What would have happened if Leonidas and his Spartan bodyguard fell on the first day of battle at Thermopylae?

Question

Speculate on the possible social, religious and political consequences for future western cultures.

Answer 1

I probably would not have been watching the Movie "300" last weekend. Really the Persians would have Sacked Athens and taken over all of Greece. The Greeks would not have had time to consolidate their forces and achieve the Amazing Naval Victory that led to Xerxes retreating from the Grecian peninsula. In the most extreme of circumstances, No 3 day battle at Thermopylae means no independent Greek states so no King Phillip and there by No Alexander the Great.

Answer 2

I think people are getting a little carried away by the romantic ideal of the history that movies like 300 and books like Gates of Fire have portrayed. I'm not sure it would have had any impact at all.
I think we can accept that Thermopylae happened as there is still physical evidence at the scene. Other events are much less clear as they have been told by Herodotus. Makes for a great read but hardly defining history.
Ok if you take it that this battle was a defining moment in Greek history (ignoring the fact that it was seen as an embarassment at the time that the 'unbeatable' Spartans were beaten so quickly.) It is unlikely that the Spartan force consisted of just those 300. A contingent of several thousand healots and other allies would likely have travelled to the pass too. Nothing as heavily armed as a phalanx of hoplites though.

You can speculate that after an early end toThermopylae the Persian army swept through Greece, sacked Athens, defeated an unprepared armies/navies of Athens and Sparta and these cities became another part of Xerxes' empire.
When faced with the possibility of invasion many in Greece wanted to escape to Sicily and Italy and set up colonies there. This did happen but could have been in bigger numbers if a lasting and full scale invasion had happened.
Roman civilisation took a lot from Greek civilisation. More Greek colonies would have heightened this effect.

Democracy in Greece was a short lived and ultimately unsuccessful experiment in a time dominated by benign and not benign dictators. Sparta, which ruled by creating slaves of the peoples of all it's conquered cities which in turn did all the farming and work that allowed the Spartan army to train all year and not just out of farming season were no fans of this system and helped bring it down.
The sacking of Athens too would have not changed the course of history as this was done by both Persians and Spartans.

Ultimately it is a little far fetched to think that this heroic stand changed much. The Spartans sent them partly because of their reputation as unbeatable warriors and couldn't believe that Xerxes didn't know and wasn't afraid of them and partly because of the Spartan failure to send troops to Marathon.

The main change to current history would be a change of names, not major events and a possible bigger Greek influence in Roman history.

A more interesting question is what would have happened if Genghis Khan had continued West and not turned back.

Answer 3

Mostly I wouldn't be writing this, because you wouldn't have asked the question. ;-)

Otherwise, speculation as to whether we would all be speaking Parsi, and doing the Zoroastran thing is a bit moot. Greece was composed of many city states, of which Sparta was the most outstanding in military terms. This was because the whole ethos was of the 'seige' mentality. If one sees the geographic location high in the mountainous country of the central Peloponeese, it is not surprising. Young boys started their military training almost as soon as they could walk. Thus Sparta developed a well-deserved and formidable reputation for it's warrior class.

However this is not to distract attention from the fact that most of the other city states were equally concerned about maintaining a strong defensive, and occasionally offensive, military force. Athens was the largest of the cities of that era, and what it lacked in prowess, it made up for in numbers.

Thus I doubt that the entire course of history would have changed that much, Xerxes quite probably would have found, as did others in history, Alexander the Great for example, that there is a 'bridge too far'. I suspect that had Adolf Hitler not grown a massive bug up his *ss, and proceeded with Sealion, instead of Barbarrossa, he might have found that ruling the British was something even the British find impossible !

The old saying goes "Be careful what you wish for", and in conquest terms never a truer word was said. The Ancient Greeks had cornered the market of their time in wisdom and knowledge, they even knew about atoms, and sub-atomics for goodness sake, so I think that the Persians would most likely have ended more Greek than the Greeks !

Just a thought.

Answer 4

Nothing: the Persians would have re-asserted their lordship over the Greeks, and Greek refugees would have still founded the seminal cities of Italy. Yhe question you should be asking is; Is George Bush the Leonidas figure in Iraq?

Answer 5

We would be living in an entirely different world, on based on Persian culture rather than Greek. Would the civilisation of Rome arisen or would the Persians have gone on to conquer further west? Would we all be Zoroastrians now? The 'what ifs' of this question could go on for ever.

Answer 6

There's a lot of what ifs in History. What if Hannibal had sacked Rome after the battle of Cannea. What if Hitler had aloud Paulis to bypass Stalingrad on his way to the Caucuses. Obviously the whole of the worlds history would be different.

Answer 7

Spartans never give up. Their mind as a Hive and their discipline should have no impact.
There is not further impact, once greek wars /roman expansion/ Carthaginese expansion culture would overwrite all this past history.

Answer 8

Probably the whole history would have been differnt. I do not know if the middle ages would have come earlier but things would have been different because the Persians would have conquered Greece and then the rest of Europe.

Answer 9

Well, the dark ages would have happened a lot sooner. And without the classic studies rediscovering the philosophies of ancient greece, the renaissance may not have happened. However it is possible that during that dark age, renaissance would have occured as well.

Answer 10

It might have sent the Spartans into a blood rage and they would have doubled there fighting capacity. Sooner or later Sparta would have appointed some one else.