The Battle of Thermopylae - The Hellenic Alliance - Part 1 - Extra History

📜 The Battle of Thermopylae, Part 2: A small handful of Grecian city-states have come together to stand off against the invading Persians at Thermopylae. At this fateful mountain pass, Greece will discover its identity as a nation.

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#ExtraHistory #WorldHistory #History

[extrahistory]

The Battle of Thermopylae is one of the most significant events in the ancient world—and also one of the least understood.

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[napoleonibonaparte]

Freedom*

*Terms and Conditions apply

[maxk]

Me: So wait, one more time, how can you justify slavery?
Sparta: in order to give us the free time to devote our lives to the military
Me: and why do you need to do that?
Sparta: I told you already, because we need to be ready in case of a slave revolt. What, are you slow or something?

[dreamihad]

I love how ' Shut up and pay your taxes ' is such a theme thoughout history

[JOE-bmoq]

This is one of the few, rare times where somebody has actually depicted Persia realistically and not as the "blood-sucking demons" everybody else has in mind for some reason.

[lloydbautista]

The Greeks definitely had a joint ethnic identity prior to Thermopylae- the Olympic Games held since 776 BCE which were strict in only allowing those with Greek heritage to participate demonstrate this.

[sananaryon]

Ah, the three hundred. And their 6700 allies

[scaryanarchist]

8:39

Persian emperor: I am your king!
Greeks: I didn't vote for you.
Greeks: We are an anarcho-syndicalist commune.

[njord]

Why let a few wars get in the way of a good alliance

[JustFlemishMe]

Actually, from what I was taught at University, the notorious baby-killing may have been done in Archaic times, but it was probably symbolic by the time Persia came knocking. The Spartans did something to commemorate killing babies, or symbolically selected the weak as non-Spartans, but didn't actually kill them.

[faradayfilms]

Don't let this video distract you from the fact that we still haven't gotten a Cyrus the Great video












(That comment was mostly a joke I love this series)

[davididiart]

Xerxes is too short. Where's my golden 9ft God-man? 0/10.

[justafaniv]

I think there is something wrong with your depiction of Greek bodies...

The Spartans aren’t all topless to show off their abs.

[diomedes]

The theatre at Korinth is wrong. Greeks at that time did not have a scene. It was also built into the mountain not from the bottom up. That is a roman theatre.

[zoidl]

I'm going to miss you Dan. I really learned a lot from this channel thanks to you and the crew. I hope you have good luck in your next endeavor.

[fristi]

2:18 Ehhh... this is really exaggerated. Seems like it comes from certain Roman writers who lived quite a bit after Sparta stopped existing, at a time that the Romans looked back on the Spartans as a sort of romantic ideal and exaggerated their features (*cough* Plutarch *cough*).

Spartan society remains pretty mysterious due to our lack of primary sources (mainly just Xenophon). There's no doubt Spartan society was very militaristic, but we don't know to what exact extent the second-hand Roman accounts are exaggerated, just that there are too many contradictions to not take them with a pinch of salt.

-The whole "Spartan eugenics" thing... The children weren't killed if they failed the inspection by the elders. Instead, they would be "exposed", meaning they are left on their own on the mountainside for a set period of time. If they die during that time, then they're dead. If they survived, then they've proven they're strong enough and get to live as full citizens.
This practice was fairly common throughout the ancient world. Including Athens.

Note also:
---Spartan king Agesilaus II is known to have been lame from birth but quite obviously wasn't killed as an infant.
---With the manpower problems the Spartiates faced (what with being an oppressive minority that had enslaved the native population of its own country and all), extreme pickiness doesn't make a whole lot of sense either.
---The chasm some claim the elders outright threw the imperfect kids into as an execution has only revealed adult remains, suggesting it was an execution site for criminals instead.

-The agoge certainly was militaristic but by no means entirely. They were also educated culturally (reading, writing, music etc) and socially. We can probably thank the Romans and their fanboyism of Spartan masculinity for distorting the image a bit, here.

-Spartan military quality is another thing prone to exaggeration, though still very impressive. The Greeks as a whole produced the best heavy infantry of the world at a time and the Spartans were the best among them, but the Spartans were not so far ahead of the other Greeks as it's often made to seem. They did suffer their share of defeats.

-The exact treatment of helots is very disputed as well, though certainly the Spartans were (whether or not it was exactly as cruel as some sources make it out) indeed constantly busy keeping them subdued hence the militaristic society.

8:46 Heh, well, the Athenians did a little more than just that. They burned down Sardis, the nearby Persian "provincial capital" in western Anatolia. So that puts Darius' reaction a bit more into perspective. But I guess that had to be cut due to time restraints maybe, you're still essentially right.

9:09 The Spartans indeed didn't want to interrupt their religious festival, but they did send troops when the festival ended. They marched to Marathon at a ridiculously fast pace but still arrived a day late.The Athenians actually made the strange decision to attack before the Spartans had arrived, after they had already been waiting a few days and could have waited one more. But I guess that also couldn't be fit, again you're essentially right.

Great video though, just saying stuff because I happen to know it, not as a complaint. I guess this could be "lies" stuff but I'm not sure a miniseries like this will get a "lies" episode.

[KingDomo]

And Leonidas and his 300 Spartans *and other 6 thousand Greek soldiers* would fight them in land.

[pdreding]

So in short, 300 is about as historically accurate as Braveheart.

[ArkadiBolschek]

7:09 Uhhh... The Achemenid empire _did_ have slaves, though: they enslaved rebels and prisoners of war. What you guys probably mean is that they didn't have a slave based economy and slaves were a very small part of the population (especially compared to the Greek city-states)

[christianbuffum-robbins]

Now I want to see an Extra History series on ancient Persia.