OCR Ancient History Greek period study (Persia and Greece) overview quiz quiz

Cyrus the Great

Darius I, who organised the empire into satrapies

Cambyses, who later added Egypt to the empire

Xerxes, who led the great invasion of Greece

Thucydides's history of the Peloponnesian War

Herodotus's Histories

Xenophon's Hellenica, covering the later fourth century

Tacitus's Annals, a Roman imperial history

That he inherited the throne peacefully as the named heir of the previous king

That he was freely elected to the throne by a formal assembly of all the leading Persian satraps

That he killed a Magus named Gaumata who had impersonated Bardiya, then crushed many rebellions

That he came to the throne only after personally conquering the rich kingdom of Egypt

The sack of Miletus

The battle of Lade

The defeat at Marathon

The burning of Sardis

By strengthening the wings and thinning the centre to envelop the Persian line

By using a large force of Athenian cavalry to ride round and outflank the Persian wings

By springing a naval ambush on the Persian fleet as it lay anchored off the beach at Marathon

By waiting in camp for the Spartan army to arrive before risking any engagement at all

The combined Greek fleet caught and destroyed the entire Persian navy in the narrow coastal waters by the pass

Leonidas and the 300 Spartans held the pass until betrayed by a mountain path and died in a last stand

Xerxes himself was killed in the fighting and his shattered army at once turned back for Asia

The Persians, unable to force the pass, gave up the invasion entirely and retreated home to Asia

By fighting in open water off the coast, where the larger Greek fleet could use its numbers

By secretly bribing the Persian naval commanders to hold their squadrons back from the fight

By luring the Persian fleet into the narrow straits where its numbers were a liability

By avoiding battle altogether and withdrawing the fleet to defend the Isthmus of Corinth

Marathon

Salamis

Artemisium

Plataea

Because his figures are hugely inflated and patriotically shaped

Because he never personally witnessed any of the battles that he describes in detail

Because he wrote his account entirely in Latin rather than in his native Greek language

Because he openly supported the Persian side and wrote to flatter the Great King

A modern interpretations question weighing the views of two named contemporary historians

A source-utility question assessing the value of one to four ancient sources

A full 36-mark synoptic essay covering the whole sweep of the period study

A short factual recall question worth only a single mark for one named detail