Denying Thermopylae - taken from the Newsfeed section

[Robert Vermaat]

Temper temper folks. :wink:

If you get worked up about this, you'll be worked up almost every day, because there's so much nonsense presented in the media.. How about Julius Caesar and Jesus Christ being the same person (because of their initials?), or most of History as we know it being invented during the Middle Age (and that includes Greek civilisation)?

So is the author denying that these battles took place? No, he is not:

The people were real. The places were real. The skirmishes were real. The events of those skirmishes, and the behavior of the characters, however, were most likely not real.

So, what's the trouble:

No doubt, a conflict was present, the Persians did invade Greece (with a much smaller force than is described), there were battles at Salamis and Thermopylae (evidenced by arrowheads) as well as elsewhere. What are dubious are the details of those skirmishes or battles, which are described by Herodotus. On more than one occasion, and from various different angles of thought, his descriptions are seen as not an actual recount of events, but a sophisticated fabrication of glorious and heroic deeds of his countrymen.

And he is right, of course. Herodotus was not an eyewitness, he lived and wrote much later, so we cannot even call him a contemporary source. And trust me (I'm a historian :wink: ), other sources have been villified for non-contemporary comments.

This article is not meant to demean the value of The Histories, or the important role that Herodotus played for the subject of history. Prior to his time, all such accounts were handed down in the form of poems or epics. He was the first to present his story in the form of a narrative, and at least show an attempt at information gathering. For that, he must be commended.

So far, no problem, these are balanced comments.

The problem is that historians have given him and his narration more historical credit than it is due. Although his technique was pioneering, it is a far cry from an acceptable historical account.

Well, calling it 'a far cry' is way over the top. :evil: Especially for his own days, he wrote a very acceptable historical account.

Of course, no one takes Herodotus literal from front to cover. History back then was not history as we write it today, and even today you need to read at leat 5 good authors, preferably 50 to a 100 years later when all the secret archives have opened.
Creationism, anyone? And who did really shoot President Kennedy? :wink:

But maybe we should be trying to find those 19.000 (or whatever) Persians who were interred in trenches?