Archaeologica.org

Everything I've read and heard about the size of the Spartan contingent is that the King had a personal bodyguard of 300 that was his to command and not subject to the laws regarding religious holidays. (The Spartans were a weird society). I heard that lastly on the History channel.

The total force I'm unsure of. There were several other city states there as allies.

About the Persian army, I've only heard the million force number in the original movie. They certainly didn't have that many fighting men on the ground, but if you figure in Xerxes navy, and all the support and supply staff required for the war effort (even those that stayed in Persia), I wonder how many that would be? They would need to move a lot of food and supplies, even though I remember reading somewhere that Xerxes had planned to forage for food as he went.

I have read that on the second day, Xerxes sent 20,000 men against the Spartans.

I'm unfamiliar with the actual battlefield.

Give me a minute.

Modern Thermopylae.




In Antiquity, the pass was more narrow than today, as you can see...
on this photo. The sea reached as far inland as the road on the right-hand side. To synchronize the attack on Thermopylae with the fight at Artemisium, Xerxes waited four days before he ordered his soldiers to attack the contemptibly small Greek garrison of 4,000 men. He first sent the Median and Elamite contingents, which were easily repelled by the defenders of the narrow road.

http://www.livius.org/a/battlefields/th ... pylae.html

Very cool Min. Regarding the sea level, I remember that the Persians had to approach the pass on a narrow strip of land.

So obviously there has been a lot of change.

I'll bet Mike didn't know he was going to spark all of this discussion.

Nor...I daresay....would he care!

Maybe not. Good fellow, all these newer folks are.

After 10 pm here. I've about had it.

Minimalist wrote:The Spartans are dressed like gladiators, not hoplites.

I don't know how I did it, but I completely missed this post last night. I only commented on the picture.

After looking at the old movie posters, I don't see any difference. Am I missing something?

http://qa.perl.org/phalanx/history.html

Equipment
The hoplite's armor--the panoply--consisted of a shield, helmet, breastplate, greaves (plate armor worn around the lower leg), sword, spear, and tunic, and weighed about seventy pounds. All this on a soldier who himself probably weighed no more than 150 pounds.

The outtakes I saw from the movie had them dressed more like this:




Sacrificing accuracy for cinematography? Perhaps.

Let us just hope that they don't have exploding field artillery as the Romans did in the opening scene of Gladiator!

Hmm... I don't remember seeing anyone looking like your gladiator. I'll see what movie images I can find.

Open the movie site and go to Media - Photo Gallery.

In some of the shots it looks like they are fighting in loin cloths with red cloaks. At least the red cloaks are accurate, the Spartans were known for them.

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl= ... D%26sa%3DN

Whew, big url. Here's a page full of images from the movie. I notice that the statue that stands as a memorial today appears to look more like a gladiator.

This is a reasonable photo...except for the helmets. Only the guy on the far right is correct.




Spartans would also not have fought in a single-rank line.

Yeah, somewhere earlier in this thread I noted that the original movie did not show the Spartans using the phalanx (until the very end), and hopefully this new one will correct that.

Anyway, I'll have to wait 'till March.