Description
Book SynopsisIts conclusions will interest not only specialists in both fields but students of ancient and modern comparative historical imperialism.
Trade ReviewIn his original and significant contribution to this new historiography of the Persian Empire, Hyland (history, Christopher Newport Univ.) thoroughly analyzes Persian activities in the Aegean from the conclusion of the Peace of Kallias in 449 BCE to the imposition of the King’s Peace in 387 BCE . . . This important work belongs in the libraries of all universities offering courses in ancient history.
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ChoiceQuestioning the traditional assumption that Persia was acting defensively in this period, playing Athens and Sparta off against each other to defuse their joint threat, Hyland reframes the story around Persia as the single world power of the era, with the Greek city states as minor satellites who posed no particular threat, but could be useful in fortifying the Great King's ideological claims to universal empire beyond the sea and the pacification of his borderlands.
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Times Literary SupplementThis is a well-written and carefully researched alternative interpretation of a key period of Mediterranean history . . . it will also provide an illuminating case study for historians and political scientists on how a large and powerful empire sought to manage relations with the troublesome states on its margins.
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American Historical ReviewTable of ContentsList of Tables and Maps
Acknowledgments
Translations, Spelling, and Units of Measure
1. Achaemenid Persia and the Greeks across the Sea
The Traditional Model
The Image of Persian World Supremacy
A New Approach
2. Artaxerxes I and the Athenian Peace
The Peace of Kallias
The Costs of Peace
The Savings of Peace
The Profits of Peace
The Ideology of Peace
Adherence to Peace
3. The Peloponnesian War and the Road to Intervention
Artaxerxes I and the Peloponnesian War
Darius II and Athens
Sicily, Tribute, and Darius’s Intervention
Agents of Intervention
Negotiating Intervention
4. Tissaphernes’s War and the Treaty of 411
The Ionian War and Athenian Resilience
Victory over Amorges
Revising the Terms of Alliance
Quarrel with Sparta and Contacts with Athens
The Treaty of 411
5. The King’s Navy and the Failure of Satrapal Intervention
Darius’s Ships and Tissaphernes’s Wages
The Ionian Garrison Expulsions
The Royal Fleet’s Recall
The Satraps at the Hellespont
Pharnabazos’s Timbers
6. Cyrus the Younger and Spartan Victory
The Satraps on the Defensive
Darius and the Embassy of Boiotios
Cyrus Takes Command
Cyrus and Spartan Disaster
Cyrus and Lysander’s Road to Victory
Persia’s Victory
7. Artaxerxes II and War with Sparta
Cyrus and the Second Loss of Ionia
Tissaphernes and Spartan Invasion
Naval Escalation and Tissaphernes’s Downfall
Tithraustes’s Truce and Pharnabazos’s Defense of the North
Artaxerxes’s Fleet and Victory at Knidos
8. Persia, the Corinthian War, and the King’s Peace
Timokrates’s Mission to Greece
Pharnabazos’s Revenge
Konon and Persian Aid to Athens
Tiribazos’s Folly and the Peace Talks of 392
Strouthas and the Failure of Outreach to Athens
The King’s Peace
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
