0:00

Episode 2 of

0:02

Persia invading Greece, right?

0:12

We've never done that before. That sounded really

0:15

formal. I know, but yeah, I don't

0:18

know. What do you do? So for the

0:20

third chair, we did an episode

0:23

previously. What number is that?

0:25

I'm supposed to know that. Is it 15? Oh, I'm

0:27

supposed to know this. Yeah.

0:31

So basically,

0:32

I listened to Persian

0:34

Fire by Tom Holland, and Matt's

0:36

been researching Persia.

0:39

And we had a surprise conversation.

0:42

And I don't know a lot about this subject, and

0:44

you're letting me pretend like I do. Kind

0:47

of. You did really well, man. No

0:49

joke, you did really well. You retained a ton

0:51

for one reading of something

0:53

you've never been over before.

0:56

That was fun. And it was cool to see the parts

0:58

that stood out to you. That was enjoyable for me as

1:00

well. It's an interesting topic. And so where

1:02

we left off, can I just bring us back up

1:04

to speed as if I know what I'm talking about?

1:07

I would love that. Please. And I still have

1:09

the ability to just say whatever, and you just correct me

1:11

when I go out of bounds. It's kind of like, this is kind of

1:13

how I view this. You know how when you go bowling,

1:16

and then they've got the bumpers they pull out? Oh,

1:18

yeah. I feel like you're the bumpers for me.

1:20

And you're just letting me just go down the lane

1:22

like a drunk history guy.

1:27

And then you're just like, hey, no, that's wrong. Let's

1:29

correct that. That's kind of what it feels like. And

1:32

it's kind of fun, to be honest with you.

1:33

Before we're done with this conversation, though, I

1:35

want to talk more about quote,

1:37

wrong, and how we know that,

1:40

and whether we know that. And Persia

1:43

is a great topic for two reasons.

1:45

One, it's this fantastic

1:47

story that is set with

1:49

one foot in the old mythic world of magic,

1:52

and wizards, and demigods,

1:54

and all of that kind of stuff. And then the other

1:56

foot set in history

1:59

as we know it. And so it's this very

2:02

dynamic, very interesting time when the

2:04

earth was younger. The other

2:06

reason that it's interesting though, is because it is that

2:08

far back and we just, there's enough sources,

2:12

or I should say, few enough sources

2:14

that you can develop somewhat of a mastery

2:17

of all of them rather quickly.

2:19

Because of that, it's a great topic to

2:21

talk about history in general and how we know anything

2:24

at all about things that happened before now.

2:26

And I wanna get into that before we're done.

2:28

Oh my goodness, dude. Okay, yeah, that's

2:30

a whole thing. The scientific method versus the historical

2:33

method.

2:34

Very interesting topic. Bringing

2:36

me back up to speed. So we've got

2:38

Persia, Persia in the east, we've got

2:41

Greece in the west, and

2:44

Persia invaded Greece. So

2:47

let's go over the rulers of Persia.

2:49

We had Cyrus the Great,

2:52

who had- Very good. Cambyses and Bardia.

2:55

And- Very good. And Cambyses

2:58

was killed when he got on a horse and was

3:01

stabbed or cut by his lance and it became

3:03

gangrenous and he died.

3:05

Yeah. His lance bearer, Darius,

3:09

rode across the whole empire

3:12

or whatever to go find Bardia

3:14

and knocked on the door and was like, what's up? And

3:16

then killed Bardia.

3:19

And then we had- That's

3:22

a quick version. And then we had the infamous stinkhand

3:24

incident that created

3:27

Darius as the king.

3:29

And- By the way- About as reliable

3:31

as most methods throughout history of picking rulers.

3:34

Let's go with it. Yep. And so then

3:36

Darius was king

3:37

and then the son of Darius was

3:40

Xerxes

3:42

and that's where we're at. And we're

3:44

not gonna get to Arctic Xerxes, but we're at Xerxes

3:46

is where we're at. We had the battle

3:49

of Marathon

3:51

and the Greeks won.

3:54

And so- Yes. The Persians came over. Who

3:56

was the leader at the battle of Marathon? Was that Darius?

3:59

Daddus and Artiferny. operating

4:01

on behalf of Darius

4:04

who, I imagine, he

4:06

just didn't think his presence would be necessary to

4:09

deal with these people.

4:10

Okay, so they whipped him a marathon

4:13

and then they turned tail and they

4:15

ran back to Persia, which was a whole

4:17

thing.

4:18

And then Xerxes,

4:20

this is how many years later? About a decade,

4:22

a little less than a decade, right?

4:23

Yeah, about that, 490-ish to 480-ish.

4:27

So

4:28

Xerxes is coming back and

4:30

he gets to the Hellespont, which is that

4:32

little area there

4:34

opposite the Bosphorus in

4:36

Turkey, modern day Turkey, and

4:39

they whip the Hellespont and they make this big

4:41

pontoon bridge and they go across. And

4:43

we're getting right to the point where Xerxes is

4:46

coming across

4:47

with his army and it's everybody,

4:50

as you said, it's like the whole world versus

4:52

Greece. The Greeks don't like

4:54

each other, but they've decided to work

4:57

together because they know this big army's coming and

4:59

they've gotta figure out how to win.

5:01

Up there in

5:02

Athens, you got the Themistocles that

5:04

had

5:05

previously, it

5:07

basically persuaded everyone

5:09

to build the Navy and the Greeks don't know anything

5:12

about the Navy. They have these triremes that they're

5:14

building and they're

5:15

still in the embryonic stages

5:17

of a naval power.

5:19

And

5:21

you're about to take us to Thermopylae, right? What's

5:23

about to happen?

5:24

All right, you only got so much time every

5:26

year to campaign, right? It's like planting season.

5:28

I know it's longer in Alabama than

5:30

it is in South Dakota, but there's only

5:32

so long that the weather is fit for doing

5:35

certain activities every year. And the same thing was

5:37

true of making war.

5:39

You can't just go on campaign

5:41

all year long because you got crops

5:45

and supplies and things that you

5:47

gotta have in place to feed,

5:48

if some of the ancient historians are to be believed,

5:51

millions of people who are on this gigantic

5:54

campaign of revenge to go and punish

5:56

the Athenians and the Greeks. So the

5:58

Greeks have...

5:59

Xerxes at their doorstep quicker

6:02

than expected, but they also know that

6:05

if they can get the situation into

6:07

September, Xerxes is gonna be out

6:09

of time and he's gonna have to go home.

6:12

So it's not just a matter that

6:14

the Greeks need to win, the Greeks

6:16

need to win slowly. Does that make sense?

6:19

Yeah, yeah, yeah, because he can run out of

6:21

food. Yeah,

6:23

that makes a lot of sense to me. That makes a lot of sense. The

6:26

winter will come in, Xerxes isn't

6:28

gonna wanna do the winter over in Greece. He's

6:30

not gonna wanna do that.

6:31

So yeah, yeah, totally get it. And

6:33

let's take it a step further. I mean, you read the book.

6:36

What is it that Xerxes really

6:38

wants to do here?

6:40

In the same way that Babylon

6:43

was the crown jewel for

6:45

Cyrus's conquest of the ancient world,

6:48

what is the crown jewel of the Greek

6:50

conquest in the mind of Xerxes? Athens.

6:54

So Athens is up north

6:56

and he just wants to burn Athens.

6:59

My understanding is as this was going

7:01

down, they consulted with the

7:03

oracle Delphi. Is that how you say

7:05

it, Delphi?

7:06

Delphi, yeah. Delphi. My

7:09

parents used to work for a company called Delphi. That's

7:11

interesting. And so anyway, they consulted

7:14

with the oracle and the oracle says, hey,

7:16

this is what's gonna go down. So

7:19

you're gonna mourn the loss of a king? Like

7:23

what did they say? The oracle say exactly.

7:25

Something like Athens is gonna burn and

7:28

before the end of it, you're gonna mourn the loss of a king or

7:30

something like that.

7:31

What did she say? I might be

7:33

able to find it in Herodotus.

7:36

I still have that book sitting out, but you and I made

7:38

a handshake agreement not to Google

7:40

things. So I don't remember exactly what

7:42

the oracle said, but it involved

7:45

something was gonna have to burn

7:47

and the loss of a king. And

7:50

it gave the Spartans some pretty

7:52

serious pause, but it also gave the Athenians

7:54

some pause. Like, wait, there's a ton

7:56

of different ways to interpret that oracle.

7:59

In the end. both parties figured

8:01

out a way to interpret this vague oracle

8:04

that caused them to believe that they would win. And so they

8:06

committed themselves to battle.

8:10

So Themistocles, the warrior

8:13

and the politician, he threw all

8:15

of his clout, all of his reputation behind

8:18

the idea of emphasizing one

8:20

aspect of their military, one aspect

8:22

of their defenses. He thought if they got strong

8:24

in this area, they could hold off a

8:27

Persian invasion. What was that thing

8:29

he wanted them to invest in? The Navy, he

8:31

wanted them to build trirene ships,

8:34

and which means they had to build them, which

8:36

takes a long time to build.

8:38

They actually looked up while

8:40

I was reading the book, I haven't done it since our blood

8:43

oath covenant to not look up more stuff.

8:45

I looked up how they built triremes

8:47

and they were really interesting. They,

8:50

do you know like a tongue and groove would?

8:54

Like you know, yeah.

8:55

So imagine a tongue and groove joint, but

8:58

you drill a hole and you bang a peg

9:01

in there, locking them together. That's kind

9:03

of how they were constructed, almost like a lamination.

9:06

It's very interesting. And so I

9:08

thought about making a video about just triremes and

9:10

how they work, because I thought it was fantastic. I

9:12

would adore that. Do they cover them in pitch?

9:14

How do they make the seams watertight?

9:17

They'd have to, I didn't get that far in my

9:20

research, but they would absolutely have to, pitch

9:22

or something.

9:23

That's what Themistocles wanted. He's like, hey, we need a Navy.

9:26

Now, what I didn't have is a picture in my

9:28

mind of where the naval battles

9:30

would happen. Now I know ultimately the

9:33

Greek said, there's gonna be a two-prong approach.

9:35

So we're gonna have this land

9:38

battle,

9:39

and then we're gonna have this naval battle. And

9:41

somehow

9:43

the Spartans, who were really, really

9:45

good at land warfare, with their

9:47

shields and their spears and

9:49

also the short swords. And their discipline.

9:52

Oh yeah.

9:53

What was so interesting in the book is

9:55

they talk about if you're a Spartan and

9:57

there's 10 of us and we're lined up.

10:00

it's much bigger than that, but my

10:02

shield would protect you and

10:06

the guy to my right, his shield

10:08

would protect me if you're on my left.

10:11

And then we would kind of push

10:13

the enemy as one with our shields

10:15

and then we would open up and then we would stab and

10:17

then we would close our shields back up.

10:20

So it's super, super important

10:22

that everything works in the

10:25

timing, the timing is just critical. And

10:28

so that was fantastic to learn about that.

10:30

But what it also meant is that

10:33

if the guy to your right gets scared

10:37

and runs, suddenly

10:39

your flank is exposed and you're gonna die.

10:42

So it was right, super incredibly

10:44

important that everybody had nerves

10:47

of steel. How do you get people to

10:49

be like that? Well,

10:52

I've had conversation with Marines and

10:56

they undergo training. Now,

10:59

from what it sounds like, the training of the Spartans

11:02

was so much more difficult than the

11:04

training of modern soldiers, but they'll

11:07

do things in training for the Marines

11:09

where they'll just be on a run and they'll

11:11

throw a pine cone and say, grenade.

11:13

One guy, we call him Gunny, Gunny said,

11:16

oh yeah,

11:16

we used to get ticked off when somebody

11:19

would throw a quote grenade at us and

11:21

we weren't the first to jump on it.

11:23

And he goes, man, you took my CMH, my

11:26

congressional medal of honor. So

11:29

he said to some degree,

11:31

they almost brainwash us to

11:33

quickly do

11:35

the right thing in battle.

11:37

I don't wanna say brainwashing, but

11:40

military training is extremely aggressive.

11:42

And the more elite the fighting unit, the more

11:45

incredibly

11:46

taxing the

11:47

training is. And it gets to the point where you wanna make

11:50

sure that this is brainstem

11:52

level stuff. I am not speaking from

11:54

a position of authority. We should have Leon

11:56

here. But this

11:58

is my understanding of how it works.

11:59

And so I can only imagine

12:02

that the Spartans one of the most elite

12:05

fighting units in the world in fact Demeritus

12:08

the guy who was advising Xerxes

12:12

He was a Greek. Yeah, he was advising Xerxes.

12:14

He said look

12:15

when it comes to the fighting force

12:18

The Spartans they are the

12:20

best in the world. Yes, like they are

12:23

Incredible

12:24

and so he's advising Xerxes and he's

12:26

saying things like look you've asked me the question

12:28

I will give you the answer

12:30

They are some of the best in the world. I

12:32

think that's interesting. I Don't

12:35

think he was even saying some if I recall those

12:37

exchanges correctly as they're relayed

12:39

from the distant past The Greek

12:41

advisors in general felt Xerxes was being

12:43

way too flippant about

12:46

the Spartans and they were like

12:48

You just don't get it man. No, I have

12:50

immortals Yeah

12:53

But you just don't get it man. Your

12:55

dad might get it Dottus or Artifernes

12:58

They would get it but you just don't get

13:00

it I think the difference between the way you train a

13:02

soldier now and the way the Spartans

13:04

did it is that now you get a Soldier when they're 18

13:07

or 20 or whatever back then it was

13:10

from zero from age zero you

13:13

were taught to reject comfort

13:15

and To accept your place

13:18

in this warrior cult and so that

13:20

shield line. It wasn't just a result of training

13:22

It was a result of culture for the shield

13:25

line to work the way it did because you understand

13:27

I mean Thebes and Argus

13:30

and Athens everybody had

13:32

hoplites Everybody had these

13:35

heavily armored round

13:37

shield bearing And spear

13:40

wielding troops who overlapped shields

13:42

and worked together and they were all very good

13:44

at it Sparta was regarded as being

13:47

exceptional at it But

13:50

the other thing about it is that it's really

13:52

a conflict I think this is what captures the imagination

13:54

of so many people when they look back on this fight It's

13:56

really a conflict of two ideologies

13:58

the Persians

14:00

especially by the time you get to Xerxes or central

14:02

planners, the king decides all the things.

14:05

Whereas the Greeks are, I mean,

14:07

they're kind of like us, that individualistic

14:10

West thing. And so the idea

14:13

is, well, what happens if you take people who are

14:15

compelled to go and fight for

14:18

a king they've never met in a gigantic

14:20

global empire? What happens when you

14:23

pit them against these individual

14:25

little city states who feel individual

14:27

city pride and who are

14:30

voluntarily protecting their neighbor in this way? I

14:32

think that's kind of the way the narrative has been

14:34

spun up.

14:35

It's not just a battle of two types

14:37

of weapons,

14:38

it's a battle of two types of mentalities,

14:41

two types of approaches. And this isn't the only time in

14:43

history we see this. I mean,

14:45

we see this in the way World War II

14:47

is characterized and the way the Cold

14:49

War is characterized. Heck,

14:51

we see this in the way that survivor

14:54

song from Rocky IV, where Sylvester

14:56

Stallone fights Dolph Lundgren. I mean, there's a line in

14:58

that song, Burning Hearts, I think it's called, where

15:02

it's like, is it East versus

15:04

West? Is it Man versus Man or East versus

15:07

West? The way they even

15:09

punch each other in that movie,

15:11

it's a referendum on whose approach

15:13

to life and society is better.

15:16

And I think that adds a really fun wrinkle

15:19

to all of this.

15:21

What would you expect, if that's

15:23

true, what would you expect the fighting

15:26

style of the Persians to be, if their fighting

15:29

style

15:29

is a reflection of their societal values? Well, I think

15:32

what was so interesting about the Persians

15:34

is they were not a homogenous culture. As I understand it, this is

15:36

me speaking outside my expertise,

15:39

but they were conquered peoples, and

15:42

they would be a part of the world,

15:44

and they would be a part of the world. I

15:47

would expect the people that were really good with equitation

15:49

and

15:55

an

16:00

archery would ride around on the battlefield

16:02

shooting arrows from

16:04

their horses. And I would expect

16:07

people who did different things

16:10

to do the thing that they did best, kind of like

16:12

in Lord of the Rings where they all bring their, and my

16:14

ax, those sorts of thing.

16:16

Yes. And

16:18

so I don't think they would have been as

16:21

disciplined

16:22

strategically. I mean, I guess at this point,

16:24

we're talking about the tactical level,

16:26

but it doesn't seem like they would be

16:28

as disciplined. Their strategy was

16:30

let's just overwhelm them with numbers. In

16:33

fact,

16:34

that's part of the thing that happened. They

16:36

had a group,

16:38

my understanding, well, let's set up Thermopylae, however

16:42

you say it.

16:42

So. Yeah, I think we're there now. Yeah. There's

16:45

two things going on. So Thermystocles is like,

16:47

okay, there's gonna be a naval battle up here. And

16:50

so up near Athens, up to the north,

16:52

but for some reason. Well, Athens

16:54

is way south. Let me catch that, because

16:57

that'll make the map confusing. So

17:00

the Battle of Thermopylae is on the Greek mainland,

17:03

heading up toward Macedonia

17:05

and Thrace. It's on

17:07

the Aegean Sea. That battle happened right

17:09

on the coast, right up against the coast

17:11

of the Aegean Sea, a rocky

17:14

precipitous, cliffy area.

17:17

Then as you go south down the

17:19

coast of Greece, you get to the two main peninsulas

17:22

that make up Southern classical

17:24

Greece. That's the Attican Peninsula, which is

17:26

the little one. That's where Athens is. And

17:29

the Peloponnesian Peninsula, which

17:31

is the bigger one. That's where Sparta is.

17:34

So Athens kind of sits around

17:36

the bend and to the south of the

17:38

direction from which Xerxes

17:41

and his entourage is approaching. So Thermopylae

17:44

is north of Athens.

17:46

Okay, didn't know that. Thermopylae is

17:48

north of Athens. Okay, so it's on the path. Okay.

17:52

Yes. Yeah. So there's this

17:54

place called the Hot Gates. This

17:57

is two sheer cliff faces.

17:59

that come

18:01

right next to each other, like a cart with

18:04

an ox can walk through it. It's very, very

18:06

narrow. And they

18:09

send these

18:10

Spartans down there, and they're led

18:12

by a king. They're two Spartan kings

18:15

at all times. The Spartans have two

18:17

kings.

18:18

And one of the kings, Leonidas,

18:21

or Leonidas,

18:23

however you want to pronounce it, that's the way

18:25

they pronounce it. Leonidas,

18:27

I like the way it sounds. It sounds cooler. Let's

18:30

just be real, it sounds cooler. But in the book, he said

18:32

Leonidas. And I was like, man, it just sounds so

18:34

much cooler the other way, like they did it in the movie 300. So

18:38

he's leading these Spartans down there, and

18:40

they have

18:41

a lot of people with them. I

18:44

thought it was just 300 Spartans, but

18:47

they had these other people that

18:50

were, it starts with an H,

18:52

they were helping.

18:53

What were their names?

18:56

Yes, helping does start with an H.

18:59

Shut up. These people,

19:01

they had,

19:02

I forget the name. Basically they

19:04

had these people that would help

19:06

them with their armor and help them logistically

19:10

in all this. I forget what their names were.

19:12

But yeah, the point is there were other people,

19:14

there were other people present. Yes.

19:18

It wasn't just Sparta. I mean, the

19:20

legend that it's 300 individual

19:22

Spartans, and that was it,

19:24

makes it sound way cooler. But

19:26

yeah, there was probably about 7,000 Greeks there when

19:30

things got started.

19:31

Right, and so they set up shop right

19:34

there in the middle of the hot gates. And

19:37

there's

19:37

some kind of geothermal activity here there, whatever.

19:40

And so the Persians roll up,

19:42

and they're like, all right, here we go. We're

19:44

just gonna, we're

19:46

gonna ask you to move aside, please.

19:49

We need to go through the hot gates. Can we please

19:51

go through there?

19:52

And they're like, oh, heck no.

19:55

Is this where the Persian army said,

19:58

the king requests that you...

19:59

drop your weapons and they said come and take

20:02

them. Is this where that was

20:04

said? I think it's gotta be here, right?

20:06

Yeah, this is where Moland- Yeah, I think it's gotta be here.

20:09

Because they treated with each other, yeah. Moland

20:12

Labe, basically

20:14

come take them.

20:15

No, it has to be there, it has to be there. Because

20:17

I've been to the battlefield and it's

20:20

not well marked, it's just like a

20:22

rest stop on the equivalent of the Greek

20:24

interstate. And it doesn't look at all like the

20:26

landscape looked back then, the sea coastline

20:29

has moved and everything, but there's a

20:31

sculpture of Leonidas and it says

20:33

Moland Labe. So I think this has to be

20:35

where he said it.

20:36

That's awesome. Yeah, kinda. My

20:39

favorite moment about this

20:42

is, you know, they see

20:44

all the Persians coming and they get ready, they

20:46

start getting on their hoplite armor and stuff

20:48

like that.

20:49

And the Persians had

20:51

wicker shields, some of the first Persians that hit

20:53

them had wicker shields.

20:55

And they had all their bronze stuff, right?

20:58

And so the moment of

21:00

first contact, literally contact

21:03

shield the shield

21:04

when they hit, at that

21:06

moment,

21:07

that is when every Spartan in that

21:09

line would have known,

21:12

oh, we're about to destroy them.

21:15

Like that, you know what I mean? Yeah,

21:18

well I mean they showed up with stuff that's the equivalent

21:20

of how you build a Papazon for Pier One

21:22

imports to

21:25

try to shut down the best fighting. Like

21:27

those big bowl chairs that were popular in the 80s. Oh

21:29

yeah, yeah, yeah. And they're all like bamboo and wicker and

21:31

woven together and stuff. They just,

21:34

I don't think that's gonna handle a Spartan

21:36

spear. Yeah, so they just start

21:39

carving them up, man. Just start

21:42

going at it

21:43

and destroying them.

21:44

And what that must have sounded like,

21:47

that moment, you're in between these two

21:49

sheer clip walls,

21:51

just going ballistic right next to

21:54

your buddy, Barnacles. And

21:57

you're just going at it. I

22:00

don't have a tape about this, I'm sorry. That's

22:03

such a pity. Herodotus

22:05

will have to be the tape this time around. Yeah,

22:08

exactly. They just started

22:10

going crazy. I mean, do you think they were scared?

22:12

They had to have been scared.

22:15

I would think so. I would think the

22:18

Persians would be more scared. The Spartans

22:20

are better outfitted. The Greeks in general,

22:22

they won at the Battle of Marathon.

22:25

And it's like watching a rangy fighter.

22:27

Like if you're playing Street Fighter II and you're using Ken

22:29

and somebody else is using Dalsim. Dalsim

22:32

really wants to keep you away. He's that big, long, leggy

22:34

guy who can kick like halfway across the screen. Ken

22:37

wants to get in tight and really mix it up.

22:39

Well, at Marathon, we saw that the

22:42

Persians do not want those Greek hoplites

22:44

to close that distance. The Persians want

22:46

to break their will and soften them

22:49

up with arrows from a distance.

22:51

But those Greeks could just absorb volleys

22:55

if they were disciplined with their shields. And

22:57

once they close the distance, well, every bit

22:59

closer you get to those groups

23:02

of archers,

23:03

it takes out a certain percentage of the

23:05

archers who can find an attack angle

23:07

where they can put fire on you, right? Does that make

23:09

sense? Yeah. And then once you get to within 30, 40,

23:12

50 feet, only the front couple

23:14

of rows can put fire on you and it's

23:17

not enough intensity. It's not enough pressure to do anything.

23:19

You're dead. They're gonna get slaughtered

23:21

by spear and sword. They're

23:23

gonna go into retreat and this is where the route is

23:26

on. And then the Greeks would

23:27

chase them down and slaughter them in the mud as

23:29

they tried to get back to their boats at Marathon. So

23:32

all these Persian soldiers know the

23:34

exact formula, the very unique

23:37

circumstances required to beat

23:39

these hoplites, it would require a

23:41

ton of effective fire and not

23:44

getting close to them. Well, now they're all being

23:46

funneled down. And so the advantage

23:48

of their numbers is being drastically

23:51

reduced and they can't put any kind of

23:53

effective fire on these Spartans. It's

23:55

not doing anything. It's not dislodging them

23:57

at all. Yeah, there was the

23:59

one.

23:59

when they said, you know, there's

24:02

gonna be enough arrows to blot out the sun, one of

24:04

the soldiers said, then we'll fight in the shade,

24:07

which is kind of a baller quote. Yeah.

24:09

Which I'll- Iconic wit, there it is. Yeah,

24:12

I mean, that's like, hey,

24:14

we're probably about to die, we might as well have a laugh.

24:17

So. Yeah. According

24:20

to Herodotus' account, which is only a couple of

24:22

pages long, for all of this legend, it's

24:24

only a couple pages, what we get is

24:26

a Xerxes who makes one final

24:28

plea. He's like, just give me the gift of earth and water

24:31

and you'll be taken care of. All I want is

24:33

Athens, that's the deal that's offered.

24:36

But King Leonidas, of course, bravely

24:39

refuses. They bounce

24:41

back and forth with some clever

24:43

threats or again, Laconic

24:45

wittisms, and Xerxes starts

24:48

throwing troops at him for a period of a few days

24:50

and

24:51

the Spartans do not budge.

24:54

Now, for some reason that escapes

24:56

me, I assume that it was to reinforce

24:59

the Athenians knowing that this wasn't

25:01

going to work out, they wouldn't be able to hold the pass

25:04

indefinitely. The idea being that if

25:06

these extra troops here are

25:09

sent back, they could help the mysticlies

25:11

that the big defense of Athens, because Leonidas

25:14

knows the Spartans are not gonna be able to hold

25:16

the pass at the hot gates much

25:18

longer. And especially that becomes apparent

25:21

when a traitor reveals

25:23

a goat path

25:24

by which the Persians could encircle

25:27

the Spartans and bypass

25:29

their position.

25:31

Do you remember this from the Tom Holland book?

25:33

Yeah, yeah, I mean like

25:36

in the movie 300, they

25:38

really play up this character and

25:41

make this character,

25:42

I don't know, it's almost like a Quasimodo

25:45

kind of character.

25:46

But in the book,

25:48

it's just a person that basically sells them out,

25:50

it's a local, that's like, hey, here's a path

25:52

here. Because if you're Xerxes,

25:54

you're like, okay, cool, there's a pass,

25:57

I have a huge army, surely.

25:59

there's some other way to get there.

26:01

And so just start climbing rocks, guys. See

26:04

what we can do, find a place where you can climb,

26:07

get around them, flank them, and then just shoot

26:09

them in the back with arrows, make it hard.

26:11

And a few days in, they figure

26:14

it out, right?

26:15

Who's the most famous trader in

26:18

all of history?

26:19

It depends on where you're from. In

26:21

the US, it's Benedict Arnold. And

26:24

if the shot that went

26:26

into his leg would have killed him,

26:28

he wouldn't have been a trader at all. He would have been a hero,

26:31

but

26:32

he lived long enough to become the enemy. What

26:34

was the name of this person that told the Persians

26:36

how to get around? Ephialtes

26:39

or Ephialtes.

26:40

And up until Benedict Arnold

26:43

lifted that title off of him, he was widely

26:46

regarded to be the biggest rat

26:48

in all of history. He sold

26:50

out the Spartans and you could never defeat

26:52

the Spartans head on. They would have held

26:54

that territory forever, all

26:57

the way until fall.

26:58

Or so the thinking goes, and Xerxes

27:00

would have had to go home

27:02

if it weren't for this guy. Maybe that's the

27:04

case, probably that's not the case.

27:07

You can't have your hero just losing pound

27:09

for pound. But I mean, really,

27:12

Thermopylae is, it's a defeat because

27:15

Persian troops do follow Ephialtes

27:18

through the goat paths of the mountains.

27:20

They do come in behind. The Spartans

27:22

are encircled. They never say die.

27:25

And only two troops according to

27:27

Herodotus escape and Therlaes

27:30

brave Leonidas and the 300 Spartans who

27:32

held the pass at Thermopylae. So

27:35

on paper, the battle of Thermopylae is

27:37

a Persian victory.

27:39

But have you heard the term Pyrrhic victory?

27:41

Say it again, spell that. The

27:43

term Pyrrhic, P-H-Y-R-R-I-C,

27:47

I think. No. I think I'm

27:49

pronouncing it right. No, I- Pyrrhic, Pyrrhic. No, what does that

27:51

mean? This is a victory where you

27:53

technically win, but you gave

27:55

up so much to win that it's

27:59

not a win.

27:59

in the grand scheme of things.

28:02

So it's like in Captain

28:04

America, Civil War, where Hawkeye, who never,

28:06

ever, ever misses, is fighting against Iron

28:08

Man.

28:09

He shoots an arrow in Iron Man while he's floating around

28:11

in front of like a parking garage or

28:13

something, Iron Man's like, you missed.

28:17

And Hawkeye's like, yeah, you know, made

28:19

you look, or whatever it was, and it was

28:21

enough to get Tony Stark's eye off the

28:23

ball so that then they could hit him with a bunch of

28:25

other things. And so if the whole game

28:27

was just,

28:28

does Hawkeye hit every shot? Well,

28:31

he technically lost there.

28:33

And Tony and Iron Man technically won,

28:36

but the way it played out,

28:37

the net result was actually the other way around.

28:39

And so here, the extra time

28:42

that is bought proves to be the difference

28:44

in what happens in the defense of

28:47

Athens. But before we go to Athens, anything

28:49

else about Thermopylae that stands out to you?

28:52

No, I mean, Leonidas died

28:54

and they cut him in half. And

28:57

so they- They cut

28:59

Leonidas, like they cut his body in

29:01

half and they put it on two poles on

29:03

the other side of the hot gates so that as the Persian

29:05

army marched through the hot

29:07

gates, they literally split

29:10

the Spartan king in half and they walked through

29:12

it, which is symbolically awful. So

29:15

that's pretty wild, man. That is quite

29:18

the triumphal entry into your land

29:20

camp. Right? Interesting

29:23

choice of words. It's kind of really dark.

29:26

Like, hey, all right, we just cut

29:28

this guy in half. Now let's go burn this city.

29:31

And that's the moment if I'm a Persian, I look

29:33

at somebody else, I'm like, are we the baddies? Are

29:35

we the baddies? Is it possible we're the baddies?

29:40

I'll remind you at this point, you're team Persia.

29:45

Well, I told you I got off the Persia

29:47

train about the time that they invaded mainland Greece.

29:50

During the invasion, I'm team

29:52

Greece. Okay. In

29:54

the early going, I mean, Athens

29:56

was just being a butt. I mean, that's

29:59

what provoked it. the whole thing.

30:01

Athens was causing problems in

30:03

territory that wasn't any of their business, and

30:06

in the early going Persia was pretty awesome.

30:08

I still think Persia, I mean by the standards

30:10

of the ancient world, Persia is awesome.

30:13

But very much what they did with Leonidas

30:15

is reflective of their, I wouldn't even

30:17

say foreign policy, their domestic policy

30:19

for anybody who would resist them, was if you

30:21

resist us, you will not believe our cruelty.

30:24

It will exceed your wildest dreams

30:27

how much we will punish you. But

30:29

if you give us that gift of earth and water, it

30:31

will exceed your wildest dreams

30:34

how good that will be for you and your people.

30:37

We will make it worth your while. You will

30:39

like being under the very

30:41

light burden of Persia. That's

30:44

not how Assyria was. That's not how Babylon

30:46

was.

30:47

Babylon and Assyria were you will suffer or

30:49

you will suffer. Which kind of suffering do

30:51

you want? Persia, they really

30:54

had a pretty good track record of making things better

30:56

for the people who just happened

30:58

to side with them. Still, the

31:00

Greeks didn't want anything to do with it. They were like, just leave us alone. You

31:03

be Persia over there. We're going to be Greek over here.

31:05

And the Persians just couldn't throttle it

31:07

back. They couldn't let it go. So no, I'm team

31:10

Greece as we're moving toward Athens here.

31:12

What do you remember about the invasion of

31:14

Athens?

31:15

They were trying to figure out what to do. They're like, okay, do

31:17

we stand here and fight? So we've got the Persian

31:20

hordes coming up to destroy us. Do

31:22

we stay here and defend the city?

31:24

Or do we flee? And

31:27

the argument was made, let's flee.

31:30

We're going to lose.

31:32

So let's flee the city.

31:35

Let's rally over there and let's figure

31:37

out how to beat them. And so they did.

31:39

And the Acropolis there

31:41

in Athens, like the high place where the

31:44

temple was, this was before

31:46

the Parthenon was made.

31:48

All their high places of worship there,

31:50

they just tore it down stone

31:53

by stone. The Persians came in and just

31:55

destroyed everything, which I think is stupid.

31:58

Could they not have stayed there the winter? if

32:00

they wanted to like oh we've

32:02

got this city in these people's houses we

32:05

can stay here no let's just burn

32:07

it all that's crazy to me

32:09

so it wasn't about occupation well

32:12

let me say this they could have stayed there if

32:15

they could control the seas but

32:17

the one reason they can't stay there is

32:20

because though the Athenians gave up their

32:22

city voluntarily i mean they

32:24

just forfeited it they completely pulled back

32:27

they still had their fleet and as long

32:29

as you have that fleet Xerxes doesn't

32:31

really own anything he's standing

32:33

in Athens for the moment but he can't

32:35

keep it he can't hold it he's going to have

32:38

to leave and if he tries to leave by

32:40

boat he's going to get lit up by

32:42

that Athenian fleet so as long as those boats

32:44

are sitting there

32:45

this thing isn't a done deal does that make sense

32:48

yeah and and this makes Themistocles

32:51

look like a mega genius like

32:53

a yes a mega genius

32:55

he was just right yes he

32:57

was so incredibly right

32:59

and so he had to argue people into the boats

33:02

thing and then they're they're fleeing to the

33:04

boats and like oh good thing we have these boats

33:07

sorry i argued against this my bad

33:10

so sorry i voted against you

33:12

every single time i sort

33:14

of get it now begrudging it's amazing

33:17

yeah yeah well apparently

33:20

Themistocles was able to think ahead and understand

33:23

Athens isn't that defensible we

33:25

don't really have any way to

33:27

stop a Persian

33:29

overland invasion we can hassle

33:32

their ships as they try to support that

33:35

march toward Athens and they did

33:37

and the Athenians ran

33:39

into a little bit of trouble right about the time

33:41

that the battle of Thermopylae was occurring

33:43

as they got caught up in a storm the Persians

33:46

got caught up in a storm the Athenians lost

33:48

some ships it was looking rough but

33:50

so the vast majority of the fleet

33:53

was intact

33:54

in this little this little

33:57

area called the Straits of Salamis

33:59

just outside of

34:02

Athens there around the Attican

34:04

Peninsula. And yeah, it

34:06

gave them somewhere to go. It gave them the option

34:08

to say, bummer, our city's gonna get burned,

34:11

but let's do it.

34:12

And so Xerxes is seated

34:15

high atop things in Athens. He's

34:18

sort of happy, I guess. He kind of got what he wanted.

34:20

He wanted Athens to burn. That

34:23

was his objective.

34:24

It's almost like he made a deal with the

34:26

devil of war to get what he wanted.

34:29

I want Athens to burn, but he asked for the

34:31

wrong thing. He should have wanted the Athenians

34:34

to be ultimately and finally defeated,

34:37

and he didn't plan well enough for

34:39

that. So what do you remember about how

34:42

the decisive naval

34:44

battle, the moment that would determine

34:46

the fate of Greece and Persia

34:48

and this whole campaign and everything, what do you remember

34:51

about how that worked out? Well, first of all, I have questions

34:53

about naval battle

34:54

during this time. Okay. So

34:57

this is the new Greek navy.

34:59

They just got their boats. They're still shiny.

35:02

They don't really know how to use them that well yet.

35:05

So they're triremes. They have three rows

35:08

of oars that go up. They have sails

35:10

as well. How do

35:12

they fight? They have rams,

35:14

correct? The name of the game is I

35:17

point my boat, the pointy part of my boat, I

35:19

point it at the side of your boat,

35:21

and I hit you. So it's not unlike

35:24

in World War I when

35:26

you had the circling war where

35:28

the name of the game is to get behind

35:30

the airplane of

35:32

your opponent and shoot them with a machine gun.

35:35

So in this particular

35:37

type of battle,

35:38

the goal is to ram the side of

35:40

the boat and sink it.

35:43

Am I understanding that correctly?

35:45

Well, sink it if you can or

35:47

become locked up with it, engaged

35:50

with it. Like when two American football

35:52

players run into each other on a play and their face

35:54

masks get locked, have you ever seen that happen?

35:56

Yeah. And they have to come in and sort

35:59

it out and it's all clumsy. Well, if those two guys were

36:01

in a fight after that play, well,

36:03

you can't leave. You are married to

36:06

each other right now. So you're just gonna have to fight it

36:08

out and whoever wins, wins. So one

36:10

way to win a naval battle was

36:13

to outmaneuver your opponent and broadside

36:15

them with your trireme.

36:17

And they would have rams on

36:19

the front, sometimes literal

36:22

carvings of rams. Bronze,

36:24

right. It would be tipped. Yeah,

36:27

there'd be

36:28

metal. There'd be an overlay there.

36:31

Sometimes it was just kind of like a fist or

36:33

a ball on the front. Sometimes it was kind of a

36:35

wedge that they would put on the front. And

36:37

the idea is you just want to drill the

36:40

broad vulnerable side of your opponent's

36:42

ship. And if it sinks, well, just

36:44

keep going. Let those sailors drown, jab

36:46

them with oars as you go by.

36:48

Nothing more needs to be done here. You already won,

36:50

they're disabled. But for the

36:53

most part,

36:53

the people who study this era of naval

36:56

warfare refer to the people who are rowing

36:58

and fighting on these ships. Well, the rowers,

37:00

they call sailors. And

37:03

the people who are rowing slash fighting,

37:05

they call Marines. So there would be soldiers

37:08

on these ships who are ready if you

37:10

broadside another ship and it doesn't go down.

37:13

They're ready to leap onto that ship and

37:15

kill whoever they need to kill on board

37:17

to take control of that disabled ship.

37:20

Or maybe the ship isn't even that badly damaged.

37:22

And you can just completely

37:23

flip control of the ship. And now you've gained

37:26

one that you've taken from the end. Gotta believe they

37:28

have archers and slingers as well. I have

37:30

to believe that.

37:32

I think I've heard of slingers on these ships.

37:34

I would guess there would be archers, but I don't recall

37:37

that. There have to be. Off the top of my head. Sure

37:40

seems like it'd be advantageous. Yeah, there'd

37:42

have to be. Hmm,

37:43

interesting. And so they had all

37:46

kinds of different strategies that they would use,

37:48

right? Like one description is

37:50

the boats would

37:51

kind of circle the wagons kind of thing where you

37:54

point all of your boats out like

37:56

a porcupine. You get into a ring

37:58

of other ships and you.

37:59

you point your boats out and then when they would come in

38:02

on you, you would

38:03

row and ram.

38:04

That seems like an interesting

38:06

strategy, but it's pretty

38:09

archaic. You don't have cannons,

38:11

you don't have waste. It's

38:13

just so interesting. Naval

38:15

technology

38:17

is an area of history

38:19

that I think is wildly interesting. Damn,

38:22

the torpedo's full speed ahead, right? Yeah.

38:24

Yeah, that's something that's had your attention for a

38:26

long time on a lot of different levels. It

38:29

is, yeah.

38:30

Yeah. Yeah. So

38:36

my understanding is the Straits of Salamis are this

38:39

small area that

38:41

the Greeks somehow

38:43

lured

38:45

the Persians into. I don't know

38:47

how.

38:48

That part of the book was kinda fuzzy to me, but my

38:51

understanding is the Persian fleet exists

38:54

and the Greek fleet still

38:56

exists.

38:57

Yes. Somehow

38:59

the Greeks lured the Persians

39:02

into the Straits of Salamis and destroyed them.

39:04

And it made it sound like an overwhelming victory

39:07

and I don't understand how or why

39:10

they were so successful.

39:12

Yeah, well at this point, Xerxes

39:15

had come down off of the Acropolis

39:17

in Athens and he had found a nice

39:19

place to set up shop

39:21

and it was very comfortable

39:24

according to the ancient sources and

39:26

he was gonna look at the Straits of Salamis

39:29

that would get you in and out of the Bay of Eleusius,

39:33

which is a pretty big bay. I've driven all around

39:35

that and explored so I wanted to understand this battle

39:37

for myself when I was in Greece.

39:40

And what happens is you've

39:42

got a whole bunch of

39:45

intelligence and counterintelligence going

39:47

on behind the scenes that actually

39:49

made this battle winnable. Now ultimately

39:52

it came down to the men in the boats and

39:54

the women in the boats. There's a very prominent woman

39:57

named Artemisia of Halicarnassus.

39:59

in the same place as Herodotus, and she was

40:02

one of the big commanders on the Persian side. But

40:04

for the most part, the men in the boats were the ones

40:06

who were gonna decide how this was gonna work out. But

40:08

that opening position, where

40:11

everybody is at on the game board when

40:13

the

40:14

opening gun fires, that

40:16

is also gonna determine a whole lot

40:18

about how this works out. Or another

40:21

question is just, is there going to be a battle at all?

40:23

Because Xerxes could just

40:25

leave behind a big enough element

40:28

to hold Athens and gradually

40:30

pick off any of the Athenians

40:33

who were on the little islands in the middle of the bay.

40:36

There were lots of ways that he could have resolved

40:38

this with a little bit of patience, but

40:41

there was this clever back and forth with

40:43

a servant

40:44

of Themestocles who he kept

40:46

sending to Xerxes and his camp, making

40:48

it sound like he was getting ready to desert

40:50

Themestocles. The Greeks are in total disarray.

40:54

This isn't gonna work out. Now it's your chance to strike.

40:57

And Xerxes takes the bait.

40:58

And who knows if he was a little

41:01

bit suspicious or not, or maybe he just

41:03

knew he needed to really wrap things up

41:05

and be getting back to Persia. Our supply

41:08

lines can't sustain this much longer. We've

41:10

already been here a week, week and a half longer than we

41:12

wanted to be because of that disaster

41:14

at the hot gates and how long it took to get past

41:16

those pesky Spartans. You know what,

41:18

let's just commit the fleet, wipe them out. We have

41:20

superior numbers. They're in disarray.

41:22

Now is the time to strike.

41:24

And so Xerxes makes that commitment, but

41:26

to his horror, as the Persian

41:29

fleet makes their advance, they

41:31

all discover at once that the Greeks are

41:33

not in disarray.

41:35

They form up quickly. They have a clear

41:37

and obvious battle plan. And at

41:39

a couple of key pinch points, they

41:42

dominate the water and force

41:44

the Persians into smaller numbers

41:46

and chaos themselves on their

41:48

side. And ultimately they

41:51

create such chaos that Artemisia,

41:54

the main admiral of

41:57

the Persian side in the whole fight, she ends up ramming

41:59

some

41:59

of her own Persian allies

42:02

ships to try to get out of the

42:05

chaos and get out of the trap that has been

42:07

set for her. So Herodotus

42:09

kind of holds that out as the defining,

42:12

what do you call it? That moment is the, it epitomizes

42:15

how much everything was flipped from the Greeks are

42:17

in disarray to no, no, no, it isn't,

42:19

it is the Persians who are in disarray.

42:21

And ultimately this is a horrible

42:24

crushing defeat for Persia.

42:27

And Herodotus seems to delight in the idea

42:29

that

42:29

Xerxes with his silk slippers on his

42:32

comfy portable throne is sitting up

42:34

watching the whole thing go down,

42:36

probably just losing his mind.

42:38

That's wild. Do you think it came down

42:41

to

42:41

fighting on the decks? Do

42:44

you think that's why it happened or it

42:46

was just clever positioning by each individual

42:48

Greek

42:49

commander because there were about double the

42:51

boats

42:52

or even triple by some accounts on the Persian

42:54

side, right?

42:55

That's a lot of boats.

42:57

Yeah, that's the rumor.

42:59

I think both is

43:02

my understanding. One of the really

43:04

frustrating things about ancient warfare is we don't

43:06

get much of a description

43:08

of how these fights went down.

43:11

Other than chaos, the ancient historians liked

43:13

to tell us when there was chaos or when somebody

43:15

got tricked, they seem to really revel in

43:17

that. But the ancient historians don't

43:19

give us much about, well,

43:22

the Athenian right with 1200 men performed

43:24

a wheel maneuver

43:28

about half an hour into the battle

43:30

and caught the Persian left making

43:33

a folding maneuver. And

43:35

that allowed pressure, the long spears

43:37

and the, you know, they weren't able to get out of the range

43:39

of the bowmen. We don't get anything like that. Anything

43:42

you hear like that about this

43:45

era of warfare is historians,

43:48

military historians going back to the place and be like,

43:50

all right, let's work this through. And we know what

43:52

the weapons were like. Let's map this out. They

43:54

were there. So they probably must have done this. The

43:57

Greeks probably would have

43:58

deployed in this manner.

43:59

There's just a ton of speculation. Salamis

44:02

stands out because we get a little bit

44:04

more detail about the

44:07

strategy and a little bit about what the combat

44:10

actually looked like, but the horrors

44:12

of the battlefield, this up-close,

44:14

bone-crunching, bloody,

44:18

put in your instrument of death and twist

44:20

it and then try to get it back out of the guy

44:22

you just killed fast enough to fend off

44:24

the next guy and the trauma

44:26

and the ugliness and the smell

44:29

and the bodies, none of that

44:31

stuff comes down through history to us. So we

44:33

really don't get a very human picture

44:36

of what it was like to be on the field and

44:38

what maneuvers and commands you're getting from the

44:40

commanders on the ground. You get more

44:42

of this poetic justice

44:45

reversal of fortune. You

44:47

had the wrong

44:48

attitude and ironically that wrong attitude

44:50

came back to bite you in the butt kind

44:52

of perspective that we

44:54

get on all of this. I just looked

44:57

up the Wikipedia page because I wanted to see the

44:59

number of ships on each side

45:01

and it looks like the Phoenicians were fighting

45:04

with

45:05

the Achaemenid, how do you say it,

45:07

the Persians, how do you say that again? Achaemenid.

45:10

Yeah, the Achaemenid dynasty. The Phoenicians

45:12

were fighting and they were like the bosses

45:15

when it came to boats, right?

45:17

Yes. So they had 300

45:19

ships in that battle, in the Battle of Salamis

45:22

and they were fighting on the side of the Persians and the

45:24

Greeks only had 370 something ships and so just the

45:28

Phoenicians alone who

45:31

were experts

45:33

at naval battles,

45:35

they had almost the same number of ships as the Greeks.

45:38

That's crazy and so and

45:40

then you had all these other people on top of that,

45:42

the Egyptians, the Ionian. Wow.

45:46

Okay, so

45:47

they were overmatched

45:49

so they definitely had some good strategy.

45:51

Interesting. Who

45:53

was the commander on the- Yeah, it shouldn't have worked out.

45:56

Who was commander on the Greek side? I

45:58

was the politician. Domestikles.

46:01

Really? So it was his, like

46:04

his Navy that he had commissioned,

46:06

he was controlling him as well. He got to command

46:08

the Navy he built. Yeah. No

46:11

way. And it was his subtlety

46:14

and deception that got Xerxes

46:16

to commit at an ill-advised time

46:18

that made the entire victory possible. So

46:21

you're telling me- Domestikles won

46:23

this fight and Leonidas

46:26

laid down his life in support

46:28

of a rival city's rival politician?

46:31

Because apparently he believed in

46:34

the vision, which is a very remarkable thing.

46:36

It's not like these guys were close personal friends

46:38

who hung around. Well, we're all Greeks. For

46:41

Leonidas to make the sacrifice he made

46:43

to

46:44

set up the Athenians for this victory

46:46

is, I mean, that's pretty remarkable. But

46:48

ultimately it was the vision of the Themystikles

46:51

and the battlefield decision-making of

46:53

the Mystikles that

46:54

got it done.

46:55

So I'm just now coming to terms with how

46:58

amazing Themystikles

47:01

was because I had never heard

47:03

of his name before reading this book. But

47:06

if I understand correctly,

47:08

Themystikles was at the Battle of Marathon

47:11

as a commander, as one of the Strategoi,

47:15

correct?

47:16

I believe so, yeah. And then moving

47:18

forward, he became one of the first,

47:21

what we think of as a politician in the modern

47:23

sense. He lived down

47:25

at the bad part of the town

47:27

and he campaigned, so

47:29

to speak, to get his ideas. He

47:32

used the art of rhetoric to persuade people

47:34

to his way of thinking.

47:36

And he was successful in that. And he

47:38

ultimately defeated his political opponents.

47:42

Starts with an A, who's his major political opponent

47:44

he defeated and he

47:46

had to lead.

47:47

It's the just. Aristides.

47:50

Aristides. Aristides the just.

47:52

So he beat Aristides in politics.

47:56

And then he persuaded everybody to create

47:58

a navy.

49:59

And then, yeah, Themistocles

50:02

gets ostracized. He gets kicked out

50:05

of Athens because he's too

50:07

powerful. He won too much. Because

50:09

he's right all the time. Yeah, because

50:11

he was always right, so they booted him.

50:13

Dang. So, you know,

50:16

the process of ostracism was

50:18

not permanent.

50:19

I don't know, dude, this is risky. Let's

50:22

not use names. But if you think

50:24

back over the last 20 years of history,

50:26

there at any given time is usually

50:29

one lady or one dude where you're like, look,

50:31

I don't want anybody to get hurt. But if we

50:33

could without violence, just make this

50:35

person go away from all

50:38

politics and all public

50:40

speaking for say 10 years, it

50:42

would be really good for everybody, right?

50:45

Dude, I sat on a porch

50:47

with a man that this happened to. I can't

50:50

talk about any of it. But

50:52

I knew a guy that was a politician

50:55

and I had a conversation with him.

50:57

And he was very powerful

50:59

at one point in time. And then he wasn't. And

51:02

I just talked to him about that.

51:04

I'm like, what happened? And he's like, oh, well, what you don't

51:06

realize that at any point in time, you know,

51:09

they, at any point in time, they

51:12

can get you. And

51:14

it's just, when you fall out of favor, it can

51:16

happen. And I remember the look in his eyes thinking,

51:20

oh, wow, this is interesting. Hmm.

51:22

Do you think there were some arrogance involved? Do you think

51:25

that the mysticlies was

51:27

right about everything and then he started

51:29

believing the good things people were saying about him? Do

51:31

you think that happened?

51:33

Let me bounce that back to you. What do you think? How

51:35

did you read the story? Do you think that happened?

51:37

I don't know. I mean, this, I don't remember

51:40

what it said about this part, but I

51:41

do remember after the Persians

51:44

destroyed Athens

51:46

and they destroyed the Acropolis and

51:48

after, I didn't realize the mysticlies

51:50

commanded the Navy. That's incredible.

51:52

But I did know that after the fact,

51:55

they rebuilt the Acropolis and they

51:57

built one of the most perfect architectural.

51:59

buildings ever built, which is the Parthenon.

52:02

And there's actually a Parthenon

52:05

replica in Nashville, Tennessee that's amazing.

52:08

Yeah, it is amazing. It's

52:11

interesting to know that this was built

52:14

on the Acropolis after the

52:16

Persians destroyed Athens.

52:18

And so

52:20

it's my understanding Themistocles was involved

52:22

in that as well.

52:24

Yeah, he got accused

52:27

of corruption, not only by his own

52:29

people, but he got accused

52:31

of corruption

52:34

by the Spartans a little bit later on when

52:36

they saw that he was politically weak

52:38

for a bit. Because

52:40

the bottom line is you get rid of Persia,

52:42

but you've still got all of the problems that

52:44

were sitting there before amongst

52:46

these rival Greek city states. I

52:49

get the impression that Themistocles

52:51

and Aristides were both incredibly arrogant people.

52:54

I get the impression that the title, the

52:57

just was one that he gave himself,

52:59

but that people were very skeptical

53:02

of. It was almost held to be tongue in cheek

53:04

as his career matured. Oh really?

53:06

People went from being like, Aristides the just,

53:09

we can trust him with the spoils of war too.

53:11

Yeah, Aristides the just, am I right?

53:14

These are not likable people for

53:16

the most part. These are slick people.

53:18

These are movers and shakers who

53:20

only interact with the people

53:23

they have to interact with for

53:25

the purposes they have to interact with them.

53:28

You can picture what the local political

53:30

ruling business class is like

53:33

in any given city. There's some cool people in there,

53:35

but a lot of times the people who are really winning

53:38

are the slickest and the smoothest.

53:40

And Themistocles is a career politician,

53:43

dude. He was a really good one

53:45

who had the rare gift

53:47

of being able to look 10, 15 years ahead and

53:50

say, this is what's going to happen. And I will

53:52

risk everything politically to

53:55

make sure it does

53:55

happen, but you don't get the taste

53:58

of blood out of the mouth of the bear.

53:59

once it's done eating its first hiker.

54:02

It just wants another hiker. It doesn't forget.

54:05

And a politician who weasels that hard

54:08

even if for good reasons, history says they

54:10

don't just forget that skill

54:12

set and suddenly become docile

54:15

and undangerous.

54:16

They, even if it's not official, have

54:19

all of the political machine of

54:21

the most powerful Greek city state at

54:23

their command and not even in

54:25

public ways. That's why ostracism

54:28

existed. We as people,

54:30

we get

54:32

arrogant. When we start winning,

54:35

we get arrogant and we start believing it's about us.

54:37

And we believe that we are the reason why we're

54:39

succeeding and

54:42

not just circumstance

54:44

or God giving it to us.

54:49

It's this law that happens and

54:51

it's the law of

54:53

when you get successful. If

54:55

you don't go away soon enough, you'll

54:57

eventually become the baddie. You'll be

54:59

the enemy. You'll end up saying,

55:02

oh, let's just go destroy this other empire

55:04

and plow them over. That's so

55:06

weird. Throw it into the volcano, Themistocles.

55:09

Destroy it. Yeah. No.

55:13

I will not. I went to the Wikipedia

55:15

page on Themistocles and I scrolled down.

55:18

This is a bridge too far for what we're talking

55:20

about here, but I'm going to go find a book about it. I'll

55:22

allow it. What do you got? There's a picture of

55:25

Themistocles standing before Artaxerxes,

55:29

which tells me there was a relationship between

55:31

him. It says later life

55:34

in the Achaemenid, I can't say that

55:36

word, Achaemenid, Achaemenid,

55:39

I say it please.

55:40

Achaemenid. Empire, death and descendants.

55:43

And apparently he lived

55:45

in exile and

55:47

he took a year to learn the Persian language

55:49

for some reason. So, I mean, he got thrown

55:52

out. Wow. Man,

55:54

that's fascinating. So the simple

55:56

version of this story is a big,

55:59

mean, and invader came and invaded and

56:01

brave Greeks defeated them. Yes,

56:04

that did happen. A big mean invader did invade

56:06

and yes, brave Greeks defeated

56:09

them.

56:09

But also Persia was the most

56:11

progressive empire in history. I mean, this

56:14

was a nice empire though. If you worked with them,

56:16

they'd make you rich, they'd bring you prosperity.

56:18

It was a really good deal compared

56:21

to any other deal that had ever been

56:23

offered. But then on the other hand, yeah, but

56:25

what if you're in a place so far away that Persia

56:27

can't really reach you

56:29

and they can't really control

56:31

you and so they can bark a whole bunch, but

56:34

can they really actually enforce that or

56:36

even back it up this far away? No, I

56:39

don't think they can. And we'd rather just govern ourselves.

56:41

Thank you very much. It's complex

56:43

and people were on both sides for periods

56:46

of time.

56:47

There were weasels in Sparta

56:49

and Sparta was a bad place to live and there

56:51

were weasels in Athens. And also there

56:53

was kind of the beginnings of democracy there.

56:56

And that's kind of exciting. It's just a

56:58

really multifaceted era

57:00

that isn't simple. And I

57:03

super enjoy the not simplicity of it. I

57:05

like that it's weird and complex.

57:07

Yeah, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed learning this

57:09

stuff. It was eye

57:10

opening to me and

57:13

I don't know, I feel more

57:15

cultured. I'm

57:17

not going to say I know history or anything, but I feel

57:19

more cultured having gone

57:21

down this path

57:23

and it was fun. Thank you for

57:25

suggesting it. Can

57:28

I hit you with two closing questions? Yeah, absolutely.

57:30

Okay. Why do you

57:32

think this matters?

57:33

This chapter, this story,

57:35

what's the significance?

57:41

Why does it matter? Well,

57:43

I don't know. My family

57:45

and I, when I was younger, I went

57:48

over to my friend's house. His name

57:50

is David

57:51

and his dad, Jamie said, all

57:53

right, kids story time.

57:55

And I was spending the night with him. So I was like,

57:57

oh, okay, what are we doing here? And so

58:00

He gathers up the kids and he sits

58:02

everybody down and

58:03

he starts, he says, tonight we're reading from Daniel.

58:07

And he read

58:08

from Daniel about the writing on the wall.

58:11

I just thought it was amazing. Like, wow, we're, we're

58:14

learning. Man, y'all do this every night. This

58:16

is amazing. And so I

58:18

decided that I wanted to do that with my family

58:21

occasionally. I don't do this all the time, but last

58:23

night we just happened to be reading Daniel.

58:26

And we read

58:28

about the king of Babylon,

58:30

Nebuchadnezzar. We read about his dream and

58:32

his dream about

58:34

the statue

58:36

and the statue had the head

58:38

of gold, the arms of silver, and

58:41

all the way down to the feet of iron and clay.

58:44

And Daniel was able to interpret the

58:46

dream.

58:48

And what's fascinating to me is that

58:51

the statue represents the different

58:54

dynasties that exist

58:56

or the empires that exist. And then at the

58:58

end of Nebuchadnezzar's dream, there's

59:01

this, this force that just blows

59:04

away all the shattered remains

59:06

of this empire, all these

59:09

different empires. So each level of the statue

59:11

represents a different empire. And at the end, poof, it's gone.

59:13

It all shatters crumbles and it's blown

59:15

away like

59:16

chaff in the wind.

59:18

And it's replaced by this bigger, newer,

59:20

amazing thing. And of course it's

59:23

the kingdom. Is what it is.

59:25

Uh, meaning

59:26

God, it's, it's Jesus coming

59:29

to earth and

59:30

changing everything.

59:33

And so that's what happened. And so I

59:35

think it's interesting to me

59:37

because as I read it and

59:39

understand how powerful these forces

59:42

were that come against each other, it's

59:43

just a chapter in human history, and

59:47

at the time it was the most powerful thing in the world.

59:50

And this is the most powerful person

59:52

ever in the world. Yeah. The king of kings

59:55

is the label that they gave the Cyrus and

59:59

later on passed. You know through chem,

1:00:01

you know all the way down to Xerxes the

1:00:03

king of kings Wow, that's amazing

1:00:06

also

1:00:06

They're dead They're

1:00:09

gone and it doesn't matter and

1:00:11

all that hubris and all that fighting that they

1:00:14

did to be even more powerful ultimately

1:00:17

doesn't matter because they're dead and

1:00:20

I think that right there is

1:00:23

interesting the mysticlies

1:00:25

is dead Cyrus

1:00:28

is dead Darius dead Xerxes

1:00:30

is dead Leonidas is dead

1:00:33

They're all dead and we're gonna

1:00:35

die too to me personally

1:00:38

The reason it's it matters is

1:00:40

because it it just keeps me in check to

1:00:42

say hey that selfish ambition and

1:00:44

pride that

1:00:46

comes up every once in a while in the back of my head Pride

1:00:49

is something that I always really

1:00:51

want to keep in check and I'm really scared to start

1:00:53

believing the nice things people say about me and

1:00:55

I Hear a lot of people say

1:00:57

nice things about you and a lot of my friends and it's like

1:01:00

Are we gonna believe those things and try

1:01:02

to get drunk on this power? Or are we ultimately

1:01:05

gonna realize that we're gonna be blown away like

1:01:07

dust in the wind?

1:01:08

for me, I get to look back

1:01:10

at this story between these two great powers

1:01:13

that fought and Realize

1:01:15

they're dead So

1:01:17

I got a short period of time on this earth

1:01:19

and I need to think about how to use that That's

1:01:22

what it means to me. Hmm. What

1:01:24

does it mean to you? Why does it matter?

1:01:28

Well,

1:01:28

that's a very thoughtful take

1:01:30

and I think a really important observation

1:01:32

about studying history in general in

1:01:34

a way What you just said sounds a lot like the book of

1:01:36

Ecclesiastes. It's meaningless. It's heavy

1:01:39

That's the the original language term

1:01:42

for this stuff that you you can grab

1:01:44

at but it goes through your fingers You can't hold

1:01:46

it. It's like vapor. You can see vapor

1:01:48

can maybe experience it with others are your

1:01:50

five senses But you can't grab it hold it

1:01:53

and own it. It's fleeting by

1:01:55

nature of its very essence it's fleeting and

1:01:58

the author of the book of

1:01:59

Ecclesiastes, that old book of Jewish

1:02:02

wisdom is wrestling with that question.

1:02:04

What do you do when you live in a

1:02:06

reality where everything is so

1:02:09

fleeting? So yeah, I think

1:02:11

that's half of what you take from

1:02:13

it.

1:02:14

But also, I think both you and I would

1:02:16

agree that what you do with

1:02:19

this time, even if you can't hold on to

1:02:21

your life,

1:02:22

is also really important.

1:02:24

And here we see a whole bunch of characters

1:02:26

who did a whole bunch of different things,

1:02:29

some of them more noble than

1:02:31

others, some of them absolutely detestable,

1:02:34

I think of a steige and what he did to

1:02:36

his right hand man, Harpegus, over

1:02:39

that offense and at that banquet.

1:02:41

That's pretty stunning. I think of the

1:02:44

dishonoring of the corpse of Leonidas

1:02:47

at the hands of

1:02:48

his enemy Xerxes. And

1:02:50

I suppose I could go on and on. There's so

1:02:52

many examples of

1:02:54

nobility and evil and

1:02:56

cowardice and all of this.

1:02:59

At the same time, for

1:03:01

all of their flaws, these people really did

1:03:03

leave a legacy. Persia is

1:03:05

the granddaddy of the West. Also,

1:03:08

so is Greece. And they're married

1:03:10

together for all of time. They both have a role

1:03:12

in how the whole story of human history

1:03:15

played out. And they

1:03:17

contributed by fighting with each other. So that's pretty

1:03:20

interesting.

1:03:21

Some other conversation would be fun to go

1:03:23

through and think about how

1:03:25

things might have been if this battle goes the

1:03:27

other way or that battle goes the other way.

1:03:30

But in the end, I don't view it as the

1:03:32

West happened because Persia lost or

1:03:35

the West wouldn't have happened if Persia

1:03:37

won. The dance steps of these

1:03:39

two people groups produced what

1:03:42

we think of as Western civilization

1:03:44

for all of its good, bad, ugly, and weird.

1:03:47

And I just keep getting more comfortable

1:03:50

with the weird of history. Someday,

1:03:52

not today, we kind of teased it, but we didn't have time

1:03:54

to get to it. Someday I would like to talk about

1:03:56

the question of how we know and

1:03:58

how we relate to the past.

1:03:59

more. What do we do when we

1:04:02

look at a story like this where we're not sure of

1:04:04

every single thing that happened but we have a really dramatic

1:04:06

telling or two of it to play with?

1:04:09

I think that would be an entertaining conversation

1:04:11

as well but I

1:04:13

think these are two very enlightened, very interesting

1:04:15

people groups with all kinds of flaws and

1:04:18

I consider myself and my mind to be

1:04:20

descended from both of them

1:04:22

and so this is a very interesting chapter

1:04:24

for me to look at and the fact that you my

1:04:26

friend

1:04:27

for no reason and out of the blue with

1:04:29

no prompting would go pick up a book that

1:04:31

you know I care about from an era that you know

1:04:34

I care about and dive deep into it

1:04:36

is just so honoring I really appreciate

1:04:38

you doing that.

1:04:39

I really appreciate it too because I

1:04:41

interested people are interesting and you

1:04:44

are genuinely interested in history

1:04:46

on and off mics I can just

1:04:48

hear it oozing in your veins and

1:04:50

I was

1:04:51

like you know what I'm gonna go wade in those waters and

1:04:53

I'm really glad I did and I see why you're interested in

1:04:55

it man. Thanks

1:04:57

for making me better,

1:04:59

making me want to see this stuff.

1:05:01

My pleasure. Let's science the heck out of something

1:05:03

next time around. Yeah and I do I did

1:05:05

hear that there's that second question there and I do

1:05:08

agree it's too big for right now. The

1:05:10

difference in the scientific method and the historical

1:05:12

method and I think we can do that question

1:05:15

justice and I'd like to do that.

1:05:17

Okay yeah yeah that'd be fun. Hey

1:05:20

we covered some good ground this is a blast dude thank

1:05:22

you. Yeah it was awesome man thank you so much.

1:05:24

You got a kid's ball game right now am I correct? Yeah

1:05:26

I gotta go but you are just

1:05:29

I want to end it here are you team Greece or

1:05:31

team Persia in the end? I'm

1:05:34

team I kind of think they're the same team

1:05:36

with the exception of a few years where things got

1:05:39

a little bit rough.

1:06:00

You