In order to force the Peloponnesians to go on the offensive instead of the passive defense of Isthmus, the Athenians, Plataians and Megarians, in fact left to their own fate, threatened their allies with the conclusion of a separate peace with the Persians. The threat worked: Sparta and other policies of the Peloponnesian Union finally sent a fairly large army led by Pausanias, the nephew of the hero Thermopylae, King Leonidas, behind Isthm.
Mardonius then retreated to Boeotia. There, near the city of Plataea, a fierce battle took place, in which the commander-in-chief of the Persians died and his army was killed almost entirely (its remnants hurried to the Hellespont).
At about the same time, in September 479 BC, a battle took place near Cape Mycale (on the coast of Asia Minor, opposite the island of Samos), during which the landing force, landed from Hellenic ships, destroyed the main base of the Achaemenid fleet, C At this moment, a radical turning point occurs in the course of the Greco-Persian wars: the threat to the independence of the Hellenic cities in the south of the Balkans disappears, and the question of the liberation of the Hellenic cities of Asia Minor is on the agenda.
Sparta is now out of the fight. Athens assumes the main role in the anti-Persian coalition. In 478 BC a defensive-offensive alliance is created, the center of which is proclaimed Delos - an island in the heart of the Aegean, revered as the sacred possession of the god Apollo. Within the framework of the new political unification, the role of hegemon is assigned to Athens.
With the formation of the Delian (First Athenian) Union, hostilities against the troops of the Achaemenid state either fade, then again become more active. The most significant milestones of the final stages of the Greco-Persian wars are the naval victories of the Athenians at the mouth of the Eurymedon River (in the south-west of Asia Minor) in 469 BC. and near the city of Salamis (in Cyprus) in 449 BC. Their final result was the recognition by the Achaemenids of the complete independence of all the Hellenic policies of the Aegean. It was recorded in 449 BC. The Kallia world, which received its name from the name of the noble Athenian ambassador who concluded it with the king of Persia.
The king of ancient Macedonia, Philip II, took the throne very young - at 23 years old. In 359 BC Macedonia was threatened by the invasion of the Illyrians. After the death of King Perdikka III, the country was left without a ruler, with the exception of the young son of Perdikka III Aminta. "Compassionate" neighbors - Athens, whose influence extended to the north of the Balkan Peninsula, and the Thracians were ready to subjugate a small and weak state to their influence. However, the brother of the murdered king, Philip, managed to settle the matter by paying off the Thracians with gold, and from Athens with the city of Amphipolis, which they extremely needed. Thanks to this, the people proclaimed Philip the king instead of the young Amyntas.
Conscious of the need to expand the state, Philip began with the army. In his youth, having been a hostage in Thebes, he learned something from one of the best strategists of that time - Epa-mnnonda. It was to Philip II that Macedonia owes the famous phalanx, which only the Roman legion could later surpass. The tsar also paid much attention to the artillery of that time, for the creation of which he invited the best mechanics from Syracuse.
With such a strong army in reserve, Philip II could seriously think about turning small Macedonia into a rich and influential state. Athens bitterly regretted that, seduced by a rich bribe, they left such a quick youth without attention. Philip took Amphipolis from them, taking a number of other cities subject to Athens, and immediately gave some of them to his eastern neighbors - the Chalcis Union led by Olynthus, preventing their intention to support
Athens. Then Philip, taking advantage of the dispute between Athens and Thebes over the island of Euboea, captured it, along with the Pangean region and gold mines. Using the wealth that was in his hands, Philip began to build a fleet and, through trade, began to actively influence Greece. As a result of the swift actions of Philip II, the Chalcis Union was completely cut off from Central Greece.
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