Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2022 March 24

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March 24

The battle at the end of 300 (the Spartan movie)

Was just watching 300 yesterday. I think everyone knows the story of the 300 Spartans, standing against 1 million Persians, trapping them in a narrow pass and holding them off for several days to buy time.

But at the end of the film, the one guy who King Leonidas sent home to tell the story was stood in front of the entire Spartan army, ready for the final battle and he was like "if 300 Spartans can do that, just wait until these bastards see what 300,000 Spartans can do to them - and they only outnumber us 3 to 1 now, it's good odds".

I was wondering. What battle was this, at the end of the film? What was the real story (I know it's probably a legend more than history, in terms of the film version)? I know the Spartans won the war in the end and utter annihilated the Persians though, eventually, that much is true (but did it take several years?). --146.200.128.101 (talk) 04:48, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

The last battle given in the movie's plot outline from our article 300 (film) is the Battle of Plataea and it "...was the final land battle during the second Persian invasion of Greece." It took place in 479 BC. I skimmed the article but did not find a timeline or any indication of its duration, although it did stalemate for a 11 days. --Modocc (talk) 05:30, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Your numbers are inflated. Figures provided by ancient historians are to be taken with a ton of salt. Battle of Plataea gives more reasonable guesstimates. A million Persians? Naah. Clarityfiend (talk) 06:41, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

The battle with the 300 Spartans was the Battle of Thermopylae. Xerxes was eventually forced to retreat by the Athenian navy winning the Battle of Salamis, which threatened the Persian communications across the Hellespont. Remember, this is a fantasy film based on a comic book and not a history documentary - 300 (film)#Historical inaccuracies tells all. Alansplodge (talk) 11:56, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Didn't the narrator in 300 deliberately embellish the details because he was basically telling a war story to his men several years later to rile them up for battle? That's what I remember taking away from the film when I watched it a few years ago. So we got the 300 Spartans vs. 1 million Persians, led by a guy who's 10 feet tall and has literal monsters fighting in his side, and yeah sure, there were some other non-Spartan Greeks there, but they all ran away because they were a bunch of shopkeepers and pederasts? And the Spartans still came close to winning. Yaknow, he was embiggening everything the Spartans did. Like the whole story we just watched was Spartan propaganda? Iloveparrots (talk) 15:52, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

The poor Thespians must still be boiling mad: They didn't even get second billing, just (uncredited). Clarityfiend (talk) 21:25, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

To wit, 300 (film): "After one final speech commemorating the 300, Dilios, now head of the Spartan Army, leads them to battle against the Persians across the fields of Plataea." The Battle of Plataea was their last. Modocc (talk) 12:36, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Erstwhile slave trading townships

Greetings,

Please do help a little in suggesting/ expanding the list of erstwhile slave trading townships.

Thanks

Bookku, 'Encyclopedias = expanding information & knowledge' (talk) 11:43, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Two questions 1) Why add the qualifier "erstwhile". That seems to be a bit of a weasel word and is usually to be avoided. 2) During what time period and in what context are you treating "slavery"? Are we talking about the Atlantic slave trade? The Trans-Saharan slave trade? The modern slave trade? --Jayron32 11:54, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

I can't see the problem with the word "erstwhile", which just means "former". It's of course entirely possible that slaves are still sold in some of these places (I tentatively suggest this is more likely in Cairo than Venice). The word "township" seems a terrible choice to me, because it has many irrelevant and distracting meanings. Well, at least two: it could be a rural area, or it could be a nonwhite area in South Africa.  Card Zero  (talk) 12:17, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Former would be a better word then. --Jayron32 12:26, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Oh yeah, good point.  Card Zero  (talk) 12:28, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

• Taking a quick look at the places currently listed (mostly connected to Ottoman era slave trade) - I would suggest Former centers of slave trading (or something similar) as the title. In antiquity, just about every small village engaged in some form of slave trade… even if it was just the occasional sale or purchase. The list focuses on the places that had large scale slave markets. Blueboar (talk) 12:52, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

If you don't limit the scope to a particular era, the list could include:

• Athens, per Slavery in ancient Greece,
• Hedeby in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, per Trade during the Viking Age,
• The Bay of Islands in New Zealand, although it sounds like the Maori exploited captured slaves for profit rather than trading them directly,
• Novgorod, per Slavery in medieval Europe#Mongols,
• Prague, per Slavery in Poland,
• Basically everywhere. I think you need to narrow the scope.  Card Zero  (talk) 14:14, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Many thanks to every one for various informative suggestions I will try to implement them as much possible.

Bookku, 'Encyclopedias = expanding information & knowledge' (talk) 16:40, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Not forgetting Tripoli, Algiers and Tunis for the Barbary slave trade. Alansplodge (talk) 18:26, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

@ Alansplodge, I asked at this forum for not missing the names, thanks for being helpful.

Bookku, 'Encyclopedias = expanding information & knowledge' (talk) 03:16, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

European destruction of physical historical artifact locations?

As a *general* concept, in what areas of the world was a significant amount of the physical historical record destroyed by Europeans or their descendants? To try to come up with a more complete example... As I understand it, for the culture that existed in northern Saskatchewan Canada in the year 100 CE, there were not a large number of physical artifacts that would have existed about that culture in 1400 CE (prior to the Europeans) and as such there weren't many to be destroyed by Europeans. I'm looking for places where there were likely to have been such physical artifacts but aren't as of today.Naraht (talk) 13:31, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Well, to kick you off, the destruction by the Conquistadors and their colonial successors, particularly the Catholic church, of Mayan and other native South American documents and art is well attested. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.209.233.48 (talk) 15:23, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Closer to home, so to speak, are the many classic English buildings destroyed during the Dissolution of the monasteries. --←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:35, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Just wanted to mention, for many Indigenous cultures in North America (and very likely elsewhere), oral history is just as important as physical artifacts in other cultures. The destruction of Indigenous languages and culture by Europeans and European-descendants, through putting children in residential schools or foster care, was absolutely a large-scale destruction of the historical record. Here's an introduction to the topic from the Canadian Encyclopedia. A recent example of the oral historical record that made news was how Inuit oral history recorded and located the wrecks of Franklin's ships. 70.67.193.176 (talk) 15:44, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

• If one includes antiquity… there was the destruction of the original city of Carthage by the Romans. Also the two great sacks of Rome (first by the Celts, and later by the Vandals). Also, the raids on various English monasteries by the Vikings were destructive. Blueboar (talk) 17:34, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Western Europe certainly qualifies. As Christianity spread in the Middle Ages, pre-Christian places of worship were generally razed and related artefacts were destroyed.  --Lambiam 17:36, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

In Southeastern Europe, there was a tradition of destruction of religious imagery. See Byzantine Iconoclasm for example. --Jayron32 17:45, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

• • And in more modern times we have the destruction caused by both sides in various bombing runs during WWII. Coventry, London, Dresden, Berlin (the list goes on). War is hell! Blueboar (talk) 18:24, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

"Ethnic cleansing" can include the obliteration of graveyards, which contain much historical information, for instance by the Serbs in the Bosnian war. This report [1] suggests Vladimir Putin has taken a leaf out of Al Jolson's playbook, so there may be a lot more where that came from [2]. 92.31.142.60 (talk) 15:32, 26 March 2022 (UTC)