Greek pottery depicting a hoplite slaying a Persian soldier. Photo retrieved from nms.ac.uk.
By Patrick Larkin
In the year 480 BCE Xerxes I commanded the Persian army to attack Greek forces in the Battle of Thermopylae. This battle was the culmination of nearly one hundred years of Persian expansion across Asia. Decades of conquering had given the Persians one of the largest empires in history, stretching from modern Iran to modern Turkey and northern Egypt. Each conquest served to replenish Xerxes’ armies. Xerxes then turned his eyes to Europe, specifically Greece, to expand his empire. Herodotus, a Greek historian, composed The Histories, an account of both the expansion of the Persian empire and the attempted invasion of Greece. He based his account on the tales of others involved in the conflict. This information was gathered through years of travel across the Greek and Persian worlds. The time period Herodotus wrote in was still heavily influenced by the great Homeric epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey. These stories told small snippets of the Trojan War and the Greek army’s ill-fated journey home. These epics were presentations of oral storytelling, stories that were delivered verbally and poetically to audiences across the Greek world. This paper argues that Herodotus wrote his account of the Battle of Thermopylae in The Histories to appeal to the Homeric epic style of the time, with its performative depiction of the events of the recent past via tangents and exaggerations, as well as its divergence from the analytical scholarly writings of modern historians.
Herodotus’s telling of the Battle of Thermopylae begins with the Greek forces sent to Thermopylae and Artemisium, where they met the Persian land and naval forces respectively. They encountered a massive army, with troops recruited from across the Persian Empire in Asia and northern Greece; the grand estimate for the total troops bearing down on the Greek army was approximately 5,283,220, with even more people tagging along as cooks, concubines, in addition to thousands of animals.[1] The logistical demands of this force were such that Herodotus described the thirst of this army as causing rivers to dry. At the same time, Athenians prayed to Boreas (the god of the wind) for a storm to destroy the naval fleet. A four-day storm arrived destroying at least 400 ships, for which they thanked “Poseidon the Saviour.”[2] After several days, the Persians set up in Trachis and the Greeks set up at the Gates of Thermopylae facing each other, preparing for the fight. Approximately 3,020 Peloponnesian troops, including 300 Spartans, 1,100 Boeotian troops, and 1,000 Phocians stood at Thermopylae, led by King Leonidas of Sparta, a minuscule force compared to the mammoth Persians.[3] The Persian attack began, and on the first day the Greeks repelled two waves, one wave being the Immortals. The Immortals were Xerxes’ elite force, who were defeated when the Greeks initiated a false retreat and attacked them with their longer spears.[4] On the second day, the Greeks fought in a phalanx formation organized by nationality which rotated throughout the battle, which allowed them to always have a fresh group fighting.[5] These military tactics and their strategic location in a small space allowed the small force to last so long. Later, Ephialtes, a Greek traitor, told Xerxes about a mountain pass that would lead them behind the Greeks, surrounding them. As the troops closed in from both sides, Leonidas sent away all non-Spartan troops, aside from the Thespians and Thebans, so the escaped troops could continue fighting in later battles.[6] The Thebans joined the Persians while all of the Spartans fought to the death, even after losing their weapons. At the end of the battle, Xerxes took the head of Leonidas and stuck it on a pike, a sign of disrespect that revealed how effective Leonidas was at irritating and delaying the Persians. This battle, coupled with Artemisium, delayed the Persians long enough for the Athenians to gather the rest of the troops in time for the Battle of Plataea, which ended the Persian War with the Greeks emerging victorious.
The influences of Homer and oral poetry on Herodotus’s work are made clear through his informal storytelling and his exaggerations. Essentially, he wanted to tell the story of the Persian War in a way that both listeners and readers could enjoy. Herodotus employs informal methods of telling history that are pleasing to the ear, but also insert doubt about the veracity of what is being recorded. He finished book seven and the Battle of Thermopylae with the line “anyway, that is what is supposed to have happened,” which builds suspense for a person listening for entertainment, but calls into question if what was just written is truly what occurred.
Herodotus was also prone to exaggeration throughout his writing, especially in his telling of the Battle of Thermopylae. He estimated that the Persians had over 5 million troops on both land and sea to attack Greece, a number that is now seen as “nothing short of ridiculous.”[7] An army of 5 million people is incomprehensible, especially for those alive in 480 BCE. As Ferrill claims, Herodotus most likely exaggerated this number in order to emphasize both the bravery of the Spartans and Thespians who fought at Thermopylae and the hubris of Xerxes. He inflated these numbers for narrative and character-based purposes, and to keep his audience engaged and nervous. The result of this fabrication is that he sacrificed his credibility as a writer of history, which has tainted his writing for many students of history. He could have settled for a smaller number that was more believable, but he did not care much for the technicalities of warfare; “his primary concern was with the epic or Homeric conception of war.”[8] Herodotus threatens his credibility with exaggeration and informal writing in exchange for higher audience retention and a more compelling story, showing that he cares more about emulating the epics of Homer rather than creating a factual account of the Persian War.
The writing of Herodotus is also plagued with many long tangents delving into the stories of minor players in the battle, as well as full conversations that are too detailed to be what was truly said. One example of this is a man named Sandoces, a Persian naval captain whose fleet was captured by the Greeks. He was a governor in the Persian empire who was crucified for accepting a bribe and then acquitted. After his acquittal, he was granted command of a fleet, which was promptly captured when he mistook the Greeks for the Persians.[9] The majority of the information about Sandoces is entirely irrelevant to the Persian War, and in fact reader comprehension would not decrease if his name was not included. The only reason this extraneous information was included was to give the Greek audiences a character to laugh at, and a short diversion story during the long tale of the battle. The same is true for many of the Greek soldiers who fought, except their stories were meant for admiration rather than mockery. In paragraphs 7.234 to 7.237, Herodotus recounts a discussion between Xerxes and Demaratus about how to utilize the fleet for the next attack. Each of these paragraphs is composed of full quotes, with some extending the full length of the paragraph. There is no way that Herodotus could have known every word shared between the pair, and must have made up almost everything he said. He could have summarized what was decided by the pair, but he instead assigned them dialogue that he composed himself. This further proves that Herodotus fabricated aspects of his story to create a more compelling narrative and develop his characters. In order to more effectively follow the Homeric style, Herodotus invented dialogue and included tangential information, neither of which advance the historical narrative, instead serving only to increase the entertainment factor for his audience.
In stark contrast to Herodotus, the modern historian Matthew Rios writes a much more succinct and historical essay, titled “The Battle of Thermopylae: Betrayed, Bloodied, and Besieged”, cutting out the narrative fluff that Herodotus littered throughout The Histories and sticking to historical fact. In just eight paragraphs, Rios successfully conveys the Battle of Thermopylae, including the arrival of both armies and the actual fighting; it took Herodotus 60 paragraphs to tell of the same battle. This concise nature applies to the entirety of Rios’s essay, but also to specific sections of it, such as the betrayal of Ephialtes. After describing his motivation in supporting Xerxes, Rios writes “Ephialtes showed Xerxes and his forces a path around south of Thermopylae to the Greeks’ position.”[10] In just a few short sentences, Rios tells what Ephialtes did, why he did it, and what the result was. In comparison, it took Herodotus several paragraphs to convey the same information, with several detours along the way: the life and death of Ephialtes, an account of another man, Onetas, who may have betrayed the Greeks, and a long description of the path itself. While both tellings may be historically accurate, Rios writes succinctly, telling the reader the necessary information to understand the betrayal of Ephialtes, whereas Herodotus writes, once again, to entertain an audience with a narrative and characters. One man writes to inform, while the other writes to entertain. Comparisons to modern writings reveal how Herodotus intended his writing style to be Homeric, focusing more on tangential side stories than the main battle that occurred.
Although Herodotus embellished his accounts to entertain rather than inform, he did not do so maliciously or intending to misinform his audience. He was one of the first people to ever record a recent historical event in such depth; his actions and intentions are commendable, even if the outcome does not reflect said intentions. He wrote in the Classical period influenced by the Homeric epics, and thus these works guided his writing as happens to all writers. While he may not have written a fully accurate account of the Battle of Thermopylae, he did the best anybody could have at the time. Herodotus contributed to the creation of a new field of study, historiography, and provided historical context that is still being studied and inspiring modern historians to this day.
Endnotes
[1] Herodotus, 7.186
[2] Herodotus, 7.190-7.192
[3] Herodotus, 7.202
[4] Herodotus, 7.211
[5] Herodotus, 7.212
[6] Herodotus, 7.219-7.222
[7] Arther Ferrill, “Herodotus and the Strategy and Tactics of the Invasion of Xerxes.” The American Historical Review 72, no. 1 (1966):. https://doi.org/10.2307/1848172. 105
[8] Ferrill, “Herodotus and the Strategy and Tactics of the Invasion of Xerxes,” 114.
[9] Herodotus 7.194
[10] Matthew Rios, “The Battle of Thermopylae: Betrayed, Bloodied, and Besieged,” StMU Research Scholars, September 21, 2017, https://stmuscholars.org/the-battle-of-thermopylae-2/.