How would you fight the 300 spartans?

[villain4hire]

If you were the Persian king with that huge ass army how would you go about fighting the 300 Spartans & its allies of some greeks?? I am just curious because the hype for that movie is huge and the battle did took place & those spartans owned a lot of persians. I would think someone else on the Persian side leading can do better.

[TheNewKing]

what i would do is send all my archers to fire on them.
then send all my troops to attack at once

[Sephynos]

I would have send a small group of hit and run skirmishers, and far behind an extremly large group of archers in a mix of fire and normal arrows. I would fire at them while they are busy fighting like they love to do.

[Tacticalwithdrawal]

I'd pay the Thebans (who fought alongside the Spartans and probably fought at least as well if not better), to kill the Spartans.

[removeduser_426582376423734]

Go around them, destroy their towns and villages and starve them to death.

[Plutarch]

If you were the Persian king with that huge ass army how would you go about fighting the 300 Spartans & its allies of some greeks?? I am just curious because the hype for that movie is huge and the battle did took place & those spartans owned a lot of persians. I would think someone else on the Persian side leading can do better.

I probably would have done a similar thing to that of xerxes, minus the sending of troops in mindlessly after a volley of arrows. I probably would have looked for a way to flank them, similar to the path that Ephialtes showed the Persians. There wasnt much that Xerxes could have done that he didnt try to do however. The Persian Army had to come down through Thermopylae on the way to Athens, and it was deemed the best place to defend by the Greek Force. Had the rest of Sparta not been detained by their Religious Festival, they probably would have lit the entire Persian force up. However, the Spartans certainly cant claim all the glory for Xerxes retreat across the hellespont, since Athens provided more than enough assistance to put a hurting on the Persians at the battle of Salamis. To be honest i think that Xerxes wasnt that incapable of a military commander, there was just little to work with from his perspective. We also have to keep in mind that much of the movie "300" is Frank Miller'd out. By this i mean, that we all know Xerxes was on a hill top / mountain top according to historians, and right up on the battlefront. We also can assume that there were not a "million" persians. A large number indeed showed up to greece, but this estimate is very likely exaggerated. Although Herodotus gives us alot of valuable information, he does tip the scales sometimes

[LegendI]

I would just say, "**** this, it isn't worth it." and wait untill they die of old age.

[Oswald von Wolkenstein]

Napalm -- or the next best thing, light fires around the pass, smoke 'em out and cut 'em down.

[VALIS]

How would i fight the spartans?

Well the persians won anyway so i would fight them the same way the persians did back then.

[Foreign Fruitcake]

How would i fight the spartans?

Well the persians won anyway so i would fight them the same way the persians did back then.

Some defeats are greater than many victories.

How would I defeat the Sparts? Not fight them at Thermopylae. Pick a field of your own choosing. Even if the Sparts fielded 10,000 men , the Persian army was monstrous by comparison and on an open field of battle the results might very well be different.

[rez]

Agreed, obviously ( ); I guess I was trying to allude to the fact that Artemision kind of made that a "never mind" kind of possibility. If we are to delve so far into the "what if" realm as to disregard actual events, one could just as easily say they would simply take the pass with infantry.

The fact that the triremes carried marines is not in contention. The idea that they could bear yet another 20-30 armed men and their minimum provisions is, though. Although, to be fair, if Artemision had been lost decisively (by the Hellenes) it wouldn't really matter what kind of troops were being landed at the rear of the pass.

Generally agreed, but the point being that the marines themselves constituted the needed 20 - 30 men.

I never accused the Persian commanders of being fools. The above, I should imagine, goes without saying.

The above was not neccesarily for your benefit, my esteemed friend.

I too think that's a fair estimate, if a bit on the conservative side. It works for a non-rout loss in closed quarters, but it doesn't necessarily allow for Herodotus' description of counter-charges. See below.

Agreed, A fair estimate of 2000 casualties per regiment allows for them to still constitute a fighting force.

Why so? We can say with confidence that the Persians had a rotating system of waves and reliefs (otherwise, we have to assume that the Medes piled on for 2-3 hours until everyone in the front 20-30% of their ranks perished, and then so on for the Kissians, and then so on for the "immortals"). The time during such a relief-in-place would be perfect to lure someone in for a counter-charge. A new force of Medes or Kissians arrives, the "tired and distraught" Hellenes wheel about, and the Medes/Kissians, anxious to show their worth, bite the bait.

Ha! I never thought of it in that way! It would avoid the terrible casualties I had imagined from disengaging from the melee. Unfortunately Herodotus doesn't actually specify on the situation. If the story is true then it must be in the manner you describe. Since its a practical tactic the chances of it being true are high. My thanks for opening my eyes!

Not necessarily true. Herodotus initially focuses on the Lacedaemonians as it was they who were the focus of the expedition. He specifically refers (Polymnia, 212) to the system Leonidas set up, wherein the Hellenes fought by nation and by company, so that only so many of them fought at each turn.

Indeed I remember the passage but what i was trying to get at was the focus Herodotus places on glorifying the Spartans primarily. One can't argue that the praise of herodotus is spread evenly among the Greeks who fought there. I did argue that the counter attack stratagem was an extension of this tactic applying to the Spartans.

What i was mainly getting at was that even if the well drilled Spartans had time and space to withdraw. The company stationed behind the Spartans would have to know exactly what was going on or all hell could break loose.

This is of course assuming that a Greek company was stationed in close support of the frontline as a quick action reserve. A likely event.

Beyond that, I don't believe I mentioned any "withdrawal problems" for the Medes and Kissians. I daresay that the Lacedaemonians, being fewer in number and working with a pre-planned gambit, would have a much easier time affecting a "spontaneous" withdrawal like that.

The problems being the usual danger of exposing yourself to enemy attacks whilst disengaging and withdrawing from the melee. However it has been pointed out that this would not have been a problem in the right circumstances.

What I'm getting it at is that nothing Herodotus gives us where Persian numbers are concerned is necessarily accurate.

Of course agreed.

... which, ironically, is a much more plausible figure than the original. Your own data (that not all ethnicities supplied full 10,000 man divisions) actually fits in with the above train of thought, which I have subscribed to since I started studying the subject. I tie it with the idea that many nations (especially the more obscure, smaller groups) provided far less than 10,000, but that other nations brought more than one regiment. I qualify my conjecture with some tidbits below.

As it is more plausible the figure is still far too high. Remember were looking at an almost equal figure of non combatants travelling with the army. I will address the multiple regiment idea below.

Polymnia 81 states that named leaders are commanders of a thousand and of ten thousand, but that others are commanders of nations. Urania 113 confirms what has already been stated in a roundabout way: the Persians numbered more than any other nation, except for the Medes--who equalled them in numbers. This is seen in the original listing of the force: there is a Persian force of infantry, an "immortals" force of infantry, and a Persian force of cavalry. More below.

I have to disagree based on the commander of nations theory. There simply is no name for that rank, we have the names for all the commander ranks of the army up to ten thousand. Then the overall commander of the armed forces (Mardonius at the time) and finally the King. A commander of nations would be a marshall of several sub regiments. Regiments that would need commanders that Herodotus would have reported names for. Since he reported all the other commanders. Xenophon's Cyropedia agrees with the decimal system up to ten thousand men. Logically speaking if the Median infantry answered to one commander then that infantry force could only be one regiment strong.

Why would Herodotus choose not to report this inconsistency when he has been quite thorough everywhere else?

The Persians numbered more than any other nation, except for the Medes--who equalled them in numbers.

This statement not only contradicts in full herodotus's judgment on the Thracians and Indians. It comes from absolutely nowhere. He makes no attempt to explain this out of the blue comment and as such i can only take it as rhetoric.

Even logically speaking the Medians occupied a far larger area than the Persians. To say their populations were equal, even roughly, is going out of the realm of reason.

Actually, that's not necessarily true. From Urania 113, Mardonius first chose the "immortals", but then he also chose those Persians who wore cuirasses. He then draws from the "Medes, Sacans, Bactrians, and Indians" that he also recruits en-masse (and likely where he gets most of his cavalry force from). Then he takes the choice from the rest of the nations.

True that was an oversight on my part, however the argument put forward here directly contadicts the more reliable proofs we have established before on the Median numbers. Herodotus's source for the army lists and commanders was most likely from the balance sheets and information given to the Greek spies that Xerxes captured and showed around his camp (Peter Green, The Greco-Persian Wars ). I trust this realm of evidence far more than conjecture on an engagement far enough from of Herodotus's time.

Simply put,the previous numbers had a reliable source, this has the memories of old foot-soldiers at best.

You mentioned population shortages. I'd love to see your source, and not because I dispute it but because I would find it fascinating as a read. All the same, I'm not sure how 30,000 Persian soldiers would have constituted a population source for then-Iran. The Peloponnesse alone raised something to the tune of 30,000 hoplites--to say nothing of proposed auxilliaries. I can't imagine how a similar figure would have distressed such a region.

Well it is more a theory of my own based off reading a continual trend in Persian custom. From Xenophon and Herodotus we learn a great many times that Persians esteem men highest for being courageous in battle but secondly for having a great many children. Bearing children comes off as a duty to the state and a task of utmost importance.

From the Persepolis fortification tablets we get even more information. Special rations and goods were sent to recent mothers and awards were given to the families that bore the most children.

ot only were fathers held in esteem but mothers were rewarded for their efforts. What we tend to see is a state that places a ridiculously high emphasis on increasing the population. Every time a nation in history has advocated similar measures it has been to boost a wavering population.

Remember we are dealing with an area the size of the Peloponesse here, not all of Iran. 30,000 men in an area that size in the ancient world would have been quite a strain. Especially when we consider the relative lack of urbanisation in comparison to the population giants of the heavily urbanised societies.

At the end of the day, not all of Herodotus' figures can be taken verbatim. That much is a given. The problem is that there isn't much of an alternative source to provide information on Xerxes' force. We find ourselves thus using H. as a platform from which to draw plausible results. If we dismiss H. altogether, any combination of fanciful ideas and conjecture becomes valid.

Indeed, we appear to have used the platform to spring towards slightly different areas.

Rez, I know you're trying to provide balance to the argument here, but that doesn't mean you should aim to disprove things that are well known.

"Well known" in the myth and well known in history are very different.

No, obviously the Persians in the movie are fantastical and everyone recognizes that. The point is that Persians, enslaved to their kings, come to take away liberty from others. And on the other side, the Spartan force is voluntary, there was no compulsion by death, merely men and their conviction in the rightness of their sacrifice -- "tell Spartans we died here according to their laws", etc. On the one hand there's the Persian King, a megalomaniac who throws fetters into the Hellespont, to tell the river that he conquered it; on the other hand there are the Spartans with the first free constitution in history. Not that everyone was free in it, but the first people were free in it.

You realise there are no reports to say the Persians even had a word for "Slave." Descriptions of Persian society don't allude to slaves in the slightest.

I wonder if you would call Alexander's army enslaved to their King? Or Caesar's Armies? Or just maybe the Helots?

Im sure there was no compulsion for them to serve on pain of brutal murder.

on the other hand there are the Spartans with the first free constitution in history. Not that everyone was free in it, but the first people were free in it

You defeat your own point within two lines of the passage. Do you remember the first declaration of Human rights? Yes the one thats replicated and on display at the United Nations? Yes that was written by Cyrus the Great, a Persian.

To even praise the Spartan Kingdom as a paragon of virtue and freedom in the slightest is insanity at its peak. The Spartans were a far more brutal and horrifyingly oppressive kingdom than the persians could ever have been.

If you were conquered by the Persians you retained your culture and customs but paid your taxes to someone new and fought for someone new.

If you were conquered by the Spartans you were stripped of all your humanity and forced into a life of slavery with intermitent periods of terror enforced by the Krypteia.

I have absolutely no idea how people of sound mind and body can subscribe to the image of freedom vs tyranny when they know the facts of the situation. Honestly i've seen beter propaganda in G.I. Joe cartoons.

I'm sorry you got your facts a little wrong here. The Persians could not break the phalanx, even when surrounded with the help of treachery. So what they did was, they surrounded the Spartans on all sides in a circle, retreated their men, and archeried the Spartans into oblivion. Smartest decision? Yes, but only because they were incapable of winning man-to-man.

I didn't say the Persians broke the phalanx. I said the Spartans were finally vulnerable to effective archery on the last hillock because they were no longer in a phalanx. Hence the broken phalanx was vulnerable. Understand?

Lastly, it would have been the smartest decision even if they were capable of breaking the phalanx head on.

[Phoebus]

Generally agreed, but the point being that the marines themselves constituted the needed 20 - 30 men.

That's what I meant with the end of that paragraph (that, had the fleet won, there would be no need for excess passengers anyways).

The above was not neccesarily for your benefit, my esteemed friend.

I should have known; sometimes I get too automatic in answering. :original:

Indeed I remember the passage but what i was trying to get at was the focus Herodotus places on glorifying the Spartans primarily. One can't argue that the praise of herodotus is spread evenly among the Greeks who fought there. I did argue that the counter attack stratagem was an extension of this tactic applying to the Spartans.

Agreed. I guess it doesn't phase me as much because I've gotten used to Herodotus focusing on "protagonists" in each fight. In almost every battle, he focuses on the group that the side's leader belongs to. I get your point, though.

As it is more plausible the figure is still far too high. Remember were looking at an almost equal figure of non combatants travelling with the army. I will address the multiple regiment idea below.

We might have to leave this one to "agreeing to disagree". :original:
I simply feel that, between his navy and almost 5 years' worth of military preparations, Xerxes was uniquely suited to march a ridiculously large force to Hellas.

I have to disagree based on the commander of nations theory. There simply is no name for that rank, we have the names for all the commander ranks of the army up to ten thousand.

I don't know, rez. Perhaps I aimed from the right angle, but I remain convinced that the Persians and Medes--the major ethnic groups of the empire--had to have more than one standard regiment a piece. Even assuming a (smallish, in my opinion) 200,000-man force, 38,000 Persians and Medes (plus whatever cavalry contribution the latter brought) barely makes up 20% of the total force.

I'm not as up on the Persian side of history as you are, but I do recall the ranks given to the various officers and units (Baivabaram = Baivarapatis, Hazarabam = Hazarapatis, etc.). I don't remember special ranks for a number of personalities whose command was higher than a Baivabaram, such as Mardonius, Tritantaichmes, Smerdomenes, Masistes, and others. The text also states that the named commanders "appointed commanders of thousands and commanders of tens of thousands." It stands then, absent of other evidence, that a named commander could have been nominally in charge of more than one Baivabaram.

Incidentally, I did find the instance where "commanders of nations" are named. As you suspected, they command smaller ethnicities. Ariomardos, for example, leads the Moschoi and Tibarenians.

A commander of nations would be a marshall of several sub regiments. Regiments that would need commanders that Herodotus would have reported names for. Since he reported all the other commanders.

He likely did. There are many nations that likely couldn't send a Baivabaram, but they get a named commander anyways.

Why would Herodotus choose not to report this inconsistency when he has been quite thorough everywhere else?

Well, he kind of does. "I am not able to give certain information [regarding each separate nation's numbers; insertion mine], for this is not reported by any persons." (Polymnia/VII, 60). His total numbers likely come from exagerrated reports intended to work panic on the Hellenes.

So, to sum up, this is my proposal. Herodotus openly admits he does not know how many men each nation brought. He does state, however, that the named commanders (in some cases at least) did appoint subordinates to lead Baivabaram or Hazarabam of their own. My proposal is that men like Otanes and Tigranes appointed their own, unnamed, Baivaparatises (Baivaparatai? Baivaparatuses?). If there are no unnamed commanders of Baivabarams, then what is the point of mentioning that the named commanders could appoint men to that post?

This statement not only contradicts in full herodotus's judgment on the Thracians and Indians. It comes from absolutely nowhere. He makes no attempt to explain this out of the blue comment and as such i can only take it as rhetoric.

Even logically speaking the Medians occupied a far larger area than the Persians. To say their populations were equal, even roughly, is going out of the realm of reason.

I think you misunderstand Herodotus. He is only alluding to the number of troops on the field--he states the Mede troops are weaker than the Persians only in strength and courage, but not in numbers, in which they are equal.

Simply put,the previous numbers had a reliable source, this has the memories of old foot-soldiers at best.

I think you're underestimating Herodotus' full range of sources. The many surviving Thebans--and anyone attached to Alexander of Macedon, who certainly remained in the good graces of the Hellenes--could have reported what proportion of the army made up what.

Well it is more a theory of my own based off reading a continual trend in Persian custom. ... What we tend to see is a state that places a ridiculously high emphasis on increasing the population. Every time a nation in history has advocated similar measures it has been to boost a wavering population.

Yes, but could that not also be said of an expansive, expanding empire?

Remember we are dealing with an area the size of the Peloponesse here, not all of Iran. 30,000 men in an area that size in the ancient world would have been quite a strain. Especially when we consider the relative lack of urbanisation in comparison to the population giants of the heavily urbanised societies.

I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying that the Peloponnese would have trouble raising the 30,000, or those portions of Iran that were populated? I have a hard time seeing how the population Xerxes could draw from was thinner than that of the Peloponnesians, but I guess stranger things have happened in history...

[Ozy]

How would i fight the spartans?

Well the persians won anyway so i would fight them the same way the persians did back then.

hmmm the Persians didnt win any war against the greeks...

[William the Bastard]

The style of leader that Xerxes was I think he did the best job possible with the tools available! Do not forget that the pass was taken and Athens sacked. To Xerxes the Spartans were just a fly in his path that needed swatting. Yes he lost quite a lot of men but he was always going to get through as he saw his own men as slaves to be used and abused. Thermopylae was idealised by Herodotus for story telling and moral building purposes but Salamis then Platea were the more decisive battles. Fair enough though it was the greatest last stand and has gone down in Western Lore but to the Persians it was an inevitability. If you had to save lives send the Immortals to pepper with arrows all day long to draw the Greeks out from the pass so you can surround and then destroy them. Job Done next stop Athens.

[Plutarch]

Do not forget that the pass was taken and Athens sacked.

Too true. And the Greeks had their revenge in persopolis a hundred years later.

[Lord Rahl]

The style of leader that Xerxes was I think he did the best job possible with the tools available! Do not forget that the pass was taken and Athens sacked. To Xerxes the Spartans were just a fly in his path that needed swatting. Yes he lost quite a lot of men but he was always going to get through as he saw his own men as slaves to be used and abused. Thermopylae was idealised by Herodotus for story telling and moral building purposes but Salamis then Platea were the more decisive battles. Fair enough though it was the greatest last stand and has gone down in Western Lore but to the Persians it was an inevitability. If you had to save lives send the Immortals to pepper with arrows all day long to draw the Greeks out from the pass so you can surround and then destroy them. Job Done next stop Athens.

Athens being sacked did nothing for him. Salamis did everything. It ended his whole campaign.

[Cato the Younger]

After watching a history channel show called "last stand of the 300" Its interesting to find out that Xerxes on the initial battle had 5,000 archers peppered the Spartans with arrows but had no effect. Their arrows would bounced off their Corinthian helmets and the shields basically negating it.

Which is ironic, since the remaining Greeks were killed by arrow fire. Why didn't Xerxes just continually fire volleys at them?

[Romanos]

Which is ironic, since the remaining Greeks were killed by arrow fire. Why didn't Xerxes just continually fire volleys at them?

The phalanx is a wall, it was probably impossible at the beginning of the battle when the allies Greeks where full strength.

I would have send against them the all time classic spartan nightmare......the.....Sacred Band of Thebes!!!!

I know it’s a joke but the Thebans where fighting with the Spartan at the beginning of the battle. Plus the Sacred Band of Thebes where not even created yet.

You mean to tell us is send some Homos to those guys?

Those "homos" crushed the Spartan army at Leuctra and the second battle of Mantiea.

[Silver Guard]

Arrows, raining from the sky, thousands, everything I had, then my best warriors to wipe out the surviors, never mind the lighter troops. With such a narow pass they'd be picked apart piecemeal.

[removeduser_426582376423734]

Arrows, raining from the sky, thousands, everything I had, then my best warriors to wipe out the surviors, never mind the lighter troops. With such a narow pass they'd be picked apart piecemeal.

Thats... kind of what happened.