Xerxes: The Fall of the House of Darius and the Rise of Alexander #1

[cyberghostface]

"Everything from the Persian Empire and the Greek Empire is a real study in how the course of the world — of civilizations and the power therein — could be changed so radically. Everything that’s come since then was forged by these wars. We’d be living very differently if Alexander hadn’t come along. To me, the largest issue is the concept of civilization itself, and the clash between Western and Eastern points of view, which has been ongoing ever since. It’s still playing a role." -- Frank Miller

Warning for gore/violence

As a disclaimer these are four pages, the entire issue is presented in a widescreen format.

Comments

[lordultimus]

Pretty sure the Athenians could kick as much ass as the Spartans when pressed.

Also, Athenian democracy is all but unrecognizable when compared to how Americans define it. Certainly they weren't fighting for vague definitions of freedom than William Wallace did, despite what Hollywood might tell you.

[locuatico]

don't quote me on this, but I believe the persians were actually MORE equal than the athenian ever were.

[broblawsky]

Definitely not true. The Achaemenid king has absolute power: he could make laws at will, without any influence by the people. We don't know much about the Achaemenid legal code, but if it was anything like the Babylonian legal codes that preceded it, it recognized aristocratic privilege and slavery as integral parts of society.

Athens was, at the time, a direct democracy: every adult male citizen had equal power and legal status. Aristocrats had no greater legal rights than commoners. The Achaemenids did practice freedom of religion, but so did the Athenians; both nations had formal state religions. I'm not sure either had a concept of freedom of speech as we'd recognize it.

[arilou_skiff]

It's... complicated. The Achamenids tended to be rather hands-off and generally let various dependencies retain their own laws. (many greek cities under persian rule continued to operate under their ancestral constitutions, some democratic, some not) Iran itself was, if not outright without slaves, far less dependant on it than Greece or Rome, and there are examples of persian kings proclaiming at least temporary amnesties/abolitions within Iran itself.

Iran was dominated by aristocratic clans (they would later during the parthian/sassanid times be known as wuzurgan, though that term isn't found during achamenid times) that owned great estates and provided the backbone of the persian cavalry. The persian kings however had their centre of power in western Iran and Mesopotamia, where the majority of the royal estates were located. (note that within Iran there were internal divisions as well, the persians proper had different status from medes, bactrians and so forth, and different in term from the various mountain peoples)

Athens was peculiarly reliant of slavery even for greek city states, largely because of the great silver mine at Laurium (as a general rule, wherever there's mining you'll find, if not slavery, at least something close to it, like criminals sentenced to work there, etc. Mining was lethal and most sane people tried to avoid it)

A lot of the slavery institutions we know from the ancient near east (eg. babylonia, assyria) seems to have declined during before or during the persian period, since stuff that commonly lead to enslavement (like failure to repay debts) no longer did so.

[dcbanacek]

Even more amusing when the first demand the Spartans made before they agreed to any alliance was that their allies would support their slavery of the helots.

[wizardru]

Yeah, the notions of many of the Greek states is pretty flawed in modern imagination, colored no doubt by shallow and radically incorrect Hollywood representations, as well as stuff like this. I'm going to assume this is Miller trying to make up for his shoddy treatment of Athens in 300 by focusing on them here and getting them just as wrong?

The Athenians believed in a FORM of Democracy, just like the Spartans did. But modern notions of freedom? Not at all. Just ask the helots or the perioikoi. Athens had slaves aplenty and legally they were treated like particularly expensive livestock or pets. But Democracy to them was for citizens only and even then, many of the rules only applied in specific ways. Modern notions of 'all men are created equal' is nowhere to be seen.

[strejdaking]

Given Miller's comments, I think it's clear he gets he's being innaccurate and doesn't think it matters.

And while you can certainly argue that position, misrepresenting Athenians here to for the sake of relatability to modern day actually seems like the perfect way to make up for how he treated them in 300 (tho he still had Spartans kill their babies, so I dunno).

[tripodeca113]

You know I covered this era in school, but I've unfortunately forgotten it. I'll give Frank Miller this, the Persian armour seems accurate enough. The Athenians on the other hand....

Oh this is meant to be the battle of Marathon.

[arilou_skiff]

God save us from artists with simplistic monocausal explanatory historical models.

[lissa_quon]

...that cover - Does Miller not know how peircings work? Cause...those look so wrong.

[mesmiranda]

I can't be the only one who thinks Xerxes is rolling his eyes at all this.