From: ANDOVER@delphi.com
Date: Fri 20 Sep 1996 - 09:06:47 EEST
Mark Groff writes of heroism:
That handfull of Athenians and Spartans who held off the Persian army in
a Greek mountain pass for several days - We may not remember their names,
but after 2500 years or so, we still remember what they did. (Okay, they
did have great defensive terrain, but they were still outnumbered by a
huge margin)"
Actually they were Spartans (the Athenians sailed off) and we do know
their names, starting with King Leonidas. In one of Jerry Pournelle's
Falkenburg Science Fiction novels, a character on a folorn hope ( he dies)
from the planet Sparta recites the names of the heroes of Thermopylae, as
a way of keeping his cool.
The stone there actually does not read "go tell the Spartans" as most
people remember it, but:
"Passerby, Go tell the Lacedemonians that we lie here, obedient to their
will."
Jim Chapin
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