<P> Ten years later, a second invasion was launched by Darius' son Xerxes . The city - states of northern and central Greece submitted to the Persian forces without resistance, but a coalition of 31 Greek city states, including Athens and Sparta, determined to resist the Persian invaders . At the same time, Greek Sicily was invaded by a Carthaginian force . In 480 BC, the first major battle of the invasion was fought at Thermopylae, where a small force of Greeks, led by three hundred Spartans, held a crucial pass into the heart of Greece for several days; at the same time Gelon, tyrant of Syracuse, defeated the Carthaginian invasion at the Battle of Himera . </P> <P> The Persians were defeated by a primarily Athenian naval force at the Battle of Salamis, and in 479 defeated on land at the Battle of Plataea . The alliance against Persia continued, initially led by the Spartan Pausanias but from 477 by Athens, and by 460 Persia had been driven out of the Aegean . During this period of campaigning, the Delian league gradually transformed from a defensive alliance of Greek states into an Athenian empire, as Athens' growing naval power enabled it to compel other league states to comply with its policies . Athens ended its campaigns against Persia in 450 BC, after a disastrous defeat in Egypt in 454 BC, and the death of Cimon in action against the Persians on Cyprus in 450 . </P> <P> While Athenian activity against the Persian empire was ending, however, conflict between Sparta and Athens was increasing . Sparta was suspicious of the increasing Athenian power funded by the Delian League, and tensions rose when Sparta offered aid to reluctant members of the League to rebel against Athenian domination . These tensions were exacerbated in 462, when Athens sent a force to aid Sparta in overcoming a helot revolt, but their aid was rejected by the Spartans . In the 450s, Athens took control of Boeotia, and won victories over Aegina and Corinth . However, Athens failed to win a decisive victory, and in 447 lost Boeotia again . Athens and Sparta signed the Thirty Years' Peace in the winter of 446 / 5, ending the conflict . </P> <P> Despite the peace of 446 / 5, Athenian relations with Sparta declined again in the 430s, and in 431 war broke out once again . The first phase of the war is traditionally seen as a series of annual invasions of Attica by Sparta, which made little progress, while Athens were successful against the Corinthian empire in the north - west of Greece, and in defending their own empire, despite suffering from plague and Spartan invasion . The turning point of this phase of the war usually seen as the Athenian victories at Pylos and Sphakteria . Sparta sued for peace, but the Athenians rejected the proposal . The Athenian failure to regain control at Boeotia at Delium and Brasidas' successes in the north of Greece in 424, improved Sparta's position after Sphakteria . After the deaths of Cleon and Brasidas, the strongest objectors to peace on the Athenian and Spartan sides respectively, a peace treaty was agreed in 421 . </P>

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