United Against Persia, Then What?

Greece's finest hour was defeating the Persian Empire in 480–479 BC. Athens and Sparta led a coalition of city-states that crushed the largest invasion force the ancient world had ever seen. Then, almost immediately, they turned on each other.

Philip II of Macedon defeated a Greek alliance at Chaeronea in 338 BC, ending the independence of the city-states that had produced Plato, Aristotle, and Sophocles.

The glory had lasted barely a century and a half. Greek political independence was now over, never to return in the ancient world.