The Greatest Battles of the Persian Empire

1 Salamis, 480 BC

Where

The strait between the island of Salamis and the coast of Attica, Greece

War

Greco-Persian Wars, Xerxes' invasion of Greece

Fleets

The royal fleet of Xerxes, mostly Phoenician, Egyptian and Ionian ships, vs the allied Greek fleet

Strength

1,207 Persian ships in Herodotus and Aeschylus, about 500 in one modern estimate, vs 310 to 378 Greek

Result

Persian defeat; Xerxes went back to Asia

Seen from Susa, autumn 480 BC was going well: Xerxes had won at Thermopylae and Artemisium and taken Athens. Only the Greek fleet off Salamis was left, and while it stayed, the army's supply ships could not use Phaleron. The king's navy was the navy of his subjects: Herodotus counts 1,207 triremes, 300 of them Phoenician and 200 Egyptian, and Aeschylus gives the same total against 310 Greek ships (Herodotus has 378); one modern estimate is about 500 Persian ships on the day.²

Before dawn on 29 September the royal ships rowed into the narrows while Xerxes watched from a hill; struck in the flank at first light, at least a third of them were beaten by nightfall. Diodorus gives over 200 Persian ships lost to 40 Greek. Herodotus has Xerxes, afraid for his bridges over the Hellespont, resolve on flight, and the Persians at Susa, who had strewn the roads with myrtle for the fall of Athens, tear their tunics in fear for the king.³

Jona Lendering calls it a serious setback, not a disaster: the army wintered intact in Thessaly, but without its fleet. Even the Persian side reaches us through Aeschylus, who almost certainly fought there: in his Persians of 472 BC the only rounded characters are Persians.⁴

Why it ranks here: Salamis is No. 1: full marks for recognition, decisiveness and consequence, for sending the Great King back to Asia, and one point more than Gaugamela on certainty (4 against 3), since its inflated fleets are nothing as impossible as Arrian's million. Memory scores 4: no race or monument carries its name.

Read the full story of the Battle of Salamis ›

2 Gaugamela, 331 BC

Where

Plain of Gaugamela, near Arbela (Erbil), northern Iraq

War

Alexander the Great's conquest of the Persian Empire

Sides

Darius III and the royal army vs Alexander of Macedon

Strength

Persians unknown, ancient figures from about 245,000 to over 1,000,000, vs about 47,000 (Arrian: 7,000 horse, about 40,000 foot)

Result

Persian army broken; Darius fled and was murdered in 330 BC

Two years after Issus, Darius III had raised a second royal army, Indian troops among them, and chose his ground: a broad plain near Arbela, the modern Erbil, leveled for scythed chariots and horsemen. Arrian reports that the king was said to have 40,000 cavalry, 1,000,000 infantry and 200 scythed chariots, against Alexander's 7,000 horse and about 40,000 foot. The million is impossible. Other ancient writers give totals from about 245,000 to more than a million; no reliable modern figure exists, and Britannica calls some of the ancient totals fantastic.⁵

The omens were read in Babylon: a total eclipse of the moon on 20 September, with a west wind blowing, foretold the end of a reign and an enemy from the west, and, Lendering argues, morale sank. On 1 October, in the Greek accounts, Alexander charged straight at Darius and the king was the first to flee. A Babylonian astronomical diary of that year tells it the other way round: "the troops abandoned their king and headed back to their cities." Arrian's 300,000 Persian dead against about 100 Macedonians is as unbelievable as his million.⁶

Babylon and Susa lay open to Alexander. Darius fled to Media, hoping to gather the forces of the eastern satrapies, but in July 330 BC Bessus, satrap of Bactria, seized and killed him, and the empire passed to the man the Babylonian diarist already called "king of the world".⁷

Why it ranks here: Gaugamela has full marks for recognition, decisiveness and consequence: it is the battle in which the Achaemenid Empire was lost. It sits a point below Salamis on certainty, 3, since no one knows the size of Darius' army and the Greek and Babylonian accounts disagree on how it broke; memory scores 4.

Read the full story of the Battle of Gaugamela ›

3 Marathon, 490 BC

Where

Plain of Marathon, Attica, Greece

War

Greco-Persian Wars, Darius I's Aegean expedition

Sides

The Persian force of Datis and Artaphernes vs Athens and Plataea

Strength

20,000 to 25,000 Persian fighting men (modern estimates) vs about 10,000 Greeks

Result

Persian defeat; the fleet sailed home

For Darius I the expedition of 490 BC was an Aegean campaign, not an invasion of Greece. Datis and Artaphernes were to add the islands, Naxos above all, as a buffer in front of Ionia, and bring back Hippias, the exiled tyrant who would rule Athens for Persia. Eretria, which had helped the Ionian revolt, fell by treachery on the seventh day of the siege and its people were carried off as captives. Herodotus gives the fleet 600 ships; the fighting men are estimated at 20,000 to 25,000, against about 9,000 Athenian and 1,000 Plataean hoplites.⁸

Herodotus says the Persians took the Athenian charge at a run for madness; the Greek wings broke them and closed on the center, and the invaders fled to the ships. He counts 6,400 Persian dead and 192 Athenian: Lendering calls the first figure exaggerated, World History Encyclopedia thinks it fair and the second too low. The fleet sailed round to Phaleron, found the Athenians waiting and went home.⁹

Persia kept the islands and the captives; Lendering argues that Herodotus made Marathon a failed conquest, and the start of East against West, though the force was too small to conquer. Myth vs fact: the runner who died announcing the victory is a late invention, but he inspired the race first run at the 1896 Athens Olympics.¹⁰

Why it ranks here: Marathon has full marks for recognition and memory, since every marathon race carries its name. For the empire it ended one landing, not a war, and Xerxes came back ten years later in far greater strength, so decisiveness and consequence score 4.

Read the full story of the Battle of Marathon ›

4 Plataea, 479 BC

Where

Plain north of Plataea, Boeotia, central Greece

War

Greco-Persian Wars, Xerxes' invasion of Greece

Sides

The Persian army of Mardonius and its Greek allies vs the Greek alliance under Pausanias of Sparta

Strength

300,000 plus about 50,000 Greek allies in Herodotus, about 150,000 in Lendering's estimate, vs about 110,000

Result

Persian defeat; Mardonius killed and the invasion over

After Salamis Xerxes went back to Sardis and left Greece to Mardonius, his cousin and brother-in-law, with an army Lendering puts at probably 150,000; Herodotus gives 300,000, plus Greek allies he guesses at 50,000. Mardonius first offered Athens a fine place in the empire if it accepted the king as overlord. Athens refused, and in 479 BC he plundered the city again. Against him the Spartan regent Pausanias led about 110,000 men by Herodotus' count.¹¹

For days neither side would cross the river Asopus. Short of supplies, Mardonius would not fall back, and when Pausanias pulled back by night he took it for flight and crossed. Herodotus, no friend of Persia, grants that the Persians were not inferior in courage or strength but fought without armor against hoplites, and that around Mardonius, on a white horse with a thousand picked men, they held until he fell. Artabazus led a large force home and was made satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia; Herodotus' claim that not 3,000 of the rest survived cannot be checked.¹²

About then the Greeks destroyed the Persian garrison at Mycale, and the Ionian cities joined their alliance. Xerxes' Daiva inscription still lists among his tributaries the Yaunâ, the Greeks, "those who dwell on this side of the sea and those who dwell across the sea".¹³

Why it ranks here: Plataea, not Salamis, ended the invasion: full marks for decisiveness and consequence. Salamis and Thermopylae took most of the fame, so it scores 4 for recognition and 3 for memory, which keeps it below Marathon.

Read the full story of the Battle of Plataea ›

5 Opis and the fall of Babylon, 539 BC

Where

Opis on the Tigris, near modern Baghdad, Iraq; then Babylon

War

Cyrus the Great's conquest of Babylonia

Sides

Cyrus the Great vs the army of Nabonidus, king of Babylon

Strength

Not recorded: the Babylonian chronicle gives no numbers

Result

Persian victory; Babylon entered without battle days later

By 539 BC Cyrus had taken Media and Lydia; next came Babylon, capital of an empire covering modern Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Israel. Its king Nabonidus had spent years at the oasis of Tayma in Arabia while his son Belshazzar, the Belshazzar of the Bible, ruled at home. Cyrus came down the Diyala and met the Babylonian army near Opis, where that river joins the Tigris.¹⁴

All we know of the battle is a few damaged lines of the Nabonidus Chronicle: when Cyrus "did battle at Opis on the bank of the Tigris against the army of Akkad, the people of Akkad retreated. He carried off the plunder (and) slaughtered the people." It gives no numbers. Within days Sippar fell without a fight, Nabonidus fled, and Cyrus' general Ugbaru entered Babylon "without battle"; Cyrus was welcomed into the city about two weeks later. Myth vs fact: Herodotus' tale of Cyrus draining the Euphrates to march in along the riverbed comes, Lendering judges, from a writer who never visited Babylon.¹⁵

Lendering calls the conquest the birth of a true world empire. The Cyrus Cylinder makes it Marduk's gift, won "without fighting or battle"; the Bible remembers Cyrus for sending the exiled Jews home, though the return may have come later.¹⁶

Why it ranks here: Opis made Persia master of the Near East in one campaign (decisiveness and consequence 5), and the Cylinder and the Bible keep it alive (memory 4). The battle itself holds it at fifth: known mainly to readers of ancient history and told in a few lines with no numbers, it scores 3 for recognition and certainty.

Read the full story of Cyrus the Great ›

6 Thermopylae, 480 BC

Where

The pass of Thermopylae, central Greece

War

Greco-Persian Wars, Xerxes' invasion of Greece

Sides

The army of Xerxes vs the Greek alliance under King Leonidas of Sparta

Strength

2,641,610 in Herodotus, about 80,000 in one modern estimate, vs 4,000 to 7,000 Greeks

Result

Persian victory; the pass forced on the third day

In August 480 BC Xerxes' army reached the Hot Gates, a narrow road between mountains and sea, held by a Greek force while its fleet guarded Artemisium. Herodotus gives the king 2,641,610 fighting men, an impossible figure; World History Encyclopedia puts the army at about 80,000. The Greeks were 4,000 by Lendering's count, 6,000 to 7,000 by WHE's. Xerxes waited four days, Lendering suggests to time his attack with the sea battle.¹⁷

The Medes and Elamites went in first and were thrown back on the narrow road; the Immortals, the 10,000 of the royal guard, did no better against longer spears and better armor. Then Hydarnes led the Immortals round by a mountain path at night. Herodotus credits a Greek traitor, Ephialtes; Lendering thinks Persian scouts could have found the path themselves. On the third day Persian archers shot down the last defenders on a hillock. Myth vs fact: it was never 300 alone, for 700 Thespians and 400 Thebans stayed with the Spartans. Herodotus adds that Xerxes hid all but about 1,000 of his 20,000 dead before showing the field to his sailors, a number no one can verify.¹⁸

For Persia the pass did its job: the Greek fleet gave up Artemisium, Boeotia was added to the empire, and Athens fell on 27 September.¹⁹

Why it ranks here: Thermopylae is the best known battle of the Persian Wars, full marks for recognition and memory, and for Persia a victory, but it decided nothing: decisiveness 2 and consequence 3, while Herodotus' army in the millions holds certainty at 3. It ties Issus on 38 points and goes above it on recognition.

Read the full story of Thermopylae ›

7 Issus, 333 BC

Where

The Pinarus river near Issus, Cilicia, southern Turkey

War

Alexander the Great's conquest of the Persian Empire

Sides

Darius III in person, with Greek mercenaries in his center, vs Alexander of Macedon

Strength

About 100,000 (Lendering), 25,000 to 100,000 in modern estimates, vs about 47,000 (Lendering: 41,000 foot, 6,000 horse)

Result

Persian defeat; Darius fled and his family was captured

Darius III, once a rebel himself, had held the throne since 336 BC. In 333 BC he came west in person, planning, as Lendering reconstructs it, to destroy the Macedonians in Cilicia or Syria and then use his fleet to cut off their retreat. He came over the Amanus mountains behind Alexander and held the Pinarus river with, by Lendering's estimate, 100,000 men against about 41,000 foot and 6,000 horse; World History Encyclopedia cites modern estimates of 25,000 to 100,000, about 10,000 of them Greek mercenaries.²⁰

Alexander's cavalry broke the Persian left, and Darius fled, leaving his chariot, shield, mantle and bow. His horsemen, pressing the Thessalians hard, gave way only when they saw the king was gone. His mother, wife and children were taken in the camp. Arrian's 100,000 Persian dead is a figure no one need accept.²¹

Darius wrote that he had come "to defend his country and to preserve the empire of his fathers", and asked, as a king of a king, for his family. Later he offered 10,000 talents and every land west of the Euphrates; refused, he raised a new army. Phoenicia and Egypt passed to Alexander. The Alexander Mosaic from Pompeii may copy a lost painting of this battle, though scholars debate whether it shows Issus or Gaugamela.²²

Why it ranks here: Issus cost Darius his family and the west of his empire and lives on in the Alexander Mosaic, so consequence and memory score 4, but the king raised a new army for Gaugamela, so decisiveness scores 3. It ties Thermopylae on 38 points and goes below it on recognition, 4 against 5.

Read the full story of the Battle of Issus ›

8 Granicus, 334 BC

Where

The river Granicus (Biga Çayı), northwestern Turkey

War

Alexander's conquest of the Persian Empire

Sides

The Persian satraps of Asia Minor, with Memnon of Rhodes and Greek mercenaries, vs Alexander the Great

Strength

Persians about 20,000 horse and almost as many mercenary foot (Arrian), or over 10,000 horse and 100,000 foot (Diodorus); Alexander about 30,000 to 32,000 foot and 4,500 to 5,000 horse

Result

Persian defeat; western Asia Minor opened to Alexander

In the spring of 334 BC Alexander crossed into Asia with, by Arrian's count, not much more than 30,000 infantry and over 5,000 cavalry; Diodorus gives 32,000 foot and 4,500 horse. Darius III did not come west himself and left the invader to his satraps. They overruled Memnon of Rhodes, a Greek general in Persian service who wanted to strip the country and starve the Macedonians instead of fighting, and waited for him behind the little river Granicus.²³

Here the sources split. Arrian and Plutarch have Alexander brush aside Parmenio's advice to wait and charge straight across, his horsemen fighting up banks slippery with mud. Diodorus says he camped opposite and crossed at dawn before the Persians could stop him, and Jona Lendering of Livius.org thinks a frontal charge up those banks impossible. Both versions share the melee around the king: a Persian blade sheared off part of his helmet, and Cleitus the Black cut down the next attacker. Arrian counts about 1,000 Persian horsemen dead, the Greek mercenaries cut to pieces and about 2,000 taken; the Macedonian dead come to about 115 by our sum of his figures. His translator calls Diodorus' 100,000 Persian infantry inaccurate. Sardis, the old capital of Lydia, then surrendered without a fight.²⁴

Why it ranks here: Recognition 4: the first of Alexander's three great victories over the empire is on most lists, and it opened Anatolia to him. But the Great King had not yet fought, so decisiveness 3, and Arrian and Diodorus do not even agree on how the battle began, certainty 3. It is one of four battles tied on 35 points and leads the other three on recognition.

Read the full story of Alexander the Great ›

9 Thymbra and Sardis, about 547 BC

Where

The plain before Sardis, capital of Lydia, western Turkey

War

Cyrus the Great's conquest of Lydia

Sides

Cyrus the Great vs Croesus, king of Lydia

Strength

No numbers in Herodotus; the vast armies of Xenophon's Cyropaedia (120,000 Egyptians alone on Croesus' side) belong to a historical novel

Result

Persian victory; Sardis taken after a siege of 14 days, Lydia annexed

Croesus of Lydia ruled everything west of the river Halys, the Greek cities of the Aegean coast included, and was brother-in-law to Astyages, the Median king Cyrus had just overthrown. Herodotus says Delphi told him that if he marched on Persia he would destroy a great empire. He crossed the Halys, fought Cyrus to a draw at Pteria in Cappadocia, then went home and dismissed his mercenaries, telling his allies to gather in five months.²⁵

Cyrus followed at once. Before Sardis, on the advice of the Mede Harpagus, he sent men mounted on baggage camels against the Lydian lancers, and the horses bolted at the sight and smell of them; the Lydians fought on foot but were driven inside their walls. On the fourteenth day of the siege a soldier who had seen a defender climb down an unguarded cliff for a fallen helmet led a party up the same way, and the city fell; Croesus, Herodotus says, was set on a pyre and saved. The date is shaky: the Nabonidus Chronicle has Cyrus kill a king in 547 BC, but the country's name is broken off and most scholars no longer read it as Lydia. The name Thymbra, or Thymbrara, comes only from Xenophon's Cyropaedia, a novel about Cyrus.²⁶

Why it ranks here: Decisiveness 5 and consequence 4: it ended the Lydian kingdom and brought Persia to the Aegean. But the battle rests on Herodotus, its name on a novel and its year is disputed, so recognition 3 and certainty 2. Tied on 35 points, it goes below Granicus on recognition, above Cunaxa on consequence and above Pelusium, its equal on both, as the older battle.

Read the full story of Cyrus the Great ›

10 Pelusium, 525 BC

Where

Pelusium, at the easternmost mouth of the Nile, northeastern Egypt

War

Cambyses II's conquest of Egypt

Sides

Cambyses II vs Pharaoh Psamtik III, with Greek and Carian mercenaries

Strength

Not given by Herodotus; Ctesias puts the dead at 7,000 Persians and 50,000 Egyptians

Result

Persian victory; Memphis besieged and taken, Egypt made a Persian province

Egypt's pharaoh Amasis died, probably in November 526 BC, and his son Psamtik III had reigned about six months when Cambyses, son of Cyrus, crossed the Sinai with water from Arab chieftains and reached the Pelusian mouth of the Nile. Herodotus gives no date; May 525 is a modern reckoning built on those six months.²⁷

Before the battle, Herodotus says, Egypt's Greek and Carian mercenaries cut the throats of the sons of Phanes, a Greek officer who had deserted to Cambyses, over a bowl in sight of both armies, and drank their blood mixed with wine. The fighting was fierce before the Egyptians broke and fled to Memphis, which held out a long while before it surrendered. Ctesias, the Greek doctor at the Persian court, tells another story, with a different pharaoh, a traitor and 50,000 Egyptian dead to 7,000 Persian, figures as doubtful as the rest of his book. Myth vs fact: the famous tale of Cambyses putting cats and other sacred animals in front of his men comes from Polyaenus, some 700 years later, who tells it of a siege of the town, not of the battle. Egypt stayed Persian until the revolt of Amyrtaeus in 404 BC.²⁸

Why it ranks here: Decisiveness 5 and consequence 4: one battle and one siege made Egypt a Persian province for more than a century. But it is known mainly for a cat story that is probably invented, recognition 3, and Herodotus gives neither numbers nor a date, certainty 2. It ties Thymbra and Sardis on every count and goes below it as the younger battle, below Granicus on recognition and above Cunaxa on consequence.

Read the full story of Cambyses II ›

11 Cunaxa, 401 BC

Where

Cunaxa (probably Tell Kuneise), some 60 to 85 km north of Babylon, Iraq

War

The revolt of Cyrus the Younger

Sides

King Artaxerxes II vs his brother Cyrus the Younger, with Greek mercenaries

Strength

Artaxerxes 400,000 (Ctesias) to 900,000 on the field (Xenophon); Cyrus 100,000 Asian troops, 10,400 Greek hoplites and 2,500 light troops (Xenophon)

Result

Royal victory; Cyrus killed, Artaxerxes keeps the throne

When Darius II died in 404 BC, the crown went to his elder son, Artaxerxes II. The younger, Cyrus, went back to his command in Asia Minor and raised an army on a false pretext. At the last review Xenophon, who marched with it, counted 10,400 Greek hoplites and 2,500 light troops beside 100,000 Asian soldiers, and put the king's army at 1,200,000, of whom 900,000 came to the field. Ctesias, the court doctor at the king's side, gave 400,000; Livius.org gives some 60,000.²⁹

At Cunaxa, north of Babylon, the Greeks on the right routed the troops facing them. Cyrus charged the king's guard with his 600 horsemen and struck his brother through the breastplate, a wound Ctesias says he treated himself; then a javelin hit Cyrus under the eye, and he and eight companions were killed. In Ctesias' longer version, retold by Plutarch, the stunned prince staggers through the dusk until a camp follower cuts the vein behind his knee, and the king holds up his severed head to his wavering army. The Greeks had won their part of the field and lost the war; their march home to the Black Sea, where the vanguard shouted “The Sea! The Sea!”, made Xenophon's Anabasis a classic.³⁰

Why it ranks here: It decided who would rule the empire, decisiveness 4; two men who were there, Xenophon and Ctesias, tell it, certainty 4; and the Anabasis keeps it in memory, 4. But the empire went on under the brother who already wore the crown, consequence 3, so of the four battles tied on 35 points it comes last: below Granicus on recognition, below Thymbra and Pelusium on consequence.

12 Pasargadae, 550 BC

Where

Near Pasargadae, Fars, southwestern Iran (by Strabo's account); the Babylonian chronicle names no place

War

The Persian revolt against the Medes

Sides

Cyrus II, king of Anshan (Persia), vs his overlord Astyages, king of the Medes

Strength

Unknown: no source gives numbers

Result

Persian victory; Astyages captured, Ecbatana taken, the Median empire passes to Cyrus

Cyrus was king of Anshan, the Persian kingdom in southwestern Iran, and a vassal of Astyages of Media, by Herodotus' account his grandfather. When he revolted, Astyages marched against him and lost everything: Cyrus took the Median capital Ecbatana and carried its silver and gold home to Anshan. Even the year wavers: the Nabonidus Chronicle gives 550/549 BC, another chronology and one inscription 554/553.³¹

What happened in the field depends on whom you read. The near-contemporary Babylonian chronicle says only that Astyages' army rebelled, took him prisoner and handed him over to Cyrus. Herodotus, a century later, tells a revenge story: Harpagus, the Median noble whom Astyages had tricked into eating his own son, was given the army and led it over to the Persians, and Astyages, arming even the old men and boys of his capital, was beaten and captured. Strabo, more than five centuries later, says Cyrus founded Pasargadae where he defeated Astyages in his last battle, and Plutarch tells of Persian women shaming their fleeing men back into the fight. Livius.org sees nothing against a battle on the plain of Pasargadae but warns that Strabo's context contains errors. The Medes, Herodotus says, had ruled Asia beyond the Halys for 128 years; now they bowed to the Persians.³²

Why it ranks here: The revolt created the Persian Empire, so decisiveness and consequence 5, and TheCollector's list of the empire's battles opens with it. But few readers know it by any name, recognition and memory 2, and a chronicle, Herodotus and Strabo tell three different stories without a single number, certainty 2, which keeps the battle that founded the empire twelfth.³³

Read the full story of Cyrus the Great ›

13 Lade, 494 BC

Where

Off the islet of Lade by Miletus, now silted into the plain, western Turkey

War

The Ionian Revolt

Fleets

The Persian fleet of Phoenicians, Cypriots, Cilicians and Egyptians vs the rebel Ionian Greeks and Lesbians

Strength

600 ships vs 353 triremes (Herodotus)

Result

Persian victory; Miletus taken and sacked, the revolt broken

The Greek cities of Ionia, led by Miletus, had risen against Persia, and in 498 BC rebels and Athenian volunteers burned Sardis. Herodotus says Darius then had a servant tell him three times at every dinner: “Master, remember the Athenians.” By 494 the Persian generals had joined army and fleet against Miletus itself. The Ionians left the city to hold its walls and brought every ship they had to Lade, an islet outside the harbor: 353 triremes against 600 Persian ships, by Herodotus' count.³⁴

Dionysius of Phocaea drilled the fleet for seven days in the sun until the crews refused to go on. Meanwhile the Samians had been offered terms through their exiled tyrant. When the Phoenicians came on, all but 11 of their 60 ships hoisted sail for home, the Lesbians followed and most of the line went with them; the Chians fought on, broke through the enemy line and lost most of their ships. Miletus was besieged, mined and taken; most of its men were killed, the women and children enslaved and the temple at Didyma burned. In Athens Phrynichus staged The Capture of Miletus; the audience wept, and he was fined 1,000 drachmas. Two years later a Persian army set out for Eretria and Athens, and Darius then sent Datis and Artaphernes to enslave both: the expedition that ended at Marathon.³⁵

Why it ranks here: It decided the Ionian Revolt, decisiveness 5, and the anger the revolt left behind led straight to the expeditions against Athens, consequence 4. But few readers know its name, recognition and memory 2, and everything about it, the 353 and the 600 included, rests on Herodotus alone, certainty 3.

14 Mycale, 479 BC

Where

Below Mount Mycale (Dilek Dağı), opposite Samos, western Turkey

War

Greco-Persian Wars, Xerxes' invasion of Greece

Sides

The Persian army and beached fleet under Tigranes vs the Greek fleet under Leotychides of Sparta and Xanthippus of Athens

Strength

Persians 60,000 (Herodotus) to about 100,000 (Diodorus); Greeks 110 (Herodotus) to 250 ships (Diodorus)

Result

Persian defeat; the beached fleet burned, Ionia in revolt again

In 479 BC, while Mardonius waited for the Greeks in Boeotia, a Greek fleet under the Spartan king Leotychides and the Athenian Xanthippus, 110 ships by Herodotus' count and 250 by Diodorus', sailed from Delos for Samos, where what was left of Xerxes' navy lay. The Persians would not fight at sea. They beached their ships under Mount Mycale and fenced them with stones and felled fruit trees, under the shelter of an army Herodotus gives as 60,000 men under Tigranes and Diodorus as about 100,000.³⁶

The Greeks landed anyway. Leotychides had a herald call on the Ionians in the Persian ranks to remember their freedom, and the Persians, distrusting them, disarmed the Samians and sent the Milesians off to guard the mountain paths. The Athenians, advancing along the beach, broke the Persian wall of shields and stormed the stockade before the Spartans, coming round through the hills, arrived; Tigranes was killed, the Ionians turned on the Persians, and the Milesians led the fugitives into their enemies' hands. Diodorus counts more than 40,000 Persian dead. The Greeks burned the ships and took Samos, Chios, Lesbos and the other islands into their alliance: the first Greek victory in Asia, and the start of the Greek offensive. Both Herodotus and Diodorus put it on the very day of Plataea.³⁷

Why it ranks here: Decisiveness and consequence 4: it freed the Ionian cities and turned the war into a Greek counterattack, the same scores as in our Greece guide. But Plataea, fought the same day, has overshadowed it ever since, so recognition and memory 2, and Herodotus and Diodorus differ on every number, certainty 3; it closes the list on 29 points.