Archive for the ‘Ancient Greece’ Category
By: The Scribe on April, 2007
While on the way, the Spartans were joined by several thousand soldiers from the Greek allied states. When they reached Thermopylae, the Spartans were soon visited by a Persian scout. They allowed the scout to enter their camp and observe the troops, and then take his report back to Xerxes. Herodotus writes that upon hearing about the size of the Greek army, and what they were doing to prepare for battle – mainly, combing their hair – he laughed… and then became incredulous when he realized that this small Greek force intended to actually fight against his hundreds of thousands of warriors.
Another account of the story describes how Xerxes sent emissaries to the Greek camp, offering Leonidas the kingship of all Greece, if only he would submit and ally himself with Persia. Leonidas refused, responding that for him “it would be better to die for Greece than to be monarch over my compatriots.”
Unsatisfied, Xerxes gave the Greek forces a second chance, asking them to surrender their weapons. To this, Leonidas responded: “Come and get them.”
The morale of the Spartans was extremely high, even though their force numbered thousands less than the Persian army. Herodotus tells of a Spartan soldier named Dienekes, who upon hearing that the Persian arrows were rumored to be so numerous as to “blot out the sun”, he quipped back “so much the better, we shall fight in the shade.”
Xerxes sent his first wave of forces against the Greeks, numbering around 10,000 soldiers, and commanded by General Artapanus. Unfortunately for the Persians, this wave was literally cut to pieces… with only two or three Spartans lost.
Want to read more?
Tomorrow: Immortals attack!
By: The Scribe on April, 2007
![“Leonidas at Thermopylae” by Jacques-Louis David, 1814]](/images/battlepainting.jpg "“Leonidas at Thermopylae” by Jacques-Louis David, 1814]")
The story of the 300 Spartans at the Battle of Thermopylae was recorded by the Greek historian Herodotus in his Histories
, written around 440 BC. The entire escapade began when the Persian king Xerxes I sent messengers to all the Greek cities, offering enticing proposals if they would submit to Persian rule, and asking for “earth and water” as a token of submission. Many of the small cities, seeing no alternative and unable to defend themselves, took the Persian offer… however, the messengers to Athens were promptly thrown into a pit… while those who came to Sparta were thrown into a well, with this response to the ‘earth and water’ request: “Dig it out for yourselves!”
In the fall of 481 BC, a congress met at Corinth to discuss an alliance between the Greek city-states and what they should do about the advancing Persian army. After several encounters with various Greek forces, word came to Sparta about the route being taken by the Persian army. The alliance then determined that the next strategic ‘choke point’ where the Persian force could be stopped was at Thermopylae, which means the ‘Hot Gates’.
In an attempt to slow down the invasion, the Athenians first sent a naval fleet to Artemision to cut off any supplies and reinforcements that would come to the Persians by sea. However, hoping to ensure divine favor from the gods, Herodotus claims that Sparta first consulted the oracle at Delphi before launching their own campaign. Unfortunately, the oracle did not have good news…
“O ye men who dwell in the streets of broad Lacedaemon!
Either your glorious town shall be sacked by the children of Perseus,
Or, in exchange, must all through the whole Laconian country
Mourn for the loss of a king, descendant of great Heracles.
He cannot be withstood by the courage of bulls nor of lions,
Strive as they may; he is mighty as Jove;
there is nought that shall stay him,
Till he have got for his prey your king, or your glorious city.” (7.220)
In other words, should Sparta choose to fight, the people would either see their king or their city destroyed. Unsatisfied with simply standing back and letting others do the work, the Spartan king – Leonidas I – ignored this warning, and assembled a unit of 300 Spartans… and marched to Thermopylae. According to Herodotus, Leonidas knew he was heading toward certain death, and took only those men whose sons could assume the family responsibilities when their fathers did not return. In his treatise on Spartan sayings, the Greek philosopher Plutarch said that after encouraging her husband to show himself worthy of Sparta, Leonidas’ wife Gorgo asked him what she should do if he did not return – his reply? “Marry a good man, and bear good children.”
And thus, the Spartans headed to meet the Persian army…
Want to read more?
Tomorrow: The battle begins!
By: The Scribe on April, 2007
“I bind down Aristaichmos the smith before those below and Pyrrhias the smith and his work and their souls and Sosias of Lamia and his work and soul and what they say and what they do…”
– lead curse tablet from Athens, 4th C BC; found in the walls of a house
A curse tablet , or ‘binding spell’, was a certain kind of curse used to ask the gods to bring harm to someone; generally this would be a person against whom one was competing – in a law court, at an athletic event, or even a rival lover. For example, a curse tablet written by a court prosecutor might ask the gods to bind the wits and tongue of his opponent, to prevent him from mounting a strong defense. In athletic competitions, a curse might ask that a various parts of a rival’s body be ‘bound’ – his arms, shoulders, eyes, or whatever part that would be most important for the competition – so that the rival would not perform effectively.
In the classical world, curse tablets were usually very thin sheets of lead upon which the text of the curse could be inscribed. Then, the entire sheet was rolled up or folded, and pierced with an iron nail. These tablets were often buried in the ground, either inside of a grave or a well, or in a relevant area – if the curse was against a rival lover, the tablet could be buried next to his house, or in the arena for a curse against a fellow athlete. The simplest texts consisted of just the person’s name, though much longer and more elaborate curses were not uncommon.
The second type of binding spell was slightly more bizarre: lead ‘voodoo dolls’ were physically bound, stabbed with nails, and placed inside lead boxes. These types of curses are considered ‘sympathetic’, in the sense that the victim was persuaded by the curse to become like the lead material: “…as this lead is valueless and cold, so let him and his deeds be cold and valueless…”*.
It is likely that curse tablets were also written on perishable materials such as wood or papyrus, however these have long disappeared from the archaeological record. What is very interesting is that this seemed to be a common practice in Greek and Roman society – indeed, there was a very real fear of curses in the ancient world. In Selinous, a 5th C BC city in Sicily, the city government set up a column in the town square, explaining how a person could rid themselves of an avenging spirit brought on by a curse!
*Christopher A. Faraone, “Aeschylus’ umnos desmios (Eum. 306) and Attic Judicial Curse Tablets”,
The Journal of Hellenic Studies 105 (1985), pp. 150-154.
Want to read more?
Tomorrow: Who wants Pisa?
By: The Scribe on April, 2007
Although the origins of werewolves are traditionally attributed to the Middle Ages, tales of humans transforming into wolves have been documented from as early as 440 BC.
Greek mythology contains the story of a king named Lycaon, who was transformed into a wolf after serving a bowl of human flesh to Zeus; another version of the story tells of Lycaon’s transformation into a wolf as punishment for sacrificing a child to Zeus. This tale resulted in the belief that from that point on, one man was turned into a wolf at the annual sacrifice to Zeus, but would be able to regain his human form after abstaining from human flesh for ten years.
In one of his writings, a Roman scholar named Pliny the Elder quoted the Greek author Euanthes, who told the story of a man who was selected by lot to swim across a lake, where he hung his clothing on a tree, and – upon swimming across the lake – was transformed into a wolf for nine years. The man was only able to swim back across the lake and regain human form if he did not attack any humans during those nine years.
The Greek historian Herodotus, in his work Histories, discussed a tribe to the north-east of Scythia called the Neuri, who were annually transformed into wolves for several days.
The Latin poet Virgil took a different approach, and in one of his writings described a sorcerer who was able to ingest a certain combination of lethal herbs that would turn himself into a werewolf; in the year 60 A.D., the Roman playwright Gaius Petronius composed his novel Satyricon, in which a character recites a story about a man who transforms into a wolf during a full moon.
Want to read more?
Tomorrow: Egyptian defense magic
Previous page | Next page
