Bibliography and Further Reading
The books I list fall into one or both of two categories: those I found myself referring to most often, and those I particularly enjoyed for their broader overviews or different perspectives, or for their deeper investigation of individual topics and their web of footnotes and references. Unfortunately, some are hard to lay hands on outside university libraries but tracking them down is well worth the effort.
The Ancient Voices
There are several translations of the Historia and I list three below. Aubrey de Selincourt’s Penguin Classic has been a standard-bearer for the series for 65 years and is now in its second revised edition. Tom Holland presents Herodotus as ‘the most entertaining of historians’ in the first line of his preface, and his version lives up to this, capturing as it does the voice of a master storyteller. Thirdly, The Landmark Herodotus (Strassler) has been a close companion for more than ten years and my copy is almost worn out. The introduction and 21 appendices contributed by a stellar conference line-up of scholars, expert in as many different facets of Herodotus and the Persian War, together fill 160 of its 1,000 plus pages; the 100-page index is a meal in itself. The Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics ‘green and yellow’ editions of Herodotus Book 8 (Bowie) and Book 9 (Flower & Marincola) proved themselves ‘essential for exploring the meaning (or range of possible meanings)’ of the text, to quote slightly out of context from the latter’s back cover. Working on the earlier books of Herodotus, I made extensive use of the commentaries of Macan and How & Wells, accessible online alongside the venerable Loeb Classical Library parallel text and translation. I also list editions of Aeschylus Persae (Garvie) and Timotheus (Jansson). Nearly all the primary sources I have used can be accessed in the original language and in translation via Tuft University’s Perseus Digital Library (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu). Heartfelt thanks to Professor Gregory Crane and his Perseus Project team for creating and maintaining this invaluable and immense resource.
Bowie, A.M., Herodotus Histories Book VIII, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007
de Selincourt, Aubrey (trans.), Marincola J. (rev.) Herodotus the Histories, London: Penguin Classics, 1972
Flower, Michael A. and Marincola, John, Herodotus Histories Book IX, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002
Garvie, A.F., Aeschylus Persae, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009
Green, Peter, Diodorus Siculus, Books 11–12.37.1: Greek History, 480–431 bc – The Alternative Version, Austin: University of Texas Press, 2010
Holland, Tom, Herodotus the Histories, London: Penguin Classics, 2013
Jansson, T.H., Timotheus Persae, a Commentary, Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1984
Mynott, Jeremy, Thucydides the War of the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013
Scott-Kilvert, Ian, Plutarch the Rise and Fall of Athens: Nine Greek Lives, London: Penguin Classics, 1960
Sommerstein, Alan H. (trans.), Aeschylus The Persians and Other Plays, London: Penguin Classics, 2010
Strassler, Robert B. (ed.) and Purvis, Andrea L. (trans.), The Landmark Herodotus, New York: Pantheon, 2007
Historical Overview and Background
At the reference end of the spectrum, the two editions of Cambridge Ancient History Volume IV, in close to 1,700 pages, authoritatively present the Persian War in the context of all the major cultural and political developments in the Mediterranean and Near Eastern world of the time. The Barrington Atlas (Talbert) is unequalled in quality and scale, and in price. I list seven comprehensive histories of the war, all valuable and illustrative of the different architectures that can be applied to Professor Sabin’s ‘inverted pyramid’. Persian Fire (Holland), the most recently published, stands out as the essential introduction and overview. The Classical World (Lane Fox) places the Persian War in the broad sweep of history over the nine centuries from the beginnings of the Archaic era in Greece to Hadrian’s Rome. Of the remaining ten titles, five focus on central characters, Herodotus, Themistocles and Xerxes, five on the war’s two main adversaries: Hellenes and Barbarians. The list concludes with Noah Whatley’s wise and comprehensive advice on how to do Ancient Military History, first publicly delivered almost 100 years ago and not diminished by age in any way.
Boardman, John, Hammond, N.G.L., Lewis, D.M. and Ostwald, M., Cambridge Ancient History, Vol. IV (2nd edition): Persia, Greece and the Western Mediterranean c.525–479 bc, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988
Bridges, Emma, Imagining Xerxes, London: Bloomsbury, 2015
Burn, A.R., Persia and the Greeks: The Defense of the West 546–478 bc, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1962
Bury, J.B., Cook, S.A. and Adcock, F.E., Cambridge Ancient History, Vol. IV: The Persian Empire and the West, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1926
Cartledge, Paul, Ancient Greece: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009
Cawkwell, George, The Greek Wars: The Failure of Persia, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011
Cook, J.M., The Persian Empire, London: Dent, 1983
Garland, Robert, Athens Burning: The Persian Invasion of Greece and the Evacuation of Attica, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017
Green, Peter, The Greco-Persian Wars, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996
Grundy, G.B., The Great Persian War and its Preliminaries, London: John Murray, 1901
Hall, Edith, Introducing the Ancient Greeks, London: Bodley Head, 2015
Hart, John, Herodotus and Greek History, London: Croom Helm, 1993
Hignett, C., Xerxes’ Invasion of Greece, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963
Holland, Tom, Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West, London: Little, Brown, 2005
Lane Fox, Robin, The Classical World: An Epic History of Greece and Rome, London: Allen Lane, 2005
Lazenby, J.F., The Defence of Greece, 490–479 bc, Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 1993
Podlecki, A.J., The Life of Themistocles: A Critical Survey of the Literary and Archaeological Evidence, Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1975
Roberts, Jennifer T., Herodotus: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011
Stoneman, Richard, Xerxes: A Persian Life, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015
Talbert, Richard J.A., Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000
Vlassopoulos, Kostas, Greeks and Barbarians, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013
Waters, Matt, Ancient Persia: A Concise History of the Achaemenid Empire 550–330 BCE, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014
Whatley, N., ‘On the Possibility of Reconstructing Marathon and Other Ancient Battles’, Journal of Hellenic Studies 84, 1964; also in Wheeler, Everett, The Armies of Classical Greece, London: Routledge, 2007
Hoplite Warfare
The Persian War was a brief and very distinct episode during the long evolution of the hoplite way of war over the best part of four centuries and the fuller evidence for later battles and campaigns cannot be assumed to apply to this earlier, less well-documented conflict. The valuable insights gained through re-enactment (Matthew), gaming (Sabin) and scientific experimentation with replica weapons and defensive materials (Gabriel) have their limitations. Re-enactors do not mass in thousands and try to kill each other; however elaborate the simulation of a battle, it will still be a very simplified model of a much more complex reality; and the laboratory is as far removed as re-enactment and gaming are from the bloody dust of ‘the dancing floor of Ares’.
Moreover, the Hellene warriors of the Persian War were responding to probably unique sets of circumstances in ways that did not fit in with any established tactical doctrine. But the diverse schools of thought on the hoplite way of war and its evolution are certainly worth exploring with this in mind, and are well represented below. Men of Bronze (Kagan), probably the best place to start, reviews the state of play in the perennial debate around ‘the hoplite question’ and moves it forward.
Campbell, Brian and Tritle, Lawrence A., The Oxford Handbook of Warfare in the Classical World, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013
Connolly, Peter, Greece and Rome at War, London: Greenhill Books, 2006
Gabriel, Richard A. and Metz, Karen S., From Sumer to Rome: The Military Capabilities of Ancient Armies, Westport: Greenwood Press, 1991
Hanson, Victor Davis, The Western Way of War: Infantry Battle in Classical Greece (2nd edition), Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009
Kagan, Donald and Viggiano, Gregory F., Men of Bronze: Hoplite Warfare in Ancient Greece, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013
Lazenby, J.F., The Spartan Army (reissue), Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2015
Lissarrague, Francois, L’autre guerrier: archers, peltastes, cavaliers dans l’imagerie Attique, Paris: Editions de la Découverte, 1990
Matthew, Christopher, A Storm of Spears, Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2012
Pritchett, W.K., Studies in Ancient Greek Topography (vols I–V), Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965–85
Pritchett, W.K., The Greek State at War (vols I–V), Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971–91
Sabin, Philip, van Wees, Hans and Whitby, Michael, Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare I: Greece, the Hellenistic World and the Rise of Rome, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007
Sabin, Philip, Lost Battles: Reconstructing the Great Clashes of the Ancient World, London: Hambledon Continuum, 2007
Schwartz, Adam, Reinstating the Hoplite: Arms, Armour and Phalanx Fighting in Archaic and Classical Greece, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2010
Sidebottom, Harry, Ancient Warfare: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004
Sekunda, Nicholas, The Persian Army 560–330 bc, Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 1992
Sekunda, Nicholas, Greek Hoplite 480–323 bc, Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2000
Snodgrass, A.M., Arms and Armor of the Greeks, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999
van Wees, Hans, Greek Warfare: Myths and Realities, London: Duckworth, 2004
The Trireme and Naval Warfare
The construction and sea trials of Olympias answered all the main questions and resolved the long debate about the construction and operation of this complex and sophisticated warship. The Athenian Trireme (Morrison et al., 2000) is a fascinating account of the whole experiment.
Casson, Lionel, Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995
Custance, Rear Admiral Sir Reginald N., War at Sea, Modern Theory and Ancient Practice, London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1919; reissued London: Conway Maritime Press, 1970
Hale, John R., Lords of the Sea: The Epic Story of the Athenian Navy and the Birth of Democracy, London: Penguin Books, 2010
Morrison, J.S. and Williams, R.T., Greek Oared Ships, 900–322 bc, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968
Morrison, J.S., Coates, J.F. and Rankov, N.B., The Athenian Trireme: The History and Reconstruction of an Ancient Greek Warship, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2nd edition), 2000
Rankov, Boris, Trireme Olympias the Final Report: Sea Trials 1992–4 Conference Papers, Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2012
Shaw, Timothy, The Trireme Project: Operational Experience 1987–90, Lessons Learnt, Oxford: Oxbow Books, 1993
Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis and Plataea
Which was the most important battle: Marathon: How One Battle Changed Western Civilization; Thermopylae: The Battle that Changed the World; Salamis: The Naval Encounter that Saved Greece – and Western Civilization? But Herodotus had it right. To him, Plataea was ‘the most glorious victory ever seen’, although it scarcely features in the numerous compilations listing ‘the greatest battles of history’, whereas Marathon, Thermopylae and Salamis are very well represented. There are no books solely dedicated to the battles of Artemisium and Mycale. The sources pay less attention to them than to the other four battles, largely because each was overshadowed by a more celebrated battle fought on or around the same days.
Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis and Plataea are respectively volumes 108, 188, 222 and 239 in Osprey’s unique Campaign series in which a compact but detailed narrative is supported by meticulously researched battlescene artwork, three-dimensional ‘birds-eye-views’ maps and numerous photographs; Salamis and Plataea (Shepherd) respectively include sections on Artemisium and Mycale. Visual representation does not add authority to the verbal narrative, but it adds discipline to the process of reconstruction by reducing ambiguity and by illuminating the choices made from amongst the options offered by the evidence; in short, it concentrates the mind.
Marathon’s 2,500th anniversary was marked by the publication of three books within months of each other in 2010–11 (Billows, Lacy, Krentz), just three of the 400 items dating from the 1850s to 2012 in Fink’s comprehensive bibliography.
Billows, Richard A., Marathon: How One Battle Changed Western Civilization, London: Overlook Duckworth, 2010
Fink, Dennis L., The Battle of Marathon in Scholarship: Research, Theories and Controversies Since 1850, Jefferson: McFarland, 2014
Krentz, Peter, The Battle of Marathon, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010
Lacey, Jim, The First Clash: The Miraculous Greek Victory at Marathon and its Impact on Western Civilization, New York: Bantam Books, 2011
Lagos, Constantinos and Karianos, Fotis; Carr, John (trans.), Who Really Won the Battle of Marathon? A Bold Re-appraisal of One of History’s Most Famous Battles, Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2019
Sekunda, Nicholas, Marathon 490 bc: The First Persian Invasion of Greece (Campaign 108), Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2002
Thermopylae is level with the battle of Marathon in terms of popular recognition and exceeds it in mythic status. ‘Thermopylae: Herodotus versus the Legend’ (van Wees) examines the immediate reasons for this, demonstrating that it was founded on a ‘Spartan version’ of what took place. Paul Cartledge explores the battle’s historical context and its afterlife as inspiration, legend and symbol through antiquity to the modern era. Stephen Pressfield and Frank Miller extend the legend into fiction, the former respectably historical and a gripping read, the latter through a best-selling graphic novel, outrageously unhistorical and laced with toxic ideology, but compelling in its way (and then there’s the movie...).
Cartledge, Paul, Thermopylae: The Battle that Changed the World, London: Macmillan, 2006
Fields, Nic, Thermopylae 480 bc: Last Stand of the 300 (Campaign 188), Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2007
Golding, William, The Hot Gates and other occasional pieces, London: Faber & Faber, 1965
Matthew, Christopher & Trundle, Matthew, Beyond the Gates of Fire: New Perspectives on the Battle of Thermopylae, Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2013
Miller, Frank, 300, Milwaukee: Dark Horse, 2000
Pressfield, Steven, Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae, London, Doubleday, 1998
Van Wees, H., ‘Thermopylae: Herodotus versus the Legend’, in van Gils, L., de Jong, I. and Kroon, C. (eds), Textual Strategies in Ancient War Narrative Thermopylae, Cannae and Beyond, Leiden: Brill, 2018
Salamis: La Bataille de Salamine (Rados) is, like War at Sea, Modern Theory and Ancient Practice (Custance, above), of more than antiquarian interest. Rados was a Greek scholar and naval historian who naturally associated Salamis with Lepanto. Custance was an admiral in the Royal Navy when Britannia could still claim to rule the waves. Both offer intriguing insights but are also reminders of Whatley’s caution against superimposing the terminology and doctrines of later wars on the evidence of the ancient past.
Garland, Robert, Athens Burning: The Persian Invasion of Greece and the Evacuation of Attica, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017
Rados, Constantin N., La bataille de Salamine, Paris: Fontemoing et Cie, 1915
Shepherd, William, Salamis 480 bc: The Naval Campaign that Saved Greece (Campaign 222), Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2010
Strauss, Barry, The Battle of Salamis: The Naval Encounter that Saved Greece – and Western Civilization, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004
Plataea: When I began work on my contributions to the Osprey Campaign series, searches for books with Plataea in the title threw up nothing but Wright’s 1904 survey of the literary sources and Grundy’s scholarly study of the battlefield’s topography published in 1894, when the landscape could have matched its 5th-century form considerably more closely than it does today. I was quite excited by the prospect of remedying what I saw as more than a century of neglect. Then two books appeared in quick succession, La bataille de Platées (Corvisier) and After Thermopylae (Cartledge). The former is similar in scope to an Osprey Campaign but a less visual treatment. In the latter, as in the author’s Thermopylae, a concise account of the fighting lies at the heart of an examination of the Oath of Plataea and that battle’s afterlife in competing Hellene memories of their victory, particularly in the context of the Peloponnesian War.
Cartledge, Paul, After Thermopylae: The Oath of Plataea and the End of the Graeco-Persian Wars, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013
Corvisier, Jean-Nicolas, La bataille de Platées, 479 av. J.-C., Clermont-Ferrand: Les Editions Maison, 2010
Grundy, G.B., The Battle of Plataea, London: John Murray, 1894
Shepherd, William, Plataea 479 bc: The Most Glorious Victory Ever Seen (Campaign 239), Oxford, Osprey Publishing, 2012
Wright, Henry Burt, The Campaign of Plataea, New Haven: Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor, 1904