RomanArmyTalk

The territory of Thermopylae was Persian after the battle of 480bc,however the Persian army moved quickly from there. There must have been some treatment for the Persian but also for the Greek dead there. The Greeks would most probably left to be urried by the medized Greeks,if not for anything else,to clear the only road between North and South Greece.
Further more,the monument with the famous inscription seems to suggest that they were burried somewhere there.And the fact that Spartans decades later moved the supposed corpse of Leonidas to Sparta also suggests that they were not cremated and that there was a real grave somewhere. After all,the Athenian tumulous in Marathon stands still in the plain and the Athenian bones have een found in the hill. But nothing of the Spartans and Thespians. The place has been excavated and hundreds of arrowheads were found on the hill,but I don't know if thy actually dug deeper in the hill.
Any input?
Khaire
Giannis

Herodotus says the dead Greeks were left for anyone to see. (Which may -this is admittedly a wild guess- have been a gesture of respect: earth, water, and fire were not soiled with the bodies of the brave opponents.) If the Greeks were buried, it may have happened only in the Autumn of 479.

"Let for anyone to see" may mean a lot of things. For example that they did not burry them emediately after that battle.As we know many batlefields were visited by civilians after a battle. After all,such actions as letting the dead unburried were not practiced by the Greeks,even when concerning barbarians. They did burry the Persians after Marathon,again if for no other reason,not to let deseases threaten them.And hundreds of dead in such a narrow and popular place still seems unlikely to have been left for about a year. But even if they did let the there,they must have been burried in Thermopylae,at least the Spartans,who had customary to burry the soldiers where they died.
What about the Persian dead?What was the Persian custom?
Khairete
Giannis

Various subject tribes would have burried or cremated their own I guess.
If Persians did the same as Zorastrian today do they left the dead in special high places to be eaten by the vultures. They could hafound suitable hillocks or contructed something.

Kind regards

Quote:What about the Persian dead?What was the Persian custom?

As Stefanos implies: exposing them to the vultures on mountain tops (or artificial "towers of silence") or leaving them to the dogs (mentioned by Onesicritus). It is not know whether all Iranians had this custom (the Achaemenid kings were mummified).

I think it was(is) a special Zorastrian rite to let the dead being eaten by vultures and dogs. The common warrior-class Persians should have still buried their dead in graves, or better Kurgans and IIRC Herodotus mentions a Kurgan being made for the killed Persians at Thermopylae.

If you have the passage, Gioi...
Thanks
Giannis