The Battles of Ancient Greece Trivia Quiz

Answer: Battle of Marathon

After the Greeks helped the Ionians in Asia Minor revolt against the Persians a few years earlier, the Persian king Darius decided to invade Greece. After a quick strike against the city of Eretria in Euboea (Evia), the Persian army moved against Athens. They met with the smaller Greek army, which consisted of around 10,000 Athenians and Plataeans, in Marathon. The Greeks, led by Miltiades and Callimachus, managed to prevail and drive back the Persians, thus ending the first Persian invasion of Greece. According to Herodotus, the casualties were about 200 Greek soldiers and more than 5,000 Persians, but as usually, the accuracy of these numbers cannot be verified. Historically, the Battle of Marathon is of great significance because it stopped the advance of the Persian Empire for the first time.

According to legend, Pheidippides (or Philippides) ran from Marathon to Athens to announce the victory of the Greek army, and immediately after doing so he collapsed and died of exhaustion. The story caught on, and after the resurrection of the Olympic Games, it served as an inspiration for modern marathon races.

Answer: Battle of Thermopylae

Perhaps the most famous battle in this list, the battle of Thermopylae took place in 480 B.C. Xerxes, who had succeeded his father Darius as king of Persia, had gathered a new army to invade Greece. According to Herodotus, this army numbered more than one million men, but modern historians give a more moderate 100,000 as an estimation. Of course, even the latter number is several times larger than the roughly 7,000 men that the Greeks gathered. Led by the famous Spartan king Leonidas, the Greeks resisted the Persians for several days. Eventually, after the betrayal by Ephialtes, the Persians were able to surround the Greek army. Most of the Greeks retreated, and only 300 Spartans, 400 Thebans and 700 Thespians stayed behind. The Persian army, despite suffering heavy losses, managed to defeat the Greeks, thus leaving the pass of Thermopylae now open to them. This also meant that the naval battle of Artemision, which took place at the same time, had little meaning any more as the Persians could now advance by land.

The Battle of Thermopylae is one of the most famous last stands, and there is a lot of lore about it. The movie "300" is of course the most famous adaptation of this battle, yet it is noted for its exaggerated style and historical inaccuracies. Everyone knows that the ancient Greeks didn't believe in hell. If anything, they would be dining in Hades.

Answer: Battle of Salamis

Shortly after the Battle of Thermopylae, the Persian army advanced all the way to Athens, which had been evacuated. Themistocles convinced the other leaders of the Greek army that their best chance to prevent the Persian fleet from flanking them was in the Saronic gulf near Athens, where the superior numbers of the Persian fleet would not matter as much.

The Greek and Persian fleets fought in the straits between Salamis and Athens, where the Greeks took advantage of the smaller area and scored an important victory, halting the advance of the Persian army. Xerxes returned to Asia afterwards, leaving Mardonius as the Persian commander.

The naval battle of Salamis is a turning point in the Greek-Persian wars, because if the Persians had won, they would have likely gone on to conquer the rest of Greece.

Answer: Battle of Plataea

His father Darius had failed to conquer Greece ten years ago, but Xerxes made more progress. Eventually, it all came down to the battle that took place in Plataea. Although the exact numbers of their forces are debatable, the Greeks amassed an army that may have been as much 100,000 soldiers from many city-states, while the Persians had an army at least as large (Herodotus claims they had 300,000 soldiers, but modern historians cut that number by more than half).

The battle itself took place in the summer of 479 B.C. and ended in a decisive victory for the Greeks.

The Battle of Plataea, along with the Battle of Mycale that took place in the same year, effectively ended the second Persian invasion of Greece, since Xerxes had already left his army the previous year, and Mardonius, the leader of the Persian army died during the battle of Plataea.

Answer: Battle of Arginusae

By 406 B.C., the Peloponnesian War had been going on for more than two decades and had taken a toll on both Athens and Sparta, the primary forces behind it. The Spartan fleet, under newly appointed general Callicratidas, had the Athenian fleet under Conon trapped in the island of Mytilene.

A new and inexperienced fleet was created by the Athenians, who clashed who the Spartan forces but managed to win because of their new and unknown tactics. After the battle, the Athenian forces were split between freeing Colon and his men and rescuing their allies who were survivors of sunken ships.

A sudden storm prevented any rescue from taking place. Most of the Athenian generals were tried and executed because of this. Back in Sparta, Lysander was reinstated as the commander of the fleet following the death of Callicratidas in the battle of Arginusae. Sparta attempted to negotiate a peace treaty with Athens, but the terms were deemed unfavourable, so the Peloponnesian War raged on.

Answer: Battle of Aegospotami

The Battle of Aegospotami (Aegos rivers) was a battle between the Athenian and Spartan forces. It was the last major conflict of the Peloponnesian War. There are two separate accounts of how exactly the battle unfolded, but the undisputed result was the capture of the bulk of the Athenian fleet by the Spartans, who were led by Lysander.

The destruction of the Athenian fleet was soon followed by the city's surrender to Sparta. It marked the end of the Peloponnesian War after almost three decades of fighting, and it marked the replacement of Athens by Sparta as the dominant force in Greece. Athens would never regain its former strength and glory, while Sparta would only last until the rise of Macedon under Philip II.

Answer: Battle of Chaeronea

After being at war for several years with the other Greek city-states, Philip II of Macedon managed to subjugate them after a decisive victory in the battle of Chaeronea. The Macedonian army, led by Philip and his son Alexander, defeated the allied army of the city-states, which included Athens and Thebes, among others.

As a result, the League of Corinth was formed and Philip was established as the leader of the whole Greek army with the exception of Spartans, enabling him to start planning his war against Persia.

However, his assassination two years later cut those plans short, leaving the young Alexander in charge.

Answer: Battle of the Granicus

After his father's death, Alexander had to fight once again to establish himself as the leader of the Greeks. After destroying the city of Thebes because of its continuous rebellions, Alexander was able to gather a Greek army consisting of soldiers from his native kingdom of Macedonia, as well as those from several city-states. Alexander's army crossed initially into Asia Minor and soon fought its first major battle against the Persian satraps of that area in the Granicus River. Though accounts differ on the tactics that Alexander used in the battle, what is beyond doubt is that his forces eventually defeated the small Persian army and the Greek mercenaries who were allied to them.

The battle of Granicus gave Alexander the chance to establish himself in Asia Minor before moving deeper into Persian territory.

Answer: Battle of Issus

The Battle of Issus was the second major battle of Alexander's campaign against the Persian empire and it took place the year after the Battle of the Granicus. Darius III, the king of Persia, took control of his army and gathered his forces against Alexander's army.

The two armies clashed near the city of Issus, which was located in the southeast coast of modern Turkey. Darius' army held the advantage in numbers, but Alexander led a portion of his army in a strike directly against Darius. When the Persian king fled, and upon realising that the battle was lost, his army (including again some Greek mercenaries) broke up and fled as well.

After the battle, Darius' family was captured and his reign sustained a serious blow, while Alexander's influence within the Persian empire rose.

Answer: Battle of Gaugamela

After his defeat in the Battle of Issus, Darius retreated to Babylon and started regrouping. He expected Alexander to take a direct route to Babylon, but Alexander instead moved his army from a northern route, which gave him the chance to keep his army supplied. Darius eventually chose a large, open area in modern north Iraq to deploy his army, so that he could use his superior numbers, argued by modern historians to be no more than 100,000, in comparison to Alexander's men, who were between 40-50,000.

In the end though, due to a manoeuvre on Alexander's part which left Darius exposed to attack, the Persian king chose to flee again. Darius planned to raise a new army, but he was later murdered by a satrap. In the end, Alexander became the king in most of the areas ruled by Darius, before turning his attention to the Indian peninsula.