Thermopylae

In Our Time: History

BBC

History

4.4 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 5 February 2004

⏱️ 42 minutes

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Battle of Thermopylae. For the historian Herodotus, the Battle of Thermopylae was the defining clash between East and West: “The Persians fell in their scores, for the officers stood behind lashing them forward, forward all the time. Many fell into the sea and were drowned, many more were trampled to death by their comrades ... The Greeks knew they were doomed now the Persians had discovered a way round the hill, and put forth their last ounce of strength, utterly desperate, utterly unsparing of their lives. (King) Leonidas fell in this battle. He had proved himself a great and brave man”.A force of three hundred free Spartans and their King had stood and fallen before an invading army of three million, led by a brutal tyrant. Or so the story goes – such was their courage and its association with freedom that, nearly two and a half thousand years later, William Golding wrote, “A little of Leonidas lies in the fact that I can go where I like and write what I like. He contributed to setting us free”.How important are the Greek/Persian wars to the story of democracy? Was the West and its values really so far removed from life in the Persian Empire?With Tom Holland, historian and author of Persian Fire; Simon Goldhill, Professor in Greek Literature and Culture at King’s College, Cambridge; Edith Hall, Leverhulme Professor of Greek Cultural History at the University of Durham and author of Inventing the Barbarian: Greek Self-Definition through Tragedy.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thanks for downloading the in our time podcast for more details about in our time and for our terms of use
0:05.4	Please go to bbc.co.uk forward slash radio for I hope you enjoy the program
0:12.0	Hello, there are certain events in history which have often been thought of as crucial the battle of the Mopoli is seen to be one of those
0:19.1	Two and a half thousand years ago a few or years from the
0:22.5	Cities of Greece, especially Sparta held off the hugely more numerous Persians about two million of them
0:29.4	It's claimed who brought together for this war people such as the Babylonians the Medeans and the Egyptians often more civilized then than the
0:37.3	Infants states of Greece but later readings of that battle have said that it saved what became Western civilization its democracy
0:44.5	It's a critic cast of mind its philosophy its arts and sciences the engine room have the modern world or is this
0:51.7	Just mythologizing with the 300 Spartans coming their hair in final acknowledgement that they were facing death of the Mopoli in truth
0:59.2	So crucial did they enable Western civilization as we know it to survive and thrive the father of history
1:06.2	Herodotus thought so two thousand five hundred years ago the novelist William Golding thought so fifty years ago
1:12.5	What of today's historians how important is the Greek and Persian War to the story of democracy then was the Western
1:19.9	It's values really so far removed from life in the Persian Empire with me to discuss the legacy of the Mopoli and the Persian Wars is
1:26.9	Edith Hall
1:27.9	Professor Greek cultural history at Durham University and author of inventing the barbarian
1:33.5	Tom Holland historian and author of a forthcoming book on the Greco-Greeko Persian Wars and Simon Goldhill
1:40.3	Professor of Greek at King's College
1:42.7	Cambridge Tom Holland the Battle of the Mopoli
1:45.7	Battle of the Mopoli marked the start of the Persian's second attempt to conquer Greece
1:50.5	Can you take us back to the first invasion to get it in context and give us a date?
1:54.7	Yeah
1:56.3	The Persian Empire is really I suppose in the long history of the the Middle East
	...

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