Persian Invasion of 480 BC - articles

[Aryaman2]

There have been several posts assuming that the Persian Empire was some sort of Absolutist govern with a well developed administrative machine. It was not, Persians made the transition of a bunch of nomadic tribes to running an empire in just a single generation. The empire at the time of Xerxes was less than a century old, it was plagued by revolts (Xerxes has just defeated the Babylonian revolt before the Greek campaign) and the Persians were a small ruling minority heavily dependant on the good will of local aristocracies, that is why Alexander always found collaborators defecting the Persians that allowed him to make use of supply depots stablished in the route of advance of his army inside the Persian empire.