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Denying Thermopylae - taken from the Newsfeed section
#1
Non moderators cannot comment over there......
have you read this c*** as Caius calls it....
Newsfeeds :x evil: :x
Now if that is not casting insults on the Spartans and Thespiaens, what isn't?
regards
Arthes
Cristina
The Hoplite Association
[url:n2diviuq]http://www.hoplites.org[/url]
The enemy is less likely to get wind of an advance of cavalry, if the orders for march were passed from mouth to mouth rather than announced by voice of herald, or public notice. Xenophon
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#2
Arthes this is not insult is the reality Greek History faces decades now. Every idiot thinks that he can invent a civilization were there is not or deliver stricking evidence of how foolish the scholars of ages were comparing to his ''brilliance''.

Few points only just to see how rediculous the writer is. Till today they find arrow heads in thermopylae dispite the narrow passage exists no more due to geological changes.
Salamis nowdays is a military naval base. Practically one of the biggest if not the biggest. I live 15 minutes by car from the ferry. The ships are not retrieved simply cause along with the military character of the region the goverments ignore and do nothing about it. In fact till 5 years ago the waters were extremely polluted there. Imagine thousands of concrete for the docks of modern warships in the way or over the site.

Reading such articles you dont know if you must be angry or laugh. Mostly people ignore those stuff untill some foreign interests of some good people swarm the internet and bibliography with propagandistic articles and books and in 50 years again we wont know what hit us. Again...
aka Yannis
----------------
Molon lave
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#3
Denial. :roll: Sad to see some Iranian scholars resorting to such garbage in light of the release of 300... hopefully most Iranians are smart enough to accept what happened.

Arguably an even worse article is this one by Cyrus Kar, who is directing a documentary about Cyrus the Great.
http://www.spentaproductions.com/300the ... nd_300.htm

He refers to the Spartans as 'Greek Jihadists who lived only to die', and says that anyone who supported the Spartans during the battle may as well have supported Osama bin Laden... though he has much knowledge of Persia, he needs to read a bit more on the Greeks.
[Image: parsiaqj0.png]
[size=92:7tw9zbc0]- Bonnie Lawson: proudly Manx.[/size]
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#4
Quote:Denial. :roll: Sad to see some Iranian scholars resorting to such garbage in light of the release of 300... hopefully most Iranians are smart enough to accept what happened.

Arguably an even worse article is this one by Cyrus Kar, who is directing a documentary about Cyrus the Great.
http://www.spentaproductions.com/300the ... nd_300.htm

He refers to the Spartans as 'Greek Jihadists who lived only to die', and says that anyone who supported the Spartans during the battle may as well have supported Osama bin Laden... though he has much knowledge of Persia, he needs to read a bit more on the Greeks.

I like the comment
What stretches the limits of hypocrisy is that there isn't a single shred of archeological evidence that the Persians ever owned slaves.
What did they call eunachs who were forcibly parted with their 'essentials'......?
Persia, which was once a haven for runaway slaves from Egypt, Greece, and later Rome
probably all lost their 'essentials' too :roll:
In monarchic Persia, however, women enjoyed a level of gender equality unmatched even to this day
You can say that again.....I pity some of those poor women... :x
Cristina
The Hoplite Association
[url:n2diviuq]http://www.hoplites.org[/url]
The enemy is less likely to get wind of an advance of cavalry, if the orders for march were passed from mouth to mouth rather than announced by voice of herald, or public notice. Xenophon
-
Reply
#5
Don't worry about their ignorance guys and gals. People like that usually are so moronic in their social dispositions because of their extreme lack of knowledge and common sense, that to them a "date" is some serious alone time with the bra and undies section of the local shopping catalouge. Smile
____________________________________________________________
Magnus/Matt
Du Courage Viens La Verité

Legion: TBD
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#6
Temper temper folks. :wink:

If you get worked up about this, you'll be worked up almost every day, because there's so much nonsense presented in the media.. How about Julius Caesar and Jesus Christ being the same person (because of their initials?), or most of History as we know it being invented during the Middle Age (and that includes Greek civilisation)?

So is the author denying that these battles took place? No, he is not:

Quote:The people were real. The places were real. The skirmishes were real. The events of those skirmishes, and the behavior of the characters, however, were most likely not real.

So, what's the trouble:

Quote:No doubt, a conflict was present, the Persians did invade Greece (with a much smaller force than is described), there were battles at Salamis and Thermopylae (evidenced by arrowheads) as well as elsewhere. What are dubious are the details of those skirmishes or battles, which are described by Herodotus. On more than one occasion, and from various different angles of thought, his descriptions are seen as not an actual recount of events, but a sophisticated fabrication of glorious and heroic deeds of his countrymen.

And he is right, of course. Herodotus was not an eyewitness, he lived and wrote much later, so we cannot even call him a contemporary source. And trust me (I'm a historian :wink: ), other sources have been villified for non-contemporary comments.

Quote:This article is not meant to demean the value of The Histories, or the important role that Herodotus played for the subject of history. Prior to his time, all such accounts were handed down in the form of poems or epics. He was the first to present his story in the form of a narrative, and at least show an attempt at information gathering. For that, he must be commended.

So far, no problem, these are balanced comments.

Quote:The problem is that historians have given him and his narration more historical credit than it is due. Although his technique was pioneering, it is a far cry from an acceptable historical account.

Well, calling it 'a far cry' is way over the top. :evil: Especially for his own days, he wrote a very acceptable historical account.

Of course, no one takes Herodotus literal from front to cover. History back then was not history as we write it today, and even today you need to read at leat 5 good authors, preferably 50 to a 100 years later when all the secret archives have opened.
Creationism, anyone? And who did really shoot President Kennedy? :wink:

But maybe we should be trying to find those 19.000 (or whatever) Persians who were interred in trenches?
Robert Vermaat
MODERATOR
FECTIO Late Romans
THE CAUSE OF WAR MUST BE JUST
(Maurikios-Strategikon, book VIII.2: Maxim 12)
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#7
The outright denial of events is actually not uncommon in eastern countries. The museum of Lahore shows a map of Alexander's eastern conquests, which leave Pakistan out. Everyone can find modern parallels, like the denial that the Jewish temple was on the Temple Mount.

And perhaps it is not completely wrong for scholars to proceed by ignoring a well-known fact, and look at the strength of the arguments. Thermopylae is, of course, "hard information" (archaeologically confirmed); but it is true that the evidence for the Persian Wars is frustratingly one-sided and full of propaganda.

As a heuristic tool, scepticism is not bad. It is like acid, that eats away every weak argument, and leaves the strong ones intact. The result is better knowledge.
Jona Lendering
Relevance is the enemy of history
My website
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#8
Quote: scepticism is not bad

No it’s not but, unsupported and incorrect assertions under the aegis of what ‘looks like’ a reputable source is (bad) and in this case fairly malicious.

Take the whole not ship wreaks for Salamis: to an average reader this may sound like a valid argument – after all lots of naval battles did leave ship wreaks and Herodotus would have vast numbers of ships fighting at Salamis so why no wreaks?

Of course the fact is there is very little evidence for any ancient sea battle since ancient triremes and polyremes by in large did not sink per say but mostly just flooded and bobbed along is being completely glossed over. There is virally no evidence for any ancient sea battle (I believe the athlit ram is about as good as it gets and it is in effect a singular - extraordinary data point).

I think anything online that would claim the status of ‘Persian Journal’ really needs to enforce some standards on it’s publications otherwise it is simply abusing the net and undermining and debasing actual and useful sources of information (in this case I would expect some reference to any source that can locate a classical or medieval battle galley battle via ship wreck or some source that can support the ideal o sinking trireme wreaks).

It seems to me one should at least differentiate between articles and opinion – in this case lacking citation this article should have been note as opinion or editorial.
Paul Klos

\'One day when I fly with my hands -
up down the sky,
like a bird\'
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#9
I find this bit rather ridiculous:
"Today, no other country resembles ancient Persia as closely as does the United States. If any country should sympathize with, rather than celebrate, Persia's quagmire in Greece, it is the United States. Few events in history mirror America's war on terror as closely as Persia's war on Greece."
Dave Bell/Secvndvs

Comitatus
[Image: comitatus.jpg]

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.comitatus.net">www.comitatus.net
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#10
From the article being discussed, on Herodotus:

"He initially presented his work in oral prose, to an audience of Greeks in Greece. It is important to note that at the time, all storytelling in Greece was performed within the style of theatrical presentation. The people were not interested in getting simple facts handed to them. They wanted entertainment. Storytellers were entertainers, and they were more than anyone else aware of this fact. A storyteller had to keep his audience captivated and on the edge of their seats, or risk orating to an empty hall. Herodotus made tours of Greek cities during festivals, and gave personal performances to captive Greek audiences in return for payment. This must be remembered above all else."

So, it's okay for some here to crucify the History Channel for doing the same, but not for the guy who wrote the article in question to do the same to Herodotus? :wink:

To get it even more in perspective:
"This article is not meant to demean the value of The Histories, or the important role that Herodotus played for the subject of history. Prior to his time, all such accounts were handed down in the form of poems or epics. He was the first to present his story in the form of a narrative, and at least show an attempt at information gathering. For that, he must be commended.

The problem is that historians have given him and his narration more historical credit than it is due. Although his technique was pioneering, it is a far cry from an acceptable historical account."
TARBICvS/Jim Bowers
A A A DESEDO DESEDO!
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#11
My concerns about the article were about the methodology used. That Herodot is a disputable source is not exactly news. In fact, most ancient sources are disputable. Smile

Quote:it is true that the evidence for the Persian Wars is frustratingly one-sided and full of propaganda.

As a heuristic tool, scepticism is not bad. It is like acid, that eats away every weak argument, and leaves the strong ones intact. The result is better knowledge.
I sign that! Smile D
Christian K.

No reconstruendum => No reconstruction.

Ut desint vires, tamen est laudanda voluntas.
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#12
I was greatly disapointed that Iran had taken such a stance against history.I blame western media for twisting history but these guys deserve a Metal in politicalization of history.I even saw a documentary that presents Alexander as a counterfeit western (non-Greek even if all Persian sources present Macedons as Greeks) king that unprovocadly attacked Persia.

Now this issue on Thermopylae has gone beyond the limit. I am not going to comment on what is blasphemy and hubris anymore.
Themistoklis papadopoulos
<a class="postlink" href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/megistiasanaparastashmaxon/">http://groups.yahoo.com/group/megistias ... tashmaxon/
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#13
Shipwrecks were not easily found because an ancient vessel was worth more captured than sunk. What we found while researching ancient marines is that the naval battle objective was to capture the ships not sink them. Yannis is right in his observations on the Naval base at Salamis.
Iranian scholars would do better to promote the best parts of their history like Cyrus and the Sassanides rather than trying to proove that Xerxes was just a tourist :twisted:
Kind regards
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#14
"What is most disturbing about this movie is not that it lacks historical accuracy. It is not that Xerxes, the Grandson of Cyrus The Great and loving husband of Esther, is shown as an oversized drag queen. It is not even the outdated racist cliché of casting the Persians as Africans and the Spartans as white, blue-eyed 'Chippendale dancers,' when in reality the roles may well have been reversed."
African Spartans? White, blue-eyed Persians? This is just plain silly.
** Vincula/Lucy **
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#15
Didnt you know all Greeks are africans? Confusedhock:
We paint ourselves white everyday for thousands of years now just to fool you people and then we have secret meeting where we laugh our butt out :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Seriously now nobody says that Herodotus is Thoukidides, sure there are flaws in his work. But guys.. he was the first to think the idea of gathering facts even rumours if you like instead of just pass over what his grandfather told him. And if the Persians.Iranians complain where are their historians and sources to compare and extract a more solid opinion? There is not anyone as far as i know. That alone says alot imo.
aka Yannis
----------------
Molon lave
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