A vase depicting a Greek and Persian fighting. For more information about this item, click on the image. Throughout this web-site, links shall appear in red and sites already visited will appear in yellow.
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The Persians by the start of the Fifth Century were an all-conquering nation. Medea, Babylon and Lydia had all fallen in her wake. The Asiatic Greeks had been subjected and there was a very real threat that mainland Greece would be the next to feel the force of their mighty armies. At Salamis and then at Plataea, the Greeks were to show the power that good leadership combined with the fear of subjection could acheive. They succeeded in defeating the army of Xerxes and so saved themselves from direct subjection.