Persian Europe

Persian cultural influence will be minimal. While undeveloped land tends to inherit the cultural influence of the nearby dominant power, existing developed areas tend to retain their own culture. Mesopotamia still retained its indigenous culture. Egypt remained Egyptian. So conquered Greece will still remain Greek in culture even if there s a greater Persian influence.

Only if Persia retains control for a very, very long time will Greek culture become influenced by Persia. This is a time when cultural transfusion was very limited. Compare with the Hellenestic age. Greek culture spread far and wide, but it was very superficial. Seleucid Persia, Ptolemaic Egypt, and Bactria didn't become Greek culturally even if the political elite were ethnically and culturally Greek for a while.

A Persian satrapy over Greece will probably distort Greek political culture if kept long enough, but there are plenty of Greek areas outside Greece that will continue to develop (Sicily, southern Italy, southern Gaul, Crimea). For that matter, Italy also has a very strong culture at this point, as does Carthage.

Persia did not found colonies like Rome did, nor did it have the same institutional nature of laws, or the ability to assimilate existing cultures to Roman identity. Non-Persians could not become Persians in the same sense that Gauls, Greeks, Numidians, and Jews could later become Roman citizens. Nor would Persians want to give non-Persians such an identity because the aristocratic elites wanted to preserve their role in the Empire. Instead, Persia was much more content to let the lands it conquered continue to operate as before as long as taxes and tribute kept flowing.

Wholeheartedly agree.
But...I wonder what would be the impact of a Persian Greece to the development of Roman Republic/Empire...?
 
The Persians can probably hang on to Greece for a while as long as they maintain their naval dominance over any local up-starts. The Greeks would(and did) make great mercenaries for Persian armies. The Persian Empire is going to last a lot longer without Alexander coming along, and the only real threat they have is internal divisions until Rome(or some other Italian-based power) starts knocking on their western door, and of course they might get invaded by some steppe tribe as tends to happen periodically. If they last long enough, they might even be able to consolidate their power and expand westwards.
 

wwalter

I don't think that a Persian conquest of Greece will entirely annihilate Greek culture. Greek intellectual life would continue in many of the Greek poleis, as most of the oligarchies that the Persians would set up would not be interested in stiffing most such developments. Southern Greece and the Islands were so far from the center of the Persian Empire (Eckbatana, Persepolis) that the local satraps and oligarchies would be allowed to rule mostly unmolested so long as they paid tribute.

The conquered Greek poleis would, on the whole prove useful as a source of mercenary manpower for the Persian military, especially when putting down the incessant Egyptian revolts. The additional naval contributions would not hurt either. This would have a stabilizing influence on the Persian Empire under strong Shahs, but a destabilizing one during the inevitable civil wars. Remember that the 10,000 were hired by Cyrus the Younger, a Persian pretender to the throne to attack the Persian Empire. It is not inconceivable that certain Persian monarchs could find themselves under the sway of Greek mercenary generals who brought them to power.

Hellenization of the East would likely proceed similar to OTL with a Persian ruled Greece, maybe even at a quicker pace. As subjects of the Persian empire Greeks would easily be able to travel from the Aegean to modern-day Afghanistan, and spread their ideas and culture. Greek culture would continue under the Persians, and, more importantly in Magna Grecia and Sicily, which would remain outside the power of Persia.

The effects of this on Rome would be impossible to predict. However, it is not inconceivable that they could have overturned the Persian Empire, as in OTL they were successful in sacking Ctisephon.
 
The Achaemenids, especially Cyrus the Great, had a deliberate policy of working with their conquered rather than suppressing them so they could add them to their armies without too much fear. That's how they got big in the first place.

I do think they could've kept the Eastern Med, because they kept their conquered mostly happy and because sea travel was was decently fast, but might've had trouble getting there without adopting some Greek customs of government, like the Spartan checks and balances at minimum. Cyrus might've been great, but only a minority of of his successors were.

There's an interesting story about Themistocles of Athens and Persia. Themistocles ended the Persian ability to reinforce and supply by sending a lying letter to Xerxes, Persian King. It lead Xerxes into a trap at Salamis, beating their 3X bigger fleet. After Themistocles was exiled from Athens, much later, he went to Persia, and sent a letter to Xerxes' successor, telling him he'd tried to help his father... Themistocles was believed, summoned to court, and made satrap (!!!!!) But, that stupid belief worked out well for Persia, because Themistocles was probably the best Persian satrap ever....
 
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