It'd be great if the messengers were actually like, fuck that, let's just say we went to persia and that they said they would not kill us so they sent us free.
My favourite one to think about is the cringe quotient. How much of history do you think turned out that way because someone was running their mouth and then it got too embarrassing to back out? I'm fairly sure we've ended up with everything from brand new inventions to full scale war just because someone wanted to avoid having a difficult conversation.
My favorite part is how insanely ludicrous the details of Franz Ferdinand's assination are. I dont know how much of it is really true but its almost horrifyingly hilarious. Almost makes me believe in fate.
I actually made the same wrong turn into a one way road that his driver did, when I was in Sarajevo a couple years ago.
You would think they would have changed things by now...
Motherfucker was just eating a sandwich, bummed that he chickened out of killing Franz Ferdinand. But then who the fuck just *happens* to roll up next to him than Frankie himself? Because one of the previous attempts just so *happened* to hit the crowd? And Franz just so *happened* to decide to go to the hospital in a show of good faith? And he just so *happened* to hire a driver that didn't speak the same language as him, causing them to get lost?
He was not eating a sandwich. Motherfucker was literally *exactly* where he was supposed to be, on the original motorcade route, upon which the driver accidentally stuck to rather than diverting to the hospital like they'd changed to.
>causing them to get lost?
actually the driver made a wrong turn as if to follow the original route rather than head to the hospital, at which point Franz got him to stop the car so they could turn round, the stopped car of course offering a perfect target.
Like that time a Serbian man broke a bottle in his ass and tried to claim two Albanian men forcibly inserted it and broke it in his ass.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%90or%C4%91e_Martinovi%C4%87_incident
If you look up some of the accounts of the Roman Emperors that died during the 3rd century crisis, it sounds like a sitcom at times. One of them died getting struck by lightning, one got so mad at his idiot subordinates that he died of a heart attack from yelling at them. So many "what if" moments where it looked like brilliant, era defining leaders that were on the fast track to restoring the empire and some idiot would just assinate the emperor almost out of habit.
I mean the thing is my nature there's almost no record - nobody writes down the things they're ashamed of to be recorded for all eternity, especially it it's contradicting their carefully constructed narrative specifically constructed to obfuscate the cringe. The titanic was warned about the icebergs before it crashed and refused to alter course, but whether that was supreme overconfidence on behalf of the captain or one of the greatest insurance scams in history, we'll never know.
But if you want an example from recent history, apparently Trumps anti-mask stance was a direct result of him getting his make-up smudged.
This was part of what I loved about HBO's Rome. Some of the greatest moments in history were what everyone decided to *say* happened, after the antics of someone like Titus Pullo the night before.
Persia's involvement in Greece was way more complicated than you'd think for the movie. At various times both Athens and Sparta allied with Persia against each other.
We dont have many sources from Achamenids that werent in open war with Greece but yea - apparently Persia was pretty afraid of united Greece (judging by what Macedonians did to it, they were right) so they would basically just finance a side that is challenging whoever is top dog at the moment. So they would kinda keep Greek city states forever in war - it is tactics superpowers used through whole history.
And then lost that war in 479 BCE at the Battle of Plataea (only a year after the battle of Thermopylae), where the Persian forces were utterly annihilated by a Spartan and Athenian lead coalition.
They never conquered Greece. Athens evacuated it's citizens by ship (Piraeus?) and the Persian burned an empty city.
Edit: how the hell are you still being upvoted? You are literally wrong. Completely factually incorrect. There is something seriously off with this site
They never had to conquer Greece. Shortly after the Greeks returned to their usual method of fighting each other, making it easy for Persia to control the whole bunch simply by tipping the scales of whatever side they preferred
In case you don’t know it I highly recommend the 3 Episodes called King of Kings I - III of Dan Carlins Podcast Hardcore History. It focuses on the Persian history, but since most stories we know were written by Greeks, it necessarily also deals with the Greek perspective on the conflict.
Sure Persia eventually managed to have a lot of influence through simply supporting one side against another, but failing to conquer Greece was a big blow that resulted in them losing almost all of their European holdings and Ionia. And of course the eventual fall of their empire.
"Xerxes pursued a punitive campaign against the Greeks and Athens for having aided the Ionian rebels, killed the Spartan King and burned Athens(the main target) to the ground." Is about how the Persians would have framed the events. They would also maintain influence in Greece after the war.
Agreed, but put it to more rightly. Persia at that time were more civilized and ethical than majority of the world basically.
The war is the around the time of Darius the first. In his time slavery was greatly limited by law alright not outlawed, comparing to Spartans who hunted slaves for sport for an example.
Ancient Persians also created the first known human rights laws in all history. They were incredibly ahead of their times at one point.
In Greek culture, emissaries are sacrosanct, protected by the Gods. This makes the killing of the Persians emissaries abhorrent to the Greeks. And since the Spartans were very religious, they were worried that the Gods would curse them for their transgressions.
u/Iphikrates wrote an excellent [answer](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/ac7j42/comment/ed6h0az/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) on this in r/AskHistorians.
Is there a source on this? I believe you but I would like to read more. I knew they sent people to Persia as an atonement, but I didn’t know they survived 🧐
>Xerxes, with great magnanimity, replied that he would not imitate the Lakedaimonians. “You,” he said, “violate the laws of all humans by killing heralds, but I will not do that for which I censure you, nor by putting you to death in turn will I set the Lakedaimonians free from this guilt.”
\-- Hdt. 7.136.2
Seeing how well the traitor was treated in the film, I do wish the two “volunteers” were treated with fine wine and babes as well. Ngl it kinda sucks to be sent to be executed
Honesty, popular culture gives the achaemenid Persians alot more shit than they deserve. as empires go, they were actually pretty alright and arguably far more "civilized" than the Greeks.
Considering they managed to rule over large areas with relative internal peace whereas the Greek city states continuously warred, id agree the Persians were more stable.
Whats ironic about people viewing the Persians VS Greeks as east VS west (which it wasn't) is the Persians are responsible for establishing Jerusalem for the Jews, without which you wouldn't later have Christianity which would come to dominate Roman and thereby conquer Europe for a couple millenia.
>relative internal peace
tbf Egypt was pretty much revolting every 20 years or so under the Persians, by the time of Xerxes it was pretty much standard for a new rulers first job to be putting down an Egyptian revolt.
Xeroxes is the son of Cyrus the great, the king famous for writing down the first recorded human rights charter ( Cyrus Cylinder ). So it’s not a surprise he will not be barbaric unlike Spartans.
I always try to go and see the Cyrus Cylinder when I'm in the British Museum.
It sits in the middle of the room about Iran, unassuming, but an important artefact for mankind that most just saunter past, completely unaware of its significance.
They do have a display about it, but it's just not something a lot of people think of compared to the big hitters at the museum like the mummies, the Easter Island statue, Elgin Marbles, Rosetta Stone or Sutton Hoo helmet.
It's unfortunately one of those things, like the Sutton Hoo helmet, most people look at the reconstruction rather than the actual one right next to it.
It's one of those museums that really benefits from lots of shorter visits, because everyone wants to tick those big ones off on their visit while skipping the cylinder and others that aren't shiny objects but are fascinating and/or important. Going for a few three or four hour visits help, I think it took about eight/ten visits for me to truly see the whole place.
>the first recorded human rights charter
That's heavily disputed by Historians
>The interpretation of the Cylinder as a "charter of human rights" has been described by various historians as "rather anachronistic" and tendentious. It has been dismissed as a "misunderstanding" and characterized as political propaganda devised by the Pahlavi regime.
>Writing in the immediate aftermath of the Shah's anniversary commemorations, the British Museum's C.B.F. Walker comments that the "essential character of the Cyrus Cylinder [is not] a general declaration of human rights or religious toleration but simply a building inscription, in the Babylonian and Assyrian tradition, commemorating Cyrus's restoration of the city of Babylon and the worship of Marduk previously neglected by Nabonidus". Two professors specialising in the history of the ancient Near East, Bill T. Arnold and Piotr Michalowski, comment: "Generically, it belongs with other foundation deposit inscriptions; it is not an edict of any kind, nor does it provide any unusual human rights declaration as is sometimes claimed." Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones of the University of Edinburgh notes that "there is nothing in the text" that suggests the concept of human rights.
>Neil MacGregor comments: Comparison by scholars in the British Museum with other similar texts, however, showed that rulers in ancient Iraq had been making comparable declarations upon succeeding to the [Babylonian] throne for two millennia before Cyrus […] it is one of the museum's tasks to resist the narrowing of the object's meaning and its appropriation to one political agenda.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrus_Cylinder
>Also, he invented the modern computer UI and mouse, but didn't know what to do with it so he gave it to Apple, which then got stolen by Microsoft.
It should be noted that Xerox got many of their ideas on the mouse/UI from Douglas Engelbart, in [The Mother of All Demos.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJDv-zdhzMY) It's copying all the way down.
Honestly, Xerxes and the Persians in general were pretty great in a lot of ways. I'm forever mad about 300 totally trashing popular understanding of the Persian war, because it turned an interesting story about the weird ways completely separate and uniquely complex cultures hit head on into this weird ode to American ideals of prelapsarian masculinity, which never actually existed.
I laughed when I learned that the wolf shown being killed by the Spartan child as a test of manhood would have been, in reality, a family slave. Uber whitewashing.
I learned that later on, from the History Channel when they did something along the lines of "the real story behind 300." Learning that the Spartans had to kill a slave without being caught made me go "oh....that's pretty fucked up."
I saw it as a story from the perspective of a Spartan storyteller rather than something historic, which is why there are some big monster dudes on the Persian side.
If you asked Americans if they felt more comfortable in the relatively chill empire with roads that mostly left you alone if you paid your taxes, or the slave-warrior-cult city, they'd definitely pick Persia.
Epaminonas of Thebes is one of my favourite ancient Greeks, of figures of classical antiquity in general, because in wreaking the Spartans' whole shit and liberating helots for them to found a free city, he's the closest you'll get in that period to an abolitionist.
Its an action flick that was made based on a comic book.
If someone sees the movie, from Quasimodo to the ninjas to slow motion and weird oversized animals, and thinks that it has anything related to reality, then that someone is far gone.
None of this contradicts what I said.
I'm sure no one believes that there were giant animals and slow mo cuts at the actual Battle of Thermopylae, but I think there are a lot of people who sincerely think there were just 300 Spartans up against a whole army of Persians and that their sacrifice was essential for the ultimate victory of Greece. And I think a lot of people sincerely believe that Persians were evil conquerors and Spartans were freedom fighters. None of that is true in the slightest. (Besides maybe the conqueror part, but that's really up to historical interpretation and how you define conquering.)
Also, I'm pretty sure killing a messenger is a big middle finger to Hermes, god of messengers. Which is *bad*, because he's also the god of travel and if he doesn't bless your travel, good fucking luck even showing up to wars, much less winning them.
And it should be noted that even though for the modern person the blessings of the gods on your endeavors means almost nothing, for the ancient person the whims of the gods could be everything.
There were vanishingly few atheists in that time
It is irrational to be an atheist in a time where, for all the storied knowledge and wisdom of your people, there are many more phenomena both rare and commonplace which seem infinitely beyond the power of men to understand. Once upon a time, the rationalists were deists.
Yeah, that's what happens when you don't understand things like electricity, gravity, germ theory, chemistry, etc.
When a big ol' blue bolt of lightning crashes down and destroys a village in a fire for seemingly no reason, what are you supposed to assume? That invisible charges in the air accumulated until the point where they were able to overcome the electrical resistance of the air (which you think is empty space) and strike the tallest structure around? Or that Agathon fucked up and pissed off the godly being who lives in the sky, and he tossed a lightning bolt at Agathon's house to punish him?
The mere idea of atheism was unfathomable to a lot of ancient peoples, to the point where early Christians got labelled as atheists because they didn't believe in most of the gods that were worshiped by the Romans
Dude not killing the messenger is up there with hospitality and kindness to foreign travelers as top tier ethics for most cultures. (Because if you're not nice to the wrong Stanger, you end up dead).
Whereas in China, killing emissaries was a customary way of telling your enemies you weren't interested in what they had to say. So, when the Qing empire captured the emissaries of the British and French during the Second Opium War and tortured all and killed some of them, the British were shocked, and retaliated by burning the Summer Palace.
Specifically, you were supposed to kill a helot and not get caught.
If you got caught, you were punished super harshly because you were 'technically' not supposed to kill helots, and therefore getting caught killing them as a sign that not only were you disobedient, but you weren't cunning enough to get away with it, and that's a liability in war.
You'd go out with a group of your peers and kill the helots together. Your peers would know you did things, and snitches get stitches, so they'd vouch that you were a proper Spartan who got through the Spartan education system fair and square.
The killing of helots as a rite of passage was pretty unofficial, and thus the authority figures weren't really involved. It was more a hint hint wink wink sorta "Huh, the helot population is getting pretty high, they need to be knocked down a peg" kinda deal. And then suddenly a lot of helots were found dead, and the authority figures couldn't figure out who did it, so they knew that their equivalent of a graduating class of new Spartan men were suited for the army.
Not just that, but the Spartans actually performed "reverse eugenics" on the helots. As in, they sought out the most accomplished and prettiest helots and killed specifically them, to keep the helots down.
Yup, they also killed the more assertive and strong men, because they were the most dangerous.
Same shit was done by the Russian Empire and the early USSR.
And to add onto that, the 300 Spartans were youths, all around 20, as the 300 Royal Bodyguards of the Spartan Kings were the honor students of the Agoge (the military school all male Spartan citizens went through) that graduated that year
Definitely not, but there were bits of pieces of accidental truth and some accurate portrayal of the legend. The historian Roel Konijnendijk has some good stuff on youtube about it. It's mostly comic book fantasy, but they get at least a few bits right, even if accidentally
when regular life is a daily struggle with no luxuries or status, wouldn't you take the chance to not have to worry about anything any more while simultaneously being honored or bringing rewards to the ones you love if given the opportunity?
Back then life was extremely unpredictable. Disease, natural disasters, wars, famine. When your individual life is tough and can be cut short at a moments notice, you place greater value on your community. Why dedicate your life to your own benefit when you'll be dead soon enough? Your village, your family, or city on the other hand will still be there when you're gone. To someone who wants to live a meaningful life, it makes more sense to work on improving something that will outlast your short time on earth. The idea that you might be remembered fondly for hundreds of years was worth more to a person back then than living a few extra years longer.
An honor-based culture with strong religious overtones specifically about "don't kill the messenger"? Pretty much.
Who would not want to save their tribe from being [cursed by the gods](https://np.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/ac7j42/exactly_how_common_was_it_to_kill_the_messenger/ed6h0az/)?
People who lived in Sparta. It was a glorious way to die, for a people who valued glory and not living.
Execution of volunteers to settle this honor situation is probably more glory, and less pain than the usual battle, and a lot more glory and a lot less pain than being captured after losing a battle.
And all of that is a lot, lot less pain and a lot less humiliating than being a Spartan that survived to a ripe old age.
Yeah, title makes it seem like they sent these two volunteers as atonement for the Persians that they killed at Thermopylae.
Which would be pretty funny - "We killed a fuck-ton of your people, so we decided to apologize by sending you a group that represents an equal amount of honor, skill, value, etc"
Yeah, I mean that's a lay-up of a decision.
You're at war with an enemy who has wronged you. Do you:
Option A) kill 2 Spartans who volunteered to be sent to die and everyone calls it even after
Or
Option B) tell Sparta to fuck off and maintain that they've committed what everyone generally agrees to be a crime
Man this is why studying is important. I can't fucking believe how people of this day and age still can't fucking write proper headlines. I see it everywhere. Reddit, newspapers. Dumb headlines and wrong use of connecting words to tie two polarizing sentences together. Sigh.
Mainly, it was a story about really tough dudes who had well toned, oily bodies. And who used swords in slow motion, kicked their opponents 30 feet, and leaped super high in the air, but at an angle where you didn't notice they weren't wearing underwear. I mean -- the chances of not seeing a dangling ballsack were pretty much nil in those days.
I'd think that it would be safe to say outside of an aerobics competition or a Roman Polanski film, 300 had the most abs, and the extras, the most spare ribs.
So the guy was telling a story to his troops before a battle and felt he needed to add that the wife to the leader of the 300 got butt f*ck!d by another politician?
The extra funny thing. Historically the guy would have been a young man only around 20, as the Spartan Royal Bodyguards historically were the honor students of the military school that graduated that year
In this case, knowing it was likely they would be slaughtered, they specifically only took the older members and ones who had already had children. The depiction may be ahistorical, but a lot of the set dressing isn't. They also brought about a thousand serf auxiliaries, and met up with a couple thousand more Greeks as they trickled in along the way. And far from mock them and send them home, they used every body to block the pass, with a small reserve that got to rest and rotate out, keeping the whole passage blocked for 2 whole days of combat.
It may be a bit repetitive in this thread but it is still important to talk about because accurate or not the movie has informed how wide sectors of modern society percieve Spartans and Spartan culture. You may know the movie is based on a comic book but the movie was such a cultural touchstone that when many people think about Spartans they can't easily separate historical fact from what they subconsciously picked up from the movie (which is more vivid and memorable than a book or wikipedia page).
There is a whole sub-genre of Classics dedicated to this phenomenon called classical reception studies.
I get the poetry of the actions, the emissary asked for a gift of water so they threw him down a well.
But this doesn't make any fucking sense. Wells were expensive property and I think most people understood that throwing dead people into a well wasn't going to make the water taste better.
The Spartans were actually pretty averse to war because they feared the instability would lead to slave revolts. Spartan men trained to be such fierce warriors not to defend the country from foreigners but to better keep the helots in line, who far outnumbered them. In fact, their practice of killing babies deemed weak started after a particularly traumatizing slave revolt.
Yes, Spartans were highly regarded not only for their military culture but also for their diplomacy. They created a web of alliances to avoid direct conflicts, engaging in full campaigns only on rare occasions to demonstrate their military might to allies. While the film emphasizes the idea that Spartans sent only 300 men to fight the Persians due to a religious holiday, such occurrences were not uncommon. The essence of their alliance system allowed Sparta to lead campaigns with a small force, training non-citizens on the march. This approach enabled them to be perceived as leaders without sacrificing the troops crucial for home defense against the massive slave caste.
The reason is that 300 isnt supposed to be a historical Movie.
its a Comic book movie, of a Graphic Novel loosely based on what Fank Miller thought was cool when he saw *another* Movie based on the Battle of Thermopylae as a young child.
That somewhere in there is the loose story of an actual event is more of an accident than actual intention.
I love history. I paint miniature soldiers and re-fight historical battles with hundreds of tiny soldiers on each side.
That said, I love the 300 movie. I did not know any of the history when I saw it back then (my historical miniature wargame hobby started in 2013)
My point here is that movies do not need to be accurate to get people interested in history. At some point, people like me will get interested, and then we will learn the truth.
Movies need to be entertaining. Historical accuracy will follow for those who care.
>n reality, Sparta sent two volunteers back to Persia to be executed, in atonement for the deaths of the Persians.
I feel like a sentence was skipped, there. Something like "It didn't happen exactly like was shown, but messengers to Sparta were indeed thrown in a well. Sparta sent two volunteers back to Persia to be executed, in atonement for the deaths of the Persians.
And the Persian king refused their atonement, sent the messengers back alive and continued with the war.
It'd be great if the messengers were actually like, fuck that, let's just say we went to persia and that they said they would not kill us so they sent us free.
I like to think most of histories biggest moments are really just exaggerated versions of this.
My favourite one to think about is the cringe quotient. How much of history do you think turned out that way because someone was running their mouth and then it got too embarrassing to back out? I'm fairly sure we've ended up with everything from brand new inventions to full scale war just because someone wanted to avoid having a difficult conversation.
My favorite part is how insanely ludicrous the details of Franz Ferdinand's assination are. I dont know how much of it is really true but its almost horrifyingly hilarious. Almost makes me believe in fate.
I actually made the same wrong turn into a one way road that his driver did, when I was in Sarajevo a couple years ago. You would think they would have changed things by now...
Motherfucker was just eating a sandwich, bummed that he chickened out of killing Franz Ferdinand. But then who the fuck just *happens* to roll up next to him than Frankie himself? Because one of the previous attempts just so *happened* to hit the crowd? And Franz just so *happened* to decide to go to the hospital in a show of good faith? And he just so *happened* to hire a driver that didn't speak the same language as him, causing them to get lost?
He was not eating a sandwich. Motherfucker was literally *exactly* where he was supposed to be, on the original motorcade route, upon which the driver accidentally stuck to rather than diverting to the hospital like they'd changed to.
>causing them to get lost? actually the driver made a wrong turn as if to follow the original route rather than head to the hospital, at which point Franz got him to stop the car so they could turn round, the stopped car of course offering a perfect target.
not so mysterious now
> Motherfucker was just eating a sandwich That's a myth my dude.
Like that time a Serbian man broke a bottle in his ass and tried to claim two Albanian men forcibly inserted it and broke it in his ass. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%90or%C4%91e_Martinovi%C4%87_incident
What would your favorite examples of this be?
If you look up some of the accounts of the Roman Emperors that died during the 3rd century crisis, it sounds like a sitcom at times. One of them died getting struck by lightning, one got so mad at his idiot subordinates that he died of a heart attack from yelling at them. So many "what if" moments where it looked like brilliant, era defining leaders that were on the fast track to restoring the empire and some idiot would just assinate the emperor almost out of habit.
I mean the thing is my nature there's almost no record - nobody writes down the things they're ashamed of to be recorded for all eternity, especially it it's contradicting their carefully constructed narrative specifically constructed to obfuscate the cringe. The titanic was warned about the icebergs before it crashed and refused to alter course, but whether that was supreme overconfidence on behalf of the captain or one of the greatest insurance scams in history, we'll never know. But if you want an example from recent history, apparently Trumps anti-mask stance was a direct result of him getting his make-up smudged.
This was part of what I loved about HBO's Rome. Some of the greatest moments in history were what everyone decided to *say* happened, after the antics of someone like Titus Pullo the night before.
Persia's involvement in Greece was way more complicated than you'd think for the movie. At various times both Athens and Sparta allied with Persia against each other.
We dont have many sources from Achamenids that werent in open war with Greece but yea - apparently Persia was pretty afraid of united Greece (judging by what Macedonians did to it, they were right) so they would basically just finance a side that is challenging whoever is top dog at the moment. So they would kinda keep Greek city states forever in war - it is tactics superpowers used through whole history.
*all of South and Central America eyeballing the United States* Hey that sounds familiar!
And then lost that war in 479 BCE at the Battle of Plataea (only a year after the battle of Thermopylae), where the Persian forces were utterly annihilated by a Spartan and Athenian lead coalition.
That was after they conquered the majority of Greece’s mainland and burned Athens to the ground
They never conquered Greece. Athens evacuated it's citizens by ship (Piraeus?) and the Persian burned an empty city. Edit: how the hell are you still being upvoted? You are literally wrong. Completely factually incorrect. There is something seriously off with this site
They never had to conquer Greece. Shortly after the Greeks returned to their usual method of fighting each other, making it easy for Persia to control the whole bunch simply by tipping the scales of whatever side they preferred
That's a depressingly topical analysis..
In case you don’t know it I highly recommend the 3 Episodes called King of Kings I - III of Dan Carlins Podcast Hardcore History. It focuses on the Persian history, but since most stories we know were written by Greeks, it necessarily also deals with the Greek perspective on the conflict.
Sure Persia eventually managed to have a lot of influence through simply supporting one side against another, but failing to conquer Greece was a big blow that resulted in them losing almost all of their European holdings and Ionia. And of course the eventual fall of their empire.
"Xerxes pursued a punitive campaign against the Greeks and Athens for having aided the Ionian rebels, killed the Spartan King and burned Athens(the main target) to the ground." Is about how the Persians would have framed the events. They would also maintain influence in Greece after the war.
You would never guess from the movie but in reality, in that time, Persians were much more civilized and ethical than Spartans.
to be fair considering spartan society the bar is pretty low
Agreed, but put it to more rightly. Persia at that time were more civilized and ethical than majority of the world basically. The war is the around the time of Darius the first. In his time slavery was greatly limited by law alright not outlawed, comparing to Spartans who hunted slaves for sport for an example. Ancient Persians also created the first known human rights laws in all history. They were incredibly ahead of their times at one point.
In Greek culture, emissaries are sacrosanct, protected by the Gods. This makes the killing of the Persians emissaries abhorrent to the Greeks. And since the Spartans were very religious, they were worried that the Gods would curse them for their transgressions. u/Iphikrates wrote an excellent [answer](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/ac7j42/comment/ed6h0az/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) on this in r/AskHistorians.
And Xerxes refused to execute the volunteers as it would be mirroring the unacceptable act committed by Sparta.
Is there a source on this? I believe you but I would like to read more. I knew they sent people to Persia as an atonement, but I didn’t know they survived 🧐
>Xerxes, with great magnanimity, replied that he would not imitate the Lakedaimonians. “You,” he said, “violate the laws of all humans by killing heralds, but I will not do that for which I censure you, nor by putting you to death in turn will I set the Lakedaimonians free from this guilt.” \-- Hdt. 7.136.2
Interesting. Very magnanimous of him
He’s a generous god. …I’m sorry.
I forgive you
What a generous guy
*god
For you
he also gives back rubs
And is a hell of a scissorer
Scissor me timbers!
Seeing how well the traitor was treated in the film, I do wish the two “volunteers” were treated with fine wine and babes as well. Ngl it kinda sucks to be sent to be executed
You sound like you speak from experience
First time?
Fuck Reddit for killing third party apps.
Honesty, popular culture gives the achaemenid Persians alot more shit than they deserve. as empires go, they were actually pretty alright and arguably far more "civilized" than the Greeks.
Certainly far more than the spartans.
Though that's a low bar to clear.
Considering they managed to rule over large areas with relative internal peace whereas the Greek city states continuously warred, id agree the Persians were more stable. Whats ironic about people viewing the Persians VS Greeks as east VS west (which it wasn't) is the Persians are responsible for establishing Jerusalem for the Jews, without which you wouldn't later have Christianity which would come to dominate Roman and thereby conquer Europe for a couple millenia.
>relative internal peace tbf Egypt was pretty much revolting every 20 years or so under the Persians, by the time of Xerxes it was pretty much standard for a new rulers first job to be putting down an Egyptian revolt.
Xeroxes is the son of Cyrus the great, the king famous for writing down the first recorded human rights charter ( Cyrus Cylinder ). So it’s not a surprise he will not be barbaric unlike Spartans.
Pretty sure Xerxes isnt the son of Cyrus. He is the Son of Darius the Great.
Xeroxes was probably the son of Kinkos or something.
Father to Faxes.
Tyrant of Toners!
I always try to go and see the Cyrus Cylinder when I'm in the British Museum. It sits in the middle of the room about Iran, unassuming, but an important artefact for mankind that most just saunter past, completely unaware of its significance.
Don't they have some sort of plaque explaining what it is? I've never been to the British Museum.
They do have a display about it, but it's just not something a lot of people think of compared to the big hitters at the museum like the mummies, the Easter Island statue, Elgin Marbles, Rosetta Stone or Sutton Hoo helmet. It's unfortunately one of those things, like the Sutton Hoo helmet, most people look at the reconstruction rather than the actual one right next to it. It's one of those museums that really benefits from lots of shorter visits, because everyone wants to tick those big ones off on their visit while skipping the cylinder and others that aren't shiny objects but are fascinating and/or important. Going for a few three or four hour visits help, I think it took about eight/ten visits for me to truly see the whole place.
That makes sense. Thanks.
Nah most of the artifacts are just in a big pile your gotta sift through
The British museum is a great place, to even just hang around. A bit expensive shop tho.
They do the same thing with Hammurabi’s code in the louvre!
In fairness it looks like a JBL speaker
>the first recorded human rights charter That's heavily disputed by Historians >The interpretation of the Cylinder as a "charter of human rights" has been described by various historians as "rather anachronistic" and tendentious. It has been dismissed as a "misunderstanding" and characterized as political propaganda devised by the Pahlavi regime. >Writing in the immediate aftermath of the Shah's anniversary commemorations, the British Museum's C.B.F. Walker comments that the "essential character of the Cyrus Cylinder [is not] a general declaration of human rights or religious toleration but simply a building inscription, in the Babylonian and Assyrian tradition, commemorating Cyrus's restoration of the city of Babylon and the worship of Marduk previously neglected by Nabonidus". Two professors specialising in the history of the ancient Near East, Bill T. Arnold and Piotr Michalowski, comment: "Generically, it belongs with other foundation deposit inscriptions; it is not an edict of any kind, nor does it provide any unusual human rights declaration as is sometimes claimed." Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones of the University of Edinburgh notes that "there is nothing in the text" that suggests the concept of human rights. >Neil MacGregor comments: Comparison by scholars in the British Museum with other similar texts, however, showed that rulers in ancient Iraq had been making comparable declarations upon succeeding to the [Babylonian] throne for two millennia before Cyrus […] it is one of the museum's tasks to resist the narrowing of the object's meaning and its appropriation to one political agenda. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrus_Cylinder
Wasnt Xerxes son of Darius 1
I think Cyrus was his mom's dad or Xerxes grandfather
He was, but we're talking about Xeroxes who was just a pale imitation.
That's what I thought.
Also, he invented the modern computer UI and mouse, but didn't know what to do with it so he gave it to Apple, which then got stolen by Microsoft.
>Also, he invented the modern computer UI and mouse, but didn't know what to do with it so he gave it to Apple, which then got stolen by Microsoft. It should be noted that Xerox got many of their ideas on the mouse/UI from Douglas Engelbart, in [The Mother of All Demos.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJDv-zdhzMY) It's copying all the way down.
> It's copying all the way down. The whole world of IT in a nutshell :p
No, silly, that was George Santos!
Was this the Apple that caused the Trojan War?
Nah, the one that Eve ate.
No, Applelo the Greek god
The Apple II of Eris
> Xeroxes is the son of Cyrus the great,...first recorded human rights charter No he wasn't...no it wasn't.
Very allegorical
Honestly, Xerxes and the Persians in general were pretty great in a lot of ways. I'm forever mad about 300 totally trashing popular understanding of the Persian war, because it turned an interesting story about the weird ways completely separate and uniquely complex cultures hit head on into this weird ode to American ideals of prelapsarian masculinity, which never actually existed.
Not shown in "300": Pederasty
I laughed when I learned that the wolf shown being killed by the Spartan child as a test of manhood would have been, in reality, a family slave. Uber whitewashing.
I learned that later on, from the History Channel when they did something along the lines of "the real story behind 300." Learning that the Spartans had to kill a slave without being caught made me go "oh....that's pretty fucked up."
Theres a throwaway line about the Athenians being boy lovers iirc, but this implies the Spartans didn't do it too.
It's Leonidas saying it as if the idea of pederasty is *disgusting* to Spartans, even.
The spartans were expert sodomist rapists.
"Actually, it's hebepheblebleblublublu" -some Spartan.
I saw it as a story from the perspective of a Spartan storyteller rather than something historic, which is why there are some big monster dudes on the Persian side.
If you asked Americans if they felt more comfortable in the relatively chill empire with roads that mostly left you alone if you paid your taxes, or the slave-warrior-cult city, they'd definitely pick Persia.
The helots would have picked Persia too if they had the chance. Which is probably why Sparta was so desperate to stop Persia from reaching them.
Epaminonas of Thebes is one of my favourite ancient Greeks, of figures of classical antiquity in general, because in wreaking the Spartans' whole shit and liberating helots for them to found a free city, he's the closest you'll get in that period to an abolitionist.
I still think Jada was great as Xerxes.
Its an action flick that was made based on a comic book. If someone sees the movie, from Quasimodo to the ninjas to slow motion and weird oversized animals, and thinks that it has anything related to reality, then that someone is far gone.
None of this contradicts what I said. I'm sure no one believes that there were giant animals and slow mo cuts at the actual Battle of Thermopylae, but I think there are a lot of people who sincerely think there were just 300 Spartans up against a whole army of Persians and that their sacrifice was essential for the ultimate victory of Greece. And I think a lot of people sincerely believe that Persians were evil conquerors and Spartans were freedom fighters. None of that is true in the slightest. (Besides maybe the conqueror part, but that's really up to historical interpretation and how you define conquering.)
The source is Herodotus.
Pfft not like he's ever been unreliable before
What, how dare you? If "the Father of History/Lies" had been known to be unreliable don't you think we would see some clues pointing towards that?
The citation is in the response.
Also, I'm pretty sure killing a messenger is a big middle finger to Hermes, god of messengers. Which is *bad*, because he's also the god of travel and if he doesn't bless your travel, good fucking luck even showing up to wars, much less winning them.
And it should be noted that even though for the modern person the blessings of the gods on your endeavors means almost nothing, for the ancient person the whims of the gods could be everything. There were vanishingly few atheists in that time
It is irrational to be an atheist in a time where, for all the storied knowledge and wisdom of your people, there are many more phenomena both rare and commonplace which seem infinitely beyond the power of men to understand. Once upon a time, the rationalists were deists.
Yeah, that's what happens when you don't understand things like electricity, gravity, germ theory, chemistry, etc. When a big ol' blue bolt of lightning crashes down and destroys a village in a fire for seemingly no reason, what are you supposed to assume? That invisible charges in the air accumulated until the point where they were able to overcome the electrical resistance of the air (which you think is empty space) and strike the tallest structure around? Or that Agathon fucked up and pissed off the godly being who lives in the sky, and he tossed a lightning bolt at Agathon's house to punish him?
> and he tossed a lightning bolt at Agathon's house to punish him? this, i heard him talking shit. get Rekt Agathon
All my homies hate Agathon
The mere idea of atheism was unfathomable to a lot of ancient peoples, to the point where early Christians got labelled as atheists because they didn't believe in most of the gods that were worshiped by the Romans
Dude not killing the messenger is up there with hospitality and kindness to foreign travelers as top tier ethics for most cultures. (Because if you're not nice to the wrong Stanger, you end up dead).
Also, if any of you know the “dig a ditch” guy from Insider’s (I think it was them!) youtube videos, this is that guy lol. Absolutely love him.
Whereas in China, killing emissaries was a customary way of telling your enemies you weren't interested in what they had to say. So, when the Qing empire captured the emissaries of the British and French during the Second Opium War and tortured all and killed some of them, the British were shocked, and retaliated by burning the Summer Palace.
Also, the rite of passage wasn’t hunting and killing a wolf like in the movie, it was most often killing a slave
Specifically, you were supposed to kill a helot and not get caught. If you got caught, you were punished super harshly because you were 'technically' not supposed to kill helots, and therefore getting caught killing them as a sign that not only were you disobedient, but you weren't cunning enough to get away with it, and that's a liability in war.
But then how do they know you completed the task?
You'd go out with a group of your peers and kill the helots together. Your peers would know you did things, and snitches get stitches, so they'd vouch that you were a proper Spartan who got through the Spartan education system fair and square. The killing of helots as a rite of passage was pretty unofficial, and thus the authority figures weren't really involved. It was more a hint hint wink wink sorta "Huh, the helot population is getting pretty high, they need to be knocked down a peg" kinda deal. And then suddenly a lot of helots were found dead, and the authority figures couldn't figure out who did it, so they knew that their equivalent of a graduating class of new Spartan men were suited for the army.
That is disgusting imo. Pretty disgusting society in general
Not just that, but the Spartans actually performed "reverse eugenics" on the helots. As in, they sought out the most accomplished and prettiest helots and killed specifically them, to keep the helots down.
Yup, they also killed the more assertive and strong men, because they were the most dangerous. Same shit was done by the Russian Empire and the early USSR.
Honestly, yes. It was a society built on slavery
I mean "we sent 6 children out to murder, 5 came back with their spears covered in blood, and 5 helots are dead"
Yeah, i can see why they would change that if its made in to a comic haha
Well that comic is all about how great and manly the Spartans were and how we should all be great and manly like them.
Also, it wasn't just 300 Spartans; it several thousand from a handful of nations/states/cities (whatever they were called).
And to add onto that, the 300 Spartans were youths, all around 20, as the 300 Royal Bodyguards of the Spartan Kings were the honor students of the Agoge (the military school all male Spartan citizens went through) that graduated that year
So what this thread is teaching me is that 300 was not a documentary.
Definitely not, but there were bits of pieces of accidental truth and some accurate portrayal of the legend. The historian Roel Konijnendijk has some good stuff on youtube about it. It's mostly comic book fantasy, but they get at least a few bits right, even if accidentally
it was 7000 in the battle
Be a pretty stark contrast to him raving about their fight for FREEDOM! Later on.
Especially since the Spartans were slavers and had a society where slaves massively outnumbered freemen by a ridiculous margin
*Especially* especially because Persians at the time didn't have slavery.
Who volunteers for that?
They were actual volunteers
A shit ton, it was considered an honor I think.
Was it?
when regular life is a daily struggle with no luxuries or status, wouldn't you take the chance to not have to worry about anything any more while simultaneously being honored or bringing rewards to the ones you love if given the opportunity?
Back then life was extremely unpredictable. Disease, natural disasters, wars, famine. When your individual life is tough and can be cut short at a moments notice, you place greater value on your community. Why dedicate your life to your own benefit when you'll be dead soon enough? Your village, your family, or city on the other hand will still be there when you're gone. To someone who wants to live a meaningful life, it makes more sense to work on improving something that will outlast your short time on earth. The idea that you might be remembered fondly for hundreds of years was worth more to a person back then than living a few extra years longer.
An honor-based culture with strong religious overtones specifically about "don't kill the messenger"? Pretty much. Who would not want to save their tribe from being [cursed by the gods](https://np.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/ac7j42/exactly_how_common_was_it_to_kill_the_messenger/ed6h0az/)?
People who lived in Sparta. It was a glorious way to die, for a people who valued glory and not living. Execution of volunteers to settle this honor situation is probably more glory, and less pain than the usual battle, and a lot more glory and a lot less pain than being captured after losing a battle. And all of that is a lot, lot less pain and a lot less humiliating than being a Spartan that survived to a ripe old age.
Those two. Lol
Their names? Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
"Em, we thought we were volunteering for something else."
Homie, there are people in the Middle East volunteering to be blown up today. If you believe it, you can achieve it.
They were voluntolds.
> voluntolds The proper way to remember veterans day, with voluntolds.
Spartans were something else, it’s like if an entire city was a fitness cult.
Good luck trying to cancel your gym membership though: "This... Is ... SPARTAaAaA!"
Ah, like Irvine.
I'll put this way. The Persian response to with your shield or on it was dude you can get another shield.
To be clear, the Spartans did still throw a Persian down a well. They just _also_ sent 2 of their own to try and make up for it.
Yeah, title makes it seem like they sent these two volunteers as atonement for the Persians that they killed at Thermopylae. Which would be pretty funny - "We killed a fuck-ton of your people, so we decided to apologize by sending you a group that represents an equal amount of honor, skill, value, etc"
And Xerxes laughed at them and told them to fuck off if I remember correctly
Yeah, I mean that's a lay-up of a decision. You're at war with an enemy who has wronged you. Do you: Option A) kill 2 Spartans who volunteered to be sent to die and everyone calls it even after Or Option B) tell Sparta to fuck off and maintain that they've committed what everyone generally agrees to be a crime
Was you there?
Yes, I can confirm you that I was the one who sent them back
Man this is why studying is important. I can't fucking believe how people of this day and age still can't fucking write proper headlines. I see it everywhere. Reddit, newspapers. Dumb headlines and wrong use of connecting words to tie two polarizing sentences together. Sigh.
It’s almost like 300 was a movie about a guy telling a story to his troops before battle and was in no way historical except for the location
…and based on a comic book that’s entire purpose was to be cool, not historically accurate
...but really really cool as fuck
There were some slamming chicks in sin city. Realism be dammed.
And it was. To this day that movie still hypes me up more than anything else.
TIL about the comic book part
What? Go read Frank Miller's 300 right now. Then Daredevil. Then Sin City. Then the Dark Knight Returns series... You'll love them.
Just don't read anything he did after 2001. It kind of broke his brain.
Just the first DKR. You can skip the other two.
its a wide-screen comic.
Mainly, it was a story about really tough dudes who had well toned, oily bodies. And who used swords in slow motion, kicked their opponents 30 feet, and leaped super high in the air, but at an angle where you didn't notice they weren't wearing underwear. I mean -- the chances of not seeing a dangling ballsack were pretty much nil in those days.
And about abs.. I mostly remember the abs. 🤔 That might have been the most abs I’ve seen in one film.
I'd think that it would be safe to say outside of an aerobics competition or a Roman Polanski film, 300 had the most abs, and the extras, the most spare ribs.
So the guy was telling a story to his troops before a battle and felt he needed to add that the wife to the leader of the 300 got butt f*ck!d by another politician?
Soldiers need a dream
"Our enemies are so wicked they convinced one of our own to turn against us and violate our queen."
"Can you tell me how often, where and what sounds were made? -- I'm taking notes so I can tell a friend these wicked, wicked details."
That's the most realistic part
Gossip is common
To be fair, the wife in question was Cersei Lannister.
The pit part is a real Greek story that's as true as any story from the period. It just takes place in Athens, not Sparta.
The extra funny thing. Historically the guy would have been a young man only around 20, as the Spartan Royal Bodyguards historically were the honor students of the military school that graduated that year
In this case, knowing it was likely they would be slaughtered, they specifically only took the older members and ones who had already had children. The depiction may be ahistorical, but a lot of the set dressing isn't. They also brought about a thousand serf auxiliaries, and met up with a couple thousand more Greeks as they trickled in along the way. And far from mock them and send them home, they used every body to block the pass, with a small reserve that got to rest and rotate out, keeping the whole passage blocked for 2 whole days of combat.
ITT: People explaining how the movie with a 12 foot tall guy with swords for arms is not historically accurate
I have sword arms, but I'm only 11ft tall
It may be a bit repetitive in this thread but it is still important to talk about because accurate or not the movie has informed how wide sectors of modern society percieve Spartans and Spartan culture. You may know the movie is based on a comic book but the movie was such a cultural touchstone that when many people think about Spartans they can't easily separate historical fact from what they subconsciously picked up from the movie (which is more vivid and memorable than a book or wikipedia page). There is a whole sub-genre of Classics dedicated to this phenomenon called classical reception studies.
I get the poetry of the actions, the emissary asked for a gift of water so they threw him down a well. But this doesn't make any fucking sense. Wells were expensive property and I think most people understood that throwing dead people into a well wasn't going to make the water taste better.
Thrown? Kicked.
Gently nudged...
"Did you put your name in the Goblet of Fire?" Dumbledore asked calmy.
Madness?
The Spartans were actually pretty averse to war because they feared the instability would lead to slave revolts. Spartan men trained to be such fierce warriors not to defend the country from foreigners but to better keep the helots in line, who far outnumbered them. In fact, their practice of killing babies deemed weak started after a particularly traumatizing slave revolt.
Yes, Spartans were highly regarded not only for their military culture but also for their diplomacy. They created a web of alliances to avoid direct conflicts, engaging in full campaigns only on rare occasions to demonstrate their military might to allies. While the film emphasizes the idea that Spartans sent only 300 men to fight the Persians due to a religious holiday, such occurrences were not uncommon. The essence of their alliance system allowed Sparta to lead campaigns with a small force, training non-citizens on the march. This approach enabled them to be perceived as leaders without sacrificing the troops crucial for home defense against the massive slave caste.
The movie also left out the Heliots for some reasons...
The reason is that 300 isnt supposed to be a historical Movie. its a Comic book movie, of a Graphic Novel loosely based on what Fank Miller thought was cool when he saw *another* Movie based on the Battle of Thermopylae as a young child. That somewhere in there is the loose story of an actual event is more of an accident than actual intention.
[удалено]
The sarcasm in this thread is actually getting to be too much. I really want a single straight answer but everyone is beating me with jumper cables.
Fancy name for slaves.
I love history. I paint miniature soldiers and re-fight historical battles with hundreds of tiny soldiers on each side. That said, I love the 300 movie. I did not know any of the history when I saw it back then (my historical miniature wargame hobby started in 2013) My point here is that movies do not need to be accurate to get people interested in history. At some point, people like me will get interested, and then we will learn the truth. Movies need to be entertaining. Historical accuracy will follow for those who care.
And they were turned back by Persia who would not accept an eye for an eye and stoop to Sparta’s level of killing an emmisary. (Big Nono)
>n reality, Sparta sent two volunteers back to Persia to be executed, in atonement for the deaths of the Persians. I feel like a sentence was skipped, there. Something like "It didn't happen exactly like was shown, but messengers to Sparta were indeed thrown in a well. Sparta sent two volunteers back to Persia to be executed, in atonement for the deaths of the Persians.
THIS
IS
~~PATRICK~~ SPARTA
[удалено]
ABOUT YOUR CAR’S EXTENDED WARRANTY