Alternate Historythreadi: the Peloponnesian Satrapy

[Elok]

Greece, 390 BC. The Persian Emperor Xerxes, having forced through the Spartan defense at Thermopylae and torched Athens, now has only the Greek fleet near Salamis to deal with. His first impulse is to send his own superior fleet to destroy it, but his Greek advisers persuade him to simply blockade the straights with a portion of his ships so they can't escape. The remainder of the fleet then moves an invasion force into Lacedemonia, which is promptly "liberated" and given to the helots along with a generous (by helot standards--pocket change for Xerxes) gift of Persian gold to spruce up their new polis. Further gifts are promised to any helots who choose to relocate to a new colony on a recently-vacated site in Attica. With the two centers of Greek resistance destroyed, Hellas settles down to life as a Persian subject with no further unrest.

I'm going to omit my own opinions since I'm typing this at the end of my lunch break. What do you think the long-term effects of this would be?

[Bereta_Eder]

Helots love the Greeks. They become ashamed to have gained their freedom from such glorious masters and promptly lay down their weapons at the Greeks' feet begging them to take them back as slaves. Greeks graciously accept but only after they sent 75% of the helot population to drive Persians again back to Asia with dire casualties from both sides.
Having redeemed themselves at the eyes of the Greeks, the helots regain their rightful place in the world and make herbal tea to sooth the previous pains of freedom.

(on an irelevant note, here's a picture of obama as xerxes which I found searching on the subject, which I think it's funny)

[Bereta_Eder]

Oh.
You mean what would have happened at the world at large.

Well seeing as the one defining difference that ancient greek thinking had compared to other contemporary cultures was the belief in the self and, based on that, the atom (not the atom at the particle/molecular level) the atom, meaning the distinct self vs the mass (of people), (from where steams a whole lot of things including the short term experiment with democracy), I'd say most differences would arise from this precise lack of thinking pattern. Untill it would surface, somewhere else, maybe.

[Lorizael]

The Greeks never expand to Syracuse, so the Romans have no reason to conquer it during the Second Punic War. As a result, Archimedes is not killed by a disobedient Roman soldier and goes on to invent calculus nearly 2,000 years earlier than in our timeline. Persia, with the mathematical tools of our 17th century, kickstarts an industrial revolution and becomes a military juggernaut that soon conquers much of the world. Today, we all worship Ahura Mazda and praise his benevolent robot overlords.

[kentonio]

The Greeks never expand to Syracuse, so the Romans have no reason to conquer it during the Second Punic War. As a result, Archimedes is not killed by a disobedient Roman soldier and goes on to invent calculus nearly 2,000 years earlier than in our timeline. Persia, with the mathematical tools of our 17th century, kickstarts an industrial revolution and becomes a military juggernaut that soon conquers much of the world. Today, we all worship Ahura Mazda and praise his benevolent robot overlords.

Why would Archimedes be born?

[Lorizael]

Shh.

Edit: Because Ahura Mazda wills it!

[Elok]

Okay, here's the Elok opinion you've all been waiting for: the differences would be relatively small and subtle. All the books I've read argue that Salamis was HUGE, but really, Greece was a poor country on the extreme outskirts of Persia's empire, which was already stretched pretty far. Also, the Persians found Greek politics incomprehensible. Odds are that the Persian rule would have been largely nominal, and withered away after a century or so--just as soon as the Shahanshah found somewhere else he needed to deploy his troops. Or just ran low on cash.

Now, the cultural golden age of Pericles would never have happened--no Athens, and no Delian League loot to fund all the fancy buildings. Democracy would be largely discredited in the Greek world. However, the democratic institutions of Rome were already largely formed by this point, IIRC. To the extent that they were democratic at all, that is. And, with no Athens and no Sparta, there would also be no Peloponnesian War, with the attendant waste of life and wealth. Greece would likely be more wealthy and prosperous from trade with the wider Persian world. The fused Iranian-Hellenistic civilization we got Alexander might come a century or so early. If the actual Alexander still emerged from Macedonia feeling scrappy, he might conquer (ironically, given his Macedonian outsider heritage) in the name of restoring ancient Greek values, or throwing off the token Persian yoke.

Most significantly, I think: no Socrates, Plato or Aristotle. Or very different ideas from them, since Socrates at least grew up in a peaceful, occupied territory. Without Platonic influence via Paul, etc., Christianity would be quite different. Especially if Rome didn't wind up subduing Persia till much later.