Key Dates of European History: 286 AD

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the Roman Empire did nothing but expand between 386 BC and 117 AD. The Romans incorporated vast territories by ruthless conquest, clever diplomacy, and sometimes, sheer intimidation. Scipio, Caesar and Augustus are the big names remembered even two thousand years later. After Augustus, Roman conquests lost quantity, but gained quality. Claudius, Domitian and Trajan conquered only few provinces, but they were vast and rich. As long as these conquests went on, Rome could breathe, because expansion was the very foundation of its society. If a region would get overpopulated, people could move away to Roman colonies founded in order to pacify and stabilise a new province. It was never an official policy to Romanise them, but it was a pleasant side-effect.

Much more important, each war Rome waged brought thousands of new slaves to the empire, a workforce that guaranteed the empire's economic prosperity. New provinces also needed to be equipped with various resources, so new trade routes were established throughout the empire, and everybody had a piece of the pie. Imperial growth was economic growth.

But then, Rome hit its limits. In the north, Celts and Germanic tribes halted Roman expansion. To the south lay the vast Sahara desert, and to the east, the Parthians were an opponent of almost equal military capability. Trajan was the last emperor to conquer new provinces, and his successor Hadrian even gave up three newly acquired ones. After that, the Romans were in constant defence, and had to ward off Germanic and Parthian attacks incessantly.

It went well for about seventy years. Marcus Aurelius, Septimius Severus and Caracalla led major campaigns that could not necessarily stabilise the borders, but at least continued the flow of prisoners of war and kept the empire going the way it had been. But the military pressure proved too big for the empire, and by the middle of the 3d century AD, Rome drowned in civil wars, led by people whom their own troops had declared Roman emperors. All political stability had been lost, and the empire was further strained by attacks from Germanic tribes and Persian armies. Only a miracle, it seemed, could save the empire from total collapse.

It was not exactly a miracle, but it was an extremely ruthless, but brilliant man who did. His name was Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus, or Diocletian. He actually managed to become sole emperor of the Roman Empire in 285, but unlike some others who managed to defeat all their enemies temporarily, he kept a cool head. He realised that if Rome wanted to survive, it had to split. For several decades, two parts of the Roman Empire actually became autonomous, and formed the Gaulic and Palmyran empires. They would have fared rather well with it, hadn't they been forced to concentrate their powers to both warding off outward enemies, and other Roman troops. Diocletian saw the potential that lay within this idea, and initiated a more sophisticated, and more importantly, legal split.

I won't go into detail about this - Starting in 286 AD, he basically split the empire in four, legally united but factually autonomous. The system, known as the Tetrarchy didn't last long. He resigned in 305 to ensure stability in transition, but the whole thing fell apart while Diocletian himself was even still alive. In 312, Constantine defeated all his opponents, and in 325, he took over control all by himself and the Roman Empire was once more one political body under one emperor. All back to normal?

No.

Diocletian may have failed with the Tetrarchy, but he did create one thing that was to last. He turned Rome into an absolute, hereditary monarchy, a system that would legally and morally dominate Europe until 1789, until the French Revolution.

Wait a second. Am I seriously arguing that prior to Diocletian, Rome was not a monarchy? What about Augustus?

Of course, the Roman Empire was a monarchy, and in contrary to what some people will have you believe it was even a hereditary monarchy. But at least formally, most emperors followed Augustus' idea. They considered themselves a primus inter pares, a first among equals- the equals here being the Senate. The emperor only relieved the Senate of the dirty work, and the troops were still commanded by senators. In order to be morally acceptable, you had to pledge allegiance to the Republic. The Republican order remained the highest moralic authority.

Diocletian changed that. He simply took away all power from Republican institutions. No longer did senators command the troops, and no longer did they govern the provinces. The senate was reduced to what it had originally been, the city council of Rome. A new, imperial aristocracy emerged that now took over control. You no longer had to confess your loyalty to the Senate and people of Rome. You now did it to the emperor himself. He now possessed a divine component, much like the Great Kings of whatever political entity existed in Iran, and disobedience was blasphemy. Hence, Diocletian is also remembered for his unprecedentedly cruel pogroms against Christians.

Still, the Christians later adopted that idea. A monarch who was essentially chosen by God seemed like a good idea, and it did work for a long, long time. Without Diocletians creation, it may be argued whether the idea of divine right, which dominated politics and theology throughout the Middle Ages and beyond, would ever have become accepted in Europe. Unwittingly, Diocletian, perhaps the most bloodthirsty enemy the Christians ever faced, paved the way for Christian Europe. Only one year after his death, in Milan, this course was confirmed. But that is another story.

Key Dates of European History: 330 BC

I admit this one is a bit of a placeholder date. 330 BC marks the year in which Alexander the Great assumed the throne of the Persian Empire, arguably founding a joint Greek-Iranian monarchy. I could have included any given date that is in relation to Alexanders campaign: 334 (start of the campaign), 331 (Battle of Gaugamela), 323 (death of Alexander)... there would be many possibilities. What matters is the deeper meaning of Alexander's campaigns per se. The political entity Alexander created is of little importance, because it fell apart right after his death. But Alexanders lasting creation is what is called the Age of Hellenism.

The term "Hellenism" was coined by the Prussian historian Johann Gustav Droysen (1808-1884) and describes the era in Greek and Middle Eastern history between the campaigns of Alexander (started 334 BC) and total Roman domination in the Greek world (30 BC). It is meant to denote the vast political, cultural, social and economical changes that occured in the wake of Alexander's conquests.

Until this point, Greece had been dominated by small city states such as Sparta, Athens or Thebes, which struggled to gain hegemony over the Greek world. The cultural significance of Classical Greece has been pointed out in a previous post. But what exactly did Alexander change?

First off, he expanded the geographical scope of the Greek world. No longer was "Greece" restricted to the Aegean world, southern Italy and various other bits of the Mediterranean and Black Sea; suddenly, huge new Greek kingdoms appeared in Egypt, in Asia Minor, Syria and Mesopotamia. This extension of the Greek world had a good number of consequences. Had the Greek and Middle Eastern worlds previously been more or less clearly separated - Independent Greek cities here, Persian Empire there - they were now one. Anatolia, Syria and Egypt were now part of the Greek world, and the identity of these countries now merged. While the Greek culture more or dominated these areas in the centuries to come, Middle Eastern elements were now also adopted in Greek, and by extension, Roman and European culture. Christianity is the prime example of this: an oriental religion, enriched with Greek philosophy and Roman spirituality.

I will come to the individual 'oriental' elements of Christianity in a later post, but I will say as much as that it was basically the perfection of an already happening symbiosis of original Jewish and Iranian - more precisely, Zoroastrian - thought, and it would not have been accepted as readily as it was had the people of the Mediterranean world not accepted the Levant as part of their own.

New ideas emerged within the West, if you want to use this term, as well, and the ideas of what art and literature were supposed to represent changed profoundly. Artists now sought to better capture reality, and not always, though sometimes, idealise it. More liberty was granted in intellectual discourse, and opposing ideas were allowed to spread more freely than before. People could travel more freely and write more about their impressions of lands previously out of reach. Books about regions ranging from Britain to India were written, and the wisdom of these countries was received. Knowledge was considered something that was to be preserved- a great Hellenistic capital such as Pergamon or Alexandria was not complete without a great, famous library.

What is sometimes forgotten is how far Greek culture traveled. Today, Greek ruins can be seen in Tajikistan and Pakistan. Greek colonies were founded throughout the territories conquered by Alexander, and lasted for centuries. Even the first kings of Sasanian Persia considered the Greek language to be of such importance in Iran that inscriptions were written in Greek in the early 3rd century AD. The Buddhist Gandhara culture, which lasted until the 6th century AD was deeply and visibly influenced by the Greeks- the most famous testament of this were the Buddha statues of Bamiyan.

Of course, Hellenism was also an age of War. Antigonid Macedonia sought to dominate Aegean Greece, Seleucid Syria and Ptolemaeic Egypt struggled fiercly and bitterly for the Levant. Attalid Pergamon appeared as a predator in Asia Minor. In the east, the Parthians steadily expanded at the cost of the Seleucid and Graeco-Bactrian empires. The great Hellenist kingdoms weakened themselves so greatly that soon the Romans could pick provinces in the east like ripe fruits.

All in all, Hellenism was an era in which West and East, for one priceless moment, grew together. The possibilities that lay in this symbiosis were endless, and both benefited greatly from it. Sadly, it was not to last, and this fragile building gradually fell apart due to ignorance and bigotry from both sides.

Key Dates of European History: 386 BC

If the Greek culture that could freely blossom after the events of 479 BC was the intellectual birth of Europe, then what happened in 386 BC could be considered as its political birth.

In the early 4th century BC, a Gaulic tribe known as the Senones invaded northern Italy. Led by a warlord called Brennus, the Senones wrought havoc to much of rural Italy before encountering a small confederation of city states known as the Latin League. The Latin League was weak, unorganised and disloyal. So when the Senones appeared at the river Allia, the Romans stood there alone. And were defeated. Soon afterward, the Senones appeared at the outskirts of Rome.

Legend has it that the Senones attacked the city at night, while the people were sleeping. When they attempted to storm the Capitol, however, the sacred geese of Iuno woke up and alarmed the entire town. The population fled to the Capitol and withstood the Senones for seven months until buying their freedom with a humiliating tribute that led Brennus to say, “vae victis” – “woe to the vanquished”.

So far, so good. During all of antiquity, cities of varying size and importance were besieged, conquered and plundered. Some survived, some didn’t. Why was this different?

The Romans, humiliated and scared, vowed to never let something like this happen again. The ‘Gaulic Scare’ became a vision of horror that accompanied them for centuries to come, and they saw only two methods to stop the ruthless barbarians from attacking their home again: First, build a wall. Second, expand their resources.

In the following decades, the Romans managed to turn the Latin League into a tool of their domination. It didn’t go without fighting and wars, but in the end, the League was not much more than an embryonic Roman Empire, soon to become the province of Latium. At the same time, the Romans pushed back whatever it perceived a threat from the Apennine Mountains. It went fast. By 270 BC, the Romans were undisputed lords over all of Italy, including the powerful Greek city states of the south. Rome was strong enough to challenge Carthage, the greatest power of the western Mediterranean- and win. Perhaps their victory over Hannibal was luck, the Romans considered it fate. In 203 BC, the terrible Gauls of northern Italy were defeated, and by the mid-2nd century BC, Rome had gained the upper hand against the powerful Hellenistic kingdoms of the east. Province after province fell to the Romans, and it was only with the death of emperor Augustus in 14 AD – a full 400 years after Brennus’ invasion – that the breathtaking expansion of the Roman empire slowed down. Within the next 100 years, few, however major, provinces fell to the Romans, and only the death of emperor Trajan in 117 halted Roman expansion. By 166, the Romans were no longer expanding, but defending their empire against foreign threats. In 455, Rome itself was conquered by the Vandals- the first time since 386 BC that the city was under foreign occupation.

386 BC was the starting point of the Roman Empire. For five centuries, the Romans did nothing but expand, bringing the greater part of Europe under their control and shaping it their way. Undoubtedly, the Romans were the most influential civilisation in European history, and their traces can be found deep in territories that have never been under their direct control, and entire libraries could be devoted to the influence the Romans had. In their expansion, the Romans also spread Greek wisdom spoken of in the previous post, and for the first time tied Europe together politically and spiritually.

Key Dates of European History

Many people reduce history to a mass of dates and facts. This is the way history is usually taught in schools and often presented in various media. Usually, a timeline consists of a number of dates and brief facts next to them. I personally believe that it is essential to know a number of dates to have a reasonably accurate chronological view of history, but I also think that it is necessary to know what these dates mean exactly, and why we have to remember precisely these dates.

As a European, I identify myself with European culture and history. While I won't attempt to trace the political, cultural and social reality that the European Union is - or will hopefully become - to a more or less imagined historical foundation as has been done before (Charlemagne, anyone?), I do believe that there is a certain, vague cultural identity that has tied Europe together throughout its history. I will try to trace this cultural identity in a series of posts here, in timeline fashion, because that is perhaps the easiest way to both present and understand... however, I also believe that the events themselves are of little importance. If you want to know more about them, read Wikipedia. What I find much more relevant is the meaning of these events. Each timeline entry is a new post, in which I explain why I believe these dates are of unique significance to European history. Sometimes they may seem like a cliché, but sometimes, they might be a straight-out surprise.

479 - The battle of Plataeae

When the Persian King Xerxes I (rg. 486-645 BC) launched his infamous Greek campaign in 480 BC, nobody believed that this tiny, poor and unorganised collection of warring city states would ever be able to put anything against him. Sure, the Greeks had previously beaten the Persians, ten years before at Marathon; but at that time, the Persians did not seriously intend to conquer mainland Greece. King Darius I only sent out to recapture lost territories and punish what he considered a treacherous ally.


It was different in 480. Whatever his motivations may have been, King Xerxes, son of Darius, wanted to conquer Greece and incorporate it to the Persian Empire. I have discussed the actual size of his army before; but in any case, what Xerxes came up with seemed like an idiot-proof plan: The seemingly unlimited resources of the largest empire the world had seen to that point against a handful of mountain tribes. It was a sure thing. So sure that even the Carthaginians allied with Xerxes, just to be on the winner’s side and not become a Persian province themselves some time in the future.


Two things made Xerxes’ plan fail: A sudden sense of unity in Greece, and Greek geography. Despite being arch-enemies, the Greek cities of Athens and Sparta allied and vowed to stand together, along with a number of other city states. Only few Greek territories chose to stay neutral and even less sided with the Persians.


At the same time, the Persians underestimated the viciousness of Greek terrain. Be it the bottleneck of the Thermopyles or the unrest of the Aegean Sea, Xerxes’ army was held up long enough for the Greeks to evacuate their territories, mostly Athens and Attica, and come up with a strategy to beat the Persians. Truth be told, in the small-scaled Greek countryside, the size of the Persian army was a major disadvantage. Try to imagine a narrow corridor with concrete walls and a huge Stalin-eque tank running through it and you’ve got a picture of what the Persian situation was like. Add to that the fact that the Greeks knew how to deal with their country, and the Persians didn’t- the Greeks had the superior army. Quality won over quantity. After decisive victories at Salamis (480), Plataeae and Mycale (both 479), the Greeks expelled the Persians from their country for good. No Persian army would ever set foot on mainland Europe again.


I am a bit wary when people cite this as a victory of freedom over slavery and all that sort of stuff. Being a part of the Persian Empire wasn’t all that bad. Persian rule usually reduced itself to two things: A governor appointed by the Great King, but with a few notable exceptions usually part of the local aristocracy, and the fact that the province had to pay taxes to Persia. In times of war, the provinces also had to send soldiers to the imperial army, but this only happened a few times in the 200-year long history of the empire. The comparison of the Greeks serving nobody, and the Persians being slaves to their king is also poor: Both the Greeks and the Persians alike served their gods. The only basic difference is that the Persians believed their king was appointed by the Gods, hence disloyalty to the king was blasphemy. From a theological perspective, there is no difference. In fact, Zoroastrian theology explicitly states that it is a peoples right to rid themselves of an unjust ruler.


These thoughts aside, it remains undisputed that the Greek victories at Salamis and Plataeae were defining moments in European history. Whatever would have happened after a Persian victory, good or bad, it would have been profoundly different. To clarify this importance, we only need to ask ourselves a few questions. Without the Athenian expansion and hegemony in the 5th century BC, would the Athenian agora have become a place of intellectual and cultural discourse that brought together Socrates, Sophocles, Aeschylus, Phidias and Hippocrates? Would Plato have founded his academy? Would Thucydides have developed the scientific method if Persian overlords prevented the terrible wars between Athens and Sparta? Would Aristotle have developed his ideas of science and logic if the Macedonian kings would not have gathered the greatest thinkers of their time to compete with the southern Greek states?


Ancient Greece laid the foundation of what we today know as the European civilisation and all that derived from it. The only danger to be faced when arguing that the Greek-Persian struggle originally kick-started the development of Hellenic civilisation is that the analogy is carried to the modern world. Despite this historic fact, there is no inherent struggle of East vs West by which either civilisation is defined. Moreover: Even though Europe’s spiritual genesis lies in ancient Greece, the influence of neighbouring – oriental – cultures is profound. Clio likes to deceive us into drawing easy conclusions by offering simple, superficial facts, but historic truth is always much more complex.

Hermann was not German

2009 is a very "German" year - it sees the 20th celebration of the fall of the Berlin Wall (which I already addressed), the 60th anniversary of the foundation of the German Federal Republic (a point which I will address in a future post), the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of the Second World War (a point which I will probably come to at some point as well) and the 2000th anniversary of the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest.

The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest is something that has moved German historians and nationalists alike for nearly two hundred years now. Many have called it the "Big Bang" of German history, and named Arminius, the battle's protagonist, the "first German". When I read things like that, I personally wish these historians and journalists have their respective degrees and/or licenses revoked. But first things first: What was the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest?

When Julius Caesar conquered Gaul, he set up a border between the Roman Empire and what he defined as Germania (I will not come to the details and inaccuracies of this, it may be the subject of a later post as well), which was essentially the course of the Rhine river. Caesar himself had led two expeditions to the Germanic territories, which lay east of the Rhine, but not with the intention to conquer them, but to keep his back free for his Gaulic campaign; Germanic forces had repeatedly threatened the Romans at that time.

A few decades later, emperor Augustus wanted to end the latent threat Germania posed to the Roman Empire, and decided to conquer the territory. The initial campaign was successful, and a new province, Germania Magna was established, that ranged from the Alps and the Rhine to the Elba river. German archaeologists have uncovered numerous remains that suggest profound Roman colonisation deep in this territory, which is not mentioned anywhere in the written sources we know.

Like anywhere else, the Romans commanded the new province by the means of divide et impera, much rather allying themselves with local Germanic tribes than implementing direct military control, even though the number of Roman legions garrisoned within the province (mostly around the Ruhr area) was comparatively high. But had the conquest and subsequent pacification of Gaul been completed within a mere eight years, the new Germanic province proved to be much more troublesome. The string of military operations did not end, and new troublespots appeared almost constantly. Eventually, as in Gaul in 53 BC, a new character appeared that posed a serious threat to the Roman forces.

This man was Arminius, a nobleman of the Germanic tribe of the Cherusci. He had served the Roman army for a while, was a Roman citizen and considered an ally by the Romans. Arminius saw the possibility that lay in unifying various Germanic tribes under his command. This unification is seen as the first idea of a German nation by modern historians - a view that is not only anachronistic, but a gross distortion of the facts. Anyway, in 9 AD, this Germanic confederation lured three Roman legions under the command of Publius Quinctilius Varus into the deep Germanic forest and practically annihilated them. Although this did not mark the end of the Roman occupation of Germania, it was a turning point, and the province was eventually given up by emperor Tiberius, and nobody ever spoke of it again.

Although archaeological surveys have uncovered several battlefields in the region of the Teutoburg Forest, none of them could ever be positively identified as the site of the Varus-Battle, as it is called in Germany. This did not prevent German nationalists of the 19th century to declare the town of Detmold to be the battlesite, and erect a huge monument dedicated to Arminius - or Hermann the Cheruscian as he was now called - here. Incidentally, this monument is known as Hermann the German in the English-speaking world.

Notwithstanding the fact that Arminius was murdered several years after the battle, and the Germanic coalition broke apart over the question whether it should turn into a big Germanic empire, and the fact that a German nation state was founded only 1862 years after the battle, the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest is, in the same vein as 19th century nationalism, now again considered the foundation of the German nation by many.

Let's dig a bit deeper here. It is not so obvious in English, given that Germany and Germania are technically the same word - or at least the one is derived from the other - but they describe two completely different things. It becomes much clearer when you consider the German word for Germany: Deutschland. Germania, for that matter, is referred to in Germany as Germanien. So what do these two words mean, and what is the difference between them? Let's start with the term German.

When they did not simply call them Barbarii, or named them by their individual tribal names, the Romans referred to the Germanic people as Germanii. That name was and is applied to Goths, Vandals, Franks, Langobards and whatnot, and is now even used to refer to the Norse people. For once, this is not a stupid idea the Romans came up with, but Caesar (who introduced the term to the Roman world) took that designation from the Celts. In truth, the Germani were one of the many tribes that were later lumped together under that term. They were simply the ones the Celts had the most to do with, and so they started using that name for all the people who lived east of their territories. Germania was then used by the Romans to name the territory of uncertain boundaries that was inhabited by these tribes. That's quite simply all there is to it.

And it is in fact not very different with the term Deutsch either. The word has been around in one form or the other since antiquity, and was used during the Middle Ages mostly as a name for the German language(s), and then as a rather obscure term for "people". The word derives from Teuton, the name of a Germanic tribe that settled in the far north of modern-day Germany and parts of Denmark. They had their fifteen minutes of fame when they (along with the Cimbri) migrated south around 100 BC and threatened the Roman Empire, but were decisively defeated by the Roman general Marius. This was the first contact the Romans had with any Germanic tribe, and so the label Teuton kind of stuck and never quite went away. By the Middle Ages, Teutonic had become the self-designation of the Germans, while Germanic or German was the word foreigners used for them.

Now the bulk of what the Romans knew as Germanii migrated from their homelands (which were by no means identical with modern-day Germany) in the 4th, 5th and 6th centuries AD. They founded kingdoms in what is now France, Spain, Italy, Britain and Tunisia, some short-lived, others, like France, in essence still existing today. Some Germanic tribes however remained where they were, in the area between Rhine and Elba. Those were different tribes than those the Romans had met in classical antiquity. Gone were the Cheruscans and Marcomanns, who had been the prominent antagonists of the Romans back in the day. The tribes who now resided here were basically new ones: Saxons, Thuringians, Baiuwars and Allamanns. The political body they were now to live in was forged by the Franks, another Germanic tribe. So can we call this "Germany"?

No.

The people of that time called it the Frankish Empire (Regnum Francorum). That is, until 800. Then people called it- the Roman Empire. Confused yet?

Charlemagne, the king of the Frankish Empire, was crowned Roman Emperor by the Pope in 800. By definition of the time, the Roman Empire had never fallen. And it would have been pretty terrible if it had, because the Biblical prophet Daniel had predicted the end of the world after the fall of what was interpreted to be the Roman Empire (Dan:2). So the people of the Middle Ages were pretty keen on keeping the Roman tradition alive, and believed in the end that Rome had changed from a political entity with a number of religions inside to a religious entity with a number of political ones (translatio imperii). Moreover, the Roman Empire had passed from the hands of the Romans themselves to the Greeks (Byzantines), to the Franks, who were Catholic, and hence more true to the faith.

But that is not all. When Charlemagne died, his empire got divided among his sons, according to Frankish tradition. Only one of them, however, could carry on the heritage of the Roman Empire. After what is essentially a huge mess, it turned out like this: The Frankish Empire was permanently divided into two separate ones, the West Frankish one, which would go on to become France, and the East Frankish one, which was now considered the Roman Empire, because it also contained large parts of Italy, including Rome itself. Control of the Roman Empire soon passed from the Frankish Carolingian dynasty to the Saxon Ottonic dynasty. Then the Frankish Salians took over, and eventually the Swabonian Staufers (who renamed the thing into Holy Roman Empire), and so on.

So can we finally call this Germany? I wouldn't. Some do, however. Fact is that throughout the Middle Ages, it was only called the (Holy) Roman Empire, and the word German or Deutsch was merely used to distinguish one part of the population from others, such as Italians or Slavs. In fact, one of the major principalities of the Holy Roman Empires was Bohemia, basically the modern-day Czech Republic. It was later acknowledged that the Holy Roman Empire was in possession of the Germans by extending its name to Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, but that never quite caught on. By that time, the Empire itself was not of any importance anymore, and the individual principalities tended to go their own way without even thinking about whether they were German or not. In fact, in the years prior to Napoleon, Prussia was at the verge of developing for itself a combined German and Polish identity.

It was only during the French occupation of the Napoleonic Wars that the Germans started developing the idea of their own nation, and the desire to create one unified German nation state. So while there has been a distinguished German culture for many, many centuries, and you can speak of a German history ever since the days of Charlemagne or perhaps prior, you cannot speak of a history of Germany before the days of Napoleon. Any attempt to trace this idea to an earlier moment in time is, in my opinion, a gross falsification of history.

Thermopylae: Killing a Sacred Cow

The Battle of Thermopylae hardly needs any introduction. It is one of the most famous and inspiring battles in European history. The last stand of three hundred Spartans against an overwhelming force of Persians, facing certain death, yet willing to remain free to the last breath… alright, let’s cut that crap.

The battle wasn’t all that great. It has been romanticised on end, and I know everybody who is reading this will first think of the film 300 that was all the rage and led everybody who has never known the first thing about ancient Greece to scream “This is SPARTAAA!!!!111 LOLZORZ!!!” And along came the amateur historians, who have read parts of the historical background section in the Age of Empires Help file and have it all worked out now. You can read their comments on Youtube, and random internet forums that have a History section.

I liked the film, even though I had turned in a term paper named Sparta in the Persian Wars the same day I saw the movie, and am now doing Iranian Studies. I liked it, and I thought it was pretty cool, but that is because I can separate history from fantasy. The film took a historical subject that wasn’t really all that cool, but had already been distorted in collective memory anyway (it’s not like 300 popularised the battle, it merely brought its popularity to the 21^st century), twisted it some more, added a queer Persian King and a giant with scissors for hands (I suppose Johnny Depp wasn’t available that day?) and cashed in on the success.

When it came to the story itself, the film, and I suppose the comic it was based on, is surprisingly close to what has been written about the battle. You can read the accounts of the battle in the Histories of Herodotus and the work of Diodorus Siculus. Even some of the one-liners are there, including “Tonight, we dine in Hell!” Believe it or not.

So, why wasn’t the battle all that great? I am not going to recount the entire story, which you can read up on thousands of pages on the net. But I am going to point out some of the things that are sometimes a bit disregarded. First of all, the Persian army did not consist of millions, as some of the more dramatic accounts like to say. Modern historians have well-reasoned estimations of perhaps 200,000 men under Xerxes’ command. Mind you, that is still an amazingly big number, even by today’s standards. Then, the Greek army that stood at Thermopylae wasn’t that small. Yes, there were 300 Spartans, and they were the ones in command. But for some reason, people always forget the several thousands of other Greek soldiers that were there. While it is true that many had left or died by the final day, and that the 300 Spartans all died, there were still up to 1,500 Greeks left then. I don’t even know why people keep forgetting them, even Herodotus mentions them.

So if we go by the numbers of 200,000 vs 5,000 to 11,000 according to various Greek accounts, it doesn’t look that spectacular anymore. The spectacle fails especially when you consider that it was not an open battlefield, but a narrow pass that was deemed impossible to surround. Battles like this happened every once in a while in history, because passes are so amazingly easy to defend. They held up Alexander the Great, Hannibal and the entire British Empire. Mountain passes have always been the ideal defence position, and numerical superiority loses much of its effect here. In fact, at Thermopylae, it became completely irrelevant, until the Persians managed to surround the pass.

More importantly, the motivation that the Greeks would stand there to their death and take as many Persians with them as possible is plain wrong. The strategy behind Thermopylae was very pragmatic, and in fact, by today’s standards would be considered pretty ruthless. The idea was that the Greeks hold up the Persians at Thermopylae for several days so the city of Athens could be evacuated. Then they would retreat to the Isthmus of Corinth, which was an even better defence position, especially when considering that the entire Peloponnesian Peninsula with enough back-up troops was at their back, so the Greeks could simply drive the Persians to the sea if they had enough. The destruction of Athens was, well, taken into account.

In romantic distortion, Thermopylae is a nice and inspiring story. In historical fact, it is still pretty impressive, but not all that great indeed.