Truth or Consequences

In 480 B.C.E., Xerxes, King of Kings and master of the mightiest empire the world had yet seen, set out with his Grand Army to punish the Athenians, finally, for a grave insult to his father and one to Persia *, for the fluke of Marathon, and to add the rest of backwater Greece to the Persian Empire. The invasion force was immense, gathering together troops from all across the vast expanse of his territory. The Greek city states could not, all together, field an army with as many men as the Persians brought across the Hellespont.

Xerxes was confident that such an army would cow the Greeks into surrender with a minimum of resistance. Why, they might not even have to fight at all! Xerxes knew that the Greeks were weak, thinking only of their personal safety and gain, and that they were treacherous with one another, always looking for an opening to stab another Greek or Greek city in the back. He knew this about Greeks through all of the Greek exiles at his court in Persepolis: the overthrown tyrants and disgraced generals and impoverished oligarchs, all planning and scheming to regain their positions or to bring down their rivals by hook or by crook - or by providing intelligence to the King of Kings. And back then, as right now, the way to catch a King's fancy is to tell him exactly what he wants to hear.

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" Officials have said top Pentagon policy makers were strongly influenced in their belief that the Baghdad government was brittle by accounts from Iraqi dissident leaders who said they expected relatively little opposition to the invasion. " - The New York Times, March 28, 2003

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* In 507, in order to gain support against an invasion by Sparta, a diplomatic delegation from Athens participated in a ritual of surrender to Persia, ruled at that time by Xerxes' father, Darius. The diplomats were eventually repudiated and Athens chose not to honor commitments made by a mission that, it was decided, did not have the authority to offer what they had offered. When, in 499, Athens sent ships to support a revolt against Persian power in Ionia, Darius, needless to say, was irked. From his perspective, the Athenians had reneged on a sacred agreement. He sent troops to conquer Athens in 490. The Battle of Marathon ensued. Athens surprised everyone, including themselves, by winning. The ground was thereby prepared for Xerxes' disaster and Greek triumph.

This whole drama is among the most important contributing to the shape of our world and the consequences of what began as a small diplomatic dust-up continue to reverberate two-thousand-five-hundred years later.

Posted by Martial