Battle of Thermopylae in popular culture
The Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BCE was a last stand by a Greek army led by King Leonidas I of Sparta against an Achaemenid Persian army led by Xerxes I during the Second Persian invasion of Greece. There is a long tradition of upholding the story of the battle as an example of virtuous self-sacrifice.[1]
Antiquity
The battle's earliest known appearance in culture is a series of epigrams commemorating the dead written by Simonides of Ceos in the battle's aftermath.[2] Already by the fourth century BCE, the battle had been reframed as a victory of sorts in Greek writing, in contrast to how it was described by fifth-century BCE Greek historian Herodotus.[3]
18th century
In Europe, interest in the battle was revitalized in the 1700s with the publication of the poems Leonidas, A Poem by Richard Glover in 1737 and Leonidas by Willem van Haren in 1742.[4] Glover's poem uses the story to exemplify the proper virtues of a good monarch.[5] Several stage plays about the battle were produced during the French Revolution, including the 1794 play Le Combat de Thermopyles, ou l'école des guerriers by Joseph Marie Loaisel de Tréogate and the 1799 play Léonidas, ou le départ des Spartiates by René-Charles Guilbert de Pixérécourt.[6]
19th century
Jacques-Louis David painted Leonidas at Thermopylae during the reign of Napoleon and eventually finished the painting in 1814, depicting Leonidas and the soldiers in the moments leading up to the battle as a positive example of patriotism.[7]
German poet Theodor Körner referenced Thermopylae to inspire his fellow countrymen to fight against Napoleon in the 1812 poem Auf dem Schlachtfelde von Aspern.[8] Thermopylae was often invoked as an example to be emulated in the lead-up to the Greek War of Independence against the Ottoman Empire, for example in the 1798 hymn Thourios by Rigas Feraios.[9] In the United States, the Battle of the Alamo in 1836 during the Texas Revolution was compared to Thermopylae only weeks after its conclusion, and a battle memorial erected in Austin, Texas in 1843 references Thermopylae.[10]
20th century
The 1962 film
See also
- 300 (comics) – 1998 comic-book limited series
- 300 (film) – 2006 film by Zack Snyder
- Gates of Fire (album) – album by Manilla Road
References
- ISBN 978-0-19-155751-4.
- ISBN 978-1-914535-21-5.
- ISBN 978-0-19-155751-4.
- ISBN 978-0-19-155751-4.
- ISBN 978-1-914535-21-5.
- ISBN 978-1-914535-21-5.
- ISBN 978-1-914535-21-5.
- ISBN 978-1-914535-20-8. Archived(PDF of stand-alone book chapter) from the original on 2022-03-03.
- ISBN 978-1-914535-21-5.
- ISBN 978-0-19-155751-4.
- ISBN 978-1-914535-21-5.
- ISBN 978-0-19-155751-4.
Further reading
- Datiles, M. J. (2016). The Battle of Thermopylae (480 BC) in American Popular Culture (Doctoral thesis). UCL (University College London).
- Fotheringham, Lynn S. (2012). "The Positive Portrayal of Sparta in Late-Twentieth-Century Fiction". In Hodkinson, Stephen; Morris, Ian Macgregor (eds.). Sparta in Modern Thought: Politics, History and Culture. ISD LLC. pp. 393–428. ISBN 978-1-910589-18-2. Archived(PDF of stand-alone book chapter) from the original on 2022-04-22.
- Kilby, Kelsey (2018). "Subversions of the Thermopylae Myth in Modern Literature". The Albatross. 8: 76–88.
- Morris, Ian MacGregor (2000). The Age of Leonidas: The Legend of Thermopylae in British Political Culture, 1737–1821 (Ph.D. thesis). University of Manchester.
- Murray, Jeffrey (2009). Few Against Many: The Reception of the Battle of Thermopylae in Popular Culture, South Africa and Children's Literature (Masters thesis). University of KwaZulu-Natal.
- ISBN 978-0-19-814350-5.
- ISSN 2058-6310.