07-22-2006, 08:31 AM
Jona Lendering
That seems a tad harsh, not everyone is a polymath; perhaps just make sure you have a collaborator who can; and acknowledge and address or deal with the relevant scholarship?
I’m of two minds on that score. On the negative side Leonidas seems to me to have made his biggest blunder in choosing or allowing the Phocians to hold (what was likely) the most obvious route by which his position could be turned. Had he stiffened the Phocians with a Spartan commander and maybe a Tegean or Thespian contingent maybe things fall out differently.
On the other hand at least Leonidas seems to understood the broader requirement of fighting north of the Isthmus, his more experienced Spartan brethren may have managed the campaign at Thermopylae better, but they were all to busy fortifying the Isthmus and ignoring just how devastating the loss of Athens and her allies/dependencies Plataea, and Chalkis would be to the Greek war effort (and perhaps Aigina and Megara as well…).
Good point.
Just to be contrary has anyone ever published Artemisium the battle that changed the world or anything similar, instead of one more in an endless series of examinations of the death of 300 warrior cast oppressive oligarchs while ignoring the exertions of the 40,000 or 50,000 hoi polloi down the way on the boats in the name of Greek Freedom (sorry lupus...).
Quote: and if you can not read cuneiform (and even ignore translations), you must not publish about the ancient Near East.
That seems a tad harsh, not everyone is a polymath; perhaps just make sure you have a collaborator who can; and acknowledge and address or deal with the relevant scholarship?
Quote: The defeat at Thermopylae, as Julius Beloch pointed out in the nineteenth century, had the advantage that it liberated the Greeks from an incapable commander. That's the sad epitaph of the real Leonidas. Still, the legend, from Herodotus to Kavafis, remains a great and inspiring one.
I’m of two minds on that score. On the negative side Leonidas seems to me to have made his biggest blunder in choosing or allowing the Phocians to hold (what was likely) the most obvious route by which his position could be turned. Had he stiffened the Phocians with a Spartan commander and maybe a Tegean or Thespian contingent maybe things fall out differently.
On the other hand at least Leonidas seems to understood the broader requirement of fighting north of the Isthmus, his more experienced Spartan brethren may have managed the campaign at Thermopylae better, but they were all to busy fortifying the Isthmus and ignoring just how devastating the loss of Athens and her allies/dependencies Plataea, and Chalkis would be to the Greek war effort (and perhaps Aigina and Megara as well…).
Quote:I wonder how he wants to demonstrate that Thermopylae changed the world
Good point.
Just to be contrary has anyone ever published Artemisium the battle that changed the world or anything similar, instead of one more in an endless series of examinations of the death of 300 warrior cast oppressive oligarchs while ignoring the exertions of the 40,000 or 50,000 hoi polloi down the way on the boats in the name of Greek Freedom (sorry lupus...).
Paul Klos
\'One day when I fly with my hands -
up down the sky,
like a bird\'
\'One day when I fly with my hands -
up down the sky,
like a bird\'
