Denying Thermopylae - taken from the Newsfeed section

[conon394]

No Paul, read the entire article - nowhere does he even begin to say that the battles or the places were incorrect. And he's right about the source (Herodotus) being too trusted upon where the details are concerned. As far as his comments about history and sources are concerned, he says nothing new, nothing derogatory, nothing that any self-respecting historian should also think.

I don’t need be to be patronized, I read the article and I’m not sorry to say I have a distinctly different opinion… and yes unlike the author of the article I am honest enough to admit it an opinion not fact.

According to Herodotus, hundreds of Persian ships were sunk at Salamis. Where are the remains of these shipwrecks? Of course, not all shipwrecks are always salvaged, either because the exact site is indeterminate, or because a single ship is being sought. The location that is given by Herodotus is a relatively precise location, and is not in a desolate or extremely deep part of an ocean. It is close to land, and not too deep. So what has been found at the site? Not much. Apart from an occasional shipwreck or two from the ancient world, the vast graveyard of triremes one expects to find there is notably absent, even with today's complex ship salvage technologies.

The conspicuous absence of hundreds of sunk Persian ships and the mass graves of 19,000 dead Persian warriors sheds serious doubt not just on the details of Herodotus' story, but upon its entire foundation.

I don’t see any how any other conclusion can be drawn from the 2 quotes above but that the author is directly accusing Herodotus of fabricating the Persian naval losses at Salamis predicated on the fact that no vast grave yard of trireme hulls is extent at Salamis.

But as I noted already it seems very hypocritical for someone who would charge Herodotus with

it is a far cry from an acceptable historical account.

To suggest that one should be able to locate any significant galley battle in the Mediterranean from archeology is fairly dishonest. Show me any major battle involving galleys right up to Leponto or later that can be demonstrated via archeology. Where is the ‘acceptable historicalâ€