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Battle of Plataea, (July 479 B.C). Following the Greek naval success at the Battle of Salamis in 480 B.C, Persian King Xerxes left Greece with much of his army. However, his general, Mardonius, remained in northern Greece to continue the fight.

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Thus, when Xerxes I, the Persian king, marched in 480, Athens had 200 triremes, though many of the rowers were still untrained. Themistocles further succeeded in selling his naval strategy to the Peloponnesians, headed by Sparta, who could raise another 150 triremes.

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In September 490 B.C the Persian army landed unopposed on the plain of Marathon in northeast Attica, where the lines of supply with Euboea and the east were easy and secure. The speed and the initiative of the Persians found that the Athens were still isolated.

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The siege of Naxos (499 BC) was a failed attempt by the Milesian tyrant Aristagoras, operating with support from, and in the name of the Persian Empire of Darius the Great, to conquer the island of Naxos. It was the opening act of the Greco-Persian Wars, which would ultimately last for 50 years.

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by troops from Athens and Eretria, the Ionians marched on, captured, and burnt Sardis. However, on their return journey to Ionia, they were followed by Persian troops and decisively beaten at the Battle of Ephesus. About BC 550, Cyrus I, emperor of Persia, conquered the territory of Ionia (the west coast of Modern Turkey). For all of their advances in science and mathematics, these well-established city-states seemed the most prominent in Greece. The people of Ionia were discontent with their new, dictatorial rulers.