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Review by Thomas R. Martin
Historians use the name “Persian Wars” to describe the conflict in the early fifth century B. C. that pitted the massive forces of the Persian empire, the world’s strongest power at the time, against a temporary alliance of much weaker Greek city-states. The name expresses a pro-Greek perspective by focusing on the enemy whose invasion of Greece threatened to end the independence of all the communities in its path. The Persian Wars certainly changed Greek history and therefore the history of the wider world. What scholars increasingly wonder about these days is exactly what was the meaning of these momentous events.
A clash of civilizations
Paul Cartledge energetically endorses the position that “this clash between the Spartans and the other Greeks, on one side, and the Persian horde on the other was a clash between Freedom and Slavery … [It was one] of the two gigantic clashes of cultures and civilizations that helped to define both the identity of ‘Classical’ Greece and as a consequence the nature of our own cultural heritage.” Many would agree with him on this, but his central argument will raise scholarly eyebrows because he sees the battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC as the defining moment of the Persian Wars. He sees this battle, when the legendary “millions” of the Persian army finally, with great difficulty, wiped out a tiny band of heroic Greeks (often called, with less than complete accuracy, the “Three Hundred Spartans”) as “a turning-point not only in the history of Classical Greece, but in all history, eastern as well as western.”
This interpretation is sure to be controversial because, after all, the battle ended in utter defeat for the Greeks and did nothing to stop the invasion. Some might say that the small band of Spartans, who led the Greek contingent at Thermopylae, had embarked, for local reasons, on a hopeless mission with no long-range strategic importance. Cartledge strongly rejects this view, arguing that the selfless sacrifice of the Greeks who held off the Persians at the narrow pass of Thermopylae until they were treacherously outflanked did the Greek allies an invaluable service by laying a foundation for the morale that eventually inspired them to victory over a hugely more powerful foe. In his opinion, the “suicidally doomed” Spartans at Thermopylae showed the other Greeks that Persians could and should be resisted.
Spartan virtues
Part of Cartledge’s case stems from his admiration for the Spartans, whose high reputation in antiquity has been attacked in recent times for their rigidly structured society and mass enslavement of fellow Greeks (the Helots). While acknowledging that the Helots “must, forever, tarnish [the Spartans'] halo,” he believes that it was in fact the unfree nature of Spartan society that allowed them to play their “decisive role” in the Persian Wars.
Good history tells a vivid story and makes us think. This book does both. It is especially provocative, and therefore worthwhile, in presenting the case for seeing the most important defenders of freedom as the Greeks who lived in the least individualistic fashion imaginable and derived their courage from a communal focus on death. 352 pages • 6" x 9" • B&W Photos Throughout
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