And if Alexander had died at Gaugamela we would now all be speaking Farsi and lauding what wonderful poetry was produced in that era just after the conquest of italy. What magnificent jewelry of that period displayed in the Royal museums
How oil painting took such a brilliant flight under Artaxerxes the 15th etc… etc…
No, fair dos, they had a lot to do with it too.
I’m pretty certain clairobscur, as a Frenchman coming out of the French educational system hasn’t taken any such lessons at all.
In fact it rather strikes me as just about as bad history to say that the Greeks created W. science and art as to derive history lessons from that film.
As Dibble says,
Classicism of the Rennaissance and 19th century served a purpose but is Romantic bollocks in large part.
Unlikely, since one of the many despotic states in Europe managed to do so despite best efforts. Geography, not dead Greeks who precious few were aware of over much of European history, saved Europe from being China.
Quite.
Quite.
Quite, I find it personally hard to credit Greek democracy with having anything much to do with democratic developments (other than serving as a romantic argumentative cornerstone). Roman republican and imperial models had far more real impact, but the democracy that grew up in England would have done so - presuming the same flow of history, without supposed Greeks around.
Even if the Persians won, I don’t see why a Alexander of Macedon - a despot - would not have emerged. And Greek learning etc. spread well enough under the despotic imperial rule of the successors to Alex, so this romanticism about free (tiny elite) Greeks seems pretty much that, romanticism.
The point isn’t that Greek freedom was perfect, but that it was so much better than anything the world had yet witnessed. Still in many ways superior to much of the world today. In Athens many men were free, in Persia only one man was free. But the main thing about Plataea when it comes to freedom is location, location, location. 2000 miles from Persepolis, 200 miles from Athens. Who has most grounds to argue that he is fighting for his home and freedom, the Persian mercenary in foreign territory 2000 miles from home, or the Athenian citizen standing in his backyard?
Greek freedom was defended at Marathon, Salamis, Plataea, and of course Thermopylae. Alexander was just another despotic conqueror busy sending his armies hither and thither. Like so many others before and after him, Saragon, Ramses, Cyrus, Xerxes, Hamilcar, Hannibal, Pompey, Caesar, and so on and so forth. Fortunately he died young as he was becoming increasingly more inspired by Oriental and Persian autocratic thought.
Doubt it. They already had had plenty of time to show such skills if they had had them. They didn’t. It should be strange if they had suddenly completely changed their ways. But I don’t engage in futile speculations about alternative history. The Persians must be judged on what they accomplished, not what they could have done in this or that imaginary world.
Again you are overstating your “Freedom” hang-up.
Yes it plays a role, but to much lesser extent than you seem to argue.
“Persian mercenary”, uh hu. A major part of the Persian army weren’t mercenairies. The Immortals weren’t commited? . Plus the best mercenairies available were Greeks.
But any way, if fighting for freedom is such a huge factor, why did the Celts lose to the Romans, or the Spanish?
I think the hoplite style of warfare is far, far more important in the equation.
And the persians realised this.
Besides, as Tamerlane stated, the enormous numbers of greek mercenairies, the institution of the Kardakes corps seems to have been an attempt at creating a native Persian hoplite force.
I consider Salamis the most important victory.
For all the superiority of the hoplite and, if you must, fighting on home-turf, numerical superiority would have done the Greeks in.
Salamis bought Greece time. Time only to be conquered by an even more effective despot with a more effective new-style army. But I think that without Phillip and Alexander’s conquest, the Persians would eventually have tried again.
We don’t know about them. Persepolis was destroyed. Who knows what mighty works of literature there were.
Do you really think only the Greeks had mathematics?
How do you think the pyramids were built, without the Greeks?
I’m pretty certain I wasn’t talking about clairobscur.
I guess I will now tear down my history degree out of shame 
Queer, you were replying directly to him, to whom were you addressing yourself if not him? The Vague Non Person who never made any statements about history based on a film?
I quite agree, but let us think rather a bit farther. Hellenism flourished quite fine under the perfectly “oriental despotic” rule of the Seleucids and Ptolomies, as well as the far-from democratic rule of the Romans. Given the Persian track record, other than out-dated 19th century Romanticism, is there any particular reason to think the same was not possible under the Persians or that given the Persians of the time were already starting to copy the Greeks, that the cultures would not have fused - rather as they did anyway under the Seleucids?
The Persians were less harsh than other conquerors, permitting local religions to remain, and often limited autonomy. The Persian Empire was a model of cultural diversity – it’s been argued that one reason Persian expeditions against Greece were so large was so they could include national contingents from all the subject peoples as a show of the size and diversity of the Empire.
IMHO, I agree Hanson views his history through ideologically-tinted glasses. I’m unfamiliar with his take on Persia – I’ve only read one-and-a-half of his books so far – but he does make a supportable argument in The Soul of Battle that Spartan helot slavery was qualitatively different than other Greek slavery. The Greeks believed one could become a slave through misfortune or defeat, but that no Greek was born a slave inherently.
The glaring exception was the Spartan enslavement of the Helots, Laconian and Messenian Greeks they conquered and forced into a hereditary status as property of the state. Because helots were state property, not that of individual Spartans, it was against the law to free them. This permanent subjugation of some Greeks as a people was repugnant to the other Greeks.
You know, you won’t hear a whisper of dissent from me on the impact of Greek philosophy, science and art. But you are stretching a bit here. I could just as easily argue in rebuttal that in Perseopolis most men were free and in Athens most men were unfree.
Your argument basically comes down to Athenian citizens having more inherent equality than subjects of the Persian Shah. And I’d agree, subject to some significant qualifiers - for example Athenian society was plutocratic and it is certainly true that some citizens were much more equal than others. However you then lightly brush over the fact that most Athenians were not citizens and unfree. Whereas Persia may have been a feudal despotism, but in the core of the state actual unfree subjects were rare*.
So you can then play the balancing game. Is feudal Persia with its relatively small number of unfree was people more or less oppressive than democratic Athens with its gigantic underclass of slaves. Personally I’m not going to make the argument that one was vastly superior. They were BOTH fucked in their own way and broadly admirable in others.
But it IS silly to argue that the Greeks triumphed because they were more “free”, when this is in fact patently untrue for many definitions of free. Leadership, geography, tactics and military organization all played a role. Moral superiority did not.
Plataea was 8 miles from Thebes, a Persian ally. Guess Mardonius should have won after all :D. Why does everybody always forget that many of those freedom-loving Greeks ( Boetians like the Thebans, Locrians, Thessalians ) fought for and with the Persians?
The above-mentioned penestae are usually considered broadly similar to the helots. There were far fewer of them per capita and they enjoyed a bit more freedom in their day-to-day life. But they still seemed to have been a hereditary serf class.
- A counter-rebuttal that in some important corners of the Persian empire ( like Babylonia ) slavery was common enough is also worth pointing out. But that also speaks to the decentralized nature of Persian rule - as noted they didn’t tend to impose their own cultural standards on subject peoples. Rather like the early Mongols in that respect.
I think the argument is not about morals, but about morale: that the “free, reasonably wealthy, decision-making citizen” class of Greece roughly corresponded to their heavy infantry - the hoplite - thus giving the Greeks an edge in purely military terms, in that the Greek infantry was more willing to fight and not break, because they had a stake in the states they were fighting for.
Certainly, places like Athens had lots of slaves and others like metics who were not citizens (not to speak of women), and so the actual number of the truly “free” was outnumbered by the not-free - but these not-free folks were not on the front lines of battle, except in small numbers as auxilliaries. The argument goes that making your free class into soldiers makes them more formidable as soldiers.
If that’s a serious question, I think it’s because that fact doesn’t fit the narrative that’s developed around the Persian war of Greek vs Persian, West vs East, occidental democracy vs oriental despotism. Also, secondarily, for a lot of people, ancient Greece means ancient Athens (or Sparta, which is “not Athens”), and polities that aren’t Athens or Sparta tend to get ignored.
I’d accept that argument up to a point. But consider the following:
1.) Again Persia had no problem handling the wealthier half of the Greek world ( i.e. Asian Greece ).
2.) Even putting aside mercenaries, Persia had plenty of free Greek troops fighting for them as allies as above. Thebes was an old enemy of Athens and was definitely fighting to readjust the borders of Boetia ( and stave off the inevitable reprisals if they lost ).
3.) As noted at Plataea there were definitely unfree Greek soldiers on the field. Nor were all the Greeks citizens of participatory democracies ( though granted most of the poleis governments were at least oligarchies, even technically diarchic Sparta ).
So a morale argument holds some water - I don’t dismiss it out of hand. But I have hard time considering it decisive in light of the above. Superior morale certainly didn’t save the Greeks from the despotic Philip of Macedon ;).
Nah, it was rhetorical. But I fully agree with your points :).
The Greek Hoplite was better equipped than the average Persian. The Persian was armed with a spear, wicker armor and a wicker shield. The Hoplite had a spear that was longer, wore metal armor and had a much tougher shield.
Due to the legacy of Athens and later on Republican Rome.
Actually, I believe SS Africa has some native traditions of democracy. I read once that Botswana had – regular public meetings at which the chief had to account for his actions – which was given as the reason why Botswana made a fairly easy transition to democracy post-independence (bright green on the Democracy Index map, pretty good by African standards north or south).
I’m gonna have to go against the majority of this board and say that yes, the Persians were the bad guys. I am however, somewhat biased on the subject. I’m Lebanese, and the Persians ruled Lebanon very opressively (although not as opressively as the Greeks durring their brief ruling period before Alexander’s death. I personally dislike most major empires throughout history, because the way I see it, they gained land and kept it by brutality. History is written by the winners, not by the ones who showed mercy. Because of my country’s strategic location on the Mediteranean, nearly every major empire has ruled us, from the Sumerians to the Ottomans some more opressively than others.
I wouldn’t say the Greeks ruled what’s now Lebanon just “briefly”. Alexander the Great took it from Persia, and then the Seleucids ruled it for about 240 years.
Interesting. There were some other systems like that too such as most famously the Iroquois.
This probably helped, but Phillip/Alexander’s great innovation was the concept of the (semi)standing army. The Macedonian army spent a significant amount of time training together. Most armies at the time (including the Persian army) were tribal levies called together for this or that fight and then disbanded. The professionalism of the Macedonians was probably their greatest strength.
My knowledge of Greece pretty much ends with the Spartan victory over Athens. So my comment about the Hoplites applies to pre-Macedonian dominance.