would gain in power and build an empire in Greece • Dawning of the Golden Age of Greece • The Persian Empire would lose much of its power and slowly begin to fall apart