Talk:Battle of Thermopylae/Archive 1

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This was the talk page called Talk:300 Spartans. That article is now a redirect to Battle of Thermopylae so this page is archived.

This page should be fact checked

It is my understanding that the 300 Spartan hoplites mentioned in the article were not unique to Leonidas or the battle of Thermopylae. It is based upon the number of Spartan solders allowed to the Spartan king as a personal bodyguard, exisiting well prior to Leonidas and often holding a position in the middle of the Spartan phalanx. Since they were to serve as a bodyguard, they were under the control of the king, who did not need approval of the Council or the Ephors for their use. The Spartans had two kings, and since I do not have my reference books with me, I am uncertain as to whether or not both kings were each allow this body guard or if it served both.

The confusion comes from Leonidas' use of his bodyguard at Thermopylae. He had originally asked for the entire Spartan army to march, but this was reject by the Council. They gave as their reason that the Spartans were currently celebrating their festival of the Carnia; which was most likely an excuse. With the rejection that the whole army march, Leonidas decided to march with the 300 members of his bodyguard as he could do this without violating Spartan law.

The bodyguard was not a "sire only" unit. Leonidas specifically replaced members of his bodyguard prior to his march toward Thermoplae so as to only include those with a living male heir because of his interpretation of the Oracle's prophecy. This indicates that while the 300 members of the bodyguard that marched to Thermopylae may have been a "sire only" unit, that was not the normal state of affairs for the bodyguard.

Please note that prior to Thermopylae there had been another contingent of Greek troops that had marched to a site further north, but this site was rejected well prior to Leonidas' march as it was not considered defensible. and then the spartans won.

Oct 29, 06 - Edited and hyperlinked the Background of the page. I think this page needs to be put together a bit better.

I've always heard the Spartans numbered closer to 450.Mr.WaeseL 04:23, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

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I think this article needs to be checked for neutrality.

-- This page reads like a sermon, not like factual history Fig 10:18, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

neutrality

this artcile is very anti-persian. it praises the greeks for "saving europe". its very biased.

One would wonder why it is considered anti-persian when it describes the clash and routing of the Persian invasion of Xerxes. Persia was the undisputed world power at the time and was seeking to greatly extend their power. They conquered the Babylonians, who fell to the Persians, who fell to the Greeks, who fell to the Romans. The story, are portrayed by Herodotus, would have most certainly been biased. It is anti Persian only because it is the Persians attacking. If it were Vikings, rich business men, pygmys, or hippos it would have been biased against them too.

POV/factual accuracy

several times in the article, the persians are shown as the villians and the greeks as heros, such as the end where it says:

"This heroic, last stand inspired the rest of Greece. Within six months the tiny Greek navy defeated the mighty Persian/Phoenician fleet at the Battle of Salamis. The 35,000-man united Greek army, this time led by 7,000 Spartans, completely wiped out the Persians at the Battle of Plataea. Xerxes and the Persians finally retreated from Europe forever. Greece and the west had been saved by the heroic sacrifice of the 300 Spartans and 700 Thespians."

it also seems to be strictly from a spartan point of view.

the accuracy seems a little out of line too because in a section it is said that "5 minutes of fighting". this seems very inaccurate because its very unlikely that someone had a stopwatch 2000 years ago. as people before me mentioned, other issues seem inconsistent with historical figures. the article also has no citation.

yea, the article sucks

The numbers of soldiers on each side is not accurate compared to other articles about this historical battle.

They died defending the people of Europe, sometimes showing respect is more important than POV

Clean up

I made a clean up. First, I deleted all extra links (ie Leonidas). Further, I made it more NPOV, without weasel words and the biased opinions. Still, I don't have any references, but now it is more an encyclopedic article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.127.185.210 (talk) 11:30, 5 December 2006 (UTC).

Merge?

Aside from a very brief introductory paragraph saying who the 300 Spartans were, the rest of this article is all about the events of the Battle of Thermopylae, which has its own (better) article. -Stellmach 16:53, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• Agreed: This article is little more than repetition of the Battle of Thermopylae article. --Scottie theNerd 17:56, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
• Agreed: Merging might help, but I'm up for deletion as well. This article is poorly written, and not in a encyclopedic style. The Battle of Thermopylae is much more accurate and better. --Soetermans 14:12, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
• Agreed. Merge what's useful and delete the rest. Cribcage 05:56, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
• Agreed Merge if there is anything useful. I don't think theres much if anything that isn't in the main Battle of Therm. page. --NRK 20:02, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
• Neutral As is it is better to be merged. It would be better though to rewrite the article so that it either talks more specifically about the 300 of Thermopylae (like how they were chosen, the 1 that was nearly blind and was led by his helot to battle, the 2 that were sick with the one fighting though sick and the other returning to Sparta to discover even his wife would not talk to him) or the hippeis in general Ikokki 09:30, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
• Neutral If there is going to be a merger, this article should be deleted in favor of the other, which is better, but only because some of us have been fighting to keep it that way. This article adds nothing but the use of the term "the 300 Spartans." And all the things the templates say are true. On the other hand there can be an article just about the 300 as Ikokki says. It should be referenced by but not repeat any of the other article and vice versa. It might make a great human interest story, how the doomed Leonidas went north with the old, the blind and the sick and they fought like tigers to secure the Greek retreat. That is as good as the wounded getting up to fight in Caesar's battles, and it surely reveals the Dorian ethic. If you throw in the Laconic sayings and the Spartan women you will have a good picture of Sparta. The only thing I am not too certain about is whether we can find enough to say about the 300 to occupy 1 article. They could be put in the other article but that is already long. I'm sure some of you can find a creative solution.Dave 04:50, 12 January 2007 (UTC)