I've just finished reading Persian Fire by Tom Holland, an entertainingly written non-fiction book about the Persian wars (that's Greek city states versus Persians, not Alexander versus Persians years later, if you're less familiar with ancient history). As advertised, he tells this without glorifying or demonizing anyone, and points out right at the start that the accounts we have are of course nearly exclusively Greek in origin. Which means we know far more about the individual players on the Greek side than on the Persian side, though he brings across the various kings from Kyros to Xerxes vividly, and makes me wonder, not for the first time, about Atossa.

However. Never mind the Termophylae, Spartans and all: one detail very early on in the story made me say THIS IS NOT ON, PERSIANS. My history teachers at school over two decades ago must have forgotten that, and afterwards this wasn't my period, so I hadn't come across it before, but: one of the means by which the Persians conquered Egypt was by binding cats on their shields which supposedly froze the Egyptian archers into non-action, cats being sacred to them. Tom Holland doesn't tell me what became of the cats afterwards, though.

Clearly those cats deserve an epic of their own. Preferably written by Neil Gaiman.