Camp Gagnon - SPARTA: The Real Story of 300, and The Fight For Greece

Episode Date: December 3, 2025

Today, we take a closer look at the people of Athens and Sparta. We’ll talk about the Army of Leonidas, the Battle of 300, the Death of Leonidas, the Battle of Salamis, the Immortals, and other interesting topics... WELCOME TO HISTORY CAMP! 🏕️👕🧢 GET YOUR CAMP DRIP HERE: http://camp-rd.com🎟️ 🎫 Comedy Tour Tickets Here: https://markgagnonlive.com🎩👽 Daily Dose Of History Here: https://www.dailytodayinhistory.comTimestamps:0:00 Christos YAPPING2:40 Xerxes Pontoon Bridge + Xerxes Army7:31 The People of Athens & Sparta11:10 Sparta & Athens Join Army’s14:46 Army of Leonidas17:59 The Battle of 300 + The Immortals21:30 Ephialtes’ Betrayal24:03 The Death of Leonidas26:40 Athens Is Evacuated & Destroyed32:57 Themistocles Tricks Xerxes43:13 The Battle of Salamis50:08 Lead Up to Pelopenesion War55:26 Legacy of Greco-Persian War59:21 Greeks Are DAWGS#history #podcast #battle #war #mystery #camping #knowledge #film

Thermopylae. Now when I say that, you probably picture a bunch of slow-motion hot Spartans from the movie 300, but the real story is way crazier because it actually happened. Back in 480 BC, a fractured group of Greek cities could barely agree on anything. And now they find themselves facing the largest empire the world has ever seen. Xerxes is marching into Europe with an army so massive, it drank rivers dry and a navy that could literally make the horizon go dark. Thermopy wasn't just 300 men holding a pass. It was the opening move in a desperate, brilliant, and chaotic fight for survival. And the craziest part of all, a political mastermind named Themistocles, equal parts genius and troublemaker, would set a naval trap so daring it would flip the entire war on its head. This is the raw, unpolished, and completely true version of the movie 300 and the battle that saved Greece.

So, sit back, relax, and welcome to History Camp. What's up people and welcome back to History Camp and my name is Mark Gagnon and thank you for joining me in my tent where every single week we explore the most interesting fascinating controversial stories from every moment in history forever. That's right. All the things, all the people, all the crazy stuff that's ever happened. We're trying to figure it all out. That is my goal with this show. Is that every single week I sit down in my tent and I try to figure out all the stuff that's ever been going on? You know, I was born in the 90s and since I was born, a lot of stuff has happened. But even before I was born, even more stuff happened. So how am I going to figure it all out? Well, here we are.

You're on the journey with me, okay? And I'm not on this journey alone, no. I have my faithful companion, the squire of squires, the Greek freak himself. It is Christos Papadapodapodos. What's up history? I didn't even ask you a question, but you know what Christos?

Today, of all days, I'm going to let you chime in because we're going over Greco-Persian history. Hell you. Yeah, and I feel like if there's ever an episode for you to completely derail and ruin, it's probably going to be this one, okay? I'll try to keep it to a minimum.

No, I mean, By all means, I'm going to need your help pronouncing most of these words because I don't speak freaking Greek. But also the commenters are kind of hurtful. They are hurtful and I find it extremely funny. Okay, every day that I read an episode and it's like, man, this episode was great.

I really enjoyed it. By the way, I had to turn off five minutes things because crested was ruined. I'm like, dude, turns out the audience is funny, dude. Turns out the other camp folk out here, they are, they get me laughing. I got to be honest. And salacious.

And ruthless. And that is part of the appeal for me. I've got to be completely frank with you. But guys, I have great news. Today we're going through one of the most infamous battles in Greek history. And even more than that, a fascinating film that I've never seen. That's pretty funny also that I'm going to, I'm going through this. I cannot wait until I get to some of the parts that I'm going to be like, bro, this is crazy.

And everyone's going to be like, yeah, dude, we legit saw it. It already was on TV. You see the kicking into the well part, though. That's the only part I know. And I only know that because I watched, what's that movie where they parodied it? They did like a satire where like they kicked like Britney Spears in the well or something.

There was like disaster movie or something. And I saw that and I was like, oh, okay. So look, I'm a history fan. I'm a fan of literature, okay? I like to read. And I'm not, I don't watch movies, okay? I don't believe in it. What?

Why are you looking at me like that? You read? Yes, I love reading. I read all the time. Why do you not believe in? I've never once seen you read a book. Yeah, of course. What have we ever been in a situation where I'm reading a book?

Every time I'm in here, it's work. It's 100% work. I'm going hard, all right? Sure. See, you're already derailing. Guys, we don't have time, okay? We're going to go all the way back to where this thing freaking started.

That's 480 BC, all right? Now, to set the stage for all you that don't know what's going on, the spring of 480, you got King Xerxes of Persia, and he's basically on the edge of Europe. He's got a big old army, and he is basically watching his engineers pull off something crazy, okay? They're making two massive bridges that cross the, basically like the narrow strip of water that separates Asia from Europe. That's now known as the Dardanelles. This is a specific point called Hellespont.

Now, they tied together hundreds of boats with like this sort of like thick, kind of like reedy, like flax and papyrus ropes. and then they laid wooden planks across it to basically form like a floating road that the entire army can march across. It's like insane. It's like an engineering marvel that the Persians pulled off. But when a storm wrecked the first version, Xerxes had the waters whipped as punishment.

Yes, he was like, you know what? These waters aren't going to disrespect me again. I'm sending my boys out there. Cachow, all right? I don't know why they're lighting McQueen, but that's what they are. They're beating the water up. And unbelievably, the second bridge actually worked.

And that just kind of shows the kind of ruler that the Greeks are up against because Xerxes was not going to back down. If it didn't work once, he's going to run it back. Now, you can see on the screen here, this is sort of the visual of the Hellspont crossing, and you can kind of see where this bridge was built in order for them to get across. Now, this isn't just a logistical battle. This was a message. This was a form of early propaganda.

The Persian Empire would cross into Europe, and even nature had to bend the knee to the king. Now, Xerxes wasn't starting fresh, right? He was finishing a job. His father, Darius, had already tried to, you know, punish Athens in Eritrea for backing a rebellion by Greek cities in Ionia. This is modern-day Turkey. And that invasion ended so badly that at Marathon in 490 BC, Athenian soldiers destroyed the Persian forces. Darius died before he could ever try again, but his son, Xerxes, was planning the ultimate comeback. So, Xerxes had this empire spanning from Asia to Africa and was basically way bigger than anything in Europe at the time. And the Greek historian Herodotus claimed his army was over 2 million strong, which, to be fair, is probably an exaggeration.

A lot of modern historians estimate it's like 200,000 to 300,000, which, you know, that's still a big number. That's how many subs we got over here. You know what I'm saying? We got the camp army going strong. Dude, we need to get the sound effects, Gristos. You got to just do my voice from now on, all right? Modern historians are saying that they had like 200 to 300,000. That's how many camp subs we have.

Bam bam, bam. Thank you. Still, it was the biggest army that humanity ever seen, despite being, you know, less than 2 million. Regardless, the forces included, you got the Persians, you got the Assyrians, you got Indians, Egyptians, you got the whole squad, all right? It is just a full-on, you know, AP math class in there. Okay?

Every different type of smart Brown was in this arm. You got soldiers in armor, archers, engineers, warships. That's probably why they build the bridges. You know what I mean? You get Persians and Indians together. They can do anything. Now, the fleet alone, in terms of like the Navy, had 600 to 1,200 ships, mostly manned by the Phoenicians,

who are, you know, legendary, you know, sea warriors and seafaring people. And they all were technically living under this Persian rule. So, who do they stand against? a bunch of constantly arguing, bickering Greek city states that hated each other. Over a thousand of them dotted the landscape of what we see is Greece today. And each one had its own government and its own army and its own hatred for a different one. So a city state in this case, also known as the police, the, you know, like you think, metropolis, the polis, was an independent mini nation. They were sort of self-governing.

And it was a city and basically the surrounding territory around the city. He basically was able to call the shots for themselves. They spoke the same language. They worshipped the same gods, but they saw themselves as Athenians, or they saw themselves as Spartans or as Corinthians. They never just were like, oh, yeah, we're all Greek. You know what I mean? It's almost like, I don't even know. A lot of Europe was like this, to be honest with you.

Italy was a lot of the, you know, same way. It's like, okay, we're like under this sort of like Italian, you know, sort of rule. But we're, you know, we're, we're Neapolitan. We're millenese. This idea of like a national sort of unity, especially in this time, was pretty rare. And the Greeks were no exception. And they've been basically fighting each other for generations, okay? But still, Athens had changed since the Battle of Marathon where they were able to, you know, defeat the Persians.

So this sharp politician named Themestocles convinced the city to use a recent discovery of silver ore to build a navy. Okay? They find the silver. they get a bunch of money. What are they going to do with it? We're building military reinforcements. They get the Navy. So they basically start building these triremes, which are like these ancient ships, and they're super fast. They're powered by like 170 rowers each. And by 480 BC, Athens had about 200 of these triremes, making it the strongest naval power in Greece. The Athenians were kind of running the show militarily. They also had something unusual for the time, at least,

which was Demosocratia. Democria. Is that he pronounced? is it? Dementia. Demosocratia. So, yeah, that's what I said. Demoscrates or democracy. This is where citizens, well, land-owning men, you get what I'm saying. They were able to vote directly on the laws that were going to govern them, okay?

And most of these other Greek states were, you know, ruled by kings or some type of, like, you know, like oligarchy where, like, you know, the wealthy people kind of ran the show. Sparta, under the hand, was Athens' total opposite. a military machine built on the backs of Helots. And this was literally like an enslaved people who farmed so that Spartans could focus on military training. So they basically like outsourced all of their everyday work to these people. And then the tough Spartans were able just to do war stuff all the time. So these Helots were basically descendants of conquered people.

And they actually outnumbered the Spartans, like vastly outnumbered them, which meant Sparta lived in a constant state of revolt, right? you get too many of these indentured servants and these slaves. If the numbers get too crazy, then they can just rise up and basically crush your whole society. So this is one of the reasons why they maintained such a militarized society. And so they were focused on external war, but also trying to quell internal rebellion. Spartan boys would start military training at seven years old. They would live in these barracks, basically through their entire youth, becoming full soldiers at 20,

and then actually getting citizenship at 30, although they continued living in these military. barracks even after marriage, which is just like pretty crazy, right? Like their job was to fight and to fight outside invaders, but also to fight the, you know, the farmers that were indentured servants and they conquered peoples and to staying submissive. And they were the only full-time soldiers in Greece. And they were basically drilled to fight as one unit, shield to shield. And these soldiers were called hoplites. They were heavily armed infantry who fought in a tight formation known as a phalanx. Now, if you've never seen this,

is a pretty famous, you know, basically Greek battle tactic where, like, you know, they would all kind of pull up with, like, their shields in front of them, shields on top of them, basically creating like a tank of men. It's pretty sick.

And if one guy fell, another dude would take his place, shield up. It was awesome. So basically, each hoplight carried a large bronze shield that protected himself and the men next to him.

And they created this, like, impenetrable sort of, like, you know, turtle shell. So other Greeks admired them, but they also, found them really intense and serious and secretive and like borderline weird. Like they were like the ROTC kids of ancient Greece, you know? Like it's like, hey, what you're doing is noble. I like it, but also it's a little much. Do we need to be wearing Camo to school every day?

So regardless, well, you know, we can say that the best land force were the Spartans and the best naval force were the Athenians. But the problem is, despite both of them being Greeks, they hated each other and they can't trust each other or work together at all. So when news came that Xerxes and the Persians, the Persian boys, the, you know, the Mercedes G classes, that they're crossing into Europe with an army that was basically like the entirety of the horizon as far as you could see. Most Greek states face a choice. They could either just submit and be like, hey, you guys got it. Don't kill us all. Or they can resist and fight.

And many of them chose to submit. They were like, hey, this is crazy. We're going to die anyway. So we might as well submit and let some of us live. and, you know, hope that we can gain freedom later. And now, Persia typically allowed conquered people to keep a lot of, like, their own local governance and customs as long as they paid tribute and, like, acknowledged Persian authority.

Their sort of colonial tactic was not unlike many other, you know, empires in history where they would come through and just basically take money from, you know, whatever the state was, but allow them more or less to operate and function so long as they submitted to the king. Now, resisting was a different story. This would basically risk total destruction. Thebes and most of Biotia offered earth and water, kind of like these sort of symbolic traditional tokens of surrender. Now, Thessaly could not hold its northern border and fell quickly to the Persian cavalry. Argos remained pretty neutral, and some city-states in the Peloponises

argued for fortifying the itthmus of Corinth and abandoning everything north of it, including Athens. So as you can see, there's a lot of infighting and dispute politically about how they're going to handle the Persians on the horizon. But a coalition eventually forms. Athens and Sparta. The two most powerful military states in all of Greece, despite this mutual distrust, agreed to lead a united defense. Now, Corinth, Megara, and a few other smaller states joined in. They kind of sent whatever they could. And they sent envoys begging for help.

But most cities refused or like sent. you know, token forces like, you know, just like a couple hundred guys that would basically kind of stand around. Now, for the defense of Thermopyla, they mustered about 7,000 soldiers. And at sea, they had 370 ships, most of which were from Athens. Now, to understand the strategy that would unfold, imagine the geography, okay, Zerxes army had crossed from Hellespont, moving south along the coast toward Central Greece. Now, you can see on the map here, more or less the major points, okay? So Hellspont, where they're coming in for from Asia into Europe. And then you have Thermopyla, also known as the Hot Gates. This is a narrow pass between the sea and steep cliffs perfect for defending your land.

And then you have Salamis. This is a small island near Athens with narrow waters, ideal for trapping another navy. Now these three places, the crossing, the stand, and the turning point would basically define this invasion. Two spots would actually give the Greeks some hope. Thermopy on land and the strait near Yubaa at sea. Now, if they could hold those long enough for the alliance to stay, you know, united, then maybe they could stop the empire despite being, you know, so outnumbered. If they couldn't hold these two spots, Greece was completely dumb for. So by early summer, Xerxes and his massive army crossed into Europe, they moved through Thrace and Macedonia, their fleet gliding beside them along the coast.

Cities surrendered one after another without a fight, but by late August, Persian scouts brought word to Xerxes, that there was a small Greek, force blocking the pass at Thermopyla. Now, the man chosen to hold Thermopyla was a man named Leonidas, one of Sparta's two kings. Around like, you know, late 40s, early 50s, but just a tough dude, he had spent his entire life training for a moment like this. Literally since he was seven years old, he's been enlisted in the military to do this specific job, right? He is a veteran of countless campaigns. And Spartan Kings at this time didn't just sit back in command. They were leading from the front. They were the walking symbols of what Sparta stood for. This is who we are. These are our people. We fight and I'm willing to be the first one to go. So they're disciplined.

They are completely just unbreakable in loyalty to each other and to the laws of war. And Leonidas knew exactly what he was walking into. So before leaving, he looks to his wife whose name is Gorgro. He pronounced that beautifully. Thank you. It's a wonderful name for a lady, just a beautiful. I just want to just push the hair behind her ear, just look at her and say, my sweet, it doesn't really roll off the tongue, I'll be honest, but regardless,

this is Leonidas's wife, okay, shout out to her and to him, okay, I don't want to be disrespectful to a guy from 2,000 years ago, but regardless, he looked to his wife and, you know, he basically says to her, I want you to marry a good man

and I want you to raise strong children because I'm not coming back. Like, that is crazy. To look at your wife, to the woman you love, and say, this is it. I love you. Thank you for the time. You've done your job. Go be happy. Find someone else, not a soldier, and raise your kids. But back then, Thermopyla, the Hotgates, as we talked about,

wasn't the wide coastal plain it is today. If you look at it today, you're like, whoa, this is not what I thought it was. In 480 BC, it was this tight choke point, only like, you know, 25, 30 feet, you know, across. It was pretty narrow at its narrowest point. And you had steep cliffs on one side and then you had the sea dropping off at the other. And it's the perfect spot for a small force to basically block a massive army. So you can see the image here from, you know, what it would have looked like back in 480. Now Leonidas brought 300 Spartans, his personal guard, you know, not just random soldiers, but these are like men who are handpicked to basically, you know, do this job. And on top of that, they all had sons to carry on their names. Now, this is very important for the ancient

Spartans that you were able to pass on your bloodline, pass on your lineage. So if you were a man that had no children, you would potentially be exempt from this job. But if you had your son, you were already moved on, which is kind of crazy to think about because these men feel like they have more to lose. Like once you have a son, you're like, I have to live. But actually it's almost the opposite for them. Once you had a son, they were like, all right, I did my job. I can move on. So all these men, 300 of them with their lineage passed on. And they weren't alone necessarily Alongside them, they had like 4,500 to 5,000 other Greeks and, you know, Thebans and Phoenicians and Phoeans and Phoecians, other people from these other surrounding islands. And altogether, ancient sources suggest that the Greek numbers were roughly between 5,000 and 7,000.

Now they repaired an old wall midway through the past, basically setting up a defensive position and they waited. Now, Zerxes and an army are coming across. and when they arrive, the Persian king sends scouts to basically go check things out. Now, what they saw must have been pretty confusing. Spartans casually exercising and, like, brushing their hair and, like, just kind of chilling. A lot of them were naked. They're, you know, just basically just tanning, you know, under the sun, just like chilling. And they were sort of unbothered by the approaching army.

So to the Persians, they thought this was crazy. They literally were like, King Xerxes, the men are just chilling and, like, flexing and, like, groomed themselves. it's very homerotic, to be honest with you, but we don't really know what's happening. But to the Spartans, this was actually like a sacred ritual. This was how they readied both body and spirit for war. So when Xerxes asked Demartus, a former Spartan king that was now living in exile that was actually in his court, what was going on, Demaritas told him they're preparing to fight to the death. And before these Spartans fought to the death, they would literally spend these times, like, sort of grooming and like, you know, not living in this high,

moment of intensity, but just sort of like relaxing and like sort of enjoying the world around them because they knew that these would be their final days. Now, Xerxes waited for about four days, assuming that the Greeks would, you know, get nervous and flee or that, you know, they would have enough people desert that they would basically just surrender, but the Greeks didn't. And on the fifth day, he ordered an attack. The first wave, the Medis, charged into the pass. They were these experienced, confident soldiers, but it didn't matter because the Greek phalanx actually hell And it was just like a human tank. They just stood there completely shield up, you know, spears coming out, striking the men in hand-to-hand combat.

And each Greek hoplight, these soldiers I was talking about, carried a massive wood and bronze shield called an aspis. And they wore this bronze armor from head to shin. And they fought with these long spears, you know, some of them like eight to nine feet stabbing in formation. Shoulder to shoulder, shields overlapping. And it was just this unbreakable unit that was going through this channel. And inside the past, the Persians couldn't use their numbers, right? Because they have thousands of thousands of men. But when the pass is so small, they're funneled straight into this Greek wall of shields.

And then they started dying there. So these men were basically cut down and then forced to retreat. So then Xerxes basically gets the men back, you know, the ones that basically retreated. He was like, guys, what happened? And they're like, dude, they have this like human tank thing. And he was like, oh, God, all right. Send in the immortals. Now, the immortals, these are Xerxes elite guard.

This is 10,000 men, and they always kept basically just a full clip of these dudes ready to rock. So these were the best soldiers that Persia had, okay? But even they couldn't break the Greek line. The Spartans were just brutally disciplined. They would stand there. They would fake retreats to lure the Persians towards them before turning around and crushing them. Each Persian soldier was, you know, armed and trained for open field combat, but they were not ready for this bottleneck. And they got slaughtered.

and the rest of the immortals just pulled back. So for two days, the Greeks were holding. And on the first and second day of battle, wave after wave of Persian troops dying, trying to get into the pass. The archers then were trying to shoot, but they couldn't shoot effectively in this, you know, confined space. And the cavalry, you know, with horses, was completely useless.

So the train had basically stripped away every Persian advantage. All your technology, all your trained skilled soldiers, all the numbers you have is useless against just, just this wall of Greek soldiers. And then came a massive betrayal. A local Greek named Effialtis went to Xerxes and revealed a hidden mountain path, the Annapia Trail, that looped behind the Greek position.

And the reasons why he did this are still debated to this day. Some say it was for money. Others say it was out of spite, but either way, it changed everything. So that night, Xerxes dispatched the immortals to basically seize the mountain path. About a thousand Phoenicians had been assigned by the Greeks to guard it, but in the darkness beneath the oak forest. The immortals advanced silently and swiftly.

And when the Phoenician sensed movement and realized that the Persians were upon them, they retreated to higher ground, assuming that the assault was aimed at them. Instead, the leader of this unit of immortals ignored them and just continued down the trail toward the Greek rear. Moving to basically outflank Leonidas and trap this main Greek. position from behind. So during the night, deserters would bring warnings, and at dawn, Greek centuries running down from the heights were confirming the news that the Persians had actually outflanked them. Some allies wanted to retreat. They'd, you know, delayed the Persians long enough, and the main Greek forces farther south now had time to prepare, but Leonidas said, no, we're staying. I'm not effing leaving. That's what he said. He said, I'm staying right here.

So he dismissed most of the Allied troops, sending them to safety. Only the 300 Spartans, along with, you know, the Helot attendance, the, you know, the sort of slaves that had to fight. Although people dispute how many of these sort of indentured servants had to be there. Regardless, 300 Spartans, their helot sort of attendance, 700 Thespians refused to leave, and 400 Thebans remained, who, you know, many have been kept hostage because they had tried to surrender during the final result. The final part, anyway, regardless, okay? I mean, shout to the Thespians, which is sick as hell. They were like, nah, dude, we're down. Let's bang.

Let's run it up. So, Leonidas basically knew the choice was death, okay? If he was successful, he would be cemented into, you know, the history books forever. And if he wasn't, then he was dead and potentially, you know, the entire Greek city state was dead. It was a lot on the line. And Spartan law forbade retreat completely. They just said, if you retreat, it's death sentence. So leaving might shatter the Greek morale, but Leonidas knew that staying and dying would give Greece a story that could potentially unite it.

So there's a lot on the line, all right? They've been outflanked. They've lost a lot of their men. But finally, the time has come. At dawn, they moved into the wider part of the pass and they wanted to fight out in the open. So with Persians attacking from both directions, it was just pure chaos. Spears are breaking. Swords were coming from every direction.

Daggers coming out and then hands and teeth, people literally punching each other, pounds. just like smashing grash, smashing, smash and grab, smash and grab, full on Kabib Nirmagamadoff, like that type of vibe, right? It's just like all out brawl to the death, you know, WWD, like hell in a cell, but like 700 on 700. So Leonidas fell early and both sides just fought over his body, basically, on the battlefield. Eventually, the last Greeks retreated to a small hill and surrounding, they were basically just cut down by archers.

Xerxes was enraged. You know, he had Leonidas's body beheaded and impaled on a stake, which was really shocking to the Greeks, who basically considered the mutilation of the dead to be a very deep disgrace, but this is exactly why Xerxes did it. Later, much farther in the future, when the war was officially over and the Persians were driven out, the Spartans built a monument at that site,

a stone lion for Leonidas. and carved basically an epitaph that still gives chills to many of the people that read it to this day. It says, go tell the Spartans, strangers passing by, that here, obedient to their laws, we lie. The battle at Thermopyla lasted three days total, though the Greeks held a position for about seven days, you know, including the days that Xerxes was waiting. And the Greeks may have killed between, you know, around like 20,000 Persians, although modern historians consider this figure potentially inflated. true number is unknown, but was certainly substantial enough to shock Xerxes and his army. But numbers aside, it just changed everything. It proved that the Persians could be stopped, or at least held off for a period of time, and that disciplined free men could stand their ground

against an empire. It became the story that inspired the rest of the Greek people and the Greek city states to fight, but the cost was very clear. This pass was gone. The road to Athens was completely wide open and with Thermopyla lost, there was nothing left to stop this invading Persian army from sweeping south through central Greece. Panic spread through Athens and, you know, the very thing Leonidas had bought time to prevent was now completely inevitable. While Leonidas was fighting at Thermopy, the Greek fleet fought a series of engagements against the Persian Navy off the northern coast of Yuboa. Uboa, right? That's how I say it. Thank you to my Greek translator. Over three days of naval battle, neither side could basically have victory.

Storms were damaging the Persian fleet, but the Greeks withdrew to Salamis, this sort of, you know, piece of water that was a little bit more narrow that, you know, they could defend easily. And they did this because, you know, the fall of Thermopyla left the position at, you know, this original naval battle site completely exposed. Meanwhile, Xerxes army marched south through Biotia and burned all the towns that resisted, and by late September, the Persian army had reached Athens. But here's a funny little ripple. The city was completely empty. They get to Athens, and no one is there. Domesticles, Athens, you know, clever and at times ruthless leader, had convinced the assembly to evacuate the entire city,

which was very bold and controversial at the time. You know, Athens and 480BC had maybe like 30 to 40,000 male citizens plus, you know, women, children, slaves, probably around like 200,000 people in total on the high end. And they had weeks to get everyone to safety, elderly women, children. They were all sent to the surrounding, you know, city states. Agena, Salamis, fighting age men would join the fleet or the army. Livestock was basically moved. Basically anything portable of value was lifted up and taken away. And what was left behind were basically just the buildings themselves and, you know, some temples and the walls of the city.

And before leaving, the Athenians consulted the Oracle at Delphi. And the priestess gave a prophecy, basically that Athens would fall, the people would be scattered, and fire would consume the city. A second consultation offered a cryptic phrase, basically a mystical prediction that basically said, the wooden wall alone shall not fail. Some thought that this meant that, you know, the old wooden, like, palisade on the Acropolis. Domestically has argued it meant, you know, the fleet, like the wooden walls of, like, the ships themselves. And the assembly trusted him. So when the Persians entered Athens, they found resistance only on the Acropolis.

A small group of temple treasurers and some poor citizens who interpreted the wooden wall oracle literally had barricaded themselves behind wooden planks on. the Acropolis. So the Persians just stormed forward at the Acropolis and killed the defenders and looted the temples and basically set fire to everything. And the flames devoured the basically the entire city, the older Parthenon, the temple of Athena, Palias, the treas, and even the sacred olive tree of Athena. Smoke was, you know, completely billowing out of the city. You could see it from as far away as, you know, Salamis where a lot of the Athenian refugees were just sat there and washed the city. that they once loved, one of the most bustling cities in all of the ancient world, just completely in flames by this invading Persian force.

Herodotus recorded that Xerxes send a messenger to Susa, announcing the capture of Athens, the city that had, you know, humiliated Persia at the battle of Marathon. And Xerxes effectively, you know, avenged his father Darius, who was defeated in this battle by the Athenians. He got his get back. So for the Greeks watching from Salamis, the burning was tragic. I mean, it's like the most awful thing you can imagine.

Like, I wonder if you can compare it to like the French watching Paris fall to the Nazis. They just stood there as, you know, Hitler basically climbed the Eiffel Tower just like, damn, like we got God. Like, how awful of a visual must that be? So it also sent a message to all the other cities, right? If Athens could fall, right? Like, this is the New York City of the time. Like, if that could be taken over by an invading army, what city was safe, right? some Peloponnesian commanders argued

to basically retreat to, you know, Corinth to like the small little itthmus, like a small little piece of land, and basically fortified and abandon all of central Greece entirely. Protect only the Peloponnesus by holding the narrow isthmus of Corinth, and, you know, that could be our little spot.

And we'll all be safe. But the Athenians and their allies push back. Such a strategy would leave half of Greece under Persian control, permanently. What's up, people? We're going to take a break because we got new merch. That's right. It is the holiday season and the good folks over at Camp R&D have been cooking up in the lab. We got the Christmas sweaters with the aliens. We got the Christmas sweaters with the conspiracy vibes. You already know. I mean, this one might be my favorite one. A Christmas tree full of aliens,

full Christmas sweater energy. And then of course, if you just want something simple, you know, you bust out the Camp Logo Tea with the little Christmas lights on it. Come on, bro. Get cute for Christmas. It is a holiday season. All right, we're celebrating the birth of the Savior, okay? And what better way to do it than a cop a couple threads for the person in your life that you know that loves a campsite that loves hanging with us every single week. And right now we're running a promo through the holidays. That's right. Use the promo code Christmas camp for 15% off.

I just made that up on the spot, but I think we can do it, right? I'll call some people. Christmas camp for 15% off. Sure. 16% off. Whatever you say, Mark. Should we give them more? One more.

17% off people. We don't, I think this is going to work. I'm not positive. We're going to see if we can do it. But I'll, yeah, check it out, guys. We got all the camp stuff going until the end of the year. Check it out. Thank you guys so much for supporting the show.

I love you all. God bless and Merry Christmas. What's up, beautiful people of America? I am on the road. That's right. I'm doing my hour of stand-up comedy in many cities, some of which are near you. Going to Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Chicago. You can get tickets at my website.

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Let's get back to the show. This is basically a moment where they're like, okay, do we play it safe and we go to Corinth and basically fortify ourselves and hope that they leave us alone? Or do we try to stand our ground and keep as much land as we possibly can? Because if we retreat up to Corinth, we're going to be losing, like, half of Greece. So what do we do? Now, the alliance that they had basically formed was teetering on the edge of collapse. Themestocles faced pressure from his own citizens who want to revenge, but the Spartan commander, Euribidius, leaned towards withdrawing and just going up to Corinth

and kind of letting it be. Now, Corinth and the other Peloponnesian states wanted to defend their own land and not risk everything for Athens. So you can see kind of the thing that's happening here, right. Athens wants to fight, but the other states are a little bit like, all right, let's just chill. And domestically needed a decision, a battle that could either save Greece or destroy the resistance forever. So the burning of Athens also sent, you know, a very clear message. Zerxes wasn't just destroying buildings. He was waging this psychological war. Resist and you will die your whole city, everything you've ever known will get destroyed, or you can surrender and survive and maintain your way of life. It's a pretty tough offer, right? The smoke from Athens, was, you know, just showing the cost of this defiance. But here's what's interesting. The Persians had taken a city, but they didn't win the whole war, right? The people were safe. The fleet was intact, and the Greeks were still fighting. They were still a resistance. And as a result, the Persians needed to make their own decisions. Zerxes needed a decisive victory, destroy the fleet, and force all of the Greek armies to surrender. Domestocles understood this. And he also knew where that

decisive battle was going to happen, and he was ready to set the trap. So for some context, the Mestocles wasn't born into Athenian elite. His father, Neocles was a modest citizen. His mother was actually non-Athenian, and we don't know exactly where she was from, but we just know that she wasn't from Athens originally. And this is a city that is obsessed with lineage, and Themestocles had to claw his way up with ruthlessness and charm, and maybe above all. all just brilliance. So he got into politics at a pretty young age and built support amongst the lower classes and was able to outmaneuver some of the, you know, more stuck up rivals of the ruling class. So when a rich new, you know, vein of silver was struck in one of the mines in

483, most of the Athenians wanted to hand it out to the citizens, but Themestically, this is what I was mentioning before, domesticallys convinced them to build these warships, these triremes. He wanted them to build these fortified really fast-moving boats that they could use to fortify their navy. And he basically argued that they needed to have a navy because they knew that the Persians were potentially on their way and they had already had ongoing wars near Aegina. Now, in truth, they were just sensing that, you know, there was threats on the horizon. They didn't know exactly what they just had some feeling that the Persians were going to try come in.

Again, this is three years before the war had actually broken out, but that's just how clever domestically was. Now, Athens had become a naval power, but the ships needed rowers and they needed thousands of rowers. And that's where the fates, the Athenian poor citizens basically came in. They would normally be excluded from politics or from, you know, military work. But in this case, they became vital because these triremes required a ton of discipline and coordination and stamina to row. And so basically giving them, you know, all of a sudden, like the lowest class was given like this military class. out. Democracy and naval strength were basically now reinforcing each other. And this was all the work

of Themesticles, who had a really sharp sense for reading people in situations. And he knew that Sparta didn't really trust Athens and that most Greeks feared Spartan domination almost as much as they feared the Persians because they saw the Spartans as like rogue, crazy people. And so this alliance between them was shaky and it was basically held together only by this immediate threat of invasion. And so to keep it working, Themestocles did whatever it took, and he basically had to, you know, kind of charm and manipulate the Spartans. Even ancient writers who admired his genius said that he wasn't really a saint. They called him ambitious and really self-serving. Plutarch even said that Themesticles cared more about Athenian power than about personal honor and probably, you know, more about his own rise than either of them.

Now, as Athens was burning, Themestocles faced a critical challenge. the Peloponnesian commanders wanted to retreat south to defend Corinth. The Athenians, now homeless and furious, wanted to win and continue forward. So Themestically came up with an idea. He basically said, we're going to fight the Persians again. Now, to keep in mind, Athens had already been destroyed at this point. They're seeing this plume of smoke from the city they once love, completely burning to the ground, and he says, I still want to fight.

But now we're going to take the fight to a new place. We're going to Salamis. This is a narrow strait between the, island in the mainland. The tight waters would basically neutralize the Persian's numerical advantage and favor the Greeks once again, and they could basically now use these triremes to close the quarters on either side of this small little straight of land. But there was one problem. They had to ensure that the Persians and Xerxes would attack at Salamis under the conditions that basically would favor the Greeks, and they also had to prevent his own allies from retreating south. So,

Themesticles played his craziest, most boldest card yet, okay? Like, this is, are you crazy or are you genius? And this was the moment. He sent his trusted servant, Sinicius, to Xerxes camp with a message. A total bluff. According to Herodotus, Themestiklis pretended to be secretly loyal to Persia. Think about this. Themestikles, the guy that is literally training and running the Athenians, the toughest navy in all of Greece,

that just got beat by the Persians, sends his messenger to go to Xerxes and say, hey, the Mesocles is actually loyal to Persia. And he told Xerxes that the Greek fleet was panicking and planning to slip away during the night, retreating to the Isthmus of Corinth. Now, if Xerxes wanted to crush them once and for all, he had to seal off the exits from Salamis immediately. Xerxes now has an option. He says, well, this is pretty great, that the leader is loyal to Persia. And he's basically telling us what we want to do if we want to win this war once and for all. And Xerxes fell for it. Now what's crazy and really interesting about this is that this story matched everything that Xerxes has already told him.

The spies were coming back from, you know, scouting out the Greeks and trying to learn what was happening in these Greek city states. And they were going back to Xerxes being like, yo, the Greeks are fighting all the time. They're terrified of the Persians. They don't know what to do. They're all arguing. They have this democracy. It's not functioning properly. They can't decide what to do or where to go.

And so when this messenger comes over from Themestocles and tells Xerxes like, hey, the king is actually loyal to you guys, it sounded so believable. So that night he ordered his massive fleet to move out and block every escape route. Egyptian ships were sent to circle around Salamis to block the escape routes to the west, while the main Persian forces with Phoenicians to the sort of right side and the Ionians on the left side deployed across the straits entrance. So by the morning, the trap was set. The Greeks were completely boxed in with nowhere to run. And Xerxes is like, all right, we did it. Now it's time to just basically round them up. And we will have won the war and crushed this naval threat once and for all. Thank you, Themesticles.

What he didn't consider is that Themesticles had played him. You see, he pulled it off. The Persians were now locked into a fight in the narrow strait exactly where he wanted them. The Greek fleet, this actual, you know, naval force, couldn't retreat if they had tried, and Xerxes had cut off every single exit. That meant that there was no more arguing amongst the Peloponnesian commanders about running away. They had no choice but to now stand and fight. Literally Themestically forced his own allies to fight to the death because he knew that given any of the choice, they would escape.

So he gave Xerxes his battle plans to force them to all stay and actually bang. It's really crazy. But what's wild is that Themesticles had actually outsmarted both his own allies and his enemies to create the battle that he needed. His whole plan relied on understanding how his Navy actually fought. These triremes are really powerful military technology for the time. Okay. They're, you know, like 170 rowers that are all working in perfect rhythm. The ships are, you know, like 90 feet long, you know, like something like 15 feet wide.

Like, they're really skinny, really fast, okay? And it had this bronze ram at the front built to basically smash through enemy ships. And if you got two or three of them to crush your ship at once, then you might be sunk. So these vessels were really fast, really nimble, and designed to literally ram into boats. But they were super vulnerable if, you know, struck anywhere else along, like, the hole. So if they got struck at any point, the bowed basically just break apart. So one key maneuver was very, very complicated and also as a Greek name that I cannot pronounce. So we're going to go to my friend, Christos, phoning a friend.

This is maneuver. Deiqplos. Diakplos. Now, this was a fantastic maneuver where basically they would row hard enough through the gaps in the enemy line. And then they would swing sharply to then ram their sides or, like, their rear. It was like a really, really difficult move where, like, you're going around and then back around. And it just had, you basically needed a ton of timing and teamwork and, like, one coach to basically tell everyone what to do at the right time.

So pulling it off was extremely. difficult. But the Persians and the Phoenician triremes were similarly designed, but often lighter and faster, while the Greek triremes were heavier and more solidly built for this ramming tactic. Now, many Persian ships carried extra soldiers. They had these Marines that were trained to jump aboard enemy vessels and actually fight hand to hand. And their whole strategy relied on getting close enough and using the sheer number of men to basically overwhelm them. And that worked really well in the open seas. But in this, you know, twisting, of Salamis, it was actually a disadvantage. So just remind you, these are the three choke points,

right? You had Helzpont, you had Thermopyla, and this is the last one, the straight of Salamis. It is once again a geographic position that is beneficial to the Greeks that if they can hold this off, then there might be a chance at sending the Persians out once and for all. Now, Themestically, he understood this. He knew how the Persians were thinking. They were confident, you know, a little overextended, but really eager and maybe too ambitious to crush the Greeks in this moment. He also knew how the Greeks were going to fight, right? They were determined and sort of desperate, and a lot of their families were actually watching the battle on the shores of Salamis, you know. And again, this is the city where so many Athenians were actually leaving and living as refugees.

He realized that in this battle, it wasn't just bravery. It was controlling the space and timing and positioning. It was real, like, political military mastery. And so whoever was able to control the narrow waters would win the war. So that night, the Greek camp was tense, but they were focused. Okay, the hoplights were sitting by the torch and, you know, like chilling by the fire, sharpening their weapons. The rowers were stretching.

Some were trying to sleep, but most of them couldn't. Domesticlies was walking among them, speaking quietly, offering confidence, you know, when people were feeling afraid. And everyone knew what morning time would mean. This was literally the biggest game of your life, right? If you ever played a sport, you can imagine the night before the championship. Imagine that times a million. Okay, this is life or death. This is the glory of your city and of your nation or complete destruction of you and everyone you know. So as the morning is, you know, coming around and the sun is breaking over the horizon in the Serronic Gulf in 480 BC, there's this thin mist that is, you know, across the water.

And you can see the oar is actually dropping in. And, you know, on one side is the Greek fleet about 370 to 380 ships. They're tired, but they're ready to do their duty. And across them stretched the Persian armada, twice their size, maybe even more. And the entire horizon is just Persian ships coming at you. Herod has claimed that the Persians had over 1,200 warships. Again, probably an exaggeration, but just to give you an idea, it might have even been 6 to 800, still twice as many as the Athenians had.

Still, the odds were very clear. The Persians had the advantage in sheer size, and they were, expected to crush the Greeks, you know, before the day was even over. Xerxes had a throne set up on the slopes of one of the nearby mountains overlooking the strait, and from there, he was going to watch the battle and record which commanders fought well and which ones fought with fear. Persian captains knew that the king was watching, so they push forward aggressively. The strait of Salamis ran roughly, you know, northeast to southwest, narrowing the, so less than like two kilometers at like its tightest point. It was pretty small.

The Greeks used the terrain to their advantage, positioning their ships along the shore. Some were actually even on the beach. Others were anchored close by. As the Persian fleet entered from the east, the Greek triremes slid into formation. The Athenians numbering in like 180 held the left flank, and the Spartans and other Peloponnesians held the right flank. And according to a historian at the time, a participant who later dramatized the battle in the Persians, the Greeks began with a war hymn to Apollo. The hymns echo rippled across the water, uniting rowers and warriors. Then at the break of dawn, as the sun is about to break the horizon, the Greek ships surge forward, initiating the clash that would decide the war. I mean, you could just imagine this moment, like all of these men, they've been fighting for weeks and weeks, some of them for years.

and they've been training for so long for this moment to protect their people, protect their land against this invading force. And as they're on the water on a cool September day, they're listening to the hymns to their God. And they say, this is it. This is my whole life. This is what everything has culminated towards. Let's do it. So the Phoenician squadrons basically led the Persian advance, expert sailors with years of naval experience. And they found themselves hemmed in this narrow strait.

They were having a difficult time dealing with this sort of twisting waterway. Ships from the rear were pressing forward, eager to get into the fight, actually causing collisions, and their oars were getting tangled and they were breaking rowing oars, and the formations were getting all mixed up. But the Greek triremes were disciplined, and they were exploiting the chaos. And rowers would drive their ships forward with full force, ramming their bronze tips into the Persian holes at the waterline, and now these ships are taking on water. Some of them are capsizing instantly while others are sort of, you know, sinking slowly and trapping rowers at their benches. Men thrown into the sea are now facing a different fate.

Most of these Persians couldn't swim and they were just drowning, while many Greeks, despite their bronze armor, had at least some swimming ability and could reach a nearby shore. The straits became just a complete hurricane of chaos. There was just debris everywhere, shattered planks and ores and bodies of dead soldiers, and the battle-corps. quickly broke into hundreds of isolated duels of different ships. Triremes are weaving in and out circling, trying to do that maneuver that we talked about before, trying to find openings to ram the enemy holes. When ships became entangled, the Marines were then jumping off and fighting in brutal hand-to-hand combat on these tiny little ships.

These Corinthian warriors were now clashing with Persian soldiers, and blood was just running across the planks into the sea, turning parts of the water bright red. The Greek right flank was pressing forward. the Aegeans and the Corinthian ships pushing Persian squadrons back towards the coast. And in the center, fleeing Persian ships, colliding with those still entering the strait were creating a ton of chaos. The Persian's numerical advantage was now becoming a liability. They had too many ships and too little space and not enough discipline to keep the formation. And Themestocles had actually predicted this.

In open waters, the Persians could have surrounded them and just gradually worn down the Greek fleet. but in this narrow strait, the numbers were meaningless. It was just like the battle that they had fought before, that with the geography on their side, they could basically just fortify and hold strong, and the amount of people you have doesn't even matter. The ships are now obstructing each other, and even these skilled Phoenician captains can't maneuver effectively.

The Persians had committed their entire fleet to a space barely sufficient for half of it, and it turned their strength into a trap. And the battle raged for hours until the Persian fleet was broken. Some ships retreated east towards Faleron while others ran aground at the attic coast. Their crews were forced to swim or wade ashore under, you know, a hail of, you know, Greek arrows. Hundreds of Persian sailors and Marines had drowned, and the Greeks had lost probably 40 ships,

while the Persians had lost 200, potentially even more. And Xerxes was watching all of this from his throne on a mountaintop watching the sea below. The empire that had spanned the Hellspont with incredible engineering had, you know, defeated the Spartans at Themicles, had destroyed the Athenians at Athens and, you know, burned the city to the ground that had commanded the largest army that was ever assembled in the history of mankind was being undone. And it wasn't from brute force or a more powerful army. It was just done by strategy. The Greeks had not outmatched the person's strength or bravery or anything like that. They just, outmatched. thought them. And that night, Greek soldiers and sailors rested among the wreckage. Bodies continued to wash ashore for days, and the waters around Salamis just reeked of death. Yet the Greek fleet remained operational while the Persian Navy was crippled, completely hamstrung. And Xerxes could no longer supply his army by sea nor secure his lines of communication. And with the fall in the winter approaching, maintaining such a massive force in this hostile

territory through the winter, it was just a death sentence. So within weeks, Xerxes began his withdrawal from Greece. He left a substantial army under the command of his best general, Mardonius, who would spend the winter in Thessaly and Macedonia and returned to Asia with much of the army, though Mardonius retained a substantial elite force. Now, the war didn't end at Salamis. Through the winter of 480 to 479 BC, Mardonius regrouped in Thessaly, gathering, allies and rebuilding the army and basically regrouping his men and basically planning another strike. He even offered Athens like a deal. He basically said, you guys get full autonomy. You get to do everything that you're doing right now. Just build an alliance with Persia and I'll give you goal

to rebuild your city. Just work with us and we will not destroy you again. And Athens refused. That's how proud the Athenians are. And by summer, Mardonius marched south again, burning what was left of Athens for a second time. And the, the Athenians once again fled to, you know, Peloponnesus once again. The final showdown came at a place called Plataia and a town known as Biotia. And a united Greek force led by Spartan commander Pozanius and joined by, you know, different contingents and allies from across the mainland met the Persians head on. And the battle once again was fierce and decisive.

Mardonius, the leader of this elite Persian force, was killed and the Persian line was broke. And that same day, at least according to the historian Herodotus, Greek forces struck again, destroying the remaining Persian fleet on the Ionian coast. Whether or not the timing is true, the result was very clear. Xerxes's grand invasion of Greece was officially finished. Athens rose from the ashes faster than anyone had expected, and the people were sort of invigorated with a new life. They built new temples and new walls and had these new ambitions, and the city was built into something greater than it was before. And from the ashes came the Delian League, a defensive alliance led by Athens to guard against Persia. And over time, it became something new entirely, the Athenian Empire.

Silver from the Larium mines, a powerful fleet, and the democratic energy of its citizens made Athens the dominant power in the Aegean. Now, meanwhile, the Spartans turned inward. It had led Greece through its darkest days, but now, with it. drew into suspicion and isolation, more focused on keeping, you know, its enslaved pellets under control than actually going out and leading abroad. And by 460 BC mistrust between the Athens and Sparta hardened into an actual hostility and it erupted into the Peloponnesian War. Now, this was a brutal conflict that shattered both and, you know, basically ended the Athenian Golden Age. And this is effectively like a Greek civil war, you can imagine. But Thermopyla and Salamis lived on in the minds and the hearts

of the people that witnessed it. They became more than battles. They became myths, right? They became something bigger. They became something for nation building. Thermopyli stood for courage and sacrifice. 300 men holding a pass against one of the largest armies ever assembled became the symbol of duty and honor. They men didn't retreat. They chose to die on the battlefield for their people. Now the details of exactly what happened, they didn't matter as much as the symbolic meaning. And Salamis stood for intelligence and strategy, the triumph of intellect over the brute force. Proper David versus Goliath. Domestically became the image of the clever Greek. He was cunning and adaptive and willing to bend the rules in order to win. And together, these two victories

shaped how Greeks for generations would see themselves. The Persian Wars became the origin story of freedom and democracy against tyranny, you know, civilization resisting barbarism, a story that later generations would stretch into even like a West versus East narrative. You know, it's propaganda like anything, but it is powerful propaganda, specifically for the people of ancient Greece. Now, the Persians, let's be honest, right? They, you know, they're no monsters, right? The empire was like any empire.

And empires are generally pretty effed up, you know, empires are almost always doing evil stuff and they are, you know, advancing and they're efficient. And in this case, quite tolerant that if you submitted, you could keep your people. But history is written by the victors. And in this case, the Greek version won. And that version echoed through the centuries. So when Alexander the Great invaded Persia, he actually called it revenge for Xerxes burning of Athens.

And when he actually burned Prosopoulos, he claimed that it was justice. During the Enlightenment, thinkers used Thermopoli and Salamis to prove that free societies could stand against dictatorships and autocracies. And even today, nations will still invoke those names when facing the impossible odds. Now, with any type of war story, the legacy and the myths, therefore, are complicated, right? It celebrates courage and creates a simple story for your people to hold on to, but it also distorts the truth, right? It turns Persians into, you know, bloodthirsty villains and Greeks into these flawless heroes. But underneath the myth, something real survives.

And it's the idea that a small, determined people can defy an empire and, you know, rewrite the odds. And that with courage and intelligence, you know, the little guy can actually win. And that freedom, you know, that feeling, that myth, however fragile is, in my opinion, worth remembering. Now, it's worth noting that almost everything we know about the Greco-Persian conflict comes from the Greek side, mainly Herodotus, one of the most famous Greek historians of the time. he wrote his histories decades after the wars had actually ended. He traveled and he asked questions and really tried to separate truth from myth, but he wasn't a historian in the way that we think of a historian today.

We have almost nothing from the Persian side, no records, no real firsthand accounts. So the whole story that we know today is through the Greek lens, which I think is important to contextualize the conflict. Herodotis himself admitted some of the stories were probably false, but he himself acknowledged that there was exaggeration. His numbers, you know, millions of Persian soldiers don't exactly make sense. He shaped his story around what mattered to him, which is ultimately Greek unity and Persian barbarism and arrogance and ultimately the will of the gods. You know, the famous 300 Spartans, they weren't alone.

But over time, that became a cleaner legend, right? Sparta versus an empire. And technically it's true, right? It was 300 Spartans with, you know, the help of some Greek allies. So, as for Xerxes army, modern historians are saying it's probably 200,000 men, which is massive, of course, but not the endless ocean that is described in the literature of Herodotus. And these dramatic speeches, right? Leonidas's farewell, domestically's strategy debates maybe didn't happen exactly as they were written. And they were probably the storytelling and the myth building of later generations. And of course, from the Persian side, we don't know a ton.

But still, these stories live on and they're worth retelling because, because the core of it, what it means for humankind, I think still rings true. You have a small coalition standing against these overwhelming odds, right? The Spartans lost at Thermopyla. But that loss bought time and saved countless of Athenians. And at Salamis, their plan turned into, you know, winning the war ultimately. And people remember not the numbers, but the feeling. And even when the outcome seems certain, standing your ground still means something.

Thermopy and Salamis weren't destiny, right? It's a mix of weather and luck and human ingenuity and, you know, betrayal and storms. And one single wrong move could have wiped Greece off the map forever. And this would be an entirely different episode. But ultimately, the men who fought were legends. But beyond the legend, they were also regular farmers and sailors and craftsmen. And some of them were fighting for honor and others because they had no choice. but ultimately they stood together and for a moment they stopped an empire now after this incredible moment of greek unity in four 79

the unity vanished Athens and sparta turned on each other again that mistrust that they had bred for thousands of years just was too much to bear the same city-states that were siding side by side by side actually tore greece apart and eventually fell to macedonians and alexander the great but in the years that followed greece changed the world philosophy art theater New ideas about power and citizenship and how to govern a nation state. Notions that people could actually govern themselves, that democracy could work and stand against tyranny, change the world, even to this day. The legacy of this moment in, you know, Greek history, I think, has inspired American revolutionaries and, in a way, created the American Empire as we know it today. I think at the end of the day, the most important reminders about Thermopyla and Salamis is that it was not gods that one that, one, you know, for the Greeks in the long run, it was everyday people fighting for what they believed in.

And that that resistance doesn't always win, right? A Thermopyla, it didn't end up in victory, but sometimes it does. And that freedom, that brief moment of fighting for your people and even dying for honor for the people that you love the most is still worth the price. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the true story behind 300,

the true events behind the Greco-Persian conflict. of 480 BC. I mean, that's fascinating. Khrastus, your people are badass. I had no idea. We can't help it. I mean, Winston Churchill. Hence, we will say that Greeks fight like heroes.

We will not say Greeks fight like heroes, but that heroes fight like Greeks. Oh, damn, dude. Did you learn this as like just a regular Greek New Yorker? Is this something that was on your radar? Yeah, Greek school, they definitely. They harp on this, huh? Oh, yeah.

Is there a part of Greek school where you're learning all these stories and then they're like, yeah, And then around, you know, like 500 BC, it kind of stopped. They omitted that part. Okay. Nice. They basically go like, they go like Greco-Persian. They talk about, you know, Salamis, and then they go to like the Greek Euro 2004.

And then they just jump right to that. And they're like, yeah, that's basically all you need to know anyway. Pythagrin theorem and Plato moving on. Yep. Nice. Socrates. Socrates. And then Euro Championship 2004.

Yes. That's all that matters. And they don't mention the debt crisis. No, no, no, no, no. What do you mean? Austerity and the dead and then flage? It doesn't matter, bro. It doesn't matter, okay?

You have a soccer team that wins the Euro. And then you have, you know, a couple of battles 2,000 years ago. That's right. That's all you need. That's more than some countries, you know? Yeah. Some countries don't just have a Euro. Think about that.

That's true. You know, you guys have the Euro plus all this other stuff. I'm just saying, I think everyone's got to be proud of their place a little bit. You know, I like when people just are like, yeah, we're the best. Other people are good, but we're the best. best. There's something about that, I don't know, nationalism. So I guess it's a sketchy word to say. You're not allowed to be nationalistic, but there's a part of it's just like, I like when people are proud. I like meeting Ethiopians being like, bro, we've never been conquered.

You know, I like meeting, you know, Russians being like, yeah, dude, we're the tough. And it's like, all right, once you get into other conflicts in the modern day, it gets all political and icky. But it's nice to look back and be like, nah, did, we stood our ground, we fucked up the Persians. That's right. And where's Persian now? Am I right? something else now something different that is political and we don't know all of the

nuances but that doesn't matter because Greece is still here kind of yeah no it's still here come on dude I was just in Crete like two years ago

that she was beautiful yep I mean granted Crete got conquered by the Nazis and a bunch of other people but doesn't matter we don't talk about that either

it doesn't matter all right I don't know I'm always I love these stories I love ancient war stories because you get all the benefit of like heroism and myth without any of the politics so you can just enjoy it.

Like, sure, did a lot of Persian mothers bury their sons that were forced to fight because they were indentured servants? Maybe. But that doesn't matter because you get to read it as history and be like, hey, I'm not offending anyone by just, you know, rooting for the Greeks, rooting for the Spartans, being like, hell yeah, dude, you guys died for what you believe. Doesn't matter that you guys turned against the Athenians and you guys had a big civil war that killed a ton of people in the Peloponnesians.

It doesn't matter because I just get to enjoy it just as a regular person that has no no stakes in the game. Shout it to the Greeks. You know what? It doesn't matter if you go bald at 17. You guys have invented philosophy, literature, culture, plays, democracy, and have some of the best war stories in all of history, many of which we'll be covering in the future.

So you should go ahead and subscribe to the channel so you don't miss it. And on top of that, you should subscribe to religion camp where we talk about all sorts of religious history. We'll probably do an episode on the Greek Orthodox Church at some point soon. And you guys can become experts in Greek history. Like I said, this channel exists so I can understand everything that's happened. So if you are curious about trying to figure out everything that's been going on, this is the place for you. And also check out the main camp channel where we do a ton of interviews.

I'll talk to people way smarter than me about Greek history that I can explain the actual details of all the stuff that I probably missed. If I did miss anything, feel free to drop a comment. Let me know, correct me gently, okay, because I am a sensitive guy. And also check out the merch. All the top comments on this video will be getting merch. That's right. The top comment here on YouTube and Spotify will be getting some merch. We got a brand new holiday collection of Camp R&D.

all sorts of stuff cooking here in the campsite, and we're excited for next year because we have all sorts of new ideas that we are going to be dropping on y'all. I appreciate this little community of people that we have. Thank you guys so much for supporting us, and keeping the lights on here at the campsite. It truly means the world.

But anyway, I'll see y'all in the future to talk about the past. See you then.