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 99
... claim pre- eminence , Greeks in cities everywhere told tall stories about their past . Some were taller than others . The Argives , for instance , although Dorian , like the Spartans , and therefore similarly able to claim the bloodline ...
... claim pre- eminence , Greeks in cities everywhere told tall stories about their past . Some were taller than others . The Argives , for instance , although Dorian , like the Spartans , and therefore similarly able to claim the bloodline ...
Page 116
... claim . descent from the brother of Erechtheus himself . This bloodline pro- vided Lycurgus with an almost proprietary claim on the Acropolis - a perk which , with the eye of a natural impresario , he had exploited to the full ...
... claim . descent from the brother of Erechtheus himself . This bloodline pro- vided Lycurgus with an almost proprietary claim on the Acropolis - a perk which , with the eye of a natural impresario , he had exploited to the full ...
Page 392
... claims that a shield was used , but since the shields used by the Greeks were convex , and a flat surface is needed ... claim that Persian boys began their full - time education at the age of five ; Plato , immediately after the passage ...
... claims that a shield was used , but since the shields used by the Greeks were convex , and a flat surface is needed ... claim that Persian boys began their full - time education at the age of five ; Plato , immediately after the passage ...
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