ANCIENT HISTORY

1. The battle of Salamis was a naval battle in the Greco-Persian wars with the Greek forces united under Themistocles and the Persians united under Xerxes. According to Herodotus, the Persians had around 1200 ships while the Greeks had around 380 battleships. In order to convince the Persians to fight at Salamis, Themistocles lured the Persian fleet to the narrow straits at Salamis which provided an advantage to the Greeks. The Greeks ended up outflanking the Persian ships and sank around 300 of their vessels while only losing around 40 of their own, causing Xerxes to call a retreat to Sardis as he watched the battle from further away. On the way back from the battle, Artemisia was being followed by an Attic ship and sunk one of her allies ships to trick the Attic ship into believing she was rebelling and she got out safely.

2. In passage A, Darius is depicted as hotheaded and impulsive as when as storm smashes the bridge he ‘ordered his men to give the Hellespont 300 lashes’ This shows he is hotheaded and impulsive as he orders his men to punish the Hellespont for the storm which is a natural occurrence and couldn’t be stopped or controlled. Linking in to that, this also shows Darius to be arrogant as he believes he can punish the body of water and control it and he also tell his men to say to the strait that he was its ‘Master’ which also shows his autocratic leadership to think he has power over the Hellespont. Xerxes is also shown to be a ruthless and vengeful leader as he had the builders of the bridges to be executed, showing that even though he blamed the Hellespont, he still punished the builders who built the bridge. Another example of Xerxes ruthlessness was when he crushed the revolt of Babylon and pillaged from the city and destroyed the statue of ‘Marduk’ which had previously been respected by previous Persian kings.

3. To some extent the Persian rulers relied on fear to rule the Persian empire however some rulers relied on it more than other. In this source, Xerxes is described as hotheaded through giving ‘the Hellespont three hundred lashes of the whip’, his  anger in this  reflects back to when Pythias begged for Xerxes to not send his eldest son to the Greco-Persian wars. This angered Xerxes as he thought Pythias was insinuating that he wouldn’t be victorious and he had Pythias’ elder son cut in half and displayed his body where his army marched upon. This shows he relied on fear as he often used violent methods and solutions to show his power and strength.

On the other hand, Cyrus was known to not usually use fear as a way of keeping control. For example, he allowed the Babylonian’s to worship their God Marduk and even associated himself with the God, saying that he earned Marduk’s favour. This shows Cyrus didn’t always rule with fear as instead of forcing the Babylonians to worship the Persian gods he ruled with tolerance and didn’t invoke fear into the Babylonians with his conquering. He is further shown to not use fear when he frees the Jewish captives in Babylon and return them to their homeland, further reinforcing his use of tolerance instead of fear.

Yet Xerxes when he crushed the Babylonian revolt in the future, resorted to using fear and displays of power to control the city such as destroying fortresses and pillaging temples and getting rid of deities statues which contrast Cyrus tolerant behaviour towards the Babylonians. Overall, the use of fear to control the Persian empire was apparent through rulers such as Xerxes yet many other rulers used more controlled and pacified responses to maintain control.

4. The building projects of the Persians are some of their well known achievements, from Cyrus’ creation of Pasargadae by Cyrus the Great to Xerxes building of the Gate of All Nations.

Building projects of the Persians, though a great achievement were not their greatest achievement however they were influential. An example being Pasargadae which was built by Cyrus and was where his body was kept too. Pasargadae was important as it was the capital of the Achaemenid empire and it shows some of the earliest examples of Persian art and architecture and Cyrus’ incorporation of other countries architectural styles show the tolerance and diversity in the Persian empire. Pasargadae was a large building project too which spanned 400 acres total containing many different buildings and gates adorned with religious images such as guardian spirits which were inspired by many different cultures such as Egyptian and Greek.

The building projects of other Perisan kings like Darius and Xerxes were significant too. For example, Darius constructed Persepolis which was the ceremonial capital of the empire. One of its most famous features was the hall of a hundred columns which was the second largest building in this city, this was a huge achievement due to its sheer size and the labour that must have gone to create it without modern technology. Xerxes also contributed buildings to the empire such as the Gate of All Nations, this was a large gate visitors of Persepolis had to pass through to get to the terrace. This showed the power Xerxes had and it was also a dedication to Ahuramazda. This overall shows that the building projects of the Persians were massive achievements for the time period and showed the power of the Persians.

On the other hand, the expanse of the Persian empire in my opinion was their greatest achievement. For example, Cambyses conquered Egypt which was a huge achievement which showed the Persian’s power and it allowed the Persians control of  the Nile which was good for trade and farming. Another example of the expanse of the Persian empire being their greatest and most impressive achievement was the size of Persia under Darius the Great’s rule. Under Darius rule, the Persian empire was at its largest at around 5.5 square miles ruled over and over 10 countries ruled over by them. This resulted to over half the worlds population living under the Persian empire . All together, this shows that the expansion and size of the Persian empire was their greatest achievements as they controlled half of the world’s people and had power of many countries that they could use at their disposal.

Overall, while the building projects by the Persians were huge accomplishments at the time, their biggest achievement was the size they reached and how much power they had over the ancient world as the expanse proved Persia’s place as the largest ancient empire and its influence it had in the ancient world.