Battle of Thermopylae

That kind of training, that kind of psychological manipulation, was what made Spartan hoplites special.

And the most famous example of Spartan warriors in action The event that became legendary throughout history was the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC.

This happened during the Persian invasion of Greece.

The Persian king Xerxes had assembled a gigantic army, and estimates suggest that it consisted of somewhere between 120,000 and 300,000 soldiers.

Oh.

How's the bowling movie? No, it's about Spartans and the Battle of Thermopylae or whatever it was.

I never saw it.

How can a bowling movie be gay?

It's called A Short History of Greece.

So it's not that, it's about 300 pages.

Okay.

And they're basically going...

Dwarves.

Gates of Thermopylae, all that.

300 Spartans, all that stuff.

Yep.

So it's...

If you go into it and all you have for, like, your, your vision of Per- ancient Persia [laughs] and, like, the, you know, the, the Battle of Thermopylae is, um, is the movie 300, you're gonna be probably pretty confused.

Because, uh, the Persians [laughs] that's a pretty inaccurate portrayal of the Persians and, and the Spartans.

Um, although-

When Xerxes wrote again, hand over your arms, he wrote in reply, come and take them.

Herodotus reports that just before the battle of Thermopylae, a Spartan warrior named Dianarches was told that the Persian archers could blank out the sun with their arrows.

He replied, good, then we shall have our battle in the shade.

It was natural for Spartan women to think and speak as Gorgo, the wife of Leonidas is said to have done.

It's more remembered than victories.

Thinking back to ancient Greece, how many people know the Battle of Thermopylae? The glorious defeat

of the 300 Spartans, even though it's more

complicated than that.

But how many people know about the Battle of Plataea, where the Greeks defeated the Persians? And similarly, the defeat at Thermopylae was actually complete tactical failure.

failure of the greeks just as the revenge was a this is a complete failure but it's what gets imbued into the propaganda and it kind of sinks into culture in a very very interesting way especially for military oriented societies yeah the british were in how they you know the god save the king type of patriotism that the british had at this time

Yeah.

White supremacist groups have really been adopting some classical iconography and imagery to the point where like – the busts of Augustus are on their flyers that they hang up on walls, or you'll see people dressed in Corinthian helmets and hop light shields, like a Spartan, um, you know, because I guess that's the quintessential white image.

Uh, Gun rights advocates have co-opted the Greek phrase molon labe, which was famously uttered by Spartan King Leonidas at the Battle of Thermopylae when the Persians who are outnumbering him say, you know, lay down your arms.

And he says, come and get them.

Right.

So we really focused on films that... were representations of historical events from the ancient world.

So, of course, we watched Troy, the Brad Pitt version of Troy, and talked about the Trojan War.

We talked about 300, the Frank Miller adaptation and the Battle of Thermopylae.

We had to watch Spartacus.

This is Cape Gunworks.

And there's another reference, your favorite 300 reference, right? Would it be Spartans in the 300 in the Battle of Thermopylae? My favorite is Judges 7 and Gideon's men.

This is a pretty cool story.

Gideon was not a warrior.