All the more so because the final winner of the Peloponnesian War were the dictatorial Spartans. Thanks for the incredible bummer, Thought Bubble. So here's a non-rhetorical question. Did the right side win the Persian Wars? Most classicists and defenders of the Western tradition will tell you that, of course, we should be glad the Greeks won. After all, winning the Persian War set off the cultural flourishing that gave us the Classical Age, and plus, if the Persians had won with their monarchy, they might have strangled democracy in its crib and gave us more one-man rule. And that's possible, but as a counter to that argument, let's consider three things.