The Persian Wars (Herodotus, ca. 484–ca. 424 B.C.)

This chapter addresses the battle against Achaemenid Persians. Shortly before the fateful battle of Cunaxa, Cyrus the Younger told his Greek officers why they fought and how their lives would improve if they should defeat the army of his brother, Artaxerxes II. Cyrus framed his speech entirely in terms of the Greek/Barbarian dichotomy. The chapter also shows how key aspects of the Greek/Barbarian dichotomy developed. The poetry from Homer until the Persian Wars contains only hints of the Greek/Barbarian stereotypes. In the Persae, Aeschylus presents the victorious Greeks as free men, collectively fighting in disciplined well-organized fashion, their numbers and resources comparatively modest. To many Greeks, Persia was the enemy against whom it was in the best interests of all Greeks to set aside internal differences and unite.

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Reviews of Books:Herodotus and Religion in the Persian Wars Jon D. Mikalson

The American Historical Review ◽

10.1086/530667 ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 109 (3) ◽

pp. 955-956

Author(s):

Borimir Jordan

Keyword(s):

Persian Wars

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Greco‐Persian Wars

10.1002/9781119399919.eahaa00265 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-2

Author(s):

John O. Hyland

Keyword(s):

Persian Wars

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System of Balance of Power in Europe and Its Impact on the First Round of Russo-Persian Wars (1804-1813)

Historical Study of War ◽

10.52547/hsow.5.2.1 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 5 (2) ◽

pp. 1-27

Author(s):

Ebrahim Aghamohammadi ◽

Ali Bagheri Dolatabadi ◽

Sajjad Abyari

Keyword(s):

Balance Of Power ◽

Persian Wars

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Pro-Qajar Elements in Dagestan (Early 19th Century)

Iran and the Caucasus ◽

10.1163/157338410x12743419190223 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 14 (2) ◽

pp. 279-286

Author(s):

Temur Aytberov ◽

Shahban Khapizov

Keyword(s):

19Th Century ◽

English Translation ◽

The Political ◽

Historical Documents ◽

Early 19Th Century ◽

Political Situation ◽

Russian Academy Of Sciences ◽

Persian Wars ◽

Academy Of Sciences

AbstractIt is known that the Qajars had their supporters in Dagestan during the Russo-Persian Wars in the early 19th century. This fact is well documented in Persian chronicles and royal decrees (firmāns), as well as in the materials from the Russian archives. However, the number of historical documents originating from the region itself is drastically few. This paper presents three letters in Arabic, without dates, but definitely from the same period, illustrating the political situation of the time in the mountains of Dagestan and the geographical extent of the Qajar influence in the area. The letters were discovered recently in the Archives of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Dagestan Centre, Russian Academy of Sciences in Makhachkala. The English translation is accompanied by the facsimile reproduction of the original texts, and commentaries.

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Removing the Nationality Paradigm from Herodotus’ Histories

Trends in Classics ◽

10.1515/tc-2018-0023 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 10 (2) ◽

pp. 306-323

Author(s):

Salvatore Tufano

Keyword(s):

Case Studies ◽

Final Section ◽

Fifth Century ◽

Test Cases ◽

Persian Wars ◽

Classical Definition ◽

Mixed Language ◽

Archaic Greece ◽

The Common ◽

Definition Of

Abstract The present paper suggests that the recurring appeal to kinship diplomacy undermines a fixed idea of ‘nation’ in Archaic Greece, especially in the first two decades of the fifth century BC. It aims to present a series of test cases in Herodotus that explain why contemporary patterns and theories on ancient ethnicity can hardly explain the totality of the historical spectrum. Blood ties could sometimes fortify ethnic relationships, as in the case of Aristagoras’ mission to Sparta (Hdt. 5.49.3), since the common Greekness could elicit the Spartan to help to the Ionians. In other times, the same blood ties were applied to divine genealogies, and they could also be used to show the feeble devotion of cities like Argos to the Greek cause (7.150.2: Xerxes expects the Argives to join the Persian cause, since they descend from Perses). Habits and traditions, often taken as indicia of national feeling, could be thought of as clues of ancient migrations (so the Trojans became Maxyes in Lybia: 4.191). Even language might not help in justifying ethnic relationships: for instance, the Greeks living in the Scythian Gelonus spoke a mixed language (4.108). These few case studies may shed a different light on the classical definition of Greekness (to hellenikon) in terms of blood, language, cults, and habits, all given by Herodotus (8.144). Far from being a valid label for all the Greeks of the fifth century, this statement owes much to a specific variety of the language of kinship diplomacy. The final section argues for the opportunity to avoid the later and misleading idea of nation when studying Herodotus and the age of the Persian Wars, which are instead characterized by various and contrasting strategies. Greek groups and ethne can be better described as networks of lightly defined communities.

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Anthropology and the classics: war, violence, and the statelesspolis

The Classical Quarterly ◽

10.1093/cq/50.1.257 ◽

2000 ◽

Vol 50 (1) ◽

pp. 257-289 ◽

Cited By ~ 22

Author(s):

Moshe Berent

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Classical Tradition ◽

Birth Control ◽

Ancient Greece ◽

The Other ◽

Value System ◽

Persian Wars ◽

Intellectual Revolution ◽

Greek Civilization ◽

Constitutional Changes

I. INTRODUCTIONIt has become a commonplace in contemporary historiography to note the frequency of war in ancient Greece. Yvon Garlan says that, during the century and a half from the Persian wars (490 and 480–479 B.C.) to the battle of Chaeronea (338 B.C.), Athens was at war, on average, more than two years out of every three, and never enjoyed a period of peace for as long as ten consecutive years. ‘Given these conditions’, says Garlan, ‘one would expect them (i.e. the Greeks) to consider war as a problem …. But this was far from being the case.’ The Greek acceptance of war as inevitable was contrasted by Momigliano and others with the attention given to constitutional changes and to the prevention ofstasis: ‘the Greeks came to accept war like birth and death about which nothing could be done …. On the other hand constitutions were men-made and could be modified by men.’Moralist overtones were not absent from this re-evaluation of Greek civilization. Havelock observed that the Greeks exalted, legitimized, and placed organized warfare at the heart of the European value system, and Momigliano suggested that:The idea of controlling wars, like the idea of the emancipation of women and the idea of birth control, is a part of the intellectual revolution of the nineteenth century and meant a break with the classical tradition of historiography of wars.

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