Thermopalyae?

[Ragss]

Apparently I have the spelling wrong, becuase googling Thermopalyae yeilds little results. So I was wondering if anyone here has some pages I could read on it? And im sure this has been discussed in length here already, but as I dont even know how to spell it, I cant search for it.

My main question is, what kind of terrain were they on? I can only imagine an extremely tight choke point would allow the spartans to do as well as they did. Like the persians (?) being forced to fight at nearly equal numbers in some sort of tiny choke point. Even still, after killing a few dozen, wouldnt your arms refuse to move another inch?

[The Wizard]

The correct spelling would be: Thermopylae.

And the Thermopylae pass is the main entrance to ancient Greece (modern Greece encompasses ancient Greece, Thessaly and ancient Macedonia), and a pass which is very easy to hold.

Not only did the Spartans manage to stall the Persians, but another battle was fought here between the Romans and Antiochus the Great approx. 2-3 centuries later. So it was an important place in ancient Greece.



~Wiz

[Scipio]

Yes, check out my site here (http://www.totalrome.com/ancientarchives/) for the main site and the link to the specific article is here (http://www.totalrome.com/ancientarchives/thermopylae/) I havent finished putting up the pics yet though, sorry.

P.S. it's spelt Thermopylae http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Gawain of Orkeny]

Or you could rey here

http://joseph_berrigan.tripod.com/ancientbabylon/id28.html

[Ragss]

ahh, so the spartans were able to fight on much more equal numbers, it just was wave after wave...

Thanks a lot, guys, now I got lots of reading to do hehe.

[Red Peasant]

It takes a leap of the imagination to assess the true impact the terrain had on the battle nowadays because the coastline has silted up considerably widening the once narrow pass to a considerable and inhabited coastal plain.

However, in 480 BC the pass was over three miles in length, and the distance between the Western Gate, where the Persians entered, and the Eastern Gate was some 2.5 miles. The ancient wall the Greeks used as a defensive base was almost in the middle of these positions, protecting a position only about 50 feet in breadth. The passage widened in front of this position, and then narrowed again, about half a mile further on to a mere 10-20 feet according to some calculations.

It was a natural strangle-point, potentially lethal to any invading force. It could only really be taken by an outflanking manoeuvre, which the Persians tried first by sea, and then by the famous march through the mountain pass, led by the traitor Ephialtes.

[The Wizard]

Quote[/b] (Ragss @ May 23 2004,04:50)]ahh, so the spartans were able to fight on much more equal numbers, it just was wave after wave...

Thanks a lot, guys, now I got lots of reading to do hehe.
It wasn't wave after wave, rather skirmishing Persians versus doomed Greeks...

The Greeks were just holding up the march of the Persian army, which had to take the Thermopylae pass because of its size, the clunky Persian army couldn't take other ways into Greece. Added to that is the fact that the Persians did not like to go up and fight a melee, so they probably just lazily shot at and skirmished with the Greeks...

Of course, the Greeks could've easily have held out for many weeks, provided the Persians didn't find the other way. Still, it was only stalling of the inevitable.



~Wiz

[Red Peasant]

Quote[/b] (The Wizard @ May 23 2004,19:29)]
Quote[/b] (Ragss @ May 23 2004,04:50)]ahh, so the spartans were able to fight on much more equal numbers, it just was wave after wave...

Thanks a lot, guys, now I got lots of reading to do hehe.
It wasn't wave after wave, rather skirmishing Persians versus doomed Greeks...

The Greeks were just holding up the march of the Persian army, which had to take the Thermopylae pass because of its size, the clunky Persian army couldn't take other ways into Greece. Added to that is the fact that the Persians did not like to go up and fight a melee, so they probably just lazily shot at and skirmished with the Greeks...
You have said before that the Persian war was quite an insignificant affair; that this was just another skirmish. Now you say it was much too big ('clunky', I think that's what you mean).

What is your source for this period? The only one I know of is Herodotus. True, he was a Greek, but he was an Ionic (medizing) Greek from Halicarnassus (the city of Queen Artemisia). Herodotus may have been a lot of things, but he wasn't particularly anti-Persian, or anti-anybody. That's one of his charms.

Do you have any proof for any of your accounts of this history, apart from your disposition for all things Persian, and for all things anti-Greek? It's quite laudable I suppose, but is it based on any kind of history that is worth a fig? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif BTW, I hope you can prove the point, because I really do think that the Persians get a bad press from the accounts of the historical record, but I do not think that the right way of righting those wrongs is by disparaging the achievements of the Greeks.

[Crimson Castle]

Holding up the advancing Persian Army each day was a victory by itself. The Persians had to supply their army, feed their army, give drinking water to their army, house their army etc.. All this cost money and tremendous energy... not to mention the psychological strain on the Persians - knowing that their advance was held up by a insignificantly small Greek force.

[Scipio]

Quote[/b] ]ahh, so the spartans were able to fight on much more equal numbers, it just was wave after wave...

Thanks a lot, guys, now I got lots of reading to do hehe.

It wasn't wave after wave, rather skirmishing Persians versus doomed Greeks...

The Greeks were just holding up the march of the Persian army, which had to take the Thermopylae pass because of its size, the clunky Persian army couldn't take other ways into Greece. Added to that is the fact that the Persians did not like to go up and fight a melee, so they probably just lazily shot at and skirmished with the Greeks...

Umm from the sources I have checked (lots) I'm going to have to contradict almost everyword you said http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

for starters The Persians did come in waves, but you are correct in the sense that Thermopylae was just to slow the Persian advance into Greece whilst Athens built the navy. You are wrong about the fact that this was the only path they could take to Greece as if you had read more than one source you would know that they (after being informed by a Greek traitor) found another pass, that was fortified by the Spartans. Unfortunately the Persians snuck past the fortifacations in the night. Upon hearing this, the Spartans told the rest of the Greek city states to retreat and regroup with the navy of Athens. The Spartans held off for a while but where eventually all put to the sword...

Next time, pick up a book http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif
BTW not that I have anything against you, but it annoys me when people don't do their homework before they claim to be correct when they arent.

[Rosacrux]

Minor misconceptions and a few errors here and there. For instance, it wasn't the Spartans "guarding" the by-pass to Thermopylae but - I think - Plateeans (Plateis) who got surprised by the large Persian detachment and left their positions (the force the Persian sent was quite substantial to pass unnoticed even during dark, through an extremely narrow passage as the one Ephialtes - a word that survived in koene and modern Greek as "nightmare" - led them through).

The Greeks would not leave the pass at Thermopylae - which was definitely not as narrow as some of you seem to imply. At the narrowest point, as far as I know, it was about 80 meters wide. They tried to stall the Persian to gain time, but they were having a multitude of aims:

- stall the Persian until the works of reinforcing and extending the fortifications at the isthmous of Korinth.

- stall the Persian until the greek naval force manages to hurt the Persian fleet - without the naval supremacy the huge army was lost, there was no way on earth they could feed themselves without 1.000 ships doing a daily ferry of provisions from Asia Minor.

- Stall the Persian force until the city-states have made up their mind as to how they would actually face the Persians - no one forgets that the Peloponesians considered "malady" Themistokles plan for a naval battle in the Saronikos gulf, and insisted that only in the Isthmus they could defeat the Persians.

- Convince a multitude of city states that "medezed" (was viewing favorably the Persian) that the Greeks could actually face the all-powerfull Persian empire and defeat it or at least put up a convincing fight.

The last point was also - along with the Spartan tradition and customs - a decisive factor when Leonidas and the 300 aristoi of Sparta decided to hold rear guard for the rest of the Greeks and try to defend the passage even outlfanked - along with 700 Thespians, who always get forgotten, poor sods.

[The Wizard]

Quote[/b] (Red Peasant @ May 24 2004,00:27)]
Quote[/b] (The Wizard @ May 23 2004,19:29)]
Quote[/b] (Ragss @ May 23 2004,04:50)]ahh, so the spartans were able to fight on much more equal numbers, it just was wave after wave...

Thanks a lot, guys, now I got lots of reading to do hehe.
It wasn't wave after wave, rather skirmishing Persians versus doomed Greeks...

The Greeks were just holding up the march of the Persian army, which had to take the Thermopylae pass because of its size, the clunky Persian army couldn't take other ways into Greece. Added to that is the fact that the Persians did not like to go up and fight a melee, so they probably just lazily shot at and skirmished with the Greeks...
You have said before that the Persian war was quite an insignificant affair; that this was just another skirmish. Now you say it was much too big ('clunky', I think that's what you mean).

What is your source for this period? The only one I know of is Herodotus. True, he was a Greek, but he was an Ionic (medizing) Greek from Halicarnassus (the city of Queen Artemisia). Herodotus may have been a lot of things, but he wasn't particularly anti-Persian, or anti-anybody. That's one of his charms.

Do you have any proof for any of your accounts of this history, apart from your disposition for all things Persian, and for all things anti-Greek? It's quite laudable I suppose, but is it based on any kind of history that is worth a fig? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif BTW, I hope you can prove the point, because I really do think that the Persians get a bad press from the accounts of the historical record, but I do not think that the right way of righting those wrongs is by disparaging the achievements of the Greeks.
Gah, I meant the Persian army was clunky, not the Greek wars...

One of the death sentences of the Persian armies was that they moved like a snail on his day off... Even Greek armies could outpace and surround them. Darius was faced with the problem twice; once in his campaign into Royal Skythia, where he was totally unable to catch the Skythians, and got heavily harassed on his way back, when he could not find any cities or other settlements to attack, and he did not choose to attack the burial mounds of the Skythians (the Royal Skythians had said they would attack him if he did so). The second time was when he invaded Skythia from the other side, over the Danube (I believe he fought the farming/plowing Skythians then), where he was defeated (I fail to remember the precise event) and needed to retreat, but his rearguard had been destroyed and he was at the mercy of his Greek 'guests', who could have burned his bridge of boats, but their leader (the same man who instigated the whole Persian wars) bid them not to.

Also, about me saying the Persian wars (the name was given by the Greeks http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif) are insignificant. Well, they weren't exactly the biggest conflict in the history of Persia. On the contrary; what could Greece offer the Persians? Nothing, that's right, nothing. No wood, little agricultural ground, just a few more harbors (plenty of 'em in Asia Minor and the Levant), and nothing but a rebellious, independent host of subjects. The reason Darius the Great and Xerxes decided to invade differs for each Great King. Darius was old when the former Greek tyrants fled to his court. They managed to convince the old man to put them back into place; they were gifted speakers. I always am amazed how ready the ancient Greeks were to use Persia to fight their own people for their own good. Must be that Greek independent spirit. Also, the wars were important to the Greeks and to us because the Greeks were very important to our culture later on: the Greek culture lived on, the Persian culture was snuffed out in flames and time.

Now, for Xerxes, it was just the fact that Xerxes was a hedonist who did not interest himself as much in politics and world economics as his great father. Not only was there the Greeks and their eloquent ways, but the weak Xerxes, man of court and not of nation, also faced the Persian general (Gah, someone find his name quick - the one that died at Plataea and lost the battle for the Persians by his own stupid fault, for it was going quite well for the Persians and quite bad for the Greeks/Spartans - no Byzantine to save them, methinks), who was on the side of the Greeks, and a man of your own language always is more convincing than a foreign man...

Also, who said I was anti-Greek? All I am for is clearing up the (slightly ...?) biased reports of Herodotus, who heard stories from many witnesses yes, but you can't really rely on the history in words spoken by the generation that came after the men who fought in the Persian wars... what I do hate about the Persians is their conservatism and art - even though seeing the Assyrian art at the British Museum in London is impressive (Persian art was identical). The Greeks and their sophism, their will to challenge old ideas, their independent mind, their art... the foundations of our own culture, thanks to the Rennaissance.


Scipio
That was the other way into the Thermopylae pass itself... a Greek traitor revealed it to Xerxes and he sent his Immortals through it, surrounding the Greeks. The main reason (according to our friend Herodotus) why Thermopylae was taken was because of this traitor.

What I meant was that the Persian army was too big, too large, too clunky to take the smaller, quicker passes into Hellas... a fact agreed upon by all historians.

And the Persians didn't come up to the Greeks in wave after wave Hollywood-style... why would they? Such an action totally contradicts usual Persian fighting style. The logical situation would be most of the army standing idle, with the skirmishers/archers nearest to the fortifications of the pass firing at will supporting the Persian heavy infantry: these would be infantry like apple-bearers, Assyrian or Egyptian levies, Immortals, Greek mercenaries, etc.



~Wiz http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-yes.gif

[Oaty]

I thought that the Persians did'nt use any skirmisher before they flanked the pass. Not to sure, but since killing an army by archers was considered cowardly. This gives me the feeling on the first day he may not have wanted to use archers on the first day just so that he had could say that they were defeated in a chivalrous way. Now I think it is highly likely that he could have defeated them on archers alone with shoot and run tactics. If the few men that the Greeks had wen to hunt the arshers down they would have to chase them to the mouth of the pass when all the archers could rain arrows down them.

Now that is quite a long pass with little maneuverability especially for a big army so it could have also been the fact that with so many units were behind the first that there wasnt much choice in how to deploy them and if archers were in there there would be no way for the unit behind them to get in front of them in a timely manner. That is if the Greeks started out at the mouth of the pass on there side. Well if they had archers in the pass I guess the Greeks advanced on them fast enough that they had little effect. I guess I will have to read up on that

[Suppiluliumas]

Please do read up on it. Archery was most definately not considered to be cowardly by the Persians.

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

Quote[/b] (Suppiluliumas @ May 24 2004,21:19)]Please do read up on it. Archery was most definately not considered to be cowardly by the Persians.
True. The Greeks were the ones that thought that to be cowardly.

[Oaty]

Well I looked into it and the Persians never did use archers in the pass. They were'nt used until they had outflanked the pass.

As for the cowardly bit if Xerxes wanted to leave an impression with the Greeks it would be all about how he won the battle. Sure he could have used all his archers but the opportunity did'nt exist anyways. Also if he did use the archers would the Greeks ended up calling him the cowardly king.

[Ragss]

Im getting the impression the greeks didnt really go rambo last stand style on the persians...I was previously under the impression that the spartans killed thousands of them, and kept fighting till the last spartan died.

Any idea on the persian death toll?

[Oaty]

According to Herodotus 20,000 Persians were dead

[The Wizard]

You cannot rely on Herodotos, the man gives a nice, vibrant description of the cultures he visited, but he cannot be relied on to give you the correct sources on military subjects. It was Herodotus who said the Persians came barging in with a gigantic army of 500,000+, when in reality the armies of the Greeks and Persians were quite well matched in numbers.

Xerxes wasn't out to make an impression... the Persians had a totally different set of values than the Greeks. He was just out to 'restore' certain tyrants that had asked him to do so, and in the process take control of Hellas as Cyrus and Darius had taken control of Ionia and Caria.

You think Xerxes cared for "chivalry", as you call it? The set of virtues and values called 'chivalry' wasn't going to appear for another 1500 years. Also, the Sassanid Persian ideal of maid-o-maid (man-to-man combat) was not something of Achaemenid origin. So, if you think logically, like a Greek (who is not a sophist http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif), everything points to the Persians only attacking the gate with their heavy infantry, of which most had the Cyropaedic training - they were easily the equals of Greek hoplites, maybe save for Spartans.



~Wiz