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Again, the same issue that had been present at Marathon,
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the question of whether the Greeks would continue to
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live their lives free in their poleis,
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developing their own style,
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their unique style of life
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or become another province of the Persian Empire
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just like so many others.
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We can see that in one wonderful contemporary reference
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to the meaning of the war--
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it's in Aeschylus' oldest surviving play Persians,
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in which the central event is the great sea battle
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at Salamis in which the Greeks defeat the Persian fleet,