How did the Greek victories over the Persians protect the establishment and development of Western Civilization?

Answer 1

By the 5th Century BCE when the conflict between Persia and the eastern Greek city-states began, the Greek cities had spread all around the Mediterranean and Black Seas. Only the eastern cities were involved in the conflict. The Persian attempt to force peace on the ever-warring Greek cities failed, and these cities went back to their normal fighting amongst themselves, greatly weakening themselves in the Peloponnesian War between Athens and its empire and the Peloponnesian League led by Sparta.

The Persians became an interested spectator of this mutual destruction. It took MMacedonia under Philip II to bring them under control, and his son Alexander then carried out his father Philip's plan to seize the Persian Empire.

So the Persian Wars did not greatly affect Western civilisation - that arose on the back of Greek, Macedonian and then Roman control and culture in the West. The Persian Wars are part of history, not civilisation.

Answer 2

Such a statement comes from a misunderstanding of the Persian approach to their empire - to establish security, stability and prosperity while allowing the existing culture to continue. Their aim in trying to absorb the Greeks was to bring them under control and stop their endless wars between themselves from spilling over and disrupting the Persian Empire. If they had succeeded, the devastating inter-Greek wars which followed could have been avoided. The failure to bring the Greeks under control left the Greeks to continue their devastating wars until Macedonia under Philip and Alexander imposed peace on them.