With any POD, is it at all possible for a Persian empire to stretch from the Indus to the Pillars of Hercules? I envision it would start with a Persian victory at Marathon or Salamis and subsequently butterflying Alexander the Great. But could such an empire even exist? Or would it be too big to govern in classical antiquity?
AHC: Persian Empire controls the Mediterranean
- Thread starter danteheadman
- Start date
Achaemenid Persians were a firmly land based polity. Only the Greeks and the Phoenicians had the kind of thalassocratic power needed to control the Mediterranean.
Maybe if Alexander managed to live long enough to undertake the conquest of Carthage, his empire (with Babylon as it's capital) could be considered a Persian Empire dominating the Mediterranean?
Maybe if Alexander managed to live long enough to undertake the conquest of Carthage, his empire (with Babylon as it's capital) could be considered a Persian Empire dominating the Mediterranean?
I don't think it's unfeasible if the Persians manage to subjugate both the Phoenicians and Greeks such that they can build up a naval tradition within the Achaemanid state; from that point, the easiest ways to wage war from a logistical standpoint are going to be tied to the seas rather than marching south/west from Egypt or north from Greece into the Balkan tribes.
I'm imagining a scenario where the Persians set out to subjugate the Greek cities of Southern Italy, and end up building a fleet with which to transport and supply a land army, as well as levying ships from their tributaries to east to engage the ships of the Italian peninsula. Seeing the value of the fleet, the Achemanids begin a pet project of sailing around the Mediterranean and establishing a very loose suzerainty over the cities, statelets, and tribes of the Mediterranean to the point where the Persians are the incredibly loose overlords of most of the Mediterranean. No real governance, simply tributaries, but a Pax Persica is established across the Mediterranean due to the Persian's domination of the seas, such that no other naval powers exist in the Mediterranean.
It's interesting to image a scenario where Persian strongholds are set up in Malta and other minor Mediterranean islands that could lead to pockets of Persian speakers once the Achemanid Empire collapses.
I'm imagining a scenario where the Persians set out to subjugate the Greek cities of Southern Italy, and end up building a fleet with which to transport and supply a land army, as well as levying ships from their tributaries to east to engage the ships of the Italian peninsula. Seeing the value of the fleet, the Achemanids begin a pet project of sailing around the Mediterranean and establishing a very loose suzerainty over the cities, statelets, and tribes of the Mediterranean to the point where the Persians are the incredibly loose overlords of most of the Mediterranean. No real governance, simply tributaries, but a Pax Persica is established across the Mediterranean due to the Persian's domination of the seas, such that no other naval powers exist in the Mediterranean.
It's interesting to image a scenario where Persian strongholds are set up in Malta and other minor Mediterranean islands that could lead to pockets of Persian speakers once the Achemanid Empire collapses.
Probably Herodotus mythologizing again. Persians probably hired non-Persians because there weren’t many ports in Iran back then on the Persian Gulf, using Mesopotamian boats fir trade with India and the Arabian pearl chiefdoms. So when they reached the Mediterranean it’s not surprising they used local ethnic groups for it rather than ethnic Persians sitting in Susa thousands of miles away with no naval experience.
Does it have to be the Ancient Persian Empire? I think the Sassanids could have gained control over the Mediterranean as they had at one point taken half of Anatolia, all of Egypt and the Levant. They could likely commandeer Roman harbors to build fleets in the Mediterranean like the Arabs did.
It was a book about the life of Roman Emperor Nero and the visit of Tiridates I, brother of Vologases I, Shananshah of the Parthian Empire, to be invested as King of Armenia as a nominal client of Rome as part of a peace deal between the Roman and Parthian Empire. On their way to Rome his entourage had to take significant detours around the black sea and through the Balkans to not have to cross the Bosporus and the Adriatic, thus prolonging travel time to a full 9 months.
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That’s interesting, I wasn’t aware of any such taboo if it exists. My copy of Catharine Edwards’ Suetonius‘ Lives of the Caesar’s gives a ‘trivial’ reason, stating that the route taken was because bad weather was terrorising the Black Sea and he didn’t cross the Hellespont for that reason. From there on he arrived in Ostia via ship and was greeted by lots of pomp, show and fanfare.
Which book is it exactly?
EDIT: I actually found a source corroborating it, looks like Suetonius didn’t cover everything. He didn’t cross the Hellespont or travel across it because the large retinue of Median magu travelling with him considered the Hellespont specifically as a holy representation of āpā. So I think it was more of a localised phenomenon and a newer development in the at the time still-forming Zoroastrian canon.
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I don't think its complete bullshit. Zoroastrian ritual and taboo was starting to fully coalesce into a recognisable shape around this period. It might have been a more recent prohibition (read: request) by the Median magi that accompanied Tiridates. And it's likely that it might have disappeared when more practical matters were needed to subjugate Yemen under the Sassanids.
It's been more than 20 years that I read it, I borrowed it from the local library, the only thing I remember is that it was a Nero biography by an Italian author, who tried to refute the common hagiography of Nero as an incompetent sadistic madman. One chapter was dedicated to his resolution of the Armenian war against Parthia, which the author did consider a well executed piece of diplomacy instead of the defeat it was usually portrayed as.
Doesn't have to be in antiquity. But I thought it'd be easiest starting in antiquity.
Pending by how much they need to control, it might not be too hard.
- Conquer Greece
- Survive another several centuries (the hard part)
- Get into conflict with Carthage
- Win those wars, take their bases in the west and eventually their heartland
- Conquer italy because now you just sorta need it for administration