Greeks in Foreign Service: The Case of the Achaemenid Empire

The conventional narrative of the ancient encounters between Greece and Persia is bookended by the Greek victories in the Greco-Persian Wars and the Macedonian conquest of the Achaemenid Empire. This chapter offers a different perspective on Greco-Persian interactions by surveying their military collaborations from the sixth to the fourth centuries. The Greeks who resisted the Persians in Egypt did so as hoplites and are said to have fought well in defeat at the Battle of Pelusium. Given the route and its launch from Ionia, Greek ships were certainly part of the fleet, and Greek sailors and marines may have even fought on the Persian wings as at Marathon. The Persians deployed the traditional Greek hoplite phalanx on only a few occasions, most of them defeats: at Plataea in 479, Cunaxa in 401, in Hellespontine Phrygia in 354, perhaps in Egypt in 343-342, and finally against Alexander at Granicus, Issus, and Gaugamela.