Professor Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones

At that point, essentially, he's just doing it for the kudos. I mean, he's just staying behind because he thinks it's the right thing to do. It doesn't have any strategic merit. It doesn't have any strategic motivation even. Even in Herodotus, it has no strategic motivation. This is not done for good reasons.

At that point, essentially, he's just doing it for the kudos. I mean, he's just staying behind because he thinks it's the right thing to do. It doesn't have any strategic merit. It doesn't have any strategic motivation even. Even in Herodotus, it has no strategic motivation. This is not done for good reasons.

At that point, essentially, he's just doing it for the kudos. I mean, he's just staying behind because he thinks it's the right thing to do. It doesn't have any strategic merit. It doesn't have any strategic motivation even. Even in Herodotus, it has no strategic motivation. This is not done for good reasons.

He is just doing that because he thinks it's right for a Spartan to not leave the position that he is assigned. And that is something that comes back again and again in narratives of Spartan warfare. If somebody tells you to stand somewhere, you don't move from that place. And Leonidas is thinking very much in those terms. He's saying, like, I was told to defend the Passa Thermopylae.

He is just doing that because he thinks it's right for a Spartan to not leave the position that he is assigned. And that is something that comes back again and again in narratives of Spartan warfare. If somebody tells you to stand somewhere, you don't move from that place. And Leonidas is thinking very much in those terms. He's saying, like, I was told to defend the Passa Thermopylae.

He is just doing that because he thinks it's right for a Spartan to not leave the position that he is assigned. And that is something that comes back again and again in narratives of Spartan warfare. If somebody tells you to stand somewhere, you don't move from that place. And Leonidas is thinking very much in those terms. He's saying, like, I was told to defend the Passa Thermopylae.

I'm just going to do it, even if it's hopeless, even if there's no point. And so that's what he does, which is why he makes his final stand together with a couple of other Greek communities who decide also to hold that line.

I'm just going to do it, even if it's hopeless, even if there's no point. And so that's what he does, which is why he makes his final stand together with a couple of other Greek communities who decide also to hold that line.

I'm just going to do it, even if it's hopeless, even if there's no point. And so that's what he does, which is why he makes his final stand together with a couple of other Greek communities who decide also to hold that line.

Yeah, I mean, the Spartans essentially threw away their lives for no good purpose and gave him this huge propaganda coup, right? They gave him this opportunity to say, oh, I killed their king, I destroyed their army, rather than just sort of chasing it off to fight another day.

Yeah, I mean, the Spartans essentially threw away their lives for no good purpose and gave him this huge propaganda coup, right? They gave him this opportunity to say, oh, I killed their king, I destroyed their army, rather than just sort of chasing it off to fight another day.

Yeah, I mean, the Spartans essentially threw away their lives for no good purpose and gave him this huge propaganda coup, right? They gave him this opportunity to say, oh, I killed their king, I destroyed their army, rather than just sort of chasing it off to fight another day.

Yeah. And the excuse has always been twofold. I think the justification in modern scholarship and modern ways of telling this story, firstly, that they inflicted a lot of losses on the Persians.

Yeah. And the excuse has always been twofold. I think the justification in modern scholarship and modern ways of telling this story, firstly, that they inflicted a lot of losses on the Persians.

Yeah. And the excuse has always been twofold. I think the justification in modern scholarship and modern ways of telling this story, firstly, that they inflicted a lot of losses on the Persians.

But there is a very difficult bit of evidence behind that, which is the story in Herodotus that he got people from the fleet to come and look at all the dead on the battlefield, to kind of survey the battlefield. Again, this idea of coming to see it for yourself and look at all the dead that are scattered here, all these dead Spartans.

But there is a very difficult bit of evidence behind that, which is the story in Herodotus that he got people from the fleet to come and look at all the dead on the battlefield, to kind of survey the battlefield. Again, this idea of coming to see it for yourself and look at all the dead that are scattered here, all these dead Spartans.

But there is a very difficult bit of evidence behind that, which is the story in Herodotus that he got people from the fleet to come and look at all the dead on the battlefield, to kind of survey the battlefield. Again, this idea of coming to see it for yourself and look at all the dead that are scattered here, all these dead Spartans.

But in order to make that a proper story and something that would work for him in terms of motivating his troops, he hid most of his own dead. So supposedly he left 1,000 Persian dead as a credible figure and then hid the other 19,000 in a mass grave. We can imagine that this is true. This is something that Xerxes wants to do.

But in order to make that a proper story and something that would work for him in terms of motivating his troops, he hid most of his own dead. So supposedly he left 1,000 Persian dead as a credible figure and then hid the other 19,000 in a mass grave. We can imagine that this is true. This is something that Xerxes wants to do.