Once and last time! DEUS VULT! UT PATER A WEEBLES SOCIETAS DIRIGAT NOS! May the Lord bless you! I will stand even if I'd be the last person alive, surronded by weebs. I want to wish you one more thing: that last sentence won't be true and you will stand with me.
The Persian army arrived at the pass in late August or early September. The vastly outnumbered Greeks have been holding them off for seven days (including three of battle). The Greek rearguard was annihilated with a probable loss of 2000 men. Pour one out please
Any books out there set in a fantasy world where thereβs an army or civilization/people with ideology similar to that of the Spartans?
Thought I could get a clearer answer hear. Yes just watched the movies.
Fucking chads
Although the legendary 300 spartan myth isnβt totally true. It was actually 298 Spartans and many more other soldiers from assorted cities, most of whom were the cream of the crop. Most. In warfare, and especially at the time, flanking your opponent would almost guarantee a smashing victory, as it is much harder to fight an enemy coming from 2 directions. Thermopylae had a small fissure in the rock, leading from about 1 km away from The Hot Gates to about 3km behind it. The pass was discovered by the Greeks but they didnβt think much of it, only guarding it with new and inexperienced soldiers. The Persians knew the Greeks had the tactical advantage as their position made their large numbers obsolete. They went through the pass, encircling Leonidas, the spartan general, and his army of 298 Spartans. When work came from messengers that he was surrounded, he and his men accepted their fate and prepared for a glorious death in battle. The Persian Pincer clashed into the Spartan positions, and although the Spartan army of 300 killed OVER 20,000 PERSIANS, Yea 66 Persians for each Spartan, each and every Spartan soldier was eventually killed. But the damage to King Xeroxes army had been done. It was to weak to conqueror the rest of Greece so he cut his loses and went home. The battle was important as Greek culture inspired almost every western country and birthed democracy. If Greece had been conquered, who knows how the world would be today.
Descriptions of the Battle of Thermopylae tend to be full of superlatives.
Here are a few:
- How the few stood against the many
- How freedom won out over tyranny
- How western fighting techniques and equipment proved themselves against those of the east.
- How the west was saved.
- How everything from the Magna Carta to the Declaration of Independence owes its existence to those Spartans and their allies.
Some of these are ultimately unverifiable, but given how Ask Historians, particularly u/Iphikrates has spilled quite a bit of ink laying out jhow mistaken we are about the Spartan uber soldier/ military society myth, it makes me wonder if the penultimate Spartan achievement, which helped create the invincible Spartan myth that supported them for centuries, is really what we think it is.
Perhaps we could start out with performance. The popular story is that the Spartans and their allies were so incredibly effective as warriors that they were able to fend off many times their own numbers at the narrow pass of Thermopylae, holding out for days and killing thousands before they were ultimately betrayed and flanked.
Is this the sort of achievement we think it is? If the Spartans weren't a cut above the rest, how did they manage to do so well here?
How about consequence. Do we have reason to suspect that western civilization might have been snuffed out, or at least severely strained/degraded, if the Greek alliance had faltered?
I guess what I'm looking for is a general fact check on Thermopylae. Should we be impressed by this win as much as the ancient historians who covered it want us to be?
His smile widened as a Spartan javelin punched through his eye socket, spraying the heaving battlefield with even more blood and brain.
The Persian pussies weβre doing there thing, ya know, taking over the Greek work as you do. The Greeks, whom at this point were all divided up into thousands of independent cities, were like βoh shut we bouta get rektβ so most of them formed an alliance to fight the Persians. The Persian army was seen as unstoppable at the time, and for a good reason. They had conquered most of the middle east and some of Eastern Europe. Now the only thing standing between them and Athena was Thermopylae: The Hot Gates. Itβs a thin stretch of land, about 200 meters wide give or take, with a sheer wall of rock on one side and a long drop to the Aegean sea on the other. It was the easiest way through the mountains of northern Greece, and it already isnβt easy to move an army. The Greeks knew this was their last chance as beyond the mountains it was open plains and they knew they couldnβt fight the Persian war machine in a head on fight. The Hot Gates was the area of this pass were it was the thinest. So thin that as few as say, 300 Spartan Hoplites, soldiers with a shield and spear could defend (because it was so narrow the Persian army would be limited by how many men they could send at once. This is so long my phone is starting to lag so part to is coming
Iβm just a level 11 trying to get back to Kephollonia to do some grinding, but there are so many higher level ships that attack me, and the journey is VERY long. Any tips would be greatly appreciated!
