Persian Fire

Persian Fire

Tom Holland (Doubleday, 2005)

A bane to the existence of any Latin or Classics teacher is the movie 300. A fictional account cooked up based on the graphic novel by Frank Miller, I found 6 solid errors in the first 30 minutes, which makes it useless in the classroom. Although visually effective, it shortchanges the viewer with regard to the real story. Persian Fire makes up for that.

The Battle of Thermopylae is inspiring, to be sure. The notion of a desperate last stand against overwhelming odds, dying like men, rarely fails to stir the heart. It does, however, bring to mind the words of George Patton: "No one ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other dumb son of a bitch die for his country." The crime lies in taking that battle out of its proper context: the wars between Greece and Persia.

Tom Holland has been justly praised for his previous work, Rubicon. In that history, he outlined the causes behind the collapse of the Republic, reaching as far back as the 2^nd Punic War. In this book, he traces the Persian Wars to the Khorasian Highway, a stretch of road that has connected the alluvial plains of the Assyrians with the Zagros Mountains, home of the warlike mountain people, home of the unparalleled horses and horsemen. It was in these mountains that the Medes made their appearance, eventually sweeping forth to conquer from the Mediterranean eastward to Afghanistan.

In recounting the rise of the Medes, Holland introduces us to Cyrus, the first Great King, then Darius, and finally Xerxes, and he investigates the motive force for the Persian expansion. Holland identifies it with the religion of Zoroastrianism, a religion founded in the radical dualism of light and darkness. To be associated with the Light is to be grounded in the Truth, while the darkness is the abode of The Lie. Here Holland makes a connection seldom investigated: the religious motivations behind Persian conquest. The effort of Darius to expand the power of Persia to the ends of the earth was an expression of evangelical zeal, an effort to combat the Lie as it was found in false religions and establish the Truth.

Framed in the context of the present day, our conflict with Islamic radicalism doesn't seem so isolated. Zealotry like this has been seen before. Seen and opposed.

Opposing the Persian King of Kings were two cities: Athens and Sparta. To give us a clearer idea of the participants, Holland gives us a glimpse of the history of these two cities, and how their distinctive cultures developed. We see how the harsh code of the Spartans developed, and how it was fed by the system of slavery imposed on the Helots, the serfs living in the farmlands surrounding Sparta. Because Sparta was surrounded, and outnumbered, by the Helots, a cruel system of oppression was imposed, designed to keep the Helots from entertaining the thought that they might be men.

In Athens, we see the development of the radical experiment of democracy, although not as pure as has been touted. There was no universal suffrage: only Greek, property – owning men could vote. No women, slaves, none of the poor. But it was a radical experiment, and it did foster greatness. Suffrage came at a price: mandatory service as a Hoplite, an armored soldier in the Athenian infantry. It was such Hoplites as would strike the first blow at the battle of Marathon.

The significance of Marathon, in the words of Holland was that "humiliation at the hands of the superpower was not inevitable. The Athenians, as they would never tire of reminding everyone, had shown that the hordes of the Great King could be defeated. The colossus had feet of clay." The account of the battle is gripping, and the detail is so finely crafted that you feel yourself holding a spear, wearing the hoplon, the armor of the soldier, as you stride across the plain to the waiting enemy.

Likewise the battle of Thermopylae and its sister, Salamis. Thermopylae was little more than a holding action. Hence the small number of Spartans sent to fight. Leonidas had no illusion that he would succeed in driving the Persians back. He sought only to buy time for the rest of Greece, especially Athens, to prepare. He was accompanied by several thousand Thespians, who also died heroically.

This battle is less well-detailed, presumably because it is so well documented in other sources. The battle itself is given little more than three pages before the author turns to the naval battles and the other star of these wars: Themistocles.

Themistocles, as portrayed by Holland, is a consummate politician. He was slick; he planned far ahead, and was able to manipulate others to get what he wanted. But he was also a brilliant general, who knew how to play his enemy's weakness for all it was worth. Through a series of masterful deceptions, Themistocles maneuvered the Persian fleet into the narrow passage of Salamis, and there destroyed it. Although this did not end the Persian involvement in Greece, it weakened the Persian impetus significantly, and opened the door for rebellion by other subject peoples. After Xerxes moved back to Babylon to shore up his empire, his cousin commanded in his stead. His cousin was not the equal of the King of Kings, and was soundly defeated at the battle of Plataea.

The final chapter is "Nemesis", the goddess who punished hubris, that overweening pride of men that drives them to seek things that are not theirs by right. Nemesis comes swiftly and with finality. The hubris that drove Persia into Greece was ultimately punished by Nemesis, in the person of Alexander the Great. That same hubris destroyed Athens, when it stretched forth its own fingers for empire in the Aegean, before finally being toppled by Sparta, in the Peloponnesian War. Sparta itself was toppled, at the hands of Theban farm boys led by Epimonandes, eventually becoming little better than a tourist attraction.

But for a brief moment, the fate of western culture rested in the hands of a few Greek cities and their armies, hastily cobbled together, facing an assembled force unseen until World War 2. In Persian Fire, the author, Tom Holland, lays out the root causes for this turning point, giving it the significance and weight that it truly deserves.

The Complete Hammer's Slammers, Volume I

The Complete Hammer's Slammers: Volume I
David Drake, Night Shade Books (2006)

This book does not relate to any sort of classical interest, aside from the fact that the author, David Drake, earned a BA in History and Latin from the University of Iowa before getting a law degree (in case you wanted to ask, that is what you can do with a degree in Latin). After his undergraduate degree, Drake was drafted and served in Vietnam as a translator and interrogator.

The result of his experiences form the core of what is called "Military Science Fiction", that is, fiction that is rooted in science, but takes in the viewpoint of soldiers. Along with Jerry Pournelle, author of Falkenberg's Legions, David Drake can justifiably be called the father of the sub-genre.

The Complete Hammer's Slammers is a compilation of the short stories, historical sketches and novels that make up the Slammers' universe. Drake focuses only partially on the figure of Col. Alois Hammer, the founder of the legendary mercenary unit that sells its services to the highest bidder on the settled worlds throughout the galaxy. Instead, Drake creates stories that focus on the private fears, ambitions, desires and experiences of the low level soldier or civilian caught in the cross-fire. The characters he creates are compelling, and often, at the end of the story you find yourself wondering what happens next to that character. Or you begin reading a new story, and find the name of an old character jumping out, greeting you like an old friend.

Interspersed among the stories are short "historical" sketches, in which Drake outlines the features of his future society. In it we are given an introduction to the essential elements to the world of the Slammers: Supertanks, the Mercenary system, the predominant religions, the different inhabited worlds. Each of these sketches serve well to provide background that helps the reader better understand the characters and conflicts that unfold in the pages of these stories. But the excellence in these stories is that we don't need the background to truly enjoy them.

What makes Drake's work outstanding as military science fiction is his ability to convey in stark terms the harsh reality of battle. His descriptions can border on the lurid, but bring the reader into the horrors of men attempting to kill other men:

"Me, Colonel Raeder?" Joachim's voice lilts. He is raising the trya and it arcs away from his body in a gentle movement that catches Raeder's eyes for the instant that the Newlander's right hand dips and - a cyan flash from Joachim's pistol links the two men. Raeder's mouth is open but silent. His eyeballs are bulging outward against the pressure of exploding nerve tissue. There is a hole between them and it winks twice more in the flash of Joachim's shots. Two spent cases hang in the air to the Newlander's right; a third is jammed, smeared across his pistol's ejection port. None of the Guardsmen have begun to fall, though a gout of blood pours from the neck of the right-hand man.(From "But Loyal to His Own")

Gory stuff, but not what forms the best part of these stories. Drake doesn't write to titillate, but to entertain and to provoke the reader to think about the military and its proper use. There is no comforting nostrum at the end of a Slammers story -- no flat assertion about the horrors of war or the virtues of soldiers. Instead, we are given a complex view of a complex issue. The soldiers in Drake's stories are real people, and we are left with a real love for them, and perhaps a better understanding as to why the path of a soldier (or Marine) is one they might want to take.

In Drake's introduction:

Men and women do not stop being women and men because they are out where the metal flies, and that is the wonderful, the truly miraculous, thing about them. Now and then the experience even knocks a bit of the pretence and pettiness out of them, and that is the glorious thing about a real shooting war, otherwise such a mess of pain and waste.

There isn't much more to add. So I won't.

The Face of Battle: A Study of Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme

The Face of Battle: A Study of Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme
John Keegan (Penguin Books, 1976)

This book was a classic long before I read it. It may seem a departure from the others on this list, but it served as inspiration of sorts for Victor Davis Hanson's The Western Way of War. In this book, Keegan seeks to move past simple discussion of tactics and strategy, the usual staples of military history, to comprehend the experience of soldiers "on the ground": what was it that made up the life and stresses of the foot soldier, the calvalry man, the man-at-arms?

Keegan purposely confines his examination to one specific geogrphic area (Northern Europe), and one specific cultural type (Europeans), I suspect largely for the purposes of scale: anything broader would be too much.

As we progress from medieval style combat, with men-at-arms, mounted knights, and archers to the more industrial style of combat of the Napoleonic era, to the mechanized warfare of WWI, the scale increases, as does the degree of violence (one useful feature Keegan includes are battle maps, with insets of the previously covered battle to scale -- it is truly mind-boggling to realize how vast the Somme battlefield was in relation to Agincourt). We are left with an impression that the epithet "medieval", when applied to combat, applies to the mechanized age more truly than it does to the era of knightly combat.

In examining all three battles, Keegan looks for similar themes, or dissimilar themes that point out the change. He seeks out the "Will to Combat" -- that "something" that keeps men in line, facing a hostile enemy. In Agincourt, it was Religion: Henry V heard three masses in succession. At Waterloo, it was Rum. At the Somme, it was Religion again, but it was also the sense of solidarity with the otehr fellow (especially in the case of the "Pal's Brigades"). Also, showing a shift in the relationship between commanders and soldiers, Keegan traces from Agincourt, where kings led by examples of personal prowess in battle, to Waterloo, where an officer was expected to expose himself to danger, but not fight himself (most of Wellington's adjutants were wounded or killed by the end of the battle), to the Somme, where the overall command was held by the "Chateau Generals".


One theme that works its way through is the utter misery suffered by soldiers in battle. If there is one theme about all three battles, it is the wet: Agincourt came after days of rain, it rained the night before the battle of Waterloo, and water was a constant threat at the Somme. What is dissimilar is the danger faced by soldiers. In Agincourt, violence was as extreme as the strength of one's arm, at Waterloo, although the volley fire of the British was intense, the casualties were not extreme, except in case of paniced retreat. At the Somme, however, the degree of violence committed is horrific. The Somme stands as a supreme example of the inhumanity of mechanized warfare. The firepower of a regiment of Wellington's soldiers is condensed into the person of the machine-gunner.

Keegan's final chapters examine the "Future of Battle", and looks at WWII in general, examining some of the lessons learned by the generals who served in the trenches, but also the lessons that they did not learn. In this chapter Keegan makes the point that the "climactic battle" between mechanized forces will not happen again, if only because the nations capable of such exercises also possess nuclear weapons, and no one is willing to use them.

Keegan ends his book on a cautiously optimistic note:

The young have already made their decision. They are increasingly unwilling to serve as conscripts in armies they see as ornamental. The militant young have taken that decision a stage further: they will fight for the causes which they profess not through the mechanisms of the state and its armed power but, where necessary, against them, by clandestine and guerrilla methods. It remains for armies to admit that the battlees ofthe future will be fought in never-never land. While the great armoured hosts face each other across the boundary between east and west, no soldier on either side will concede that he does not believe in the function for which he plans and trains. As long as states put weapons in their hands, they will show each other the iron face of war. But the suspicion grows that battle has already abolished itself.

Because battles have become more horrific, Keegan argues, battles themselves are going by the wayside. In one way it is easy to agree with this. The "decisive battle" sought out will most likely not return. What we are left with is the "low-intensity conflict", which Keegan aludes to above.

What makes this book timeless is its examination of the "fighting man" and his commander. We are able to understand what it is about the human heart and human courage that makes it possible to endure the unendurable in support of a cause that we can rally to. But we can also see what there is that can shake that resolve. Ultimately, this book is about the individual soldier, the dangers he faces, the suffering he endures, and the nobility he exhibits.