Παιδαγωγικό Τμήμα Δημοτικής Εκπαίδευσης Πανεπιστημίου Αθηνών

Μεταπτυχιακό: Εκπαιδευτική Τεχνολογία και Ανάπτυξη Ανθρώπινων Πόρων

Εργασία ''Μηδικοί Πόλεμοι'' του Χρήστου Γιαννικόπουλου  

 Ionian War 

Decelean War or Ionian War: name of the last part of the Peloponnesian War (431-404). The first phase, the Archidamian War, had ended in 421 with something that came close to an Athenian victory. However, Athenian diplomatic mistakes, Spartan intransigence, and a disastrous Athenian attempt to conquer the island of Sicily changed the balance of power. After this entr'acte, the Spartans declared war again in 413 and occupied the town of Decelea near Athens; with Persian money, they built a navy and provoked revolutions in Athens' possessions in Ionia. In 404, Athens surrendered.

Many people, including the Athenians, believed that after the Sicilian disaster, the end of the Delian League was near. Athens had lost much money, many ships, and its best soldiers. Worse, they had no experienced leaders anymore: Alcibiades was in exile and lived in Sparta, Demosthenes, Lamachus, and Nicias were dead, and the popular Hyperbolus had been ostracized. To cope with this lack of experienced leadership, the Athenians appointed ten wise men (including the playwright Sophocles) to act as probouloi, which meant that they had to give advice and propose measures to The crisis, however, was grave. The Spartan king Agis II had occupied the village of Decelea and had built a strong fort - following an advice of Alcibiades, it was rumored, as if the Spartans could not think for themselves. The countryside was now under constant threat and the Athenians no longer had access to the silver mines of Laureion. Meanwhile, the Peloponnesian League dared to send a fleet to the Aegean Sea, consisting of Syracusan vessels (commanded by Hermocrates) and Corinthian ships. The Persian satraps Tissaphernes of Lydia and Pharnabazus of Hellespontine Phrygia offered money to Sparta, both hoping to achieve military support for the great king's aims in return. However, the Spartans were able to mess up this splendid opportunity.

When Chios, one of the islands in the Athenian alliance, revolted, the Spartans were unable to support the rebels. They still had insufficient experience at sea, so they turned to an Athenian for help. Alcibiades, who had been caught sleeping with king Agis' wife and wanted to leave Sparta, accepted the command of a Spartan naval force, and was able to reach Chios, where he reinforced the insurrectionists. The revolt immediately spread to other towns, including Miletus, the largest Greek city in Asia.

At this moment, in 412, the Spartans concluded their first treaty with king Darius II Nothus, who offered pay for the Spartan navy. (The treaty was later revised.) Tissaphernes was to be the king's agent, but he believed that an unconditional alliance with Sparta was not in the interests of Persia, so he delayed payments and more than once threatened to negotiate with Athens. In the meantime, Sparta had to help the great king by arresting Amorges, the rebel who had been supported by Athens.

overcome the present crisis.

The Persian-Spartan coalition ultimately was to bring down Athens, but the city was not defeated yet. Athens had faced a similar coalition in 461-448 and back then, it had achieved remarkable results. However, after the Sicilian disaster, this was no longer possible. Still, the Athenians responded to the challenge and founded a base on the isle of Samos. They started to besiege Chios and landed at Miletus, where they defeated their enemies in an open battle. Unfortunately, their inexperienced commander Phrynichus hesitated to exploit his victory, and the Spartans responded by taking the isle of Rhodes.

At this point, Alcibiades told the Athenians that he would bring over the great king to their side if Athens accepted him again and gave up its democracy. Indeed, a man named Peisander conducted an extreme oligarchic coup in Athens in 411 . Among the other leaders of the Four Hundred were Antiphon, who sincerely believed that oligarchy was preferable to democracy, and a general named Theramenes, son of Hagnon, who believed that if the suspension of democracy would bring Persian support, it was worth a try. Others joined because an oligarchy was cheaper, and Athens lacked money now that half its empire was rebellious. From the very first start, the oligarchs were divided.

A new crisis faced the Athenians when the cities near the Hellespont revolted, including Byzantium and Calchedon on both sides of the Bosphorus. This seriously imperiled the Athenian grain supply, and the men on board of the Athenian fleet -led by Thrasybulus, a friend of Alcibiades- declared that they now were the demos (the people's assembly) and recalled Alcibiades. More or less at the same time, a Spartan fleet reached and occupied Euboea, where the Athenians had left their cattle. Under these critical circumstances, the Four Hundred were replaced by the moderate oligarchy that had been proposed by Theramenes. Power now was in the hands of the Five Thousand, which meant those men who could "serve the state with a horse or a shield".

Meanwhile, the Spartans decided to move the war from Ionia and Euboea to the Hellespont, where they could cut off the grain supply of Athens and would receive support from Pharnabazus, who said he wanted to support Sparta unconditionally. Admiral Mindarus brought the Spartan fleet to the north, but was defeated at Cynossema by the Athenians, who were commanded by Thrasybulus and Thrasyllus.

This was a lift to Athenian morale, and Theramenes immediately exploited it by opening a new front in the Cyclades, where he subdued several rebellious islands and filled the Athenian treasury. He continued to Macedonia, where he taught king Archelaus how to besiege Pydna, and received a handsome amount of money in return. (At this point, Thucydides' History breaks off, and we are left to the Xenophon's Hellenica and Diodorus' Library.) When the year 410 started, all Athenian commanders -Alcibiades, Theramenes, Thrasybulus, and Thrasyllus- gathered in the Hellespont, where they decisively defeated the Spartan navy near Cyzicus. Its admiral Mindarus was killed in action, and the Spartans sued for peace.

Historians have criticized the Athenians that they did not accept this offer, but as the popular leader Cleophon pointed out, the Spartan proposal was not a very good one: both parties would keep the cities it controlled, give up garrisons in enemy territory, and would exchange prisoners. This implied that Athens had to give up control of many important towns and the Bosphorus. In 421, Sparta had been unwilling to fulfill the terms of the Peace of Nicias; if Sparta again broke its promise, the Athenians would be in great danger. Without control of Euboea, the Bosphorus, and the Hellespont, Cleophon said, any peace treaty was unacceptable. The rejection of the peace offer may have been the moment when democracy was restored.

Now, the war came to a standstill. Sparta was unable to strike and the Athenian democrats were not happy with the successful admirals: after all, Alcibiades, Theramenes, Thrasybulus, and Thrasyllus had collaborated with the oligarchs. They were left in office, but were not reinforced. Still, in 409, they recovered some ground in Ionia, and in 408 they regained control of the Bosphorus. In 407, Alcibiades returned to Athens, where he presided over the celebration of the Mysteries in Eleusis. It seemed as if the Athenians were winning the war after all.

But almost immediately, things went wrong. Alcibiades' deputy Antiochus, a brave but inexperienced man who should never have been appointed, was defeated in a naval engagement at Notion. Immediately, the Athenians sent Alcibiades away from their city again, and this time for good. The battle itself was not very important, but gave new self-confidence to the Spartans, who had finally found a capable admiral: Lysander. His greatest strength was that he had access to people who would help him. As lover of Agesilaus, the brother of king Agis, he was sufficiently supported at home, and he was lucky to find a new satrap in Lydia, prince Cyrus the Younger, the son of king Darius. He had orders to support Sparta unconditionally; Tissaphernes, who had sometimes threatened to support Athens, was temporarily removed from office.

In fact, Athens was now doomed. In 406, it was able to defeat the Spartans for the last time in a large naval battle at the Arginusae, but a gathering storm prevented the victorious admirals from picking the survivors and the dead from the water. Back home, they were condemned to death.

Again, Athens had no experienced commanders. In 405, Lysander's Spartan navy was active in the Hellespont again, the Athenians were defeated at the Aigospotamoi, and their entire fleet was destroyed. The war was now decided: what was left, was the siege of Athens. The Spartan king Agis left Decelea, his colleague Pausanias arrived with an army from the Peloponnese, and Lysander blocked Piraeus. During the winter, Theramenes conducted negotiations, and accepted what was inevitable .

In April 404, the Athenians disbanded the Delian League, what was left of the fleet was surrendered, Athens joined the Peloponnesian League, and a regime of thirty oligarchs -foremost among whom were the radical Critias and the moderate Theramenes- was to rule the city . According to Xenophon, the Spartans "tore down the Long walls among scenes of great joy and to the music of flute girls" (Hellenica 2.2.24).

Battle of Marathon(490 BCE)

Battle of Marathon: famous clash between a Persian invasion force and an army of Athenians in 490 BCE.

In 492 BCE, the Persian king Darius I the Great decided to extend the power of his empire across the Aegean Sea, where the Yaunâ (Greeks) had been a source of trouble for some time already. General Mardonius annexed Macedonia and two years later, Datis and Artaphernes were sent out on a naval expedition to conquer the Aegean islands. After finishing this campaign, they were supposed to bring back Hippias, the former tyrant of Athens, who would set up a pro-Persian regime.

The campaign started without serious problems and soon, the islands of the Aegean Sea were subdued. To celebrate this success, the Persians sacrificed at Delos, maybe because they identified the god Apollo with their own Ahuramazda. After this, the Persian navy continued to the isle of Euboea, where the expeditionary force attacked Eretria, one of the Greek cities that had supported Greek rebels in Asia Minor. Fighting continued for six days, but the town was betrayed on the seventh day. Its  inhabitants were carried off as prisoners.

The part of Athenian territory opposite Euboea -and also the best ground for cavalry to maneuver upon- was at Marathon, and it was to this village that Hippias directed Datis, Artaphernes, and the 25,000 Persians. There was a symbolic reason as well: Hippias' father Peisistratus had once landed at 
Marathon, and had become tyrant of Athens.

Immediately, the Athenians sent out a force of some 10,000 heavily armored infantrymen (hoplites), which blocked the road to Athens. At the same time, they sent a messenger named Pheidippides to Sparta, who returned three days later (after covering some 450 kilometer!) with the message that the Spartans would send reinforcements as soon as possible. Unfortunately, a religious law forbade any military operation until full moon, which was still six days ahead. (This full moon allows us to date the battle to 10 September or 12 August 490.)

While the Athenians postponed the engagement, they received reinforcements from their ally Plataea. The main problem for the Greeks was the superior Persian cavalry; no infantry line could cross the open plain, because its rear would be exposed to attacks by Persian mounted archers.

Among the Athenian commanders was a general named Miltiades, who had a grudge against the Persians, who had forced him out of his personal kingdom at the entrance of the Hellespont. On the day on which he was to command the Greek army, he received favorable omens and moved his army into position, allowing the center to be weak, but strengthening the wings. At dawn, he ordered his heavy armored men to run towards their enemies, about two kilometers away. The Greek researcher Herodotus of Halicarnassus, whose Histories are our main source for the events, remarks that the Persians considered this charge 'suicidal madness'. 

On the wings the Athenians, fighting with better armor and longer spears than their enemies, routed the invaders, and after this first victorious engagement, the wings attacked the Persian center from the rear. According to Herodotus, the Athenians lost 192 men in the ensuing mêlée, their opponents 6,400.

This is exaggerated (6,400 = 192 × 100/3), but no doubt the invaders suffered heaby losses. A German officer, Hauptmann Eschenburg, who visited the site in 1884/1885, discovered huge masses of human bones, which seemed to belong to hundreds of people. The absence of a funeral monument suggests that this mass burial was done in a hurry. (That the Athenians buried the Persians was a pious act, but the Persians must have been shocked when they heard about it: it was their practice to expose the dead.)

One mystery remains: how could the Athenians cross the plain without fear for a cavalry attack? Herodotus suggests that their charge was too swift, but contradicts this when he says that the struggle was long drawn out (which means: more than two hours).

There is, however, another story about the battle of Marathon, which can be found in the biography of Miltiades by the Roman author Cornelius Nepos (first century BCE) and in the Suda, a tenth century Byzantine lexicon. According to these sources, deserters from the Persian army had come to the Athenian camp, telling that the cavalry were away.

But why? A possible explanation is that Datis and Artaphernes had become uneasy with the stalemate, had decided to leave the plain to attack the Athenian port of Phaleron, and had ordered the cavalry to embark on the transports. If this speculation is correct, the Athenians merely attacked a Persian rearguard.

Naval Battle of Artemisium(480 BCE)

Artemisium (Greek Ἀρτεμίσιον): northern cape of the isle of Euboea, well known for a temple of Artemis, a statue of Zeus, and a naval battle in 480 BCE.

In Antiquity, the name "Artemisium" was given to the coast of Euboea opposite Magnesia, which is more or less the northernmost part of the island. It belonged to the town of Histiaea - "rich in vines", according to Homer. Two locations, however, could especially claim the name: the north promontory itself (satellite photo) and a temple of the Dawn-facing Artemis, which has been excavated a bit more to the west and appears to have been of some regional importance until it was in the sixth century CE destroyed by the Avars. In 1928, one of the most famous classical sculptures was found in the sea: a large, naked god about to throw something. It is now in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens

The question which god is represented, has never been answered satisfactorily. The fact that it was found in the sea, has led to the hypothesis that it is Poseidon, but if the statue carried a trident, it would be asymmetrical, and the blade would be in front of the god's face, which is ugly. The alternative hypothesis is that it represents Zeus, about to smite his thunderbolt, and this seems to be confirmed by little statuettes of Zeus Keraunos that were found on several places in Greece. However, the Artemisium statue has its arm stretched, while Zeus Keraunos had the thunderbolt close to its head.

The Naval Battle of Artemisium

Artemisium is also the place where the united Greek navy in the summer of 480 tried to block the advance of the fleet of the Persian king Xerxes, who was invading Greece. The story is told by Herodotus (Histories, 7.176, 179-183, 188-196, 8.1-23; discussed here).

After careful preparations, the Persians had decided to attack the Yaunâ (Greeks) in the summer of 480 with a very large army. The Greeks, officially commanded by the Spartan Eurybiades, but in fact by the Athenian Themistocles, understood that they had to annihilate the Persian transport fleet; without its support, the army would be forced to return. Of course, the Persians protected their transport ships with a navy of trieres.

The Greeks now attempted to stop the Persian fleet at Cape Artemisium with a navy that consisted of 271 trieres; at the same time, they blocked the advance of the Persian army at Thermopylae. The two sites were connected: if Thermopylae fell, the Persian cavalry could proceed to Chalcis, cross to Euboea, and attack the Greek navy at Artemisium in the rear; at the same time, the Persian navy could sail around Euboea and attack the defenders of Thermopylae. However, a flotilla that attempted this maneuver, was lost in a storm at a place called the "Hollows of Euboea".

The Persians, who had suffered some losses in a storm during their advance from Therma (now Thessalonica) to the south, occupied Aphetae on Cape Magnesia (where the legendary Argo had once departed from Greece), but their fleet was very large, which made it hard to keep them together. Fifteen ships lost contact with the main force, and were captured by the Greeks. Still, the greater part landed at Aphetae, although the units were situated at some distance of each other - there were simply too many Persian ships at Magnesia.

During the first two days of the encounter, the Greeks could attack units separately, and had some success: on the first day, they captured 30 enemy ships, and on the second day, the destroyed the flotilla of the Cilicians, who served the Persian king.

However, on the third day, the Persians came out at full strength and beat the Greeks, who now had to leave Artemisium. (Herodotus presents it as a Greek victory, but can not hide that the Greeks suffered heavily.)

At the same time, king Xerxes had defeated the Greek land army, commanded by the Spartan king Leonidas, at Thermopylae. It seemed as if Greece had fallen. However, during the naval battle of Artemisium, many Persian ships had sunk in a violent storm. This picture shows the 'hollows' of Euboea, where they met the disaster. In September, the Persian navy had become too small and the Greeks could overcome their enemies during the naval battle of Salamis.

Battle of  Thermopylae(480 BCE)

Thermopylae (Θερμοπύλαι; "Hot Gates"): small pass in Greece, site of several battles, of which the Spartan defeat against the Persian invaders in 480 is the most famous.

Introduction

After careful preparations, the Persian king Xerxes decided to attack the Yaunâ (Greeks) in the summer of 480. His commanders had warned him that great risks were involved: in 490, at Marathon, about 10,000 Athenians had defeated 25,000 Persians. Therefore, Xerxes prepared himself well and built a very large army. The Greeks, who had against all odds managed to overcome their perennial struggles and had accepted Spartan leadership, understood that if they wanted to survive the invasion, they first had to annihilate the Persian transport fleet, because without its support, the enemy army would be forced to return. The Greek navy therefore made a stand at Artemisium.

Meanwhile, the Spartans, commanded by their king Leonidas, were to keep the coastal road at Thermopylae (the name, "hot gate", is derived from a sulfurous spring in the neighborhood). By occupying this position, the Spartans and their allies would prevent the Persian army from attacking the Greek navy in the rear. In Antiquity, Thermopylae was more narrow than today; the sea reached as far inland as the modern road (cf. this photo).

Battle

To synchronize the attack on Thermopylae with the fight at Artemisium, Xerxes waited four days before he ordered his soldiers to attack the contemptibly small Greek garrison of 4,000 men. He first sent the Median and Elamite contingents, which were easily repelled by the defenders of the narrow road.

A second wave of troops consisted of the ten thousand Immortals, who were, according to Herodotus of Halicarnassus (our main source) the royal bodyguard. These elite troops did no better.

The Persian position did not improve during the second day of battle. When Xerxes' soldiers passed through the narrow gap, they were killed by their opponents, who had longer spears and better armor. Against these "men of bronze", the Persians were no match. Many of them fell into the sea and drowned.

If we are to believe Herodotus, it was at this moment that a Greek named Ephialtes told the great king about the possibility to turn the position of the Greek army. There was a mountain path. The story is hardly credible: the Persian scouts were probably perfectly capable of finding the path themselves. Anyhwo, during the night, the Immortals, commanded by Hydarnes, made a detour and attacked the Greek contingent that guarded the path.

The exact route of the nightly attack can not be identified. This is just one of the many tracks in the hinterland of Thermopylae. The fact that a nightly operation was possible, makes it possible to date the battle of Thermopylae to a night with more or less full moon: 17, 18 and 19 September (or one day later).

The Unsolved Riddle

At the beginning of the third day, the Greeks learned that the Persians would soon descend from the mountains and attack their rear. At this point, Herodotus' account becomes confused. In one line (7.219), he says that many Greeks decided to leave and abandoned Leonidas; after this, he says that there were also reports that Leonidas commanded them to go away (7.220). Anyhow, only the Spartans (300 Spartiates and 900 helpers), 700 Thespians, and 400 Thebans remained. It is possible that they also wanted to leave, but that they were trapped when the Immortals arrived. The historian Charles Hignett has famously called the reason why Leonidas stayed "an unsolved riddle", and there's little to add to that conclusion.

Herodotus admits that he is puzzled. Having said that the people abandoned Leonidas and having offered the other interpretation, he wonders why Leonidas might have ordered the soldiers to stay. What follows is introduced with the word gnomê (7.220), which he always uses when he offers a personal opinion: Leonidas decided to stay because an oracle had announced that Sparta would either be destroyed or lose its king. Leonidas preferred the second alternative. It may be true -devotio was not an uncommon military practice- but it smells of propaganda, and the story may well have been invented during the difficult months between the defeat at Thermopylae and the victory at Plataea.

Endgame

Reportedly, Leonidas ordered his men to go forward against their opponents, who were lashed towards the Spartans by their officers. When Leonidas fell, a bitter struggle over his body broke out. Herodotus tells that the Greeks drove off their enemy four times, and finally succeed in dragging the corpse away. This is too homeric to be true, and again we do not know if this really happened: those who were close to Leonidas, did not live to tell their stories.

Still according to Herodotus, the Thebans, whose support for the cause of Greece was halfhearted, deserted their allies and surrendered. Probably, this has been written with the benefit of hindsight: the Thebans later collaborated with the invader.

It is more probable, however, that the Thebans at Thermopylae were fighting for Greece as well. Only when these soldiers, the most anti-Persian men of Thebes, had been taken captive, their town was prepared to collaborate. With some justification, Herodotus has been accused of "malice" by a later author, Plutarch.

After the death of Leonidas and the end of Theban resistance, the surviving Spartans and Thespians retreated to a small hill, where they were killed by Persian archers. Later generations have always venerated this hill; for example, Philostratus calls it "the loftiest spot" in Greece (Life of Apollonius, 4.23).

This part of Herodotus' story is probably correct: after all, the Theban survivors could later have told it to him, and the inhabitants of the nearby villages must have known the hill, which was still covered with arrowheads in the nineteenth century. ( Reportedly, a local blacksmith found many of them and was happy with a large supply of raw material.) Modern archaeologists have also found several arrowhead; similar projectiles have been excavated in Asia and in Greek towns, where they were dedicated to the eternal gods

After the fall of Thermopylae, the road to Greece was open. Artemisium was ecacuated, and it became unavoidable that Thebes would be captured and Athens sacked. It was only during the naval battle of Salamis that Greece's fortunes were restored, although the winter of 480/479 was an uneasy one, and it was only in the summer of 479 that the Persians were decisively defeated.

The story of the three hundred Spartans (and their usually forgotten allies from Thespia and Thebes), as told by Herodotus, has become a "classic". Today, there's a reconstruction of the epitaph of the Spartan soldiers: Stranger, go tell the Spartans that here we are buried, obedient to their orders. There are two modern monuments, one dedicated to Leonidas, one to the Thespians. Here, you can read more about the myth.

Naval Battle of Salamis (480 BCE)

Naval Battle of Salamis (29 September 480): important battle during the Persian War, in which the Greek allies defeated the Persian navy.

After the Persian victories at Artemisium and Thermopylae, king Xerxes proceeded to Athens, which he captured in the last days of September 480. Meanwhile, the Greek navy, which had managed to get away from Artemisium, stayed on the isle of Salamis, opposite Athens. The presence of the enemy close to Phaleron, the Athenian harbor, created a strategic problem for the Persians: they could not use their port as easy as they wanted. And this was something they had to, because their army was proceeding to the Isthmus of Corinth, and it was imperative that the transport ships, brimful with food, could join the soldiers on the Isthmus. It was, therefore, imperative to expel the Greeks from Salamis.

According to a story by Herodotus that may or may not be true, the Athenian admiral Themistocles, pretending to be a friend of the Persians, lured the enemy navy into the straits of Salamis: he ordered a slave to row to the shore, and tell the Persians that the Greek allies were to abandon their position. If the Persians would enter the strait between Salamis and the mainland, they would easily defeat the Greeks. The story is already known to Aeschylus, a contemporary; on the other hand, the Persians hardly needed this incentive, as they were anyhow forced to attack.

Early in the morning of 29 September, when it was still very dark, the Persians started to enter the narrow strait. Xerxes watched what happened from a nearby hill, and saw how, at dawn, his ships were attacked on their flank. They were almost without a chance. We know that an Egyptian flotilla tried to block the Greek retreat to the north, but it was defeated or neutralized by the Corinthian ships. At nightfall, at least a third of the Persian ships was defeated. Persia had not improved its strategic position and Xerxes recalled his army, which had reached the Isthmus.

Battle of Plataea (479 BCE)

Battle of Plataea (479 BCE): decisive battle in the Persian War in which the Greeks overcame the Persian invaders.

In 480, the Persian king Xerxes invaded Greece. After victories at Thermopylae and Artemisium and a minor setback in the straits of Salamis, it seemed as if he would return to Greece to finish the job in the summer of 479. However, the Persian commander in Europe, Mardonius, had insufficient troops to overcome the Greek army that united at the Cithaeron mountain range and was commanded by Pausanias. 

On the plain north of Plataea, the decisive battle took place, and the Persians were defeated. Both sides feared to cross the river, which would break their array and make them vulnerable. Therefore, the Greeks first held the line of sources in the south, hoping to lure the Persians to the mountain feet, where their cavalry would be useful. When Mardonius did not swallow the bait, the Greeks advanced to the river, but were repelled by the Persian archers. When the Greeks retreated, the Persians believed they had already won the day, crossed the river, and were defeated by the superior phalanx of the Spartans. The Athenians captured the Persian camp.

The main sources for the engagement is Herodotus' ninth book (Histories, 9.1-86), which is written from the perspective of the soldiers, who must have found the marching up and down very confusing. There is little attention to Pausanias' role, and the outcome is presented as a victory of Spartan stubbornness. Herodotus' battle of Plataea is very much a soldiers' battle.

In fact, some of the complex Greek maneuvers may have been intended by Pausanias to give the Persians the impression that their opponents were insecure, poorly-commanded, and afraid to fight. This might have lured the invaders across the river. The fact that Pausanias fell from grace shortly after this battle will have done little to do him justice - still, he was one of the few Greeks to defeat an imperial Persian army in open battle, and commander of the greatest Greek army the world had ever seen.

After their victory, the Greeks erected the Serpents' Column in Delphi. Constantine the Great brought this victory monument to the hippodrome of Constantinople, where it still stands. The column once carried a golden tripod with the inscription, that is dubiously attributed to the poet Simonides:

This is the gift the saviors of far-flung Hellas upraised here,
Having delivered their states from loathsome slavery's bonds.

[Diodorus, History, 11.33.2

Naval Battle Mycale(479 BCE)

Mycale: promontory in western Turkey, famous for a battle in 479 BCE in which the allied Greeks defeated the navy of the Achaemenid king Xerxes.

The Mycale promontory faces the Greek island of Samos. Today, it is less impressive than it used to be, because over the ages, the river Meander has deposited much mud and sand along the mountains, so that it is now for a large part connected to the Turkish mainland. 

In August 479, a Greek expeditionary force, commanded by the Spartan king Leotychides, attacked a Persian army at Mycale. It was able to cross the Aegean Sea, because the Greeks had already defeated the Persian navy at Salamis, in September 480, and the Persian ships at Mycale had already been forced to take up defensive positions. For unknown reasons, Xerxes had not reinforced them, and had allowed a part of his fleet -the ships from Phoenicia- to return to their home towns. The Persian navy at Mycale must have been demoralized, and may have been outnumbered by the Greeks.

The site of the battle has been identified to the southwest of the modern town Atburgazi, which is not far from the more famous ruins of ancient Priene. According to Herodotus of Halicarnassus, our main source, the Greeks landed a bit more to the west. The right wing of the Greek army, which consisted of the hoplites from Athens, proceeded along the coastline -the modern road- and reached the Persians first.

The left wing of the Greek army, the Spartans, attacked the Persians after a detour through the hills on the promontory, and surprised their enemies when they arrived from the interior - where the Persians believed they would be safe. The Spartans arrived later than the Athenians, but in time to cut off the line of retreat of the Persians. Still, many of them were able to make their escape across the mountains.

It was the first Greek victory in Asia, and although the Athenians and Spartans overcame a demoralized opponent, it was an important event. From now on, the Greeks were taking the offensive. According to legend, the battle was fought on the same day as that other important victory, at Plataea.