The Evil Star Empire and the Persia Revolt

The Persians were known for allowing local customs to stay in place as long as things still worked out for them. They punished rebellious cities horribly, but then went in and tried to figure out why the ionians kept revolting. And ironically enough, because some of these cities that had revolted didn't like the new fangled thing called democracy, they wanted a piece of that too. But if you're greek, you're not going to look at it that way - at least not if you're athenian.