At Medical Wars, which took place between the years 490 to 479 BC. a., constituted, in history, the first great confrontation between western and eastern forces. They received this name in reference to the Persian civilization, which, in this battle, faced the poleis Greek (city-states). The Greeks knew the Persians by the name “Medos”, hence the expression “Medical Wars”, which can also be called "WarsPersians" or "WarsMedopers”. One of the most decisive battles that the Greeks and Persians fought was the Battleof Salamina, that is, a naval battle that took place around the Greek island that gives it its name.
Batalla de Salamina happened in 480 a. Ç. and had as main protagonists the general and great military strategist Themistocles (525 a. Ç. - 459 a. C.), of Athens, and the Persian king Xerxes I (518 a. Ç. - 465 a. C.), son of Darius I. Xerxes commanded a contingent of about 200,000 men against the Greek city-states. Ten years earlier, in 490 BC C., the Persians had already tried to subject the Greek cities to their yoke in the
Battleof marathon, but failed. Xérxes' strategy, however, sought to bring together a much larger number of soldiers and the occupation and destruction of strategic points in Hellas (as Greece was known at the time).To this end, Xérxes built mobile bridges over the strait of Hellespont (today Dardanelles) and over the river Strymon, using boats, wood and ropes. Xérxes' long work indicated the preparation for a war of much larger dimensions than the previous ones, whose clear objective was to dominate the cities of Hellas. The Greeks knew that they must prepare to fight an army of immense proportions.
According to what historians and poets of the time tell, as Herodotus and Squirrel, Themistocles intuited that the war against the Persians could only be won at sea. There was then great pressure from the Athenian navy on the ecclesia (assembly) to approve the construction of more military vessels.
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On the battlefields (on land), in turn, Xerxes' army proved to be practically unbeatable, unblocking all resistance, including that mounted by the Spartans in the canyon of Thermopylae. Xerxes then marched his troops to the city of Athens, which was at the head of the strategies. Once again, Greek resistance was broken and the city-state was occupied and burned.
With the occupation of Athens, the remaining strategy was to mount resistance on the island of Salamis. The Athenian navy followed Themistocles' plan to corner the Persian vessels and destroy them along the coast of Salamis. The battle lasted about 12 hours. Eventually, the Greeks managed to get Xerxes and his troops away from Hellas.
Themistocles' command over the Battle of Salamina guaranteed the integrity of free Greece, as researcher José Ribeiro Ferreira points out:
“And so, ready the boats in time and led by a skilful and visionary captain, they went with mastery used in the invasion of 480, and their action changed the history of Athens, Greece and even the Europe. It was the beginning of the V century a. C., and Greece had not yet reached the apogee of the classical period nor produced its most important cultural achievements. And given that European – and by extension Western – culture is deeply indebted to Greek, even when received through Roman or other It will naturally not be difficult to imagine that our culture would be very different today if the victory in Salamina had swung to the side of the Persians”.[1]
GRADES
[1] FERREIRA, José Ribeiro. A crucial moment for Europe: The Medoper Wars (490-479 a. Ç.). Magazine Debate Europe. n. 7. Jun. Ten. 2012. P. 12.
By Me. Cláudio Fernandes
Would you like to reference this text in a school or academic work? Look:
FERNANDES, Claudio. "Battle of Salamin"; Brazil School. Available in: https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/guerras/batalha-salamina.htm. Accessed on June 28, 2021.