Commemorating Conflict: Greek Monuments of the Persian Wars

The Persian Wars were remembered by the Greeks not only through texts, but through monuments, objects, ritual behaviour and the places in which commemoration occurred. Xavier Duffy studies that commemorative landscape across the Greek world, asking how communities of the fifth century BC chose to represent victory, loss and collective memory after the conflicts with Persia.

Instead of concentrating solely on Athens or on a handful of famous monuments, the study compares different commemorating groups, locations and monument types. This broader archaeological approach reveals variation in the ways the wars were remembered and helps place familiar monuments within a wider Greek tradition of public memory.