May 9, 2011 • 20 mins
It's the three-hundredth episode of your favorite history podcast, and what better way to celebrate than to take a closer look at real story behind the blockbuster film 300? Listen in and learn more in this episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm to bring a truck rewarding and I'm fair Dowdy
and you are joining us today for a very special episode.
(00:21):
It is our three hundredth episode. Yeah, we started way back,
well not we personally, but um the podcast started way
back in two thousand eight, and there have been many
many episodes since then. So for this very special anniversary,
we thought it would only be fitting. We thought it
would be a great time to fulfill a listener request
(00:41):
regarding this. A very number over the past couple of
years several people have contacted us regarding the two thousand
six movie three hundred, directed by Zack Snyder, and it's
about a battle between the Greeks and the Persians. A
king named Leonidas or Leonidas as the movie as they
pronounced it in the movie, leads three hundred spartans, all
(01:02):
with perfect abdominal muscles for some reason, into battle against
the army of Xerxes, the first which outnumbers there's exponentially. Yeah,
and the screenplay was of course based on a graphic
novel by Frank Miller, but listeners wanted to know if
there was some historical truth behind this story, and in fact,
there was some truth. That's the Battle of Thermopoli and
(01:24):
it took place in four a d b C. And
it was instigated at least in part by another battle
that we've already covered, the Battle of Marathon. And this
really is perfect podcast symmetry because probably none of you
know this, but Dablina's test episode was the Battle of Marathon.
And here we are at episode number three hundred. Yes,
and this is this could really be a part two
(01:44):
to that episode. The Battle of Marathon took place in
four nine d b C between the Athenians and the Persians,
and it was another one in which the Greeks were
greatly outnumbered, but they still managed to win, and so
that meant major humiliation for the then Persian king Darius
the First. So in this episode we're going to fast
forward ten years and Darius his son Xerxies the First
(02:05):
as king and he'd taken over the Persian Empire when
Darius died in four eight six BC. Yeah, and at first,
Serxies wasn't that interested in avenging his father's defeat at
the Battle of Marathon. It was kind of the last
thing on his to do list, but a couple of
things might have changed his mind. According to Encyclopedia Britannica,
this is kind of a standard reason. His cousin and
(02:26):
brother in law Mardonius, who was supported by this strong
party of exiled Greeks, might have talked him into it.
The other, more colorful reason, according to an article in
Military History by David Fry, was that there was this
mystical cause behind it. A phantom supposedly appeared in serxies
dreams urging him to invade Greece and avenge his father
(02:49):
and his magi interpreted it as a portent for world conquest.
So Erxies, being an ambitious guy, decided to go for it. Yeah,
and so he spent the next three to four years
building the Ultimate Army. He enlisted soldiers and gathered supplies
from pretty much every part of his empire, which is substantial,
(03:09):
as we mentioned in the Battle of Marathon of the
Quite And according to Herodotus, the Greek historian who gives
us the earliest account of a lot of these episodes
that we we cover, but of this story as well,
he says that an effort like this had never been
undertaken before, and he estimated the Xerxes army included about
two point six million people, including the navy, and once
(03:31):
he added in the servants, cruise and all the rest
of the people involved, that number might have been doubled. Yeah,
but Herodotus is of course prone to sort of overestimating things,
and modern historians think that the number is probably more
around two hundred thousand to three hundred sixty thousand, but
still a really enormous number and a really frightening army.
(03:52):
So with such an army, because he's probably didn't expect
much resistance at all from the Greek, So like Darius,
he sent messengers to the Greek city dates, demanding surrender
in the typical fashion, with the typical tokens of submission
at the time, which were earth and water. So what
this meant is that you were conceding that the land
and the sea belonged to the Persian king. Many Greek
(04:13):
towns did surrender in this case. Yeah, but Xerxes didn't
even bother sending messengers this time to Athens and Sparta
because of the trouble they faith last time. If you
remember in the Marathon podcast, the messengers were just killed outright,
so he figured between him and Athens and Sparta, they
were all on the same page. They knew it was
going to be a fight. Yeah, and you might actually
(04:35):
remember this part from the movie. That's one sort of
difference in the story. In the movie, he does send
the messenger to Sparta, and that's kind of the famous
scene where Leonidas kicks the messenger into the well. Some
good movie drama. Definitely. Yeah, so his intentions known at
this point, Xerxes has a bridge built of boats built
across the Hell of spont which is the narrow strait
(04:56):
of water that separates Europe and Asia. A storm, however,
destroyed that bridge before they could cross it. Xerxes is
so mad about this he ordered that the waters be whipped.
They were given three hundred lashes to be exact, and
then he beheaded the engineers. So they didn't come out
so well in this. But then he gets some new
engineers and builds two new bridges of ships tied side
(05:18):
by side, and his army marches across them to advance
into Greece. Yeah. Meanwhile, though, of course, the Greeks aren't
just sitting around waiting for it to happen. They knew,
or at least the cities who didn't submit, knew, that
they had a better chance defending themselves against the Persians
if they banded together and coordinated a defense. So they
decided they'd meet the enemy at Thermopoli, which was a
(05:39):
mountain pass that was the best and the easiest route
to get into central Greece. So they knew that Xerxes
and his army would have to go through that pass
if they were going to attack Athens are Sparta. Fortunately
for the Greeks, it was a really good defensive spot
because the pass was very narrow, is only fifty ft wide,
and it had water and mountains on each side, so
(05:59):
it made it easier for a very small force or
a smaller force like the Greeks to hold back this
large Persian army, and the Greeks figured that this was
their best chance to at least delay the Persians if
nothing else right. But the total number of Greeks who
went out to Thermopoly may vary depending on what source
you look at. It was probably somewhere around seven thousand,
(06:22):
though maybe as few as four thousand, nine hundred. But
one thing we do find that's consistent is that there
were three hundred Spartans involved, and the three hundred were
handpicked by King Leoni. Does he chose these men basically
to die? They were all middle aged men with children
that they could leave behind his heirs and as far
as his own destiny was concerned, And Oracle had told
(06:44):
him Sparta must either lose a king or see the
city destroyed. So we're guessing in this case he figured
he wasn't coming back as well. I found it interesting
too that the requirement of children is so it ends
with how we would normally think of picking a troop
of men to die. You'd pick younger, unattached men. But
they had certain different values in Sparta clearly. Yeah. Well,
(07:05):
they were warriors and they wanted to have people there
to take their place once they were gone. Yeah. So
Leonidas was not just in charge though, of these three
hundred elite fighters. He was also in overall command of
the entire Greek army. And he led them to Thermopola,
and fortunately they got there first, it was still unoccupied
and they just sort of started getting ready. There were
(07:27):
hot springs there, which gave the past its name, and
there was a ruined wall and a gate, and they
rushed to rebuild these two increasingly fortify their defense. Right,
so they're getting ready and before the Persian army actually
makes it onto the scene, they sent had a scout
to check out what the Greeks are up to, and
they were shocked at what they found and a little
(07:48):
bit amused as well. They found Spartans naked and exercising
or lounging about, combing their hair, assumably doing ab exercises
right exactly, But I mean Xerxes may have laughed tear
but what he didn't know is that Spartan warriors always
did this kind of stuff before they went into battle,
fixing their hair and so forth. And the Greeks they
also got a little intel on the Persians as well.
(08:10):
They sent out a scalt, but they're they're I guess
information that they found wasn't quite as little more was
a little scarier. They found out about the size of
the Persian army in particular, And just to kind of
give you an example of the reaction. Before the battle,
a Spartan name Dionysis was told that when Persian archers
let loose a volley, their arrows would hide the sun
(08:31):
just because of the sheer volume of them Dionysis, though
he wasn't that impressed by it. He said, quote for
if the Persians hide the sun, we shall fight in
the shade. Yeah. So they're they're all tough on both sides, clearly,
But Xerxes expected the Greeks to be a little more frightened. He,
after all, did have this huge army that he had
(08:51):
been assembling for years and years, and so when the
Persians finally arrived, they camped a short distance from the
past and basically had a stand off for four days.
And it's interesting this happens a lot in these ancient
battle podcasts. Both sides finally get there and then they
just wait for days and days, And I cannot comprehend
the agony that that would be, just sitting around waiting
(09:13):
for something to happen. But Xerxes expects the Greeks to
turn tail and run, to just get frightened by the
overall size of the Persian army. Yeah. They didn't, though,
and this makes Cerxies really angry. I mean, this is
the guy who lashed the water for ruining his bridge,
so he's ready to take it out on them. So
on the fifth day, which may have been around Auguste
(09:35):
for a d b C. The Persians sent in their
first wave of troops and they suffered really terrible losses.
So Xerxes is even more mad at this point, so
he sends in his toughest guys, his most esteemed unit,
which was the Immortals. Yeah, and they're called the immortals
not because they were invincible, but because they seem that way.
(09:56):
It always seemed to be a ten thousand men strong
group when whenever one was killed or wounded or sick,
they would just replace him before anybody could tell the difference. Yeah. So,
if you've seen the movie three hundred, they're the ones
who are wearing all black and they have these metallic
masks on and they're described in the movie as having
their teeth filed two points and no souls. That's my
(10:17):
favorite part. I watched the clip from the movie before
before going into recording, and it was a little bit
amusing and a little bit like the dementures almost they
were spooky, though they were definitely spooky, but the Greeks
didn't have much trouble with them either, And it all
came down to the battlefield being such a tight space,
which gave the Greek's real tactical advantage here. First of all,
(10:39):
it prevented the Persians from fighting the way that they
were trained to fight. They couldn't use their bow and arrows,
and they only had wicker shields, daggers, short spears, and
pretty much no arm or very little armor, so they
just weren't equipped for hand to hand combat, which is
what it came to. Yeah, and the Greeks, on the
other hand, had their heavy armor and their long spears
that could reach the shorter Persian swords, and they could
(11:02):
create these walls with the shields locking them all together.
And military history describes this standard tactic of Greek fighting
is shock warfare, and the experienced Spartan warriors could just
come out from behind the walls and fight fiercely for
a few minutes and then pretend to retreat in order
to further draw the Persians in, making it worse and
(11:25):
worse for them. Yeah, and if you want to learn
a little bit more about these Greek fighting tactics, that
Battle of Marathon episode that we mentioned has a lot
of those details in there, so check that out if
you want to find out a little more along those lines.
But this fighting style worked for the Greeks for the
first two days, and they successfully held the Persians off.
And there's there's really no telling how long it could
(11:46):
have worked if they had had the chance to keep
doing what they were doing. But we'll never really know
because on the third day, a local man named of
Faalties betrayed the Greeks and gave away this little secret
that they had. Yeah, and that's the The Greeks few
days earlier, when they had arrived, had discovered that there
was this small path through the mountains that led around
(12:06):
the path, so basically behind the Greeks and Leonidas of
course knew about this path and he had left a
small contingent there to guard it, but the contingent was
really just to give warning in case the Persians did
discover it. There were no natural defenses there, and they
knew that if the Persians found it, it was gonna
be a big blow to their fighting style. When they
(12:28):
found out about the secret path, a Zerxes immediately sent
the immortals at the path if Feyalties, probably motivated by greed,
probably getting paid somehow, he led them there and they
surprised the Greeks who were guarding the path, but lookouts
managed to race down and warn Leonidas, so he had
to make a decision at that point. So he had
a little pow wow, and he made a decision that
(12:49):
some people still kind of question. He decided to send
most of the city state's contingents home so they could
live to fight another day to defend the city's right,
but he decided that he and his three hundred Spartans
would stay behind and pretty much face certain death. The
Thespians also stayed along with them. They volunteered to They
basically just considered it an honor to die fighting. Besides Spartans,
(13:12):
Thebans were also kept there, but they were kept as hostages.
They were kept that way because they were suspected of
having Persian sympathies, and basically that turned out to be
true because they ended up surrendering to the Persians before
the fighting really began. Yeah, but all the Greeks who
stayed to fight in that last battle died, including Leonidas.
His his oracles prediction was was true and Erxies won
(13:35):
that battle. But the Greeks did eventually defeat the Persians,
and later they put up memorials commemorating this big sacrifice
at Thermopoli, and one is dedicated to the three hundred
Spartans specifically, and it reads, quote, go tell the Spartans
stranger passing by that here obeying their commands, we lie. Yeah.
(13:55):
That pretty much sums up pretty dramatic the story, and
overall it seems like the movie stays pretty true to
the basics of the battle, although some of the characterizations
maybe a little bit off. The Persians, for example, they
didn't bring along elephants and rhinos to charge along with
them Erxes. According to a little comparison done and Entertainment Weekly,
which I found kind of interesting, they said that Xerxes
(14:18):
probably had a long zz top beard instead of being
totally bald and kind of tattooed car right, and the
Failties probably wasn't a hunchback. And we're not even really
sure if he was truly a Spartan as he's portrayed
in the movie. We just know the only thing that
greed was clearly a motivation, so and that he was Greek. Yeah,
that he was Greek. So there were some casting changes
(14:40):
to make things a little more dramatic and add a
couple minor storylines, but the essence of the story seems
pretty close. There's courage against horrible odds and and ultimately
a victory. Yeah. And I love those stories as courage
against underdog stories, underdog stories. Yeah, and we've done a
lot of great stories in this podcast throughout these three
(15:04):
hundred episodes. And I would love to know since I
haven't been on the podcast that long, I really want
to know, Sarah, what are your favorite episodes? Well, I'm
not going to just tell you some of my favorite episodes,
but I went and asked a few people involved in
the podcast, old podcast hosts, our producer, our editor, you know,
people who have been there from the beginning, what their
favorite episodes were. Yeah. Can we just mention also all
(15:26):
the people who have been involved since the beginning. Yeah,
it started with Candice and Josh. I didn't get to
ask Josh he's not at work this week, but I
did talk to Candice and she said that her favorite
episodes were, hands down, quote Marie Antoinette and the French Revolution, which,
if any of y'all know Candice, she's a big French
history buff. So that's Katie's favorite episodes are along a
(15:50):
kind of different line. She really loved the expeditions and
adventure tales like Franklin's Lost Expedition, Ghastly Blank, and Race
to the South Pole. She also love the shipwreck that
Saved James Town and real life Moby Dick Sinks the Ship. Yeah,
and I didn't get to talk to Jane either because
she just got married. I figured she didn't want to
gab about some old podcast episodes. But I did ask Lizzie,
(16:13):
who who has edited the podcast for a long time.
She had a lot of old favorites. Why did Lady
Godiva take a naked horse ride that's probably one of
goody Body's favorites. Had a respute and really Die, which
was also our producer Jerry's favorite, How Lord Byron worked,
how Charlie Chaplin worked, the Craft's Escaped to Freedom, which
(16:33):
is one of my favorites from from recently, and Don't
Cross the Dragon Lady, which Deplina that was? That was
when you picked out and um, I guess my own favorites.
I have so many. I had a huge list and
I really had to to narrow it down a little bit.
But I really like the really weird Royalty episodes like
(16:54):
the Elizabeth and Mary series and Ludvig the second. I
think everybody probably knows that's one of my favorite. I
also like the adventure literary combo episodes like the Jamestown
one that that Katie had had mentioned, the Astor Place riots,
and the real life Robinson Crusoe, and strangely, you know,
some of the sports ones I've I've really enjoyed, like
(17:16):
the recent Jimmy Winkfield one and Satchel Page and battle
Horses holds a very special place in my heart. I
just remember having so much fun not just researching that
episode but picking out the entries that were going to
be on it. And I still have the little list
where I've I've like jotted down different battle Horses trying
to trying to pick them out. But what are some
(17:37):
of your favorites. I love the ones where we research
the real person behind the literary characters, so Sherlock Holmes
one of the first ones I did. That was still
one of my favorites, and the real life Robinson Crusoe
that was a fun one to do. I also really
love just the mysteries, the mysterious deaths and mysterious disappearances.
I know those are kind of morbid, but they're really
(17:58):
fascinating to research and find out what people's theories are. So,
Christopher Marlowe, that was a fun one. Sontic SUPERI that
was a really fun one to do too. So I
have so many favorites like you, and I've only been
on it a few months, so so, I mean, we've
had a great time doing the the small percentage of
those three hundred episodes that we've worked on, and um,
(18:19):
we're just we're glad to ring in such a big
number with everybody. Thank you so much for listening, and
send us more suggestions, suggestions for three one. Actually we'll
probably have recorded that one by the time we care,
you know, but um, definitely keep sending things. In Battle
of Marathon was a listener suggestion. The real three hundred
(18:40):
clearly a listener suggestion. Some of y'all give us our
best ideas. Absolutely keep sending them and tell us what
kind of podcasts you like to listen to. We've talked
about that a little bit here, but we'd love to
know what you like to find out about. You can
write us at History Podcast at how stuff works dot com,
or you can look us up on Twitter at Myston
history or on Facebook yeah, and instead of throwing to
(19:01):
an article like we usually do, since this is our
three hundredth anniversary celebration, we're gonna throw to the podcast.
So go check out our archive. We have three hundred
episodes now starting June nine, two eight, back when it
was Fact or Fiction, the little two or three minute podcast.
They're kind of fun to listen to now, and I
won't take you long to get through. No, you'll cover
(19:23):
probably about twenty podcasts within a very short amount of time,
So go check us out. We are on iTunes. We
have an RSS feed on our podcast page and you
can find a lot of that at how stuff Works
at www dot how stuff works dot com. For more
on this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff
(19:45):
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Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm to bring a truck rewarding and I'm fair Dowdy
and you are joining us today for a very special episode.
(00:21):
It is our three hundredth episode. Yeah, we started way back,
well not we personally, but um the podcast started way
back in two thousand eight, and there have been many
many episodes since then. So for this very special anniversary,
we thought it would only be fitting. We thought it
would be a great time to fulfill a listener request
(00:41):
regarding this. A very number over the past couple of
years several people have contacted us regarding the two thousand
six movie three hundred, directed by Zack Snyder, and it's
about a battle between the Greeks and the Persians. A
king named Leonidas or Leonidas as the movie as they
pronounced it in the movie, leads three hundred spartans, all
(01:02):
with perfect abdominal muscles for some reason, into battle against
the army of Xerxes, the first which outnumbers there's exponentially. Yeah,
and the screenplay was of course based on a graphic
novel by Frank Miller, but listeners wanted to know if
there was some historical truth behind this story, and in fact,
there was some truth. That's the Battle of Thermopoli and
(01:24):
it took place in four a d b C. And
it was instigated at least in part by another battle
that we've already covered, the Battle of Marathon. And this
really is perfect podcast symmetry because probably none of you
know this, but Dablina's test episode was the Battle of Marathon.
And here we are at episode number three hundred. Yes,
and this is this could really be a part two
(01:44):
to that episode. The Battle of Marathon took place in
four nine d b C between the Athenians and the Persians,
and it was another one in which the Greeks were
greatly outnumbered, but they still managed to win, and so
that meant major humiliation for the then Persian king Darius
the First. So in this episode we're going to fast
forward ten years and Darius his son Xerxies the First
(02:05):
as king and he'd taken over the Persian Empire when
Darius died in four eight six BC. Yeah, and at first,
Serxies wasn't that interested in avenging his father's defeat at
the Battle of Marathon. It was kind of the last
thing on his to do list, but a couple of
things might have changed his mind. According to Encyclopedia Britannica,
this is kind of a standard reason. His cousin and
(02:26):
brother in law Mardonius, who was supported by this strong
party of exiled Greeks, might have talked him into it.
The other, more colorful reason, according to an article in
Military History by David Fry, was that there was this
mystical cause behind it. A phantom supposedly appeared in serxies
dreams urging him to invade Greece and avenge his father
(02:49):
and his magi interpreted it as a portent for world conquest.
So Erxies, being an ambitious guy, decided to go for it. Yeah,
and so he spent the next three to four years
building the Ultimate Army. He enlisted soldiers and gathered supplies
from pretty much every part of his empire, which is substantial,
(03:09):
as we mentioned in the Battle of Marathon of the
Quite And according to Herodotus, the Greek historian who gives
us the earliest account of a lot of these episodes
that we we cover, but of this story as well,
he says that an effort like this had never been
undertaken before, and he estimated the Xerxes army included about
two point six million people, including the navy, and once
(03:31):
he added in the servants, cruise and all the rest
of the people involved, that number might have been doubled. Yeah,
but Herodotus is of course prone to sort of overestimating things,
and modern historians think that the number is probably more
around two hundred thousand to three hundred sixty thousand, but
still a really enormous number and a really frightening army.
(03:52):
So with such an army, because he's probably didn't expect
much resistance at all from the Greek, So like Darius,
he sent messengers to the Greek city dates, demanding surrender
in the typical fashion, with the typical tokens of submission
at the time, which were earth and water. So what
this meant is that you were conceding that the land
and the sea belonged to the Persian king. Many Greek
(04:13):
towns did surrender in this case. Yeah, but Xerxes didn't
even bother sending messengers this time to Athens and Sparta
because of the trouble they faith last time. If you
remember in the Marathon podcast, the messengers were just killed outright,
so he figured between him and Athens and Sparta, they
were all on the same page. They knew it was
going to be a fight. Yeah, and you might actually
(04:35):
remember this part from the movie. That's one sort of
difference in the story. In the movie, he does send
the messenger to Sparta, and that's kind of the famous
scene where Leonidas kicks the messenger into the well. Some
good movie drama. Definitely. Yeah, so his intentions known at
this point, Xerxes has a bridge built of boats built
across the Hell of spont which is the narrow strait
(04:56):
of water that separates Europe and Asia. A storm, however,
destroyed that bridge before they could cross it. Xerxes is
so mad about this he ordered that the waters be whipped.
They were given three hundred lashes to be exact, and
then he beheaded the engineers. So they didn't come out
so well in this. But then he gets some new
engineers and builds two new bridges of ships tied side
(05:18):
by side, and his army marches across them to advance
into Greece. Yeah. Meanwhile, though, of course, the Greeks aren't
just sitting around waiting for it to happen. They knew,
or at least the cities who didn't submit, knew, that
they had a better chance defending themselves against the Persians
if they banded together and coordinated a defense. So they
decided they'd meet the enemy at Thermopoli, which was a
(05:39):
mountain pass that was the best and the easiest route
to get into central Greece. So they knew that Xerxes
and his army would have to go through that pass
if they were going to attack Athens are Sparta. Fortunately
for the Greeks, it was a really good defensive spot
because the pass was very narrow, is only fifty ft wide,
and it had water and mountains on each side, so
(05:59):
it made it easier for a very small force or
a smaller force like the Greeks to hold back this
large Persian army, and the Greeks figured that this was
their best chance to at least delay the Persians if
nothing else right. But the total number of Greeks who
went out to Thermopoly may vary depending on what source
you look at. It was probably somewhere around seven thousand,
(06:22):
though maybe as few as four thousand, nine hundred. But
one thing we do find that's consistent is that there
were three hundred Spartans involved, and the three hundred were
handpicked by King Leoni. Does he chose these men basically
to die? They were all middle aged men with children
that they could leave behind his heirs and as far
as his own destiny was concerned, And Oracle had told
(06:44):
him Sparta must either lose a king or see the
city destroyed. So we're guessing in this case he figured
he wasn't coming back as well. I found it interesting
too that the requirement of children is so it ends
with how we would normally think of picking a troop
of men to die. You'd pick younger, unattached men. But
they had certain different values in Sparta clearly. Yeah. Well,
(07:05):
they were warriors and they wanted to have people there
to take their place once they were gone. Yeah. So
Leonidas was not just in charge though, of these three
hundred elite fighters. He was also in overall command of
the entire Greek army. And he led them to Thermopola,
and fortunately they got there first, it was still unoccupied
and they just sort of started getting ready. There were
(07:27):
hot springs there, which gave the past its name, and
there was a ruined wall and a gate, and they
rushed to rebuild these two increasingly fortify their defense. Right,
so they're getting ready and before the Persian army actually
makes it onto the scene, they sent had a scout
to check out what the Greeks are up to, and
they were shocked at what they found and a little
(07:48):
bit amused as well. They found Spartans naked and exercising
or lounging about, combing their hair, assumably doing ab exercises
right exactly, But I mean Xerxes may have laughed tear
but what he didn't know is that Spartan warriors always
did this kind of stuff before they went into battle,
fixing their hair and so forth. And the Greeks they
also got a little intel on the Persians as well.
(08:10):
They sent out a scalt, but they're they're I guess
information that they found wasn't quite as little more was
a little scarier. They found out about the size of
the Persian army in particular, And just to kind of
give you an example of the reaction. Before the battle,
a Spartan name Dionysis was told that when Persian archers
let loose a volley, their arrows would hide the sun
(08:31):
just because of the sheer volume of them Dionysis, though
he wasn't that impressed by it. He said, quote for
if the Persians hide the sun, we shall fight in
the shade. Yeah. So they're they're all tough on both sides, clearly,
But Xerxes expected the Greeks to be a little more frightened. He,
after all, did have this huge army that he had
(08:51):
been assembling for years and years, and so when the
Persians finally arrived, they camped a short distance from the
past and basically had a stand off for four days.
And it's interesting this happens a lot in these ancient
battle podcasts. Both sides finally get there and then they
just wait for days and days, And I cannot comprehend
the agony that that would be, just sitting around waiting
(09:13):
for something to happen. But Xerxes expects the Greeks to
turn tail and run, to just get frightened by the
overall size of the Persian army. Yeah. They didn't, though,
and this makes Cerxies really angry. I mean, this is
the guy who lashed the water for ruining his bridge,
so he's ready to take it out on them. So
on the fifth day, which may have been around Auguste
(09:35):
for a d b C. The Persians sent in their
first wave of troops and they suffered really terrible losses.
So Xerxes is even more mad at this point, so
he sends in his toughest guys, his most esteemed unit,
which was the Immortals. Yeah, and they're called the immortals
not because they were invincible, but because they seem that way.
(09:56):
It always seemed to be a ten thousand men strong
group when whenever one was killed or wounded or sick,
they would just replace him before anybody could tell the difference. Yeah. So,
if you've seen the movie three hundred, they're the ones
who are wearing all black and they have these metallic
masks on and they're described in the movie as having
their teeth filed two points and no souls. That's my
(10:17):
favorite part. I watched the clip from the movie before
before going into recording, and it was a little bit
amusing and a little bit like the dementures almost they
were spooky, though they were definitely spooky, but the Greeks
didn't have much trouble with them either, And it all
came down to the battlefield being such a tight space,
which gave the Greek's real tactical advantage here. First of all,
(10:39):
it prevented the Persians from fighting the way that they
were trained to fight. They couldn't use their bow and arrows,
and they only had wicker shields, daggers, short spears, and
pretty much no arm or very little armor, so they
just weren't equipped for hand to hand combat, which is
what it came to. Yeah, and the Greeks, on the
other hand, had their heavy armor and their long spears
that could reach the shorter Persian swords, and they could
(11:02):
create these walls with the shields locking them all together.
And military history describes this standard tactic of Greek fighting
is shock warfare, and the experienced Spartan warriors could just
come out from behind the walls and fight fiercely for
a few minutes and then pretend to retreat in order
to further draw the Persians in, making it worse and
(11:25):
worse for them. Yeah, and if you want to learn
a little bit more about these Greek fighting tactics, that
Battle of Marathon episode that we mentioned has a lot
of those details in there, so check that out if
you want to find out a little more along those lines.
But this fighting style worked for the Greeks for the
first two days, and they successfully held the Persians off.
And there's there's really no telling how long it could
(11:46):
have worked if they had had the chance to keep
doing what they were doing. But we'll never really know
because on the third day, a local man named of
Faalties betrayed the Greeks and gave away this little secret
that they had. Yeah, and that's the The Greeks few
days earlier, when they had arrived, had discovered that there
was this small path through the mountains that led around
(12:06):
the path, so basically behind the Greeks and Leonidas of
course knew about this path and he had left a
small contingent there to guard it, but the contingent was
really just to give warning in case the Persians did
discover it. There were no natural defenses there, and they
knew that if the Persians found it, it was gonna
be a big blow to their fighting style. When they
(12:28):
found out about the secret path, a Zerxes immediately sent
the immortals at the path if Feyalties, probably motivated by greed,
probably getting paid somehow, he led them there and they
surprised the Greeks who were guarding the path, but lookouts
managed to race down and warn Leonidas, so he had
to make a decision at that point. So he had
a little pow wow, and he made a decision that
(12:49):
some people still kind of question. He decided to send
most of the city state's contingents home so they could
live to fight another day to defend the city's right,
but he decided that he and his three hundred Spartans
would stay behind and pretty much face certain death. The
Thespians also stayed along with them. They volunteered to They
basically just considered it an honor to die fighting. Besides Spartans,
(13:12):
Thebans were also kept there, but they were kept as hostages.
They were kept that way because they were suspected of
having Persian sympathies, and basically that turned out to be
true because they ended up surrendering to the Persians before
the fighting really began. Yeah, but all the Greeks who
stayed to fight in that last battle died, including Leonidas.
His his oracles prediction was was true and Erxies won
(13:35):
that battle. But the Greeks did eventually defeat the Persians,
and later they put up memorials commemorating this big sacrifice
at Thermopoli, and one is dedicated to the three hundred
Spartans specifically, and it reads, quote, go tell the Spartans
stranger passing by that here obeying their commands, we lie. Yeah.
(13:55):
That pretty much sums up pretty dramatic the story, and
overall it seems like the movie stays pretty true to
the basics of the battle, although some of the characterizations
maybe a little bit off. The Persians, for example, they
didn't bring along elephants and rhinos to charge along with
them Erxes. According to a little comparison done and Entertainment Weekly,
which I found kind of interesting, they said that Xerxes
(14:18):
probably had a long zz top beard instead of being
totally bald and kind of tattooed car right, and the
Failties probably wasn't a hunchback. And we're not even really
sure if he was truly a Spartan as he's portrayed
in the movie. We just know the only thing that
greed was clearly a motivation, so and that he was Greek. Yeah,
that he was Greek. So there were some casting changes
(14:40):
to make things a little more dramatic and add a
couple minor storylines, but the essence of the story seems
pretty close. There's courage against horrible odds and and ultimately
a victory. Yeah. And I love those stories as courage
against underdog stories, underdog stories. Yeah, and we've done a
lot of great stories in this podcast throughout these three
(15:04):
hundred episodes. And I would love to know since I
haven't been on the podcast that long, I really want
to know, Sarah, what are your favorite episodes? Well, I'm
not going to just tell you some of my favorite episodes,
but I went and asked a few people involved in
the podcast, old podcast hosts, our producer, our editor, you know,
people who have been there from the beginning, what their
favorite episodes were. Yeah. Can we just mention also all
(15:26):
the people who have been involved since the beginning. Yeah,
it started with Candice and Josh. I didn't get to
ask Josh he's not at work this week, but I
did talk to Candice and she said that her favorite
episodes were, hands down, quote Marie Antoinette and the French Revolution, which,
if any of y'all know Candice, she's a big French
history buff. So that's Katie's favorite episodes are along a
(15:50):
kind of different line. She really loved the expeditions and
adventure tales like Franklin's Lost Expedition, Ghastly Blank, and Race
to the South Pole. She also love the shipwreck that
Saved James Town and real life Moby Dick Sinks the Ship. Yeah,
and I didn't get to talk to Jane either because
she just got married. I figured she didn't want to
gab about some old podcast episodes. But I did ask Lizzie,
(16:13):
who who has edited the podcast for a long time.
She had a lot of old favorites. Why did Lady
Godiva take a naked horse ride that's probably one of
goody Body's favorites. Had a respute and really Die, which
was also our producer Jerry's favorite, How Lord Byron worked,
how Charlie Chaplin worked, the Craft's Escaped to Freedom, which
(16:33):
is one of my favorites from from recently, and Don't
Cross the Dragon Lady, which Deplina that was? That was
when you picked out and um, I guess my own favorites.
I have so many. I had a huge list and
I really had to to narrow it down a little bit.
But I really like the really weird Royalty episodes like
(16:54):
the Elizabeth and Mary series and Ludvig the second. I
think everybody probably knows that's one of my favorite. I
also like the adventure literary combo episodes like the Jamestown
one that that Katie had had mentioned, the Astor Place riots,
and the real life Robinson Crusoe, and strangely, you know,
some of the sports ones I've I've really enjoyed, like
(17:16):
the recent Jimmy Winkfield one and Satchel Page and battle
Horses holds a very special place in my heart. I
just remember having so much fun not just researching that
episode but picking out the entries that were going to
be on it. And I still have the little list
where I've I've like jotted down different battle Horses trying
to trying to pick them out. But what are some
(17:37):
of your favorites. I love the ones where we research
the real person behind the literary characters, so Sherlock Holmes
one of the first ones I did. That was still
one of my favorites, and the real life Robinson Crusoe
that was a fun one to do. I also really
love just the mysteries, the mysterious deaths and mysterious disappearances.
I know those are kind of morbid, but they're really
(17:58):
fascinating to research and find out what people's theories are. So,
Christopher Marlowe, that was a fun one. Sontic SUPERI that
was a really fun one to do too. So I
have so many favorites like you, and I've only been
on it a few months, so so, I mean, we've
had a great time doing the the small percentage of
those three hundred episodes that we've worked on, and um,
(18:19):
we're just we're glad to ring in such a big
number with everybody. Thank you so much for listening, and
send us more suggestions, suggestions for three one. Actually we'll
probably have recorded that one by the time we care,
you know, but um, definitely keep sending things. In Battle
of Marathon was a listener suggestion. The real three hundred
(18:40):
clearly a listener suggestion. Some of y'all give us our
best ideas. Absolutely keep sending them and tell us what
kind of podcasts you like to listen to. We've talked
about that a little bit here, but we'd love to
know what you like to find out about. You can
write us at History Podcast at how stuff works dot com,
or you can look us up on Twitter at Myston
history or on Facebook yeah, and instead of throwing to
(19:01):
an article like we usually do, since this is our
three hundredth anniversary celebration, we're gonna throw to the podcast.
So go check out our archive. We have three hundred
episodes now starting June nine, two eight, back when it
was Fact or Fiction, the little two or three minute podcast.
They're kind of fun to listen to now, and I
won't take you long to get through. No, you'll cover
(19:23):
probably about twenty podcasts within a very short amount of time,
So go check us out. We are on iTunes. We
have an RSS feed on our podcast page and you
can find a lot of that at how stuff Works
at www dot how stuff works dot com. For more
on this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff
(19:45):
works dot com. To learn more about the podcast, click
on the podcast icon in the upper right corner of
our home page. The How Stuff Works iPhone up has
a rise. Download it today on iTunes, e
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