For some reason I've been more interested in the classical world recently so I just bought and read Ernle Bradford's book Thermopylae The Battle for the West.


The title is actually somewhat misleading. It's actually a detailed historical account of three key battles between the Greeks and the Persians: Thermopylae, Salamis and Plataea. It's really not written at the grunt level per se though there is some of that but skillfully uses the benefits of hindsight, Greek and Persian records, and a good knowledge of the climate and environment of Greece to show why and how Xerxes' plans ultimately failed. I would recommend this to any historical buffs.

One can not read this book without at least thinking about the movie "300" which got some essentials right but got so very much else wrong, although it remains a favorite movie of mine. The reality was actually much more interesting. I think I may do another post on 300/Sparta in general.

One thing which remains interesting, thousands of years later is just how divided the Greeks were, since at that time the strongest loyalty was to the city-state, not to "Greece" as a whole. There were several Greeks who fought on the Persian side or switched sides depending on who was winning at the time or what their rival was doing. An exiled Spartan King advised Xerxes while his best admiral was a Cretan woman. Truth is often stranger than fiction.