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 76
... hoplites , rather than test themselves against such an adversary , preferred simply to run away . And the Spartans themselves , masters of psychological as well as every other form of warfare , knew precisely how to turn their enemies ...
... hoplites , rather than test themselves against such an adversary , preferred simply to run away . And the Spartans themselves , masters of psychological as well as every other form of warfare , knew precisely how to turn their enemies ...
Page 195
... hoplites lowered their helmets , hefted their shields , shouldered their spears . Here , at last , was the moment of no return . His head encased now almost entirely within metal , every member of the phalanx found himself frighteningly ...
... hoplites lowered their helmets , hefted their shields , shouldered their spears . Here , at last , was the moment of no return . His head encased now almost entirely within metal , every member of the phalanx found himself frighteningly ...
Page 196
... hoplites did at last begin to run . Simultaneously , as though the phalanx were " some ferocious cornered creature , stiffening its bristles as it turns to face its foe , " those in the front three ranks lowered and aimed their spears ...
... hoplites did at last begin to run . Simultaneously , as though the phalanx were " some ferocious cornered creature , stiffening its bristles as it turns to face its foe , " those in the front three ranks lowered and aimed their spears ...
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