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00:00They numbered 300, the proudest fighters in Greece and the most feared, Spartans, led by their king Leonidas.
00:15300 warriors who, for three days legend had it, held off an army of two million men.
00:24The army of Xerxes, king of kings, a sovereign who reigned unchallenged over the immensities of the Persian Empire.
00:34We know this story in detail thanks to the account of an ancient author, Herodotus, the so-called father of history.
00:42But what credence should be given to this account? Where does historical reality stop and myth begin?
00:54The End
00:56The End
00:58The End
01:30Mountains which rise abruptly along an alluvial plain bordered by the sea.
01:38Here, hot springs gush from the rock, to the delight of swimmers who are not put off by the strong smell of sulfur.
01:48It was these springs that gave the place its name, the Gates of Fire in ancient Greek, Thermopylae.
01:56A narrow passage located in the northeast of Greece along the Malian Gulf on the shores of the Aegean Sea.
02:06A pass between sea and mountain where the battle of Thermopylae was fought.
02:11It all began on the evening of August 13th in the year 480 BCE.
02:41That day, the vanguard of the formidable Persian army arriving from Thessaly in the north of Greece reached the entrance to the pass at Thermopylae.
02:53Opposite was a contingent of fighters occupying the entire breadth of the pass.
02:58Greeks, heavily armed and helmeted, firmly determined to hold the pass, the only one on this steep coast, which would allow the Persian hordes to continue southwards to Athens.
03:10Today, it's difficult to recognize the landscape where this face-off was played out.
03:20The shores of the Aegean Sea are now some five kilometers from the site of Thermopylae.
03:25But 2,500 years ago, waves would be breaking at the foot of the mountains.
03:37Konstantinos Lagos is a historian, a specialist in military history.
03:41For 15 years, he's devoted himself to the study of the Persian Wars, which opposed Greeks and Persians in the 5th century BCE.
03:50This is a reconstruction of how the landscape of Thermopylae was back in 480 BCE.
04:01You can see that the sea was very close to where the battle was fought, part of the battle that waged here.
04:08And this is the path over here, which the Persians had to go through in order to pass Thermopylae.
04:23The narrowness of this route was lucky for the Greeks.
04:27This is a natural bottleneck, ideal for halting the Persian advance with smaller numbers.
04:34In 480 BCE, we'll be actually in the sea here.
04:38And that's why there's reference that you also had Persians falling in the sea.
04:44While the battle took place, some actually fell in the sea, because the path is not down here.
04:54The source of which Konstantinos speaks is Herodotus' major work, Histories, written some 40 years after Thermopylae.
05:04It gives a detailed account of the battle.
05:07But detailed though it is, is this account accurate?
05:11The answer is, you can see, it says with a few people who have experienced the events.
05:16He made an inquiry, which is the root of the word, which is the inquiry.
05:29And this inquiry will be done with the people who have experienced the events.
05:34So if we give the credit to Aérodote, it's because of the fact that he is the only,
05:38in any case, to report testimonies of the people who have experienced these events.
05:43Of course, he is learning with fingers, because he has the Greek view,
05:47but unfortunately, it's the only source we have, and he has this willingness to objectivity.
05:54When he counts the forces present at Thermopylae, Aérodotus advances staggering figures.
06:01He estimates that the Persian army had more than two million fighters.
06:07According to modern researchers, it's probably between 150 to 300,000.
06:16These were ten times, not the army of Athens, the entire male population of Athens.
06:24It's already enormous.
06:25It's also the Persian propaganda that exaggerates its forces,
06:28so that in front, the Greeks immediately submit themselves
06:31and do not have the ambition to fight them.
06:35Persia was a genuine superpower in the 5th century.
06:39The largest empire the world had ever known.
06:43East to West, it stretched from farthest India to the Mediterranean.
06:48In the north, it bordered the Caucasus, while in the south, it embraced Egypt and Ethiopia.
06:56A centralized state ruled with an iron fist by a dynasty whose monarch was called King of Kings.
07:03Toute puissance impériale a du mal à arrêter son propre mouvement d'expansion tant qu'elle ne se heurte pas à un obstacle.
07:11Et les Perses ont poursuivi leur expansion jusqu'au moment où ils se sont trouvés confrontés à des hommes
07:19qui, plutôt que de se soumettre, voulaient vivre libres.
07:24Ceux-là , les hommes de la liberté, c'était les Grecs.
07:30Mais, unlike l'Empire Persia, le monde grecque a été créé d'une galaxie d'indépendantes, et souvent rivales, cities.
07:39La politique grecque de l'époque, c'est le chaos.
07:41Il y a plein de petites cités-états, évidemment, qui se font la guerre les unes les autres
07:44et qui ont des intérêts très divergents.
07:47Les États grecques étaient spread across both sides of the Aegean Sea.
07:51On the European side, in the territory of present-day Greece,
07:55Sparta and Athens were the most powerful.
07:58On the Asian side, in Ionia, Miletus, Ephesus and Phosia were every bit their equals.
08:06But by the end of the 6th century BCE,
08:08the Persian Empire was extending to the west, subjugating one by one the Greek cities
08:13on the current Turkish coast.
08:15In 500 BCE, they revolted, rejecting the authority of Darius the Great, King of Kings.
08:23Two cities, Athens and Eretria, one year after the beginning of the revolt,
08:29sent help to the Ionians.
08:32This hope was not particularly big.
08:35We're talking about a few ships and a few thousand men.
08:40When, after six years of war, the revolt was finally crushed,
08:44Darius launched a punitive expedition against Athens,
08:48which had had the insolence to support the rebel cities.
08:54It was a failure.
08:55Shortly after landing, the Persians were repulsed by the Athenians at Marathon
08:59and fell back in disarray.
09:02This defeat made Athens heroic, glorious.
09:07And everyone agrees that even you've got poems from that period
09:12that Athens shines with glory because of Marathon.
09:15But again, you know, the Persians haven't finished yet.
09:20So Darius prepares another expedition force, which would be even bigger,
09:27again against Athens.
09:31It took ten years for this new expedition to be launched.
09:35In the meantime, Darius died.
09:38So when the Persian army set off in 480 BCE,
09:42it was his son Xerxes, the new King of Kings, who was at its head.
09:47And he came up against Thermopylae.
09:58This gigantic army was made up of contingents from all over the Empire.
10:03Around the Persian fighters themselves, Egyptians and Ethiopians
10:07rubbed shoulders with Scythian horsemen from the Caucasus,
10:11Bactrians from Afghanistan, and Hindush from northern India.
10:15A motley crew in which each brought to the table their own fighting culture,
10:21their own logistics, their own weapons.
10:25The Persians have an advantageous equipment,
10:30compared to the Greeks,
10:32especially because their bows were shorter.
10:35If their bows are shorter,
10:37in fact, they are less experts in the war,
10:43because it is much harder to carry a long bow with precision
10:48than a short bow.
10:51These Greek fighters armed with longer spears
10:57who faced the Persian myriads
10:59were the elite troops of the Greek cities,
11:01the hoplites.
11:03A motley, it is a warrior citizen who is fighting for his city.
11:09He will pay his own material.
11:11And at the time of the Greek cities,
11:13when the Greek cities were all autonomous,
11:15he will defend his city and his political system.
11:19It is the main type of fighters of all cities.
11:24There is no Greek cities without hoplites.
11:26It does not exist.
11:27The hoplite was the proud owner of the panoply,
11:34which is the complete combat equipment.
11:40First weapons, a long two-pointed spear,
11:43often supplemented by a short sword,
11:46and protective elements that formed his armour,
11:49bronze leggings called Cnemidies,
11:51a cuirass, a shield, a helmet.
12:01Very few of these panoplies have come down to us complete,
12:05but many elements can be seen in many museums,
12:08such as that of the Provence village of Mougins in France,
12:12home to the largest private collection
12:14of ancient weapons in the world.
12:16This is the emblematic helmet of the medical war,
12:23which is what we could call the face of the war in the Greek world.
12:28This is the model that equip the major part of the Greek opplites.
12:33On the back, we have a cover-nuc,
12:35which is quite far down here,
12:37which will allow the fighters to be protected from the skull to the skull.
12:42On the front, we have openings,
12:45which are made from the eyes and which evasent from the outside.
12:52When we have the coups of lance,
12:53here, we have guides,
12:55which are fairly finely traced,
12:56which will guide the blade
12:58towards the exterior of the eyes,
13:00and not towards the inside.
13:02During a long time,
13:03some of them said that the casques were fonded,
13:05because the bronze,
13:06during a long time,
13:07we said that we were going to fond it,
13:08and we were going to cool it.
13:09In reality,
13:10we realized that the most of the casques
13:12and the archaeological pieces
13:14are made.
13:15The action of the martelage
13:18will allow first to remove the metal,
13:21and above all,
13:22it will allow
13:23to consolidate,
13:24to solidify the bronze.
13:26and then,
13:27we will cut them out.
13:29They cut them off for a little bit,
13:31because the blade
13:33will not remove the lid,
13:34some iron,
13:35because the blade
13:36will not be saved from the weight,
13:37because later,
13:38has created problems in the upper Ikea.
13:41And that's the result,
13:42applying the guerrillas
13:43to protect,
13:44to restore the blade
13:45against this blade.
13:47It's a bonus of dawn.
13:52Dimitris Alexandrou works for the main archaeological museums in Greece.
13:57In his workshop, he tries to pierce the mysteries that went into making ancient weapons
14:02by reproducing their tools and revisiting their methods.
14:08In the beginning, a helmet is a simple bronze plate like this one,
14:12which will have to be hammered for hundreds of hours.
14:17You hit it, you hit it, you hit it, you hit it, you hit it, you hit it.
14:29After, you used about 80.000 bullets,
14:34a monkey on this form,
14:37and with a metal bullet, you hit it like this one.
14:42Once completed, Dimitris's works are regularly exhibited in various museums.
14:50But above all, this experimental practice allows archaeologists and historians
14:55to better understand the use of hoplite equipment.
15:00Because the weapons of the ancient Greeks were born.
15:03They could, because they understood the human body,
15:07use the removal of the human body above the body.
15:12So, the body was a result of their body.
15:15That's why they had a very good protection.
15:18And that's why they defeated them.
15:20And that's why they defeated them.
15:30Helmeted, covered with ergonomic armor,
15:33the hoplites made up the heavy infantry units,
15:36ideal for holding a position.
15:38And that's what they intended to do against the Persians.
15:42The hoplites grecques, with their equipment, very defensive,
15:46will be able to hold a long time a pass
15:49face to combatants Perses
15:51who will not be able to deploy all their forces.
15:53They couldn't use the cavalry.
15:55They had been taught their lesson about the marathon
15:58never sent the cavalry in such a place.
16:00And they will not be able to use their power of fire,
16:03on dirait today,
16:04all their archers, all their javeliniers.
16:06It's a wall, finally, impénetrable.
16:08And it will have to move them,
16:10to the corps, to the corps.
16:15On the morning of August 14th, 480 BCE,
16:18Xerxes sent a scout to observe the Greek's camp.
16:22What he reported totally surprised his king.
16:25They're quietly practicing gymnastics,
16:27and above all, they're combing their hair.
16:30Not understanding, Xerxes sent a expert.
16:34This expert, it was an old king of Sparta,
16:37Desmarath, who was in exile auprès of him.
16:40Desmaraths said,
16:41attention, you are the best warriors of the earth.
16:44So they are there to stay,
16:45and they will die.
16:46They will die.
16:47They will die.
16:48They will die.
16:51These warriors ready to die,
16:53yet quietly combing their hair,
16:55were Spartans.
16:56The most feared hoplites in all of Greece.
16:59If the Spartans are fighting before they die,
17:04because they know they will die,
17:06they will die because they want to make beautiful deaths.
17:10The more beautiful will be the dead,
17:13the more respectable will be the man who will die.
17:19When Xerxes came to avenge his father Darius's defeat by the Athenians,
17:26ten years earlier at the Battle of Marathon,
17:28why did he not face Athenian troops at all, but Spartans?
17:36Because for the first time in their history,
17:38the turbulent Greek cities had united in the face of the threat,
17:42because the size of the army assembled by Xerxes suggested that he aimed to conquer the whole of Greece.
17:49The Greeks see that, you know, now he's threatening us.
17:55They send representatives at the Isthmus of Corinth.
17:59They have a Congress to decide what to do.
18:01At the end of this Congress, a Pan-Hellenic Union was founded.
18:08Thirty-one city-states pledged to unite their forces against the Persian invaders.
18:14The Persians' army was advancing from the northeast,
18:18skirting the Aegean Sea to swoop down on Athens and beyond to the Peloponnese.
18:25At sea, a fleet of 1,200 ships provided support on a parallel route.
18:34Vastly outnumbered, the Greeks had but one solution.
18:37They must use the tormented topography of the country
18:41to block the advance of Xerxes at all costs.
18:46At sea, Cape Artemisian offered the best configuration,
18:50a narrow strait between the island of Abea and the continent
18:54at the entrance to the Malian Gulf,
18:56where the Persian fleet would not be able to deploy all its power.
19:02And just opposite, to the west, an unavoidable pass on the route south, Thermopylae.
19:09This was where the Greeks had decided to send their fleet and their army.
19:14According to Herodotus, 271 warships, half of which were supplied by Athens,
19:19headed north to cut off the Persian fleet.
19:21At the same time, the land troops marched towards Thermopylae.
19:24There are a lot of detractors to this strategy,
19:26who refuse and traînent a little bit of their feet.
19:31And what are the pretext they will take?
19:32And what are the pretext they will take?
19:33Well, the tenue of the Olympic Games will say
19:35that there are the gods to fear,
19:36and they are more than the external invaders.
19:38So we honor the gods, then we will fight the adversaries.
19:40In ancient Greece, the Olympic Games were much more than a sporting competition.
20:07They had a religious, sacred character.
20:10Above all, they constituted a period of truce,
20:14during which cities were prohibited from taking up arms.
20:18Using this argument, the reluctant cities ensured that the contingent left to defend Thermopylae
20:28was reduced to barely 7,000 fighters, including only 300 Spartans.
20:35Yet it was a Spartan king who commanded the expedition.
20:39It's very, very interesting that the Greeks themselves recognized Sparta as the preeminent power,
20:47and nobody even dared to argue that it wouldn't be a Spartan king who would lead the forces.
20:52The king of Sparta was Leonidas, and it was he who stood at the entrance to the pass when Xerxes' army arrived.
21:07The battle was not joined immediately. For four days, the troops remained in position.
21:13Xerxes seemed convinced that he wouldn't even have to fight.
21:16When Xerxes asked the Greeks to bring the weapons, Leonidas would have answered what we call a laconism,
21:25generally short and very pertinent phrases. He would have answered,
21:28Molone l'abbé, come take them.
21:30I'm going to take them.
21:34Leonidas belonged to one of the two royal dynasties of Sparta.
21:38He was therefore supposedly a descendant of the demigod Heracles.
21:43Yet he was not destined to be king.
21:45He acceded to the throne in 489 BCE by imprisoning his predecessor, who was also his half-brother.
21:53Despite this questionable seizure of power, Leonidas seemed to inspire deep respect,
21:58both in the citizens of Sparta and in those of other cities.
22:02Leonidas, as a personality, he wasn't simply a king.
22:05He was very important also as a leader.
22:08The Spartans followed him because he was the king, but mostly because of what he was.
22:14Leonidas, our hero king, was a product of the Spartan educational and political system.
22:23Like all male children of Sparta, Leonidas, as a child, had to submit to Agurgy, the terrible Spartan upbringing.
22:32Zeun Sonic Hollow
22:37On these these young men, they are going to tend to get accustomed to happiness.
22:39They will take off using the inclement, which is still rumored to learn up and Aaaahe.
22:42They will take off as Nossa, to walk and stood feet back in everyÚt realm.
22:44In other circumstances and every spot.
22:47And we will also send them a unique wearing wearing rectum, which is too cold in the summer and también mood.
22:53If you look at a winter Slim been so cold in秋, so...
22:54and education based on bullying and deprivation of which the ruins of the ancient city still bear
23:05the scars like here in front of the temple dedicated to the goddess artemis where an initiation right
23:13took place that all young spartans had to undergo ces jeunes spartiates vont être amenés devant le
23:21temple et vont devoir aller chercher un fromage à l'intérieur du temple le problème c'est que sur
23:28le chemin et dans le temple il ya des hommes armés de fouet qui vont les frapper à leur passage les
23:33empêcher d'atteindre les fromages et ces jeunes hommes ils doivent passer subir les coups de fouet
23:38récupérer les fromages ressortir pour les ramener à leur communauté donc en plus on leur apprend que
23:44c'est par l'effort et la souffrance qu'on acquiert un statut social important dans la cité le but de
23:49de l'éducation et de rendre les jeunes gens plus endurants de façon à pouvoir agir plus
23:55efficacement à la guerre et le but de cette éducation est de faire des guerriers efficaces
24:08after four days of negotiations and observation the fighting began on this first day of battle
24:15xerxes launched a frontal attack opposite lyonidas had positioned his 300 spartans in the front line
24:22they occupied the entire width of the path protected on their left by the slopes of the mountain and on
24:29their right by the sheer cliff topped by the remains of an ancient fortification
24:34one of the persians main strengths was their arches it was therefore very likely that the assault began
24:49with a barrage of fire that caused a rain of arrows to fall on the greek fighters an episode mentioned in the
24:56story of herodotus un moment quelqu'un formule une remarque selon laquelle les flèches lancées par les
25:04perses sont tellement nombreuses qu'elles encachent le soleil et le spartiate diédeques se remarque et
25:09bien dans ce cas c'est tant mieux on combattra à l'ombre
25:15xerxes then ordered the infantry to charge sure that the greeks would scatter at the first impact he ordered
25:22that these arrogant spartans be brought to him alive but on this narrow battlefield the gigantic
25:28persian army could not deploy all its power and came crashing down on the hoplite wall of spears and shields
25:38the only thing they play in favor of the greeks is their experience in the war
25:42in the body and it is also the fact that they are able to cover themselves in a very protective wall wall and have
25:48perhaps what is not the case with the terse
25:57this impenetrable wall of shields is the phalanx a tight perfectly coordinated combat formation which
26:06the greeks had developed and which they were at the time the only ones to master
26:11the
26:15history of gesture a phalanx specialist he seeks to reconstruct the movements of hoplites information
26:22during a combat phase compacté la phalange attention en garde en phalange
26:31donc dans cette position le bouclier du combattant de gauche enveloppe le bouclier du voisin de droite et
26:42ainsi les deux boucliers sont liés ici si je pousse je pousse les deux combattants lorsqu'il va y avoir
26:48un impact avec une autre ligne même si imaginons les lances ne me touche pas et que je passe entre
26:52les lances je vais pousser non pas un combattant mais deux combattants et si imaginons j'arrive à enfoncer
26:57on sait que grâce à l'information j'arrive à pousser la seconde ligne va venir pousser et ainsi se
27:03densifier et puis la troisième ligne lorsque la formation va avancer messieurs en avant marche
27:10dans cette formation celui qui le plus exposé c'est le chef de la formation puisque comme il est sur la
27:21droite un tous les personnes sur la droite vont avoir leur flanc exposé donc il n'y a qu'une seule personne dans la
27:27formation qui est exposé et c'est la place d'honneur c'est là où va se placer léonidas par exemple à la
27:31bataille d'éternet pile wave after wave of persian attackers came crashing down on the greek
27:39phalanxes which yielded not an inch exasperated xerxes orderd his elite troops to the front line
27:46xerxes sent the immortals which is his bodyguard they go wherever the king goes of course they
27:53call the mortals because if someone is sick or dies there's another one in his place there are
27:59aristocrats these are the the best the top of the top and they couldn't do any better than the other
28:06troops the immortals embodied the power of the king of kings the whole empire feared them and when
28:14ten thousand of them failed to dislodge the few hundred spartans holding the past for xerxes
28:20it was a personal humiliation and a perilous situation xerxes d'ailleurs pas trois reprises manque de
28:27tomber de son siège donc ça veut dire que le pouvoir vacille 1 puisque il a même peur que finalement les
28:34grecs finissent par enfoncer son armée et à l'atteindre
29:04the battle resumed the following day so what they did was you have a rotation you don't have the
29:13same soldiers fighting from from dusk to dawn which gave the opportunity for the soldiers to rest
29:21the account of herodotus gives no details of the fighting on the second day of the battle he just
29:29specifies the persians were no happier herodotus says that there was also a tactic used by the
29:35spartans which was to to faint retreat in order to kill as many more persons than they could so you
29:45don't only have a line unbreakable at some points the line supposedly breaks but this is faint it's made
29:54up it's like a trap this spartan maneuver was described in detail by another ancient author
30:01xenophon the lacedaemonian conversion to be fully effective it must be executed in a perfectly
30:08coordinated manner the hoplites break through the shield wall first the frontline fighters turning
30:15their backs on the enemy then passed to the rear of the phalanx slipping between the ranks the second
30:21line follows suit and so on until the phalanx is reformed but with their backs to the enemy
30:27the moment where the enemy changes their troops it's when they start to show their feet and simulate a
30:33retreat and where the guys in place in phase 2 say they have to attack now they show their feet
30:38and so it's when they start to launch and to lose their rank that the spartans will go up to
30:43their demi-tour and ferme rapidement leur phalange this manoeuvre says xenophon was almost impossible
31:02to accomplish in the heat of battle except for those among the greeks who had been brought up in the
31:07laws of sparta the particularity the spartan resident on the fete que suci troyan solda so
31:16des hommes qui ont voulu specialiser leurs activités dans le domaine politique dans le domaine
31:23militaire sparta the warrior city had a political system that was unparalleled among greek cities citizens
31:33called each other homoi literally equals they met here on the agora to vote for their laws laws laws that
31:43could only be proposed by the jerusia a council of 28 elders five magistrates elected for one year
31:50were charged with applying these laws atop the hierarchy two kings whose only role was that of warrior chief
31:59sparte on son saint va créer des lois qui favorisent une sorte de cohesion martial total you have a land
32:08redistribution some sort of socialist team redistribute all of the land of like a demon the area around
32:15sparta to about 9000 equal plots and everybody will get plots of the same value plots that would be
32:25cultivated by slave labor the helots because in return for the generosity of the city of sparta
32:32citizens were prohibited from working trading or enriching themselves a garrison life in which
32:41equals shared everything down to their meals which they were required to take together the spartans
32:49devoted themselves only to preparing for war their only reason to live and to die
32:59gorgopas en polemos ici on a des stèles funéraires avec les noms de combattants mort au combat
33:10Ã sparte seuls les hommes morts en combat et les femmes mortes en couche ont le droit d'avoir leur nom
33:19gravé sur leur stèle funéraire pourquoi et bien parce qu'on considère que ces gens ont donné leur vie
33:26pour la cité pour les hommes à la guerre et pour les femmes en enfantant des futurs guerriers qui mourront eux
33:33aussi à la guerre
33:42when leonidas
33:44our king left
33:46to thermopylai
33:47everybody asked him you're taking only 300 with you
33:50i mean these are not enough
33:53and he said very touchingly
33:54uh... for the purpose that i'm going there more than enough
33:58because we're going there
33:59to die
34:02yet by the evening of the second day of battle
34:05it was leonidas and his hoplites who were masters of the battleground at thermopylai
34:11xerxes helplessly orders his troops to withdraw
34:18xerxes one hope was that his fleet which sailed a parallel course to that of his army
34:24could manage to avoid the greeks and land reinforcements to take them from the rear
34:29but a greek fleet led by the athenians close the cape of artemisian and block their way
34:36and even before confronting that the persian ships were caught in a huge storm which destroyed a third of them
34:44when the naval battle finally began the persians exhausted and disorganized failed to break through the greek blockade
34:51after three days of fierce fighting with no real winner they decided to circumvent the island of eubia
34:58to the west and head south
35:00herodotus tells us that in the persian camp doubt set in and xerxes who could no longer count on the support of his fleet was no longer sure of victory
35:09however it was at this precise moment on the evening of the second day that fate turned in his favor
35:18and in his favor
35:20there will be an intervention almost divine which will allow him to counter the adversary
35:25there will be a traitor in the greek camp
35:27a greek, an infamous traitor mentioned by Herodot
35:33the king indicated a passage in the mountain
35:36a passage that could allow the forces of the persian army to take over the Greeks who were in thermopylai
35:47the Greeks knew of the existence of this passage
35:52Leonidas even posted troops there to hold it at the beginning of the battle
35:56it took about 10 hours on foot to follow this track to thermopylai
36:02at nightfall a contingent of persian fighters set out guided by the traitor
36:08we know that the mortars went there because Hidarnis who's the commander commanded this task force
36:15so it's the mortars and others i think it was 20,000 persians
36:20but as they continued along the path xerxes soldiers came across the detachment posted there by Leonidas
36:28a thousand hoplites faced them alerted by the noise of the persian multitude
36:34what happened was when they saw 20,000 persians coming they thought they were coming to fight them
36:41so they took a position to fight and die
36:44they took a position to defend
36:47but the persians were left to the side to reach their objective
36:52which was the rivage
36:53so they were descended from the mountain and they were able to reach the Greeks
36:59by the way
37:01the hoplites kept at a distance by the persians
37:05still managed to send a messenger to Leonidas
37:08on receiving the news
37:10he took a radical decision
37:12what did Leonidas
37:13he made the choice that every chief of war would have made at this moment
37:16a very pragmatic choice
37:17he decided to abandon the position
37:18because it has no chance to hold it
37:20we don't have to sacrifice these men for nothing
37:22and he congratulated most Greeks
37:24Leonidas sent all the hoplites back to Athens
37:27sparing them a certain death
37:29they would all be of more use alive defending the city
37:33except for the 300 Spartans who accompanied him
37:37they would remain with him until the end
37:40il a reçu des ordres lui
37:42sa cité lui a ordonné de tenir la possession
37:45donc tant qu'il n'a pas d'ordre contraire
37:47il ne peut pas déroger aux lois de Sparte
37:49perhaps his decision was also influenced by a prophecy
37:55delivered by the Oracle of Delphi before the battle
37:58in this war Sparta would either lose a king
38:02or be destroyed
38:04myth or reality
38:07one thing was certain
38:09on the morning of the third day of battle
38:11Leonidas and his 300 Spartans chose to stay and face to the death
38:16the multitude of Persians
38:18who were getting ready to attack them on two fronts
38:21ce qui est indiqué par Hérodote
38:24c'est que aux côtés des Spartiates
38:27il y avait aussi des Thespiens
38:29et des Béotiens
38:32there were 800
38:34which means that
38:35you've got 300 hoplites
38:37Spartans
38:38but the Thespians as a number
38:40is not that very different to the Spartans
38:42but there is a great difference
38:44that the Spartans represented the small percentage
38:48of their army
38:50but in the case of the Thespians
38:52it's everyone
38:53a thousand hoplites surrounded Leonidas
38:58for the final fight
39:00hoplites but perhaps also helots
39:03slaves of the Spartans who
39:05archaeology teaches us
39:07accompanied them to war
39:08and sometimes even took part in combat
39:11here we have one army
39:14one army in march
39:15so we see the warriors who move
39:16but we also see their soldiers
39:18here
39:19so the aides-de-camp
39:20who will have
39:22they also have a helmet
39:23and sometimes a javelin
39:25for the case of the thermopiles
39:26it's exactly that
39:28the Silots
39:29who accompanied the Spartans
39:30they served as aides-de-camp
39:32and during their marches
39:33while the Spartans
39:34they were very likely
39:35their armament
39:36the Silots
39:37they carried out
39:38everything that was necessary
39:39to the camp
39:41the number of helots
39:42present in Thermopylae
39:43is not known
39:45it is certain however
39:46that the Greek numbers
39:47on the last day of battle
39:49were greatly superior
39:50to the 300 Spartans
39:52recorded in the heroic legend
39:54of Leonidas
39:58but even if 1500
39:59or 2000 Greeks
40:00faced the Persians that day
40:02they were still 150
40:04to 200 times less numerous
40:06than their opponents
40:08and yet
40:09rather than brace for the impact
40:11and defend their position
40:12Leonidas ordered them
40:14to go on the attack
40:19when he saw
40:20the invading army
40:21coming from the back
40:22because of the
40:23traitorship
40:24he made a full frontal attack
40:26to the camp of
40:27King Serkis
40:28so he didn't just sit there
40:29to defend himself
40:30he made a counter attack
40:31by leading this attack
40:35northwards
40:36he forced the bypass
40:37troops arriving from the south
40:39to pursue him
40:40he thus protected the retreat
40:42of the rest of the Greeks
40:43whom he had dismissed
40:44a few hours earlier
40:46after a fierce hand-to-hand fight
40:47the Greeks managed to recover his remains
40:49and fall back on colonos
40:51a small hill to the south
41:06at the exit of the thermopylai pass
41:07this is where Herodotus places the ultimate battle
41:11which he describes in these terms
41:13in this place
41:14he defended with his weapons
41:15with his hands
41:16with his teeth
41:17when you've got the last
41:20of the Greeks managed to recover his remains
41:21and fall back on colonos
41:22a small hill to the south
41:24at the exit of the thermopylai pass
41:26and that's the end
41:27this is the world famous
41:28I mean
41:29you know
41:30go tell the
41:32Spartans
41:33that we lie here
41:34having obeyed to their orders
41:36to their orders
42:06after the battle
42:07Xerxes asked that the body of Leonidas
42:10be identified
42:11having found it
42:12he had it decapitated
42:14and the late king's head
42:16placed on a stake
42:17then he continued his route south
42:19to Athens
42:22when he entered the city
42:24it was empty
42:25thanks to the Spartan sacrifice
42:27at thermopylai
42:28the inhabitants had been evacuated
42:30furious
42:31Xerxes butchered
42:33the handful of Athenians
42:34who didn't flee
42:35and destroyed the Acropolis
42:37a few days later
42:39Greek ships annihilated
42:41the Persian fleet
42:42at Salamis
42:43and one year later
42:45at Plataea
42:46the hoplites
42:47of all the allied Greek cities
42:48inflicted a final defeat
42:50on the army of Xerxes
42:56an unexpected outcome
42:57which the turbulent Greek cities
42:59could only achieve
43:00thanks to the three days
43:01during which Leonidas
43:03and his hoplites
43:04held Thermopylae
43:05held Thermopylae
43:06we lost the battle
43:07of Thermopylae
43:08but the glory
43:09and the lessons gained
43:11were a huge victory
43:12for Sparta
43:13and the world
43:14itself
43:15never again
43:17did the Persian Empire
43:19return to Greece
43:21and 2,500 years later
43:22and 2,500 years later
43:24the figure of Leonidas
43:25still embodies
43:26the eternal struggle
43:28between freedom
43:29and oppression
43:30and oppression
43:31and oppression
43:32and oppression
43:33the prisoners
43:41for the women
43:42of thean
43:43or a liberal
43:45später
43:46in danger
43:47and suffering
43:48Transcription by CastingWords