Your Life as a Spartan: The Battle of Thermopylae

Thermopylae, late summer 480 BC. You are standing in a narrow pass between steep mountains and the sea – and in front of you waits the army of the greatest empire on Earth. Live the life of a Spartan: born in a city without walls, raised in the brutal agoge, fed on black broth, and trained to fight in the phalanx in 25 kilograms of bronze. Then Xerxes invades Greece – and you march north with Leonidas and the 300. Plus the myths (the baby cliff, the shirtless warriors of the movies, the lambda shields and "Molon labe"), the 7,000 Greeks and the 700 Thespians history forgot – and what you can still see today, from the hill where the 300 fell to the Spartathlon. An animated history film, drawn in ink. Chapters 0:00 Thermopylae, late summer 480 BC 0:50 Did Spartans throw babies off a cliff? 1:20 The agoge: a hard childhood 1:53 The common mess and black broth 2:07 Iron money – a soldier and nothing else 2:18 The helots 2:45 Spartan women 3:03 Not shirtless: 25 kg of bronze 3:24 The phalanx 3:36 "With your shield – or on it" 3:54 Myths: the lambda and "Molon labe" 4:13 Persia demands earth and water 4:36 Marathon – without Sparta 4:47 Xerxes invades Greece 5:02 Thermopylae, the "Hot Gates" 5:14 Leonidas and the 300 5:33 The 300 were not alone 5:57 "Then we will fight in the shade" 6:20 Betrayed by Ephialtes 6:30 The 700 Thespians 6:41 The last stand 7:07 Salamis and Plataea 7:26 "Go tell the Spartans" 7:37 Aristodemus, the survivor 7:56 Never enough Spartans 8:15 "If." 8:29 The legend of the 300 8:42 What you can still see today 9:24 And you? Sources & further reading • Herodotus, "Histories" – Book 6 (Marathon, Pheidippides), Book 7 (Thermopylae, 7.175–7.239), Book 9 (Plataea, Aristodemus) • Plutarch, "Life of Lycurgus", "Sayings of Spartans" and "Sayings of Spartan Women" (c. AD 100) • Xenophon, "Constitution of the Lacedaemonians"; Thucydides, "History of the Peloponnesian War" (4.80 on the helots) • Paul Cartledge, "The Spartans: An Epic History" (2003) and "Thermopylae: The Battle That Changed the World" (2006) • Tom Holland, "Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West" (2005) • Th. Pitsios et al., anthropological study of the Keadas (Kaiadas) pit near Sparta, University of Athens (reported 2007) • Spyridon Marinatos, excavation of the Kolonos hill at Thermopylae (1939); Hellenic Ministry of Culture – Thermopylae and the archaeological site of Sparta • International Spartathlon Association – the Spartathlon (246 km, since 1983) Many details are still debated by historians – numbers and dates are best estimates. Most famous Spartan sayings were written down centuries later. Which life from history should we live next? Tell us in the comments! Subscribe to Sepia Saga – history, drawn in ink. #fyp #viral #trending #youtube #history