Hellenes supporting Persian king. Are they traitors?

[Mythos_Ruler]

I thinks kind of unfair. Without the Thessalians and Thebans we wouldn't have had Philip's army as it was. Alexander's anabasis might have been very different.

[hoplite14gr]

Do not forget that Alex did what the others should have done in 479 B.C.
Thats why his acomplishmnets were possible.

Kind regards

[Nicholas Gaukroger]

I rather suspect that if the Greeks had tried a major invasion of the Persian empire in 479BC they'd have had their heads handed to them on a plate - I don't think their military system would have been up to it unlike the Makedonian army over 100 years later.

[Mythos_Ruler]

Sure, Alex razed Thebes to the ground and secured his rear from rebellion for a while, but if that had been done 150 years earlier we might not have had the Theban Echelon Phalanx formation, hence we might not have had the Syntagma/Macedonian Phalanx innovation. It's all connected.

[Robert Vermaat]

Nations do not survive for more than four thousand years by by forgeting or forgiving.
The axiom of national survival is: FOTIA KAI TSEKOYRI STOYS PROSKYNYMENOYS! which means "axe and fire to those who bowed!"
The bigest mistake the that was done was that the Thebans and Thessalians were not anihilated after Platea!

Are you really suggesting they are to be blamed for fighting on the same side as the Persian conquerors?
Is that not a bit harsh? I mean, during other occupations did the Greeks sit at home? Did Greeks not bear arms during the Roman occcupation, for the Romans?

[Paullus Scipio]

I agree with you, Nik ! If the 'Anabasis' of Xenophon showed just how vulnerable Persia was to a well-motivated Greek army, then it was because the Persians really weren't trying that hard against them.
Building on that experience, the ambitious Spartan King Agesilaus tried conquest, and failed to make much of an impact, even when it was only Western satrapies he had to deal with, let alone The Great King !! :wink: :wink:

[Sean Manning]

Do not forget that Alex did what the others should have done in 479 B.C.
Thats why his acomplishmnets were possible.

Kind regards

Are you suggesting that the conquest and occupation of an empire, the death of hundreds of thousands, the rape, enslavement, or impoverishment of thousands more, and the sack of dozens of great cities, would have been right because that empire had tried to conquer a neighbour? Or that events 150 years before Alexander became king justified his actions? It was wrong for the Persian empire to invade Greece, but two wrong do not make a right. And, respectfully, there was no chance that the Greeks could have conquered the empire in the 470s. The odds were many to one against Alexander, with all Greece and Macedon except Sparta behind him and the best army the Mediterranean world had yet seen, doing so.

[Nicholas Gaukroger]

Are you really suggesting they are to be blamed for fighting on the same side as the Persian conquerors?
Is that not a bit harsh? I mean, during other occupations did the Greeks sit at home? Did Greeks not bear arms during the Roman occcupation, for the Romans?

Indeed Greeks fought for the Romans in Greece at the time the Romans were taking over Greece. I suspect that doesn't get mentioned in the same way as the medizing Greeks do - I'm willing to bet it is because Rome is seen as a generally "friendly to Greece" culture whilst the Persians are not.

[hoplite14gr]

It is a possibility that you are very right Nik.
The Aetolians tuning the Phalanx flank at Kynos Kefale or Pydna are seldom if ever mentioned.

Kind regards

[Petra Rocks]

The technical sense of the word treason as I understand it is to betray the nation or potentate of your body politic. Thus, if the state they owed allegiance to sided with the Persians (as I understand many did) they did not commit 'treason' to support the Great King. It may not have been a good idea, but it was not treason. If they fought as mercenaries or such for the Persians, or acted as a guide or something, despite their state opposing Persia, they would have been traitors.

Just my 2 cents.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

But many Greeks were working as mercenaries, before the hostilities erupted i would imagine. I wonder how easy it would be for them to turn their back on the Great King after taking his gold! #Caught between a rock and a hard place, many with kittle to return to anyway, perhaps we would do the same?

[Paullus Scipio]

...see my earlier post, David. You are using a modern definition, which no Polis citizen would have understood. A citizen of Athens might have recognised loyalty to his city, but the interests of his tribe/clan/faction came first ( see e.g. Alcmeonid clan, considered Medisers but who later went on to provide some of Athens greatest leaders.
And what about all those non-citizens ? Merchants from elsewhere in Greece, without any citizen rights, and slaves could hardly be expected to espouse the City's cause.
Both earlier and later, Athenian aristocratic factions would call in the Spartans to help overthrow the government of the day. "Traitors" or "Freedom-fighters"??
The terms had no relevance for the ancient greeks.

[PMBardunias]

I'm curious as to why some think that the Greeks could not have conquered Persia prior to Macedonian hegemony. Now obviously we have to assume that they stopped fighting each other long enough to do so, but I see nothing in their tactical system that would have made conquest impossible.

The 10,000 and Agiselaos' invasion proved that the Persians had no answer on the battlefield to direct combat with hoplites. I would put forth that Alexander faced more of a problem from the Greek mercenaries than a Greek invasion would have faced earlier.

You might say that the Greeks were too unskilled as cavalry, but we need only look to Agiselaos and the fact that he built a cavalry force in Anatolia that was superior to the Thessalonians in combat- and the Thessalonians were Greece's best at the time and would later romp all over the Persians. The same could be said of his light troops.

The Persians did not kick the Spartans out of Persian territory, they bought revolution in Agiselaos' rear. Presumably if Sparta had turned further east there would have been allied contingents from Anatolia with him.

Paul

[Paullus Scipio]

You may be right militarily, Paul...another of history's "what ifs" which can be endlessly debated ( and fruitlessly, I might add !!).
But doesn't the fact that Agesilaus fellow Hellenes would happily take Persian gold rather than support him say something?( about a lack of 'Pan Hellenism') And that something is that the "Greece" of his day could not successfully take on the might of Persia - they had only to buy off one of their annoying border-barbarians, doubtless at the same time as they were doing the same thing with Thracians, Scythians or whoever. " Greece" ( which did not even exist) was never a threat to The Great King. )
Even Alexander's later success may be regarded as a historical freak, where many factors all happened to co-incide. :lol: :lol:

[PMBardunias]

I asked the question because it seemed that some believed that the tactical system of Alexander is what allowed him to take on Persia. I was pointing out that the earlier Greeks might have fared just as well on the field.

As to you point about fractiousness, you are very right- Sparta was never a threat because her hegemony was so tenuous back home. It would take some improbable series of events like the Spartans allowing Thebes to raze Athens like they wanted to, and then the Spartans razing Thebes as the Macedonians did, coupled with some sort of inclusive reform like what Lysander may have been hatching to raise the number of homoioi and enfranchise the other members of the league.

I don't think the Persians could have simply bought off the Thracian's though- far better would be the promise of plunder in joining the Greeks. The Greeks would also presumably control the seas and so not have to waste time subduing the coast like Alexander did.

I am always fascinated by cultures that are subject to that Fratricidal/suicidal urge to not let any of their number have power over them. I see this in Greeks, Kelts, Medieval Italians, and Slavs- who would sooner follow avars or Norsemen than elevate one of their own. Perhaps now us. I wonder what drives this.