Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the WestDoubleday, 2005 - 418 pages In 480 B.C.E., Xerxes, the King of Persia, led an invasion of mainland Greece. Its success should have been a formality. For seventy years, victory--rapid, spectacular victory--had seemed the birthright of the Persian Empire. They had swept across the Near East, shattering ancient kingdoms, storming famous cities, putting together an empire which stretched from India to the shores of the Aegean. Xerxes ruled as the most powerful man on the planet. Yet somehow, astonishingly, against the largest expeditionary force ever assembled, the Greeks managed to hold out. Had the Greeks been defeated in the epochal naval battle at Salamis, not only would the West have lost its first struggle for independence and survival, but it is unlikely that there would ever have been such an entity as the West at all. Historian Holland combines scholarly rigor with novelistic depth and finds extraordinary parallels between the ancient world and our own.--From publisher description. |
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Page 91
... Apollo was hardly surprising . Just as their ancestors had migrated to Lacedaemon , so the archer god had come to Delphi as an invader from the north . Leaving the halls of Olympus behind him , Apollo had traveled the world " with his ...
... Apollo was hardly surprising . Just as their ancestors had migrated to Lacedaemon , so the archer god had come to Delphi as an invader from the north . Leaving the halls of Olympus behind him , Apollo had traveled the world " with his ...
Page 93
... Apollo and hope for an answer . Delphi's claims to holiness were on a truly global scale . In the beginning , it was said , when Zeus had first come into the kingdom of the universe , he had sought to measure the scale of his ...
... Apollo and hope for an answer . Delphi's claims to holiness were on a truly global scale . In the beginning , it was said , when Zeus had first come into the kingdom of the universe , he had sought to measure the scale of his ...
Page 184
... Apollo to Ecbatana . But the Delians were sorely mistaken if they imagined that this stern treatment of the rebels ' shrine had in any way implied disrespect for great Apollo ! After all , it was the rebels themselves who had shown the ...
... Apollo to Ecbatana . But the Delians were sorely mistaken if they imagined that this stern treatment of the rebels ' shrine had in any way implied disrespect for great Apollo ! After all , it was the rebels themselves who had shown the ...
Expressions et termes fréquents
Acropolis Aegean Ahura Mazda Alcmaeonids allies already amid ancient appeared Argives Aristagoras Aristeides army Artaphernes Artemisium Asia Astyages Athenians Athens Attica Babylon barbarians Bardiya battle began brought Cambyses campaign cavalry century BC certainly citizens city's claim clan Cleisthenes Cleomenes command Croesus Cyrus Darius Datis death defeat Delphi Demaratus democracy desperate duly East elite empire enemy Euboea Eupatrid exile fighting force gods Greece Greek fleet Hellespont helots Herodotus Hippias Histiaeus hoplites Hot Gates Ibid imperial invasion Ionian Isthmus King of Kings King's knew Lacedaemon land Leonidas Lycurgus Lydian Marathon Mardonius master Medes Media menacing Mesopotamia miles Miletus Miltiades mountain never once pass Pausanias Peloponnese Peloponnesians perhaps Persepolis Persian fleet Phoenicians Pisistratus plain Plataea Plutarch proved rival royal sacred Salamis Sardis satrap served shadow ships slaves Solon Spartans squadrons stood straits surely Susa temple Themistocles Thermopylae triremes tyrant victory West Xerxes Zagros