How did greek city-states respond to the threat from Persia

Some of the cities joined Persia. Persia’s aim was to establish an ethnic frontier, as the mainland Greek cities kept supporting their daughter cities in Asia Minor and the islands. After failing to warn off this practice when defeated at Marathon in their punitive expedition agains Athens and Eritea in 490 BCE and instal a puppet ruler, Persia decided to take over the mainland, incorporate it in the empire and instal willing Greek puppets under a Persian governor to keep the cities quiet.

Before the invasion in 480, Persian emissaries descended on the Greek cities with bags of gold buying supprt and negotiating deals with locals to become Persian supporters. This succeeded with some cities, who supported the Persian invasion. The other cities determined to repel the invasion and assembled land and naval forces under the leadership of Sparta, which fought the Persian alliance in two sea and two land battles – Artemesion and Salamis 480 BCE and Plataiax and Mykale 479 BCE. At Plataia there were as many Greek infaantry fighting on the Persian side as were on the Greek side, and at Salamis half of the Persian fleet was Asian-Greek.

The Greek citis then went back to the usual inter-city strife which spilt over to the Greek cities within the Persian empire, so in 470 the Persian king imposed th ‘Kings Peace’ on them to provide some stability in the eastern Mediterranean.

After the Persians went home, warfare continued. Athens organised an anti-Persian league (sometimes called the Delian League because the treasury was kept there) which carried on the fight around Asia Minor. A peace was established in 449 BCE in which the Persians undertook to stay out of the Aegean Sea. Athens then converted the anti-Persian league into something like an empire, using its dominant fleet to extort the annual contributions even though the Persian threat was minimised. It used the money to glorify Athens (eg the Parthenon) and keep half of its populace on the public payroll. Sparta formed a league in opposition with both sides fighting a destructive war embroiling the Greek world 431-404 BCE, the Spartan side winning with Persian help and dismembering the Athenian empire.