When King Darius I established the huge Persian Empire in 500 BCE, it was the largest empire the ancient world had ever known. The Ionian Revolt, which was sponsored by Athens, prompted Darius to seek vengeance against the Greek people. At the Battle of Marathon in 490, he was defeated by the wit and speed of the Athenian army. This was his second effort. Darius considered a Persian invasion through Europe to be his best option; in 480, a massive force, under his son Xerxes I, bridged and crossed the Hellespont, conquered Thessaly, and won the Battle of Thermopylae, in which Spartans and their allies, led by Leonidas, made a heroic stand in the mountain pass. Darius considered a Persian invasion through Europe to be his best option; in the allied Greek city-states, on the other hand, beat the Persian navy at Salamis in 480 and annihilated it at Cape Mycale in 479, respectively. Meanwhile, the Greek soldiers successfully toppled the Persian base at Plataea, which was located in southern Boeotia, against overwhelming odds.

The Delian League was created in 478 by the Ionian city-states, with

guidance and assistance from Athens, after the threat of Persian invasion had passed. The Greek soldiers, headed by Cimon, an Athenian general and the son of Miltiades, subsequently retook control of the city-states in Thrace and along the Aegean coast, bringing the region back under their rule. In 466, Cimon’s army destroyed the Persians in a massive naval and ground battle at the Eurymedon River in Asia Minor, effectively ending the Persian Empire. The Athenians, now commanded by Pericles, who in 459 blockaded Memphis, the country’s capital, in order to quell the unrest, aided later Egyptian uprisings.

After being confronted by the Persians in 456, the Greeks lost two squadrons in battle and were confined to an island in the Nile, where they were besieged by the Persians, who eventually defeated them in 454 after diverting the course of the river. Cimon, a political competitor whom Pericles had shunned when he first came to power, was recalled and led the Athenians to victory over the Persians at Salamis, Cyprus, in 450. He was killed the following year at the siege of Citium, when he had reclaimed most of Cyprus. Finally, the Peace of Callias ended the conflict in 448, with Persia promising to remain out of the Aegean. The war had lasted 40 years at that point.