King of Half the World

Michael B

A clip on YouTube claimed that during its existence the Achaemenid Persian Empire had 44% of the population the world within its boundaries. I am not going to argue the point, but assuming that this correct, how does it get another 6% to meet my title?

Historically The Kings of Kings got in a war with the Greeks that they expended a lot of treasure to no real gain. However they need not have gone west to have got those extra subjects. There were a lot of cities in North India and these would have done equally as well. So three questions.

1) How can the Kings of Kings avoid wars with the Greeks? As personally I do not think they are winnable please post such ideas on the Persians winning on another thread.

2) What would drive them to go east and not west? Geographically Greece and India are both the same distance from Babylon.

3) How well would the Achaemenids do against their Indian compatriots? Both armies are essentially mounted troops supported by levy infantry and tribal contingents.
 

Galba Otho Vitelius

Gore Vidal, in his historical novel "Creation" speculates about the Persians going east and trying for India instead of Greece.

The main problem with this speculation is that we in the twenty-first century really know very little about India until the Seleucids started sending ambassadors there. In fact what little we know comes from the Persian expansion in that direction, via Herodotus. And the Persians did undertake some sort of expansion or establish some sort of protectorate beyond the Khyber Pass, though its impossible to say how far they got or how long they were there. All this makes speculation really difficult.

Hindsight indicates that the Persians should have ignored the Greeks. They stirred up a hornets nest. The empire had probably reached the limits of its expansion, and its hard to see how an empire based in Mesopotamia and Iran could effectively govern a highly urbanized part of Europe. They were drawn in that direction by the conquest of Lydia, and then it became an issue of "we have to expand our borders to keep our previous borders secure."

"Creation" is an excellent novel for alternative history fans, and also under-rated. Its much better than Vidal's other ancient history novel, "Julian"; its written seventeen years later, he is a better writer, and spends less time grinding axes.
 

Fabius Maximus

Michael B said:
A clip on YouTube claimed that during its existence the Achaemenid Persian Empire had 44% of the population the world within its boundaries. I am not going to argue the point, but assuming that this correct, how does it get another 6% to meet my title?

Historically The Kings of Kings got in a war with the Greeks that they expended a lot of treasure to no real gain. However they need not have gone west to have got those extra subjects. There were a lot of cities in North India and these would have done equally as well. So three questions.

1) How can the Kings of Kings avoid wars with the Greeks? As personally I do not think they are winnable please post such ideas on the Persians winning on another thread.

2) What would drive them to go east and not west? Geographically Greece and India are both the same distance from Babylon.

3) How well would the Achaemenids do against their Indian compatriots? Both armies are essentially mounted troops supported by levy infantry and tribal contingents.
Click to expand...

As for no. (2), avoiding the Ionian Revolt would be a good start. IOTL a large part of the reason why the Persians got involved in mainland Greece was that the Athenians had aided the revolt, so without this, the Achaemenid kings might be more content with the eastern Aegean coastline as their border.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top
Top