The Rest Is History - 99. Thermopylae & Salamis Episode 2

Episode Date: September 21, 2021

Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook continue their celebration of the 2,500th anniversary of the Persian invasion of Greece. Today, they look at two battles which have echoed down the millennia: Thermopylae, the very archetype of a heroic defeat, and Salamis, the great naval clash which saved Greece from Persian conquest. *The Rest Is History Live Tour 2023*: Tom and Dominic are back on tour this autumn! See them live in London, New Zealand, and Australia! Buy your tickets here: restishistorypod.com Twitter:  @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thank you for listening to The Rest Is History. For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, and membership of our much-loved chat community, go to therestishistory.com and join the club. That is therestishistory.com. had the greeks been defeated at salamis not only would the west lost its first struggle for independence and survival but it is unlikely that there would have ever been such an entity as the west at all so says the blurb for a little known history book called persian fire by tom holland did i really write that good grief you did write that you did write that so we ended the last um episode of the rest is history on a moment of extraordinary tension anticipation and drama the great persian army of xerxes has crossed the hellespont and the fleet they've crossed the Hellespont they've come all the way down into central Greece Athens is at bay um the Spartans have pitched up at the hot gates

of Thermopylae hoping to block the Persian advance and we ended last time with you saying there was electricity in the air quite literally so I'm looking forward to finding out what happens next okay so the the the fleet at artemisian the watchtower on skathos has signaled that the persian fleet is coming and um there's a squadron of of sidonian ships that's from sidon in phoenician the phoenicians are the kind of the great naval power of the mediterranean the great rivals to the greeks and they are subject to to the Persian king there are three there are three Greek ships um they don't put up a great show one of them gets captured another one runs onto a shoal and the third one comes back and says ah the Persians are coming that's no good no it's not it's not a good start but then but then they wait for the

persian fleet to arrive and the persian fleet doesn't arrive and they the the greeks begin to realize that this was just a kind of you know uh advance guard sent to scope things out meanwhile at thermopylae this huge dust cloud the earth is starting to shake and the Spartans begin to realise that, you know, the king is coming. The Persian settle on the great plain that kind of extends beyond the gates, the hot gates. And a cavalryman rides up to scope out the hot gates. And there they find that theartans are combing their hair combing their hair wrestling yeah combing they have they wear their hair very long right um and it's slightly bemused by that slightly bemused by this um uh xerxes has a

spartan king demaratus who's been a great rival of Cleomenes who's gone into exile he's basically been deposed and he's so cross at this that he he goes off to side with the Persians and Demaratus explains that it is the custom of the Spartans to comb their hair in preparation for battle so they they're getting ready for the big fight um Xerxes sends an ambassador to demand that the the Spartans hand over their their weapons uh Lenida says come and get them kind of classic example of the uh the spartans hand over their their weapons uh lenny just says come and get them kind of classic example of the uh the spartans clint eastwood-esque i was about to say iconic sense of humor come and get them come and get them punk um so all is set ready for ready for the battle uh but then i said that electricity is in the air and so it is and you'll remember perhaps

from part one that um xerxes had uh had the helispont branded and fettered and this has clearly annoyed poseidon because a terrible storm starts to brew and for two days it rages howls and screams and the persians are kind of huddled in front of the hot gate so they don't move greek fleet is beached up on on artemisian they don't go to sea but the persian fleet is caught in the the eye of the storm and the greeks hope you know that the entire fleet might have been wrecked in due course after the storm starts to fade they discover that this hasn't actually happened but a sizable proportion of the Persian fleet has indeed been destroyed the Persian fleet still you know heavily heavily outnumbers the Greek fleet perhaps by three three to one, perhaps. But the odds have been reduced.

Yeah. And so we're set up for these twin battles, the Battle of Artemisian and the Battle of Thermopylae. And the state is that the Spartans have to hold the hot gates, the Athenians and the rest of the Greek fleet have to kind of hold the Artemisian. Because that's the only way that that that the persians can be stopped so if one if one is forced if the sea or the land route is is is forced then the then it's all forced and they all have to retreat what's they holding the persian the hot gates for to

to buy time to what's the reason yeah so so essentially they're waiting for reinforcements to come up so if you remember the Spartans are not coming because because um the Olympic festival is being celebrated they're watching the Olympics and the other thing is is that they know that um you know the logistics of this is is tough for the Persians because if they can hold them say for a for a week for two weeks for three weeks then the Persian army will start to starve and if the Persian army starts to starve then that reflects badly on xerxes whose entire authority is dependent upon the assumption that you know he can command um yeah you know earth and water so two questions so two questions

one how many persians are there i would say that the the total of the four of the land forces commanded by xerxes would be about 250 to 300 000 i mean that's that's an estimate that's we don't know because the second question yeah related to the first question how are they being supplied are they living off the land have the greeks have the greeks done a scorched earth thing or not no they haven't done that and and so the fact that they're living off the land puts pressure on the local greeks and this is important because there is actually a pass around the back there is a path that goes round the uh round the hot gates um and lenny just knows about this because he's been told about this by locals and so he has sent um a band of local hoplites to guard it but he can't spare

anyone else to do it so he's just taking a pump that the person that the persians are not going to find out about this the problem is that the persians are very good at finding out things like that both because you know they're very very good at intelligence and that they're a mountain people and they're incredibly proficient at forcing passes so basically the battle of thermopylae is a disaster for the greeks lenny does is an incredibly incompetent general um that's not uh because you often hear essentially gerard butler essentially what happens is that the spartans and the other greeks are able to hold the pass for two days and that that is an amazing feat. Against the sheer weight of numbers that Xerxes can command,

that is an incredibly heroic thing to have done. But Leonidas is comprehensively outsmarted by Xerxes' intelligence agency because a local Greek, a guy called Ephialtes, essentially blows the secret. And whether he does this for financial gain whether he does it because he's you know pissed off that you know his farm is being kind of sacked by the persians or whatever yeah he reveals the fact that there is this path up around the back and xerxes sends his crack squad which is is called the Immortals, because every time it's that there are a thousand of them that have golden apples on the butt of their spears.

There are 9000 that have silver apples. And every time one of them falls, he's immediately replaced. So hence, they're called Immortals. They wear these kind of beautiful robes. They are the best troops at Xerxes' command. They are kind of the equal of the Spartans. And he sends them up around the back and the news is brought to Leonidas because the hoplite forces have been put there rather than trying to block the path retreats up the side of a mountain and the immortals are not

interested in them they're interested in forcing the path so they just keep heading down so Leonidas knows that um that that everything is doomed his task now is to ensure that as many of the 5,000 troops that are with him can get away and so he decides that he is going to stay and try and um keep the Persians engaged so that the the others that are retreating can get away and he is the 300 him and 300 that's the 300 also um the thespians from which is a city very nearby a great enemy of the thebans but also the look the theban um the thebans who want to uh you know they don't want to go back to their their their own city because they know now that thieves is going to go over to persia so these these guys hope that they decide to stay um lady just has this kind of you know eat well for breakfast because tonight we dine in hades again kind of classic clint eastwood

staff um and xerxes obviously dines much better you. He breakfasts much more palatably. And then he sends the troops into the hot gates. And this time, the Spartans and the other hoplites, they'd previously built this kind of wall and they'd fought for behind this wall. This time they go out into the open. says that um the the the the xerxes troops are so intimidated by the um by the sight of the spartans you know these spears bristling the red cloaks the red horse hair um kind of terrifying sight that they have to be forced by whips to approach the Spartans. And it's often thought that this is kind of Greek propaganda. But it seems to me entirely plausible because Xerxes doesn't want to waste his best troops. And he has all this kind of cannon fodder.

And sure, the Greeks will kill them. But it doesn't really matter because they're entirely expendable. And in due course course their spears will be splintered so it seems it does seem to me credible and you may wonder well how does Herodotus know this bearing in mind that all the Greeks die well there's Demaratus the Spartan who is you know ex-king who is there and who does seem to have been consulted by Herodotus because he gets quite a lot of his information from Demaratus so it does seem to me at least plausible that this happened and that in due course, the Spartans lose their spears,

they're fighting with their swords and then they retreat to this kind of this hill. The Thebans, they split off, they get captured, then surrender. But the Spartans and the Sethsapians fight on. Laenidas falls in the battle. His corpse is fought over herodotus says as you know the body of patroclus was fought over by the greeks and or by the greeks and the trojans um lenny just uh perishes all the spartans perish everybody gets wiped out and this is the

famous last stand of the spartans and in due course, when all is silent, at last Xerxes rides into the pass. You know, it's a kind of mulch of gore and intestines and twisted limbs. Leonidas' body is found, his decapitated head put on a spike. Meanwhile, the news has been brought to the Greek fleet who've been putting up a very very good show

against the Persians even though they're very outnumbered what they have realized is that if they can fight in close quarters they are able to you know to beat the Persians basically if they can get them in close quarters then there is a chance but they know now that there is no prospect you know there's no point in staying where they are they've got to retreat the road to Athens is now open so they withdraw in the night because they know that the night before uh the last stand at Thermopylae so they know that they're doomed so they get away and the troops that Lenidas has sent they also get away. But it's a disastrous situation because the road to Athens is now open. Athens is doomed. And a Spartan king has been killed. So you may well wonder, where does this myth of Thermopylae as a kind of victory, as a defeat that's kind of more glorious

than a victory, where does it come from? and i think it probably doesn't come from sparta because the spartans aren't very good at that kind of stuff the guy who's brilliant at this kind of stuff is themistocles so i think it's it's an athenian myth i i think it's probably themistocles is kind of blowing that particular trumpet which is an irony because he's brilliant at this kind of stuff anyway themistocles comes back to athens and he discovers that the city is only half evacuated and he kind of says guys get a move on and so now the evacuation proceeds full full scope and all these kind of stories of uh you know ships crossing the sea dogs following them xanthippus who is uh he'd been sent into exile

um with the ostracism but all the people who've been sent into exile have been called back he's the father of pericles who will in due course be the great you know the great leader of athens he he sets he sets ship for for salamis and his dog follows him all the way he lands on the island of salad paddling yeah he lands there the dog reaches the beach totters up and expires oh that's it's kind of a story dogs keep dying in this podcast and it's the same when it happens now let me stop the narrative there tom let me let me get you to pipe down because we can do some questions okay before we move on to there so we had tons of questions about thermopylae specifically we may as well just go through them so preston k

pearl says were there actually 300 spartans defending the gates or is this a sort of invented number no what's the answer absolutely there were 300 spartans we know that because 300 is is a significant number it's the number of the hippeas um which is the kind of the elite squad the people who've listened to the sparta episode may remember the equivalent of the duke of edinburgh award yes um you know you you get your gold award and then you could join the hippeis which is basically the bodyguards of the kings the elite republican guard to use an uh as a same analogy yes exactly an elite squad of crack-picked men to use the uh we have ways uh formulation the the the 300 that follow lenidas are not the kind of classic hippias because these are these

are older men who have um they've had children yeah so but yes we know that they're 300 okay so next question matthew butcher uh often a long-time listener. I often see him on Twitter. He says, without the betrayal, i.e. without this business of the other path, could the Greeks have held the Persians at Thermopylae indefinitely? It sounds like the answer is no. Am I right? Well, had there not been a path round the pass, they could have done. But there's always a way around a pass that's that's

the nature of passes um top geography here yeah but but the part the persians know this because they're very very expert both at fortifying and storming passes it's one of the things that they do never try to hold a pass against the person no so so there was no way that the spartans could ever have held it um they were always doomed but i mean you know if it was if the only way through was through the the hot gates then yes i i guess they they probably could have done well they probably get exhausted eventually i mean if yeah but but they've got reinforcements coming that's that's the point fair point fair point okay so sahanis has asked a question specifically about the persian army he or she says what proportion are fighting

for the greater glory of persia is there any nationalist feeling are they basically mercenaries and and other mercenaries how much are they being paid they're levies so that's so most of the people are levies they're conscripts they this is part of the tribute that they have to pay the persians the persians themselves i mean it's a kind of great honor to fight for the king you know these are not armies like a modern army or indeed like the roman army who are kind of professionals these are you know these are levies uh or people who are you know for the persians the meads the absolute crack squad the the crack troops these are people who who are you know these are aristocrats aristocracies and every aristocrat has commands people who he's bringing with them and it's a

great honor to to fight in the and what about the mercenaries tom because i'm thinking later on in history a couple of centuries later um when alexander the greatest fighting the persians the persons rely a lot on greek mercenaries is that the case now greek speaking mercenaries in xerxes's army uh no um because the reason that that persians subsequently use greek mercenaries is because it it dawns on them that greek heavy infantry are you know incomparable that no one can really beat them in a pitch battle so therefore they they do pave them. Xerxes doesn't need to pave them because the Ionians are his subjects. And because he's in person with hundreds of thousands of men behind him,

people who, Greek cities who are going over to him are very happy to do it in the assumption that they're going to be rewarded in due course so no there are no mercenaries and a question from me um about the technological difference between the armies so they're the same kind of military technological level or the greek hoplites kind of more advanced more heavily armed better spears or whatever what's the story well greek warfare is massively focused on heavy infantry so there's very little role for cavalry there's very little role for archery um the persians are very strong in both and they have heavy infantry as well it's just that what marathon had showed and it also thermopylae shows to a degree is that um if heavily armored greek

infantry can pin persian armies down they will probably win because not even the immortals can for instance can break the uh the spartan line at thermopylae because because they're too strong they're too heavily armored the shields the spears the helmets the armor is it just makes the greeks too very difficult to break them the the converse to that which is why the persians generally assume that they will beat the greeks is that they're immobile right so if you have cavalry if you have archers it's quite easy to beat them but you don't engage with them the terrain's not great for i suppose for sort of horse archers and stuff is it yeah so that's so that's the problem in greece yeah okay so last question on thermopylae specifically i think chet archbold who is a friend of the show says is

thermopylae the first instance of the narrative of the noble defeat? Is it all just cynical spin, or is there something more, perhaps even mythical to Thermopylae, like the Alamo or Dunkirk or something? So this goes to that point you made about, you think Themistocles is a key figure in kind of creating this myth. And a question I would add to Chet's question, is that sort of Dunkirk um sort of mythology is

that created at the time or is it long after the event i don't think dunkirk is quite the analogy because at dunkirk they don't stand and fight so it's more rock drift or something isn't it i suppose yeah it except rock drift they survive um okay yeah it's it's it's the the kind of the it's the noble death it's general gordon we should definitely do a podcast general gordon well it's but more specifically it's it's i mean it's kind of rooted in the desire of achilles the great hero of the iliad who is given the choice of a long life and no glory or glory and a short life and that idea that you can have a noble death you know good death is a very important kind of part of the Greek psyche because that you know it's saturated with kind of Homeric ideas and I think that that's

essentially what's lurking behind it because the Spartan kings claim to be descended from the Achaeans who had fought at Troy. And gilding that for Leonidas is the fact that he has this Delphic Oracle where he's been told that unless a Spartan king dies, then the entire city will perish. So in a sense, he's offering himself up as a sacrifice. So that's part of the swirl that the spartans certainly are able to to use to kind of counter the idea that they've been defeated and they have been defeated you know it's a humiliating defeat in one sense their king has died the past has been forced after only two days but you know they can say

well he has died for sparta in every way in defeat he has won in defeat he has won but i think the because i think i think why why do i think themistically plays this role i mean there's the evidence for it is only circumstantial there's no hard evidence for it at all partly it's because he's very very good at spin really really good at spin but it's also because when the Athenians evacuate Attica, that's the essence of the democracy. The democracy makes no sense without being rooted in the soil of Attica. That's what it's all about. The risk is that the Athenians become people without a city and therefore objects of contempt to their fellow Greeks, the Corinthians, the Spartans, the Megarans, people who have not yet lost their cities. And so the idea of sacrifice, that you have to sacrifice something to win, is an important part of the Athenian narrative. And if they compare the sacrifice that Leonidas has made by dying at

Thermopylae with the sacrifice that the Athenians are making by evacuating Attica, then that establishes a bond between the Athenians and the Spartans that I think is incredibly important because the risk for Themistocles and the Athenians is that the Spartans who are, you know, and all the Peloponnesians who are naturally very insular will not want to stand and fight at Salamis because they want to defend their own homes on the Peloponnese. And the Peloponnese is the kind of, you know, this, this, this, absolutely, this kind of near island with three prongs that is kind of attached to the mainland of Greece by this very narrow isthmus, this very, very narrow line at Corinth. And what the Peloponnesians are doing rather than marching out to defend Attica

which is really what the Athenians would like them to do there's no prospect of another marathon because there aren't enough Athenians to do that to hold off the the the the Persians but also the Peloponnesians are not going to join them because they're building this wall across the isthmus which they're going to defend and they've kind of destroyed this road which is a kind of corniche leading um from athens to to to the isthmus so they're equivalent you know the equivalent of dynamiting it to make sure that the the persian army can't attack it but obviously you can only hold the isthmus if if there is a greek fleet to hold the persian fleet at bay so thermistocles is playing a very very

difficult game because he has to persuade the greek the other greek naval contingents to stand at thermopylae and sorry to stand at salamis and in a sense fight for attica rather than for the peloponnese so creating the myth so creating the myth I think massively helps a last question before we go to a break and after the break we will continue with the narrative so a last question and Russell Hogg he says why did they stay to die um why didn't they just retreat at the end and that is a good question actually so they could have done a sort of fighting retreat couldn't they Leonidas and his men no No, they couldn't because the moment they retreat along the open terrain of Boeotia towards Attica, that's open land. And so Xerxes just has to send his cavalry and his archers and they're dead.

Around them, yeah. So it's fight or... Okay, very good. All right. So what Leonidas is doing is he's dying so that they can get away. Yes, very good. So let us leonidas is doing is he's dying so that they can get away yes very good so let us take a break tom and then when we come back we will complete the story which you have set up so brilliantly uh with the battle of salamis and then hopefully at the end if you are nice and brief that is a warning then we will have then we will have time to discuss the cosmic significance of all this

and whether it was, after all, a big turning point in world history. So we will see you after the break. I'm Marina Hyde. And I'm Richard Osman. And together we host The Rest Is Entertainment. It's your weekly fix of entertainment news, reviews, splash of showbiz gossip, and on our Q&A, we pull back the curtain on entertainment

and we tell you how it all works. We have just launched our members club if you want ad-free listening bonus episodes and early access to live tickets head to therestisentertainment.com. That's therestisentertainment.com. Welcome back to The Rest Is History. We are nearing, well, are we nearing the climax of the Persian Wars? We'll find out how quickly Tom Holland can talk. So Thermopylae is over, the Battle of Salamis awaits. Tom, take us into the story. Right, so the Athenians have evacuated Attica. Athens is a ghost city. The only people who hold out are those who have remained on top of the Acropolis. There is this Delphic prophecy, the wooden walls will hold.

There is a wooden wall around the Acropolis. So the people who hold it, you know, the hope that they can engage and destroy the Persian fleet but it hangs completely in the balance. The Peloponnesians, the Spartans, the Corinthians and so on are very very twitchy about being stuck on an island away from the Peloponnese. So there is a constant risk that what had happened at the Battle of Lade at the end of the Ionian revolt, where the entire Ionian fleet disintegrated, might happen at Salamis. So everything is absolutely in the balance.

Then the Persians arrive. Their cavalry come clattering through the empty streets of Athens. Xerxes arrive. He pitches his great tent at the foot of the Acropolis. The city is looted. Vast swathes of it are burnt. The great trophies of the democracy are crated up to be taken back as booty to Persia. The Persians storm the Acropolis and it is burnt.

It's torched. amazing symbolism i mean most devastating symbolism for the greeks who can see it from salamis so the view to athens is blocked off by a great mountain but they can see the smoke rising and they know what's happening yeah and again of course this just is terrible for morale and so you have this there is constant debate let's put it like that on salamis about what they should do should they skedaddle to the peloponnese or should they stay and fight and you can guarantee that there are agents on salamis working for the persians because that's what always happens and so it is being reported back to xerxes that you know there's every prospect that the peloponnesians and Athenians are going to fall apart and you can

bet that that gold is being offered to to foster divisions so it's it's a real challenge for Themistocles and those who want to fight at Salamis but it is also a challenge for Xerxes because he now it's it it's now late September autumn is drawing in uh and you remember from the uh the Delphic Oracle Divine Salamis you will be the ruin of many a mother's son when the seed is scattered all the harvest is gathered in we've now reached the harvest age so it looks like the crisis point is emerging now what should Xerxes do Demaratus the Spartan who understands his own people, he knows exactly what the Spartans would least want. And so he says, send your fleet, divide it in two

and send half of it to attack the Peloponnese. And that will split the Greek fleet. But Xerxes doesn't want to do that because he now doesn't have enough troops really to do that. If he divides his fleet in two, then that that remains could be defeated and he can't risk that. Because he's lost ships to Poseidon yes because of the business with the sea exactly exactly

artemisia who is the queen of halicarnassus the city from which herodotus comes which is why she has such a high profile in his history she says don't engage with them at all just sit it out uh you know winter's coming stay here for winter uh that it will all disintegrate that's what i'd have done but xerxes can't because he's the king of the world and he doesn't want to be stuck in athens you know it would be like the american president spending the winter in napoleon in moscow napoleon moscow can't do that so he doesn't want to do that so he wants to engage so what he does is he he basically waits for for the Greek fleet to come out of the straits because he doesn't want to fight in the narrow straits that separate Attica from Salamis. So, he waits and he waits and nothing happens.

And so, it's a game of cat and mouse. And what Themistocles does is that he turns the Persian command of espionage against them and again this it's very difficult to be entirely sure what happens because the sources are you know we have a play by the tragedian Aeschylus we have Herodotus's account both are quite confused neither goes into entirely the amount of detail you would that one would want but i think that you can just about kind of distinguish that that what what decides salamis is an intelligence war where you've got double agents out thinking each other and basically what thermistically needs to do is to get the persian fleet into the straits and the way that he does that I think is that he basically

tells Xerxes not only what he is expecting to hear but what he he is desperate to hear which is that the Athenians are actually prepared to to change sides that the Peloponnesians are going to betray them anyway, so they might as well try and get as good terms as they can. And what we do know is that the tutor of Themistocles' son, a slave called Sicinus, goes across in a little shipping, a little rowing boat, across the straits, where he's welcomed by Persian agents. He's taken directly to the Persian king.

He then, Sickinus says, Themistocles, the Athenian admiral, wants you to win. The Peloponnesians are about to run away. They're plotting to go out from the straits, out into the open ocean. All that you have to do is to send your fleet out and you'll catch them red-handed. And then Sycenaeus goes back. Xerxes takes the bait. He sends his fleet out. They occupy the exit from the straits. They wait there all night.

The Peloponnesians don't come. Xerxes has his throne put up on the mountain heights, the rocky prow that looks a seaborne salamis to watch what he is hoping will be the sight of the peloponnesians trying to escape that's always fatal isn't it when you when you put your throne up to watch a battle it it always ends in tears he does not so so what what then happens we're not entirely sure but but essentially at dawn, with Xerxes sat on his throne, the Persian fleet starts to go into the straits. Why do they do that? Perhaps it's because they're kind of preemptively deciding this is what Xerxes wants. Or perhaps it's because Xerxes gives the order.

And why would Xerxes give the order well as he looks down he can see that a contingent of ships which is actually the corinthian contingent is sailing not not out immediately out of the straits but around the island of salamis he's kind of going down the coast from salamis yeah and the reason for this is that um maybe the persians have as they actually have done they've sent the egyptian contingent to block off the exit that lies kind of eight miles along the island of Salamis and so Xerxes thinks are what what Themistocles had told me happening is now happening they're sailing into a trap let's go in and get them so the Persian fleet sails in but they discover to their horror that the Athenian that the Greek fleet is not disintegrating that the Peloponnesians and the Athenians the Corinthians the Megarans

everybody are a coherent body and they sail out to meet the Persian fleet they back away they back away drawing the Persians in and in and in and then it is said a great voice a woman's voice is heard echoing out across the strait saying, fools, why do you withdraw? Why do you withdraw? Attack. The Greek fleet sails forward, smashes into the side of the Persian flotillas and bunches them up. And exactly what the Greeks had wanted,

which is to make sure that the Persian weight of numbers is turned against them, because now their oars are snagging. They're smashing into each other. And the Greek fleet can just pick them off. Tom, who was the woman? Athena. What are you going to tell us? Athena.

Demeter. Nemesis. I mean, who knows? We don't know. We don't know. But that day in subsequent Greek renderings has the quality of myth. Yes. It's said that, you know, the shadowy forms of heroes are there, that a great serpent is seen swimming alongside the Greek fleet.

There is the sense that this is a conflict fit to rank with, you know, the battle fought on the plains of troy and at the end of the day the persian fleet is shattered their ships are you know masts and jet flotsam and jetsam um and one half of the amphibious operation that xerxes has brought to conquer the Greeks has been effectively put out of action. And this isn't the end of the Persian invasion. Xerxes himself, you know, he's seen enough. He doesn't want to spend the winter in this kind of ghastly place. So he goes back across the Aegean

and he returns to Persepolis. But he leaves a very substantial military force in Greece. You know, he's taken away his levies but he's left the kind of crack squad and the following year the Spartans and the other Peloponnesians are persuaded by the Athenians that if they don't come and basically confront this force and rescue Athens then the Athenians will go over to the Persians so a great land force joins they meet at Plataea you know the little city that had been standing by Athens throughout and there they defeat the Persians in 479 and that effectively is is the end of the Persian war and it is for the Greeks what the second world war is for the British it's the

great victory and just as the British never stopped going on about the second world war so the Athenians and the Spartans never stopped going on about the persian war and all right those who were on the wrong side which included the thebans are never allowed to forget it so before we get into the significance of the legacy a couple of questions from listeners about the the battle of salamis itself so ramzi nora says um who were the better sailors the persians in brackets, Phoenicians. Presumably there must have been an awful lot of Phoenicians. They're obviously brilliant sailors and Xerxes must have relied on them.

Or the Greeks. I thought the former, i.e. the Phoenicians, had more of an impressive range of maritime achievements. So are the Greeks going into this as underdogs, sort of in maritime terms? Yeah, definitely. The Phoenicians are absolutely the best um the the the egyptians are very good as well and the iranians of course are very good the whole thing about the um you know they're very good so the corinthians are excellent

and they've basically perfected the trireme which is this um kind of it's like a kind of, if you imagine a spear on water with three banks of oars, invented by the Phoenicians but perfected by the Corinthians. So the Corinthians are very, very good. I mean, the Athenians have only had three years to practice. So in a way, Tom, the way they win the Battle of Salamis is by negating all of the maritime accomplishments, the nautical accomplishments of the persian essentially they basically turn it almost into a land battle do they by concentrating no they don't no so it's not like the romans do against the carthaginians where that that is the roman strategy

yeah the athenians have been practicing very hard and they are able to use the ram to destroy at the head of the prow of the ship to destroy the um these other ships because they've become bunched up so they win by so the athenians are good the athenians you know they have been practicing hard it's all they've been doing for three years so they are i mean they're not absolutely as elite as the phoenicians are but they're pretty good um the plateans um you know at the beginning of the um you know before thermlae, they've come and they've offered their services. And the Athenians are always in the need of rowers. And so they, the Plataeans kind of try and do it.

And Herodotus says that, you know, that their enthusiasm to help was greater than their ability to help. That's funny. So, so, so. Yes, thank you. Thank you. But no, thank you. Basically, with Pl pretty, pretty. And Rose.

OK, so next question from Fordeck and Shabby. I don't know if that's two different people. Anyway, it's about Themistocles. Could the Greeks have beaten off the Persians without Themistocles? And is there a historical parallel between Themistocles? Well, we've kind of alluded to this, I think, in the last episode, Themistocles and Churchill. So could the Greeks won without Themistocles the last episode themistocles and churchill so could the greeks won without themistocles and is themistocles churchill i i think that um i mean he's a cross between churchill and odysseus wow that's a great cross he that's great he looks what a great thing to say about the statues of him he looks like he looks like churchill he has this kind of bulldog yeah kind of big

bulldog kind of expression like champagne and silk pajamas we don't know that but he he i mean he's an absolute piece of work he's he schemes he backstabs i mean he ends up going over to the persians i mean he'll betray anyone anyone that he can you know very like Odysseus but I think he does I mean I think insofar as you know the sources that we have I think that he plays absolutely the key role and I think that I think he saves I think he saves his city and I think he saves Greece okay and I think you know it's very difficult because of, there is always a tendency on the part. You know, we have a biography of him by Plutarch, which is the most detailed account of his life. He doesn't feature very strongly in Herodotus because he had so many enemies.

And clearly the sources that Herodotus is drawing on don't want to big him up. But even even they can't deny the kind of outsized role that he played um so there is of course there's a tendency to to focus on the individual uh perhaps at the expense of the collective in in the sources but i i do having said that i mean yes i think that churchill is the obvious comparison all right well let's get down to to the some of the real big questions. So Richard Delevan says, what would have happened if Persia had won at Salamis? So in other words, is this a winnable war for Persia? And what does that mean?

Does that mean that do they bother incorporating mainland Greece into the Persian empire? Or do they just, you know, sort of sow the fields with salt and then go home? Or what's the end game from the Persian perspective? Well, this is a question that Herodotus asks. I think we mentioned this on the episode on counterfactuals, that the very first counterfactual is exactly this. You've written an essay about this, haven't you? Yeah. So Herodotus says, I mean, he's talking about, he's writing at a time where the Athenians basically have replaced the Persians as the big bad boy on the block.

And so the Athenians aren't very popular with other Greeks. And Herodotus says, my controversial opinion is that the Athenians, you know, the Athenians did it. And the reason for that is that without their fleet, the Persians would have been able to just land troops on the Peloponnese. And so the wall across the Isthmus at Corinth would have been useless. And Herodotus gives it as his opinion that the Spartans would have been wiped out after performing prodigies of valor. And that would have been that. And Greece would have become a Persian province. And I'm pretty sure that is exactly what would have happened. It would have become a Persian province. And I'm pretty sure that is exactly what would have happened.

It would have become a Persian satrapy, basically. Yeah, because, as we said at the beginning of episode one, there are lots of cities that are very keen to welcome the Persians. You know, the Thebans would be delighted to see the Athenians wiped out. And lots of people in the Peloponnese who were subject to Sparta would you know again be delighted to see the Spartans eliminated as well and particularly of course the helots the the Messenians the people who've been enslaved by the by the Spartans I mean what it would what the Persians would have done is is what the Thebans in due course a hundred years

later do which is to to set the helots free and establish them as a kind of, you know, a city in their own right. So that's, I'm sure, what the Persians would have done because the whole way that the Persians deal with the Greeks is to divide and rule. Okay, so we've got 10 to 15 minutes left and I want to kick off the discussion

with two questions from our listeners and I'll read them both out. So first of all, Joshua D. Terry, friend of the show. He says, I once read a counterfactual essay arguing that the Battle of Salamis saved Western civilization. That sounds very Tom Holland, I have to say. Do you agree that Persian victory would have prevented the Simpsons from ever happening, i.e. Western civilization? Now, before you answer that, just a second. I'll read the second one as well. Stefan Jensen, another friend of the show, he says, did the Greek victory over the Persians matter at all? Would we have been speaking Farsi

all over Europe if it weren't for Leonidas' Brave 300? Or was it just hugely important for the Greeks, but not very significant in the great scheme of things? So there you have Joshua D. Terry, who says no Star Wars, no Simpsons, no Western civilization. Stefan Jensen says, well, who cares? It only matters for the Greeks. It doesn't really matter for anybody else. So where do you stand? Now, Tom, your book, Persian Fire, is called, the subtitle is, what is it?

The First World War and the... First World Empire and the Battle for the West. And the Battle for the West. Yeah. I mean, obviously, I... the first world empire and the battle for the west and the battle for the west yeah i mean obviously i it's an ambivalent title because of course there's a the battle for the west is the west of the persian empire well not necessarily the west because because because as i've said the west is a compound of both greek and persian influences yes and one one way to answer that question is to say that the ionians who essentially it's the

but ionia is the birthplace of philosophy so and science vales and heraclitus and all that kind of stuff the ionian enlightenment as it's called um you know that happens under persian rule so it's perfectly possible for greeks to do their stuff under under under persian dominance um against that i think that there's something very distinctive about athens that would so the democracy would not have been fun would not have functioned as it goes on to function under pericles um and the golden age of athens under persian rule and athens would probably not have you know i mean it would it would have been wiped out the the fate of miletus would have been visited on athens um yeah uh it's you know the men would have been slaughtered the the women and and children enslaved um so there would have

been no socrates there would have been no plato um there would have been no aristophanes there would have been no ischolus there would have been there would have been no aristophanes there would have been no ischolus there would have been there would have been no drama why not because the drama isn't it that the tragedies the comedies are a function of the democracy they don't they couldn't happen in a non-democratic greek no because it's it's dependent that they are they are a kind of organic part of of what it is to be an athenian in a democracy that's that's how they evolve okay so you could say well you know the lack of tragedy or comedy perhaps doesn't you know so what but i i do think that um the the influence of greek philosophy

and specifically socrates and plato and aristotle but is it not the case that um that as you said yourself all the Ionian cities have great thinkers and they have great philosophers who flourish? The other thing, if I can just make a couple of other, offer a couple of other incoherent thoughts. One is obviously Alexandria plays a huge part a couple of hundred years later in the sort of dissemination of Greek thought. And that happens under a monarchy that equates itself with divinity, the Ptolemaic kingdom. Yes, it does.

And also Persian and Greek. There is a synthesis of Persian and Greek ideas anyway in the years after the Persian war. In the form of Christianity and then Islam. But I think that without the specific traditions of Athenian philosophy, I doubt that would have happened. There would, for instance, it's very improbable that Alexander's conquests would have happened. Why? Well, because because if if Persia has occupied Greece, then I mean, it's perfectly possible that there would be rebellions equivalent to the Ionian revolt. Perhaps in due course, the Persians would have had to do, you know, in Americaenian democracy and all the kind of the incredible cultural trends that flows from that you know that would have gone and presumably the framework of the Macedonian monarchy that ends up giving us Philip and then Alexander would also be neutered at the very least so essentially you would you know that you wouldn't

have had the hellenistic world you wouldn't have had the world of of that follows alexander but you would have had something could you not argue though tom the persians win the the persian the greek-persian wars they create a sort of i don't, I want to say Pax Persiana or something in the sort of Eastern Mediterranean and so on. So at the end of, at the point where BC gives way to AD, the same synthesis of kind of Greek, Egyptian, Persian ideas is... I'm sure, yes, absolutely. Yes, I'm sure that would have happened.

But it's just that the form the synthesis takes would have been would have been different but it wouldn't have been necessarily worse would it that's my i suppose my point i don't know i mean so well but you see i think our ability to judge what would be worse would have changed all right well that's a very big claim because our entire framework our framework well you know our assumption for instance that democracy is a good thing would not exist because the democracy would have been wiped out. But we don't think that.

You see, I don't think... There's an assumption sometimes among particularly... I hope I'm not going to alienate loads of listeners. Particularly kind of American thinkers of a particular kind of political disposition that, you know, we're the heirs of athenian democracy and all this stuff but i always think you can't draw a sort of direct line because we're not the roman empire and all those things come in between we should do an episode on democracy because that's absolutely not the case the democracy

and it won't surprise you to hear me say this the democracy we have is rooted in christianity it doesn't surprise me christian assumption the athenian democracy is radically different yeah but that so we'd still have got to where we got to even if there was no athenian democracy no we wouldn't we wouldn't because because we we don't know what form you know presumably some kind of synthesis would have happened but we don't know that it would necessarily be the synthesis that that in the event emerged and a world in which you don't have christianity and islam is a radically different one i mean maybe you might still have had monotheisms tom you might yes you might but we don't know and the forms that it would have taken would have been different

okay i i just think that you know it's it's and and saying the world would be you know better or worse well he can't the standard the standards by which we would judge what is good or bad better or worse are themselves determined by the fact that the greeks did win the battle of salamis i would argue fair enough let me just change the question a tiny bit then should we when we tell the story of the persian wars we always tell it from the greek perspective so ali ansari if he's listening to this steaming with rage must be absolutely no he's very i i when i advertised this on twitter i put a picture of the uh a kind of modern illustration of the greeks winning the battle of salamis and he wittily responded with a picture of the persians burning Athens so it's all good sport but so so you know almost without

exception we tell the story from the greek perspective and we tell and people always tell us as a story of good and evil i mean they really do the 300 frank miller comic book and film they do it as good good and evil they do it as goodies and baddies which is slightly different okay good is that is then fair enough the greeks are freedom loving rugged farmers you know that they're sort of russell crowe figures the persians are are dissipated by luxury they are cruel they are oriental they are they're they're pure sort of orientalist fantasy is that do you have any truck with any of that or do you think there do you think there is a moral dimension to this story or not?

Well, what I think is that it's an incredibly exciting story if you look at it through the eyes of the Greeks. Yeah. And I think that excitement is a kind of underestimated part of history among professional historians. Well, that's certainly true. Fun. You know, yes.

I mean, this is the story that got me obsessed by by greece by classical history by history full stop i found it thrilling and i found it thrilling in the way that i found lord of the rings thrilling or the story of the battle of britain thrilling because the story of massively outnumbered people that you can identify with holding off a kind of you know vast force emerging and descending on you is inherently thrilling and i wouldn't want to um i mean i think of course i think the story is more complicated i think that that you know there's so much about persia that is kind of impressive and i think i mean i'm not convinced that that history should be seen in terms of goodies and baddies anyway but but but what i do think is that if

you are too kind of purist about that if you're you're too kind of uh oh you know i i don't want to be eurocentric about this or anything you're missing out on one of the great narratives of world history of getting hit of enjoying it because if you can just step back from that and just kind of enjoy it the drama of you know put yourself in the in in the sandals of a spartan at thermopylae seeing the dust cloud approaching you or the Athenian fleet at Artemision seeing the the warning light flash on Scyathos or then you know this experience for you know emotionally identify with the horror of an Athenian seeing his city burn and then the the kind of exultant sense of relief at the victory at Salamis i mean that that is it's a kind of thrilling

thrilling narrative and you know to to kind of feel a sense of the power and the glory of achilles doesn't mean that you don't have sympathy for hector yeah okay i completely but i think to be too priggish about it you're cutting yourself off from you know what is what is an incredibly dramatic story i couldn't agree with you more and i think you've told the story brilliantly and to save you from uh doing it i should do it myself your book persian fire is a terrific read and anybody who has enjoyed the last couple of episodes of this podcast i'm sure will really enjoy the way you you tell the story maybe not quite as good as herodotus's version but you can read you can read my translation of that you can so so basically you can you can

overindulge on tom holland you can read tom holland as herodotus and then tom holland as himself telling you the story it's very it's very kind of you and and clearly you're very ill yes but what but what i would say so what i think about herodotus so it was on the back of my childhood obsession with with the story of the persian wars that i first read herodotus and herodotus has been the kind of classic that's accompanied me through my life most of all but i would say that this story also has accompanied me through my life i mean it it was the one of you know it was the first great story from history that i became obsessed by and i i've written it and rewritten it again and again over my life and one of the one of the interests of that one of the fascinations is that because i've i've been

obsessed by it for so long i can track the evolution of my thought and i think that that's you know that being obsessed about a particular area of history. You know, that's one of the joys of it is you get older. Is that you can, you know, you can you can kind of track how how you're not just you're thinking about that has has changed, but how your whole outlook on life has changed as well. Just like me with a three day week, Tom. It is. That's exactly what I was thinking. The life of James Callaghan, likewise. Right. Equally thrilling. So, Tom, you can stop talking now. You've put in a brilliant performance

because we've done those two episodes. People won't realise this, but we've done them back to back. So you've basically been talking for the past two and a half hours. So now you can go and rest your voice. Everybody else, thank you very much for listening.

I hope you've enjoyed it and we will see you next time. Goodbye. Bye-bye. Thanks for listening to The Rest Is History. For bonus episodes, early access, ad-free listening and access to our chat community, please sign up at restishistorypod.com. up at restishistorypod.com. That's restishistorypod.com.