Puppets of the Barbarian : how Persia controlled Greek relations with the Persian Empire

The study of Graeco-Persian relations is not new to academia, however, as much of our information is found within Greek literary texts, we are largely at the mercy of Greek bias concerning these relations. This thesis will present a detailed re-examination of the relevant sources to gain further understanding of Graeco-Persian relations, with a view to looking beyond Greek literary bias. This thesis proposes that the influence of the Persian Empire upon the Greeks was greater than is initially implied by our sources and I argue that in the majority of the contacts between Greek and Persian, Persia took control. The notable exception to this is the highly debated Peace of Callias, which forced Persia to offer concessions to the Greeks, but it should be noted that we have no record of possible Greek concessions to Persia, and so we must treat this topic with caution. This thesis expands our knowledge of Graeco-Persian relations by taking a view of the entire period of these relations, from initial contacts until the accession of Alexander the Great, allowing us to view more general trends throughout this period, rather than viewing shorter phases within the whole period.