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User:Ariobarza/Siege of Doriskos

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Siege of Doriskos
Part of the Greco-Persian Wars
Date450 BC's? BC
Location
Result Decisive Delian League victory.
Territorial
changes
Persia loses total control of Europe.
Belligerents
Delian League Achaemenid Empire
Commanders and leaders
Unknown Mascames
Strength
Unknown Unknown
Casualties and losses
Unkown Unkown

In the Siege of Doriskos, the Delian League attacked the retreating Persian Empire many times. Doriskos was known to have a Persian garrison there since Darius the Great invaded Scythia. After the second Persian invasion of Greece failed. The Greeks were compeled to deplete all the Persian garrisons in Thrace, but they themselves did not hold on to the places they took, as it was later given back to the Thracians. After many failed months in attempts, they succeeded.[citation needed] They starved the inhabitants by cutting of the food supplied by the king of Persia, and Mascames the commander at the fort, made a secret escape. [citation needed] This was one of the last Persian garrisons to remain in Europe before they were all destroyed.

Account of Herodotus

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In VII.106 of his Historia, Herodotus relates that Xerxes I entrusted the Persian fortress at Doriskos, on the coastal plains by the river Hebrus in Thrace, to Mascames at the time he amassed, reviewed and counted his troops and fleet there in 480 BC, prior to his campaign in Greece. According to Herodotus, after Xerxes' failed campaign, unlike other Persian fortresses in Thrace, the fortress at Doriskos withstood prolonged Greek attempts to capture it. Its governors were rewarded with gifts from successive Persian kings, including Artaxerxes I, the son of Xerxes.[1][2]

Notes

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  1. ^ Briant 2002, p. 255
  2. ^ Kuhrt 2007, p. 290

References

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  • Isaac, Benjamin H. (1986), The Greek Settlements in Thrace Until the Macedonian Conquest, Brill, pp. 137–140, ISBN 9004069216. discussion of role of the τείχος Doriskos during and after the reign of Xerxes I.
  • McGregor, Malcolm Francis (1987), The Athenians and Their Empire, UBC Press, p. 67, ISBN 0774802693. confirmation of the title and further details.
  • Briant, Pierre (2002), From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire, Eisenbrauns, ISBN 1575061201
  • Kuhrt, Amélie (2007), The Persian Empire: A Corpus of Sources of the Achaemenid Period, Routledge, ISBN 0415436281
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Wikisource translation of Polymnia, Book VII of History of Herodotus.