Ancient
Greek history in historical art prints including the Battle of Marathon, Battle
of Salamis and early games by world renowned historical military artists. Art
prints published by Cranston Fine Arts are available direct from Cranston Fine
Arts, Scotland or The Military Art Gallery, USA.
The
Battle of
Marathon 490 BC during the Persian Greek Wars. King Darious I of Persia
sent his son in law Mardonius to invade Greece in 492 BC. The
Persian Forces conquered Thrace and Macedonia before their fleet was devastated
by a storm. Mardonia was forced to return to Asia. A second Persian
invasion force crossed the Aegean sea. After conquering Eretria, the
Persian Army under Datis (15,000 strong) landed near Marathon.
(Marathon is 24 miles northeast of Athens.) General Miltiades, general in
the Greek army gathered a force of 10,000 Athenians and 1,000 Plataean
citizen Soldiers.
On the 12th September 490 BC, Miltiades arranged his
Greek Hoplites )Infantry) in a long line across the 2 mile plain of
Marathon. Then the Greek's charged the Persian Lines. the Centre of the
Hoplite force was pushed back but the Flanks, broke through the Persian
Forces and encircled the Persian Centre. Datis Persian army was
routed and returned to Asia. The Greek losses was 192 men compared
to the Persian losses of 6,400. This was the first major assault
from the Asian Powers against Europe and is considered the first major
decisive battles of the world.
Battle of
Thermopylae.
Nine years after the Battle of Marathon the Persian army under Darius I
son Zerxes led an army of 100,000 men across the Hellespont (now called
the Dardanelles). Zerxes marched through Thrace and Macedonia and on
reaching Thermopylae pass, met the Greeks who had taken up a strong position.
The fighting lasted three days, until the Persians had outflanked the
Greeks through another pass (this information coming from the traitor
Ephialtes). Leonardas I of Sparta with 300 of his men fought a desperate
rearguard action against the Persian army with overwhelming odds giving
time for the main Greek Hoplite army of 5,000 to withdraw. The Spartans
fought to the last man. The Greeks also abandoned Attica and retired
across the Isthmus of Corinth, the Persians followed to Salamis.
(See battle of Salamis)
Battle of
Salamis.
Themistocles had chosen the narrow waters
at the entrance to the bay well. The Persians could not bring their
larger fleet to bear on the smaller Greek fleet and due to the design
and manoeuvrability of the Greek Triremes, the Greek fleet sailed down
the right channel next to Salamis and turned to ram the Persian fleet as
it entered the bay. The Persian captains tried frantically to turn their
ships but their oars became entangled and the turning manoeuvre caused
the ships to run into each other. The Greek Triremes were able to ram
the leading Persian ships, disengage and ram again. This was a great
victory for Themistocles who lost only 70 ships from his fleet of 380
Triremes, compared to the loss of over 600 ships from the Persian fleet
of over 1,000.
