From 484-481 BCE, Xerxes directed his subjects to prepare for war in Greece. This didn’t just mean assembling soldiers and ships, but also preparing the infrastructure of the western empire to receive one of the largest armies ever assembled. 200,000 soldiers from across the Persian empire converged on the Hellespont in the spring of 480 and began the march to Hellas.
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Catalog of Nations from Herodotus
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Episode 38: The Last Battle
One possible re-creation of the infantry formations at Marathon. via Wikimedia Commons A Greek helment, and its occupant, uncovered from the Marathon battlefield. Now in the Royal Ontario Museum. via Wikimedia Commons The burial mound (tumulus) housing the ashes of the Athenian dead at Marathon. via Wikimedia Commons “Scene of the Battle of Marathon” by John Steeple Davis, 1900.
Nearly a decade after Aristagoras first went into revolt, and longer since the Athenians had reneged on their offerings of earth and water, the Persian Army came to take Darius’ revenge on Athens. For the first time, a Persian army landed on the Greek mainland. They made their camp on an unremarkable open plain that would soon be seared into Greek history forever: Marathon.
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Episode 37: Greece Awakens

Even once the Ionian cities themselves were defeated, the consequences of their Revolt were ongoing. In 492 BCE, a new general, Mardonius, took to the field to settle matters in the Balkans. Two years later, the Persians turned their sites on Athens and Eretria in retribution for the aid they sent to the Ionians. In 490, Artaphernes and Datis launched the first Persian invasion of mainland Greece.
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Episode 36: Return of the Tyrannoi

Even with Miletus defeated, the other rebel cities in shambles, Cyprus under control, and their armies victorious, the Persians had not heard the last of Ionian resistance. While the Greek rebels were fighting against the Persian Empire, the deposed tyrant Histiaeus was making plans to try and carve out a new niche for himself in Persian territory.
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Episode 35: The Empire Strikes Back

It is a dark time for the Ionian Revolt. Although Sardis has been destroyed, Persian troops have driven the Rebel forces from Aeolis and pursued them across Anatolia.
Facing the renewed Persian Fleet, a group of Greek cities led by Dionysius of Phocaea has established a new plan on the nearby island of Lade.
The Persian satrap Artaphernes, ready to end this rebellion, has dispatched the army and the navy to retake Miletus….
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Episode 33: Revenge of the Persians

After the shocking attack on Sardis, many more Greek cities joined the Ionian Revolt, despite Persian victory at Ephesus. In 497 BCE, three land campaigns were launched by three Persian generals: Daurises, Hymaies, and Otanes. After a series of lightning victories in early 497, the campaigns began set in to prolonged fighting. Two of the Persian generals were dead by 496, but the Ionians were still losing. Fresh revolts in the Troad and Caria were dealt serious defeats, and Aristagoras of Miletus, once the ringleader of the Ionians, fled into exile.
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Episode 32: Begun, the Greek Wars Have

To prepare ourselves for their role in the coming wars between Persian the Greek city states, I’m explaining the history and politics of Archaic Athens, from their first adoption of oligarchy rather than monarchy, down through the adoption of democracy, the Peisistratid tyrants, and the final restoration of democracy by Cleisthenes. At the end of that long process, the Athenians and their Eretrian allies joined forces with the Ionian Greek cities of Anatolia in their revolt against the Persian Empire. In 498 BCE, the Greek army set out from Ephesus in a lightning raid to attack, and ultimately destroy, the Lydian capital at Sardis.
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Episode 31: The Naxos Incident

At the end of the 6th century BCE, a group of exiled aristocrats from the island of Naxos inadvertently set off a chain of events that would eventually lead to such famous battles as Marathon, Thermopylae, and Salamis. They asked the Milesian Tyrant, Aristagoras, to help them retake their home island after being kicked out. Aristagoras went to the Satrap of Lydia, who in turn asked Darius the Great. When Darius gave the go ahead, a Persian fleet invaded, and subsequently retreated from Naxos. Out of money and out of options Aristagoras and the rest of the Ionian Greeks in western Anatolia began hatching a plan to launch an Ionian Revolt against the Persian Empire.
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Oliver Stone’s Alexander (2004) on the Hellenistic Age Podcast
Hey everyone! My first collaborative episode is up! I spent some time chatting with Derek of the Hellenistic Age podcast about Oliver Stone’s Alexander (2004 and all the subsequent re-releases). You can check that out on the Hellenistic Age podcast feed (links below)! .
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https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-hellenistic-age-podcast/id1377920930?mt=2
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https://open.spotify.com/show/3OVlqzoNg4KW987igfhskd
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http://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=225541&refid=stpr
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http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:439067766/sounds.rss
Episode 27: The Grand Tour, Part 2

The tour of the Persian Empire continues, this time covering the western Satrapies. I’m exploring the details and histories of the Persian provinces starting with Armenia and moving counter clockwise, through Anatolia and Europe, over the Mediterranean, North Africa, Arabia, and Assyria. Based on the maps of Ian Mladjov.
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