If history has taught us anything about the past it is that the views of the past are for the most part negligible to change which is why it is possible to find a variety of interpretations and explanations for one single event. No truer claim can be made about the Greco-Persian War of 5th century BC as an examination of Paul Cartledge and Peter Green’s work as influential writers in comparisons to other historians of this field can yield several points of interests where there has been coherence but also conflict due to their treatment of ancient sources. More importantly is that by comparing Cartledge and Green’s work it is possible to see how representative their work is of the academic consensus surrounding the Persian Wars. These areas include the treatments of early records after the war, the time and dates of the oath of Plataea, the military background of the Persian immortals, the rationale for Leonidas’ decision to fight at Thermopylae, consideration over when the turning point of the war occurred along with when the war ended and lastly an evaluation on the prolonged legacy of the war. From these topics it can be argued that both authors can be regarded as atypical in their interpretation of tradition sources by challenging some of the assumption made while also being representative on the end of the war. Several ancient sources have been used to investigate the Persian Wars but there has been a wide division in which particular sources hold a true representation of the past. Herodotus and Thycidides provide the earliest account of the Persian Wars and their work has been the foundation for historical studies on Greek and Persian antiquity. It is important to note that although they provide the earliest insights of the... ... middle of paper ... ...e wars as fine details such as the number of Spartans deployed are a case for debate. Herodotus mentions that Leonidas took specifically 300 Spartans with him to Thermopylae. Cartledge’s justification for this amount of troops to be deployed is that 300 was a manageable figure for elite covert task forces which was a reoccurring theme that appears in Greek warfare and that the number 300 also served a strong reference to Spartan culture as it represents the number of ‘hippeis’ royal guards that protect king. This approach to employment has led Cartledge to believe that the agenda behind sending a small contingent was more a symbolic than practical significance to the war efforts. To make the claim that only 300 Spartans were deployed for specific symbolic undertones rather makes Cartledge’s view on the matter contentious to the rest of the history community.
In early fifth century BC Greece, the Greeks consistently suffered from the threat of being conquered by the Persian Empire. Between the years 500-479 BC, the Greeks and the Persians fought two wars. Although the Persian power vastly surpassed the Greeks, the Greeks unexpectedly triumphed. In this Goliath versus David scenario, the Greeks as the underdog, defeated the Persians due to their heroic action, divine support, and Greek unity. The threat of the Persian Empire's expansion into Greece and the imminent possibility that they would lose their freedom and become subservient to the Persians, so horrified the Greeks that they united together and risked their lives in order to preserve the one thing they all shared in common, their "Greekness".
As citizens of the United States of America, we are often blind to not only the current traditions of foreign nations, but also the historical traditions of early civilizations. For instance, many have heard of the Greek city-state Sparta; however, do they truly understand the impact of Spartan civilization in history? Sparta is quite unique in its structure and development, and its history offers valuable insight to early Greek civilization. In his novel Gates of Fire, Steven Pressfield works diligently to uncover the realities of life in Sparta during the Persian Wars. Though the novel is a work of fiction, Gates of Fire is astoundingly accurate in its historical detail, and offers readers the opportunity to have a greater comprehension and
- M.I. Finley, the World of Odysseus. Introduction The Trojan War and its characters are detailed in the writings of Homer, Vergil, Dante and many others. It is a fantastical tale of a decade-long siege of a powerful city by a massive pan-hellenic force. However, even though it has proved to be such a rich source of inspiration for writers, poets and artists throughout history, it is debated whether it actually took place. Heinrich Schliemann famously said “I have gazed on the face of Agamemnon” while discovering tombs with the bodies of Mycenaean chieftains in Turkey.
Zonaras, Joannes, Thomas Banchich, and Eugene Lane. The History of Zonaras: from Alexander Severus to the Death of Theodosius the Great. London: Routledge, 2009. Print.
Like most Greek states of the Archaic and Classical Era, the Spartan city-state was a militaristic one. Sparta, however, took the idea to its extreme. In order to become the best soldiers, Spartan citizens had to dedicate their entire lives to the occupation. In fact to be a soldier – a hoplite – was the full infrastructure of Spartan society. While most Greek city-states looked down on labor, physical work, and even working for profit, they still had to work for a living, produce something. “The Spartans a...
The Ancient Greeks held their religion to be a personal experience, to be practiced by the common man on a daily basis. Thus, it comes as no surprise to read in the historical works of the period that the people also relied on religion to aid them in military matters. This paper will give historical examples of the people's reliance on
In the sixth century B.C, the land that we now call Iran was the center of the largest empire in the world. The kings of Ancient Persia( such as Cyrus the Great) were the leaders of a great civilization that made amazing advances in laws, goverment and communication. Founded in 550 B.C by King Cyrus the Great, the Persian Empire spanned from Egypt in the west to Turkey in the north, and through Mesopotamia to the Indus River in the east. Unlike most empires at that time, the Persian kings were benovelent rulers, and allowed a diverse variety of diffrent people with diffrent ethnic backgrounds. The Persian empire was split into three diffrent empires with three diffrent time periods but the first empire was called the Achaemenid Empire. It began with King Cyrus the Great and ended with King Darius III.
Herodotus was an interesting historian. His way of displaying a historical event such as the Persian War is different from how I expect a modern day historian to write it. He does not try to focus only on the Persian war but he goes into detail some times of the lineage of the rulers of the city-states even though that serves little relevance to the actual war. The accounts of history I am used to reading are more focused on the bigger issue and the historians do not deviate on long trains of side thoughts such as Herodotus does. Herodotus style of writing had me confused because he often would start on one topic and in the next couple of sentences move on to another topic before coming back to his main point about a paragraph down. I had to
The Spartans did not heed Archidamus’ warning that “unless we can either beat them at sea, or deprive them of the revenues which feed their navy, we shall meet with little but disaster.”8 From the beginning, Sparta should have developed an alternative course of action, a branch plan in modern American military terms, to execute if the invasion of Attica did not quickly end the war. There was little time for Sparta to build or develop a naval force to match Athenian naval power, but an alternative plan to erode away the Athenian empire, similar to the one employed by Brasidas in 424 BC, was possible much earlier in the war and could have eroded Athenian financial support from their empire. For as Thucydides tells us, “the strength of Athens being derived from the money brought in by their [allies] payments.”9 Conditions were present for Sparta to reduce the Athenian empire as many Greeks wanted or feared losing their independence from the Athenian empire.10 While not excusing Sparta’s initial failure as described above, it is understandable, based on the conservative Spartan culture, why they did not develop an alternative course of action for defeating
The book written by Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, contains two controversial debates between distinguished speakers of Athens. The two corresponding sides produce convincing arguments which can be taken as if produced as an honest opinion or out of self-interest. The two debates must be analyzed separately in order to conclude which one and which side was speaking out of honest opinion or self-interest, as well as which speakers are similar to each other in their approach to the situation.
The historical events are compelling on their own but Steven Pressfield creates a truly epic journey in his novel Gates of Fire. Pressfield weaves the tale of Xeones, an Akarnanian by birth, who is the lone Greek survivor of the Persian victory and the Emperor’s captive. Xeones’ boyhood home of Astakos was pillaged and burned by the traitorous city-state of Argos. Through a series of events Xeones finds his way to Sparta and becomes first the servant of Alexandros, a youth in the agoge, then battle squire to the boy’s mentor Dienekes. It is his duties as squire that bring him to Thermopylae. Throughout the novel Xeones unfolds the events of his life in a series of interviews with the Persian royal court recorded by Xerxes personal historian culminating in the last stand of the Three Hundred. It is this story telling technique that makes Gates of Fire is truly a masterpi...
While the army reached Thermopylae intact, the fleet suffered at the hand of two storms, with Herodotus attributing them to God attempting to equalize the opposing forces . The disparity between the size of the Persian and the size of the Greek forces was huge – thus, the Greeks’ strategy relied on geography . Holding the narrows at Thermopylae and the concurrent straits of Artemisium meant that Xerxes’ numerical superiority was reduced. It was here, on land and sea, that Greece showcased the superiority of it...
In the years following the Persian Wars in 479 B.C., Athens had come out on top being the most dominantly powerful of any Greek city with a navy that had superior strength that increased day by day. The Athenians “ruled with heavy-handed, even brutal force as well as with reason” (Kagan 2). This was due largely to the fact that Athens had a stable and effective government, which only increased their advantage in proving themselv...
"The Flow of History." FC25: Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic Era (336 BCE-31 BCE). n.p., n.d. Web. 13 May 2014.
The Battle of Salamis is said to be one of the most important battles in all of history. It was a naval battle fought between the massive Persian army and smaller Greek army in the Bay of Salamis in 480 BCE. This battle was one of the many battles that were a part of the Greco-Persian war. This paper will explore the events leading up to the battle, the battle itself, including advantages and disadvantages both sides had on one and other, and finally will discuss the affects the result of this battle had on each side. Surprisingly, the much smaller Greek army defeated the Persians at the Battle of Salamis. How did this happen, one may ask? Although the Persians appeared to have the military advantage in this battle, particularly in terms of sheer size and numbers, the Greeks successfully defeated them with the help of their leaders, tactics, and many Persian blunders.