(time index set to the Delphi segment)Mysteries of the Ancient World - Myths and Legends (at 43:15)
March 13, 2016 | Questar Entertainment
Posted on 12/25/2013 4:36:42 PM PST by SunkenCiv
MOLON LABE
Second the motion. The difficulty with Athenian democracy was that it was so very subject to ridiculous passion in time of war. Nearly all of the major Athenian strategoi - generals - were eventually stabbed in the back by the passions of the mob: Miltiades, Themistocles, the historian Thucydides, Pericles' own son, even, arguably, Socrates' disciple Alcibiades - stupid, wasteful behavior that cost Athens the war. The objective historian cannot avoid the conclusion that they deserved to lose.
Themistocles, however, was a military figure of the first rank. What Persia was attempting was a massive combined-forces campaign that was unprecedented in warfare. Themistocles appreciated that the defeat of either the land or sea arms would be fatal and managed to scrape together a strategic opposition on both land and sea. The land opposition took Leonidias and the Spartans (and the Thespians and the Thebans) to Thermopylae; the sea opposition a mostly Athenian fleet under Themistocles just offshore of there at Artemisium. When Themistocles was finally forced back by the superior numbers of the Persian fleet he sent a boat to inform Leonidas of the fact. They found only the dead.
Themistocles got their collective revenge at Salamis. Athens by then had been burnt twice. Had the latter not happened the apparently sincere Persian offers for peace might have been accepted. I think that the Athenians might not have been quite so insistent about building their city on Delian League money, but that's only speculation. A year later Plataea, the death of Mardonius, and the end of a truly remarkable Persian campaign.
Did you hear the one about the man with torn pants who went to a Greek taylor.
After looking at the pants, the Greek said, “Euripides?”
Said the man, “Eumenides?” :-)
;’)
Hey, it was fun while it lasted.
Most of the Athenian hoplites were captured, rather than killed, and death was preferable.
(time index set to the Delphi segment)Mysteries of the Ancient World - Myths and Legends (at 43:15)
March 13, 2016 | Questar Entertainment
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