Skip to main content

Forgotten Heroes of Thermopylae

James S. Robbins writes about those other defenders at Thermopylae:

The Spartans used the rallying cry of “Hellas for the Greeks” when it was convenient for them, but they were well known for only fighting when the interests of their city were at stake. Even Leonidas’s self sacrifice at Thermopylae was conditioned by an oracle’s vision that Sparta would either lose one of its kings or be destroyed. As well, Herodotus observes that Leonidas was motivated by “the wish to secure the whole glory for the Spartans.”

If you can’t quite get behind rooting for the Spartans, there were other heroes on the scene at Thermopylae, people the movie ignores. Herodotus tells us that when it became clear that the Greek defensive position had been flanked, Leonidas ordered the men from the other Greek states to leave, to prepare for the confrontation yet to come. But the 700 men of Thespiae, led by Demophilus, refused. They chose to stand with the three hundred Spartans, to fight beside them. “So they abode with the Spartans,” Herodotus wrote, “and died with them.”

Who were the Thespians? No, not actors — hard to imagine seven hundred or even seventeen taking up arms these days. They came from Boeotia, near Mt. Helicon, a little more than midway between Thermopylae and Athens. Their polis was traditionally a democracy. The Thespian Hoplites were much more akin to the volunteer citizen soldiers long seen as the backbone of the American fighting forces. Unlike the Spartans, the Thespians did not spend their lives drilling and training for war while living off the sweat and toil of those the enslaved Helots. The Thespians were free men who lived freely, and defended their city because their conscience demanded it.

I know that 300 concentrated on the Spartans, as did the graphic novel on which it's based. Read Steven Pressfield's Gates of Fire, especially near the climax, to get a real feel for the Thespian sacrifice.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Not the Hero We Deserve, But the Hero We Need

The Dark Knight is the best film I’ve seen in years. Not just the best “superhero” film, but the best film of any type. It’s not perfect, not quite a masterpiece, but it’s flaws are, to me, tiny and overwhelmed by the time the film ends. While relatively bloodless, it is consistently brutal, not just in what it depicts but in the themes that drive it. TDK is a film for adults, please leave the kids at home. Let’s deal with those “flaws” first, the largest being the character Rachel Dawes . In Batman Begins , I blamed Katie Holmes . Her acting was weak, to say the least, which is regrettable in that who she is and what she says and does are important to the film. Critics agreed and either for that or other reasons, Katie was replaced by Maggie Gyllenhaal , who is a better actress. Yet here she’s weak, real weak. Maybe it’s the character, not the actress, which is frustrating because Rachel is a pivotal character. The film,...
1 comment
Read more

John Wick: Chapter 4

No sense in playing coy, this is a great film. I’ve seen it twice and while I don’t quite love it in the way I love the first, original John Wick , it’s my #2. It’s a little overlong, has some wasted space and time, has one absolutely pointless and useless character, and generally ignores the realities of firefights, falling, getting shot, hit, etc. All that notwithstanding, it’s a great action flick, has a genuine emotional core, and is well worth your time if you’re into that sort of thing. Like I am. Summary: John Wick (Keanu Reeves), last seen saying he was fed up with the High Table, goes to war to obtain his freedom. Some of the most incredible action scenes ever filmed ensue, culminating in a very satisfactory finale and a devastating post-credit scene. The first Wick film was a surprise hit. It was a simple, straight-forward tale of vengeance told in a simple, straight-forward manner. Where it stood out was its devotion to human stunt work, on exploiting long camera shots that ...
Post a Comment
Read more

DVD: The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008)

Awful. The film is an environmentalist wacko wet dream. No one else could like this thing. I’m trying to think of something positive and all I can come up with is how positively awful it is. The original The Day the Earth Stood Still is a science fiction masterpiece. In it, Klaatu comes to Earth with a simple message: Do what you want among yourselves and on your planet. But if you attempt to export your violent way to the stars, Gort and his friends will hit you with so many lefts you’ll beg for a right. (Gort being the cosmic version of Chuck Norris, you see.) The ultimate warning was that we needed to change our violent ways if we expected to be accepted among the stars. In this remake, the aliens are environmental busy-bodies who have bought into the entire notion that we puny little humans are capable of destroying the planet. Therefore, we must be eliminated so that the planet, for God knows what reason, can try again. To count the ways in which this film makes no sense ...
1 comment
Read more