Beer & Pretzels: Leonidas as Commander

[grydth]

First the Spartans trained full time for war because they used serfs to grow their food and make their equipment. They were called helots. As a rite of passage, Spartan boys were let loose in the countryside as a lesson in survival and they reportedly also killed stray slaves as practice and as a means of keeping the helots in line. It was a different time and a different people.

As to killing the wounded. I seem to recall that the Spartan spear had a spiked butt and that while ther rear ranks had their shoulders into and pushing the ranks to their front, they used that spike in a piston fashion on the enemy they were trudging over.

No quarrel with your customary grasp of history..... but among Leonidas' great strengths lay other traits which would be fatal today. What started me on this after the movie was the thought that we seemingly have no such figure today - then I began to question whether such an individual in this world could replicate his immortal stand...... or would he be a modern day Custer?

 

[Blotan Hunka]

There has to be a "stand" worth taking. Rarely is there the "hold at all costs" or our nation is doomed battle. To stand to the last for no gain...thats hubris.

 

[grydth]

There has to be a "stand" worth taking. Rarely is there the "hold at all costs" or our nation is doomed battle. To stand to the last for no gain...thats hubris.

Then Leonidas in the final scene demonstrated ultimate hubris. The initial fighting was well worth taking - in delaying Xerxes' vast army at a bottleneck it likely saved Greece.

But, warned by his (deplored) allies that the Persians have begun to move to his rear, Leonidas decides to stay and die anyway..... why? He isn't delaying the Persians appreciably, and he won't kill any large number of them either. So why throw away the remaining troops?

Because "Spartans do not retreat."

That's hubris.

Applicability to this discussion: That attitude at that point leads to loss of men and equipment that, if preserved, could lead to victory on a later day. Ultimately in war, it isn't who retreats temporaily that is key, it is who is advancing on the last day.

A stand worth taking? Try a platoon of freezing US infantrymen around an anti-tank gun somewhere in the Ardennes, circa December, 1944. They will die, but they will cost the SS Panzers a fatal delay. Now that you ask you command to die for.

On the other hand: Try telling them they have to make a stand against onrushing Panthers because you never retreat... and a post mortem will likely reveal you died from Garand bullets and not Mauser rounds.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

The movie version was interesting.
Movie commanders are supposed to be the sort of legend, the type that will inspire you to glory, to victory, to death.

The -best- I've ever seen is a tie:
Maximus and Patton (Russel Crowe and George C Scott).
I rank Movie Leonidas at #2.
LOTR's Theoden is #3, tied with Master & Commander's Capt. Jack Aubrey (Crowe again).
Behind them are LOTR's Arragorn, Stone's Alexander, Troy's Achillies or Hector, and Owen's Arthur.

To be honest, I find POTC's Jack Sparrow to be more impressive a leader than any of those behind Theoden. LoL!

 

[grydth]

I wonder if there isn't even more to that "stuff of legend"...... the image of the unbeatable super warrior who never retreats and who fights heedless of death had to be worth a huge fear factor on the battlefields of the day... many opposing armies were likely consumed by fear of a myth before the fighting even started and were all to likely to flee...... to preserve that advantage, it made sense for Leonidas to fight and die after his poistion was flanked.... but as I've said, do not try this at home.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

The interesting thing is, historically in this particular case, the Spartans were led by a very charismatic king, and at the battle did massive damage to the enemy with minimal losses themselves until they were flanked and surrounded after a traitor showed the enemy the way. Of course, at the actual battle there were around 5,000 greeks too, not just 500 as this film suggests. It's 'Hollywooded' a bit here, but supposedly about 80-90% historically accurate nonetheless.

 

[Blotan Hunka]

That was what Spartans did. It would have been in keeping with the Spartan military ethos for Leonidas to have acted out of a desire for glory. That is the opinion of Herodotus: an oracle, he records, foretold that either Sparta would perish or one of her kings would perish. By his death, Leonidas perhaps wished to save his city.

 

[tradrockrat]

please dont' forget the psychological aspect of his stand at Thermopylae. We sometimes tend to think that ancients had no grasp of the mental aspects of war.

Leonidas set himself in an untenable situation because by doing so, he had a chance to strike at the psyche of an army that honestly thought themselves invincible. Leonidas knew he was going to die before he ever got there. In fact, he pledged to die there BEFORE he went to Thermopylae. His goal was to kill as many Persians as possible and hold them as long as possible, but come that third day did he hold the sheild wall? No, he sent his men out charging into the Persians to kill as many as they could, so the carnage of the last day would be worse and more brutal than anything they had ever seen. It was a short battle, but the Persians took staggering losses. In the movie, we saw a bunch of Hollywood so it kind of sucks cuase what i'm about to say doesn't fit in the narrow confines of the thread, but Leonidas died quick, and the Persians were repelled and prevented three times from taking the body at STAGGERING loss to their army. Not until every Spartan fell were they able to take Leonidas' body to Xerxes and cut off his head.

The Persians were absolutley "shell shocked" from these three days, and did not push on till the next day. The Greeks had time to sail their ships away, abandon Athens and rally the troops to meet the Persians later because the Persians simply didn't want to go on.

After Thermopylae, the Persians knew they could be beat by the Greeks. They knew they could expect to win or die - no prisoners, no third alternative. That's HUGE.


On an unrelated note - the worst thing a Spartan could wish upon you was a long life and a death in bed. That is why he didn't kill the hunchback hollywood invention.