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Question 5

Hi bettany, how significant was the battle of Thermopylae in saving the spark that was democracy? Some historians will argue ie peter green, that this last stand of the Spartans rallied the rest of Greece or was it just an act of selfish glory for the Spartan warrior to die on the battlefield? As Spartans had their own slaves were they so interested in democracy? Love the show, cheers karl (a budding historian) PS this same pass was used a thousand years or so later by the Celts but by then it was not such a stronghold as the paths around the mountain were well known.

(From Karl, Castlebar)

Bettany Hughes: Karl, thanks for your question (and Celtic gen!). Well those Spartans who fought at Thermopylae certainly kept some kind of spark alive…although you're right, I don't think it was really a spark of democracy in the strict, political definition of the phrase. By laying down their lives to protect Greece against the Persians they wrote themselves into history as uber-heroes.

The story of Thermopylae became one of the greatest tales of all time, told around campfires for generations (which is why I quite like what Zack Snyder has done with his movie '300'…setting it up from the outset as a continuation of the tradition of epic story-telling). Although Leonidas and his Spartans lost at Thermopylae, they gained a moral victory. News of their self-sacrifice spread through Greece at a rapid rate – they became a legend before they became history – and there is no doubt that knowledge of their heroic last stand inspired those Greeks who then went on to beat back the Persians at the Battle of Plataea in 479BC. Our sources are Greek, of course, so we need to be a little wary, but it does seem that these Spartans died for what they believed in. Part of that was a 'self-serving' belief in the supremacy of Spartan battle-nous and the value of their beloved Spartan city-state but the hoplites also died ideologists.

Very early on in Greece – and in Sparta with knobs on – you get hints of a marked sense of community and of self-reliance. This may have something to do with the landscape, as patches of fertile earth are so few and far between individual farmers tend to be responsible for modest areas. You don't find mighty land owners operating with the help of bonded labourers as you do elsewhere at this time (I suggest you read Hesiod's 'Works and Days' to get a good impression of this state of affairs). In fact self-reliance was thought of such paramount importance that those who relied on others were known in Ancient Greek as 'parasitoi.'

So the Spartans, with their refusal to be cowed by Xerxes' army, represented something peculiar about Greece as a whole, and something which has become integral to the West's idea of itself, that if we are individually strong, we are collectively strong; that bullies and despots should not be tolerated.

So, in answer to your question, although the Spartans were far from democratic (they enslaved whole populations of fellow Greeks, naming them 'helots'), and despite the fact that narratives of East/West ideological conflict become particularly ripe AFTER the battle of Thermopylae, in one loose sense they did promote the 'kratos' (power or grip) of the 'demos' (the [top-dog Spartiate] people). My colleague Paul Cartledge wrote an excellent book called The Spartans, An Epic History (published by Channel 4 Books) which will give you all kinds of insights into Sparta in this period. Well worth a read!!

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