Greek Wars and Battles

There were different city-states in Ancient Greece, and it was not considered to be one big country.

Each of these city-states had different leaders and because of this, many of the areas would go to war.

Location

If you would ask an Ancient Greek where he was from, he would say that he was from one of the cities within Greece.

He would say that he lived in Athens or that he was from Sparta.

The people thought of themselves as individual people, but they also were one with the city that they lived in.

Most of the people from that city would have the same religious thoughts or ideas and most of them worshiped the same gods.

Being in one city-state with another person formed a bond with them and the people would work well together, and this was how wars were won.

When a war would be decided on, the people within that city-state would come together and would fight in the battle so that they could beat their enemy.

War

Anytime there was a war, the people of the city-state would come together, and they would fight against each other.

Sometimes, but not very often, the people would work together to fight a common enemy like Persia.

This was very rare, and most city-states allowed people to fight their own battles.

Warrior

All the men that were citizens of a certain city-state were considered warriors.

Those that lived in Sparta were considered the best warriors in Greece.

Sparta was the place where all people that lived there were trained to be warriors and they would begin training as young as 6 years old.

The Persian Wars

During the Persian War, the Persians sent people to the Greek peninsula in order to beat the Greeks.

They tried to win the battle and to defeat the Greeks three different times but each time they failed.

The three areas were Marathon, Thermopylae and Salamis.

The Greeks were very powerful, and the Persians were unable to overtake them.

The Delian League

The Delian League was when there were 200 different city-states that chose to work together to fight off the Persians.

They wanted to make sure that the Persians would never be able to conquer their land.

The point of the league was to have powerful warriors that would be there to fight if there ever was a battle, but even more, the league was important to give money to Greece so that they could make weapons and have money to train warriors.

The Delian League had people that formed a treasury and the money that was put into the account was used as a way to fund the war, build ships, train soldiers and make armor and weapons.

The Peloponnesian War

The war that was fought between Sparta and Athens was called the Peloponnesian War.

This was lasted more than 20 years.

Sparta and Athens always had trouble getting along and this war was a bad war.  Of course, Sparta, with their powerful army won the war, but man people died along the way.

The Spartans would fight until someone died and since this was such as huge war, many people died.  It took a long time for Athens to recover from this war.

Sea Wars

There were also many wars that were fought at sea.

The Ancient Greeks would use ships such as the Trireme to fight wars on the sea.

These wars would usually end with ships being destroyed or damaged and it would take money and time to rebuild.

Facts About Ancient Greek Wars:

• The Ancient Greeks were able to go to war because the city-states were powerful areas.
• Hoplites were the main Greek warriors and they would fight in order to keep their warriors and citizens safe.
• Most of the city-states could not afford to lose a lot of warriors so the wars were sometimes fought only for a season before they ended.
• The Persians wanted to fight the Greeks because they had a huge empire and they wanted to add Greece to their empire.
• The only reason the Greeks were able to win the battle of Persia was because they worked together.
• The Battle of Marathon was a battle between Persia and Greece.
• Another battle between Persia and Greece was the Battle of Thermopylae and it was led by the Sparta King, Leonidas.

 

What Did You Learn?

1. What were Ancient Greek wars?  Ancient Greek wars were wars that took place in Ancient Greece.
2. Why were these Greek wars interesting? These Greek wars were interesting because many of them took place between the city-states.
3. Why did the city-states fight? The city-states would fight because they would have disagreements between each other.
4. What were some of the main wars fought in Ancient Greece? Some of the main wars in Ancient Greece were the Persian Wars, the Peloponnesian War and the Trojan War.
5. How many battles took place between the Ancient Greeks and the Persians? There were three battles that took place before the Persians lost the battle.