reply to post by dooper
That was one of the most inaccurate and biased summaries of Ancient Persian history I've seen since the movie 300.
Which seems to have influenced a lot of your misconceptions. You do realise it's based on a comic book right?
The people of the Persian Empire belonged to a god-king, and were compelled toward their fate.
The Persian Shahanshah (King of Kings) never proclaimed himself to be god. The Ancient Persians were Zoroastrians and believed in the first
monotheistic God.
In fact the Persian Kings always referred to and praised god for all of their accomplishments:
[1.5] Says Darius the king: By the grace of Auramazda I am king; Auramazda gave me the kingdom.
These are the countries which came to me; by the grace of Auramazda I became king of them;
who was an enemy, him who should be well punished I punished; by the grace of Auramazda these countries respected my laws;
Auramazda gave me this kingdom; Auramazda bore me aid until I obtained this kingdom; by the grace of Auramazda I hold this kingdom.
mcadams.posc.mu.edu...
I think you get the idea. No Persian King
EVER referred to themselves as God.
The Persians were slaughtered.
You do realise the Greeks and Spartans
LOST the Battle of Thermopylae after 3 days?
Even though the Persians suffered high casualties, they still won. So nice attempt at glossing over history there.
After his they overran Boeotia and then captured Athens (another two decisive victories), and were a hair's breadth away from conquering Greece.
It was only after a Naval defeat in Salamis Xerxes withdrew is men because he didn't want to become engaged in a constant struggle in Greek
territories when he faced more immediate threats in Persia.
The second time the mighty Persian Empire went up against a Western power was the Macedonians.
Alexander the Great INVADED Persia. Not the other way around.
And it was Alexander who believed he was driven by a God-given right for the Greeks to rule the world. Which is why he didn't want to stop his
campaign until he reached the
"end of the seas" as he said.
Sheesh.
Not to mention, if you actually bothered researching your wild claims, Alexander the Great admired Persian culture so much he took a Persian wife,
adopted a variety of Persian customs (he called himself the Shahanshah "King of Kings") and invited Persian soldiers to join his army, which many
did.
Again, compelled by a god-king, the people were not provided any choice in the matter,
Fallacy after fallacy....
The Persian Empire gave the world it's
FIRST human rights charter which expressly forbid the taking of slaves and the enslavement of conquered
nations:
en.wikipedia.org...
The Greek city-states and Spartans on the other hand, constantly killed each other and considered their countrymen inferior to themselves and took
them as slaves.
The very same nations that made up the old Persian Empire, are now likewise compelled without choice.
Modern Iran is maybe 1/20th of the size of the maximum extent of the Sassanid and Achaemenid Empires at their heights.
What on earth are you talking about? Persian people have inhabited the region of modern-day Iran since 3000BC. It's always been Persian.
In fact, during the 19th Century Iran lost a good 30% of her former territories to ruthless conquests by Russia, Great Britain and Turkey.
Their fanatical, fundamentalist Islamic leaders are once again compelling them without choice. Their religion? Submission. Islam means
submission.
Yeah thanks for the insightful tip into Islam.
You do realise the Ancient Persians were Zoroastrian right? So Islamic Fundamentalism played absolutely no role in the conquests of the Ancient
Persians, hence your point is invalid.
And yes, the Iranians, with a longing for the days of the old Persian Empire, once again, must repeat the meeting of East versus West.
Sigh... I just felt some brain cells throw up inside my skull. Pardon me.
Sure. Sure they do. And Xerxes just like in 300, was 8ft tall and made of solid gold.
And since the collapse of the Sassanid Empire in 700AD, the Persians have attempted a grand total of ZERO times to re-establish another Persian
Empire, which is excellent proof of this theory.
Not to mention they were under the complete subjugation of everyone from the Arabs, Mongols, Turks, British and Russians for the next 800 years or
so...
Obviously they had all the chances in the world to feed their bloodthirsty, Imperialistic ambitions.
Every single time in the past, they have suffered a great slaughter. Not most of the time. All of the time.
Yeah apart from the time from say....
247BC (when they overthrew Alexander's Empire) to 667AD when the Persians were the world's largest empire, territorially unchallenged, one of the
most diverse empires spread from Southern Europe, to Northern Africa and Eastern India and pioneered the true meaning of civilisation when most of
their surrounding neighbours save for the Greeks/Romans (who addressed the Persian kings as "their brothers" and respected them greatly), were
nothing but nomadic, war-like rabble.
Yeah just skip about
1,000 years of continuous civilisation and progress.
It's "irrelevant".
I'm going to leave it at that for now, but sufficed to say, read a book. Cheers.
[edit on 9/4/09 by The Godfather of Conspira]
