Wars Medical is known as the military conflict that took place between the years 500 to 440 BC between the Persian Empire and the Greeks. Its name derives from the word "Medes", how the Greeks called the Persians.
Greek cities of Ionia were under the sovereignty Croesus, King of Lydia, who recognized him some autonomy in exchange for the payment of tribute. In the year 546 BC, Lydia was attacked by Cyrus, king of Persia, with such facts, ordered Croesus consulted the oracle of Delphi, which predicted that in case of attack "... it would destroy a great empire, Croesus, assuming the rule would destroy the Persian attack, but instead destroyed his own. Croesus is said bitterly commented that "... No one is so foolish as to prefer war to peace, because instead of the children bury their parents, are the parents who bury children. But this is the will of the gods ... · (Large times of humanity. Greece Clásica.CM Borra. Edt. Time-Life International, pg, 69).
After conquering Lydia, Cyrus was deployed along the coast subjecting all Greco-Ionian colonies of Asia Minor . By then, Dario I had come to power and appointed Persian Persian governors called satraps, brutally subjected to the Ionians and forcing them to pay heavy taxes. Until the year 499 the Ionians revolted, and the cities of Athens and Eretria supported the rebellion with 20 ships and 5 respectively. After making the Persian city of Sardis boats returned, leaving the Ionians at their expense. Darius once again before the Greeks in battle Miletus and orders the burning of the city and enslaved the entire surviving population. Legend has it that the poet sang Phrynichus tragedy of Miletus, the most cultured city of Ionia, and therefore was fined to pay 1000 drams for making mourn the audience.
MEDICAL WAR.
The Battle of Marathon .- In 490 BC Darius commissions his two generals Datis and Artaphernes to command a fleet of 600 ships and 6,400 men went through the Aegean Sea, landed in Bay of Marathon and took to Athens by land. The Greeks under the command of Miltiades responded with a technique that child but was infallible took the offensive and went ahead to Marathon to take them by surprise. According to Herodotus, the Persians, the Greeks were in much smaller numbers run fast to them without the support of cavalry and archers, and some crazy suicide seek death. But surprisingly, the Persians could not stop the onslaught of the 192 Athenian soldiers and retreated to their ships, in the most shameful defeat.
Melcíades Legend has it that he ordered one of his soldiers Pheidippides give notice of victory to Athens, he traveled the 42 miles that separated the Athens Marathon, gave his message and he fell dead with fatigue. The marathon race, an endurance of 42 Km on foot, joined the games Olympics in 1896 in honor of this soldier who not only fought bravely but ran tirelessly to enforce the order and prevent women and children were slaughtered Athenians in order not to be taken as slaves Persians.
WAR MEDICAL .-
For 10 years the Greeks were at peace, the Persians had their own problems with the death of Darius I and rise of his son Xerxes. Meanwhile in Athens, Themistocles takes power and convinces the Athenians of the need to build a powerful fleet, fortified with walls and roads to make a new port easy to defend. Thanks to the vision of Themistocles, Athens was the city better prepared for the coming war.
However, when the Persian king Xerxes moves against the Greek cities, they recognized the famous Athenian Spartan military affairs and decided in the year 481 BC, forming the so-called "League of the Greeks" under the military command of the Spartans.
The Greek fleet was at the Straits of Thermopylae in Thessaly. While it was a good military decision was not well in the political arena because the northern Greek city felt deserted to the Persian hordes and not opposed Persian drag. The defeatist spirit spread and at the time they consulted the oracle at Delphi that predicted that resistance would be futile and warned Athens and Sparta on its possible destruction.
Flagellation Hellespont Sea .- In 480 BC, Xerxes advanced with a fleet of 700 to 800 warships and 200,000 men in combat. Yet the historian Herodotus speaks of a higher number 2,600,000 soldiers in 3000 ships. The truth is that on reaching the Dardanelles Strait, Xerxes orders the construction of a bridge crossing the purpose of the army and their horses. This first bridge was destroyed by a storm Xerxes enters into a rage and ordered the death of the first architects and lashing the sea with 300 flagella. This action not only speaks of barbarism and folly of the Persian king, but also responds to the need to conquer the mythical meaning of the sea as a major opponent. Here are undertaking the construction of a second bridge made by the union of the Persian ships, and they landed the horses, chariots and the army. Herodotus tells that the landing lasted 7 days with 7 nights and was accompanied by dark omens such as a solar eclipse and the birth of a mule hermaphrodite why offerings were thrown into the sea to redress the wrong done by the flogging.
The Battle of Thermopylae and the 300 Spartans .- Jerfes The truth is easily moved through Macedonia and Thessaly until it is stopped by the Greek military in pass of Thermopylae, a highly inaccessible gorge about 15 feet long.
Here the Spartan king Leonidas, had placed their best men, 300 Spartans with the idea to stop the Persian army, another 1000 men garrisoned different locations.
Xerxes sent his emissaries to Leonidas ordered him to surrender at the high numerical difference, to the invitation to deliver the weapons the Spartans responded "Come take them." The battle is approaching and Xerxes realizes that in this passage so narrow I could not use his cavalry, or the elite corps that formed the main guard called the Immortals.
Indeed, Xerxes could only send small groups of warriors to fight, so you could not make the most of the numerical difference, besides the Greek spears were much longer providing protection. They fought for 5 days, but a traitor called Elfiates showed the Persians a mountain road that allowed the Greeks to attack the rear. Leonidas anyway decided to protect passage with 300 Spartans. Account
Herodotus, who died in the battle Leonidas and his Spartans drove the Persians and fought four times to the end. At the end of the battle Xerxes walked among the bodies and had never been so angry. Once taken
Thermopylae, the Persians move against Athens, which had been evacuated earlier by the king Themistocles, that the dog is the father of Pericles, would not be abandoned and jumped into the water following his master's ship until they reached the island of Salamis where he fell dead.
Xerxes had no trouble taking the city and destroy the temples of the Acropolis.
Persian army, consisting of the Legion of Immortals were made up of 10,000 men of infantry armed with spears, shields, dagger and arrow, if one of them died or was wounded in combat was immediately replaced by another , so that their numbers appeared unchanged giving sense of immortality.
The naval battle of Salamis Themistocles .- devises a plan to withdraw from the Persians and beat Athens in the sea. Conveys the message that the Greek fleet was running. Xerxes chases considered superior with his fleet. The Persian ships were much more numerous and larger than the Greeks, but the navigation in the Straits of Salamis is difficult and the boats are getting in each other. Nimble Greek ships and equipped with spurs made against the Persians, who suffered a humiliating defeat. Themistocles
release the Ionian colonies raised the Persian yoke, but the Greek League was opposed by the fear of leaving the Peleponeso unprotected.
Xerxes returns to Asia, leaving part of his troops Mardonius who had been in Greek territory, being defeated by the Spartan general Pausanias in the Battle of Platea, thus being destroyed Persian dreams of expanding his empire.
THIRD WAR MEDICAL .-
Xerxes was assassinated in the year 465 and rises to power Artaxerxes, who moved the imperial capital of Persepolis to Babylon. In Greece, he founded the Attic-Delian League for the purpose of protecting Greece and the Ionian colonies of Asia Minor, to the then Athens is the most important city politically, culturally and militarily. Themistocles their king had fallen into disrepair and is exiled, why is associated with the new Persian ruler.
Cimon son of Miltiades, invaded Asia Minor and defeated the Persian army at the battle of Eurymedon in 465 BC Pericles
is proclaimed king of Athens who continue the struggle against Persia and instructs Cimon signing a peace treaty with his enemies, which is signed in the year 448 BC
The victory of the Greeks over the Persians is considered an extraordinary feat, Greeks always fought outnumbered, his forces, with the exception of Sparta were not professionals, not unified politically, however all members of the Greek League had put her interests in favor of freedom and the glory, honored the Aeschylus winners in the poem "The Persians", and after centuries the names of Marathon, Thermopylae and Salamis are remembered as being synonymous with the struggle of man for freedom.
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