Tom Holland

invading Afghanistan and in the Gulf Wars corresponds much more closely to Persia than to Athens.

And when George Bush...

talked about an axis of evil.

I mean, that's language that would have meant nothing to the Athenians, but it would absolutely have meant everything to the Persians.

Greece and Athens are obviously massive, massive influences on the West, but so too is Persia.

It's just that the influence of Persia is so occluded.

Yeah, he's on top of it.

And I think also that the notion of it as a battle between despotism and liberty is also complicated because in due course, after the defeat of the second invasion, after the great Athenian victory in the naval battle at Salamis, Athens emerges from the Persian Wars as a great power herself and as an imperial power.

And many of the Greek cities who initially are freed from the great king's rule in the wake of the defeat of the Persian invasion by the Athenians,

end up paying tribute to Athens herself.

That is what is used to fund the Parthenon, for instance.

The Parthenon is a great symbol of the Athenian democracy, but it's also a symbol of Athenian imperialism.

There is a case for saying that perhaps Greece would have been

more peaceable had Athens been destroyed and had a kind of Pax Persica being established, had Greece been absorbed into the Persian Empire.

Because the Persians knew how to run an empire.

They would not have allowed the Peloponnesian War to break out and all the various other wars that ended up

with Greece being conquered by Macedon.

Interesting.

So if I was a Greek, I would probably opt for a Persian victory.

I think my life would probably be better.