Battle of Thermopylae

The Ancients

History Hit

History

4.7 • 3.5K Ratings

🗓️ 20 August 2020

⏱️ 59 minutes

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Summary

2,499 years ago the Persian 'Great King' Xerxes launched history's largest amphibious invasion of Europe before D-Day. Accompanied by a huge army and navy he crossed the Hellespont (modern day Dardanelles), intent on punishing the city-state of Athens and any other Hellenic powers that dared to resist. It was during this campaign that one of history's most famous battles was fought, at the Pass of Thermopylae in central Greece. King Leonidas, his 300 (or so) Spartans and their Hellenic allies fought off against King Xerxes' mighty Persian army for three days. To talk through this fascinating battle I'm chatting with Paul Cartledge, a professor from the University of Cambridge and one of the World's leading experts on ancient Sparta. In this fascinating chat, Paul sorts the fact from the fiction about the doomed Thermopylae defence. He starts by explaining the conflict's background, before moving on to the battle itself. We finish off by discussing how this famous battle ultimately created what we now know as 'the Spartan mirage'.

This episode will be the first in a small series dedicated to talking about the 480 BC clashes of the Second Persian War, for the 2,499th anniversaries of these battles. Paul is the author of 'Thermopylae: The Battle That Changed the World.'

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Transcript

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0:00.0	2,499 years ago, one of the most famous battles in antiquity, indeed one of the most famous
0:09.1	battles in history, was fought at the pass of Thymopoli in central Greece. King Leonidas,
0:15.6	his 300 Spartans, or 300 thereabout, and their Hellenic allies fought off against King
0:21.3	Zerxes' mighty Persian army for three days. To talk through this fascinating battle,
0:28.0	I'm chatting with Paul Cartelich, he is a professor from the University of Cambridge,
0:32.5	and he is one of the world's leading authorities on ancient spatter. Enjoy.
0:41.5	Paul, it's an honour to have you on the podcast. Well, that's very sweet of you to say that, but
0:47.2	I have done one previous history hit with Dan, directly in his little studio in London,
0:54.0	and that was, gosh, I'm trying to say, that was on democracy. Well, this time we're talking
0:58.7	about something a little different. Thymopoli, one of, if not the most iconic battle in ancient history.
1:07.7	It is, and the oddity of it, of course, is that it was a defeat. The word means heart gates,
1:14.5	and that's because of the self-asprings in this very, very narrow pass in north central Greece,
1:20.8	where the battle was fought. But for example, Monten in the 16th century, he said,
1:26.6	though it was a defeat, it's one of those defeats that's going to be remembered much more than
1:32.4	quite often victories, precisely because of the nature of the defeat. So we'll come back to that,
1:39.0	of course, in detail later. We absolutely will. But let's start off with, let's talk about the
1:44.9	background to the to the clash at Thymopoli. Now, at the start of the 5th century BC, there is one
1:51.9	power that dominates the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Near East, isn't there?
1:56.6	Yes, and it rose, as we say, in the middle of the 6th century BC, BCE, and its founder was a man
2:04.4	called Sarras in. That's the Latin version of his original Persian name, which is something like
2:11.1	Kourash. And he formed this amazing, well, we say, empire, and it started out roughly 550 BC,
2:21.0	and his first task was to reverse the relationship between his people, which was the Persians in southern
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