Here is a series of lectures given by Sean Gabb in 2022, in which he discusses the influence of the Greeks on the other peoples of the Ancient World. For reasons of politeness and data protection, all student contributions have been removed.

This fifth lecture in the course explains how the disorganised and back-stabbing and numerically inferior Greeks managed to fight off the great invasion of 480 BC by Xerxes, the Great King of Persia. It takes in the events of 480, as well as the establishment of the Athenian supremacy in the Aegean, and explains the mixed fates of the great men of that year – Mardonius, Pausanias, Themistocles, and Xerxes himself. As ever, it relies heavily on Herodotus. Apologies on this occasion for the piano playing in the background.