<P> In 499 BC, the Ionian city states under Persian rule rebelled against the Persian - supported tyrants that ruled them . Supported by troops sent from Athens and Eretria, they advanced as far as Sardis and burnt the city down, before being driven back by a Persian counterattack . The revolt continued until 494, when the rebelling Ionians were defeated . Darius did not forget that the Athenians had assisted the Ionian revolt, however, and in 490 he assembled an armada to conquer Athens . Despite being heavily outnumbered, the Athenians--supported by their Plataean allies--defeated the Persian forces at the Battle of Marathon, and the Persian fleet withdrew . </P> <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>

When did the greek empire start and fall