On Thermopylae : the worth and value of masculinity

[Cú ChulainnParticipant 3910]

The worth and value of a man is in his heart and his will; there lies his real honour. Valour is the strength, not of legs and arms, but of heart and soul; it consists not in the worth of our horse or our weapons, but in our own. He who falls obstinate in his courage, if he has fallen, he fights on his knees (Seneca). He who relaxes none of his assurance, no matter how great the danger of imminent death; who, giving up his soul, still looks firmly and scornfully at his enemy – he is beaten not by us, but by fortune; he is killed, not conquered.

The most valiant are sometimes the most unfortunate. Thus there are triumphant defeats that rival victories. Nor did those four sister victories, the fairest that the sun ever set eyes on – Salamis, Platea, Mycale, and Sicily – ever dare match all their combined glory against the glory of the annihilation of King Leonidas and his men at the pass of Thermopylae.

MONTAIGNE

[Anonymous 6]

One of my favorite battles ever. Damn Leonidas being so stubborn

[Cú ChulainnParticipant 3910]

Some historians label it ‘The Battle for the West’.

The Spartans’ sacrifice at Thermopylae did three things, it bought time for the quarreling Greeks to organise their fleets and armies, it set an example to the Greeks of supreme courage and sacrifice, and thirdly it spurred on the Greeks to annihilate the foreign menace and protect the fledging ideas of democracy, philosophy, civilisation.

The whole of European, and by extension Western, history was shaped from that day. Probably the most important battle in our collective story. Everything could have been so different if 300 Spartans and 10000 other Greeks hadn’t stood together in that narrow pass, and died.

[Author]

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