Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps
- List of text-figures
- List of chronological tables
- Preface
- PART I THE PERSIAN EMPIRE
- PART II THE GREEK STATES
- 4 The tyranny of the Pisistratidae
- 5 The reform of the Athenian state by Cleisthenes
- 6 Greece before the Persian invasion
- 7 Archaic Greek society
- 8 The Ionian Revolt
- 9 The expedition of Datis and Artaphernes
- 10 The expedition of Xerxes
- 11 The liberation of Greece
- PART III THE WEST
- BIBLIOGRAPHY
- Index
- Map 1. The Achaemenid empire
- Map 6. Central Asia
- Map 9. The Black Sea area
- Map 11. Egypt
- Map 13. Greek and Phoenician trade in the period of the Persian Wars
- Map 15. Greece and the Aegean
- Map 18. Northern and Central Italy
- Map 19. Central and Southern Italy
- References
11 - The liberation of Greece
from PART II - THE GREEK STATES
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps
- List of text-figures
- List of chronological tables
- Preface
- PART I THE PERSIAN EMPIRE
- PART II THE GREEK STATES
- 4 The tyranny of the Pisistratidae
- 5 The reform of the Athenian state by Cleisthenes
- 6 Greece before the Persian invasion
- 7 Archaic Greek society
- 8 The Ionian Revolt
- 9 The expedition of Datis and Artaphernes
- 10 The expedition of Xerxes
- 11 The liberation of Greece
- PART III THE WEST
- BIBLIOGRAPHY
- Index
- Map 1. The Achaemenid empire
- Map 6. Central Asia
- Map 9. The Black Sea area
- Map 11. Egypt
- Map 13. Greek and Phoenician trade in the period of the Persian Wars
- Map 15. Greece and the Aegean
- Map 18. Northern and Central Italy
- Map 19. Central and Southern Italy
- References
Summary
The campaigning season of 479 opened to a sense of uneasy calm, the belligerents all equally at a loss how to strike the decisive blow which all alike knew would spell freedom or subjection for the Greeks, for the Persians a continuing drain of resources or a secure frontier in the west.
The first forces to move were the naval on either side. In early spring the Persian fleet mustered at Samos, having passed the winter in two divisions, there and at Cyme, no doubt for greater ease of provisioning as well as to keep hold of the eastern Greeks (Hdt. VIII.130.1–2). The fleet numbered 300 including Greek vessels, according to Herodotus, a very different figure from the 1,207 triremes and 3,000 smaller vessels which he gives for its strength in Xerxes' review at Doriscus the previous year, even though more than half of those triremes are said to have been lost by the end of the battle of Artemisium, to say nothing of the further losses at Salamis. In fact one assumes that the numbers in 480 are much exaggerated; and the figure of 300 in 479 may be likewise, not necessarily by the same factor. As to the composition of the Persian fleet at this time, we can only speculate. The Egyptian marines had been left with Mardonius and the land forces (Hdt. IX.32): presumably the ships which bore them had sailed for the Delta before winter came on.
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- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Ancient History , pp. 592 - 622Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1988
References
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