"Thermopylae: The Battle That Changed the World"

[floofthegoof]

I see what you are saying Jona, your point of view makes sense to me. I just think that ancient sources are often discounted without the proper diligance, and often replaced by equally unreliable if not rediculous estimates. History has an absolute truth buried somewhere, yet our understanding of it continues to change. People can't even agree on current events, how can history be accurate? If some aspect of an ancient story is plausible, and there are no other surviving sources of the event, then it should be *hard work* to debunk the story. It shouldn't just happen because the author reported hearsay elsewhere in his work. I think that, until better information is revealed, it's ok for mankind to be temporarily deceived. You know we must be heavily deceived anyway! It wouldn't surprise me a bit if 45% of known history never happened!

Right after I read Herodotus and quite enjoying it, I came across many drastically lower estimates for the numbers in Xerxes army, and I thought "why?" We discussed it here:

http://www.romanarmy.com/rat/viewtopic.php?t=4285

It was waay too much fun!