"Go tell the Spartans"

From: ANDOVER_at_delphi.com
Date: Fri, 20 Sep 1996 01:06:47 -0500 (EST)

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

---