Читать книгу A Companion to Greek Warfare - Группа авторов - Страница 30

As this chapter on Greco-Persian wars shows, from the end of the sixth century to the Macedonian conquest of Persia, the Persian Empire under the Achaemenids, Darius I’s family, formed an inextricable part of the history of Greek politics and warfare. For Greek politicians, Persia was never out of sight or monolithically perceived as an oppressive force—a symbol of tyranny, despotism, and backwardness—as suggested by the biased images in literary sources.¹ For the Greek poleis, variously, the Achaemenid king could be an ally, host, protector, intermediary, supporter, source of hope, and guarantor of peace or an intruder, threat, and enemy. His role was hybrid, depending on the contemporary context, political issues, constellations, and needs of the respective Greek polis dealing with Persia. Persian subsidies were never far from Greek politician’s minds and played a frequent role in inner-Greek conflicts, often enabling the Great King to partly influence Greek affairs.