[lit-ideas] The Thermosophist
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2007 19:14:18 EST
What was _hot_ at Thermopylai? The waters:
From wikipedia:
"Thermopylae Θερμοπύλαι a location in Greece where a narrow coastal
passage existed in antiquity. It derives its name from several natural hot
water
springs."
More, now from the Roman side to Cl. Antiq.
-- From online Short/Lewis, Latin Dict.
thermae , ārum, f. (sc. aquae), = therma hudata,
I. warm springs, warm baths (natural or artificial; cf.: (natural or a
Agrippae, Plin. 34, 8, 19, § 62 ; 35, 4, 9, § 26; 36, 25, 64, § 189: Plin.
34, Mart. 7, 34, 5 ; 12, 84, 5; cf. Sen. Ep. 122, 8.--
B. = thermopolium, q. v. Juv. 8, 168.--
-- I suppose there's something obscenus (in Martial's meaning of the word)
about waters having to be _warm_. Cf. the Etonian (Spartan) idea that first
thing in the morning is a COLD shower (or splash in the river).
------ I was interested in this hot-spring sense of "Thermopylae" and find
this about Herodotus at
_http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.usu.edu/markdamen/ClasDram/
images/01/thermopylae.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.usu.edu/markdamen/ClasDram/chap
ters/011intro.htm&h=716&w=1007&sz=463&tbnid=Z0KrnfQHCIoxUM:&tbnh=107&tbnw=150&
prev=/images%3Fq%3Dthermopylae%26um%3D1&start=3&sa=X&oi=images&ct=image&cd=3_
(http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.usu.edu/markdamen/ClasDram/
images/01/thermopylae.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.usu.edu/markdamen/ClasDram/chap
ters/011intro.htm&h=716&w=1007&sz=463&tbnid=Z0KrnfQHCIoxUM:&tbnh=107&tbnw=150&
prev=/images?q=thermopylae&um=1&start=3&sa=X&oi=images&ct=image&cd=3)
The thing still does not look as a 'passage' to me!
"Herodotus could alter his readers' way of looking at the situation, as he
appears to have done with the famous Battle of Thermopylae (481 BCE). In that
confrontation between the Greeks and the Persians, hundreds of Greeks died
and the Persians were not stopped from entering southern Greece and
subsequently sacking Athens. No matter how much Herodotus may wish it were not
so, he
cannot change the fact that it was in many ways a devastating defeat for his
side. Nevertheless, he can also point to every positive thing possible in it,
for example, when he recalls the heroism of those who died, how long they
held the massive Persian forces at bay, that they were ultimately betrayed by
one of their own and not overcome by the Persians' greater strength or
cunning,
and finally that the Greeks who died gave their compatriots the time to
retreat and, by sacrificing their own, saved many lives. The Persian king
Xerxes
surely saw things otherwise. So in casting the battle as a "patriotic"
victory, Herodotus does not alter its outcome or things well-known about the
Greeks' defeat, but he does slant the evidence to make the Greeks seem more
heroic
and the battle, in the long run, less calamitous. In other words, he writes—
but does not rewrite—the past."
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