Persia

A podcast on the history of Persia and the empires that ruled there, beginning with Cyrus the Great; only the Greek episodes are here, 87 of 219, 5 eras, 55 hours.

Part of Introduction to Ancient Greek History (Open Yale Courses)

Kagan credits the tyranny of the Peisistratids with seeding self-government, which Cleisthenes used to push Athens toward democracy by restructuring the tribes and empowering the assembly, then explains ostracism's role.

Part of Spartan History Podcast

With Trevor Culley

Trevor Culley, host of the History of Persia Podcast, introduces the Persian empire as the greatest threat Greek city-states faced until the Roman conquest of Greece in the 2nd century BCE, reaching the 5th century outbreak of Greco-Persian hostilities.

Part of Casting Through Ancient Greece

With Trevor Culley

Trevor Culley of the History of Persia Podcast on Persia's experience of the wars, its motivations and why it was ultimately unsuccessful, since most sources focus on the Greek experience.

Part of The Ancients

With Roel Konijnendijk, Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones

In 486 BC Xerxes ascended the Persian throne and sought revenge on Greece; Tristan Hughes, Dr Roel Konijnendijk and Professor Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones explore his massive invasion through the battles of Thermopylae and Salamis in the accounts of Herodotus.

Part of Greeced Lightning

Sara, Luke, and Sam turn from myth to ancient history with the 2007 film 300, covering the Battle of Thermopylae, the Persian Wars, Spartan life, jock rock, and the Greeks' aversion to pants.

Part of The Rest Is History

Tom and Dominic launch into Persia's invasion of Greece, one of the most cataclysmic clashes in all ancient history, asking why the Persian Empire crossed the Aegean to destroy Athens in 490BC under Darius, the King of Kings.

Part of The Rest Is History

Tom and Dominic discuss the Battle of Marathon and its aftermath, asking why the battle changed the world so considerably and whether the Athenians could really triumph over the indomitable Persian Empire.

Part of Ancient Greece Declassified

The finale of the Persian Wars saga: the aftermath of Salamis, Xerxes going home, the final battles at Plataea and Mycale, the Themistoclean Walls, and the exile and death of Themistocles.

Part of Have Toga, Will Travel: Exploring Greece and Rome, Ancient and Modern

Emily and Cam trace Xerxes's decision to invade Greece and his expedition toward the Battle of Thermopylae, with a brief digression on the film 300.

Part of Dan Snow's History Hit

With Patrick Wyman

Patrick Wyman explains how the Achaemenids under Darius and Xerxes the Great sent armies against rebel Greek city states, reshaping the ancient world in the 5th century BC.

Part of The History of Ancient Greece

Herodotos, the Father of History, with his influences, drawbacks and positives, then the Near East of the 7th and early 6th centuries BC: Medes and Neo-Babylonians destroying Assyria, and Kyros of Anshan overthrowing the Medes.

Part of Have Toga, Will Travel: Exploring Greece and Rome, Ancient and Modern

In the final part of a four-part series, Emily and Cam cover the Battle of Salamis and the Battle of Plataea, closing with the Serpent Column as a monument to Greek victory.

Part of Tides of History

With John Hyland

The usual perspective on the Greco-Persian Wars is quite explicitly that of the Greeks; the episode asks how the Persians viewed these conflicts and what they were after, presenting Professor John Hyland's research on how the Persians understood war.

Part of Ancient Warfare Podcast

The team discusses magazine issue XIV.4, The Greco-Persian Wars, on how by the late sixth century BC it had become clear that the expanding Persian Empire and the Greek city states of Asia and the Aegean would soon collide.

Part of The Ancients · History Hit's interview show; only the Greek episodes are indexed

With Roel Konijnendijk, Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones

Part of Ancient Greece Declassified

In 480BC the Persian Empire invaded Greece, and Themistocles had a plan: the mines of Laurion, Athens against Aegina, the battles of Thermopylae and Artemisium, the Wooden Wall, and the Battle of Salamis.

Part of The Ancients

With Michael Scott

Themistocles rose from obscurity to help build one of the greatest naval powers in history and defeat Persia's navy, then his story ends in exile serving the empire he once defeated; Tristan Hughes and Michael Scott trace rise and fall.

Part of Epic Greek History

The episode opens a two-part account of the Persian Empire's rise, arguing no historical event loomed larger for ancient Greeks than their defense against Persian military power.

Part of Ancient Greece Declassified

The first of two episodes on the Greco-Persian Wars through the eyes of Themistocles: his childhood and the Athenian Revolution, democracy's early challenges, the demagogue, the Ionian Revolt, and Marathon.

Part of Epic Greek History · From Mycenaean kings through the Persian invasions, one full and one short episode a month

Part of Greeced Lightning

Sara and Sam continue their Age of Empires 2 campaign into the Persian War, covering ostracism procedures, wily old Themistocles, and Sara's waning tolerance for podcasting while pregnant.

Part of Epic Greek History

The episode follows Cambyses the Second subduing Egypt after the death of Cyrus in 530 BCE, then covers Darius the First reorganizing the empire and introducing Persian coinage.

Part of Spartan History Podcast

The Greco-Persian wars' genesis is traced to the Ionian revolt, led by Aristagoras of Miletus, whose tyranny was underpinned by his father-in-law Histiaeus, setting the path toward Marathon, Thermopylae, Plataea and Salamis.

Part of HistoryExtra podcast

With Jamie Fraser, Kelly Accetta Crowe

Curators Jamie Fraser and Kelly Accetta Crowe tell Emily Briffett how Greek soldiers who captured the Persian king's command tent during the Greco-Persian wars saw its decadence as the reason for the Persians' downfall.

Part of Ancient Greece: Myth, Art, War

Dr Gillian Shepherd traces Athens from the benevolent rule of the tyrant Peisistratos through the fall of his dynasty to democracy, and on to the battles of Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis and Plataea against the invading Persians.

Part of Ancient Greece Declassified

Stanford archaeologist Ian Morris examines the economies and technologies behind the Greek victory over the biggest invasion force that had ever been launched, in the Persian expeditions of 490-479 BC.

Part of The Classics Podcast

With Roel Konijnendijk, Lynette Mitchell

Roel Konijnendijk and Lynette Mitchell begin exploring the reasons for the Greek victory over the Persians in 480 to 479 BCE, the first of six episodes on Greek history in Season 1 of this A Level series.

Part of Have Toga, Will Travel: Exploring Greece and Rome, Ancient and Modern

Emily and Cam continue the Persian-Greek conflict series, covering Cyrus's son Cambyses, the rise of Darius, and Darius's relationships with Greeks along his empire's western frontier.

Part of Casting Through Ancient Greece

A look back at the 18 episodes on the Greco-Persian Wars, from the Ionian revolt through the two invasions, framed by Herodotus, who was born during the wars and later collected all he could.

Part of Casting Through Ancient Greece

Persia's side of defeat, asking why an army that size failed to capture Greece and whether equipment, training or reliance on various nations undid it, and how an empire left intact was affected.

Part of Ancient Warfare Podcast

The team discusses magazine issue XVII.4, on how, after the Persians were defeated at Salamis and Plataea and withdrew from the Greek mainland, the war was far from over as the Greeks went on the offensive.

Part of Tides of History

Covering the Ionian Revolt to the Battle of Marathon, the episode argues the Persian Wars were far more complicated than a simple civilizational clash, and sets out the background that made them possible.

Part of Tides of History · Patrick Wyman's survey of the deep past; only the Greek episodes are indexed

Part of Have Toga, Will Travel: Exploring Greece and Rome, Ancient and Modern · Two former Classics professors on Greece and Rome, ancient and modern; only the Greek episodes are indexed

Part of Have Toga, Will Travel: Exploring Greece and Rome, Ancient and Modern

Aeschylus's Persians stands as the oldest surviving Greek tragedy, offering what Emily and Cam call a surprisingly sympathetic take on Athens's ancient Persian enemies.

Part of The Classics Podcast

With Roel Konijnendijk, Lynette Mitchell

Roel Konijnendijk and Lynette Mitchell conclude their exploration of why the Greeks defeated the Persians in 480 to 479 BCE, the second half of the opening episode in this Ancient History A Level season.

Part of Dan Snow's History Hit · Dan Snow on history's defining moments; only the Greek episodes are indexed

With William Shepherd

Part of Tides of History

The episode describes the Persian invasion burning much of Athens after defeating Leonidas, before the Greek allies met them nearby at Salamis in what became one of the largest and most decisive naval battles in history.

Part of Casting Through Ancient Greece

The third player before the Greco-Persian Wars: the Persians, a relatively small group in the Zagros Mountains, expand under Cyrus the Great, absorb the Lydian Empire and create the largest empire the world had yet known.

Part of Ancient History Hound

Starting from the mythical foundation of Thebes, this episode moves through the very real aftermath of the Persian invasion, with athletic cows, wedding drama and walls along the way.

Part of Tides of History

In the spring of 479 BC the allied Greeks' land forces met the Persian army at Plataea, and the legacy of the Persian Wars would shape memory, identity and the future relationship between Greeks and Persians for decades and centuries.

Part of Casting Through Ancient Greece

Persia after Cyrus: Cambyses conquers Egypt and dies amid a crisis, a pretender holds power for seven months, and Darius, one of the conspiring nobles, becomes king, expands the empire and collides with the Greeks.

Part of Casting Through Ancient Greece

Between the invasions: Miltiades falls from favour, Persia faces revolts in Egypt and Babylon, Darius dies of an illness, and his son Xerxes assembles an army larger than anything before it in the ancient world.

Part of Casting Through Ancient Greece

Darius, reportedly reminded at meals to remember the Athenians, sends two campaigns: one undone by a storm off Mt Athos and Thracian resistance, then an island-hopping fleet that lays waste to Eretria and reaches Marathon Bay.

Part of History of Persia

After Sardis burns, more Greek cities join the Ionian Revolt despite Persian victory at Ephesus; three Persian generals campaign through 497 and 496 BCE until Aristagoras of Miletus flees the failing revolt into exile.

Part of Kings and Generals

Greek and Persian civilizations fight for millennia, and the battle of Salamis in 480 BC stands as the central defence of free Greece against the Persian invasion.

Part of Kings and Generals

The Armies and Tactics series makes its debut by covering how the armies, tactics, formations and weaponry of the ancient Greeks changed during the Persian invasions.

Part of The Hellenistic Age Podcast

Herodotus at his most wonderfully weird, advanced imperial administration and the question of decadence all come up in this prelude on the Achaemenid Persian Empire.

Part of The History of Ancient Greece

The years 413 and 412 BC: Athens responding to the Sicilian Disaster, devastation of Attic agriculture from Dekeleia, the end of the "friendship" between Athens and Persia, a Spartan navy and revolts among Athens' subject-allies, and treaties with Tissaphernes.

Part of Casting Through Ancient Greece

The Persian successions behind the return of Persia to Greek politics: the assassination of Xerxes, Artaxerxes I and the Egyptian revolt of Inaros, the violent climb of Darius II, and the strategies of Tissaphernes and Pharnabazus.

Part of Casting Through Ancient Greece · The same centuries again, at a slower pace and with the sources named

Part of The Classics Podcast

With Paul Cartledge, Maria Fragoulaki

Paul Cartledge and Maria Fragoulaki revise the key sources for the Peloponnesian Wars, plus Archidamus and Persia, with James for the Ancient History A Level syllabus.

Part of The Ancients

With Adrian Goldsworthy

Tristan Hughes and Dr Adrian Goldsworthy cover the sieges of Tyre and Gaza in 332 BC, Alexander's Egypt campaign, the Battle of Gaugamela, Persepolis's fall, and Darius III's demise as Alexander's army pushes further east into Bactria and Afghanistan.

Part of The Ancients · History Hit's interview show; only the Greek episodes are indexed

With Adrian Goldsworthy

Part of The Ancients

With Adrian Goldsworthy

Taking place in 334 BC, the Battle of Granicus was Alexander the Great's first major victory against the Persian Empire; Tristan and Adrian Goldsworthy discuss his tactics at the beginning of the campaign, before he had built his formidable reputation.

Part of Ancient Warfare Podcast

The team discusses magazine issue XVI.6, Alexander versus Darius, on how the king of Macedon, at just 20, spent two years securing his northern borders and Greece before crossing the Hellespont in 334 to invade Achaemenid Persia.

Part of Tides of History

The episode follows Alexander the Great's campaigns beyond his defeat of the Persian king Darius III, into the Iranian Plateau, Central Asia, and finally south into India.

Part of The Ancients

In this second part Alexander begins a full-blooded assault on the Persian Gates, and Tristan finds out how this battle for the Persian heartlands, dubbed the Persian Thermopylae, ended.

Part of The Ancients

In January 330 BC a small Persian force blockaded Alexander's route through the Zagros Mountains at the Persian, or Susian, Gates; Tristan covers the events following Alexander's victory at Gaugamela that led to this clash, dubbed the Persian Thermopylae.

Part of Tides of History · Patrick Wyman's survey of the deep past; only the Greek episodes are indexed

Part of Tides of History · Patrick Wyman's survey of the deep past; only the Greek episodes are indexed

Part of The Ancients · History Hit's interview show; only the Greek episodes are indexed

With Ali Ansari

Part of The Hellenistic Age Podcast

Iranian civilization outlives the conquest of Persia as dynasties rule in their own right, among them Mithridates I Ktistes of Pontus, Orontes I of Armenia, and Amastris, last Achaemenid princess and first Hellenistic queen.

Part of The Hellenistic Age Podcast

With Trevor Culley

Trevor Culley of the History of Persia Podcast on Oliver Stone's 2004 Alexander, a critical failure on release whose re-cuts have been praised as among the most historically accurate films of the ancient world.

Part of Young Heretics

With Alex Priou

Classicist Alex Priou discusses his book on Plato's Symposium with Spencer Klavan, covering the true meaning of love, the limits of science, and the significance of prose style in philosophy.

Part of Young Heretics · Spencer Klavan on the great works; only the Greek episodes are indexed

With Tom Holland

Part of Triumvir Clio's School of Classical Civilization

This episode covers Aeschylus's The Persians, using an old Robert Potter translation, which the host says listeners may swap for whichever translation is easily available.