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Message: <blockquote data-quote="HeavenShallBurn" data-source="post: 3397318" data-attributes="member: 39593">I could make a long spiel about morality, but morality is something WE create and give meaning.  All morality is ultimately arbitrary and worthless outside the group that creates and honors it.  The only thing that truly matters in the case of Thermopylae is courage.  The most enormous, unstoppable military force the classical mediterrainian world had ever seen turned its gaze and its hungry maw on a small fractious and divided peninsula.  A place with but a tiny fraction of Persia's population and resources, that hated each other as much as any external foe.  Athens was a naval not a land power but even its navy couldn't stop an invasion force of such size.  When an army that can very conservatively be estimated at between 250k-300k men from an empire that could have concievably raised and supported an army of between 750k and 1000k men at full war footing on a temporary basis and many refused to face the threat.Fifteen thousand to start with, but those fairweather friends left them.  Left just 7000 proud Theban hoplites spearheaded by some 300 of the greatest warriors to trod the face of the earth.  And against an army so massive it boggles the imagination those few held the pass until betrayed.  Battered and broke their enemies like pinatas under a steamhammer soaking the ground with the blood of their foes.  After armour and shield were shattered and weapons were rendered useless.  Until fighting with bare hand and teeth they were still so dangerous that the Persians were forced to finish them with archers because sending troops to meet them face-to face was too costly.  Regardless of morality or immorality, good or evil, or anything else.  These are deeds so great they must be remembered for so long as even a single man draws breath.  Because to forget what they did would prove ourselves not men but worthless wretches.</blockquote>

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