33: Persia in Defeat

Victory monuments told one story; Persian strategy told another. We pull back the curtain on how the Achaemenid Empire absorbed defeat at Salamis, Plataea, and Mycale yet remained a decisive force by ...

23 Tammi 6min

A shocked city, a careful army, and a plateau that decides everything. We follow the tense weeks after Athens’ first win outside Syracuse, when momentum gave way to method. Nicias, often branded cauti...

22 Tammi 43min

Victory didn’t end the story; it changed the rules. After Mycale and Plataea, the Persian threat receded, the Aegean opened, and a vacuum pulled Athens, Sparta, and Persia into a new contest—one fough...

5 Joulu 20256min

Bronze flashed on the water and songs filled the air as our fleet left the Piraeus, but the shine faded fast along the Italian coast. Harbors opened while hearts stayed closed, Segesta’s “treasure” di...

28 Marras 202540min

A continent-spanning empire bore down on a patchwork of rival city-states—and out of that pressure, a people discovered themselves. We follow the Greek victories over Persia from raw survival to a mor...

11 Marras 20255min

Trumpets sounded over the Piraeus and a city’s confidence took shape in bronze and oars. We follow the launch of the Sicilian Expedition from the charged votes in the Assembly to the glittering depart...

3 Marras 202540min

Empires can lose in stages—and the moments in between can matter most. We dive into the chain that turned Xerxes’ massive gamble into Greek momentum: the trap at Salamis, the phalanx at Plataea, and t...

22 Loka 20256min

The complicated legacy of Pausanias, Spartan regent and commander at Plataea, reveals the razor-thin line between military glory and personal disgrace. When Persian forces under Mardonius threatened G...

3 Loka 20255min