Whether the two sides fought for ideology, territories or perhaps control of the sea, only few events in ancient history have attracted as much scholarly attention as the bloody struggle between the Greeks and the Persians in the first quarter of the fifth century bce. Since the publication of A.R. Burn's seminal work in 1962, Persia and the Greeks, the massive number of interpretations has only underlined its significance in the history of Western civilisation.
The book under review discusses the Greek triumph over the Persians, from the Ionian revolt to the battle at Plataea. S. knows his way around these events as he has a translation of Herodotus (1982) and smaller treatments in the Osprey Military series on Salamis (2010), Plataea (2012) and Pylos and Spacteria (2013) under his belt. This new addition is S.'s definitive interpretation of the events described by Herodotus, and as such it collects and combines the threads from his previous studies.
S.'s main purpose is ‘to present the story of the Persian War as it was told by Herodotus and in other ancient voices’ (p. 18), which effectively means that the narrative is built around Herodotus with extracts interwoven from other ancient sources when opportune. According to S., this has not yet been done before in a consistent manner, as ‘many modern accounts of the Persian War generally include numerous references to what the ancient authors wrote but directly quote from them only a little’ (p. 16).
The book contains 9 maps, 63 illustrations, 12 chapters, a bibliography and an index. The focus is first and foremost on military developments, i.e. ‘the causes, effects, and consequences of war, and its political, social, economic, and cultural impact … [on] topics such as strategy, tactics, logistics, technology, and leadership … [and on] the specifics of campaigns, battles and battlefield, weapons, and other equipment, and the study of individual combatant's roles’ (p. 17). This means that the majority of the book's 511 pages are devoted to a thorough treatment of the five major military confrontations at Marathon, Thermopylae, Artemisium, Salamis and Plataea.
The introduction begins with some clarification of the concepts of Hellenes and barbarians, the scope and method(s) of Herodotus and a brilliant knowledgeable treatment of hoplite and trireme warfare. Thereafter follow two short chapters to provide historical context. Chapter 1 covers the rise of Persia in the sixth century bce and how the monster ‘with its nose in Europe, its body spanning the Middle East, and its tail in India’ (p. 66) reached a size that could challenge the Greeks. Chapter 2 aims to present the situation in Athens around 500 bce, which entails a treatment of the reigns of Peisistratus and Hippias and the reforms of Cleisthenes. In Chapter 3 the conventional narrative begins with the Ionian revolt, the deliberations in Athens and in Sparta as to whether to participate in the uprising, and the battles at Sardis, Miletus and Lade.
With Chapter 4 the time has come for the great battle at Marathon. The greatest strength of the book is S.'s battle reconstructions, and these pages provide a representative sample of how he structures the narrative. As already mentioned, S. uses Herodotus as ‘the central narrative strand’ and lets ‘other ancient writers appear in supporting roles’ (p. 19), while, in linking sections, S. offers comments, interpretations and background information when needed. S. begins with a quotation from Herodotus (6.95–6) presenting the orders given to Datis and Artaphernes. This quickly moves into a discussion of the number of Persian triremes, which – with the help of another long Herodotean passage (6.95–102) – introduces the Persian takeover of Samos and Naxos. With passages from Herodotus (6.103, 107–10) and Plutarch (Aristides 5.1), the perspective now changes to the ten generals in Athens. This initiates a discussion of the size of the Greek army and the topographical situation at Marathon, before fourteen pages are devoted to a reconstruction of the battle. As Herodotus only gives us 400 words in Greek on this matter, S. incorporates Pausanias, Cornelius Nepos and lines from the Suda to make sense of the two sides’ strategies. Finally, ten pages are used to discuss casualty numbers, burial practices, the arrival of Sparta and the marathon runner. S. here uses extracts from Plutarch, Lucian and the English poet Robert Browning to show how the legend of the runner has influenced later periods, and he ends the chapter by painting a large canvas on the phenomena of victory and freedom by using words from Aeschylus and the English poets Lord Byron and Robert Graves. This approach is carried out systematically throughout and, in my opinion, with great success.
Chapter 5 covers the years between the two invasions. We follow the preparations of Xerxes, the formation of the Hellenic alliance and the Greek defence strategy. Chapter 6 discusses the two major battles of 480, Thermopylae and Artemisium. Like Herodotus, S. jumps back and forth between land and sea over the course of three days, covering the topographical conditions, army sizes, strategic considerations and the course of events. Chapter 7 is a short intermezzo on the consequences of the Greek defeat at Thermopylae and the draw at Artemisium. Chapter 8 is a thorough treatment of the sea battle at Salamis. The confrontation is notoriously difficult to reconstruct, but S. manages to present the scholarly disagreements loyally and show why some solutions may be more plausible. Chapter 9 takes readers from Salamis to Plataea by focusing on the considerations of Mardonius and Themistocles. Chapter 10 is a long chapter on Plataea in which S. follows the template of Marathon and discusses army sizes, topography, the order of events and casualties. Finally, in a concluding chapter, the battle at Mycale is briefly sketched, together with the major events down to the King's peace in 386. S. thus ties a knot in the narrative as the Greek city states of Asia Minor, with the interference of the Great King, again saw themselves in the hands of the Persians.
Herodotus must form the basis of any serious interpretation of the events of the Persian Wars, and S. has done a remarkable job in interweaving Herodotus with other ancient and modern passages. As he proposes in the introduction, ‘the only antidote [to the limited source material] is to return regularly to the body of textual evidence on which the point of that pyramid rests, valuing the solid information contained in it, but accepting and attempting to negotiate its limitations’ (p. 18). While the approach of mixing extracts from Herodotus with passages from numerous other sources to create context works brilliantly, more could have been done to address the challenges accompanying the use of, for example, Diodorus Siculus or Plutarch. As it stands, these important authors are only included to supplement Herodotus, but come with a wide range of historiographical issues that need to be discussed (or at least presented).
The book is best suited for university students and those who already possess some knowledge of the period and issues in question. It would function well as a companion or commentary to those studying Herodotus or the Persian Wars. The novice should probably begin with a more basic introduction as the learning curve here may at times be too steep due to dense quotations and scholarly discussions.
Because of its structure, its clever use of a multifaceted source material and its knowledgeable reconstructions of the battles, this book is a recommendable and nicely balanced narrative of those events and individuals that contributed to the early history of Western civilisation.
