What If(The Greeks lost at Salamis)

[Durthorin]

The battle of Salamis has been described by many historians (among them Victor Davis Hanson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Davis_Hanson), Donald Kagan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Kagan) and John Keegan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Keegan)) as the single most significant battle in human history. The Greek victory protected the nascent and singular traditions of democracy and individual rights, as well as guarding Greek philosophy and culture. This meant the eventual flowering of Western culture, which would likely have been snuffed out completely, had the Persians overrun Greece. Due to the enormous and wide-ranging influence of Western culture on all of human civilization, as well as the huge success of Western culture in its own right, it is literally possible that the world today would be utterly and basically different had the Greeks lost at Salamis.


Blessed Be, Dur

[Nicholas]

Blessed Be, Dur

You'll find no disagreement from me that if the Greeks had been conquered history would have turned out very differently, but from what I've read the Persians under the Achaemenid dynasty allowed a certain amount of regional autonomy and could have even been considered enlightened despots. Western Civilization would likely have turned out very different from what we know, but Greek culture might not necessarily have been completely eliminated.

[nomad]

Greek culture wasn't exactly squashed when the Romans took over... were the persians really that much different?

[Durthorin]

Greek culture wasn't exactly squashed when the Romans took over... were the persians really that much different?

Well, the Romans if anything admired greek culture. In many ways they emulated it. One of the reasons we refer to Greco-Roman Culture when we talk about Western Civilization. The Persian system among other things already had the beginings of a monothestic religion and was very much Eastern in flavor. There was no trace of what we think of as democracy.