Sparta wins Thermopylae

That's impossible. Human beings are only capable of 3 days of hard fighting. After 4-5 days of no sleep, your grandmother could beat you. The Persians greatly outnumbered the Greeks, which means they always had fresh men. Greek defeat was inevitable without a fort.

Well firstly, the fighting wasn't as heavy as some might think (if anyones thinking about 300 then your wrong, the story was sort of ok but the battles were highly inaccurate), the first day had 2 assaults including the elite Immortals, however these would have lasted a few hours at most.
The second day had only one assault, again only a few hours. Reports suggest small losses on the Allied side from both.

Also, the city-states took turns holding the phalanx. So whilst maybe 1,000 men were holding of the Persians the rest would have plenty of time to rest and recuperate. Or even build that fort.

Also (and this probably counts for shit) but the Spartans were considered the best warriors of the ancient world. Trained to be soldiers since they could walk, no retreat, no surrender etc etc.
 

Blair152

Banned
They did. Inasmuch as "win" can be meant as "achieved the tactical and strategic goals". The battle at the Hot Gates was a delaying action allowing the other Greeks to the south time to regroup and reorganised their forces. It succeeded in its goals, ergo the Spartans won. Not necessarily a tactical victory, but then again it was never meant to be; the men went in there with full knowledge that it was a suicide mission with the ultimate goal of a Greek coalition strategic victory.
I was speaking tactically here. The reason why Leonidas and the 300 lost was because his co-king didn't send the Spartan Army to reinforce his position. Good movies about Thermopylae, The 300 Spartans, which was filmed on location in Greece, and 300, based on Frank Miller's graphic novel
of the same name.
 

wormyguy

Banned
Are you claiming that the Spartan ephors weren't hunchbacked sexual deviants? 'Cause I'm fairly sure they were! :D
It's not that. I take issue with the racist portrayal of Immortals as ork ninjas, when they were actually elf pirates.
 

Susano

Banned
Under a thousand men (allied forces included) holding back several ten thousands of men indefinitly and winning the battle field? That is madness!

... :D

Check the topography- those hills rise 5000 feet in a few miles. Not easy to haul supplies for a large force over.
Well seems like they went through a river valley. A river whose mouth was just a few km south of their camp... I mean, it still doesnt look all that "secret backdoor" to me. Besides, what did the Persians plan anyways, to keep north of the mountains, going all around them, until arriving in Attica and then going all the way south of them again?
 
It's easy to say "looks simple", but if we didn't have any maps whatsoever, and we had to lug all of our cooking supplies, food, and water everywhere we went, a twenty mile path of guesswork (assuming you guessed correctly!) through Afghanistan-like terrain wouldn't be my first plan.
 
Only way I can think of to have the Spartans add a major tactical victory to their strategic victory would be for their night attack on the Persian camp to be spectacularly successful. 'Gates of Fire' depicts it as being something of a near-run thing. Kill the right few people and the army will fall apart---possibly in a bloody feud over succession. Gideon, in the book of Judges, demonstrates a spectacular success of a night attack on a camp of a highly multicultural army leading to warfare between the various factions of said army.
 
Are you claiming that the Spartan ephors weren't hunchbacked sexual deviants? 'Cause I'm fairly sure they were! :D

Well I don't know about that but I do know that Persia is in Africa so there was nothing strange about the numerous black generals and troops depicted. Nothing strange at all.
 
Well seems like they went through a river valley. A river whose mouth was just a few km south of their camp... I mean, it still doesnt look all that "secret backdoor" to me. Besides, what did the Persians plan anyways, to keep north of the mountains, going all around them, until arriving in Attica and then going all the way south of them again?

But wasn't that the plan? After Thermopylae they sacked Boeotia and marched on Attica, presumably supplied by sea supplemented with whatever they looted. It was the Athenian victory at Salamis that left the land army without support.
 
Well I don't know about that but I do know that Persia is in Africa so there was nothing strange about the numerous black generals and troops depicted. Nothing strange at all.

Are you saying that 300 the movie may have been made up:eek:!
But what about the elephants, that looked like they stepped out of Lord of the Rings? And the wizards with hand grenades?

The Persian empire was in Eygpt at the time, and their were plenty of mercenaries from all over the place. So the black generals weren't to out of place.

The Persian army was preety multi-cultural. You've got Indians, Persians, Thracians and various middle eastern tribes and states. Not to mention the mercenaries from Europe, Africa and Central Asia. Frankly a few dead translators could have brought the whole thing crashing down.
 
Easy! There is a myth that on the last night, as the Persian troops were going up the goat track, a tiny group of Spartans infiltrated the Persian camp and cut their way into Xerxes pavillion but failed to kill him. Just have this be true and have the Spartans kill Xerxes, the Persian army will melt away 20 minutes after the word gets out and will never advance into Attica.
 
Easy! There is a myth that on the last night, as the Persian troops were going up the goat track, a tiny group of Spartans infiltrated the Persian camp and cut their way into Xerxes pavillion but failed to kill him. Just have this be true and have the Spartans kill Xerxes, the Persian army will melt away 20 minutes after the word gets out and will never advance into Attica.

That would work. But what after? I say the Spartans wait for the army, then march north and conquer Macedon and Persian Thrace. Then you might get an earlier Peloponnesian War and Civil unrest in Persia. You could even turn this into a complete Sparta wank.
 
That would work. But what after? I say the Spartans wait for the army, then march north and conquer Macedon and Persian Thrace. Then you might get an earlier Peloponnesian War and Civil unrest in Persia. You could even turn this into a complete Sparta wank.

As soon as the Persian army melts away the greek coalition will follow suit. A lot of people, Athens foremost (Thebes and Corinth likely too) are going to rankle as the Spartans use Thermopylae as an excuse to throw their weight around. Meanwhile, the Persian Empire gets it's act together within a few years and starts covertly backing the opposition in mainland greece, much as they backed the spartans through the later stages of the Peleponesian war. Nothing overt, of course, but the coffers of the King of Kings are deep...
 
Thermopalae/Eboea will become Salamis, so someone will keep a powerful (largely cavalry) army in Greece which will get defeated later on. So a victory at Thermopalae/Eboea will just start the OTL ball rolling a few months earlier than OTL.
 
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