THE HARVEST OF WAR

A new history of the iconic battles between ancient Persia and Greece.

Paying more attention to Persia than many previous accounts, Kershaw, the author of The Enemies of Rome and The Search for Atlantis, reminds readers that, after conquering Assyria, Egypt, and Babylon, it ruled the largest empire in the Western world, extending from India to Egypt to the Black Sea. By 550 B.C.E., Persian armies had reached the western edge of modern-day Turkey, an area filled with prosperous Greek cities. Rule by the emperor’s satraps was probably no worse than that of earlier native tyrants, but Greeks considered all Persians barbarians. Trouble began in 499, when Athens sent a small fleet to aid a rebellion in a Persian-ruled city. The revolt was crushed, but the emperor, Darius, did not forget, later sending a huge army to defeat at Marathon in 490. Darius died a few years later, but his son, Xerxes, sent an even larger army, which overwhelmed the Spartans at Thermopylae and destroyed Athens but was stalemated after the Greeks destroyed his fleet at Salamis in 480. A skilled scholar and dedicated historical researcher, Kershaw is not shy about explaining the often unreliable sources and pointing out celebrated events that probably didn’t happen. “The ancient chronologies, based on genealogies with multiple variants, which are traced back to a vaguely dated Trojan War, are sketchy in the extreme,” he notes. The author is at his best describing ancient politics and culture, and the confusing battle accounts are not his fault. Half a dozen ancient historians mention them, but their details are contradictory and impressionistic—and all from the Greek point of view. Many modern writers edit them into a comprehensible story, but Kershaw admits that the specifics are gone forever.

A fine study of a turning point in ancient history.