What if the Persians conquer greece

Please be more specific. Are you talking about Xerxes' invasion of Greece in the 5th century BCE, or Khosrau II's invasion of the Eastern Roman Empire in the early 7th century AD?
 
Xerxe's invasion.
Had Xerxes been less underestimating towards the Greek resistance, he could have conquered Greece. Satraps would be installed in each major city, until Greece gets coalesced into one satrapy.
I, however, can see regionalism becoming an issue within such Greek satrapy. Every Achaemenid Persian province was restless to an extent, and the empire can't last forever. Once Persia collapses, Greece may break off as a unified kingdom (or two) under a former satrap.
Cultural implications would be interesting. By making use of Persia's efficient road and postal system, some parts of greek knowlege, such as philosophy, could spread across the empire, and vice-versa. There are also effects to the west of Greece, seeming as the Romans adopted and appropriated greek culture IOTL. If Greece was controlled by Persia, politically and/or culturally, how would the Romans end up perceiving the old Greek world, if they still defeat Carthage and the Magna Graecian states?
 
... Every Achaemenid Persian province was restless to an extent, and the empire can't last forever. Once Persia collapses, Greece may break off as a unified kingdom (or two) under a former satrap. ...

Culturally a lot depends on when the Hellenic regions split away, and why. If by some weird chance a Macedonian named Phillippe enables and leads the revolt then less may change vs OTL. But, there are many other divergences we can't predict.

OTL a portion of Hellenic culture was subsumed into the Persian empire. Ionia and the related regions in Asia Minor were part of the empire for a time. How much 'Greek' culture they spread in the empire I can't say.
 
Culturally a lot depends on when the Hellenic regions split away, and why. If by some weird chance a Macedonian named Phillippe enables and leads the revolt then less may change vs OTL. But, there are many other divergences we can't predict.

OTL a portion of Hellenic culture was subsumed into the Persian empire. Ionia and the related regions in Asia Minor were part of the empire for a time. How much 'Greek' culture they spread in the empire I can't say.
The Aegean coast of Asia Minor was under Achaemenid control for around 60 years, IIRC. That's little.
 
Had Xerxes been less underestimating towards the Greek resistance, he could have conquered Greece. Satraps would be installed in each major city, until Greece gets coalesced into one satrapy.
I, however, can see regionalism becoming an issue within such Greek satrapy. Every Achaemenid Persian province was restless to an extent, and the empire can't last forever. Once Persia collapses, Greece may break off as a unified kingdom (or two) under a former satrap.
Cultural implications would be interesting. By making use of Persia's efficient road and postal system, some parts of greek knowlege, such as philosophy, could spread across the empire, and vice-versa. There are also effects to the west of Greece, seeming as the Romans adopted and appropriated greek culture IOTL. If Greece was controlled by Persia, politically and/or culturally, how would the Romans end up perceiving the old Greek world, if they still defeat Carthage and the Magna Graecian states?

Romans could end up a lot of Persian culture if they still end up conquering Greece. However, I don't imagine them being able to conquer the eastern Mediterranean and it will remain in Persian hands. Wonder if this makes Rome to concentrate it's expansion more into central and eastern Europe.
 
The Aegean coast of Asia Minor was under Achaemenid control for around 60 years, IIRC. That's little.

Not much at all. Ordinary trade would cross pollinate just as fast in that short a time.

A couple decades ago I read a Sci Fi short story about a Persian philosopher who was trying to understand who the Greek kings had been before Xerxes conquest of Athens & the other cities. He was baffled by the constant references to the "peoples decision". Complete gibberish in his PoV. He had to tell his patron he could not find a record of who the Athenian kings and satraps had been.
 
If the Persians were somehow able to conquer Greece, then Persian presence wouldn't probably last long. Persians would face rebellions in the area. Seeing how fierce the Greek resistance was against the invasion in our timeline, relations between the Greeks and Persians would be very tense. The Achaemenid empire would probably have to leave Greece alone to itself, but i'm not sure whether this is likely or not. However, if Greece is forced to stay in the empire, the Achaemenid empire could fall the way the Roman Empire did: People within it would rebel. Greek rebellion would become prominent across the empire, and could possibly start a rebellion in certain reigons (Egypt, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, etc.). This would decline the empire over the years, and would be split by the peoples of the former empire.
 
People within it would rebel. Greek rebellion would become prominent across the empire, and could possibly start a rebellion in certain reigons

Simple way to deal with that. Kill EVERYONE who isn't your collaborator in Greece. In the second Punic war, the Romans had enough loyal allies in northern and central Italy. As for their allies who defected to Hannibal, the Romans stormed or starved out the walled cities one by one and punished them. In a few cases, they killed every abled bodied male because those that were loyal to Rome fled or were killed when the anti-Roman faction rose to power. Look at Tarentum, the pro-Roman citizens hid in the citadel with the Roman garrison. It was easy for the Romans to figure out who were their faithful allies and they punished the rest.
 
The conflict between the Persians and the Greeks is probably the most overrated clash of civilizations in history, even though it was the original one. The things is that the Persian Empire at the time was an extremely laid back empire that did not impose themselves on local elites and customs and definitely preferred to co-opt them. The Ionian cities, which were a significant part of Greek civilization, did fine and definitely remained Greek under Persian rule, and its obvious that lots of Greek city states, even with abundant re-writing of the historical record after 490 BC (eg by Macedon) co-operated with or at least did nothing to resist the Persian invasion, probably a majority.

Even if the Persians had channeled the twentieth century Germans, there were still the Greek cities in Italy, plus its hard to maintain control over a more densely populated and wealthier area on the edge of your empire.

We have some analogous contemporary situations to look at. The Persians subdued the Phonecian city states, and the result was Persian-Punic cooperation, with the Phonecians providing the fleet sent against the Greeks. The Persians also took over a big chunk of India, and we know nothing about that, because evidently it made no lasting impression at all. The Greeks' own Indian conquests had some effect on Indian civilization, for example.
 
The above said, a Persian victory would produce all sorts of butterflies. Off the top of my head here are a few. The POD is that for whatever reason, the Persians are able to invade the Peloponnese and conquer Sparta. They had already overrun Athens, so the Athenians would evacuate to Sicily.

1. No Athens. Athens and Sparta were pretty much the two city states that opposed them, and Athens had already been burned to the ground. The Acropolis and Herodotus' histories would not be possible without the memory of the heroic struggle against Persia. Socrates gets killed in combat or is in exile in Italy, which has butterflies affecting western Philosophy, Plato probably lives in history though his philosophy will probably turn out to be about the same, but you don't have Socrates as a character in his dialogues.

2. Athens attracted alot of talented people from around Greece, who still would have lived ITTL but who would have gone elsewhere. Many of them would have wound up spending a good part of their lives in Persia itself, with Aristotle being very likely to wind up in this category.

3. No Sparta, though there will still be a legend of Sparta if they go down fighting, which is likely, and you still have Thermopylae.

4. Commercially the Punic cities become the top dog in the Med.

5. The Greeks assisted several Egyptian revolts, one of which got Egypt several last decades of independence. These are less successful.

6. Greek civilization would re-center on Sicily and Italy.

7. Since Alexander II of Macedon pretty much sided with Persia, or played both sides of the fence, you still get Alexander III, but if he takes over the Persian Empire, which is likely its part of an internal power struggle. Essentially the Persian empire gets a new, Macedonian dynasty. The fusion of Persian and Greek cultures that Alexander aimed for would have already happened. One likely way this happens is that Alexander restores an empire which is already collapsing internally.

8. Western civilization still develops from Greek roots, in Italy, though the Etruscan contribution will probably be more prominent and more remembered. However, it doesn't start with the heroic narrative of resistance to Persian invasion. Instead it starts with the loss of the original homelands, so you get more of a inferiority complex and depressed narrative. Keep in mind that Christianity survived the loss of all the places where Christianity developed to Islam, and India survived almost a thousand years of non-Hindu rule over most of the subcontinent, so you still will get Western civilization.
 
A couple decades ago I read a Sci Fi short story about a Persian philosopher who was trying to understand who the Greek kings had been before Xerxes conquest of Athens & the other cities. He was baffled by the constant references to the "peoples decision". Complete gibberish in his PoV. He had to tell his patron he could not find a record of who the Athenian kings and satraps had been.

I think the author was overstating things somewhat. There's nothing stopping people living in monarchies from understanding the concept of democracy. Medieval writers, for example, would occasionally discuss the merits of various forms of government, including democracy.
 

Toraach

Banned
If there were still celtic migrations, and they had a similar outcome in Italy to what they really had, we would have got an epic struggle between Romans and Persia somewhere in 2BC.
 
3. No Sparta, though there will still be a legend of Sparta if they go down fighting, which is likely, and you still have Thermopylae.

Wait, we still remember Thermopylae if... I don't know the Persians win at Salamis (that's the usual POD)? I thought in OTL we remember it as a heroic last stand to let the Greek Army fight another day, and the Greeks ultimately won the war (if there was a TPK at Thermopylae of the whole army instead of only Spartan and Thespian rearguard, the Greeks would get all of a week to know about it, instead of having plenty of time to fortify the isthmus, making a naval outflanking unnecessary). Since the Persians got delayed, a bum rush south for a surprise attack was impossible, and they had to settle for looting Attica. They needed their navy to make further progress, and it lost.

In TTL, Xerxes win and Thermopylae is just a three day delay.

5. The Greeks assisted several Egyptian revolts, one of which got Egypt several last decades of independence. These are less successful.

Did they? I thought it was Athens and Thebes that did so, both of which are either annexed or made client states in TTL, depending on how the Persians felt.

7. Since Alexander II of Macedon pretty much sided with Persia, or played both sides of the fence, you still get Alexander III, but if he takes over the Persian Empire, which is likely its part of an internal power struggle. Essentially the Persian empire gets a new, Macedonian dynasty. The fusion of Persian and Greek cultures that Alexander aimed for would have already happened. One likely way this happens is that Alexander restores an empire which is already collapsing internally.

Now this is fascinating. The chaos theory guys argue this is buttelied away. I argue Macedon is developing similarly to TTL, two people having a child together in simmiliar environment to TTL would produce a child "in the ballpark" of OTL with a similar environment and be... similar.

As you said, either he wouldn't be taking over, or it would be an internal power struggle, like a coup or maybe a succession war.

This is pretty cool
 
5. The Greeks assisted several Egyptian revolts, one of which got Egypt several last decades of independence. These are less successful.

6. Greek civilization would re-center on Sicily and Italy.

7. Since Alexander II of Macedon pretty much sided with Persia, or played both sides of the fence, you still get Alexander III, but if he takes over the Persian Empire, which is likely its part of an internal power struggle. Essentially the Persian empire gets a new, Macedonian dynasty. The fusion of Persian and Greek cultures that Alexander aimed for would have already happened. One likely way this happens is that Alexander restores an empire which is already collapsing internally.

8. Western civilization still develops from Greek roots, in Italy, though the Etruscan contribution will probably be more prominent and more remembered. However, it doesn't start with the heroic narrative of resistance to Persian invasion. Instead it starts with the loss of the original homelands, so you get more of a inferiority complex and depressed narrative. Keep in mind that Christianity survived the loss of all the places where Christianity developed to Islam, and India survived almost a thousand years of non-Hindu rule over most of the subcontinent, so you still will get Western civilization.

Now this is fascinating. The chaos theory guys argue this is buttelied away. I argue Macedon is developing similarly to TTL, two people having a child together in simmiliar environment to TTL would produce a child "in the ballpark" of OTL with a similar environment and be... similar.

As you said, either he wouldn't be taking over, or it would be an internal power struggle, like a coup or maybe a succession war.

This is pretty cool

I think what could be interesting if the Achaemenid Empire suffers a decline then the Greeks in Sicily and Italy try to pull a 'Reconquista' to free the homelands while ALT Alexander III march on Babylon and Persepolis. (The Persians saving him the trouble of uniting Greece.) And if that is successful while Alexander III is busy, or Egypt pulls a miracle and kick the Persians out.
 
A couple decades ago I read a Sci Fi short story about a Persian philosopher who was trying to understand who the Greek kings had been before Xerxes conquest of Athens & the other cities. He was baffled by the constant references to the "peoples decision". Complete gibberish in his PoV. He had to tell his patron he could not find a record of who the Athenian kings and satraps had been.
That was a Turtledove short story. The title is "Counting Potsherds", IIRC.
 
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