Talk:Battle of Thermopylae

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 25 August 2020 and 3 December 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Angerine01 (article contribs).

Herodotos' figures

Why are figures of c. 2.6 million included in the infobox? Herodotos is as close to a primary source in this case, not a modern professional historian. We're rightfully critical of how we use contemporary figures for, say, the battle for Crécy, or other historical evnts.

What modern historians actually agree with Herodotos when it comes to figures?

Peter ^Isotalo 11:05, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

I've removed the figures by ancient sources from the infobox. I would argue that primary source figures that are considered debunked by modern scholarship is simply not neutral. I creates a false equivalence between ancient and modern historians and feeds into fanciful ideas about the superiority of West over East.

Peter ^Isotalo 17:05, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Then you are out of step with modern scholarship and the disciplines we follow. Wild exaggerations are common in historical accounts in Ancient and Medieval primary sources that any casual modern examination reveals.50.111.15.21 (talk) 13:21, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Ref no. 1

The first reference says "Bradford, 162", without specifying the year, but there are two works by Bradford in the bibliography. Which one is it?--Leptictidium (mt) 18:56, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Never mind, I found it myself, it was the one published in 1980.--Leptictidium (mt) 12:14, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Lack of Source's / Questionable Narrative

I am concerned that some of this article (especially the intro) is not sourced and provides an ahistorical pop narrative about the battle. I think it might rely on ancient sources uncritically. I do not have any direct sources to back my claim, I just listened to the r/askhistorians podcast (ep 116) featuring Dr. Roel Konijnendijk (focus on Classical Greek warfare). He suggests that the narrative often presented is the result of Spartan's post facto justifying their defeat and trying to maintain their position as leaders of the Greek anti-Persian resistance. I am really not qualified to do a thorough revision of this article, but hopefully some history student or phd with better knowledge of the current scholarship can. I think it is important that we do not fall for ancient propaganda and avoid using actual historical events as props for modern messages.

I am specifically referring to the section: "The Persian army arrived at the pass in late August or early September.[...] The performance of the defenders is also used as an example of the advantages of training, equipment, and good use of terrain as force multipliers and has become a symbol of courage against overwhelming odds." which lacks any apparent sources.

At points it mentions a Greek, who is apparently attested to in ancient sources, that informs the Persians of a route around the pass. Dr. Roel Konijnendijk brought up in the podcast how Greeks in the Persian army were actually from the neighboring area and had made use of the pass ~10 yrs earlier. Given this information, we should still mention the narrative presented in ancient sources, but also include reasons to be skeptical.

Basically I am saying that the Greeks lost the battle in every sense, that the Spartans stayed to die for cultural reasons and to save face (not for strategic reasons of which there were none), and that much of the narrative around the battle is the result of ancient propaganda from the Spartans and other Greeks.

Hopefully someone with a better command of the field sees this and makes the appropriate edits. I woefully under-qualified to do so.

Lolcatskingdom (talk) 00:20, 30 June 2021 (UTC)Lolcatskingdom

@Lolcatskingdom: Just from being in the position to write the above message, you’re already one of the most qualified people to do this. :-) We ask people to be bold: Wikipedia is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and even if you make some mistakes, that just means someone else will correct it later. You clearly have a more than passing knowledge of the subject already, so all you have to ask yourself is whether your edits leave the article better than the previous version.

While you have correctly noted that you do need to cite your sources so that others can check your work, finding them doesn’t require any special expertise in itself. If necessary, perhaps the people at the subreddit might have suggestions to help you find reliable sources (or confirm that they do not exist). There is also a list of helpful links at WP:RS#Locating reliable sources. Sunrise (talk) 23:11, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Date of the Battle

The dates for the battle currently listed are September 8-20, 480BC and August 20, 480BC citing calculations published by Edward Greswell in 1827 and Ernle Bradford in 1980. However, a study from last year conducted at the University of Athens analyzed Herodotus's descriptions of events and compared them to celestial events, old Greek calendars, and concurrent events such as the olympic games, and concluded the most probable date of the battle to actually be July 21-23, 480BC. Perhaps the article ought to be updated to include these more recent calculations? Link to the study:

https://sci-cult.com/wp-content/uploads/7.2/7_2_6_Gongaki_et_al.pdf?fbclid=IwAR1p8Q64yGpmBiNyRbGRD6kXhyjq4XJFgGCWLM1sbJ-YADTnUE0qAhJ0k4I

Spartanguy16 (talk) 00:00, 12 July 2021 (UTC)Spartanguy16

CN tags

The two "Citation Needed" tags in the lead have now been removed three separate times, with no attempt to actually provide citations. For anyone who may be unaware, the burden for demonstrating verifiability falls on the editors who support inclusion of material.

Am I missing something? Or is this an implicit admission that the content in question cannot in fact be sourced, and should therefore be removed instead? Sunrise (talk) 23:05, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

OK, since there's been (much more than) enough time for a response, I've gone ahead and removed the text in question. Sunrise (talk) 22:58, 8 September 2021 (UTC)