Now before I start, I liked the movie 300
and was OK with the sequel. But to be clear they were adaptions of a comic book
series by Frank Miller. In that they more than succeeded in bringing his vision
and art to the big screen. However both films do have their inaccuracies.
Because the films and events depicted, overlap one another I will present the
facts as they happened, pointing out the inaccuracies in the films.
Pre-Marathon
-Because of Athenian involvement in Ionian
city-states, around the Western waters and land of modern day Turkey to revolt
and establish democracies, the Persians planned an invasion. This was to
re-establish a deposed Athenian tyrant and to force Athenian submission to
Persia.
-Darius demanded earth and water as tokens
of submission to Persia. Sparta throws the emissaries down a well and Athens
put them on trial and executes them. In the film 300 they are depicted as
happening later, pre-Thermopylae.
Battle Of Marathon
-Neither Darius nor Xerses were present at
the battle.
-Themistocles was possibly one of ten
strategoi or generals, not the sole general.
-Darius died in Egypt suppressing a revolt,
not while observing the battle.
-Athenian forces attacked because the
Persian Calvary was sent to sea on Persian ships to outflank the Athenians and
assault Athens. The cavalry was very effective against the Greek Hoplites so
upon learning they were gone, the Athenians made the assault.
Post-Marathon
-Xerxes did not bathe in glowing liquid and
become a basketball sized giant.
-Artemesia was not present at the Persian
court.
Pre-Thermopylae
-Darius was raising an army to take Greece.
Xerxes took over this plan after his father's death.
-Xerses did build a bridge of boats across
the Hellspoint. This is after trying several times, losing many ships and
having the waters whipped in order to obey him.
-The Athenian leader Themistocles suggested
mustering troops at Thermopylae, not Leonidas.
-Sparta was celebrating Carnia and the
Olympic games were occurring when the Persian were marching South. Both
activities precluded engaging in military action by law.
-Sparta consulted the Oracle earlier in the
year. She did not float in slow motion like the film but probably breathed in
fumes from fissures at the Temple of Apollo and the priests
"translated". The Oracle predicted that he was to die.
-Leonidas did choose 300 warriors to
accompany him and they all were chosen because they had living sons. He also gathered
other soldiers along the way, approximately 7000 of them.
-Persia had between 100,000 and 150,000
soldiers and a large navy.
-Greek navy ships blockaded the straights
of Artemesium to prevent Persian ships from outflanking the Greeks. It was not
a big storm like in the movie.
Thermopylae
-The middle gate was the thinnest portion
of the pass and had a defensive wall built earlier by the Phocians.
-There was a mountain track that could be
used to outflank him. Here he deployed 1,000 Phocians.
-It was before the fighting that either
Leonidas or a soldier Dienekes said that it would be good to fight in the shade
after being told that the Persian arrows could blot out the sun.
-Xerses sent an emissary to bribe the
Spartans with better land and the title "Friends of the Persian
People". When he refused and were told to hand over their weapons, the
emissary was told to "Come and take them".
-Greeks held the pass for seven days.
Xerses waited four days before attacking to give the Greeks a chance to retreat.
-The first day of fighting had five
thousand archers attack, then groups of Persians sending in ten thousand men in
at a time. Greeks set up in front of the wall and had the better defensible
position so they never attacked. In fact a common tactic was to feign retreat
and then quickly turn around and cut down the Persian chasing after them. Units
were rotated through the front lines by city state, as their training was the
same. The elite Persian Immortals were sent in but did not fare any better.
-The second day of fighting had more of the
same but Xerses found out about the mountain pass. He dispatched Hydames with
twenty thousand troops to the pass in order to encircle the Greeks.
-On the third day of fighting after the
Persians discovered the mountain pass and were fighting their way around the
Greeks to flank them, Leonidas kept 300 Spartans, 700 Thespians, 400 Thebians,
900 Helots and the Phocians who were at the pass. The rest he sent away. He
then led an assault against the advancing Persians. Leonidas was killed as well
as Xerses's two brothers. After the Greeks retreated behind the wall, the
Persians eventually tore it down and surrounded the Greeks on Kolonos hill. It
is here that the survivors were killed by volley after volley of arrows.
-Final estimated totals are that the Greeks
killed 10 Persians for every one of theirs lost, a staggering achievement. If
the Greeks delayed the Persians for longer, not only would the Persians have
lost more soldiers but it required an awful lot of supplies to keep the army in
one place.
Post-Thermopylae
-Unlike other honorable and valiant
opponents to Persia, Xerses had Leonidas decapitated and the body crucified. It
seems Xerses had a temper (see earlier note about him whipping the
Hellspointe).
-Greek navy retreats to the Saronic gulf
and ferry the remaining Athenian citizens to Salmis island.
-Persian military moved South and sacked
city states that did not submit to Persia. This included Athens.
Pre-Salmis
-Nations of the Peloponnese demolish the
road leading through the Corinthian Isthmus and built a wall across it. Greece
needed a naval victory to ensure that the Peloponnese could not be taken.
-Themistocles argues for an attack on the Persian navy. Although Greece suffered heavy losses at Artemisium, they delivered heavy losses to Persia when fighting in close conditions. The Peloponnesian ships threatened to leave to defend their lands rather than risk their ships in a major battle.
-Themistocles argues for an attack on the Persian navy. Although Greece suffered heavy losses at Artemisium, they delivered heavy losses to Persia when fighting in close conditions. The Peloponnesian ships threatened to leave to defend their lands rather than risk their ships in a major battle.
-Xerses held his war council in Athens
after it was sacked. Artemsia, a Queen of Halicarnassus who was in command of
five ships, advised Mardonius to wait for Greece to surrender. She knew that
Persian ships are unsuited to the tight waters due to her experience at
Artemisium. The other advisors thought otherwise and although Xerses
appreciated her advice, thought that the Persians did not win at Artemisia
because he was not there to witness it. This time he would.
-Xerses wanted to take Greece in one year
because of the disadvantage of maintaining and feeding his massive army abroad.
He also was worried about the potential for revolts back in Persian lands.
-Just before the day of the battle
Themistoles sent a servant, Sicinnus, to tell Xerses that he was on his side
and that the Peloponnesian ships would leave the next day. Xerses took the bait
and sent ships to block the southern exit of the straights. They would not be
present for the naval battle to come. Once word got to the Greeks that the
Persians had sent ships to block them off, the Peloponnesians stopped
threatening to leave.
-The Persians had two to three times as
many ships than the Greeks. Approximately 700 to 1200 to 371.
Salmis
-Persia, despite having better trained
crews, lost many of their ships by chasing the Greek ships they believed were
fleeing. Instead the Greek ships turned as the Persians were rounding the
Island and disorganized. The extra troops onboard enabled for more effective
boarding actions.
-The Persian leader on the left flank,
Ariabignes (who was a brother of Xerses) died early in the battle. This event
assisted in the Greek victory. Many Phonecian ships were disorganized and ran
aground.
-The Greek fleet engaged the Persian line
and broke through the middle, splitting the Persians.
-Artemesia used subterfuge by putting up a
Greek flag when she was near Greek ships to fool them and then attack when
their guard was down. Xerses, upon seeing her destroy a ship made the comment,
“My men have become women and my women men”. There was a bounty on Artemesia’s
head as the Greek were dismayed that a Greek woman was fighting for the
Persians against Greece.
-There was no Spartan mega-fleet rescue, as
portrayed in the film. They only had 16 ships in the naval battle.
Post-Salmis
-With the Persians defeated and on the run,
Xerses was worried about events at home. Based on advice from Artemesia and
with Babylon causing unrest and the Greek fleet a treat to the pontoon bridge
at the Hellspointe, he and a large portion of his forces went back to Persia.
He was assassinated by the commander of his Royal Guard, Artabanus.
-Artemesia returned the body of Ariabignes
to Xerses after the battle. She was given Xerses bastard sons to take care of
and escort to Persia by sea. She returned to her islands and continued to rule
there.
-Mardonius took the remaining troops North,
sacked Athens again the next year and lost at the battle of Plataea. Persia was
no longer a threat to Greece.
-Themistocles was ostracized from Athens
because of his fortification of Athens, ego and implication in a plot to help
Persia retake Greece. He fled to Persia, now under King Artaxerses, and became
Governor of Magnesia until his death when his name was again honored in Greece.
-Greek influence increased to the North and
East of Greece while Persian might decreased. Many nations, city states and
islands became self-governing.
Bibliography
Barry S Strauss;
Battle of Salmis
Herodotus; HistoriesWikipedia: Marathon
Thermopylae
Salmis
Artemesia
Themistocles
No comments:
Post a Comment