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The city-states outside the Persian Empire in mainland Greece werethe mother cities of those within the Empire, having establishedthem as colonies to dispose of surplus population hundreds of yearsearlier. They mostly maintained cultural and commercial ties withthem, and some supported them when they revolted against foreignintervention. This came to the fore in the Ionian Revolt whereEretria and Athens sent expeditionary forces to Asia Minor tosupport their daughter cities and overstepped by burning thePersian provincial capital Sardis and destroying the statues oftheir gods.
The Persians sent an expeditionary force to punish the two citiesand establish local tyrants to rule them and keep them quiet. Thisfailed in the defeat of the force by Athens and Plataia atMarathon, so the Persians decided that the only way was to bringthe mainland Greek city-states within the Empire and put them underlocal tyrants supervided by a Persian provincial governor.
Some city aristocracies accepted bribes and sided with Persia, thesouthern Greek cities did not and so a invasion was mounted to doit by force. This, after iniialsuccess, ultimately failed andwithdrew.
Sparta came at the solution of evacuating the Greek cities withinthe Empire back to mainland Greece. Athens had another idea – toform a league to continue fighting in Asia Minor and the Islandsagainst Persia. This fighting went on for another thirty yearsuntil Persia gave up, signed a peace and left the Greek cities togo back to their usual fighting amongst each other.
This infighting culminated in the devastating 27-year PeloponnesianWar between alliances led by Athens and Sparta. In the latterstages, Persia had revenge by financing a Spartan navy whichbrought Athens down.
After this war, inter-Greek fighting continued, and Persia tookadvantage of this by reclaiming control of the Asian Greek citiesand imposed the ‘King’s Peace’ on the eastern Mediterranean Greeksto stop inter-Greek fighting spilling over and disturbing the peacewithin the Persian Empire.
