Oh, the Persians, damn monsters... of course in the fictional sens of the word, not that any actual man would believe they are what the movie depicted.
Alas generally thought of as "bad guys" in the context of the Greco-Persian wars. And why not ? They were invading Greece, they were the invaders right ? And Greece stood for democracy and freedom and... and... same sex sexual relations and all the modern things, right guys, right !?
Oh well, what most seem to overlook is the fact that the king of the Persian Empire was labeled "King of kings", why you ask ? Because the Persian Empire didn't have 1 king, indeed the emperor let all the kings and leaders he defeated live and continue to lead their country as long as they paid tribute.
Tribute ? Like slaves for the army ? And girls to become whores and work the plantation ? And enforcing nasty Persian laws and religions !?
Nope... sadly the Persian had a paid army, and didn't allow slavery... come to think of it it's one of the few things they generally didn't allow Empire wide, because they allowed all religions to continue existing and all the political and administrative systems in place to work only adding institutions such as tax collectors and recruitment stations.
So really what would have happened to Greece when it got conquered: - forced to free the slaves - forced to have a paid army ( paid by the Empire non the less ) - forced to pay more taxes - encouraged to at least try and be a little bit more united as a people - allowed to keep their religions - allowed to keep fucking whatever animal/man they wanted and even encouraged to give women more rights to have them equal to those they had in Iran back then
You want to know a fun fact ? the battle of Thermopylae was likely fought by about 20.000 man vs 100.000 man not 300 vs 2 millions, and the Greeks ( which stood united and all that, vs the persian unorganized monsters ) lost the battle they had planed to win via starvation due to ether a) the persians having better scouts and realizing they could attack trough were the Greeks didn't even thought they could or b) a traitor.
Another fun fact ? The Persians likely had better trained army than the Greeks, indeed the persian army was one of the first to encourage not only formation training but also physical, psychical and some say basic culture training for their PAID soldiers ( hello Romans, see ya in bout 400 years ).
Damn, is funny how things work. You want to know what else is funny, the fact that most of our ( Europeans and US at least ) knowledge about books, architecture... arts in general, begins at the Greeks and ends at the Romans than suddenly reapers out of nowhere in the 14century with the humanist current in Italy.
Fun fact how about 1000 years of arts and philosophy can be forgotten when the guys developing them were Asians and Africans.
Just felt like saying this... I love how the way "history" works.
On November 10 2012 00:53 Aterons_toss wrote: Oh, the Persians, damn monsters... of course in the fictional sens of the word, not that any actual man would believe they are what the movie depicted.
Alas generally thought of as "bad guys" in the context of the Greco-Persian wars. And why not ? They were invading Greece, they were the invaders right ? And Greece stood for democracy and freedom and... and... same sex sexual relations and all the modern things, right guys, right !?
Oh well, what most seem to overlook is the fact that the king of the Persian Empire was labeled "King of kings", why you ask ? Because the Persian Empire didn't have 1 king, indeed the emperor let all the kings and leaders he defeated live and continue to lead their country as long as they paid tribute.
I don't know of any historian that labels them as "bad guys" nor am I aware of the creator of 300 considering his work of fiction as representative of fact.
Did the two-handed blade ogre not tip you off?
Tribute ? Like slaves for the army ? And girls to become whores and work the plantation ? And enforcing nasty Persian laws and religions !?
Nope... sadly the Persian had a paid army, and didn't allow slavery... come to think of it it's one of the few things they generally didn't allow Empire wide, because they allowed all religions to continue existing and all the political and administrative systems in place to work only adding institutions such as tax collectors and recruitment stations.
Taxes in the olden days were really just legitimized forms of robbery. Not much of those taxes went back into the populace that paid them.
Or were you expecting the Persians to build a highway with Greek tax money?
So really what would have happened to Greece when it got conquered: - forced to free the slaves - forced to have a paid army ( paid by the Empire non the less ) - forced to pay more taxes - encouraged to at least try and be a little bit more united as a people - allowed to keep their religions - allowed to keep fucking whatever animal/man they wanted and even encouraged to give women more rights to have them equal to those they had in Iran back then
The Greeks didn't live as advanced as their philosophy might suggest. There is a reason people are all familiar with the works of Socrates, but not so much with the more practical side of Greek society.
You want to know a fun fact ? the battle of Thermopylae was likely fought by about 20.000 man vs 100.000 man not 300 vs 2 millions, and the Greeks ( which stood united and all that, vs the persian unorganized monsters ) lost the battle they had planed to win via starvation due to ether a) the persians having better scouts and realizing they could attack trough were the Greeks didn't even thought they could or b) a traitor.
Another fun fact ? The Persians likely had better trained army than the Greeks, indeed the persian army was one of the first to encourage not only formation training but also physical, psychical and some say basic culture training for their PAID soldiers ( hello Romans, see ya in bout 400 years ).
The Persians had a formidable army, but the Romans were far more sophisticated. In fact, the Roman legions could probably go toe-to-toe with most armies until the modern day, maybe not Mongols, though that would have been a sight to see.
Damn, is funny how things work. You want to know what else is funny, the fact that most of our ( Europeans and US at least ) knowledge about books, architecture... arts in general, begins at the Greeks and ends at the Romans than suddenly reapers out of nowhere in the 14century with the humanist current in Italy.
Fun fact how about 1000 years of arts and philosophy can be forgotten when the guys developing them were Asians and Africans.
Guys developing them were Arabs and Persians, under the unified banner of Islam.
But that doesn't discredit the value of the philosophy that was brought forth by the Greeks. It just shows that they did not persist throughout the ages, and that their works had to survive in more stable climates, until they could take root once more.
Just felt like saying this... I love how the way "history" works.
Nothing wrong with how history works, unless you consider a comic book to be taken as serious historical criticism of the Persian empire, widely regarded as one of the greatest empires in history.
On November 10 2012 00:53 Aterons_toss wrote: Oh, the Persians, damn monsters... of course in the fictional sens of the word, not that any actual man would believe they are what the movie depicted.
Alas generally thought of as "bad guys" in the context of the Greco-Persian wars. And why not ? They were invading Greece, they were the invaders right ? And Greece stood for democracy and freedom and... and... same sex sexual relations and all the modern things, right guys, right !?
Oh well, what most seem to overlook is the fact that the king of the Persian Empire was labeled "King of kings", why you ask ? Because the Persian Empire didn't have 1 king, indeed the emperor let all the kings and leaders he defeated live and continue to lead their country as long as they paid tribute.
I don't know of any historian that labels them as "bad guys" nor am I aware of the creator of 300 considering his work of fiction as representative of fact.
Tribute ? Like slaves for the army ? And girls to become whores and work the plantation ? And enforcing nasty Persian laws and religions !?
Nope... sadly the Persian had a paid army, and didn't allow slavery... come to think of it it's one of the few things they generally didn't allow Empire wide, because they allowed all religions to continue existing and all the political and administrative systems in place to work only adding institutions such as tax collectors and recruitment stations.
Taxes in the olden days were really just legitimized forms of robbery. Not much of those taxes went back into the populace that paid them.
Or were you expecting the Persians to build a highway with Greek tax money?
So really what would have happened to Greece when it got conquered: - forced to free the slaves - forced to have a paid army ( paid by the Empire non the less ) - forced to pay more taxes - encouraged to at least try and be a little bit more united as a people - allowed to keep their religions - allowed to keep fucking whatever animal/man they wanted and even encouraged to give women more rights to have them equal to those they had in Iran back then
The Greeks didn't live as advanced as their philosophy might suggest. There is a reason people are all familiar with the works of Socrates, but not so much with the more practical side of Greek society.
You want to know a fun fact ? the battle of Thermopylae was likely fought by about 20.000 man vs 100.000 man not 300 vs 2 millions, and the Greeks ( which stood united and all that, vs the persian unorganized monsters ) lost the battle they had planed to win via starvation due to ether a) the persians having better scouts and realizing they could attack trough were the Greeks didn't even thought they could or b) a traitor.
Another fun fact ? The Persians likely had better trained army than the Greeks, indeed the persian army was one of the first to encourage not only formation training but also physical, psychical and some say basic culture training for their PAID soldiers ( hello Romans, see ya in bout 400 years ).
The Persians had a formidable army, but the Romans were far more sophisticated. In fact, the Roman legions could probably go toe-to-toe with most armies until the modern day, maybe not Mongols, though that would have been a sight to see.
Damn, is funny how things work. You want to know what else is funny, the fact that most of our ( Europeans and US at least ) knowledge about books, architecture... arts in general, begins at the Greeks and ends at the Romans than suddenly reapers out of nowhere in the 14century with the humanist current in Italy.
Fun fact how about 1000 years of arts and philosophy can be forgotten when the guys developing them were Asians and Africans.
Guys developing them were Arabs and Persians, under the unified banner of Islam.
But that doesn't discredit the value of the philosophy that was brought forth by the Greeks. It just shows that they did not persist throughout the ages, and that their works had to survive in more stable climates, until they could take root once more.
Just felt like saying this... I love how the way "history" works.
Nothing wrong with how history works, unless you consider a comic book to be taken as serious historical criticism of the Persian empire, widely regarded as one of the greatest empires in history.
Thank you for reading diagonally. 1, I said the movie is fiction, i said "not that any actual man would believe they are what the movie depicted"
2, You said "The Greeks didn't live as advanced as their philosophy might suggest. There is a reason people are all familiar with the works of Socrates, but not so much with the more practical side of Greek society.". As a response to my " What you happen if Greece GOT CONQUERED"... yeah, thank you.
3, The Roman army had nothing except for the "size" part against other future armies. The Roman army fighting style died when heavy use of cavalry began ( hell, that's how Hanibal won the wars against the Roman back than republic ), turns out even tho immobile short sword worked against immobile phalanx it did not work against mobile lance. Hence why barbarians riding horses barbarians ( and political instability caused by most of their general and troops not being Roman at all ) were their doom, most likely the second rather than the last but non the less the short sword and huge shield was not something ever used again and with good reason.
The only thing Romans did have over Persian was the great generals and great use of auxiliary forces.
Also, im sorry, but since when exactly did the Chinese not even bare mention in front of the 5 to 14 century Islamic world ? It's true the Islamic world did most of the things i was referring to but the Chinese ( aka Asia ) were very involved in those fields a well ( not that they stopped being so ).
I've never heard an actual historian refer to anyone in the ancient world as a "bad guy." Maybe you should check your sources?
The battle of Thermopylae was actually fought by ~7000 people in a fortified position against the entire Persian invasion force (between 100,000 and 300,000). When it was clear that the Spartan force was being outflanked they sent most of the army back and King Leonidas did stay back with ~1000 soldiers to try to delay the army and buy as much time as possible for the rest of Greece. Yeah it wasn't quite up to the Hollywod standards but it was still pretty heroic for a king to stay back and face a certain death to save his homeland.
The significance of the Greeks finally repelling the Persians was that the entire Western civilization would have been quite changed had the invasion actually succeeded and the Persian culture had overtaken the Greeks. Certainly you can look at it from a victor's point of view as the "good guys" had won but that is of course a very ethnocentric view point. Something you yourself are kind of guilty of since it seems you're strongly implying that the Persian culture was "better" then the Greek.
I am not a specialist in the history of antiquity by any means, but the gullibility of the average internet-surfer being what it is, this avalanche of misinformation needs someone to set down a few basic facts about the history of the Persian wars, and the general political habits of the Ancient Greek city-states.
A generation prior to the outbreak of the war, the Democratic faction in Athens had just seized power by ostracising Isagoras and his party, who were aligned to the Oligarchical Spartans. The Spartans led a triple-alliance to intervene in Athens and restore their clients. This triggered a political crisis in Athens whereby the Athenians sent an embassy to the Persian court, asking for Persian intervention on their behalf. The Persians requested that the Athenians perform the ritual of offering the King of Persia “Earth and Water,” in recognition of the suzerainty of the King of Kings.
In the event, the Persian intervention proved unnecessary. Mid-way through the campaign, Corinth vetoed the war, and forced the Peloponnesian league to withdraw. Athens defeated the other two members of the alliance in a decisive battle in Attica, and the tribute of submission to Persia was conveniently forgotten.
Twenty years later, a complicated series of double-dealing events in Ionia triggered the Athenian intervention. The Oligarchial Spartans intervened in the domestic politics of Naxos and ovethrew the Naxian tyranny. The Naxians exiles appealed to the Milesians, who were under the administration of the Lydian Satrapy of the Persian Empire. The great Milesian adventurer, Aristagoras persuaded the Satrap of Lydia to fund a Milesian conquest of Naxos, but the siege of Naxos failed, and in turn Aristagoras, fearing the consequences of his failure, incited his own city against the Persians. Soon the revolt spread to the other Greek cities in Ionia, and Athens was one of the Greek states was recruited by Aristagoras to support the Ionian revolt. The revolt was crushed, but the Athenian involvement on behalf of the Persian King's Lydian subjects, when they had in Persian eyes already pledged their fealty to Persia was an act of betrayal, and that was what launched Darius' punitive expedition of 492.
The object of the expedition was not the conquest of Greece as such, but a show of force against what the Persians regarded as a recalcitrant tributary.
Most of the factoids presented in the OP are bare-bones and without much merit, because they are not presented in any useful context.
Greece as a whole did not stand for any general political ideology in this time, apart from perhaps the embryonic stages of a historical consciousness of their own people as a free people, different not only from the Persians, but the rest of humanity. To that end, most Greek city-states were generally hostile to the Aristotilean conception of despotic government, as incarnated by the Persian monarchy. Hatred of Despotism however, did not really mean that all Greek states were champions of democracy. A rising Athens was then the main democratic player in Greece.
It's important to note however that the great Democrats of Athens, such as Cleisthenes or Pericles were not Democrats by virtue of their dedication to pluralism of political power in Athens, but that they ruled as popular dictators via what was later known as demagoguery: use of popular speech and support of the poor as a key instrument in defeating their political rivals.
It's also incorrect to state that the Greeks stood for “gay rights.” Pederasty was a social convention in some Greek communities, but this was a far cry from what is considered now considered homosexuality, a concept that the ancient Greeks would have understood very ill.
The degree of direct Persian intervention in Greek affairs, even if it had triumphed would have been very negligible. The Cleisthenian constitution of Athens would have been destroyed, and a mixed form of despotism with oligarchy would probably have been imposed upon Athens, but to think that the imposition of some kind of centralised Persian bureaucratic administration on the conquered states was in order is to betray a fundamental lack of understanding at how the Persian Empire worked.
Saying that the Persian army was better than the Greek is a notion so farcical that it doesn't merit comment. It only leaves me to note that a large component of the Persian armies, from the expeditions of Cyrus the Great down to Darius' struggle against Alexander the Great were Greek mercenaries, who were treated as the most precious tools in the Persian arsenal.
I'll trust the other transgressions to the powers of common sense.
On November 10 2012 01:25 Aterons_toss wrote: 3, The Roman army had nothing except for the "size" part against other future armies. The Roman army fighting style died when heavy use of cavalry began ( hell, that's how Hanibal won the wars against the Roman back than republic ), turns out even tho immobile short sword worked against immobile phalanx it did not work against mobile lance. Hence why barbarians riding horses barbarians ( and political instability caused by most of their general and troops not being Roman at all ) were their doom, most likely the second rather than the last but non the less the short sword and huge shield was not something ever used again and with good reason.
The dominance of heavy cavalry is a Victorian myth, just like the "backwardness" of the middle ages is a myth perpetuated by Renaissance historians eager to aggrandize their own time period.
Heavy Cavalry was fundamental in the formation of the Carolingian empire, but afterwards all we see is it in decline. Heavy infantry that stands firm repulses mounted knights time and time again. The very fact that heavy cavalry had been successful was precisely because of the lack of disciplined heavy infantry ala Rome.
Look at the Guiscard's invasion of Epirus, where the Normans met the Varangian guard. Look at the Hundred Years War where dismounted men at arms repulsed heavy cavalry in several large set-piece battles but also in numerous small engagements - particularly look at the events in Brittany.
Just would also like to point out that Hannibal won by tactics and exploiting the rigid, inflexible approach to battle that successive Roman consuls had e.g. Cannae.
On November 10 2012 01:48 FryBender wrote: The significance of the Greeks finally repelling the Persians was that the entire Western civilization would have been quite changed had the invasion actually succeeded and the Persian culture had overtaken the Greeks. Certainly you can look at it from a victor's point of view as the "good guys" had won but that is of course a very ethnocentric view point. Something you yourself are kind of guilty of since it seems you're strongly implying that the Persian culture was "better" then the Greek.
Honestly this is pretty debateable too. As the OP has mentioned, the Persians didn't go about "Persianifying" their subjects - case in point being the already subjugated Greeks on the coast of asia minor. How long would an empire like that hold together anyway?
Most seem to argue that a conquest would have stunted the development of Rome - who knows, maybe so - but again the Persians weren't setting out to destroy Greek culture.
Final note re Democracy, our modern democracies are very different from Athenian style democracy, but I see that sort of argument again and again. At least where the UK is concerned, our "democracy" was not born from looking at Ancient Greece. In fact the parliament began in the early 11th century I think, and was quickly adapted into an efficient tax farming tool for the monarch. Rather than having to negotiate with each town and locality individually, he could call all the representatives together and get them to agree there and then with respect to taxation. A similar parlement existed in France, where subjects could raise their concerns with the monarch if they had problems with their local lord.
The weakness of the Persian Empire was in its size and decentralisation. The core Persian regions of Persis and Medes constituted a small component of Persian strength, and the political legitimacy of the King of Persia rested upon his ability to credibly defend the Persian order via military success. Hence the necessity of the rather impractical invasion of Greece (at the same time as the Persians were menaced by the Scythians in the north.) The fatality of military defeat is evinced in the quick collapse of Darius' Empire after Gaugamela, when several Satrapies quickly defected from him, and he soon became a refugee with an army in his own Kingdom until murdered by his own troops.
Without the Greek presence in the Mediterranean, there would have been no powerful Greek city-states in competition with Carthage on Sicily, no Magna Graecia on the Italian mainland, no Pyrrhic intervention in Italy.* Whether this would have aided or impeded Roman expansion is difficult to say. Certainly the political situation in the Western Mediterranean would have been vastly simplified with the removal of the Greek colonies, and perhaps Rome would not have gone to war so often.
One thing is for certain: without the infusion of the Greek spirit, Rome would not have been Rome. She would have been a disciplined, patriotic, courageous, but a much ruder and less brilliant empire. Without the assimilation of Greek culture, it's doubtful whether she could have maintained an Empire as long as she did, and would have probably suffered many of the shortcomings of the Persian Empire in the east.
*I was assuming that such independent colonies would have been unsustainable as major political powers without a politically independent Greek mainland, but on second thought thinking about the history of Syracuse, I might be wrong about this.
**But then, Ancient History is so much groping in the dark, textual analysis bordering on fantasy, thankless quibbles and qualms about the precise meaning of this or that Greek word. Yet what mysterious, sublime stories! What temptations for the enlargement of mind and character! The necessity for ambition and modesty that recalls those famous verses of Pope:
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan The proper study of Mankind is Man. Placed on this isthmus of a middle state, A Being darkly wise, and rudely great: With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side, With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride, He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest; In doubt to deem himself a God, or Beast; In doubt his mind or body to prefer; Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err; Alike in ignorance, his reason such, Whether he thinks too little, or too much; Chaos of Thought and Passion, all confus'd; Still by himself, abus'd or disabus'd; Created half to rise and half to fall; Great Lord of all things, yet a prey to all, Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl'd; The glory, jest and riddle of the world.
Look at the Guiscard's invasion of Epirus, where the Normans met the Varangian guard. Look at the Hundred Years War where dismounted men at arms repulsed heavy cavalry in several large set-piece battles but also in numerous small engagements - particularly look at the events in Brittany.
I'd look even earlier, to Tours in 732 -- if the Frankish infantry had broken against the Umayyad cavalry there, there was pretty much nothing preventing the Muslims from conquering the rest of Western Europe.
Look at the Guiscard's invasion of Epirus, where the Normans met the Varangian guard. Look at the Hundred Years War where dismounted men at arms repulsed heavy cavalry in several large set-piece battles but also in numerous small engagements - particularly look at the events in Brittany.
I'd look even earlier, to Tours in 732 -- if the Frankish infantry had broken against the Umayyad cavalry there, there was pretty much nothing preventing the Muslims from conquering the rest of Western Europe.
I'm not keeping tabs on Medieval history either, but I think the current opinion is that Tours was less a Muslim invasion than a strong raiding attack. I admit that some of the evidence behind the contention is highly speculative, but I wouldn't put either theory forward with very much certainty.
Fair enough--my views are probably colored because I am a fan of certain modern historians who argue that the battle did indeed hold the importance that Gibbon, etc. attributed to it.
Damn, is funny how things work. You want to know what else is funny, the fact that most of our ( Europeans and US at least ) knowledge about books, architecture... arts in general, begins at the Greeks and ends at the Romans than suddenly reapers out of nowhere in the 14century with the humanist current in Italy.
Fun fact how about 1000 years of arts and philosophy can be forgotten when the guys developing them were Asians and Africans.
Just felt like saying this... I love how the way "history" works.
Although we live in a very western centric educational system, that's not the only reason Asian, specifically Chinese art, is excluded. It's very traditional, in the way T.S. Eliot described tradition as something not helpful to art. There is no attempt to create something new, it's handing down the same principles for centuries. For example, the 200 year period between 1700 and 1900 showed more development in European painting than China's 2000 years.
For a global sense of culture, studying and knowing art from all around the world is great, but development can't be static for art to be taken seriously.