480 B.C.E.? No one was alive then!

Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West by Tom Holland
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book tells the history of the Persian Empire from its origins through to Xerxes, and then recounts the histories of Athens and Sparta. Once we're up to speed, it focuses on Persia's relationship with the Greeks, from the Ionian islands to the Hellespont, from Macedonia to Athens and Sparta. I am no judge of its accuracy, but it's very readable, unfolding almost like a novel, and is shockingly detailed. In a good, family way, I mean.

Events from 10 or 20 years ago in real life seem pretty fuzzy to me, so learning not just the names but the personalities and little details of individuals from 2500 years ago seems amazing. Frankly, the amount of information here surprised me. I had no idea that history had recorded in such detail the politics of rich families, the scheming, the lying, the court cases and ostracisms, the clever responses, the brutal betrayals, the spies and bribes and dirty tricks. This is not just about the leaders of cities, faceless names of kings or emperors, but the story of dozens of important people and secondary characters and their interactions. So much is known with certainty, and recorded here! For the details where the author could not find a contemporary authority, he supplied the most compelling theories and guesses, letting the reader judge, but there is much less of that than I thought I'd find.

I enjoy Tom Holland's clear voice in this history, and find little fault in him as writer. I rank clarity the highest virtue of prose, and he does, in my opinion, make himself understood very well. However, I have to admit that his diction, elevated and educated throughout--properly so--does sometimes stray into Oxford don-like territory, occasionally more than a little pretentious. Without meaning to at first, I found myself reading those bits in David Attenborough's voice, imagining as plummy an accent as I could. And related to that, my personal pet peeve is when an English book is sprinkled with clever sayings in French or other languages, as he has done here several times. I could figure them out, and I'm sure most other people can, too, but it does rather take one out of the narrative, to stop and note how clever the author is... That said, I'll reiterate that the book is, on the whole, clear and comprehensible and a brisk read, and that's on top of being wonderfully informative.

The real pleasure that comes from reading this history of the Persian Wars is to be able to finally see clearly what happened in this remote time and place, to understand who was at Marathon, and what happened there, and who actually was at the Hot Gates, and to understand how the ships on both sides maneuvered and ended up where they ended up, and all the related bits of the story. So much of that has always been gray and fuzzy in my mind, and this clears up so much and answers so many questions. And on the Persian end, I can understand now how the Medes took power, and how that was taken in turn by the Persians, and how their culture was perceived in Babylon, and how the many different peoples in the empire fit together. The author's extensive scholarship, filling the book with innumerable details, does not make this harder to understand; rather, the complexity makes the story comprehensible in a way that brief, simple summaries never could. Or never have, for me.

Highly recommended to those with an interest in history. Obviously.

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