The Greco-Persian Wars, Peter Green, c. 1996

People and places for the Greco-Persian wars tracked here.

From my personal copy of this book. I was curious how I came across this book. I think it was from this, June 14, 2024: 

I find it amazing (for lack of a better word) that historians are still writing about the Greco-Persian Wars. In the current issue of The Claremont Review of Books, an essay on what Joseph Epstein calls the "war for the west."

Three books are mentioned in the essay:

• The Greco-Persian Wars, by Peter Green;
• The Persian War in Herodotus and Other Ancient Voices, William Shephere; and, 
• Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West, Tom Holland.

 ********************************

From The Greco-Persian Wars, Peter Green, c. 1996, pp 16 - 17. This took place in 600 years before the birth of Christ, in Athens, Greece. Does this sound familiar?

Cleisthenes had returned from exile under the Spartan military umbrella: to get back into power by constitutional means, once that umbrella had been removed, was a far trickier business. 

The conservative group, led by Isagoras, son of Teisander, fought hard -- and with considerable initial success -- to prevent an Alcmaeonid take-over. 

They began their campaign by scrutinizing the electoral roll, and getting a good many of Cleisthenes' "new immigrants" supporters disenfranchised on technical quibbles. But they were soon saw that it would pay off better, in the long run, to capture the popular vote rather than antagonize it. 

A law was passed abolishing the judicial use of torture against Athenian citizens; other similar measures followed; for two years Isagoras had things very much his own way. The electorate showed no sign whatsoever, at this stage, of welcoming Cleisthenes as a great democratic reformer, for the very good reason that no such idea had yet entered his head. 

In 508 BC, however, Isagoras was elected Chief Archon. 

Cleisthenes had already held this office, and was thereby debarred from standing again. Something had to be done: as a desperate measure Cleisthenes, to borrow Herodotus's ambiguous phrase, "took the people into partnership." 

This probably meant a radical extension of the franchise: to put it bluntly, Cleisthenes bribed the citizen-body to support him by offering them their first real stake in the government, a government that he intended to lead by means of their block (bloc?) vote. The proposal was rushed through the Assembly; and so, by a somewhat singular accouchement (childbirth), Athenian democracy finally struggled to birth. 

The child (early democracy in Greece) proved noisy, healthy and troublesome almost before it  (democracy) could walk; which was lucky, since other its chances of survival would have been slim.

****************************
The Book's Organization

Fascinating book. 

This seems to be a full-year's history course taught by the professor / the author of this book. 

It's a history, of course, but a lot of analysis, much more analysis than I normally see in a "history book."

 

Great introduction.

Short preface and acknowledgments, signed 1969.

Part One: Darius and The West

Part Two: The Legacy of Marathon

Part Three: Waiting for the Barbarian

Part Four: the Corner-Stone of Freedom

Part Five: The Wooden Wall

Part Six: The Doors of the Peloponnese

Part Seven: The Last Enemy

Notes

Bibliography

Supplemental Bibliography

Index

***************************
Notes

Theme: the conflict between Greece and Persia was an ideological struggle -- first of its kind (good exercise: name other wars that were ideological struggles, and not wars for riches spoils). Consider:

• US Civil War, US Revolutionary War: ideological
• French and Indian War; War of 1812: territory

Aeschylus' play: The Persians -- written eight years after the war; the playwright actually fought in the war itself. Obviously a tragedy if written from the perspective of the Persians.

Replica: mutatis mutandis, p. 3.

The play: Darius' widow Atoss.

Comperes Themistocles with Churchill, page 4.

Author: we now benefit from better understanding of Achaemenid Persia.

Top of page 5: the "constitutional state."

"Modern Europe" owes nothing to the Achaemids!!! -- p. 5.

The apadana of Persepolis.

**** Achaemid Persia: produced no great literature or philosophy. Her one lasting contribution: Zoroastrianism.

Fastest expansion of an empire;
Alexander the Great
Islam after the prophet
Persia, 6th century

Mid-6th century: Near East -- several small "empires" --

• Media: capital, Ecbatana; ruler -- Astyages
• Babylonia
• Lydia: Croesus
• inhabitants of Parsa: mere upland tribesmen.

That's where it started -- 25 years later -- FARS --

• centered on modern Shiraz; controlled a greater empire than that of Assyria; at its apogee the single larges administrative complex that had ever existed in the ancient world -- p. 6.

Persia -- part of the Near East, but quite far east -- Cyrus

559 BC: Cyrus -- throne of Anshan -- a Median vassal kingdom NE of Susa (NE of Babylon) -- p. 6. 

And by 539, Cyrus marches into Babylon unopposed and is head of largest Empire ever known!!!

P. 289: "Like the Jews, the Greeks learned to define themselves as a nation in the course of their contacts with the Persians."

FARS:

The last eight years of his life, Cyrus devoted his life to organizing this great and heterogeneous empire he had acquired ... twenty provinces -- each under a viceroy (vice = deputy, as in vice president; roy = king) Viceroy, Persian title, khshathrapavan, Protector of the Kingdom -- from that Persian word transliterated by the Greeks to satrapes. Now, the generic term is "satrap." 

Two satraps were Greek:

• Lydia; governmental seat at Sardis, included the Ionian seaboard;
• Phrygia covered the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmara (Propontis), and the southern short of the Black Sea -- these satraps, especially in the vast eastern provinces, wielded enormous power. -- p. 8. -- straddles the waterways that divided western Turkey with eastern Greece.

Cyrus' new capital: Pasargadae -- south-central Iran; about eight-hour south of Tehran; directly across from Kuwait.

Cyrus: first king

Son, Cambyses, ascends throne without incident. (Grandfather was also known as Camybses.)

spent most of his time in Egypt
besides Egypt also obtained the submission of Cyrene and Cyprus and, most important, of the Phoenician states. Persia thus acquired at one stroke what hitherto she had notably lacked; a strong fighting navy.

March 522: Cambyses abroad; revolution broke out in Media, led by a man who claimed to be the King's younger brother. Cambyses hurriedly left Egypt but died under suspicious circumstances.

Rebellion put down by a junta under Darius -- see background -- top of page 10. 

a