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The Greek Wars: The Failure of Persia

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Abstract

The Greek Wars treats of the whole course of Persian relations with the Greeks from the coming of Cyrus in the 540s down to Alexander the Great's defeat of Darius III in 331 BC. Cawkwell discusses from a Persian perspective major questions such as why Xerxes' invasion of Greece failed, and how important a part the Great King played in Greek affairs in the fourth century. Cawkwell's views are at many points original: in particular, his explanation of how and why the Persian invasion of Greece failed challenges the prevailing orthodoxy, as does his view of the importance of Persia in Greek affairs for the two decades after the King's Peace. Persia, he concludes, was destroyed by Macedonian military might but moral decline had no part in it; the Macedonians who had subjected Greece were too good an army, but their victory was not easy.
... En este marco de tensión política, articulado por encuentros diplomáticos y diversas batallas, es necesario analizar este periodo más allá de la lectura tradicional que poneénfasis en los acontecimientos bélicos encabezados por Atenas. A partir del trabajo de Balcer (1995), para revisar la política aqueménida sobre el mundo helénico en el periodo, se retomarán los aportes más recientes de Hyland (2018) y Cawckwell (2005). Con los mismos se propone revisar el alcance de largo aliento que tuvo la estrategia de intervención persa en la Hélade continental a través del uso de la diplomacia y acuerdos políticos. ...
... Dossier amistad 6 . La propaganda ateniense aprovechó los errores estratégicos de Jerjes durante la invasión a la Hélade (Cawckwell 2005: 105) que condujeron a su derrota, para construir una narrativa en benefio de su propio proyecto expansivo (Cadete del Olmo 2011: 126). Se representó esta contienda como una lucha por la libertad entre griegos y persas que trascendía en el tiempo (Cardete del Olmo 2011: 130) y ponía en segundo plano la posibilidad de analizar esta guerra como resultado de la intervención persa en los arraigados conflictos inter helénicos. ...
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El objetivo de este artículo es analizar el impacto político que tuvo en el mundo griego la primera fase de expansión aqueménida sobre la Hélade Continental (513-449). Un proceso que, junto a un conjunto de campañas militares, estuvo conformado principalmente por el desarrollo de una estrategia diplomática de intervención a través de acuerdos de amistad (xenía) con familias aristocráticas. Este tipo de prácticas políticas fueron entabladas en el contexto de transición entre el siglo VI y V a.C. que implican el acto ritual de la entrega de tierra y agua, y fueron registrados por la tradición helena como un acto de sumisión al poder aqueménida. La propuesta es analizar el alcance de estas actividades diplomáticas como parte de una estrategia política para construir vínculos en un área de frontera de difícil acceso logístico para el control directo del imperio persa.
... Дискусија кај CUYLER YOUNG, 1988: 64. 16 BURN, 1984: 127;CAWKWELL, 2005: 49. Но, cf. ...
... Следует отметить, что ряд исследователей видят конечную цель похода Дария не в Скифии, а во Фракии, где персов интересовали фракийские золотые и серебряные рудники. Существует также точка зрения, что целью похода во Фракию было не только золото, но и дальнейшая территориальная экспансия персидской державы 20 . ...
... The Persians were reluctant to allow the Spartans and her allies to finalize the war. The real proof of the Persian King's lack of enthusiasm for the final defeat of Athens is provided by his failure to send again the naval force which he had withdrawn in 411 BC.66 ...
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Bu makalede; Antik kaynaklarda Persler hakkındaki bilgilere ilk olarak ne zaman ve nasıl yer verildiği ile Perslerden bahsedilen kaynaklarda nasıl bir Pers imajının çizildiği konularına yer verilmiştir. Bu doğrultuda, özellikle Pers yazıtları ve Batılı kaynaklar (Yunanlar başta olmak üzere) eleştirel bakış açılarıyla ve birbirleriyle kıyaslanarak ele alınmıştır. Ayrıca, bir Pers tarihi kaynakçası oluşturabilmek ve Pers tarihyazımında olan bazı metodolojik konulara değinmek de makalenin başlıca hedefleridir. Persler ve Yunanlar birbirlerinin kültürlerini ve toplumsal yapılarını tanımada önemli fırsatlar elde etmiştir. İç içe geçmiş bu tarih ve kültür ekseni, birbirini iyi tanıyan iki ezeli rakip yaratmıştır. Bu etkileşim sonucunda; birçok Yunan tarihçi, Pers hükümdarlarının zenginliklerine ve yaşam tarzlarına hayran kalmıştı. Bu bakış açısının getirmiş olduğu tasvirlerde, Pers kralları; sürekli saray entrikalarıyla uğraşan, ahlâki yozlaşmanın içinde yer alan, Batılı, cesur, müthiş ve kusursuz kralların karşısında, cesareti olmayan, eşcinsel tavırlara sahip bir şekilde gösterilmişti. Kuşkusuz, buradaki en temel amaç; Yunanlar’ın başarılarını yüceltmek, Persler’i ise “ötekileştirmek”ti
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It is widely agreed that Thucydides’ Melian dialogue presents the Athenian invasion of Melos, and the Athenian justification, in a negative light. Attention tends to focus on the immorality of ‘the rule of the stronger’ that the Athenians present in the dialogue. This essay argues that another feature of the dialogue triggering negative judgements of the Athenians is their criticism of the Melians’ resistance: it is voiced by the Athenians themselves and therefore provokes in readers a ‘speaker-relative’ normative judgement of the Athenians. Philosophers have explored how our normative judgements about statements often depend on the speaker. Because the Athenians have deliberately put the Melians into their perilous situation, and because part of Athenian self-mythology was heroic resistance against overwhelming numbers in the Persian Wars, Athenian criticism of the Melians is hypocritical and applies an asymmetrical ethics to the Athenians and the Melians. Reaction against these features of the dialogue exacerbates the moral abhorrence of the Athenians felt by many readers. Hence I disagree with Bosworth’s view of the dialogue as primarily critical of the Melians. Instead we see Thucydides here condemning not only the Athenian imperial project but also the rhetoric used to defend and sustain it.
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Were Athenians and Boiotians natural enemies in the Archaic and Classical period? The scholarly consensus is yes. Roy van Wijk, however, re-evaluates this commonly held assumption and shows that, far from perpetually hostile, their relationship was distinctive and complex. Moving between diplomatic normative behaviour, commemorative practice and the lived experience in the borderlands, he offers a close analysis of literary sources, combined with recent archaeological and epigraphic material, to reveal an aspect to neighbourly relations that has hitherto escaped attention. He argues that case studies such as the Mazi plain and Oropos show that territorial disputes were not a mainstay in diplomatic interactions and that commemorative practices in Panhellenic and local sanctuaries do not reflect an innate desire to castigate the neighbour. The book breaks new ground by reconstructing a more positive and polyvalent appreciation of neighbourly relations based on the local lived experience. This title is available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
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Archaic Greeks expressed variable opinions about divine justice, either assuring that gods protect the human order or complaining about the inability to understand the ways of the gods. The article discusses the dynamics of the Archaic Greek society conditioning these various views.KeywordsArachic GreeceDivine justiceSpartaHistoriography
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Cet article porte sur la participation du Grand Roi de Perse à la conclusion de Paix Communes en Grèce au IVe siècle av. J.-C. Il remet en question la vision orthodoxe remontant à Isocrate et reprise par des historiens modernes selon laquelle la Paix du Roi fut un instrument permettant aux Perses le contrôle diplomatique de la Grèce de la fin de la Guerre de Corinthe en 387/6 à la Ligue de Corinthe en 338/7. Il défend l’idée que la paix de 387/6, tout en reflétant des conceptions perse et grecque de la paix, avait pour les Achéménides une portée idéologique plus qu’elle n’avait de fonction dans la Realpolitik .
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Many histories of Ancient Greece center their stories on Athens, but what would that history look like if they didn’t? There is another way to tell this story, one that situates Greek history in terms of the relationships between smaller Greek cities and in contact with the wider Mediterranean. In this book, author Joshua P. Nudell offers a new history of the period from the Persian wars to wars that followed the death of Alexander the Great, from the perspective of Ionia. While recent scholarship has increasingly treated Greece through the lenses of regional, polis, and local interaction, there has not yet been a dedicated study of Classical Ionia. This book fills this clear gap in the literature while offering Ionia as a prism through which to better understand Classical Greece. This book offers a clear and accessible narrative of the period between the Persian Wars and the wars of the early Hellenistic period, two nominal liberations of the region. The volume complements existing histories of Classical Greece. Close inspection reveals that the Ionians were active partners in the imperial endeavor, even as imperial competition constrained local decision-making and exacerbated local and regional tensions. At the same time, the book offers interventions on critical issues related to Ionia such as the Athenian conquest of Samos, rhetoric about the freedom of the Greeks, the relationship between Ionian temple construction and economic activity, the status of the Panionion, Ionian poleis and their relationship with local communities beyond the circle of the dodecapolis, and the importance of historical memory to our understanding of ancient Greece. The result is a picture of an Aegean world that is more complex and less beholden narratives that give primacy to the imperial actors at the expense of local developments.
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The Battle of Thermopylae (480 B.C.), while a tactical defeat of the forces under the command of the Spartan king, Leonidas, was a strategic victory for the Greeks that elevated their morale as they resisted the advancing Persian army. They recognized the Spartans’ courage in the defense of their homeland and sacrifice in the face of overwhelming odds. Due to its topographical features, Thermopylae continues to be a militarily significant site and numerous battles have been fought there, most recently during the Second World War. Of equal or even greater importance, however, is the ancient battle’s cultural and artistic legacy through the millennia. The events of antiquity still resonate to the present day and, while sometimes misappropriated for perverse reasons, have come to symbolize the heroic value of resistance to tyranny.Keywords Battle of Thermopylae Sparta Leonidas Xerxes Herodotus Military history and significance of ThermopylaeCultural legacy of ThermopylaeJacques–Louis David Constantine Cavafy Dimitri Hadzi
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This chapter studies the historical case of Themistocles to contradict the current “structural orthodoxy” that regards leaders as either theoretically immeasurable or heavily conditioned actors that lack transformative agency. Specifically, we use the case of Themistocles to illustrate six interrelated causal mechanisms that lucidly link both leadership and strategic agency to international outcomes. We argue that leaders may indeed have a consequential and measurable impact upon strategic issues, such as the diagnosis of national threats, the generation of domestic power resources, military organization and reform, alliance formation and alliance management, the outcome of wars, and ultimately the very distribution of power in the international system. As Themistocles’ case study provides both a hard test and an extreme test regarding the impact of leadership upon strategy, it demonstrates quite paradigmatically that leadership can generate power, affect power differentials among states, and ultimately reshape the international balance of power—that is, change the very polarity of the international system. We hope that a structured, analytical study of Themistoclean leadership will not only demonstrate the historical pivotal contributions of Themistocles to the salvation of Greece and the Occident, but also “bring leadership back in” to the study of international politics and help drive a new and rigorous “leadership-centric” theoretical investigation in the discipline.
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The article illustrates the career of the Spartan Antalcidas, who between 392 and 367 BC ca. carried out an intense military activity and led several diplomatic missions at the court of the King of Persia. Special attention is given to the analysis of Antalcidas’ diplomatic masterpiece, the common peace of 387/6, which took its name from him. His friendship with the satrap Ariobarzanes, as well as the favor shown to him by king Artaxerxes II (with whom, however, never existed a real bond of xenia), place him among the most prominent Spartan characters in international relations of the first half of the 4th century BC.
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This article explores the process through which Roman imagery of Gallic peoples developed and became central to Roman conception of victory.
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This chapter focuses on the reigns of the three Persian kings Darius I, Xerxes I, and Artaxerxes I, and presents an overview of external and internal political developments. It highlights the fundamental changes that took place in this period of nearly 100 years (522–424 BCE) and stresses the achievements of these kings in establishing and securing one of the greatest and most successful empires in world history. With Xerxes' reign, expansion grinded to a halt and the empire focused more and more on maintaining control over a territory that reached from modern Pakistan to the Aegean. This was done in an extraordinary successful way by establishing a new dynasty, introducing new modes of taxation and organization, and fostering a royal ideology that was shared by the king and the empire's elites.
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This chapter examines key problems discussed within current scholarship related to the topic “Greeks and Barbarians” by means of a historical sketch of the period between the second half of the sixth century BCE and the middle of the fourth century BCE. It looks at problems related to sources, as well as the resulting Greek/Western perspective that has dominated this field of research until very recently. In addition to the issue of the so‐called “vassal‐tyrants” as part of Persian rule in Asia Minor, it examines questions related to the organization of this system of rule (including the debate over the reforms of Darius I), the Ionian Revolt (500/499–494 BCE) and the conflict between the Greeks and Persians that resulted thereof (490–479 BCE), the history of the Delian League that originally had been conceived as an instrument to support an offensive attack on the Persians, and, finally, the complex political and cultural relationships between the Greeks and the Persians from the later phase of the Peloponnesian War onward (431–404 BCE).
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Royal propaganda and Greek sources can be combined to create a clear and consistent picture of Persian legitimization of war. In order to maintain their position, Persian kings presented themselves as invincible protectors of divine order, peace, and prosperity. This required suitably impressive displays of military power. Wars against distant lands were essential sources of glory and prestige; wars against foreign upstarts and regions in revolt were mandatory assertions (or reassertions) of Persian supremacy. The kings' claim to world dominion automatically justified all conquests as righteous while condemning all rebellions as misguided and futile.
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The fascination of the Achaemenid Empire and the Great Kings' power is widely present in different classical sources. The ancient concepts of universal history include the Persian Empire within a succession of dominating powers. Due to the reception of Graeco‐Roman as well as Judaeo‐Christian traditions, it maintained this important place in our cultural consciousness. The image of this empire the classical sources draw is highly ambiguous, and the portrayals of the Great Kings and their court are full of clichés. To show the development of these stereotypical and contradictory images step by step and to underline their political impact is one of the main concerns of this chapter. The ambivalences in the presentation of the Persians' military power and its economic resources are analyzed as well.
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We trace the history of research on the Achaemenid Empire since Barnabé Brisson (1590) in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, France, and the United Kingdom. Beginning with a survey of influential monographs, we proceed to a study of significant researchers in different countries, and end with an analysis of research on specific topics and authors and other resources such as websites. We accept the view that the period 1979–1996 was a key point of transition between work situated in other disciplines and influenced by stereotypes about the east, and the formation of Achaemenid studies as a distinct field of research with a particular way of combining and critiquing all kinds of evidence. However, many of these “new” perspectives had earlier parallels, and in some areas of research older points of view still have advocates. Studying the whole history of the field, and reading foundational studies alongside the most recent publications, can give a fresh perspective on many debates.
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Isopoliteia, yani eşit vatandaşlık hakkı Hellen toplumlarında politik, ekonomik ve kültürel nedenlerden dolayı bireysel ya da kitlesel olarak uygulanmıştır. Farklı şekillerde antlaşma metinlerinde yer aldığı görülmektedir. Bu konuda özellikle epigrafik kaynaklar ile antik kaynaklar bilgi vermektedir. Miletos kenti de geniş bir koloni ağına sahip olarak zaman zaman farklı nedenlerle isopoliteia hükmünün yer aldığı antlaşmalar yapmıştır. Bu antlaşmaların bazen belirli dönemlerde tekrarlandığı görülmektedir. Bazı antlaşmaları Pers yıkımından sonra kaybettikleri nüfusun yeniden sağlamak için, bazı antlaşmaları da politik ve ekonomik nedenlerden dolayı yapmıştır. Biz de bu çalışmamızda Hellen dünyasında bulunan olgulardan biri olan isopoliteia kavramı hakkında Miletos üzerinden, epigrafik, antik ve modern kaynaklara dayanarak değerlendirmede bulunmaya çalışacağız. Bu değerlendirmenin Eski Batı Anadolu Tarihi üzerindeki etkilerini ve izdüşümlerini tespit konusunda katkı sağlayacağını düşünmekteyiz.
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An examination of Plut. Cim. 13, 4-5 and Harp. Α 261 Keaney s.v. Ἀττικοῖς γράμμασιν suggests that fourth-century historians Callisthenes (FGrHist 124 F 16) and Theopompus (FGrHist 115 F 154) challenged the view of contemporary Athenians – attested especially in rhetorical writings – that the Peace of Callias was concluded in the 460s BC in the aftermath of the battle at the river Eurymedon. Such a view described the peace as unilateral, i.e., not implying any obligation on the part of the Athenians. The fact that Callisthenes and Theopompus did not accept that tradition, doesn’t imply, per se, that they believed that no peace between Athens and Persia was ever concluded in the V century BC. On the contrary, the peace of 449 BC, as described by Diodorus in XII 4, 4-6 on the basis of fourth-century sources (Ephorus among them), was bilateral, i.e., it implied obligations on both sides (Athens and Persia); whether Callisthenes and Theopompus also disputed that peace was made in 449, is unclear. In addition, this paper explores the possibility of changing the unknown Νέσσου ποταμοῦ with Νείλου ποταμοῦ in the so called ‘Aristodemus’ (FGrHist 104 F 1, 13, 2).
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Mardonios was a Persian general, the son of Gobryas and of a sister of Darius I. He was active in the first decade of the fifth century bce and he was a protagonist of the Second Persian War, during which he found death in the battle of Plataia.
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This chapter will concentrate on the Dutch East India Company and eval- uate its modes of operation within the framework of empire studies. By look- ing at the voc from the perspective of empires, and in particular maritime empires, we may be able to better understand its dynamics and solve the par- adox of the Company’s persona as both a commercial undertaking and a sov- ereign “state”. It will also help us to foreground the Asian sources of Company rule. This is done by highlighting three specific ‘imperial’ features of the voc in Asia: that of its power structures, its methods of extraction, and manners of staffing and labour mobilization. By addressing these themes, two things will become clear: in the first place, that the Company has always blended the roles of both merchant and territorial ruler: extractive and exploitative strategies were part and parcel of the commercial enterprise the Company purportedly was. Secondly, it is striking how much the voc empire relied on and absorbed local practices. This process of accommodation or creative absorption is typical for most empires, as for reasons of scale they have to creatively integrate standing practices in order to be able to rule efficient- ly and extract wealth from the countries under domination. The result was an organization with a fundamentally hybrid structure, drawing from both metropolitan inspirations and local practices – and developing new colonial policies of its own.
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In the summer of 490 bc the Athenians secured their freedom and that of the European Greeks by defeating a Persian army in the battle of Marathon. Herodotus gives a sketchy description of the battle without any material information on the size of the respective armies but states that the Persians arrived at Marathon with 600 triremes and some hippagogoi, horse transports. Scholars have mostly rejected this figure for the size of the Achaemenid trireme fleet. The aim of this article is to re-examine the contemporary evidence and climactic factors to establish whether this figure can be considered accurate. The evidence does support Herodotus’ report that the Persians did indeed arrive at Marathon with 600 triremes and that they were deployed not as war galleys but as troop transports and that the Achaemenids did not sail with supporting merchantmen or sailing ships in this campaign.
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Despite the renewed attention for Persian period Elephantine, the focus of many publications is still on the history, identity, and religion of the Yehudite group in the Persian border garrison. This article displays the data on the other ethnic groups. Next to Persians, Egyptians, and Judeo-Arameans, some fifteen ethnic groups are referred to in the Aramaic and Demotic inscriptions. The analysis of the material leads to the conclusion that members of these other groups had various social roles in the local community: mercenaries, merchants, administrators, and slaves.
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This article offers a new date and interpretation for IG IV 556, more commonly known as the Reply to the Satraps inscription. Most scholars associate it with the Common Peace of 362/1, and interpret it as a response to satraps seeking military aid against King Artaxerxes II during the Great Satraps Revolt. Yet the inscription contains no evidence that the satraps the inscription addresses were in rebellion. After consideration of its find location and potential authors, it better fits the historical context of the Common Peace imposed on Greece by Philip II of Macedon following his victory at the Battle of Chaeronea in 338.
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Terminology offers a departure point for discussing the relationship between Sparta and the outside world in the years of the Persian wars. It has been argued that “the whole Spartan portrayal of the Persian wars, if it ever existed, is lost”. This chapter is about a brief historical synthesis freely moving between events, narratives (mostly Herodotos') and ideological constructs. The reasons for the leading role of Sparta in the years of the Persian wars lie in the growth of its power in the sixth century and in the authority it had acquired during Spartan king Agiads Kleomenes' reign. Demographics were also important: asked by Persian king Darius' son Xerxes about the approximate Spartan population, Eurypontids Damaratos answered that “the population of the Lacedaemonians and the number of their cities are great”, declaring the number of soldiers from Sparta to be 8,000.
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O propósito deste estudo é demonstrar que os capítulos 80-82 do livro III das Histórias de Heródoto apresentam não o retrato de três regimes e respectivos governates, o tradicional tríptico monarquia-oligarquia-democracia, mas permitem a subdivisão destas formas arquetípicas de governação em seis: três em que reina a excelência e outras tantas degeneradas. The main goal of this analysis of Hdt 3. 80-82 is to demonstrate that the historian does not propose a political theory based on three different constitutions: monarchy, oligarchy, and democracy. On the contrary, it is clear that by applying the qualifiers aristos and kakos to these forms of government, he offers a more complex arrangement of six constitutional archetypes, subdivided into triads of good and degenerate examples.
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King Darius’ determination to punish supporters of the Ionian Revolt resulted in expeditions to target Eretria and Athens. In 490 bc Datis landed a substantial force at Marathon, north of Athens, where Athenian and Plataean hoplites drove the Persians back to their ships. Ten years later King Xerxes led a much larger invasion by land and sea. Heroic Spartan resistance at Thermopylae failed to prevent Xerxes from sacking Athens, but his navy was mauled at Salamis and in 479 Greek hoplites were victorious at Plataea. Thereafter Athens took the fight to the Persians, with considerable success in Asia Minor.
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In 498 bc Persian authority in the west was challenged when several Greek cities in Ionia revolted. Supported by Athens and Eretria, the rebels sacked the satrapal capital of Sardis, a success that prompted further revolts at the Hellespont, to the southwest in Caria and on Cyprus. In 497 the might of the Persian army and navy was progressively brought to bear to crush the rebels. By 494 Miletus was one of the few mainland cities still in revolt; it was sacked after the Persian navy overwhelmed a Greek fleet drawn from Miletus and the larger Aegean islands.
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The first Persian Empire, created and maintained by the Great Kings of the Achaemenid dynasty, was a global empire of vast proportions. Before the conquests of Alexander of Macedon, the Achaemenid empire was the largest empire the world had ever seen, stretching from Libya to Pakistan. The period 559-465 bce saw the rapid expansion of the empire under a series of conquering kings, and thereafter the empire matured and continued to flourish until its conquest by Macedon. The Achaemenids divided their vast empire into numerous satrapies to ensure efficient administration and the ability to levy taxes and tribute. Communication and trade was facilitated through excellent road systems. While the Persians adopted a tolerant position towards their conquered peoples, they could also be ruthless overlords, quelling opposition with startling swiftness and brutality.
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