Persians are at it again

[FierceKitty]

They even frighten me, and I'm leading them. It's an enormous army!

Pix to follow.

[Leman]

Looking forward to that FK.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Who they against?

[FierceKitty]

Greeks. Battle over now; Greeks narrowly beaten, very heavy losses on both sides. Photographs will be posted sooner or later.

[Leman]

That was swift. Less than three hours since the first posting.

[FierceKitty]

A couple of piccies from the slaughter. Note the massed spear-fodder gratefully guarding the Achaemenid camp, and frustrated Spartans realising that the Corinthians have preempted them against the Immortals, leaving only enough space to engage one element of the elite troops.

[FierceKitty]

This one is less suicidal than it looks; the Rhodian slingers recoiled through the Lesbian hoplites, disordering them and leaving them ready for an attack by the Persian and Iranian horse.

The first picture has nothing to do with the battle.

[d_Guy]

Thanks for the pics The Kitty!
I know nothing about this period - Hoplites from the Isle of Lesbos or ....? (Serious question!)
Kitty picture!  from me and my wife!

[Leman]

Come on d_, it's May Day!

[Techno]

Pics look great, FK.

Cheers - Phil

[FierceKitty]

Thanks for the pics The Kitty!
I know nothing about this period - Hoplites from the Isle of Lesbos or ....? (Serious question!)
Kitty picture!  from me and my wife!

Correct - just from the island. Though it's possible that some posters may not know that the Thebans had a guards regiment which could be joined only by male couples. It was very successful.

[d_Guy]

Interesting Kitty - I of course did not know that. (My info base is "300" and "300 II" and later "Alexander" so - non-existent). Their success may refute recent claims that devoted couples (of any type) would distract from mission - something I have wondered about since I have seen no actual evidence to support the claims one way or the other.

[Ithoriel]

Wasn't the Theban unit copied from the Spartans, who encouraged homosexual partnerships as an aid to morale? The idea being that the younger men in the front ranks would be ashamed to run away with their partner watching while the older men would not run and leave their younger partners in the lurch.

I once played in a campaign game based on the wars between Sparta and Athens where I commanded the Thespian army - which resulted in a few sniggers until it was pointed out that they were the army of the city of Thespiae not a bunch of luvvies.

The Thespians stood at the Thermopylae with the Spartans though their sacrifice is conveniently forgotten in the Spartan propaganda.

1300

I stood in the Persian shade
at the Hot Gates.
Felt salt tears on my cheeks
as we walked away
trailing our spears.

Leaving Leonidas
and the thirteen hundred,
Spartan soldiers,
Thespian farmers
and Theban merchants.

Sometimes what matters
is not victory nor defeat
but the willingness
of men to make a stand
and take what comes.

Stranger, go tell the Spartans
that Theban blood,
though unremembered,
stained the ground
as red as Spartan cloaks.

Friend, go tell the Ephors
that Thespians died
not for Sparta's laws
but for hearth and home
and those they loved. - c. Mike Headden 2007

[Leman]

I still think the 1960s film wasn't too bad. It didn't have any Rhinoceroses or ninja Immortals.

[FierceKitty]

Same-sex partnerships were inevitably common in Sparta; the debate rages on about how far it was actively sexual. But the Thebans required that you join up with your boyfriend in the Sacred Band, and they died where they stood almost to the last man at Chaironeia (three were just seriously wounded), and thumped several Spartan armies before that. Xenophon claimed that it was bad for morale, but he was rather a homophobe himself.