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 124
... fighting and their grip on power would start to slip . While they could hardly permit popular unrest , neither , awk- wardly , could they risk indulging in too much of the repression that might stem it . Seen in such a light , even the ...
... fighting and their grip on power would start to slip . While they could hardly permit popular unrest , neither , awk- wardly , could they risk indulging in too much of the repression that might stem it . Seen in such a light , even the ...
Page 324
... fighting was such that his aides found it hard to distinguish friend from foe . Yet , while it might cer- tainly prove a challenge on occasion for the royal secretaries , busily scribbling down examples of particular prowess , to ...
... fighting was such that his aides found it hard to distinguish friend from foe . Yet , while it might cer- tainly prove a challenge on occasion for the royal secretaries , busily scribbling down examples of particular prowess , to ...
Page 358
... fighting bravely from behind a makeshift wall of shields ; but in the end , as at Marathon and Plataea , the hoplites rolled them over . Meanwhile , Leotychides , having disembarked with the Peloponnesians in the rear of the palisade ...
... fighting bravely from behind a makeshift wall of shields ; but in the end , as at Marathon and Plataea , the hoplites rolled them over . Meanwhile , Leotychides , having disembarked with the Peloponnesians in the rear of the palisade ...
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