The Battle of Thermopylae was an attack on Greece prompted by Athens' involvement in the Ionian Revolt. In 499 BC King Cyrus II tamed the Persian tribes and conquered Lydia and parts of Ionia, but the Ionians consisting of Greek tyrants rebelled against Persia which led to its invasion (Warren Hollister, 103). In an attempt to repel the Persian attack, Ionia requests Athens' help and convinces it to send twenty ships to fight against the Persians. The Persian army then led by Darius I, nephew of Cyrus, had the advantage over the Greeks and in 494 BC the Greeks went into battle against the Persians at Marathon (Warren Hollister, 104). The decisive result would see the Athenians defeat the army of Darius I; this defeat pushed Darius to plan a new attack against Greece but the task fell to his heir Xerxes. Here we see previous wars fought between these nations with Greece claiming an early victory which would then dictate the rise of a second attack on Greece in what became the Battle of Thermopylae. In this situation the Greeks provoked the Persians to attack them for their involvement in the revolt which sparked the anger of the Persian king Xerxes, who vowed to take revenge on the Greeks. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay This period, between 490 and 479 BC, was the beginning of the Persian Wars and marked the first battle between the Persians and the Greeks. Xerxes in 480 BC had galvanized his army of around 180,000 men to besiege Athens. In the wake of the news that Xerxes intends to attack Athens, the Greeks under the command of Themistocles prepare for battle. Meanwhile, Xerxes was marching towards Athens taking advantage of Greek discord and forming alliances with “opportunistic Greek cities like Argos and Thebes” (Warren Hollister, 104-105). Sparta established a regional defensive alliance, the Peloponnesian League which included Sparta, Athens, and Corinth (Warren Hollister, 105). One of the best moves the Greeks made was to form an alliance to further improve their numbers. As Xerxes marched south through northern Greece, an army of 300 Spartans and 6,000 Greek hoplites (soldiers) positioned themselves along a narrow path at Thermopylae, so slender between sea and mountain, ready to face a Persian army of 200,000 fighters (ancient greece. co.uk). In this situation the Greeks were vastly outnumbered, in an attempt to even the field they chose the best place to face the Greeks, a narrow path that lay only between the rocky mountains and the deadly sea. This made it difficult for the Persians to attack with their full infantry while risking death at the hands of the Spartans or falling into the sea. On the morning of September 480, the Persians launched their first attack against the Spartans by sending the Medes and the Cissians. The Persian wicker shield was no match for the armor, bronze helmet, spear and sword of the Spartans. The strength of the Greek army lay in its formation (phalanx); the Persians advanced on the Spartans. The Spartans resisted using their shield to hold off the wave before breaking through the Persian army (Rawlinson). The Spartans used short swords in close combat slaughtering the Persians in large numbers while suffering small casualties; recognizing the weakness of his infantry, he dispatched his elite force, the "immortals", to quickly end the fighting, but as he watched he jumped up in terror at the sight of the Greeks overwhelming his army. The Greeks adopted a strategy adapted to their environment by forming a solid formation of men in line. The front row was made upby Spartans with shields to block personnel behind them who were equipped with spears, since shields protect rank, Persians were hit with spears. Xerxes was handed a lifeline when a trader, Ephialtes, revealed a secret way around the path that Xerxes deployed his "Immortals" to conquer as night fell and sneak up on the Spartans (Rawlinson). Leonidas holds a conference to plan his final strategy. Knowing that he would not win this battle, he ordered the rest of the Greek army to retreat while he kept an army of Thebans and Thespians with his Spartans to fight against the Persians (Rawlinson). In the final stand, the Spartans fought bravely against the Persians, killing Xerxes' brothers, and when their weapons were destroyed, the Greeks suffered heavy losses; Leonidas and his men were surrounded by the Persians and killed with volleys of arrows. Although the Spartans were professional warriors, their success in the field was determined by their training; if they had stopped, formation gaps would have appeared in their defense and, due to the compact nature of Thermopylae, an attack from the rear would have closed them in a circle of enemy fire that would have forced them into a corner that would have led to their demise . After the Persian attack on Athens, a new military power arose in Macedonia led by King Philip II. His victory over Greece at Chaeronea led to its unity under his command in 338 BC. In his final months before his assassination in 336 BC, Philip II had developed an attack against the Persian Empire in an attempt to chastise the Persians for their attack on Greece. (Warren Hollister, 147). At the age of twenty Alexander succeeded his father as king of Macedonia and under his control quashed every revolt in Greece; his main influence was his mother Olympias, Philip II, and Aristotle (Hollister, 148). Alexander had a mission: to conquer Asia. Similar to the Greeks, Macedonia had achieved previous victories against the Persians, but the motive for Alexander's attack on Persia was not purely revenge, rather a desire for power. Alexander set out to conquer in 334 BC crossing the Hellespont with 30,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry heading north where he faced the Persian army led by Memnon and defeated it in what was the Battle of the Granicus River, May 334 BC (Porter). This brought knowledge of Alexander to the Persian king Darius III who underestimated the young king's strength; this would prove fatal as Alexander would defeat the Persian army once again in November 333 BC at Issus, capturing King Darius' family in the process (Wasson). Alexander set out to liberate all territories conquered by the Persians, including the island city of Tyre, in August 332 BC (Porter). In an attempt to secure his family's release, King Darius III sends a messenger to deliver a peace treaty to Alexander offering a portion of his empire west of the Euphrates and his daughter's hand in marriage, which Alexander refuses , challenging Darius III to do so. fight for his throne; during this time King Darius III retreated to Babylon to prepare an army to face Alexander (Wasson). King Darius III planned to meet Alexander in open combat in a village called Gaugamela. King Darius III galvanized an army of 250,000 men along with 15 elephants and 200 chariots; the Gaugamela plain had a wider plain and allowed the use of his chariot and cavalry to his advantage. Alexander camps 4 miles from Darius' army with an estimated 40,000 men; fearing the large number of military forces, Parmenion, Alexander's right-hand man, advised the young Alexander.