Battle of Thermopylae in popular culture

The Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BCE was a last stand by a Greek army led by King Leonidas I of Sparta against an Achaemenid Persian army led by Xerxes I during the Second Persian invasion of Greece. There is a long tradition of upholding the story of the battle as an example of virtuous self-sacrifice.[1]

Leonidas at Thermopylae, 1814 painting by Jacques-Louis David

Antiquity

The battle's earliest known appearance in culture is a series of epigrams commemorating the dead written by Simonides of Ceos in the battle's aftermath.[2] Already by the fourth century BCE, the battle had been reframed as a victory of sorts in Greek writing, in contrast to how it was described by fifth-century BCE Greek historian Herodotus.[3]

18th century

In Europe, interest in the battle was revitalized in the 1700s with the publication of the poems Leonidas, A Poem by Richard Glover in 1737 and Leonidas by Willem van Haren in 1742.[4] Glover's poem uses the story to exemplify the proper virtues of a good monarch.[5] Several stage plays about the battle were produced during the French Revolution, including the 1794 play Le Combat de Thermopyles, ou l'école des guerriers by Joseph Marie Loaisel de Tréogate and the 1799 play Léonidas, ou le départ des Spartiates by René-Charles Guilbert de Pixérécourt.[6]

19th century

Jacques-Louis David painted Leonidas at Thermopylae during the reign of Napoleon and eventually finished the painting in 1814, depicting Leonidas and the soldiers in the moments leading up to the battle as a positive example of patriotism.[7]

German poet Theodor Körner referenced Thermopylae to inspire his fellow countrymen to fight against Napoleon in the 1812 poem Auf dem Schlachtfelde von Aspern.[8] Thermopylae was often invoked as an example to be emulated in the lead-up to the Greek War of Independence against the Ottoman Empire, for example in the 1798 hymn Thourios by Rigas Feraios.[9] In the United States, the Battle of the Alamo in 1836 during the Texas Revolution was compared to Thermopylae only weeks after its conclusion, and a battle memorial erected in Austin, Texas in 1843 references Thermopylae.[10]

20th century

The 1962 film The 300 Spartans depicts the battle and the broader conflict as a parallel of the then-ongoing Cold War, with Greeks and Persians representing NATO and the Soviet Bloc respectively, and Sparta representing the US.[11] The 1998 novel Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield is unusual in depicting the battle as gruesome rather than glorious.[12]

References

Levene, D. S. (2007). "Xerxes Goes to Hollywood". In Bridges, Emma; Hall, Edith; Rhodes, P. J. (eds.). Cultural Responses to the Persian Wars: Antiquity to the Third Millennium. OUP Oxford. p. 383. ISBN 978-0-19-155751-4.
Clough, Emma (2004). "Loyalty and Liberty: Thermopylae in the Western Imagination". In Figueira, Thomas J. (ed.). Spartan Society. ISD LLC. p. 363. ISBN 978-1-914535-21-5.
Marincola, John (2007). "The Persian Wars in Fourth-Century Oratory and Historiography". In Bridges, Emma; Hall, Edith; Rhodes, P. J. (eds.). Cultural Responses to the Persian Wars: Antiquity to the Third Millennium. OUP Oxford. pp. 122–123. ISBN 978-0-19-155751-4.
Morris, Ian Macgregor (2007). "'Shrines of the Mighty': Rediscovering the Battlefields of the Persian Wars". In Bridges, Emma; Hall, Edith; Rhodes, P. J. (eds.). Cultural Responses to the Persian Wars: Antiquity to the Third Millennium. OUP Oxford. pp. 231–232. ISBN 978-0-19-155751-4.
Clough, Emma (2004). "Loyalty and Liberty: Thermopylae in the Western Imagination". In Figueira, Thomas J. (ed.). Spartan Society. ISD LLC. pp. 365–371. ISBN 978-1-914535-21-5.
Clough, Emma (2004). "Loyalty and Liberty: Thermopylae in the Western Imagination". In Figueira, Thomas J. (ed.). Spartan Society. ISD LLC. p. 372. ISBN 978-1-914535-21-5.
Clough, Emma (2004). "Loyalty and Liberty: Thermopylae in the Western Imagination". In Figueira, Thomas J. (ed.). Spartan Society. ISD LLC. pp. 372–373. ISBN 978-1-914535-21-5.
Rebenich, Stefan (2002). "From Thermopylae to Stalingrad: The Myth of Leonidas in German Historiography". In Hodkinson, Stephen; Powell, Anton (eds.). Sparta: Beyond the Mirage. ISD LLC. p. 326. ISBN 978-1-914535-20-8. Archived (PDF of stand-alone book chapter) from the original on 2022-03-03.
Clough, Emma (2004). "Loyalty and Liberty: Thermopylae in the Western Imagination". In Figueira, Thomas J. (ed.). Spartan Society. ISD LLC. p. 374. ISBN 978-1-914535-21-5.
Levene, D. S. (2007). "Xerxes Goes to Hollywood". In Bridges, Emma; Hall, Edith; Rhodes, P. J. (eds.). Cultural Responses to the Persian Wars: Antiquity to the Third Millennium. OUP Oxford. pp. 394–395. ISBN 978-0-19-155751-4.
Clough, Emma (2004). "Loyalty and Liberty: Thermopylae in the Western Imagination". In Figueira, Thomas J. (ed.). Spartan Society. ISD LLC. pp. 374–378. ISBN 978-1-914535-21-5.
Bridges, Emma (2007). "The Guts and the Glory: Pressfield's Spartans at the Gates of Fire". In Bridges, Emma; Hall, Edith; Rhodes, P. J. (eds.). Cultural Responses to the Persian Wars: Antiquity to the Third Millennium. OUP Oxford. pp. 411–419. ISBN 978-0-19-155751-4.

Datiles, M. J. (2016). The Battle of Thermopylae (480 BC) in American Popular Culture (Doctoral thesis). UCL (University College London).
Fotheringham, Lynn S. (2012). "The Positive Portrayal of Sparta in Late-Twentieth-Century Fiction". In Hodkinson, Stephen; Morris, Ian Macgregor (eds.). Sparta in Modern Thought: Politics, History and Culture. ISD LLC. pp. 393–428. ISBN 978-1-910589-18-2. Archived (PDF of stand-alone book chapter) from the original on 2022-04-22.
Kilby, Kelsey (2018). "Subversions of the Thermopylae Myth in Modern Literature". The Albatross. 8: 76–88.
Morris, Ian MacGregor (2000). The Age of Leonidas: The Legend of Thermopylae in British Political Culture, 1737–1821 (Ph.D. thesis). University of Manchester.
Murray, Jeffrey (2009). Few Against Many: The Reception of the Battle of Thermopylae in Popular Culture, South Africa and Children's Literature (Masters thesis). University of KwaZulu-Natal.
Rawson, Elizabeth (1969). The Spartan Tradition in European Thought. Clarendon P. ISBN 978-0-19-814350-5.
Stafford, Emma (2016). "The Curse of 300? Popular Culture and Teaching the Spartans". Journal of Classics Teaching. 17 (33): 8–13. doi:10.1017/S2058631016000052. ISSN 2058-6310.

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[1] Levene, D. S. (2007). "Xerxes Goes to Hollywood". In Bridges, Emma; Hall, Edith; Rhodes, P. J. (eds.). Cultural Responses to the Persian Wars: Antiquity to the Third Millennium. OUP Oxford. p. 383. ISBN 978-0-19-155751-4.

[2] Clough, Emma (2004). "Loyalty and Liberty: Thermopylae in the Western Imagination". In Figueira, Thomas J. (ed.). Spartan Society. ISD LLC. p. 363. ISBN 978-1-914535-21-5.

[3] Marincola, John (2007). "The Persian Wars in Fourth-Century Oratory and Historiography". In Bridges, Emma; Hall, Edith; Rhodes, P. J. (eds.). Cultural Responses to the Persian Wars: Antiquity to the Third Millennium. OUP Oxford. pp. 122–123. ISBN 978-0-19-155751-4.

[4] Morris, Ian Macgregor (2007). "'Shrines of the Mighty': Rediscovering the Battlefields of the Persian Wars". In Bridges, Emma; Hall, Edith; Rhodes, P. J. (eds.). Cultural Responses to the Persian Wars: Antiquity to the Third Millennium. OUP Oxford. pp. 231–232. ISBN 978-0-19-155751-4.

[5] Clough, Emma (2004). "Loyalty and Liberty: Thermopylae in the Western Imagination". In Figueira, Thomas J. (ed.). Spartan Society. ISD LLC. pp. 365–371. ISBN 978-1-914535-21-5.

[6] Clough, Emma (2004). "Loyalty and Liberty: Thermopylae in the Western Imagination". In Figueira, Thomas J. (ed.). Spartan Society. ISD LLC. p. 372. ISBN 978-1-914535-21-5.

[7] Clough, Emma (2004). "Loyalty and Liberty: Thermopylae in the Western Imagination". In Figueira, Thomas J. (ed.). Spartan Society. ISD LLC. pp. 372–373. ISBN 978-1-914535-21-5.

[8] Rebenich, Stefan (2002). "From Thermopylae to Stalingrad: The Myth of Leonidas in German Historiography". In Hodkinson, Stephen; Powell, Anton (eds.). Sparta: Beyond the Mirage. ISD LLC. p. 326. ISBN 978-1-914535-20-8. Archived (PDF of stand-alone book chapter) from the original on 2022-03-03.

[9] Clough, Emma (2004). "Loyalty and Liberty: Thermopylae in the Western Imagination". In Figueira, Thomas J. (ed.). Spartan Society. ISD LLC. p. 374. ISBN 978-1-914535-21-5.

[10] Levene, D. S. (2007). "Xerxes Goes to Hollywood". In Bridges, Emma; Hall, Edith; Rhodes, P. J. (eds.). Cultural Responses to the Persian Wars: Antiquity to the Third Millennium. OUP Oxford. pp. 394–395. ISBN 978-0-19-155751-4.

[11] Clough, Emma (2004). "Loyalty and Liberty: Thermopylae in the Western Imagination". In Figueira, Thomas J. (ed.). Spartan Society. ISD LLC. pp. 374–378. ISBN 978-1-914535-21-5.

[12] Bridges, Emma (2007). "The Guts and the Glory: Pressfield's Spartans at the Gates of Fire". In Bridges, Emma; Hall, Edith; Rhodes, P. J. (eds.). Cultural Responses to the Persian Wars: Antiquity to the Third Millennium. OUP Oxford. pp. 411–419. ISBN 978-0-19-155751-4.