Persian Interventions: The Achaemenid Empire, Athens, and Sparta, 450-386 BCE

Persia’s relations with Greek city-states provide a fascinating case study in ancient imperialism. Thirty years after Xerxes invaded Greece, the Achaemenid Persian Empire ended its long war with Athens. For the next four decades, the Persians tolerated Athenian control of their former tributaries, the Ionian Greek cities of western Anatolia. But during the Peloponnesian War, Persia reclaimed Ionia and funded a Spartan fleet to overthrow Athenian power. It took eight long years for Persia to triumph, and Sparta then turned on its benefactors, prompting Persia to transfer aid to Athens in the Corinthian War. The peace of 386 reiterated imperial control of Ionia and compelled both Sparta and Athens to endorse a Persian promise of autonomy for Greeks outside Asia. In Persian Interventions, John O. Hyland challenges earlier studies that assume Persia played Athens against Sparta in a defensive balancing act. He argues instead for a new interpretation of Persian imperialism, one involving long-term efforts to extend diplomatic and economic patronage over Greek clients beyond the northwestern frontier. Achaemenid kings, he asserts, were less interested in Ionia for its own sake than in the accumulation of influence over Athens, Sparta, or both, which allowed them to advertise Persia’s claim to universal power while limiting the necessity of direct military commitment. The slow pace of intervention resulted from logistical constraints and occasional diplomatic blunders, rather than long-term plans to balance and undermine dangerous allies. Persian Interventions examines this critical period in unprecedented depth, providing valuable new insights for the study of Achaemenid Persia and classical Greece. Its conclusions will interest not only specialists in both fields but also students of ancient and modern comparative historical imperialism.

Table of Contents:
List 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

About the Author :
John O. Hyland is an associate professor of history at Christopher Newport University.

Review :
In 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. —Choice Questioning 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. —Times Literary Supplement This 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. —American Historical Review