Worlds Collide: Persians and Greeks
Geography and Environment
As the populations of early states and empires grew, they needed more resources for their people. They needed more land, larger armies, more food, and increased wealth. As they expanded, these societies often came into conflict over land and resources. Take, for example, the mighty Persian Empire and the city-states of the Greek Peninsula. These two very different societies expanded very differently. Their expansion brought them together and launched a series of conflicts that forever changed world history.
The Persian Empire
The Persian Empire began in a region that was in the middle of an ancient trade route between the agricultural urban regions of Mesopotamia and the Indus River Valley. The Persians’ nomadic society expanded overland, toward the wealthy and agricultural urban centers to the east (India) and west (Mesopotamia). Less than 50 years after its formation in 559 BCE, the Persian Empire had become the largest empire in the world, ruling nearly 50 million people. Almost one third of all people on Earth lived in the Persian Empire at that time.
The Greek Peninsula
To the west of the Persian Empire was the mountainous peninsula of Greece. By 500 BCE, the Greek Peninsula was divided into hundreds of independent city-states that shared the same culture even though they were divided by mountains. These city-states were small, but some—such as Athens and Sparta—developed into large, powerful states. Poor soil and rugged geography meant that the Greeks also had plenty of motivation to expand. But unlike the Persians, the Greeks expanded across the seas. Greek colonists established new city-states all around the Mediterranean Sea.
Big Question #1: |
Political Structure
The expansion of these two societies—Greeks over the sea and Persians over land—led them to conflict. Let’s explore their politics, culture, and social hierarchies and how these differences helped define the conflicts that followed.
The Persian Empire
The story of the Persian Empire begins in 559 BCE, when the first Persian emperor, Cyrus the Great (he ruled 559–530 BCE), set out on a series of epic conquests. By his death in 530 BCE, he had conquered Egypt, Babylonia, Assyria, most of Central Asia, and Anatolia. His descendants, especially Darius I (r. 522–486 BCE), expanded the boundaries of the empire even further.
The Persian emperors were absolute rulers. They controlled everything. They were treated almost as gods, and their word was law. They took the title “King of Kings.” The faraway districts of the empire were ruled by Persian governors called satraps, but the local elites among conquered peoples were recruited to fill other administrative positions. This bureaucracy (administration system) helped the emperors maintain control of and collect taxes from their huge empire.
What is a state? |
A long memory |
One example of the empire’s effective administration was the Royal Road. This road ran from the heart of the Persian Empire to Anatolia, over 1,500 miles away. It took most people months to travel the road. But the Persian Empire established a mail service with rest stops every 30 miles where royal messengers could change horses. This allowed messengers to travel the distance in less than two weeks. Rapid communication helped the emperor’s servants carry out his will.
Big Question #2: |
The Greek city-states
In contrast to Persia’s political system of centralized rule where one king ruled everything, the Greeks lived in independent city-states ruled by many people. In most city-states, some citizens had a say in governing. However, each city-state worked differently. For example, Sparta valued strict military discipline, and was ruled by two kings and a council of nobles. Athens, on the other hand, practiced direct democracy. All male citizens voted in the Assembly that ruled the city.
Even though Greeks and Persians ruled themselves very differently, they were both expanding, and both wanted the same territory and resources. That meant that these two different political systems of Persia and Greece were on a collision course. In 546 BCE, the Persian Empire conquered several Greek city-states on the coast of Anatolia. In 499 BCE, these city-states rebelled against Persian rule, and Athens supported the rebels. After he defeated the revolt, the Persian emperor Darius I set off to punish the Greeks. The result was a 50-year period of conflict known as the Greco-Persian Wars. The much smaller Greek city-states managed to unite and defeat the world’s largest empire—twice!
Big Question #3: |
Culture
The distinct cultures that developed in these two places can help us better understand their political conflicts.
Persian culture
The Persians adopted many of the customs of the different peoples they conquered, creating a cultural melting pot. They were relatively tolerant rulers who allowed conquered peoples to keep their own religions and traditions, so long as they paid taxes and obeyed the emperor. Many conquered kings were even allowed to keep their title. That’s where the Persian emperor’s title “King of Kings” comes from.
The legacy of Zoroaster |
Big Question #4: |
Greek culture
In contrast to the vast Persian Empire, the Greeks lived in a mountainous peninsula. They shared a common culture and set of beliefs with other Greeks, but they were isolated from outsiders. The ancient Greeks were suspicious of foreign cultures. So, while the Persian Empire became a cultural melting pot, the city-states of the Greek Peninsula developed a culture that was distinctly Greek.
The Greek victories in the Greco-Persian Wars launched a golden age of peace in which Greek culture flourished and spread to new places. The Athenians started conquering other city-states and built their own, sea-based, empire. During this period of peace, from 449 to 431 BCE, the Athenians’ achievements were numerous and notable. They built the Parthenon; their leader, Pericles, reformed Athenian democracy; and thinkers like Socrates, Plato, and Euripides made Athens a cultural center of the Mediterranean world.
Society
You might hear stuff like “direct democracy,” “independent city-states,” or “golden age” and think that Athens sounds like a society that valued equality, especially compared to Persia. But the truth was more complicated. The amount of freedom, prosperity, and democracy a person enjoyed in Greece depended on who they were. Persia might have been ruled by a single, all-powerful man, but the emperor tolerated differences and respected the many different cultures under his rule. For example, when he captured Babylon, Cyrus the Great liberated the Jewish people from a period known as the Babylonian Exile. Non-Persians within the empire could rise to positions of political power. The Cyrus Cylinder—a clay cylinder written to commemorate Cyrus the Great’s conquest of Babylon—is even acknowledged by some scholars as the first statement about human rights.
In the direct democracy of Athens, however, women, enslaved people, and non-Greeks didn’t enjoy the benefits of participation or status as citizens. In many other city-states, participation was even more limited. Often, only very wealthy males enjoyed the rights of citizens.
Pretty great “I am Cyrus, king of the universe, the great king, the powerful king, king of Babylon, king of Sumer and Akkad, king of the four quarters of the world.… My vast troops marched peaceably in Babylon, and the whole of [Sumer] and Akkad had nothing to fear. I sought the welfare of the city of Babylon and all its sanctuaries. As for the population of Babylon […, who as if without divine intention] had endured a yoke not decreed for them, I soothed their weariness, I freed them from their bonds.” |
Big Question #5: |
Decline and Transformation
Cultures and societies are constantly changing, becoming more and less powerful. When a society starts to decline, it often creates an opportunity for change and for new societies to rise up. Let’s see what happens to the Greeks and Persians.
Despite the Greek victory over Persia, a growing rivalry between different Greek city-states risked disaster. From 431 to 404 BCE, the Athenian Empire fought Sparta and their allies in the Peloponnesian War. Sparta won, but the war weakened the whole Greek world. This opened the door for a new state to arise. On the northern border of the Greek Peninsula, the Macedonian kingdom of Phillip II (r. 359–336 BCE) took advantage of the weakened Greek city- states and conquered most of Greece. After conquering the Greek city-states, Phillip’s son Alexander led an army of Greeks and Macedonians into the heart of the Persian Empire, conquering all Persian territories as far east as India and earning him the name “Alexander the Great.”
After the conquests of Phillip and Alexander, the power of the Persian Empire and the other Greek city-states both faded. Yet, their influence didn’t disappear. Alexander’s vast empire ensured the spread and endurance of both Greek culture and Persian methods of rule. Persian bureaucracy served as a model for other empires over the next thousand years. Alexander’s armies spread Greek culture all the way to India. Though his empire didn’t survive his death, Alexander’s conquests and the successor kingdoms ruled by his generals launched what’s called the “Hellenistic period,” when Greek culture dominated in the Mediterranean and in the lands once ruled by the Persian Empire. Elements of Greek culture blended with local customs to create something entirely new in many places. In Central Asia and India, for example, statues of the Buddha were carved in the Greek style. And the great Mauryan Emperor Ashoka even wrote some of his famous speeches in Greek.
The very different societies of ancient Persia and Greece continue to echo through history. In the Mediterranean, the Roman Empire rose to replace the Greeks, but the Romans adopted plenty of Greek culture. Persia’s political system was used as a model by many later states. For example, as late as the 1970s, Iranian rulers claimed the title “King of Kings” as a symbol of their power and connection to the legacy of Cyrus and Darius. In a similar way, many societies in Europe and America have drawn inspiration from Greco-Roman culture, philosophy, architecture, and politics.
Big Question #6: |
Bennett Sherry
Bennett Sherry holds a PhD in history from the University of Pittsburgh and has undergraduate teaching experience in world history, human rights, and the Middle East. Bennett writes about refugees and international organizations in the twentieth century and is one of the historians working on the OER Project courses.
Credit: Sherry, Bennett. “Worlds Collide: Persians and Greeks.” OER Project, 2023. https://www.oerproject.com/
Image credits
This work is licensed under CC BY 4.0 except for the following:
Cover image: The war council of Darius, presented on a Greek red figure vase. Darius King of Persia 549 BCE—486 BCE. © Culture Club/Getty Images.
Map showing the Greek Peninsula and the Persian Empire. By WHP, CC BY 4.0.
A map showing the stages of the Persian Empire’s expansion. The areas in purple and pink are its earliest territories, with orange, brown, and green coming from later conquests. By World History Encyclopedia, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. https://www.worldhistory.org/image/16107/the-achaemenid-persian-empire-c-500-bce/
The areas colonized by Greek city-states around the Mediterranean and Black Sea (red, blue, and dark purple). © Universal Images Group / Getty Images.
This is the “Behistun Inscription.” It tells about the conquests of Darius the Great and shows him speaking to people he defeated. The inscription is written in three different languages. © Moment / Getty Images.
A map of the Persian Empire in the fifth century BCE. Notice the Royal Road (brown) linking Persia to the Mediterranean. © Universal Images Group / Getty Images.
The Cyrus cylinder; clay cylinder; a Babylonian account of the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus in 539 BC. © The Trustees of the British Museum.
A mosaic showing the Battle of Issus in 333 BCE, during which Alexander the Great defeated the Persian Emperor Darius III. © Hulton Archive/ Getty Images.
A map of Alexander’s empire and the successor kingdoms it broke into. By WHP, CC BY 4.0. https://www.oerproject.com/OER-Materials/OER-Media/Images/WHP-Maps/300bce-layer-2
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