Speaker 1: You am now listening to soft Core History.
Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome back to Softcore History. I'm your
host of the week, Damna Jester, joined us always by
Robert Fox.
Speaker 1: What is going on?
Speaker 2: Hey, what's up man?
Speaker 1: Not much, not much, just at the end of a
long pass weekend.
Speaker 2: Have to keep you in check. Your mom told me to.
Speaker 1: She told you to make me stop saying that the
F word so many times.
Speaker 2: In order to get an extra listener, aka, your mom's
you gotta stop cursing.
Speaker 1: I gotta stop cursing so much because she's old. And
she listened to one episode of the podcast and now.
Speaker 2: She was not old. How dare you? She's a wonderful
young lady.
Speaker 1: She mentally, I want to be that sharp at seventy.
Would you even guess she was in her seventies?
Speaker 2: No, not at all.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's credible. Now my dad is three years older,
and he would be like, oh, he's eighty.
Speaker 2: He's crumbling. That's that generation though.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what's smoking his cigar to day for fifty
years will get you.
Speaker 2: My dad didn't even smoke, still had to get a
lung removed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but he was. His job was to inhale chemicals for.
Speaker 2: A little yeah, breathing in all the cams.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, So really, our dad's aged the same way.
Speaker 2: While he dumped in the floor ride to our water, Yeah,
to numb our brains.
Speaker 1: He kept our teeth strong. But at what cost?
Speaker 2: At what costs? Today's a fun episode though, something we're
both familiar with. In fact, I did this episode because
I just want to hear you do the voice?
Speaker 1: Oh boy, which one? There's only like four?
Speaker 2: I know. It was actually a planned sketch for audio
on Patreon that we never got to. Okay, we're talking,
of course, about three hundred, so we're talking thromopyly today.
Speaker 1: The audio sketch is so fucked I have it like written,
like a lot of it written, and we just never
did it. But uh, it's essentially three hundred the early
years and it's just three hundred. But they're boys, so it's.
Speaker 2: Pretty Yeah, it's exactly what you think it is. Yeah yeah,
let me really just hammering home the Greek stereotype.
Speaker 1: It's not a stereotype if it's completely all the time,
the Greek fact that people don't want to acknowledge leonitis.
I gotta funck now. I gotta get into the voice
because it's the narrator's voice, the guy with the eye patch,
and he's like young Leonidas walked through the Nate.
Speaker 2: So going back, I haven't watched it in probably twenty
years at this point. Did you watch it for this
give or take? No, Okay, but from what I remember, dude,
Zack Snyder kind of nailed it.
Speaker 1: It's a sweet movie.
Speaker 2: And actually it's not terribly off.
Speaker 1: It's not as off as you. Well, first off is
he didn't it's based on a comic.
Speaker 2: I know he didn't write it, and I know it's
based off of comic, but they kind of stuck to
the story.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and they had.
Speaker 2: They didn't get too crazy. I mean there was no humpback. Yeah,
there was no fucking freak.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm sorry, there's no freak.
Speaker 1: There's no no fucking freak. Yeah yeah, yeah, there's that
guy wasn't there, but they did find I think they were.
Speaker 2: There is a guy that turns on him.
Speaker 1: Yes, and shows them the alternate route, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It just wasn't a baby left to die or no,
a baby that they wouldn't kill.
Speaker 2: It wasn't some you know, hunchback of Notre Dame.
Speaker 1: Dude, right right, right, right right, which.
Speaker 2: Quasi Moto wasn't leading them.
Speaker 1: I just love one of my ultimate back guy one
of my favorite scenes in that and I actually like
memed this at some point and no one got it.
I'm not a good memur. But my favorite scene is
when he's in the tent like submitting himself to and
there's just like like a harem in there, and then
also a goat man. Yeah, there's a man with a
goat's head and he's just like it's an upsetting scene.
Speaker 2: Xerxes wasn't that flamboyant either.
Speaker 1: No, I've said this before on the show, but my
favorite review of it.
Speaker 2: They really made the Persian super gay.
Speaker 1: My favorite review of it was it came out when
I was in college. So I was in Saint Louis
over the summer and there's an alt at weekly publication
in Saint Louis called the Riverfront Times. Here it's the
Austin Chronicle, and the Riverfront Times reviewed it, and you
know it's extremely liberal under like all weekly.
Speaker 2: Oh it came out exactly twenty years ago, two thousand
and six.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the review was like, it's basically three hundred
like jacked macho men slaughtering a gay Pride parade.
Speaker 2: It's totally accurate. No Notes nailed it.
Speaker 1: Early.
Speaker 2: Gerard Butler too.
Speaker 1: He kind of didn't have much of a career after that.
Speaker 2: What are you talking about? That kind of launched the
Butler era.
Speaker 1: The Butlerry and Jihad if you will, mm hmm yeah.
Speaker 2: Like White House Down. I think he's in he look
he but he.
Speaker 1: Just kept doing a bunch of B movies. I think
he was on the cusp of being like an A
list actor. It was weird because him there was Hit
and another guy from that era, and the other guy
from the era I think is like an amazing actor,
and he just kind of disappeared and started doing B movies.
Fucking Clive Owen, Like I want more Clive Owen in
my life.
Speaker 2: Oh, everyone needs more Clyde Owen. But he had law
Abiden Citizen that was a big hit in two thousand
and nine. Yeah, I guess I've remember Gerard had a
little bit more of a run than he did. Not
a ton here did the voice for how to Turn
Your Dragon.
Speaker 1: Okay, well he's printing money off that.
Speaker 2: I assume London has fallen.
Speaker 1: Sequel to White House or Olympus has followed.
Speaker 2: The Bounty Hunter Gamer who could forget Gamer. I was
gonna say, you dine in the game, you dine in
real life.
Speaker 1: He is in the and it's like he's controlled by players,
and I think Michael C. Hall, the dexter is Threat,
is the player.
Speaker 2: Yeah, dude. His filmography is kind of ass.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a lot of B movies.
Speaker 2: It's not good. It's I thought it would be better.
Speaker 1: I think he's just taking paychecks, which respect.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you got to he was yoked in that movie though.
Three Hunter.
Speaker 1: He was yoked in that movie and he had he
has one of my favorite lines in it, which is
ironic based on actual history. One thing Zack Snyder and
I think the comic was Frank Miller didn't nail when
he's like talking about the Athenians not surrendering to the Persians,
and he's like, if those philosophers and boy lovers.
Speaker 2: It's like, all right, get me throwing stunts from a
glass house.
Speaker 1: From the glassiest of glasshouses, the glass cathedral.
Speaker 2: So the city states of Athens and a Retrea had
aided the unsuccessful Ionian revolt against the Persian empire in
four ninety nine and four ninety four BC, and Darius
was like, I gotta get revenge for those involved. Yeah,
your boy, Darius.
Speaker 1: The usurper, the horse finger.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So for those unfamiliar, we've covered this on the patreon.
But Darius got the throne because in ancient Persia they
did this weird thing with horses where they first person
who had their horse nee got the throne.
Speaker 1: It's like you had some sort of command of nature
or something. I don't even know.
Speaker 2: So he stuck like his entire forum, yeah, like elbows
deep into a.
Speaker 1: Mare, into a horse's vagina.
Speaker 2: Into a female horse, into her badge, got the juices
all over them, uh, and then got on his horse.
They all did their kind of like I guess walk
with the horses. Just stuck his arm up to the
horse's nose and got the nay, then got the throne.
Speaker 1: What he would do anything for power, and I respect
his level of commitment to that. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And this is after there was already like a fake
guy on the throne that they had to overthrow. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I think it was like Smurtis.
Speaker 1: I don't even remember. I just know he was.
Speaker 2: Pretending to be another guy who died.
Speaker 1: Okay, the only three Persian kings I know are the
three big ones, right, Cyrus, Darius, and Xerxes.
Speaker 2: And obviously Exerxes is Darius's kid.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: He saw an opportunity though, to expand the young umpire.
In a fractured world of ancient.
Speaker 1: Greece, constantly quabbling.
Speaker 2: Darius sent emissaries to all Greek city states in four
ninety one BC, asking for a gift of earth and
water as tokens of their submission. I don't even know
what that qualifies.
Speaker 1: As earth and water. He just sent back a fucking
jar a dirt from your homeland and some water from
your homeland, and blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: That's such a beat him for the Endies to car.
Speaker 1: I don't know whole water carry back.
Speaker 2: Yeah, hopefully it's a small amountain.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just a cup, you know what I mean? Like,
you don't need a barrel of river water from Athens.
Speaker 2: I mean, you get the giant stick over your back, right,
just fill the two water sacks on each side, right,
essentially just doing farmers carries all the way, or like
fireman's carries.
Speaker 1: I mean, look, let's be honest. The emissaries not doing
the carrying, all right, it's the twenty slaves he brought
with him, or dealing with the earth and water.
Speaker 2: Good point.
Speaker 1: So he's like, yeah, I load it up. I don't care.
Speaker 2: In Athens, the ambassadors were put on trial and then
executed by throwing them into a pit.
Speaker 1: Okay, which is what they show in nine.
Speaker 2: In Sparta, they were not given a trial. Yeah, simply
thrown down a well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, WHI should they show?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know if he does the kick? Yeah,
I don't know he has. It's that dramatic moment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can't do Leonidas ways, I can only do
the news Sparta. Yeah that's better.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sorry for blowing out your ears. Guys.
Speaker 1: Fine, Leonidis conceded to that.
Speaker 2: You don't have the beard to do Leonidas. Obviously you
do have the bod.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 2: People don't know this. He looks like a sack of milk.
But under there, Rob's jacked.
Speaker 1: Bang. I mean I do have dad strength, but I'm
not jacked.
Speaker 2: You got Dad's strength, Dad Dick. For each kid, it
adds an inch.
Speaker 1: Yeah, will you choose girth or length? And I went,
you always go girth, I went, I went to girth
on length.
Speaker 2: It's just a hockey puck. Now, it's a stack of
hockey pucks. It's two hockey bucks. However, in order to
appease the Persian king somewhat, the two Spartans were voluntarily
sent to SUSA for execution and atonement for the death
of the Persian heralds. Oh my god, imagine me and
those guys. How do you get chosen?
Speaker 1: Is it like real dudes or they just grab their
own slaves and be like, here, put this helmet on
your fuck.
Speaker 2: It was like two dudes nobody likes. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
certainly they're not sending their best to be sacrificed. Now,
it's like this is all right, the B team, Yeah,
and two of them, yeah, practice squad guys.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're not going to make the cut. The three hundred.
Speaker 2: Darius then launched an amphibious expeditionary force. In four ninety
he received the submission of the Cyclotic Islands. It then
besieged and destroyed Eritrea, and finally it moved to attack Athens,
landing at the Bay of Marathon, where it was met
by a heavily outnumbered Athenian army.
Speaker 1: But Marathon like three hundred. They had a serious geographic advantage, yep,
and it. It was a geographic advantage, both just in general,
but also for the way their army worked, in particular
the hop lights, the Faalanx.
Speaker 2: That's also where the guy that had like a Paul
Revere moment. Yeah, where he ran the twenty six point two.
Speaker 1: Twenty six point two all the way to go delivery
and then drop dead and.
Speaker 2: Meat dropped dead in sandals. It's tough.
Speaker 1: I think they had running sandals at the time.
Speaker 2: I can't run. I can't walk twenty six miles and sandals.
Speaker 1: Yeah, not well, not in flip flops. Maybe in like
some berks tied tight to your feet.
Speaker 2: It's still tough.
Speaker 1: Yeah, gets sweaty, get its slippery.
Speaker 2: Doesn't get enough credit. Everybody that runs a marathon should
have to do it in least the you know j
C's Jesus cruisers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the berks. Yeah, I agree, you aren't. You were
not doing a marathon correctly. If you are.
Speaker 2: Still in valor, you can't be throwing that sticker on
unless you're running in flip flops.
Speaker 1: No, no time, no marathon time wrecker or whatever. Strike
it from the record is valid. If it wasn't in sandals,
there has to.
Speaker 2: Be somewhere where they do it authentically, probably in grease.
Speaker 1: There are these I watched a not a documentary. I
think I read a nat GEO article on there're these
Mexican guys who are like basically like full Miyan and
they run like crazy, barefoot across whatever their terrain is.
It's not jungle. I think it's drier, but they they're
like barefoot runners and they do it constantly, and they're
fucking good.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean the terrain where they fight the Persians
at Thermopylae, it's gross.
Speaker 1: Just craigly right, it's just cracked soil. Yeah. They also
only briefly show.
Speaker 2: A fool of thorns everywhere, just bush with thorn.
Speaker 1: I believe it's like maybe like maybe the weather's bad
or it's humid, because they're properly literally translates to hot gates.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, the British also fought the Nazis there.
Speaker 1: Oh really?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Did they lose World War two?
Speaker 1: Did they also lose?
Speaker 2: I never actually looked up there.
Speaker 1: I think I like to think in that battle the
Spartans popped out like the Lord of the Rings ghosts.
Speaker 2: I also can't imagine the Brits sent their their best
to defend Greece.
Speaker 1: No, Greece was the beat. That's where Roll Dall fought.
If you recall when role Dahl was, he was in
the Air Force or whatever. But when he was fighting
in the Battle of Athens, his unit, like he was,
his unit was horribly outnumbered in the sky like England was.
It was like a they sent something, but they were like,
obviously we gotta lock it all down for the home island.
Like here's a little bit grease like, but yeah, you're
not getting a lot.
Speaker 2: No, but you're right, there's probably ghost of Leonidas and
his men. Yeah, just gotta like pray to them, call
to them. They just start rising from the ground.
Speaker 1: They would yeah, yeah, they would be happy to kill again.
Speaker 2: They miss killing, although honestly they probably be on the
Nazi side.
Speaker 1: I'm not certain they wouldn't be.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Spartans, we've talked about this incredibly dickish.
Speaker 1: They suck. It's an overrated thanks to three hundred partially
civilization and my favorite thing, this lose a lot too.
They lose a lot. That's what people don't realize when
people are like, yeah, it's just a macho like the
Spartan military culture. You gotta be hardcore like the Spartans, Dude.
The Spartans routinely got beaten by a lot of different people,
including my favorite Indians, the Athenians, who were the philosophers
and boylovers.
Speaker 2: Just beat the shit Sparta left and right.
Speaker 1: Because here's the thing, you need a The best countries
aren't hardcore militaristic countries. They're diverse in culture in terms
of like really good at economy, really good at arts,
really good at military, all of these things. They have
more than one strength. They don't just overvalue it all
in one place. All of those countries like Nazi Germany
fucking lose or Japan fucking lose, the Aztecs fucking lose.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sure if like Dagistan had an army, they'd lose.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The most alpha culture there is. Yeah, although you know,
ground and pound doesn't really work in war. They can't
just take somebody down.
Speaker 1: No, especially if that person's in an f thirty five
five thousand feet above you.
Speaker 2: Now, the Athenians won a remarkable victory which resulted in
the withdrawal of the Persian army to Asia. Darius began
raising a huge new army to strike back in four
to eighty six PC, but his Egyptian province revolted and
definitely postponed any Greek expedition. Darius died while preparing the
march on Egypt, and the throne of Persia passed on
to Xerxes the First.
Speaker 1: Wait, actually, I'm says earlier. There's only three Persian kings.
I know, but I think it's four because there's two Dariuses.
I think because Alexander the Great kills Adarius.
Speaker 2: Yeah later down the line, yeah, yeah, yeah, well not
that much later, because around this time is when Alexander's fathers.
Speaker 1: And Philip Macedon. Yeah yeah, and he, by the way mine,
he like.
Speaker 2: Gives the Greeks of heads up that the Persians are
on the way.
Speaker 1: Oh, good for him. He is my favorite ponage of
the Spartans of all time, which is he's like, if
I if I come to your country, I'm going to
destroy it. Paraphrasing the quote, He's like, if I come
to your country, I'm gonna destroy it. I'm gonna destroy you.
And the Spartans just sent back.
Speaker 2: If and then they have a moment like that here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but then Philip is like, okay, bet yeah, and
then does it does exactly what he said he was
gonna do. Philip will get.
Speaker 2: A lot more love if Alexander didn't accomplish as much
as he did.
Speaker 1: Philip handed Philip handed Alexander the keys to the program,
you know what I mean, Like that, Alexander was winning
in college football terms. Alexander was winning with Phillips.
Speaker 2: Guys, It's like Steve Kerr being handed Mark Jackson's team.
Speaker 1: Yeah literally, yeah, yeah. Now, granted Kerr took them to
heights that Mark Jackson could couldn't and I think Alexander
did as well. But in the words of Barack Obama,
you don't build up.
Speaker 2: Alexander got Kevin Durant.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, Alexander was Kevin Durant.
Speaker 2: You're right, he was joining the super team.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Xerxes crushed the Egyptian revolt and quickly restarted preparations for
the invasion of Greece. This was to be a full
scale invasion supported by long term planning, stockpilon and conscription.
According to our boy Herodotus, xerxes army was so large that,
upon arriving at the banks of the Ichidorius river. I
think I'm saying that right. I don't know who could.
Who could say his soldiers proceeded to drink it dry? Well,
we know Heratus is one four hyperbole and exaggerating he.
Speaker 1: Is, but he also keeps being proven right on some
because he says shit like this, which is obviously not true.
But then he'll also say other shit that sounds outlandish,
and you know, people will just lump it in with
that because he says a lot of crazy shit. But
there was one thing the other day that they found
out was true. I think he said it was a
Scythians or Scythians whatever he said that. They like it
was like sword sheets or something made out of human skin.
And that was another one. They were like, all right,
herad it is whatever they flayed humans, Yeah, and made
like the machines or something out of skin. Anyway, a
recent archaeological find found Scythian human skin sheets.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're like, fuck more like Slician. Fuck. He got
one right, He got a couple of things right. He
was the Olex Jones of his time.
Speaker 1: That was essentially what they're saying, like it was just
like propaganda to be like Yeah, those fucking monsters up
north and.
Speaker 2: They're talking about like the Babylonian Gates. You'd never stepped
foot there.
Speaker 1: I don't think he got close to it.
Speaker 2: No, not at all.
Speaker 1: But you know what, man, at that point in history,
at that point in history, it's like a five month journey.
Just talk to someone who's been there. That's what he did,
and he wrote it down and that's what counts.
Speaker 2: There's a game of whisper down the lane for most
of history with Rhodis. Is that what you call it?
Whisper down the lane.
Speaker 1: And call it telephone?
Speaker 2: Same thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, same game. I just didn't know if
that was like a different regional thing in north. In
the northeast we call it whisper down the lane.
Speaker 2: We have more lanes.
Speaker 1: It's a very alley heavy part of the country.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And for eighty one bc X sent embissaries around
Greece requesting earth and water, but very deliberately left out
Athens and Sparta because he just was like he's like, no,
we're coming for you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh there's no, there's no quarter for you. Like
I'm not making a deal with.
Speaker 2: We're gonna crush you. This actually caused a divided Greece
to come together and rally around the two cities reverse effect.
Then Xerxes probably wanted yeah. Congress met at Corinth in
the late fall of for eighty one BC, and a
confederate alliance of Greek city states was formed. The Persian
army seems to have made slow progress through Thrace and Macedon.
News of the imminent Persian approach eventually reached Greece in
August of four to eighty BC. At this time of year,
the Spartans, de facto military leaders of the alliance, were
celebrating the Festival of Carnea. During the Carnea military activity
was forbidden by Spartan law. The Spartans had arrived too
late at the Battle of Marathon because of this requirement.
It was also the time of the Olympic Games and
therefore the Olympic Truce, and thus it would have been
doubly sacrilegious for the whole Spartan army to march to war.
Seems dumb, I think. So you're just kind of putting
restraints on what you guys can do.
Speaker 1: And presumably it's enough of a like sort of regional
globalism that the persons are well aware of that, and.
Speaker 2: It's like, yeah, let's attack when they can't do anyth Yeah.
Speaker 1: I like it seems like the fact that they've done
this twice now is on purpose.
Speaker 2: M It's like attacking during yam Kapor or Ramadan, the
yam Kapor War, yam Kapor war.
Speaker 1: Yeah, attack during Ramandon does seem smart, Like, hey, they
can't eat for a month.
Speaker 2: Didn't we just do that?
Speaker 1: No, Ramanon was over when Iran. Oh maybe when we
bombed the first time the new program that might have
been during Ramanon?
Speaker 2: Are you sure?
Speaker 1: But this one was. I think Ramadan was over. I
was pretty I'm pretty sure it was over.
Speaker 2: It was February seventeenth to March nineteenth, so it's not over.
Speaker 1: Oh then, yes we did ram Its.
Speaker 2: Like, pretty sure Ramadan's going on right now?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Oh yeah, that makes sense because I actually, uh,
there's some uh college basketball player I can't remember who
who is not he's fasting, yeah, and he's good. I
think he's on Michigan or something.
Speaker 2: I know this because most UFC fighters that are Muslim
don't fight during this time. Yeah, for obvious reason.
Speaker 1: Not, I'd not an ideal time to do it. It's
all the Dagistanis are.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're out.
Speaker 1: They're out during this time.
Speaker 2: Kind of an easy way to cut way, right, you'd think,
granted you're eating at like one o'clock, two o'clock in
the morning.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a weird because you can eat.
Speaker 2: It's just as soon as the sun goes down. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
it's from my understanding, that's a nightmare.
Speaker 1: Of all the reasons to not do that. Religion number
one is a month of horrible eating habits and like
like just just be like, I can't do this.
Speaker 2: A board of five Spartan leaders to the urgency was
enough to justify an advanced expedition force to block the
pass under one of its kings, Leonidis, the first Leonidis
took with him three hundred men of the royal bodyguard.
Speaker 1: Leonidas left spat. Spat. That's the that's the key word
in the voice. Spat. Yeah, that's the So for every
I don't know how other people who I'm not like
an impressionist, impressionist, but I can do a couple of voices.
And when I do any voice, there are like totem
words that center you back to because the more you
stray away from it, the worse it gets, so you
gotta go like spat.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately for my boss and accent, it is the word
your mom doesn't want us to say. And it's Jeremy Renner,
Yeah for fuck.
Speaker 1: Yo, fac ya, for Jimmy Stewart, Mary Murray, no, hold
on a minute now, I'm marry.
Speaker 2: I guess I can change it the wicked hot coal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that works too.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then for Helen Slaggerman is.
Speaker 2: No, it's always what's your Irish? I mean you do it?
I heard you hit. Sometimes you don't Irish as I.
Speaker 1: Say the Hail Mary, Hail Mary, for Christ, the Lord
is with you, blessed art album, swimming, blessed the fruit
to die, womb, Jesus, Holy Mary, motterate God to pray
for us, Pray for us sinners, not at the hour
of our death. That yeah, I could always do the Connor,
but Hail Mary is it just has like all the
beats you need.
Speaker 2: It does and you know it too well. I did
front and back every time he went to confession.
Speaker 1: I would sometimes have to stop myself from doing it
in the Irish.
Speaker 2: This expedition was to try to gather as many Greek
soldiers along the way as possible, and to await the
arrival of the main Spartan army when you know the
festival is over. The Oracle of Delphi delivered INFI Delphie.
Speaker 1: I think it's Delphi.
Speaker 2: Delphi is a sorority. I'm positive Delfie. I've played, and
you can, you know, chew us out in the comments
if you want. I'm pretty sure when I was playing
an Assassin's Creed it was Delfi. Okay, I'm gonna stick
to it.
Speaker 1: I'll defer to Assassin's Creed.
Speaker 2: When I was playing Odyssey, I heard the word Delfi.
Speaker 1: Okay, I think in three hundred is Delphi the oracle
del fae wretched creatures?
Speaker 2: I mean I can check it in real time.
Speaker 1: I suppose enslaving women.
Speaker 2: Let's let's just do it. I'm want to blame the
game though, if it's Delphi, because it should be Delphi.
All right, well, you know, you get a win.
Speaker 1: I do the kid normally, I don't. At this point,
I'm just like whatever I'm.
Speaker 2: Saying, Google's wrong too, okay, American pronunciation. It should should
be Delphi, all right.
Speaker 1: You're going like alpha Phi.
Speaker 2: Alpha fi, yeah, rush alpha Fi.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Delivered a prophetic message to the Spartans for telling the
impending conflict. This is a translation obviously. Yeah, I.
Speaker 1: Love that, like most of the Greeks who are bad
in that movie are like freaks, and all of the
Persians are freaks.
Speaker 2: And then the good guys are hot hot.
Speaker 1: I mean, honestly, the Spartan side in three hundred is
much gayer than the Persian.
Speaker 2: Side, right, They don't actually show what the Spartans are
doing to build up that team work.
Speaker 1: No, no, that's what that's what three hundred the Early
Years is for.
Speaker 2: You fight harder for a lover, that is.
Speaker 1: Well, that was I think it was Thrace, the Thracian
or no, Thebian Thebian band was essentially like a super unit.
Speaker 2: If that's not true, the Thebians are catching straight.
Speaker 1: Right the I think it's the thieves Thebian band. Uh, yeah,
it was. It was like a special forces unit of
like dudes, who it was all They were all banging
each other like it was pairs of lovers essentially, so
you would fight harder for you know, you want to
lose your your your boy.
Speaker 2: This is what the Oracle of Delphie said. Okay, Delphi
if you want to be correct, we're sticking whatever, sticking
with Delphie.
Speaker 1: I'm on board with Delphi.
Speaker 2: Now I'm gonna just keep digging this trench. Hear your fate,
O dwellers in Sparta of the wide spaces, Either you're famed,
great town must be sacked by Persia's sons, or if
that be not, the whole land of last Damien shall
mourn the death of a king of the House of Hercules,
for not the strength of lions or of bulls shall
hold him strength against strength, for he has the power
of Zeus, and will not be checked to one of
these two. He has consumed. Leonidas, in the line with
the prophecy, was convinced he was going to certain death. Yeah,
he just accepted it. He's like, all right, hold the line.
Speaker 1: Well, if you werecalling the movie, they tell him no. Essentially,
he's like he's like, give me my bed, like let
me fight in the oracle. Not the oracles. But like
the guys who oversee the hot chick who does the prophecy,
they're all they're the freaks because they got paid off
by the Persians, and they're like, Leonidas, you will not
march within Annie. They're all for all the bad Greeks
except for the dude from the wire who who rapes
Leonidas's wife, Lena Hetty, Oh boy a lot. Yeah, he's
the only good looking one. The rest of them like
physically disgusting.
Speaker 2: But they all surround the oracle holes were hot.
Speaker 1: The oracles themselves, it's like a chick underwater, like floating.
Speaker 2: And then it's just a bunch of monsters, monsters up
on a hill.
Speaker 1: Like Oracle del Fay, freakish men bound to the mountain.
Speaker 2: I guess who are they? Technically just the security what
the oracles? No, I know what the oracles?
Speaker 1: Oh oh yeah around like just freak priests who I
probably get pretty handsy with. The girls who were trapped
in their mountain fucking temple that they don't leave.
Speaker 2: Well, they're probably mermaids right underwater.
Speaker 1: Well no, it was shot underwater to make it seem
she wasn't. Actually like in the.
Speaker 2: Movies, I know, oracles were just women. Yeah they were there,
you know, prophecy tellers, but they had the fortune tellers, they.
Speaker 1: Had the like fucking gullam handlers.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's really good.
Speaker 1: Go back to your city.
Speaker 2: So Leonidas, knowing probably gonna die, only selected Spartans with
living sons to continue the family name. Okay. Spartan force
was reinforced en route to Thermopylae by contingents from various
cities and numbered more than seven thousand by the time
it arrived to the pass. So you know, seven thousand
doesn't have the same ring as three hundred.
Speaker 1: Yeah, seven thousand, I don't know, ye, I.
Speaker 2: Mean they're incredibly outnumbered, but there was just three hundred.
Speaker 1: Dudes, comically outnumbered. It's like the biggest army in Persian history.
It's probably not the size Herodotus said it was.
Speaker 2: Set like three mil.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well wasn't closed. Three million was like I think
the US army in World War Two at its peak
was like four to five million.
Speaker 2: I think it was a couple hundred thousand, but it
was not. Yeah, Herotus was feeling himself on that number.
I think he stopped counting.
Speaker 1: There weren't three million people available. No, Like, there were
obviously three million people around, but like not not for
one arm fighting age males. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Leonis chose to camp at and defend the Middle Gate,
the narrowest part of the passive Thermopylae, where the Phocians
had built a defensive wall sometime before. I think I'm
saying that Focian.
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's not Phoenician, I guess, so fuck it.
Eight million was the US army size in World War Two,
So yeah, no, he did not put together three million dudes.
Speaker 2: What's the US military number for World War three?
Speaker 1: Well, right now, I think our standing army is like
two million. Okay, obviously we would like quadruple that.
Speaker 2: How many drones we got at.
Speaker 1: Least, I hope a lot, but we don't do. I
don't think we do like suicide drones. So, like drone
numbers are like kind of a weird gauge because I
think the Chinese and the Iranians have like a shit
ton of them, but they're one time, one time used,
you know what I mean. Kamakazi, Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah,
Like our drones shoot missiles and shit, because.
Speaker 2: We're like, we spend a pretty penny on these. We're
not going to just crash over right. And by the way,
although that keeps lock key Martin, what is a just
from RN?
Speaker 1: What is what is a suicide drone but a missile? Yeah,
I'm sure there's a difference, but there isn't like practically
there's not in use, probably, but like at the end
of the day, it's just a shitty missile.
Speaker 2: Finally, in mid August, the Persian army was sighted across
the Malayan golf approaching Thermopoli. Xerxes sent a Persian emissary
to negotiate with Leonidas. The Greeks were offered their freedom,
the title Friends of the Persian People, and the opportunity
to resettle a land better than what they possessed. Xerx's
pretty fair guy.
Speaker 1: He just wants to land, so he just wants the
tax money, the truly. And the thing about the Persians
that people don't remember from that movie because they make
it seem like the exact opposite, is that the Persians
are like very much like, yeah, you do you We
just want to collect your taxes and use you if
we fight in the other wars.
Speaker 2: Yeah. From when I remember, the Persian Empire did not
give a fuck about religion. They didn't like put their
beliefs on you. You're like, you can do whatever you want,
just you know, and every month, every six months, every year,
you just gotta patrie.
Speaker 1: Pay, I mean literally. Cyrus is celebrated in the Old
Testament for being a liberator who allows the Jews to
like practice their religion again after the Babylonians, you know,
crushed them or whatever. So like, it's not quite what
you think, not quite what Alexander and uh and the
Spartans portray it as.
Speaker 2: When are we the baddies refuse the terms. The ambassador
carried a written message by Xerxes asking him to hand
over your arms. Leonidas's famous response to the Persians was,
and I'm sure a lot of Americans would love to
have this flag in there their back. We should actually
have it, yeah, for the Leonidis flag on the back.
Come and take them. I mean, we'll just have a spear.
Speaker 1: My assumption is because people were very well read in
the nineteenth century and stuff like that. My assumption is
Texases come and take it. Is from that. Yeah, like
if I had to guess, because whoever said it was
probably some guy who went to college and read the classics.
Speaker 2: And I mean it's a hard line. It's a hard
hard lines better than if if yeah, come and take them.
Speaker 1: I mean that's not even Leonidas's hardest line of Thermopylae.
Speaker 2: Though, what's his hardest line?
Speaker 1: When Xerxes and I'll be doing film Xerxes here or
actually I don't think Xerxes says it. I think it's
someone else says it. But it's like, our arrow are
so numerous, they'll block out the sun and Leonidas goes
then we'll fight in the shade.
Speaker 2: So that's not totally accurate of what happens, but yeah,
it is like along the lines. Okay, so they do
get the truth of the story for the most part
and do a good job. What do he goes to
Zack Snyder?
Speaker 1: I like Zack Snyder like Watchman's a sweet movie.
Speaker 2: I don't know, Watchman is a sweet movie.
Speaker 1: I don't know why people were like shitting on it
at the time.
Speaker 2: I think when he turned to the DC comics is
really when he Watchman excluded is when he really started
to get ship on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, those movies are bad.
Speaker 2: The Batman movies for Superman, they're bad. I've never even
the Superman movies are bad.
Speaker 1: Never ever seen a worse casting choice than Jesse Eisenberg.
Is Lex Luthor.
Speaker 2: Just so super neurotic, just like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, mincing, little neurotic or what are.
Speaker 2: You doing there, Superman? Oh heart's hiding back?
Speaker 1: Have gottam that's those Man of Steel, like it's just
on watchable ha ha. He's like, like Superman will be like,
why don't I kill you right now?
Speaker 2: You're just doing a Mickey Mouse.
Speaker 1: Here's why it fucking Oh my god, it's it's bad,
but I do I still like to watch it because
it's so bad it's fun.
Speaker 2: Xerox's delayed for four days waiting for Greeks to disperse
before sending troops to attack. He's just thinking, all right,
if I wait a couple of days, maybe some of
these Greeks will see our numbers and just bail on Leonidas.
It'll be a smaller army. He will have to take
over and make the job easier. But little did he
know the Spartans and the Greeks are just kind of dicks.
Speaker 1: They're kind of dicks. Again, I have to ask a
little bit. Are we the baddies?
Speaker 2: Are we the Western society? Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 1: No? But in this instance, no, overall, no. But the
Persians were doing a lot of things that were nicer
than the West. This isn't like, this isn't like the
like Caliphates conquering you know, half the world in the
seven hundreds, ad like where.
Speaker 2: They were like by the sword die.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like the Persians were just like we won't get paid,
pay us and we'll let you do whatever you.
Speaker 2: Want, just trying to build the full empire as.
Speaker 1: Far as conquerors go, Like, look, it's still unethical and
shitty to to, you know, go conquer people who.
Speaker 2: Are still under somebody's fucking wing.
Speaker 1: Independently, certainly, but as far as conquerors go, this iteration
of the Persians was pretty chill.
Speaker 2: The number of troops which Xerxes mustard for the second
invasion of Greece generally range from one hundred and twenty
thousand to three hundred thousand.
Speaker 1: Which is still a monstrous army.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's huge for the day, but again Herodotus was
like three mil.
Speaker 1: It's like okay, right, yeah, to give you some perspective
on that too, I think Napoleon's army at Waterloo was
like a buck to twenty something like that. Yeah, and yeah,
like it's just Napoleon took that l he did, but
his armies were always that big, like between one and
two hundred thousand, well a lot of sometimes less than
a hundred dozen, but at their largest it was like
I think he maybe invaded Russia with like two hundred What.
Speaker 2: Did Wellington roll out?
Speaker 1: He had less? Much less, not much less, but they
had let well so the ally the Seventh Coalition I
think it was, I think combined had more between the
Prussians and the British, but individually Napoleon had more than
either army.
Speaker 2: And his reward for that win is to be named
a steak that's prepared in like the seventh or eighth
best fashion of beef Wellington. Yeah, what's the last time
he ate a beef Wellen?
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Have you ever eaten about beef phone?
Speaker 1: I'm certain I have.
Speaker 2: It's just like I'd rather have steak.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Why I don't want my steak wrapped in a
carb No, Like I don't, I just want.
Speaker 2: I don't want like a steak kolachi.
Speaker 1: It's what it is, pretty much. Yeah. And then there's
just like caramelized mince mushrooms in there. So it's such
a British thing.
Speaker 2: They ruined all the food.
Speaker 1: It's just like a bizarre Thank.
Speaker 2: God we got our independence.
Speaker 1: Just cook the steak.
Speaker 2: Imagine how bad food would be if we were still
under British rule.
Speaker 1: Oh, horrific. Yeah, I mean the French no barbecue, it
would have been outlawed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like this meat's too tasty?
Speaker 1: Are you not a fan from the one form of
barbecue that came from sort of English rule, which one
Carolina style.
Speaker 2: It's fine, it's like mustard based.
Speaker 1: I like me a good mustard barbecue sauce. They do
pork well, Yeah, pulled pork, that's it. That's what I
miss here with Texas barbecue. Nobody does pulled pork.
Speaker 2: It's like the easiest barbecue to do.
Speaker 1: I love pulled pork.
Speaker 2: Pull pork is you can do it yourself, I know,
but I love it.
Speaker 1: I want to eat it.
Speaker 2: I kind of don't want to give Carolina any credit
for perfecting pulled pork.
Speaker 1: We y smoke it and rip it apart.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not hard to do. There's not a whole
lot of like artistry.
Speaker 1: To it, unlike a brisket or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: From a strategic point of view, by defending Thermopyla, the
Greeks were making the best possible use of their forces.
A hop light phalanx could block the narrow pass with
these with no risk of being outflanked by cavalry.
Speaker 1: Did. Did the Hoplights do what the Romans did with
the sort of like hockey.
Speaker 2: Shift, stab, drop back stab, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Because the Romans would do like essentially, you know, the
front line would fight for like a couple minutes, whistle blows,
next line moves up, hockey.
Speaker 2: Shifts, hockey shifts. The way to do it thirty seconds. Yeah,
then you get you cut your breath, get.
Speaker 1: Back out there, you get you go all the way
to the back, you get like a ten minute break, sweet,
and then you get to come up again. Yeah, it's awesome.
Speaker 2: For the Persians, the problem was supplying such a large army,
and that meant they could not remain in the same
place for very long. They had to either retreat or advance,
and advance and required forcing through the pass. The major
weak point for the Greeks was the mountain track, which
led across the highland parallel to Thermopylae. That could allow
their position to be outflanked.
Speaker 1: It's weird to me they didn't have better logistics because
it was a very well run empire, Like they had
like a male system and like it was a good
bureaucratic empire. You would think they would be able to
have the supply lines.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but they're stuck in this just awful land.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Greece isn't good land. I feel like like for
like natural resources, like yeah they make wine and olive
oil and shit O, but like what do you you know?
How much stuff do they have?
Speaker 2: They have really good land, then they have really bad lane.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of it's like mountainous dog shit. Real quick.
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Speaker 2: This path could be traversed by Persian infantry, many of
whom were versed in mountain warfare. Leonidis was made aware
of the path by local people, and he positioned a
detachment of troops there in order to block this route.
The terrain of the battlefield is nothing that zerk season
his forces were accustomed to, even though they had mountain
warfare experience.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're from fucking Iran.
Speaker 2: The Persians were not prepared for the real nature of
the country they had invaded. The pure ruggedness of the
area is caused by torrential downpours for four months of
the year, combined with an intense summer season of scorching
heat that cracks the ground.
Speaker 1: The hot Gates.
Speaker 2: Vegetation. Vegetation is scarce and consists of low, thorny shrubs,
with the sea on one side in a steep, impassable
hill on the other. King Leonidis and his men chose
the perfect position to battle the Persian invaders. It's like,
you gotta go through this very slim little hall.
Speaker 1: Yeah it's a bottleneck and which is not a bottle
neck is good for any sort of defense, but especially
when your defense is like the phalanx, like a wall,
essentially like try to move us bro.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was their entire strategy, move us bro.
Speaker 1: I mean I didn't play Rome to Total War ever,
but I played Rome Total War the first one a lot,
and the first sieve I ever played as was the Greeks,
and oh my god, the hop lights and failings is
were just unfucking movable on defense, Like if you don't
flank them, it doesn't even matter if your troops are
like a higher tier, You're just not going to get
to them.
Speaker 2: On the fifth day after the Persian arrival at Thermopyli,
Xerxes ordered five thousand archers to shoot a barrage of arrows,
but they were ineffective. They shot from at least one
hundred yards away, and the Greek wooden shields, sometimes covered
with a very thin layer of bronze and helmets, deflected
the arrows. The Persian soon launched a frontal assault in
waves of around ten thousand men.
Speaker 1: But it's not ten thousand men, right, it's however many
men can get to.
Speaker 2: The front of it fit like shoulder right, so every
squeezed tight.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine that'd be like a funny sketch that
we have no ability to do because it would be
too high high production value.
Speaker 2: Need men, We just need bodies.
Speaker 1: You're just like waiting in line to fight. Yeah, Like
you're literally waiting in line going through TSA, Like you're yeah,
like you're in TSA or fucking disney World or something
on a busy day and you're just like.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, this line is everyone in front of
you is dying. Yeah, and you're just like, I can't
wait to die.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: That's what you turn.
Speaker 1: That's what they are standing in line for to get
a spear to the neck.
Speaker 2: And then those bodies stack up so they create kind
of a body wall. Yeah, you got to get over.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's gross, so you're just climbing over blood
and shit.
Speaker 2: And limb.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The Greeks fought in front of the Focian wall at
the Narialist part of the pass, which enabled them to
use as few soldiers as possible. The weaker shields and
short spears and swords of the Persians prevented them from
effectively engaging the Greek hop lights, and they were butchered.
Speaker 1: They don't even touch them, like literally, like yeah, like
they have either shorter spears or swords. The so one
thing that made the uh Macedonians so effective and roll
over Greece is that I have to double check this,
but I'm pretty sure if Philip was just like, yo,
what if we use even longer spears.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like the whole thing.
Speaker 1: And then they show up and the Greeks.
Speaker 2: Are like, oh fuck, our spears aren't long enough. So
he sends in, of course, his special forces.
Speaker 1: Who are in the movie, you're like samurai essentially the immortals.
Speaker 2: Yeah, not so immortal.
Speaker 1: And by the way, in the movie too, they don't
give they don't give anyone credit who is not on
the Greek side, because in the movie the immortals are
also freaks, like they're all wearing these like samurai metal,
like Japanese Samurai mass but like one gets pulled off
like the narrative.
Speaker 2: A spinoff movie called The Immortals. I'm pretty sure did they.
Speaker 1: I mean they did a second three hundred.
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure they did in a more immortals movie
that wasn't the Marvel movie. Yeah, it's just called Immortals.
I don't know if it has anything to do with them.
Speaker 1: Okay, but yeah, the narrators like the Eboltos spat has
Mickey Vork in it. That's sweet.
Speaker 2: His ruthless army marched across Greece, leeven burned out villages
and the corpse of the innocent in their wake. So
this has to be maybe about this.
Speaker 1: Is that in this? Is that in the Snyder verse. No,
it's just another one.
Speaker 2: Look like it. It was directed by Tarzan Singh has
Henry cavill in it. Camel has Henry Cavly and Mickey Rourke.
Speaker 1: That's weird. But yeah, that was like in the movie,
it's just like the Emoto's freakish soldious.
Speaker 2: These are guys chosen by Zous, So now I don't
think it has anything to do with them actually.
Speaker 1: Slaves to sixies and like one guy gets his mask
ripped off and it's just like I don't even know,
like it's like a burn victim.
Speaker 2: Like he's like.
Speaker 1: Like no one, no one who is against the Greeks.
Isn't either super gay or super deformed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they fail to in the second wave, and after
two days of pure failure, Xerxes stops the assault and
withdraws back to camp totally perplexed, like what how is
this happening? Like you can only do he's just throwing bodies. Yeah,
but the thing is the grinder.
Speaker 1: There's no flanking. It's so it's literally just waves of
like I don't know, twenty on twenty.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they're gonna win with the better swords and
shield Here's what I would do and spears.
Speaker 1: And I don't know why they didn't do it, because
this existed at the time to some extent. Just wheel
up a catapult. Just wheel up a catapult. The Spartans
can't leave their position, right, like, they they have to stay.
Speaker 2: They're using the geography to be as tight as possible.
Speaker 1: Right, So just stand there and look at them while
you're However, many slaves push a fucking doesn't even have
to be a big catapult. You could build one. You
could build a mini catapult and just shoot medium sized
rocks at them to your heart's content.
Speaker 2: Well, their shields they do have a thin layer of bronze,
but there's a lot of wood. Why don't you just
light the arrows on fire.
Speaker 1: You don't know, that might work, That could have worked, Yeah,
or fuck, I don't even know. Just light a giant
fire in front of them, smoke them out.
Speaker 2: As Xerxes was pondering what to do next, a local
named Euphaltes informed him of the mountain path around Thermopylae
and offered to guide the Persian army For this act.
His name received a lasting stigma and came to mean
nightmare in the Greek language, or to symbolize a traitor
in Greek culture. Arnold which it is?
Speaker 1: It is? Yeah.
Speaker 2: Xerxes sent his commander that evening with a force of
twenty thousand men that included what was left of the immortals,
to encircle the Greeks via the path. At daybreak on
the third day, the Foscian garden the path retreated to
a nearby hill to make their stand, assuming the Persians
would come attack them. So they bailed on the path
and went to a hill nearby, thinking the Persians were
going to engage, and Persians just kept on going.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or they just bypassed them.
Speaker 2: They volleyed a couple arrows to keep them at bay.
But yeah, they just they're like, why are we gonna
waste her time? Just go on the path for a fine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they did what we should have done to Peale Lou.
If you've listened to last week's episode, yeah, which is
just skip.
Speaker 2: It, just move on.
Speaker 1: Just not important.
Speaker 2: Learning from a runner that the Focians had not held
the path, Leonidis called a council of war at dawn.
Some of the Greeks argued for withdrawal, but Leonidis resolved
to stay at the past with the Spartans. Upon discovering
that his army had been encircled, Leonidis told his allies
that they could leave if they wanted to. While many
of the Greeks took him up on his offer, yeah.
Speaker 1: I'm sure they were like, yeah, let's live to fight
another day.
Speaker 2: Around two thousand soldiers stay behind to fight and die.
Leoni has chose to form this decision so that the
other Greek contingents could get away. A lot of people
are like, oh, this is where the Spartans got the
reputation that they don't rich. Yeah, or they just had
some like dumb ass strategy where they never retreated. I
think it was more just Leonidis was like, we're gonna
get you know, five thousand, six thousand dudes out of here. Yeah,
we'll hold the line. They'll be able to fight another day.
Speaker 1: Right, and go back and tell the city what happened,
and like other cities what happened, and like inform them,
like get fucking ready.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because if all the troops had retreated, the open
ground beyond the pass would have allowed the Persian cavalry
to run the Greeks down. If they had all remained
at the pass, they would have been encircled and eventually
just choke.
Speaker 1: Yeah. That's another thing too that the Thermopylae did is that, Yeah,
they couldn't use their calve.
Speaker 2: No, can't be running horses down that thin path. No.
Speaker 1: It's also suicide to charge in at least in Rome
total war, suicide to charge a failings with cavalry.
Speaker 2: Because they just eat you their shields.
Speaker 1: No, like the spears get you before. That's I mean
that the main way to fight cavalry up until basically
guns got really good was pikes with always spear spear
walls whatever like that of dead horses. Yeah, that persisted
until probably the seventeen hundreds honestly, like the early seventeen hundreds.
Speaker 2: Maybe, yeah, man, that is not they don't show that movies.
The amount of dead horses.
Speaker 1: They don't. They don't do a good job with the
sheer amount of just dead horses that are everywhere.
Speaker 2: Those are way more valuable than soldiers too. Oh yeah,
to the armies at.
Speaker 1: Least losing losing cavalry costs you a lot of Like
you can, you know, toss infantry at whatever you want,
but like cavalry units, it's like twice the amount of training.
The horse costs a ton of money. Like, it's just
you can't. You got to use them, right, you can't
waste them.
Speaker 2: Persian force of ten thousand men comprising of light infantry
and cavalry, charged at the front of the Greek formation.
Leonidis died in the assault, shot by Persian archers, and
the two sides actually fought over his body.
Speaker 1: Oh who could get it.
Speaker 2: He died pretty early in that kind of part of
the battle.
Speaker 1: He died like William Travis at the Alamo. Travis was
like the first guy to die in the battle.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's tough when you see he's given like
this raw Raspiason dies within like ten minutes.
Speaker 1: I just like in the movie how he like comes
out and Xerxes is like, finally.
Speaker 2: Leonidos, he does get blood from Xerxes.
Speaker 1: We would make love to each other.
Speaker 2: That is where they start to take their creative liberies.
Speaker 1: His shield was heavy, so he had to had to
lose it. His helmet obscured his vision, spat.
Speaker 2: Spat, and.
Speaker 1: I just like the way he says that. It's so funny.
Speaker 2: As the immortals approached the Greeks withdrew and took a
stand on a hill behind the wall, tearing down parts
of the walls. Xerxes ordered the hill surrounded, and the
Persians rained down arrows until every last Greek was dead.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they didn't really have to go in and do anything.
Speaker 2: The pass that Thermopola was open to the Persian army.
And for this though, according to Herodotus, so take that
for what you will, it cost the Persians twenty thousand men.
Speaker 1: I actually think that's a reasonable estimate. Yeah, Like truly,
if the Greeks had seven thousand and fought for how
many days? How many days was this?
Speaker 2: This is like five six days?
Speaker 1: I think I don't think that's an unreasonable estimate like
he could his look Herodotus, I literally thought, you're gonna
be like Haaratas said, he killed one hundred.
Speaker 2: Thousand men killed a million.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, twenty thousands, like a fairly reasonable number.
Speaker 2: He catches the off guard with some of his numbers,
like oh that actually, yeah, he sounds reasonable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's not bad, like it's it's see, but that's
if it's a lie, it's a good lie, you know
what I mean, A sprinkle in it's like, oh yeah,
this is like two to one, you know what I mean?
They lost or I guess four to one because they
lost five thousand ish and uh and the yeah, the
Persians lost twenty thousand.
Speaker 2: After the Persians departure, the Greeks collected they're dead and
buried them on a hill. A full forty years after
the battle, Leonidas's bones were returned to Sparta, where he
was buried again with full honors. Funeral games were held
in his memory, and the battle itself had shown that,
even when heavily outnumbered, the Greeks could put up an
effective fight against the Persians.
Speaker 1: But that's like their jam, like that's when they do
their best, honestly, other than Alexander, who was constantly on
the offensive. Like, I feel like the Greeks do their
best work. Defending a Failings is kind of I feel
like it's made for defense defense.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, just you know, sitting in the pocket picking
their spots. Yeah, because it's it's a defensive box.
Speaker 1: I will see. Yeah, I will say this like whenever
I had to attack, whenever I had to do an
offensive playing as the Greeks or the Macedonians in Rome
Total War, it was really uh fraught because if they
caught you on your flanks, Like if you're moving forward,
your flanks become more exposed and you just have to
keep the flying. That's true with anything, but like you
really have to keep the flanks locked down on a
Failings because if a FHIALANX gets hit in the side
versus like another unit in Rome Total War, that collapses immediately.
Speaker 2: The defeat at Thermopylea had turned Leonidas and his men
under his command into martyrs. It boosted the morale of
all Greek soldiers. In the second Persian invasion, and yeah,
Persia doesn't take grease.
Speaker 1: There is a major battle that they lose to the
Spartans and combined I don't remember the other one, but
like Spartans Athenians, and I don't remember who else, but yeah,
they do lose a major battle later in the war
and you have to fuck off and then tuck their tail.
And then what twenty years later Alexander comes calling.
Speaker 2: Mhm, he's waiting, and I mean he's probably like a
child at this point, right, I'm not sure, so you
might not even be alive.
Speaker 1: What year was the battle Fromopoley.
Speaker 2: Four eighty BC?
Speaker 1: I see Andrew the Great, Let's see he was No,
he was in the three hundreds, so yeah, I never mind,
this is quite a bit after. Okay, so Philip was
not in play at this point, I thought he was. No,
we were dead dead ass wrong on that.
Speaker 2: Maybe Philip had a father named Philip, he was Philip
the second. Okay, then I read Philip, so I just
imagine it was Philip.
Speaker 1: Probably don't even his father, it's probably his grandfather of great.
Speaker 2: Grandfaka and got that wrong. But I saw Philip. Yeah,
just well, I macedone.
Speaker 1: I thought, yeah, well, I mean, you know Elizabeth with
Elizabeth the iond Yeah, France, I'm not keeping up. All
the kings were named Louis in France, they were fucking
eighteen of them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, how many piouses are there? For popes?
Speaker 1: Is pious? Tie with Benedict, it's up there. They're both
like sixteen or seventeen deep.
Speaker 2: Too many Benedicts. The last Benedict doesn't even county retired. Yeah,
you gotta die in that chair, doesn't count. Revoke that Benedict.
Speaker 1: I agree, I agree he didn't. He did not fulfill
his watch.
Speaker 2: Hasn't ended well technically as he died, yeah, shortly after
and shame would you learn today?
Speaker 1: A fair bit of this? I mean I didn't know,
like all the super nitty gritty detail, although I have
like read about the Ropoli before, but I didn't know
all the super nitty gritty details. But I mean three
hundred pretty much hits the notes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean Leonis doesn't last at the end. That's
really a yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he makes it pretty far. In the actual uh movie.
Speaker 2: He draws blood. Yeah, after he launches himself, he yeats
himself off, his boys shield leoditis.
Speaker 1: Now the spot and it's five thousand strat or whatever
the fuck, twenty thousand strat?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Uh, who's today's hitler. I'm gonna blame the rest
of the Spartans that didn't show up because they were
at a festival.
Speaker 1: Yeah, religion, I guess, I don't know, stupid religious rules.
Speaker 2: Leonis is cool to fight, so it's already three hundred
dudes fight now.
Speaker 1: Well he no. Well, I think in the movie, the
way he justifies it, and I think this my actually
be true is that he was like, oh, I'm not
going to fight. I'm just going on a trip and
I got to take my.
Speaker 2: Bodyguard with me and take my boys.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and if I run into trouble, I run into trouble.
But this isn't a war band, this isn't a More
March or whatever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but the movie's wrong on that they knew the
Persians would come.
Speaker 1: Well they know in the movie too, and he's just like, oh, okay, well,
I'll just take my bodyguard on a stroll.
Speaker 2: I need three hundred of them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sure, three hundred bodyguards on a stroll.
Speaker 2: Anyway. That's today's episode. We love you guys, Thanks you
tune it in. Make sure to check out our Patreon,
Patreon dot com slash Softcore History. Two additional episodes on
the Lower Tier that drop Wednesday and Friday, that are
much like this. We also have a hotline you can
call for that. We're starting to do voicemail episodes again,
we've done over fifty, but we haven't done one in
a long time. Finally got a vicemail episode out last Friday. Yeah,
it was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: I love voicemail episodes, a lot of fun.
Speaker 2: So you get to contribute. There's a discord that comes
along with the Patreon. You're trying to build up a
community of softies, and I.
Speaker 1: Know we try not to be topical, but since it
is that time, if you join it. We're doing a
bracket for March Madness because we have and we have
a sports show that's on a higher tier, higher tier,
but you will You do not need to be on
that higher tier to do the bracket. Maybe you should
be though, No, okay, I want lots of It's more
fun with a yeah yeah, with a bigger pool.
Speaker 2: But we have a sports tier. We talk sports every week.
We do a lot of sports show. I also write
a golf column every week. And and if you follow
my picks, it just paid for your membership. Yep, because
we got on the board. Baby came on.
Speaker 1: That's what people, you know, when you bet football, when
you bet all kinds of stuff like that, you got
to kind of win regularly. But when you bet golf, let's.
Speaker 2: Say you're putting ten bucks on each person, right, ten
dollars bets, he's thirty to one, just won three hundred bucks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you only need to win a couple of golf
bets a year, every golf. That's almost like a parlay.
Speaker 2: It's like a scratch ticket.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a lot of ticket, yeah, which is what
a parlay is.
Speaker 2: It's not a lot of ticket because a lot of
tickets never hit.
Speaker 1: True.
Speaker 2: A scratch off that you win a considerable amount of
money on, you know, you might there's scratch outs you win,
you know, your money back. But every now and then,
every like ten twenty scratch offs, you're hitting a big jackpot. Yeah.
I don't know if that's that's probably not accurate at
all for scratch offs, but for me personally, every ten
to twenty tournaments, I will crush.
Speaker 1: Get it up.
Speaker 2: So we got one on the board for the year.
We're gonna try to continue. We're hot, we're feeling good,
starting to see the ball.
Speaker 1: Let's go.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so check it out. We love you guys, leave
a review please and thank you. Five stars on Apple
and Spotify. If you leave reviews on Apple, we will
read them next week. Five stars please. We gotta get
rid of some of these one star reviews that are
very unfair. Didn't we never defended Jeffrey Epstein. I yeah,
we never did that.
Speaker 1: I had no point.
Speaker 2: We called out as father in law in an entire episode.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all we all. I think it was me there,
mad at and all I said was like, I don't
have the band with to give a ship until someone
gets arrested.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just to start arresting people and then we'll pay attention.
Speaker 1: Right, what do you how much more do you want
me to do? I don't think it's I don't think
it's not a big deal. I'm just like, I got
enough going on in my life.
Speaker 2: We're like, something needs to happen, that's it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I got it. I got enough going on, and
there's other.
Speaker 2: News, because otherwise you're just yelling about nothing. Yeah, something's
gotta be done about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And until until something does, I'm not gonna I'm
not gonna fret because it's just typical anyway.
Speaker 2: Thanks for tuning in. We'll see guys. Next week, Rod Fox,
I'm damn Jester. You just got Saucer