On this blog we don’t do a black and white view of the world, therefore even the Baddies can have heroes. And since we’re writing about Herodotus here, in this case the Baddies are Xerxes and his Greece-invading Persian lot, while their hero is, in point of fact, a heroine: Artemisia, the queen of Caria.
Continue reading “Artemisia, Hero(ine) of the Baddies”
In the Battle of Plataea (479 BC), the allied Greek army was led by the Spartan Pausanias, son of Cleombrotus. In the aftermath of the Greek victory…
When some people were amazed at the costliness of the raiment found among the spoils of the barbarians, he [Pausanias] said that it would have been better for them [the Persians] to be themselves men of worth than to possess things of worth.
(Plutarch: Morals, Vol. III, Sayings of Spartans)
En la Batalla de Plataea (479 a. C.), el ejercito griego fue mandado por el espartano Pausanias, hijo de Cleómbroto. Después de la victoria griega…
Cuando algunos miraban maravillados entre los despojos de los bárbaros el gran lujo de su vestimenta, [Pausanias] les dijo que hubiera sido mejor para ellos ser hombres de mucho valor que poseer cosas de mucho valor.
(Plutarco: Obras morales y de costumbres, III, Máximas de espartanos)
In 491 B.C. King Darius I of Persia sent out his envoys to the various Greek city states, demanding of them earth and water – in those times, a sign of submission, the acceptance of, in this case, Persian rule. Some city states were cowed into complying while others refused; but the demand went down particularly badly in Athens and in Sparta:
…the Athenians cast these heralds, when they made their request, down into a pit, and the Spartans had thrown theirs into a well; and the heralds were told to take their earth and water to the King from there!
(Herodotus: The Histories, Book VII.133)
Continue reading “The Battle of Marathon (According to Herodotus)”
Date: 14 February 1797 Place: The Atlantic, off Cape St Vincent (Portugal)
If you’re English and into naval history, you will recognise the time and place as the Battle of Cape St Vincent – one of nine, that is. (Clearly it was a popular place for enemy fleet rendezvous.) This particular Battle of Cape St Vincent was the one which became famous for Nelson’s Patent Bridge for Boarding First Rates1 so you’re now settling in for a nice read about Horatio Nelson and various associated heroics of the Royal Navy, right? Let’s go:
It was a cold and foggy day…
Er, no. It was a cold and foggy day but you should have taken a look at the title perhaps.
Rather than detailing Nelson’s heroics of which you can read on plenty of other websites, I’m going to write about a Spanish naval officer: Cayetano Valdés, who had been cast in the role of having to save the Santísima Trinidad, the pride of the Spanish navy, the largest warship of its time.
Twice.
A topic that you won’t find much discussed in English elsewhere (for entirely understandable reasons).
Continue reading “Save the Trinidad (The Unwritten Biography of Cayetano Valdés)”
I defy you to write about the Battle of Salamis without quoting Byron (or Aeschylus, for that matter but we’ll deal with him on another day). Why?
Continue reading “The Battle of Salamis: Retold in Poetry”
Salamis – an island in the Saronic Gulf in the Aegean Sea, opposite Mount Aigaleo, 16 kilometres west of Athens.
Salamis – a battle that defined history for centuries to come.
![The Warriors of Salamis (Achilles Vasileiou), battle monument on the island of Salamis. Photo by Sculptureholic via Wikipedia [CC BY-SA 4.0]](https://waterbloggedbooks.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/the-warriors-of-salamis.jpg?w=640)
Packing for a late season holiday? Or stuck in the office yearning for the sun-drenched Greek islands? Whichever it is, here are nine books you should consider:
Continue reading “Nine Books to Read on a Greek Holiday”
The two hundred galleys of the Holy League – Venice, the Spanish Empire, Genoa, the Papacy, the Knights of St John and sundry smaller states on the Mediterranean seaboard – were sailing south on the Ionian Sea in battle order when a small brigantine passed them: a Venetian ship from Crete carrying the news that the town of Famagusta, the last stronghold of the Republic of Venice on Cyprus, fell to the Turks.
The date was 4 October 1571, three days before the Battle of Lepanto.
Continue reading “The Gruesome News from Famagusta”
“A journey, after all, neither begins in the instant we set out, nor ends when we have reached our door step once again. It starts much earlier and is really never over…”
Riszard Kapuscinski: Travels with Herodotus
Your journey is not over! There was once a post here but it’s been updated & republished – in two parts. Read them here:
A journey, after all, neither begins in the instant we set out, nor ends when we have reached our door step once again. It starts much earlier and is really never over…
Riszard Kapuscinski: Travels with Herodotus
Your journey is not over! There was once a post here but it’s been updated & republished. Read it here:
Most people who took any notice of the Persian wars in their history class would know about the battle of Marathon in the first Persian war and the battles of Thermopylae and Salamis in the second; maybe, if you were really into it, you’d be aware that in fact there were a couple more battles, that of Plataea and Mycale the year after, that marked the genuine end of the Persian invasion of Greece. But the battle that almost everybody invariably forgets is the battle Artemisium, a sea battle fought simultaneously with the battle of Thermopylae. Yet without holding the Persian navy up at Artemisium there would have been no battle of Thermopylae – nothing would have prevented Xerxes to simply sail his troops round the wretched pass, making its defence wholly pointless. It’s hardly surprising, however, that in the end the battle of Artemisium got entirely overshadowed by the fame of Thermopylae.
So what happened in the forgotten battle at Cape Artemisium?
Continue reading “The Forgotten Battle (Best Stories of Herodotus)”
During World War II, the island of Malta, just off the coast of Sicily but held by the British, became a crucially important location to both sides. Pre-war British reasoning that the island was indefensible meant that when Mussolini declared war in June 1940, Malta’s meagre defences consisted of six obsolete Gloster Gladiator aircrafts. Within hours of the declaration of war bombs were falling on Malta; the Grand Harbour, Valletta and the so-called Three Cities on the other side of the harbour suffered particularly badly as the Italians and the Germans tried to starve and bomb Malta into surrender…
“And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three…” (1Cor 13:13)
Continue reading “Faith, Hope & Charity”
It appears that I went like a month without blogging about Herodotus. I don’t know what I’m coming to. All this reading of 20th century literature! It’s time I got my act together, so here we go:
The last episode of the Greek-Persian Wars à la Waterblogged saw the Persians chased away from Delphi by no less personage than the handsome Apollo himself. (No, I don’t mean the one in Battlestar Galactica. I mean the god of the silver bow.)
Continue reading “The Destruction of Athens (Best Stories of Herodotus)”
The Delphic Oracle had foretold the death of a Spartan king and advised the Athenians “to flee to the ends of the earth” but believed Apollo would take care of Delphi. And now, with a Persian army intent on loot having reached the temple of Athena and the locals having all run away, nothing short of divine intervention could save the Oracle and the treasures of Delphi. But would Apollo save his most famous temple or let it be looted and burned?
Continue reading “The Arms of Apollo (Best Stories of Herodotus)”
Previous: The Battle of Thermopylae: Who, Where, How (Part I) The Battle of Thermopylae: The Fight in the Pass (Part II)
First the heroes, of course… the villain can wait!
Continue reading “The Battle of Thermopylae: The Heroes & The Villain (Best Stories of Herodotus)”
Previous: The Battle of Thermopylae: Who, Where, How (Part I)
Considering how long The Histories is, Herodotus didn’t spend too long on the description on the actual battle at Thermopylae – a mere two dozen paragraphs or so. Nevertheless, it’s still too long to be quoted in its entirety – especially, if I want to keep my few readers!
Continue reading “The Battle of Thermopylae: The Fight in the Pass (Best Stories of Herodotus)”
Xerxes’s army was already on European soil but their Greek opponents were still to determine where and how they should fight them. Or even to ascertain who was willing to fight them. The Delphi oracle – which in hindsight has been accused by some historians of being in Persian pay – advised all and sundry to sit on the fence if they could, told the Athenians to “flee to the ends of the earth” and warned the Spartans that either their city of “wide spaces” would be sacked or “the whole of Lacedaemon shall mourn the death of a king”.
Continue reading “The Battle of Thermopylae: Who, Where, How (Best Stories of Herodotus)”
Flight to Arras, or to give it its original title Pilote de guerre, ‘Pilot of War’, by Antoine de Saint-Exupery is set during the German invasion of France in 1940. In other words, it’s a war story. But if this makes you think you’re in for a cracking adventure, some kind of adult version of Biggles, think again. To take Flight to Arras for simply the story of a dangerous reconnaissance mission is falling wide of the mark. More than anything else, this book is a brilliant and moving description of the collapse of France fused with a philosophical discussion on the nature of war and defeat – told by a man in the cockpit of an aeroplane; a man who lived the story he’s recounting.
Continue reading “Glassfuls of Water into a Forest Fire (Flight to Arras)”
I’m sitting on a rooftop terrace in Valletta, the town founded by and named after Jean Parisot de la Valette, Grand Master of the Knights of St John some 500 years ago. The terrace overlooks the Grand Harbour, and the solid walls of Fort St Angelo across the water are lit up tonight. Beyond it, sprinkled with lights, the towns of Vittoriosa and Invitta, originally called Birgu and Senglea, but renamed “Victorious” and “Unconquered” by the Knights after the Turks failed to take them in 1565. I can see the marina in Dockyard Creek whose entrance the Knights closed with a huge chain during the siege. Somewhere to my left, out of sight on the tip of the peninsula that is Valletta, beyond the rooftops, stands Fort St Elmo, whose defenders sacrificed themselves so gallantly in defence of Malta.
I’m on holiday in Valletta, and I’ve just read The Great Siege: Malta 1565 by Ernle Bradford, starting it on the plane to Malta and finishing it on this terrace, opposite Fort St Angelo.
Continue reading “The Great Siege: Malta 1565”
Your Journey Begins Here…
A journey, after all, neither begins in the instant we set out, nor ends when we have reached our door step once again. It starts much earlier and is really never over…
Riszard Kapuscinski: Travels with Herodotus
Your journey is not over! There was once a post here but it’s been updated & republished. Read it here:
Waterblogged 