Wikipedia says Thermopylae was the most famous and most iconic battle in Western history. Is it telling the truth?

East vs West
Heroic last Stand
Liberty vs Tyranny

It's been the most celebrated for the longest for sure.

>Xerxes sent for Demaratus the son of Ariston, who had accompanied him in his march upon Greece, and said to him:

>"Demaratus, I would like you to tell me something. As I hear, you are a Greek and a native of a powerful city. Tell me, will the Greeks really fight against us? I think that even if all the Greeks and all the barbarians of the West were gathered together in one place, they would not be able to stop me, since they are so disunited. But I would like to know what you think about this."

>Demaratus replied to Xerxes' question: "O king! Do you really want me to give a true answer, or would you rather that I make you feel good about all this?"

>The king commanded him to speak the plain truth, and promised that he would not on that account hold him in less favour than before.

>When he heard this promise, Demaratus spoke as follows: "O king! Since you command me to speak the truth, I will not say what will one day prove me a liar. Difficulties have at all times been present in our land, while Courage is an ally whom we have gained through wisdom and strict laws. Her aid enables us to solve problems and escape being conquered. All Greeks are brave, but what I am about to say does not concern all, but only the Spartans."

>"First then, no matter what, the Spartans will never accept your terms. This would reduce Greece to slavery. They are sure to join battle with you even if all the rest of the Greeks surrendered to you. As for Spartan numbers, do not ask how many or few they are, hoping for them to surrender. For if a thousand of them should take the field, they will meet you in battle, and so will any other number, whether it is less than this, or more."

>When Xerxes heard this answer of Demaratus, he laughed and answered: "What wild words, Demaratus! A thousand men join battle with such an army as mine! Come then, will you -- who were once, as you say, their king -- fight alone right now against ten men? I think not. And yet, if your fellow-citizens really are as you say, then according to your laws as their king, you should be twice as tough and take on twenty all by yourself!"

>But, if you Greeks, who think so hightly of yourselves, are simply the size and kind of men as those I have seen at my court, or as yourself, Demaratus, then your bragging is weak. Use common sense: how could a thousand men, or ten thousand, or even fifty thousand -- particularly if they are all free, and not under one lord -- how could such a force stand against a united army like mine? Even if the Greeks have larger numbers than our highest estimate, we still would outnumber them 100 to 1."

>If they had a single master as our troops have, their obedience to him might make them courageous beyond their own desire, or they might be pushed onward by the whip against an enemy which far outnumbered them. But left to their own free choice, they will surely act differently. For my part, I believe that if the Greeks had to contend with the Persians only, and the numbers were equal on both sides, the Greeks would still find it hard to stand their ground. We too have men among us as tough as those you described -- not many perhaps, but enough. For instance, some of my bodyguard would willing engage singly with three Greeks. But this you did not know; and so you talked foolishly."

>Demaratus answered him- "I knew, O king, that if I told you the truth, I would displease you. But since you wanted the truth, I am telling you what the Spartans will do. I am not speaking out of any love that I have for Sparta -- you know better than anyone how I feel about those who robbed me of my rank, of my ancestral honours, and made me a homeless exile.... Look, I am no match for ten men or even two, and given the choice, I would rather not fight at all. But if necessary, I would rather go against those who boast that they are a match for any three Greeks."

>"The same goes for the Spartans. One-against-one, they are as good as anyone in the world. But when they fight in a body, they are the best of all. For though they are free men, they are not entirely free. They accept Law as their master. And they respect this master more than your subjects respect you. Whatever he commands, they do. And his command never changes: It forbids them to flee in battle, whatever the number of their foes. He requires them to stand firm -- to conquer or die. O king, if I seem to speak foolishly, I am content from this time forward to remain silent. I only spoke now because you commanded me to. I do hope that everything turns out according to your wishes."

>This was the answer of Demaratus, and Xerxes was not angry with him at all, but only laughed, and sent him away with words of kindness.

>most famous and most iconic
If neither of those, Cannae should be at least the most influential.

1. d-day
2. pearl harbor
3. stalingrad
4. bulge
5. seige of bagdad

Its weird what average people know. Like maybe 10% of americans (30m) know about black hawk down, but 1% of those people would know it was mogadishu in somolia in 1991.

Same goes for thermopylae, ww1 battles, vietnam, et cetera. The average american doesn't even know waterloo exists.

Normie genocide.

The Latins were a completely different breed from the Greeks, highly doubtful that the Persians would have even bothered to extend that far considering that the only reason why they invaded Greece in the first place was due to the constant interference of the Greek city-states in fermenting revolts and rebellions amongst the Anatolian Greeks.

It's up there, but I doubt that most people know of it as much as the more famous battles:

1. Waterloo
2. D-Day
3. Pearl Harbor
3. Stalingrad
4. Bulge
5. Somme
6. Thermopylae
7. Verdun
8. Austerlitz
9. Marathon
10. Vienna

Very few people can actually name battles. Like they could imagine ww1/vietnam and not namedrop a battle.

This goes especially for 300.

I would say the battle of nations was more important then waterloo

Nvm just saw that its about famous battles and not about important once

Thermophylae was literally unknown to the broad audience until 300 came out.

HAHAHAHAH
DDAY
HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH

Kursk? Battle of Britain?

I'm a huge fan of Crecy

Remove all the anglo shit, it doesn't belong here.

inb4 waterloo is an anglo shit

It's not most significant, it's most well-known

pearl harbor doesn't count as a battle

>How is conquering most of the known world a few years later getting stomped?
Macedonians did that after conquering most of Greece, but decided against conquering Sparta on grounds that it just wasn't worth the costs just to coerce a washed up gang of Peloponnese rednecks into joining their world-straddling military machine. Alexander made it a specific point to troll the Spartans during his conquest of Persia, and by Roman times Athens was a college town for aristocrat's sons and Sparta was literally a theme park, a place where Romans would go to gawk at the backwards mud hut savages and their bizarre, cruel rituals.

>a few years later
More like a 170 years. These are arguably the first and last events of a whole age. Hardly a few years by any means.

We aren't talking about most iconic battles cheesedick. We're talking about most popular ones amongst non/his/ civies.

youtube.com/watch?v=mT3q8tba_lw

This alone made this battle the most popular one.

The Persians got kicked out at the end of the war, so Macedonia being their vassal state was short lived and they probably didn't introduce anything new to them that gave them a edge seeing how Macedonia was pretty incompetent of a State against other Greek powers for nearly the next 1 and a half century. Phillip II really changed it around partially 1) because the Greek city states were already most grinned down by the time he rose to power from all the consistent fighting between them, and 1) partially because he was once held hostage in Thebes and his captor Pelopidas educated him on a lot of military matters (his hostage was more of collateral thing so his father wouldnt act uppidity) such as tactics and fighting, which at the time, Thebes was excelling at.

>Pearl Harbour

By who?

Alexander? You must be joking. He is undeniably the most overrated historical figure to date. His conquests were noteworthy but what was his legacy? A Macedonian obsessed with Persian culture and customs who's "empire" would shortly crumble? He was an amazing general, nothing more.

I wish the Battle of Teutoburg Forrest was instead.

good job, america

Of course not
Alésia
Poitiers
Agincourt
Paté
Trafalgar
Austerlitz
Invasion of russia
Leipzig
Waterloo
1870
Verdun
La somme
Russian revolution
Stalingrad
D-day, to some extent
Just off the top of my head
the Thermopyles were really not that relevant. But cool nonetheless.

I think Thermopylae is both over-rated and probably additionally inflated because of anti-Iranian views in the West.

Germanic fucking shit.

t. butthurt Frenchie

I think it's more pro-greek/west than anti Iranian specifically.

d-day, no contest.

dont think west-east had anythign to do with it apart from the educations western bias for european history but i dont think that specifically applies to the battle.

It has only been noticed after that shitty inaccurate, garbage, fantasy Hollywood movie.

Before that retarded fantasy movie came out, most people didn't knew what Spartans are (except for maybe the Halo games) or what Thermopylae is.

>Liberty vs Tyranny
Is this bait or are you just clueless?

Persians had more freedoms than the Greeks, especially the Spartans who owned alot of slaves (helots) and were known to be cruel and warlike. If a baby did not show potential to be a warrior, it was put to death.

It was def more important but its not as widely known.

Alexander is literally the most famous person in history after Jesus Christ, and the latter wasn't even real.

Get the fuck out and never come back

Also arguably the most influential person in history, both as an actual person and as a romantic figure.

I'd vote Stalingrad for its importance for the whole of Europe, US, Russia and perhaps destiny of the whole world order.
Sorry, but Waterloo as important as it was, wasn't all THAT crucial to the rest.

oh look a mythicist is posting now, where's your fedora?

>the latter wasn't even real

If Jesus isn't real, then Alexander, Caesar, Hannibal and any other figure of antiquity is not real.

Because Jesus has more evidence than any other figure of those times.

This is what secular scholars and historians say.

0/10

There's a limit of historical people that everybody knows about - and I mean everybody, even your illiterate great-grandma that spent her life in the field. Those people, from what I've seen, only so often include Alexander, but not nearly as much as Caesar, Cleopatra, Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin, more or less Augustus, even Hannibal sometimes.

(I didn't include people with some religious ties such as Constantine, Jesus obviously etc, they hear about those in the church)

+ George Washington, Queen Victoria, Maria Theresia (Central Europe)

well obviously if we're talking strictly about lowest common denominator normies then of course they don't know shit about battles
this isn't about them

Only if you're French

How much of that exchange what was really said? Is this a transcript or something written after the fact?

>latter wasn't even real

Shitposting is a bannable offense.

>This is what secular scholars and historians say.
Prove it.

>I live under a rock and have never watched any documentaries pertaining to this subject

You prove he didn't exist you dumbass.

Historic text, witnesses and records exist. The burden of proof lies on you making the absurd claim that all of those are manufactured.

Provide evidence for your assertions.

Those texts are not contemporary.

You made the assertion that a well-known historical figure didn't exist.

Prove it.

Well? We're waiting.

>doesn't know how the burden of proof works

Retard, you came in and made the claim that Jesus never existed. Every single historian is disagreeing with you.

You made the claim, back it up with evidence.

No I didn't. Please point to where I stated that, rather than simply demanding actual evidence that we have more evidence for the existence of jesus-a controversial religious figure who had absolute nobodies for companions-as compared to someone like Alexander, for whom we have fucking contemporary art, writing, and archeological finds to back up the writing.

But, please, attack a strawman more instead of actually defending the assertion you've made.

It's only """controversial""" to post-modernist retards like you who have never read the historicity of the New Testament and what scholars are saying about it.

user stop biting the bait

This is bait.

Found the bait

Why? It was a Carthaginian victory but Carthage lost the war, how could that be the most influential? It's not like Hannibal stomping them drastically changed Rome's military, it still took years for the war to wind down and for Scipio to take the war out of Italy.

Battle of Adrianople or Battle of Yarmouk are clearly more influential battles where Romans were BTFO.

What is Tours?

>bulge
>pearl Harbor

American detected
Verdun and/or the somme should replace these

A meme battle not considered particularly important (well, maybe a little important for the Franks, but really business as usual) by either player involved.

It's a battle that just became a "major turning point" after the fact

...

>Early Medieval Ages,
>Being popularly known
Its even worse.

Was thinking the same... also the Bagdad-one.
Guess the 5 most famous battles, no particular order, in the West are:
D-Day
Stalingrad
Thermopylae
Somme/Verdun (most people can't tell the difference)
Waterloo

Nobody knows about it beside French, history nerds and neoreactionaries.

>Greece never peaked higher ever.
You dumb moron, Greece's peak came afterwards.
>b-b-but he wasn't Greek!
t. Skopjan

LOL.....GTFO

>most famous
Hitler is definetly most infamous
Churchill or Roosevelt are definetly quite well known in the anglosphere

>the average american

Good thing we're talking about more educated parts of the world.

FUCK OFF YANK

Probably D-Day.

Battle of Britain and Stalingrad are up there as well when it comes to fame I think.

I don't think Thermopylae is that well known actually.

Hellenistic successor states were quite a legacy.
Many people in history looked up to alexander and wanted to emulate him.
Caesar saw a statue of him and compared his life to Alexander and realized that he needed to do better, so he quit his job as quastor and went to Rome.

t. Saracen

Not technically a battle, but Gavrilo Princip shooting Franz was pretty important, everything in the past century has pretty much been as a result of that.

Most people couldn't name Thermopylae, but I think a large chunk could name "that battle in 300".

Somme, Gettysburg and Hastings has to be up there

also Julius Cesar is far and above any non-modern historical figure in terms of fame and reputation

Yeah I guess.
I wonder how that'll change in a couple of decades, and how well known it was before 300.

Gettysburg and hasting sure

WW2 was most iconic because it was the triumph of multiculturalism and equality over petty nationalism and racism.

What would some contenders be?
Alexander, Ghengis, Napoleon

Napoleon certainly isn't that prevalent in popular culture which is essentially all that matters

I guess a strong case for Muhammed could be made

>all of history is anglo battles

gettysburg more so in america*. that shit does not get bandied about in europe.

>popular culture

things in popular culture aren't significant for the same reasons though. Caesar might be famous but not necessarily for being a leader. People just know a guy called caesar who was roman and maybe he got murdered.

was he after rome? fucking idiot.

Poor man´s Vienna