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Medism
Medism (, ''medismos'') in ancient Greece referred to the act of imitating, sympathizing with, collaborating with, or siding with the Persians. While the term "Mede" was commonly used by Greeks to refer to the Persians, strictly speaking, the Medes were a distinct Iranian people who were co-rulers with the Persians in the Medo-Persian (Achaemenid) Empire. The Greeks began using the term "Persians" around the 470s, as evidenced by Aeschylus' play ''The Persians'' in 472. Medism was generally considered unacceptable and even criminal in many ancient Greek city-states. However, it was not specifically outlawed. In Athens, individuals suspected of medism were charged with treason. Similar attitudes can be observed in other Greek city-states as well. For instance, in Teos, a law from the classical period stipulated that anyone who betrayed the city would face the death penalty, without differentiating between betrayal to the Persians or any other group. Prominent historical figures ...
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Pausanias The Regent
Pausanias () was a Spartan regent and a general. In 479 BC, as a leader of the Hellenic League's combined land forces, he won a pivotal victory against the Achaemenid Empire in the Battle of Plataea. Despite his role in ending the Second Persian invasion of Greece, Pausanias subsequently fell under suspicion of conspiring with the Persian king Xerxes I. After an interval of repeated arrests and debates about his guilt, he was starved to death by his fellow Spartans. What is known of his life is largely according to Thucydides' ''History of the Peloponnesian War'', Diodorus' ''Bibliotheca historica'' and a handful of other classical sources. Early life Pausanias was from the royal house of the Agiads. Every male Spartan citizen earned their citizenship by dedicating their lives to their ''polis'' and its laws. Pausanias would have gone through intense military training from the age of seven and were required to be a regular soldier until they attained age of thirty. Spartan l ...
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Battle Of Plataea
The Battle of Plataea was the final land battle during the second Persian invasion of Greece. It took place in 479BC near the city of Plataea in Boeotia, and was fought between an alliance of the Polis, Greek city-states (including Sparta, Classical Athens, Athens, Corinth and Megara), and the Achaemenid Empire of Xerxes I (allied with Greek states including Boeotia, Thessalia, and Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedon). At the preceding Battle of Salamis, the allied Greek navy had won an unlikely but decisive victory, preventing the conquest of the Peloponnesus region. Xerxes then retreated with much of his army, leaving his general Mardonius (nephew of Darius I), Mardonius to finish off the Greeks the following year. In the summer of 479BC, the Greeks assembled a huge army and marched out of the Peloponnesus. The Persians retreated to Boeotia and built a fortified camp near Plataea. The Greeks, however, refused to be drawn into the prime terrain for cavalry around the Persian ...
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Timocreon
Timocreon of Ialysus in Rhodes (, ''gen''.: Τιμοκρέοντος) was a Greek lyric poet who flourished about 480 BC, at the time of the Persian Wars. His poetry survives only in a very few fragments, and some claim he has received less attention from modern scholars than he deserves. He seems to have composed convivial verses for drinking parties. However, he is remembered particularly for his bitter clashes with Themistocles and Simonides over the issue of his medizing (siding with the Persian invaders), for which he had been banished from his home around the time of the Greek victory at the Battle of Salamis. He was also an athlete of some distinction and reputedly a glutton. An epitaph for him, appearing in the ''Palatine Anthology'', was credited to his rival, Simonides: "After much drinking, much eating and much slandering, I, Timocreon of Rhodes, rest here." Life and poetry Plutarch is the main source of information about Timocreon's role as a medizer and enemy of ...
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Persophilia
Persophilia (, pârsi dusti) is the feeling or expression of interest in, respect for, and appreciation of Persians on the part of a non-Persian. More specifically, a Persophile is someone who has a strongly positive predisposition or sympathy towards Persia and the Persian people, with an admiration for their language and literature, culture (art, music, cuisine, etc.), history, or government. The earliest use of the word may have been by the Royal Numismatic Society of the United Kingdom in 1838, referring to the pro-Persian policy of a Cypriot king of Marion. The opposite sentiment is known as Persophobia.Ram, H. (2009): ''Iranophobia: The Logic of an Israeli Obsession'', Stanford University Press, Origins Ancient Iran Foreign admiration of Persian society was especially prevalent during and after the reign of Cyrus the Great, who founded the Achaemenid Empire around 550 BC. He is held in high regard in Judaism for the role he played in ending the Babylonian captivity a ...
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Themistocles
Themistocles (; ; ) was an Athenian politician and general. He was one of a new breed of non-aristocratic politicians who rose to prominence in the early years of the Athenian democracy. As a politician, Themistocles was a populist, having the support of lower-class Athenians, and generally being at odds with the Athenian nobility. Elected archon in 493 BC, he convinced the polis to increase the naval power of Athens, a recurring theme in his political career. During the first Persian invasion of Greece, he fought at the Battle of Marathon (490 BC), and may have been one of the ten Athenian '' strategoi'' (generals) in that battle. In the years after Marathon, and in the run-up to the second Persian invasion of 480–479 BC, Themistocles became the most prominent politician in Athens. He continued to advocate for a strong Athenian navy, and in 483 BC he persuaded the Athenians to build a fleet of 200 triremes; these proved crucial in the forthcoming con ...
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Kea (island)
Kea (), also known as Tzia () and in ancient history, antiquity Keos (, ), is a Greece, Greek island in the Cyclades archipelago in the Aegean Sea. Kea is part of the Kea-Kythnos regional unit. Geography It is the List of islands of Greece, island of the Cyclades complex that is closest to Attica (about 1 hour by ferry from Lavrio) and is also from Sounion, Cape Sounio as well as SE of Athens. Its climate is arid, and its terrain hilly. Kea is long from north to south and wide from west to east. The area is with the highest point being Metres above sea level, above sea level. The municipality, which includes the island Makronisos, has an area of . Its capital, Ioulis, is inland at a high altitude (like most ancient Cycladic settlements, for fear of Pirate, pirates) and is considered quite picturesque. Other major villages of Kea are the port of Korissia and the fishing village of Vourkari. After suffering depopulation for many decades, Kea has been recently rediscovered by ...
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Simonides Of Ceos
Simonides of Ceos (; ; c. 556 – 468 BC) was a Greek lyric poet, born in Ioulis on Ceos. The scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria included him in the canonical list of the nine lyric poets esteemed by them as worthy of critical study. Included on this list were Bacchylides, his nephew, and Pindar, reputedly a bitter rival, both of whom benefited from his innovative approach to lyric poetry. Simonides, however, was more involved than either in the major events and with the personalities of their times. Lessing, writing in the Enlightenment era, referred to him as "the Greek Voltaire." His general renown owes much to traditional accounts of his colourful life, as one of the wisest of men; as a greedy miser; as an inventor of a system of mnemonics; and the inventor of some letters of the Greek alphabet (). Such accounts include fanciful elements, yet he had a real influence on the sophistic enlightenment of the Classical era. His fame as a poet rests largely on his abi ...
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Rhodes
Rhodes (; ) is the largest of the Dodecanese islands of Greece and is their historical capital; it is the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, ninth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Administratively, the island forms a separate municipality within the Rhodes (regional unit), Rhodes regional unit, which is part of the South Aegean Administrative regions of Greece, administrative region. The principal town of the island and seat of the municipality is the Rhodes (city), city of Rhodes, which had 50,636 inhabitants in 2011. In 2022, the island had a population of 125,113 people. It is located northeast of Crete and southeast of Athens. Rhodes has several nicknames, such as "Island of the Sun" due to its patron sun god Helios, "The Pearl Island", and "The Island of the Knights", named after the Knights Hospitaller, Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem, who ruled the island from 1310 to 1522. Historically, Rhodes was famous for the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the Sev ...
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Boeotia
Boeotia ( ), sometimes Latinisation of names, Latinized as Boiotia or Beotia (; modern Greek, modern: ; ancient Greek, ancient: ), is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the modern regions of Greece, region of Central Greece (administrative region), Central Greece. Its capital is Livadeia, and its largest city is Thebes, Greece, Thebes. Boeotia was also a region of ancient Greece, from before the 6th century BC. Geography Boeotia lies to the north of the eastern part of the Gulf of Corinth. It also has a short coastline on the Gulf of Euboea. It bordered on Megaris (now West Attica) in the south, Attica in the southeast, Euboea in the northeast, Opuntian Locris (now part of Phthiotis) in the north and Phocis in the west. The main mountain ranges of Boeotia are Mount Parnassus in the west, Mount Helicon in the southwest, Cithaeron in the south and Parnitha in the east. Its longest river, the Cephissus (Boeotia), Cephissus, flows in the central part, where most of ...
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Thebes, Greece
Thebes ( ; , ''Thíva'' ; , ''Thêbai'' .) is a city in Boeotia, Central Greece (administrative region), Central Greece, and is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. It is the largest city in Boeotia and a major center for the area along with Livadeia and Tanagra. It played an important role in Greek myths, as the site of the stories of Cadmus, Oedipus, Dionysus, Heracles and others. One myth had the city founded by Agenor, which gave rise to the (now somewhat obscure) name "Agenorids" to denote Thebans. Archaeological excavations in and around Thebes have revealed a Mycenaean Greece, Mycenaean settlement and clay tablets written in the Linear B script, indicating the importance of the site in the Bronze Age. Thebes was the largest city of the ancient region of Boeotia and was the leader of the Boeotian confederacy. It was a major rival of Classical Athens, ancient Athens, and sided with the Achaemenid Empire, Persians during the Second Persian invasi ...
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Argos, Peloponnese
Argos (; ; ) is a city and former municipality in Argolis, Peloponnese (region), Peloponnese, Greece and is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, and the oldest in Europe. It is the largest city in Argolis and a major center in the same prefecture, having nearly twice the population of the prefectural capital, Nafplio. Since the 2011 local government reform it has been part of the municipality of Argos-Mykines, of which it is a municipal unit. The municipal unit has an area of 138.138 km2. It is from Nafplion, which was its historic harbour. A settlement of great antiquity, Argos has been continuously inhabited as at least a substantial village for the past 7,000 years. A resident of the city of Argos is known as an Argive ( , ; ). However, this term is also used to refer to those ancient Greeks generally who assaulted the city of Troy during the Trojan War; the term is more widely applied by the Hom ...
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