When we Westerners think of the greatest civilizations of antiquity, classical Greece surely comes to mind. Many aspects of ancient Greek culture survive today in various facets of our modern society: democracy, theater, and Western philosophy, some of the first that come to mind. As vital as these contributions were, we as Westerners should surely be grateful for the Greek victory against the barbarian horde. There would be conquerors, at the battles of Marathon and Thermopylae, as well as at Salamis and Plataea; or maybe not. These famous battles have become legendary as the conflicts that saved Western civilization, and it's easy to see why. If the Greeks, ancestors of Western society, had lost these battles, it is likely that they would have been defeated; despite the worrying nature of the mountainous Balkan peninsula for a conquering army. The mistake in thinking about things this way is that the "barbarians" mentioned above were not ordinary conquerors, but rather one of the greatest civilizations in history. The Achaemenid Persian Empire is not revered or thought of today in the same way as Classical Greece. Only in the last century have we known anything substantial about the ancient Persians that did not arise from what was essentially Greek propaganda. Given this, it is not surprising that ancient Persia was underestimated as a civilization. Analyzing the Achaemenid Empire in more detail, it becomes evident that these ancient Persians had formed a civilization based largely on the principle of tolerance that was as great, if not greater, than that of the classical Greeks and that, for this reason, The Greco-Persian Wars should not be considered the conflict that saved Western civilization. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essayA particularly important area in which ancient Persia was superior to classical Greece was that of religious tolerance. In ancient Persia, subjects were not executed for heresy, blasphemy, or apostasy. The subjects of the empire were free to practice their own beliefs (Reiss, 160). This may seem small, but at that time it was very forward-thinking and in fact much more tolerant than this region is today. Compare this to ancient Greece, where it was “Socrates, who was executed in 399 BCE for “disbelieving in the city gods” and “corrupting the young” (Whitmarsh, 55). The Persians' implementation of religious tolerance was not only the right thing to do, it was also an intelligent decision. Trying to impose strict religious rules in such a large and diverse empire would only have resulted in a plethora of rebellions that the Persians could put down. Rather than waste resources trying to change the customs of their subjects, the Persians simply did not care about imposing religious restrictions. Since then, this Persian innovation has been used to varying degrees within several of the world's greatest empires. Merely allowing religious freedom was not the limit to Persian kindness toward the empire's subjects. In most aspects, Persian rule was very lenient and just. Life in the Persian Empire was quite good for the conquered peoples. For the most part, the various civilizations under Achaemenid rule were allowed to continue their way of life as usual, but with the added benefit of stability. For example, kingdoms..