The Achaemenid Presence in Ionia: From the End of the Peloponnesian War to the Peace of Antalcidas (404-387 BCE)

Abstract

Unlike the war between the Achaemenids and the Greeks during the reign of Darius and Xerxes, the accounts on the war of the later periods (Artaxerxes I, Darius II, Artaxerxes II) is remembered with scattered secondary narratives in Greek sources. After the so-called Callias Peace in 449 BCE between Persia and Athens, Athenian historians turned their attention away from the Persians and turned to their home rival Sparta. Thus, in the next 60 years, until the so-called Antalcidas' Peace (or King's Peace), one confronts a deliberate disregard for the Persian presence on the Western fronts and its interference in Greek affairs. Recent historical sources have also looked at the events of this period through the Athenian eyes of the 4th Century BC, which had its own necessities and limitations. Modern scholarship, although diligent in shedding light on the dark and obscure points of this period, almost remained Hellenocentrist. In this study, the influence of the Persian state in Ionia and western Asia Minor after the Peloponnesian War and the intervention of the Great King in Greek affairs are reassessed. We also reconsider the military and diplomatic victory of Persia over Athens and Sparta and what is called Persian victory through the gold and bribes in the early fourth century.

Keywords

• greco-persian wars
• artaxerxes ii
• tissaphernes
• agesilaus
• peloponnesian war