WI Darius the Great did not attack the Greek City States?

[Pearlshire19]

I have not found this question before. What if the Persian Empire did not attack the Greeks until later, after finding out that the Greek military was a lot stronger than they thought? What if they expanded around Greece before attacking Greece when they had a stronger military? How will that change history? Would it be possible?

 

[Fabilius]

I don´t know about surrounding the greeks. That sounds impossible.

But going into the opposite direction might be interesting. WI he decides to invade India like Alexander the great did? In some ways it´d make more sense to me than Greece.

 

[carlton_bach]

The problem from Dareios' point of view is that he didn't attack the Greeks, the Greeks attacked him. The Ionian cities had passed under his rule as clients of the local dynasts and then rebelled against him, and the European Greeks came to their aid. An Empire can't just let that kind of behaviour go unpunished.

If the Athenians had not chosen to support the Ionians, though, they might have stayed off the radar entirely. I'm not sure about an encirclement move, but I could actually see them becoming a useful source of mercenary manpower. That might make a lot of Greek cities much more amenable to Persian hegemony come time.