Guest
The Persian Wars (490-479 BC) were the culmination of the territorial expansion of the Persian Empire to the edges of the Greek world. We rely almost exclusively on Greek sources for our understanding of these events, and it is highly likely that the Persians did not regard their war with Greece as the epic confrontation that the Greeks felt it to be. From the Greek point of view, however, these were event that changed history. In this lecture we will examine the Persian Wars, with special attention to the significance of the battles at Marathon and Salamis. The legacy of the Persian Wars remains with us today. From them the Greeks learned to articulate a notion of freedom that is still deeply embedded in us. Less fortunately, the Persian Wars also mark the beginning of the great divide between East and West, also still deeply embedded in us.
