The story of a heavily outnumbered Greek army, led by a Spartan commander, called the Battle of Thermopylae has captured people’s interests, and imaginations, for eons. Dr Chris Carey, Emeritus Professor, University College London, joins the show to share what happened and why the event lives on as a legend and myth.
Some topics explored
- The First Greco-Person War including the Battle of Marathon
- The Persian Empire
- The antecedents for the Battle of Thermopylae
- The terrain of the Battle of Thermopylae
- Both army’s composition (who) and scale (how many troops)
- Herodotus and his writings
- What happened at the Battle of Thermopylae, and how it ended
- Equipment used at the Battle
- The long-term implications that the Battle had on the Second Greco-Persian War
- The level of veracity of the recount of the Battle of Thermopylae in contemporary fiction and media
- The end of the second Greco-Persian War
Listen to the episode
The episode can be streamed below and is also available on major podcast apps: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music.
Show Notes
- Emeritus Professor Carey is author of many publications over his career including Thermopylae: Great Battles (Oxford University Press) and Democracy in Classical Athens (Bloomsbury)
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