# Athens loses at Marathon. How does the Western World change? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 19, 2013, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/athens-loses-at-marathon-how-does-the-western-world-change/650768 "2013-02-19T04:05:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2013, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/athens-loses-at-marathon-how-does-the-western-world-change/650768/41 "2013-02-20T19:52:14Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > I don’t see why it would have. As stated unthread lots of classical culture emanated from places under Persian control historically. Would this be Persian control pre- or post - Ionian revolt? Prior to the Ionian revolt, Persian “control” was pretty light. The aregument would be that, had Persia won at Marathon, its rule would be more like post-Ionian revolt in terms of heavy-handedness. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2013, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/athens-loses-at-marathon-how-does-the-western-world-change/650768/42 "2013-02-20T19:53:11Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > In contrast, imperial control can be stultifying. Hence, the case can be made that, had the Persians obtained control over the Greek world and snuffed out the particular Greek notion of “freedom”, the legacy of the Greeks in arts, literature, and philosophy would be the less. Much of what we consider Greek culture came about under the rule of the Hellenistic Kings and then later, Roman Governors. And even before that, most of the city states producing philosophers and play-writes were the Ionian city states under Athenian Hegemony. Even a lot of the really early guys lived in cities that were part of larger political units. Thales’s Miletus, for example, was under control of the Lydian Empire. If anything, the places and periods in which the City States were truly independent were considerably less culturally productive then when they were dominated by or dominating larger political units. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2013, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/athens-loses-at-marathon-how-does-the-western-world-change/650768/43 "2013-02-21T01:06:05Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > If anything, the places and periods in which the City States were truly independent were considerably less culturally productive then when they were dominated by or dominating larger political units. The nature of those larger groupings were often surprisingly loose, however. Each city’s separation gave a fertile ground for development, in Asia and in Greece proper. Individual cities dominated militarily, but not culturally. it’s somewhat unclear as to whether a domineering Persia would have done so or not - they seem to have been a bit schizophrenic about it. Unfortunately, there’s really no way to know what would have happened. Pick your own favorite theory and fire away. Counterfactuals in history are never more than games, but they are _fun_ games. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2013, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/athens-loses-at-marathon-how-does-the-western-world-change/650768/44 "2013-02-21T01:24:45Z")
> [@Kepler1571](#): > > This is not the only view of how the world works. Another view emphasizes that large scale social forces, technological development, environmental changes and the like will eventually “swallow” up the small scale consequences of individual events. You throw a rock in the pond and you get dramatic short term effects, but come back in ten minutes and you would never know you had thrown the rock. Except this isn’t a matter of opinion; barring magic there’s _no way_ for the world to work like that. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2013, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/athens-loses-at-marathon-how-does-the-western-world-change/650768/45 "2013-02-21T01:49:14Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Except this isn’t a matter of opinion; barring magic there’s _no way_ for the world to work like that. Sure there is. Chaos theory only applies where there’s a high sensitivity to initial conditions, like the weather. You can’t predict the weather accurately for a long period of time because relatively minor changes in weather formation have big effects on the final results. If you’re one of those who believe that history shaped by great socioeconomic forces, then relatively minor changes aren’t going to make a big difference in how things turn out. Persia falls whether it wins at Marathon or not, because there are structural forces in the Persian society that make its fall inevitable. Somebody preaches a message like Jesus’s and it gets picked up and becomes popular because the intellectual climate and social conditions make a message like that appealing. You don’t have to take that view of history, but it isn’t an uncommon one, and it isn’t a crazy one either. It has a certain plausibility to it. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2013, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/athens-loses-at-marathon-how-does-the-western-world-change/650768/46 "2013-02-21T02:00:19Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Except this isn’t a matter of opinion; barring magic there’s _no way_ for the world to work like that. Of course it’s a matter of opinion. Unless you know someone who stepped on a butterfly during a time travelling dinosaur hunting expedition it’s only a hypothesis, and an unprovable one at that. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2013, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/athens-loses-at-marathon-how-does-the-western-world-change/650768/47 "2013-02-21T02:33:36Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Except this isn’t a matter of opinion; barring magic there’s _no way_ for the world to work like that. I would disagree. Cultural inertia cannot be ignored because, short of annihilation, you still have the same memes and most of the same people to carry and replicate them. Even if Aeschylus had fallen at Marathon, it’s not like he was the only playwright in Athens. And if the rich and educated of Athens were hauled off to Central Asia, as Creasy says would have been their fate, Athenian culture would continue there and in Greece another city-state would fill the vacuum. Cultures are hard to kill and Persia usually didn’t try, so I have no reason to expect that the rise of Rome would have even been slowed. It was already a republic in 490 and was clearly a city on the make. And once Rome is going and some guys in Jerusalem are saying pretty common religious thoughts of the time, except maybe the part about reaching out to the goyim, you have Western Civilization. Butterflies may change the weather, but there’s always some other guy thinking the same thing. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2013, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/athens-loses-at-marathon-how-does-the-western-world-change/650768/48 "2013-02-22T14:32:05Z")
I would say there are some events which can be momentus and the world would be very different without them, if the Meccans defeat the early muslims at badr, the independance of the United States etc. Some events are truly inevitable, others are on chance. The classical world was on a trajectory in 490BC it would have remained so whatever the result at Marathon. ---
**Author:** ![Kepler1571](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/db5fbb/32.png) [@Kepler1571](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kepler1571)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2013, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/athens-loses-at-marathon-how-does-the-western-world-change/650768/49 "2013-02-24T18:50:04Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Except this isn’t a matter of opinion; barring magic there’s _no way_ for the world to work like that. The Great Man of History theory seems to be the more magical thinking, here. “Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, therefore if Jefferson had run off with Sally Hemmings there would have been no American independence.” It is far, far more likely that there would have been not only American independence but even a Declaration of Independence, albeit one not nearly as beautifully written. There were a bunch of other guys in that room who had read John Locke, too. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2013, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/athens-loses-at-marathon-how-does-the-western-world-change/650768/50 "2013-02-24T21:46:46Z")
Yeah, the Great Man of History is nonsense. Sometimes it comes down to who got published first or in a bigger journal or who filed his patent first. ---
**Author:** ![Pharod80](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@Pharod80](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pharod80)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2013, 8:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/athens-loses-at-marathon-how-does-the-western-world-change/650768/51 "2013-02-25T08:23:21Z")
> [@Kepler1571](#): > > The Great Man of History theory seems to be the more magical thinking, here. “Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, therefore if Jefferson had run off with Sally Hemmings there would have been no American independence.” > > It is far, far more likely that there would have been not only American independence but even a Declaration of Independence, albeit one not nearly as beautifully written. There were a bunch of other guys in that room who had read John Locke, too. But Der Trihs was replying to a post about a specific person still being born 500 years after a changing a significant historical event in the same region. This is simply impossible, except on the ‘Sliders’ tv show. American independence would have happened without Jefferson, but Obama or Bush wouldn’t have become president, because they wouldn’t exist. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2013, 8:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/athens-loses-at-marathon-how-does-the-western-world-change/650768/52 "2013-02-25T08:58:36Z")
> [@Pharod80](#): > > But Der Trihs was replying to a post about a specific person still being born 500 years after a changing a significant historical event in the same region. This is simply impossible, except on the ‘Sliders’ tv show. American independence would have happened without Jefferson, but Obama or Bush wouldn’t have become president, because they wouldn’t exist. Exactly. Whatever happens to the broad currents of history, the individuals will be completely different. Once you have even tiny differences, the same people won’t even be meeting and having children with each other, much less producing the same children. If nothing else, many of the people who would have died will live, and many who lived will die; obviously that’ll change who gets born in the future. > [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Chaos theory only applies where there’s a high sensitivity to initial conditions, like the weather. And the weather will be one of the things affected, given that people will be doing different things and therefore moving the air about them differently. That’s why it’s called the butterfly effect, because even the tiniest changes make a difference; a guy sneezes when in our time line he didn’t, and the entire future pattern of the weather changes unpredictably. And weather has pretty profound effects on human affairs. > [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Somebody preaches a message like Jesus’s and it gets picked up and becomes popular because the intellectual climate and social conditions make a message like that appealing. Perhaps; but whoever it is, it won’t be Jesus. He’ll have never been born. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2013, 10:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/athens-loses-at-marathon-how-does-the-western-world-change/650768/53 "2013-02-25T10:22:07Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > many of the people who would have died will live, and many who lived will die …my mind went straight to “Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement.” 😉 As to the OP - Like I said before, I think there’s a strong underestimation of the power of the “barbarian” forces arrayed across NW Europe and even into the Balkans at the time. Sure, absent Marathon the Persians may have conquered all of Greece & Macedonia, but that’s as far as they get - they were hardly a maritime power so their force projection in the Med would be limited as well, IMO. ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2013, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/athens-loses-at-marathon-how-does-the-western-world-change/650768/54 "2013-02-25T11:10:36Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > - they were hardly a maritime power so their force projection in the Med would be limited as well, IMO. Errm, they absolutely were a maritime power. They had posession of thefleets from Egypt and Phoenicia, just to name the biggest ones. What do you think got beaten at Salamis? But yes I would tend to agree that Macedon and Epirus would be as far west as the empire could span, practically. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2013, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/athens-loses-at-marathon-how-does-the-western-world-change/650768/55 "2013-02-25T12:44:53Z")
> [@Latro](#): > > Errm, they absolutely were a maritime power. They had posession of thefleets from Egypt and Phoenicia, just to name the biggest ones. > What do you think got beaten at Salamis? Let me rephrase that as “They, themselves, were not a maritime power” - there’s a inherent kind of thinking that goes with being a naval rather than a land-based Empire, IMO - that’s what it takes to conquer or colonize the whole Med. The Greeks and Phoenecians had it, Rome came to it much later, but I don’t think Persia was heading in that direction. This is different to using others’ borrowed sea-legs to stride the world. Look at Xerxes’ response to Salamis - “Oh, I’ll build a bridge 'cos it’s the boots on the ground that count” - tells you where he thought real power lay. And like you say, they did _get beaten_ at Salamis. By a much smaller force. Just saying…not exactly sprinkling themselves with naval glory there. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2013, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/athens-loses-at-marathon-how-does-the-western-world-change/650768/56 "2013-02-25T12:49:02Z")
Well they did win at Cruxana a 100 years hence. But true the were not a maritime power.The Persians religion of the time was suspicious of the water. I must also disagree with the assessment that they would have conquered Greece if they had one. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2013, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/athens-loses-at-marathon-how-does-the-western-world-change/650768/57 "2013-02-25T13:13:04Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Well they did win at Cruxana a 100 years hence. Sorry, not familiar with that one - is that another name for some place like Cnidus? ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Panda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee7513/32.png) [@Darth\_Panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Panda)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2013, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/athens-loses-at-marathon-how-does-the-western-world-change/650768/58 "2013-02-25T13:37:07Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > Jesus, I had a running joke all planned but forgot to use it. You’ve been telling it all of these years and you forgot _now_? Tsk, tsk. ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2013, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/athens-loses-at-marathon-how-does-the-western-world-change/650768/59 "2013-02-25T13:42:45Z")
I’m sorry but that is just ridiculous. Persia had a huge fleet in the mediteranean, that makes them a maritime power, period. I guess Carthage wasn’t a maritime power either? They got beaten by the Romans, no sparkling naval glory for Carthage. Neither was Rome a maritime power, hobnailed sandals on the ground mentality and all that… ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2013, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/athens-loses-at-marathon-how-does-the-western-world-change/650768/60 "2013-02-25T16:40:39Z")
> [@Latro](#): > > I’m sorry but that is just ridiculous. > Persia had a huge fleet in the mediteranean, that makes them a maritime power, period. > > t… The “Persian” Naval fleets were usually the fleets of subject or allied people’s with Naval traditions, like the Phonecians, the Egyptians, the Ethiopians, the Greeks etc. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/athens-loses-at-marathon-how-does-the-western-world-change/650768.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/athens-loses-at-marathon-how-does-the-western-world-change/650768.md?page=4)