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The Battle of Thermopylae - What really happened at one of the most famous last stands in history?
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- čas přidán 27. 03. 2024
- Most of us have seen the action packed movie 300, the story of an epic last stand taking place in Ancient Greece where a small force of Greeks under Spartan King Leonidas fought against a Persian army many times larger. What is the real story behind the movie though?
Join me as we visit the battlefield of Thermopylae in central Greece and explore the ancient sources and archeological record!
If you enjoy the video, please consider subscribing to the channel where I tell stories of travel, history and the outdoors.
#thermopylae #ancientgreece #history #travelgreece #leonidas #ancienthistory
as a Greek, I have watched and read what you mentioned,
but the remarkable thing here is: that you created a mini-documentary, which fascinated me, touched me, and made me proud again.For the ancestors of the Greeks, who, whatever difficult moment they found themselves in, selflessly gave their blood for their freedom, for the their culture, and the values they stand for, I hope that the next generations of this place will stand as worthy as the statues of all of them in the Greek land, you have prepared a very beautiful and thorough documentary, thank you
Hey thank you very much. I appreciate that. I did my best. Without your culture, I wouldn’t have mine. Greece is the history of the west. I recently read a story about Greek soldiers during WWII that fought at the bloody battle at Hill 731. Some of them claim to have seen the ghosts of hero’s like Achilles, Odysseus, Leonidas and others fighting with them. My first thought was how profound it is that they thought of their cultural hero’s from as much as 3000 years ago in a time of crises when they needed them. That cultural connection fascinates me.
At Thermopylae, Xerxes sent a messenger to the Spartans with the threat: “Our arrows will block out the sun.” One of the Spartan generals replied: “Then we shall have our battle in the shade.”
Not general, maybe you mean, one of 300 exclusive king bodyguard
@@Cleeon the quote is attributed to Dieneces, a senior officer in Leonidas' bodyguard. Agree 'Lieutenant' would be a much better adjective.
@@PeterOConnell-pq6io And "he" was Leonidas himself!
@@Cleeon To the best of my knowlegde, ancient sources attribute the quote to Dienekes, one of Leonidas' lieutenants.
Commander Dienekes
CZcams is screwing you over. You've produced 54 videos, but only 9 are available for viewing. I would like to see them all. Your story telling is extremely professional. Well done.
Hey thank you. I appreciate that. I think those other videos are shorts. The gameplan is to get a new video out every 2ish weeks if I can
Magnificent video. I know the place, I've been there and visited it. It's exciting. But you brought an unexpected sense of dignity to the Spartans' gesture. Congratulations, an honest, strong and moving work in the end. In fact, there were more than 300 fighters on the wall, as you may know. There were 300 hoplites, Spartan citizens, but there were archers, slingers, musicians, muleteers.
"Efialtis" (εφιάλτης) is the synonym, commonly used for "nightmare" still to this day in Greece...
Wow that’s fascinating! I wish I had known that before making this video. I would’ve included it. Thanks for sharing
Sorry but εφιάλτης is used as traitor as far as I know, I've never heard the nightmare reference before.
@@chrisnivo Είχα έναν εφιάλτη χθες το βράδυ (I had a nightmare last night), in common Greek. Check dictionary please.
Very impressive. Excellently produced with great, well informed commentary and beautiful drone footage of the landscape. The high standard of this video got me thinking your either an academic or a professional documentary producer. Obviously you put in a lot of honest, sincere hard work. And to top it off you quote Nicolas Gomez Davilla!
Hey thank you! That was very nice of you to say. I’m trying to get better at making these so hopefully they keep improving. I’m not an academic or professional doc maker. I’m just a lifelong history enthusiast who does photo and video. That Davila quote lives in my head rent free haha
Great stuff! Very detailed and enjoyable!
Thanks brah!
I was extremely surprised to see how small this channel was. Good work man, Great quality
Hey thanks a lot! I appreciate that. The gameplan is to continue to do more of these
The Battle Of Thermopylae is with out of doubt one of my favorite stories/battles.
I have read a lot of books/internert and lisen to almost every youtube video there is and im sry to say this, there is nothing new to learn 😅 You youtubers keeps saying things we have known for years!
But anyways thanks for making a good video 👍
Amazing video, thanks!
Hey thank you! Much appreciated 🙏
Perseverance, bravery and dedication. Fighting for what you believe in.
And protecting your word and reputation 💪
I LOVE THIS STORY!!! it's so inspiring!!! The location is absolutely breath taking to imagine all of this happened on that hill. Thank you for sharing!
Thank you!! So glad we got to see it!
You should read the book "Gates of Fire" by Steven Pressfield, a historical fiction novel. It's simply perfect...
Dense detail of a crucial historical pivot point. Nicely done!
Hey thank you! Much appreciated 🙏💪
Not crucial at all.
thank you for that enlightened rejoinder. Care to elucidate?@@Emanon...
@@willyboy20009 What was the ultimate strategic result of Thermopylae? And what would have happened if, say, the battle didn't take place at all?
It was an iconic battle, sure, but it's importance has been vastly mythologised.
@@Emanon... it was decided that a Greek coalition would meet the Persian land army so a better question would be what would’ve happened had King Leonidas and his Lacedaemonians retreated when they had the chance. If you look into the various ancient sources that describe the Spartan reputation 2500 years ago, you’ll understand how demoralizing their retreat would’ve been. Imagine your tough as nails older brother running away from the bully taking your lunch money too. It wouldn’t make you feel like you stood much of a chance. I think it’s a mistake to disregard the impact of myths and stories on culture
This is by far the best produced and narrated video of the many I have watched. Sadly your following is modest in number so maybe you could collaborate with another producer. You deserve recognition.
Hey thank you. I appreciate that. I’ve been interested in the battle since I was a kid watching a special on it on the history channel, so being able to finally see it in person and make a video on it was a big deal for me. I’m really glad you enjoyed it. I’ve uploaded about 6 or 7 long videos thus far so hopefully as I keep making them more folks will tune in. Thanks again my friend!
Excellent work.
Hey thank you! I appreciate that
Some researchers support that Leonidas didn't send the rest of the Greeks away, but sent them to engage the Persians and avoid to be surrounded. He kept enough troops (including the Thespians) to keep fighting and he also kept the Thebans by force because they were ready to flee to Persians. The rest of the Greeks beleived that continuing to fight was useless and avoided the fight and returned to their cities to fight another day. Leonidas kept his ground in order to give enough time to the fleet for a tactical withdraw from the area
@@leontas73 300 Spartans, 700 Thespians and a third of the Thebans which were about 200, confronted about 1.200.000 Persians. Just do the math!
@@user-fz5jc6xt1chaha, what? That’s not even remotely accurate.
153rd sub ^_^
Road to 1m Subs, keep up the good work.
Hey thank you! I appreciate that
A good tribute.
Thanks!
Enjoyed your video. I’m no expert on Greek history but was surprised to hear you say that when the Phocians were surprised by the Immortals, they moved higher into the mountains to afford themselves a better defensive position. I wonder why they would move from their blocking position, even if surprised, as preventing the Persians from using the path to surround Leonidas was their sole purpose for being there.
Thank you! Based off of Herodotus description the point where they were holding the path over Kallidromo might not have been the most advantageous for their own defense but instead just blocking the path. It also sounds like Hydarnes men got the jump on them and they panicked not realizing they weren’t the priority and re positioned. It’s also possible that they just saw the numbers and fled too
Μολών λαβέ (molon lave) means exactly "come and get it if you can".
Excellent
Also the actual Greek name of the area is Θερμοπύλες Θέρμο=Hot Πύλες=Gates and is pronounced Thermopyles
the 300 Spartans movie in 1962 will always be my fav.....the later movies are just a blood and gore fest
I actually haven’t seen that one myself yet. I’ll check it out. I enjoyed 300 for what it was but I definitely would like to see a more true to history movie or show on it. A tv series of the Anabasis would be awesome as long as it’s done right. Then again I don’t trust the film industry to make something good like that these days
I got that movie on dvd many years ago and it's a great movie/story but really bad acting fighting scenes for my taste.
But it's more realistic than the 2006 movie.
I like the way how Xerxes send 20k in the first battle to fight serveral hundreds Greeks and they killed so many that the Persian army got scared and ran away.
Good video. What I will say is I don't think anyone knows exactly what happened in those days but I will say that this had to have happened because we are talking about it today.
Hey thank you! Yeah we don’t exactly what took place but we do know that some sort of battle took place in the area around the ruins of the Phocian Wall and Kolonos Hill where the 5th century BC Asian missile points were found
@ponderingadventurer absolutely. Keep doing your thing brother. I enjoy the channel.
Not only was it just a minor skirmish with zero impact, it is unlikely even 10% of the Persian force were aware of what was going on. It is even less likely more than a few hundred Persians ever fought at Thermopylae. It is also unlikely Persians suffered MORE casualties than the Greeks.
Imagine 50,000 (feasible number) to 2,500,000 (let's be honest, Herodotus and others were essentially milbloggers at worst and playwrights at best) Persians marching towards Athens and there is a narrow pass blocked by Greeks (how many the Persians wouldn't know). What would the Persians do? They do what's called an "operational pause" and everyone, except those at the front, camp. This is what armies do: camp.
The Persians advance and attack, but cannot break through. It's a narrow pass and at points not even a chariot can go through. People are not dumb. They do not ram their torsos through spears. In almost all ancient battles, lines do NOT contact all the time. They often stare at each other, shout, make a few jabs and thrusts, back off, go at it again, shove, push, curse, etc... When the Persians couldn't break through, they would have backed off. Casualties from these "scuffles" would have been in the dozens, maybe low hundreds.
In ancient battles, mass death do not happen from frontal and line fighting, but when one side runs away. This didn't happen at Thermopylae. When the Greeks got surrounded it would have been the real butchering.
Likel strength:
7,000 Greeks (of which a few hundred fought) vs. 50,000 Persians (of which a few hundred fought).
Likely casualties:
All Greeks except those who left vs. a few dozen Persians to low hundreds.
But unfortunately we only have Herodotus to comment on the play by play of the battle. You’re correct on how ancient battles would typically be fought but the impact of the story is more cultural than a direct impact on the war itself. Even a story full of myth holds value
Human nowadays debating, but Persia also made great mistakes, they do not record their battle, why? That's the way of kingdom, when victorious, they record it, when lose, they acting like never happened
Where did you get the number 80k to 200k? When we have a list of ships and know how many people are in there, we can estimate the number of Persians and for sure cannot be below 500k.
I didn’t come up with that myself personally. Like I reference in the video, that’s just what modern historians tend to lean towards. The exact number doesn’t change the story whether it’s 80k, 500k or several million as Herodotus says. It’s still a hell of a last stand either way
enjoyed it but wonder if you googled pronunciation of themopylae beforehand
Thank you! So both from my time visiting Greece and asking a Greek friend of mine, I learned that the Greek pronunciation of it sounds like Ther-mo-pee-lee instead of our Anglo version Ther-mop-illee and also that the D in Lacedaemonian is pronounced like a TH.
Very famous and iconic. Not a meaningful battle in any historic sense, though.
I suppose not in the sense of it being a loss for the Greeks, but given Lacedaemonian reputation at the time, I wonder what Greek moral in general would have looked like if they fled. Spartan leadership was highly revered so a King fleeing certainly wouldn’t have helped. I’d also say that the battle has been important culturally in the same way that Athanasios Diakos sacrifice in the Greek War of Independence was. Technically a loss, but used as a cultural story of inspiration afterwards.
In 4.26, the statue is from the Greek philosopher Democritus, not Demaratus...
Yeah there’s a few substitutions I had to make unfortunately. On my trip to Greece I met a shopowner in Delphi who was also a reenactor. I would’ve loved to get shots of them but it was the end of the trip unfortunately
The Spartans did not fight for the first two day's
Nice video still
Thank you! According to Herodotus though, the Spartans fought after the Medes and Cissians retreated on the first day. That’s where he says they executed a feigned retreat on Hydarnes’ Immortals
thermobeelee? never heard that pronunciation before
That’s how it’s pronounced in Greek. For this video I decided to use the Greek version instead of the Anglo version (ther-mop-ilee).
Thermo- peely? I was under the impression it was pronounced Ther-MOP-el-EYE. Ready to be corrected.
No worries. The latter is how an English speaker would pronounce it. The former is how it’s pronounced in Greek. For the video I went with the Greek pronunciation
@@ponderingadventurer Got it. Very nicely done vid BTW.
Hey thank you. Much appreciated 🙏
I had to rewind just to hear his pronunciation again
Thats the Greek pronunciation. Ther-mop-ilee is the anglo version
@@ponderingadventurer Not where I come from mate.
This is the pronunciation that I heard from my time in Greece itself and from a Greek friend of mine
You should work on your pronouncments on the names. Say it like a greek, not as an American. It would make a huge difference. And also visit Delphi.
I’m definitely working on it. Some are Greek, some are not. I did visit Delphi after Thermopylae but unfortunately the archaeological site was closed. I did get some drone shots though, which I put in this video during the prophecy of the Pythia
How do you start off mispronunciation a word as popular and well known as Thermopylae? “Thermo-peelee”? Really?
That’s how it’s pronounced in Greek. That’s why. Now you know
Schooled
As Greek, yes this is WAY CLOSER to the Greek pronunciation, thought that is the singular form, we use plural as in Hot Gates not Hot gate
how do you pronounce it damien? Thermo-Pie-Leigh? lmao
i thought it was cool. then i googled it and found he said it right. don't be rude homie, everyone's learning here :)
@ponderingadventurer loved the video, keep up the great work! High quality and i was also shocked you had so few subs. new sub here :)