If Persia conquered greece would they stop there?

[Patriarch of Constantinople]

A question that has been like a bad itch to me. If the Greco Persian Wars ended in greek defeat then do you think that they would stop at greece or venture further like to spain.

[Avicenna]

Italy first, I suppose, after consolidating the Balkans by putting in a satrapy and appointing a satrap. Then perhaps the Carthaginians, but I don't think that the Persians would be able to get enough troops all over to there for expansion, their empire was simply too large and the Carthaginians were rich enough to hire quite a few mercs.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Yup, at this time the Persian Empire was still a relatively loose federation. They lost in Greece because they were over stretched and they couldn't have ever really gone beyond Greece.

[IrishArmenian]

They would have tried, probly, but they would have been stretched to thin, and the smallest rebellion would destroy their empire.

[spmetla]

I imagine they would have just sort of consolidated. No reason to expand to quickly, greece was definately a threat to Persian Asia. I imagine just like the greeks they would have gone after southern Italy and Sicily and then eventually Carthage.

[Rodion Romanovich]

A question that has been like a bad itch to me. If the Greco Persian Wars ended in greek defeat then do you think that they would stop at greece or venture further like to spain.

Actually they lost to the scythians before going into Greece, so I would imagine, if they had conquered Greece, they wouldn't have been able to go much further anyway. But it depends. If they hadn't exhausted their army at Thermopylae in a prestige heads-on charge and instead went around earlier, perhaps they would have had better chances of doing well. However there were plenty of rebellions in the Persian empire in Egypt and Ionia already before the war over Greece (whenever the king went far away enough), and the communications and road nets probably weren't strong enough to allow too much further expansion. Many of the key cities were too far apart so it was probably difficult to properly garrison such a large empire as it was. At least the Persians were said to be fairly tolerant but they didn't have much justification for their expansion and many of the conquered areas were fairly high-tech too, so I suppose the Persians couldn't contribute to much that would make the local population feel any desire to remain Persian. I don't think a victory in Greece still hadn't allowed for much further Persian expansion. Beyond Greece there's Illyria with it's perfect guerilla terrain, then Italy, Thrace (where previous contact with the Scythians had already given defeat). Italy at this time hadn't got any huge factions, but neither did Greece who were historically able to defeat the Persians, so they shouldn't be underestimated. Plus remember that the Persians would have had difficult logistical problems to transport and army into Italy. First over the ponton bridge over the Bosphorus, then through the guerilla terrain of Illyria, then possibly either over the sea in modern Albania or by marching the longer land route to the north. Unless Persia had been able to garrison Greece effectively and pacify it, the route and logistics would have been a big problem. Furthermore, if the army would go that far west, it would need a stronger local army in the east to avoid and fight rebellions (and it's difficult to say if those local garrisons wouldn't rebel and try to seize the king title in the abscence of their king unless the king would field an army much large than the already large local garrison army, which would require quite a lot of men), weakening the force sent to Italy a lot.

[edyzmedieval]

They would have been overstretched. The satraps were disloyal anyhow, and very corrupt even at that time. The loss of money and disloyalty would have broke the empire if they conquered Greece.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

At the time of the War Greece was not a threat to the Persian Empire, it only became so afterwards. It wasn't until after Marathon that Athens actually began to become a great sea power. Nor did Thermopylae seriously damage the Persian Army, even after the withdrawal of forces by Xerxes there were still likely over 100,000 soldiers in Greece.

The defeat in Scythia was down to totally different reasons, in fact the opposite reasons, to the defeat in Greece. In Scythia Darius had nothing to attack and so was unable to force a pitched battle, all he could do was let the Scythians lead him on a merry chase through their own land.

Herodotus said it two and a half throusand years ago, "They had no arms and they did not know how to fight." The Persians did not understand the Phalanx and the Phalanx is what defeated them.

[Watchman]

Oh, they probably understood it all right - AFAIK the spearmen they had protecting their infantry archers weren't much different from the hoplites in gear or fighting style (on the other hand, the sparabara were just a few ranks deep and the archer behind them could hardly match the heavy hoplites in hand-to-hand so where it really counted the Greeks in fact had a bit of *superiority* in numbers). They just lacked a counter for it; their army was designed for a rather different kind of combat. In a way the Greeks lucked out in one of those odd little match-ups military history if full of - by an accident of history they happened to have a military system the Persians found very difficult to, and in the end couldn't, deal with.

The later Macedonian pike phalanx which took part in actually dismantling Persia was a quite different beast from the Greek shieldwall, and in any case only one piece of a very succesful combined-arms system. Before them Greek armies ventured into Persia as mercenaries, not as conquerors.

Anyway, I understand Asia Minor was already pretty far from the Persian heartlands (the local satraps being virtually independent rulers). Greece they might have still taken. But beyond that ? Mountains and hill country inhabited by fierce barbarian tribes who'd honed hit-and-run warfare to a fine form long ago already in one direction, and uncatchable steppe nomads in the other. I also get the impression they never even tried conquering Thrace either - probably just not worth the trouble.

As for Carthage, I once read somewhere one of those big-ass empires in the area actually tried sending a punitive expedition there (probably Persia in one of its incarnations). Apparently the Phoenicians of the Levant, to whom much Persian Mediterranean naval operations was apprently left to, point blank refused and could not be made to budge. Odd colony loyalties or something like that, it said.

Mind you, if subjugated the Greeks might have been more willing to try the idea given that Carthage and the assorted Greek colonies scattered around the central and western Med often had little turf wars, but it's a whole another thing if that would have resulted in anything too impressive given the sheer distance involved - both in straight kilometers and in Persian concerns - from the Persian heartlands.

Plus I'm none too convinced the Persians proper would have had too much interest in further adventures westwards anyway. Theirs was a singularly massive empire, and a rather troubled one too with long borders, troublesome neighbours, internal problems and no doubt more other issues than any ruler really would have cared for. Adding some distant and underdeveloped barbarian provinces to the already somewhat overstretched giant doesn't strike one as something its rulers would be excessively interested in. The satrap of Greece would probably have had to try his hand at such projects pretty much alone.

[Gurkhal]

Although the benefits of the Persian army was that it happily used local tropp in their armies. Thus the Greek Phalanx would then be used within western Persien armies. With hole of Greek and such to draw upon I don't find it to hard to belive that the borders might be forced even more westwards.

One has further to take into the account the religious way that the Great Kings thought in. They weren't spreading their own wordly empire's influence over the world. They were spreading the divine laws of Mazda into the darkness of chaos outside the empire's borders. The same logic that for example the Assyrians lived after, although the Persien empire was far more liberal that the Assyrian. So even with internal pressure and strife the Persien kings would likly strive to expand. Not much as a neccissity but as a religious duty.

[Rosacrux redux]

The funny thing is that Herodotus mentions that the Great King had already sent spies and agents in Italy and on the islands of Sardinia and Korsica, so one would think it was his next goal. I wouldn't rule out the possibility of Persia getting a firm foothold in Italy. After all, if they could subdue the - more advanced and at least partly united for the term - Greeks, they wouldn't have much trouble with the - more "primitive" and belonging to different ethnic groups (Latins, Samnites, Greeks, Romans, Gauls, Etruscan) - Italians.

One shouldn't use the Skythian campaign as a yardstick in measuring the capabilities of the Persian military might. The Skythians didn't give a pitched battle, they just enforced a mass-scale scorched earth strategy, with lots of guerilla war. That means, they kept retreating while destroying anything that could be destroyed, and all that while harassing the communication lines of the Persians. A "Grand Armee" like the one Darius had with him, couldn't go on forever chasing ghosts, so they retreated.
The Skythians were nomads, so they could afford to do that, due to increased mobility (horse-arcer culture). None of the Balkan "barbarians" (Illyrians, Thraco-Illyrians etc.) were nomads or had such capabilities. The Persians did a perfect job in dealing with mountainous barbarian tribes in Thrace, central Asia Minor, Arachosia, Dragiani etc. etc.
The Illyrians would fall within weeks, and the Thracians were already subdued from the expedition of Mardonius in 492 (and he used only a smallish army, probably no more than 30.000 in order to bring Thrace and Macedonia to their knees).

Of course taking the whole Balkans and Italy is one thing... keeping it, is another. Even not taking the rather independant-thinking satraps into account, I think such an overextension would bring the Persian Empire closer to disintegration.