Ask A Historian

[ignoramus]

Min, what do you know about the 300 Spartans.
Is it all myth?

I have heritage at stake here!

[Minimalist]

It was long said that after the Teutoburgerwald that the Romans paid no interest to events on the far side of the Rhine but this has turned out to be totally false.  Tiberius and Germanicus campaigned extensively against the Germans but it does seem fair to think that close examination of the terrain convinced them it was really was not suitable to the normal type of development which the Romans did.  Then came this find:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germ...96720.html

The wilds of Germany may not have been off-limits to Roman legions, archaeologists announced on Monday. At a press conference in the woods near the town of Kalefeld, about 100 kilometers south of Hanover, researchers announced the discovery of a battlefield strewn with hundreds of Roman artifacts dating from the 3rd century A.D.

I'm sure the Romans looked to find certain Germanic chieftains they could support, financially or militarily, just as we do with insignificant dictators all around the world.  Sometimes, a little direct military support was probably required.  It would not have been enough to attract the interest of historians who, in the third century, were probably far more interested in the Parthian threat.

[Minimalist]

Min, what do you know about the 300 Spartans.

Is it all myth?

Myth?  Not at all.  But they were not alone.  There were perhaps 7,000 other Greeks with them.  The Athenian Navy under Themistocles covered their seaward flank.  The idea was that Leonidas was leading with his 300-man personal bodyguard while the main Spartan army was jerking off waiting to see what happened.  Archaeology has confirmed a hill with a shitload of bronze, Persian, arrowheads testifying to the accuracy of Herodotus' final description of the surviving Greeks being cut down by archers.  The reason for the last stand after the position was compromised by the flanking Persian column was to allow the retiring Greeks time to escape.  Once past Thermopylae the territory opens up which would have allowed the vastly superior Persian cavalry to run the Greeks down during the retreat.

BTW, nearly 300 years later in 191 BC a Roman army under consul M. Acilius Glabrio defeated the Seleucid Greeks of Antiochus the Great.  In that case, the Greeks were holding the pass and Glabrio, attacking from the other direction than Xerxes, had no trouble driving the Seleucids from the pass.  Apparently having read Herodotus, Glabrio sent two columns under military tribunes to attack the Greeks.  One failed but the other succeeded and one was enough to cause the Seleucid army to panic and flee lest the Romans get behind them.

End of Thermopylae II.

A year later a Roman army nominally under the command of Lucius Cornelius Scipio ( brother of Africanus, who despite not being eligible for the consulship that year was most likely "advising" his brother) crushed Antiochus III at Magnesia in Asia Minor in 190 BC.  Rome had come to Asia.

[ignoramus]

You really need your own History channel Min.
I'm serious!

[Longhorn]

'Go Blow Jesus Out Your Ass'
Sunday at 11am
Cos fuck going to church
On Minimalist History Channel

[ignoramus]

Next week's episode is a comedy special.
 I believe he's having Ken Ham on as a special guest!

[Cyberman]

Roasting slowly on a spit. I'd tune in for that. Shit, I'd buy a brand new sixty inch hi-def screen specially.

[ignoramus]

and a banana in his mouth to rub it in!

[Cyberman]

I think you're thinking of Ray Cumfart, but that's understandable. They're all cut from the same cloth they made the emperor's suit out of.

[Minimalist]

You really need your own History channel Min.
I'm serious!

Are you fucking kidding me?  Have you seen the shit they put on History Channel these days?