Product desciption
Three Epic Battles That Saved Democracy Marathon Thermopylae And Salamis Stephen P Kershaw by Stephen P. Kershaw 9781472145642, 147214564X, B09L4S1NH6 instant download after payment.
Kershaw makes use of recent archaeological and geological discoveries in this thrilling and timely retelling of the story, originally told by Herodotus, the Father of History.
The protagonists are, in Europe, the Greeks, led on land by militaristic, oligarchic Sparta, and on sea by the newly democratic Athens; in Asia, the mighty Persian Empire - powerful, rich, cultured, ethnically diverse, ruled by mighty kings, and encompassing modern Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Syria and Egypt.
When the rich, sophisticated, Greek communities of Ionia on the western coast of modern Turkey, rebel from their Persian overlord Darius I, Athens sends ships to help them. Darius crushes the Greeks in a huge sea battle near Miletus, and then invades Greece. Standing alone against the powerful Persian army, the soldiers of Athens' newly democratic state - a system which they have invented - unexpectedly repel Darius's forces at Marathon.
After their victory, the Athenians strike a rich vein of silver in their state-owned mining district, and decide to spend the windfall on building a fleet of state-of-the-art warships.
Persia wants revenge. The next king, Xerxes, assembles a vast multinational force, constructs a bridge of boats across the Hellespont, digs a canal through the Mount Athos peninsula, and bears down on Greece. Trusting in their 'wooden walls', the Athenians station their ships at Artemisium, where they and the weather prevent the Persians landing forces in the rear of the land forces under the Spartan King Leonidas at the nearby pass of Thermopylae. Xerxes's assault is a disastrous failure, until a traitor shows him a mountain track that leads behind the Greeks. Leonidas dismisses the Greek troops
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