Welcome back to the new thing. My name is David Barke. The thing is always to make a printout. It's pretty, very don't know.
I'm doing all right. How you doing here? You're dying. Yeah.
Yeah. My son was hospitalized in the yard. I took a COVID test on a lark. And so I have COVID, but I've come out.
I was off just two days. So he finally got me after all these years. And you know, the funny thing is, and our good friend Greg McRaeres here as well. I don't have COVID.
Thank you. You had it the first time all of us. Yeah, I did. Yeah.
And you caught it in the way. People usually catch up on Keybox. But David, you missed. It was kind of funny, more of the funny.
You missed a few episodes because you were busy and we joke that you were dying. And then you were actually dying. Yeah. No, I was not actually.
I felt really. We're in the hospital. No, my son was in the hospital. I thought you were in the hospital too.
I was in pictures of you on gowns that you were sending us. What was that? Well, my pizza onesie. Oh, that pizza onesie.
Yeah. Yeah. That was just so I could get warm. No.
We should have mentioned who is right now joining us rubbing his temples with regret. Yeah. As Bernard J. Doptsky, BJ, our good friend.
I don't want to say. I'm very happy to have you returning guests. He's associate professor of political science. No, no, I am a full professor.
How do we get her updated? Why haven't they updated the site? I thought, you've seen the picture they have of me. It looks nothing like me.
So why would they update my promotion? I don't know. The picture of BJ on the one. Congratulations for following your.
Yeah, congratulations. It was only two years ago. But you probably already corrected us about this on the first time. No, the picture they have of me is really criminal.
That's so old. I look like a petarass for crying out loud. Well, if the house changed, don't worry. They asked Michelangelo how he could make such beautiful sculptures out of marble.
I says, look, the sculpture has been unique to marble. I just cleaned away the excess. That picture, you have a big, robust beard. That beautiful goatee.
They must have been so bad. It's man of power. I say, be Michelangelo. Free it.
It's so bad. It's so bad. Yeah. Well, thank you for having me back.
I had a lot of fun last time and I was happy to come back to talk to you guys again. Yeah. So we were just waiting for the folks at home. Why do we have beach back on the, like us?
Why do we? Yeah, why is it here? I don't know. I'm like, who are we talking about?
Oh, yeah. Because when I told him I was in the hospital, they were like, oh, David's right. Do you know how to follow Hugh? I was getting to that.
I was trying to keep it. I didn't invite him. Who invited him? No, I didn't.
This is true. I started going, I lived with a guy in college one year with five guys. We all share that a few years. There was more than one.
But go on. But in all seriousness, like about six months into living there, four of us were like, everyone thought the other had invited the fifth guy to live there and nobody knew the guy. Like, what? How did that happen?
He was a great guy. So I'm no, no, anyway, sorry. Yeah, no, I did. He was my B.J.
on purpose. Is that Dr. Tof? No, it's not Dr.
Tof. No, it's not Dr. Tof. So before we talk about Blue Tark's life and Themistocles, which is why you're here today, I heard that there was the Low Enthal panel.
Yes. How'd that go? That went pretty well. I mean, you know, it was, it was already up as Demorius Con, I guess.
I'm sorry? Did anybody bring up his glorious con? No, no, no, no, no. I'm sorry to the panel.
We talked about it a little bit, but not on the panel. It was dedicated to the work of Paul Cantor and David Lawenthal. And so we had Amy Nenza and Carol McNamara, Rafe Major was supposed to be on, but he couldn't make it. I was on it and Tim Mearon was the discuss.
And Harvey was there to kind of, Harvey Mansfield was there to offer some personal remarks about both men. And Dan Cullen, who put the entire panel together, like Rafe could not, could not make it. But it went okay. I mean, you know, my comments were coming in, you know, literally hot off the presses.
I mean, I was writing them almost as I was delivering them. So we're actually going to run it back again. It looks like for the NPSA or the Neapsup in the spring, try and get, you know, get a little tighter. I think what they want to do is put together a special edition of Perspectives dedicated to the memory of the work of both Cantor and Lowen Fall and Shakespeare.
So your paper just real quick because I want to have you back yet again was on Stripes. Yes. Bill Murray movie. Yes.
And that was one of the first movies I remember as a young man, like a young boy watching and sort of being titillated by the sort of dirty, Roger Humor. Yeah. Yeah. It's a fantastic movie.
So I think you're confusing it. You were not a boy when Stripes came out. The movie where a boy when Stripes the concepts came out. Yeah.
People are talking to me to call it Stripes. Yeah. Well, let's see. So Alex, I thought you were going to say that he was a boy when he started watching the movie, but was a man by the time it ended.
That's probably right. I do remember being one of the first times I've been anyway. So, yeah, so my work was on Lowen Fall and Cantor on Coriolanus. And I have a kind of a.
What? Coriolanus. Yeah. Sorry.
I'm on the blind adventure. So, yeah. So just a theory that Coriolanus is I'm sorry, Stripes is Coriolanus for a democratic audience. Very good.
Oh, it's going to be a lot of fun. BJ and I also hung out a little bit at the Northeastern Pulitzer Association. I was like, man, I had such a great time. So we got a great tech to get us all out of it.
Yeah. I was like, he's one of us or we're one of him or everyone. We have a lot of time. BJ and let's hear it.
What do we have? What do we have? What do we have? Well, interesting political philosophy.
Uh huh. And nice robust hair on one side, top or bottom of your head. Right. Folks are going to be in clean shade right now.
Is it an audio medium? It's an audio medium. You sound like it. I'm distracting.
I'm just trying to. Okay. Got it. So life of mystically is great.
Take it away. I really got nothing. Um, the mystically was a famous Athenian. Well kick me in the Jimmy Greg.
I didn't know that. Yeah. No, he wasn't. He was half a Athenian.
Oh, fair enough. Was the other half. The other half was some some, some, uh, rouve up to the north, right? Well, it's according to Plutarch.
Right. His mother may have come from Halicarnassus. Isn't that right? It's of a lowly origin, which is a nice early example of a statesman's, I mean, he's not descended from any God.
So there's no, the typical Plutarch tracing to funny lineage, uh, self made in a way. Uh, he's pretty, sorry. I'll just add other things and you guys can jump in. He was witty or, and sort of had some funny sayings which seemed recorded in a strange place to me in Plutarch lives.
Uh, he seemed to be pretty impressive at sort of coming up with, uh, strategies or, um, it's a better word for sort of fake out strategies with his employees, his kind of like schemes, teams. That's it. That's it. Of course, he's thinking.
But also an overwhelming desire for fame, right? Well, you buried the lead there, Greg. Let's hear it. The man was the founder of the Athenian Navy and the founder of the Athenian Empire, right?
I mean, this is the savior of Greece from the Persian board and thereby Western civilization. I mean, this might best would not be possible. Without themistically, that's great, BJ. That's right.
So B.J. has this wonderful article in Law & Liberty. It came out in 2020. What's it called again?
I forget what they always redo my titles. I think it was a freedom of barbarism and tra- I was then led to subheading. I don't know. It's like freedom of barbarism and tri-reams or something.
Yeah, yeah. You explicitly make the case without the mystically enough philosophy. He made the conditions possible. I mean, so to put it bluntly.
Yeah, this is why when we were discussing Greg and I as David was convalescing from his... I thought he was in rehab. No, I think it's a triple bypass. Triple bypass.
Well, I thought it was rehab from cheeseburgers. The first triple bypass, incidentally, not for a colon, right? He's colon is so impacted with a chipotle. But anyways, we were discussing because Greg and I were like, okay, we're going to do life with the mystically, but...
Right. When you bring in another person, it vastly decreases. You have to talk and put different, right? Right.
But as I said, let's bring in... BJ, I guess he's written this great article in the list of ways. But I'm... BJ and I have emailed and DM'd and sent pics about...
Oh. Quite a bit. I sent pictures of my tri-ream. But I think...
Oh my God. This is like this. You've been re-tried three times. Tri-reams are there.
Hey, look, those sailors go through a lot. I'll tell you what, man. You're still listening at Home Man Sally. We're going to bring it back to the story here.
Just try to bring it back though, Alex. What are we doing here? I like how you confused with David when I got super vulgar. But anyways, no, I think...
I agree with BJ on this point that the battle of Solanas seems... And this is why when we brought up his birth, I think there's something there, right? That already at his beginning, he's forced to, as a foreigner, pretend to be a native. And as a somehow, I think, loosely, but I think...
But still concretely, I think, I think, I feel like concretely connected to the fact that he makes Athens more abstract. Or it's less rooted, right? But I agree with BJ. When I think of the battle of Solanas, right, that...
I don't think the mysticlies does it all on his own, but I do think he sets the pattern that then paracles follows in what he programmatically lays out in his three speeches at Thucydides. The mysticlies in compelling the Athenians, the disdeception about Athena, which we can get into, compelling them to give up their city, sacrifice it for the sake of their survival in a way up roots them from the ancestral in a radical way that the Athenians have never been uprooted. And in that way, I do think he really does make philosophy possible, or at least somewhat more... He at least thinks Athens more open to people like Socrates, so that he could do what he did.
And just... Go ahead, David. No, no, go ahead. Well, it's not just...
It's not just... What he did for the Greeks, what he did for Athens, because the other Greek cities lost their minds. I mean, they were very grateful for the victory that was the consequence of his efforts, but they were absolutely shocked at what they did. They gave up their city, they gave up their ancestral hearts, they gave up their sacred olive groves, they gave up their graves of their ancestors, right?
And what the barbarians taught about? And what literally they became a city of, quite literally, right? Every able-bodied male citizen was in one of those tribe range, right? So they were stunned that they were able to do this, and they literally created a new kind of power.
And to emphasize this, the Persians destroyed the Parthenon. The Parthenon that we see, and that's actually by the idea right now, was starting like 450 or something like that. Yeah, it was starting right after Pericles, he started his massive building project, where he's dipping into the imperial funds to beautiful... So yeah, I think that is that the mystically's enabled the Athenians to defeat the Persians, but the cost was great.
It means the Persians defeated Athena in effect. And that uprooting from the ancestral, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but I think it gets at something crucial, which is that uprooting that Athens was somehow open or open-ended and indeterminate. A good parallel, and I don't want to get- I mean, we haven't attempted to poontroicat, but a good parallel to this is in Herodotus when Cambyses goes crazy, and he murders this God in Egypt, which is just like a weird cow born with a number of birth defects at the same time, like a weird novel. And then what happens is, Darius and some others ask what sort of regime Persia should have.
So you get a similar parallel with the death of the ancestral first in Egypt and then extended to Persia with the killing of the priestly class, the Magi. Then it makes something like political philosophy, political theory at least possible. So this is, I think, to mystically is doing in Athens in a very concrete form, this general tendency, which is that in order to think openly, you need to somehow get rid of Athena, or somehow nullify or power on the souls of the citizens. Well, if I could bring this back to Plutarch, I mean, I think Plutarch is really insufficiently appreciated as a really masterful and artist and very careful writer.
So again, you know, so much what appears to just be Viographical junk is actually very important. So, for instance, you notice that the life begins with this lineage stuff, right? Well, what is he? Is he Athenian or is he a foreigner, right?
And the fact that he's not strictly Athenian. He's not fully Athenian. That he has one foot in the foreign land is important because it does relate to his abstractedness or the abstraction that he affects in Athens. And I think that's connected to two things, kind of the frame, which struck me as the frame of the life where Plutarch begins by right after he talks about his lineage.
He talks about his exposure to, was it ane-xagris? Well, no, it couldn't have been ane-xagris. Was it, you know, I forget the other one that he lands on because it's one of these weird... There we go, molisis.
He's studying natural philosophy with molisis. And then, you know, so there's this question about the mysticly's relationship to these, you know, softness or philosophers, natural philosophers, natural scientists. And then the life ends again with the reference to philosophy where Plutarch says right before he turns to Camillis that Barry Saunders also privileged him. Can you give us the chapter, Rick?
So I'm using the dragon translations. The very end, Alex, it's chapter, xxx, i32, and i32, and then the final paragraph of the word. Very honored. And also in privileges were granted to the kindred of the mystically at Magnesia, Magnesia, which were observed down to our times and were enjoyed by another themistically, of Athens with whom I had an intimate acquaintance and friendship in the house of amonious the philosopher.
Very interesting that he should book in the life of the mystically in this way. And I do think it's connected to the abstraction you referenced earlier. And this, by the way, is also true of his life. He doesn't have both feet in Athens.
He's not allowed to exercise in the city center. He has to be a little bit outside, because he's not a full citizen. And he ends up basically a version of the end of his life, not in Greek. And as someone said, he committed suicide.
You know, Thucydity actually raises a doubt about that. Thucydity says he died of disease and that there's no rapport he killed himself. I'm sorry Plutarch gives too long of suicide stories. One is that he drinks something that would lead to a quick death and the other is that he drank bull blood.
It's something very close to what David Barge drinks on Saturday. It's a different bull fluid. That's hurtful. Is that what I did?
Is that what I did? I see you something. No, that was not like again there. That was pretty good.
That's pretty good. But I think the question of whether he did kill himself or not is important too, because Thucydity is the question of if he's going to kill himself, the question is why he doesn't want to help the Persians defeat. Or he has seen his because it's going to cloud his glory. I think for Thucydity, that suggests a kind of attachment to Greece or to Greek things that the mystically no longer has.
And that's, I think, what makes Thucydity really interesting is on the one hand, he's some of what, unmoored from Athens. He's not like Alcibiites. He's not holy and bored. He goes to Persia.
He learns Persian. He's trying to adapt to health and not. But he seems kind of caught between. I think we took a one point, I think it's 18, chapter 18, where he says that the mystically was the most loving of honor.
There's something about the love of honor that's on the one hand attached to the city because you want to be honored by the people there. But on the other hand, it's somewhat flexible because you'll be honored by others elsewhere. But it's not the kind of universalism of Alcibiites who wants to be entirely beautiful to everyone everywhere. This is a small point.
So keep your main point going. But the weird thing I thought is the chapter 18, like you mentioned, that I'm using the lobe where it says that he was most ambitious by nature or most honor living. That's the chapter that includes these sort of funny sayings. It just seems like here's the proof that he was super ambitious.
He has these sort of funny traits saying that seem kind of cutting to people. It's just like there's such greater evidence that he was a lover of honor than this chapter about his witty saying. But in any of that, sorry, you had a more serious point about his love on. No, I think that's, I wouldn't actually just circle around back to the lost point, which is that midway through chapter four, he brings up this very fact that he made the Athenians a sea, very people says, after this, this after the Al-Salamis by learning the city on gradually and turning its progress toward the sea, urging that with their infantry, they were no match, even for their nearest neighbors.
But that with the power they would give from their ships, they could not only repel the barbarians, but also take the lead and hell us. He made them instead of step past hop lights to quote Plato's words. He made them instead see tossed Mariners and brought down upon himself this accusation, etc. Next paragraph, now whether by accomplishing this, he did injury to the integrity and purity of public life or not, let the philosopher rather investigate.
So he points to Plato. Yeah, what does that mean? I think what he means, and this is, I think it's interesting because you would think, oh, that's a matter for the statesmen to judge, whether this was a good decision or not, like a true statesman. But he says, rather, the philosopher is to judge whether it was a smart move to unmoor them.
And I think this might go to B.J.'s point about how domestically is made philosophy possible. I think Socrates would have to put to the list of ways on the one hand with gratitude. But I think in light of his awareness or his knowledge of politics, he'd have to say, yeah, this is a big mistake. I don't think that just points out to any matter with politics and philosophy.
Was that? Sorry, I thought what he was saying about the sea bearing is it changes the, it changes the mode of Athens so that, absolutely, commerce with foreign peoples becomes the norm, and with foreign peoples foreign ideas. It's not just that. I mean, I'm sorry, I don't have to say my addition doesn't have the chapter numbers or the paragraph numbers.
So, and I think it has some different breaks here. So, I may be missing something from that particular paragraph, but the political objection to what semistically's did, consists in the fact that it made it wholly commercial. So, it wasn't just dealing with foreigners, that was motivated by a commercial spirit, but also made possible the democracy. Once you rely on the Navy, forget a regime based on the virtues or anything conservative or traditional is simply out.
Right, reckless daring, tireless grasping for more frenetic energy is the order of the day. Yeah, and even more, I think more generally, this is probably a little bit from Pericles, but the city center now matters, not the fields. And even more so, the port, Perreus matters more than the city center. So, what does the mystically do after they defeat the Persians?
Is he fortifies Perreus, right? Because what's the lifeblood? Where does Athens, especially in the Peloponnesian world, where do they get their supplies and everything as their fields mean for their empire? They just import everything, right?
So, I mean, think about it today, right? You have a economy that's like, wholly professional, right? Where are you going to get your food from? Where are you going to get your cheap labor from?
I mean, you have to export it to China, right? I mean, yeah, so the Athenians are importing stuff from the Ukraine, basically. I mean, they're really bringing in bread from there, right? I mean, I don't know if you've been able to spend any time around Attica.
The only thing that grows there is like olive trees. Good luck. You know, they had to, these were people who had to put their farm animals on Yiboia, right? Yiboia, whatever you pronounce on the island, because they had to graze there, because there's no freaking grass in Attica, right?
So, so... All the groves in your suit limit. So, I'm not sure Socrates is genuinely wholly critical of Smith. He's not just because of philosophy either, right?
I mean, he's making possible access to all of these goods. Cheap bread. Okay, great. Love that.
Foreigners have access to Athens. Socrates might like that, right? The daring spirit in the young people, right? There might be reasons for Socrates to like that.
Politically, it poses some problems, but not simply, right? Not simply problems. And I've killed it. That's a good job.
No, I think it's just gone by me. That's all. Yeah, it's gone by me. I think that this only is to BJ's point in the passage you read that the philosopher should investigate this.
It's bookended by philosophy and it's to repurmutes it as well. And I've always said this on some of the other episodes. We did on Plutarch. I suspect that some of the Roman writers may have been doing philosophy gussied up to something else tonight.
I just wonder if Plutarch is doing the same. But just what interesting... This may be cuts against what I'm saying. What he says there, the passage you read, let the philosopher rather investigate this.
It's actually the comparative of philosopher. So, with a more philosophic person, let it be investigated by the more philosophic person. Is that in contrast with him? I don't know.
Maybe in contrast with the mystics. It does seem like... I think BJ makes a really good case for why the philosopher just really endorsed him. I mean, you think about all the fine imports that we don't mean just food, but we also mean softness.
Yeah. Nice softness who are willing to offer a new field of education and they're nice foil, right? Or an interesting sort of set of oddballs. Yeah, partially examined light pops up in Athens close to this point in time.
We have to think of the mystics for that. You were pushing back. I don't know one thing I wanted to circle back to here. So, you said whether by accomplishing this, establishing the empire, the mystics did injury to the integrity and purity of public, for not let the philosopher rather investigate.
I mean, if it is the case that the mystics made possible, the flourishing of the arts and sciences, including philosophy, it seems like one of the... But it also simultaneously actually made politics worse. All this does is circle back to the notion that politics and philosophy are opposed. I mean, I think this is the subject of civics too.
You only see philosophy emerge when there's pretty clear sign that there's not exactly civic health going on. Right? And the client's already set in. You get this to be a public.
You get this to be some Thucydides. There's something wrong with this sophisticated worldview. Yeah, but I get a little tired of the people who think, oh, the healthy regime is Sparta. I mean, give me a...
No, no, that's right. Yeah, that's obviously right. Oh, no, no, no. I'm sorry.
I'm sorry. Go on. You don't like a little incest and rule of women? I'm not going to comment about those.
What I am going to say is that there's no human flourishing there. Sparta in 700 years gives you two poets. The time is basically forgotten. Yay.
I can't remember their names. One of the names. I'm sorry? I don't remember their names.
One of the names. Artilica Centertias. There you go. Yeah.
So... I killed because it's just like... I stabbed him. I was just like...
He was like, I love this. I was like, oh, yeah, I'm going to go check this out. He's going to be great poetry and I read it. I was just like, he's like, I saw you on the field.
Gregorius. And I stabbed you in the neck. It was worthy. It's the craziest thing.
I attended a lecture on Spartan Poetry, actually, I spent 10 years ago or more now. And it was just funny because it was these... These people were just trying so hard to take it very seriously. You know, these classics types.
And it was something like this. I'm like, this is all... What are we doing? Why are we wasting our time?
It's actually good stuff to read up. Don't even get to start with the feminist and staff. They find like two words that are just trying to get a fragment. Oh my God, stuff is so great.
Yeah, I guess. Maybe. So why don't we turn out to the actual battle? Oh, yeah.
And maybe a little bit to BJ's article. So strategically, what's the sleight of hand that puts it in motion? BJ. Can I back up just a little bit?
I'm sorry. No, no, no. But the battle of Solomon, you just tell us what it is roughly when it occurs. And we haven't even talked about roughly when the myth's Elise is alive and all that stuff.
But some folks who are good at situating is like... Also, who's Plutarch and who are the Greeks also, I think the folks at home could use an explanation about that. Okay, I think I hear someone calling me. I'll be right back.
Also, what translation are you using and what translation am I using? Can you let's hold him? No, he's not. He's making fun of me.
He's making fun of me. Okay, I'll... I'll hold it back and I'll go jump into the middle. So the battle of the...
The Battle of Solomon is an arguably the most important battle in September. important battle in the second Persian invasion of Greece. So the Persians and Greeks have a long, sorted history going back at least to around 4.99, 4.94. There's this uprising in Greek colonized Persia, Asia Minor, and they came and helped burn Sardis basically.
And the Persians were kind of pissed about that, and really made it quite difficult for them to get the money from the other Greek colonies that were on their Western coast. So they really harbored a grudge over that. And about four years after they were able to put that revolution down, you get the first Persian invasion. And that basically was an island hopping adventure led by Darius all the way over to the famous Balot Marathon where Miltiades led the Greek forces and slaughtered some 6,000 Persians to the loss of, I think, was a total of under 200 Greek KIAs.
They really kicked their butts. And the Persians turned around, tailed between their leg and went back home. Darius dies, and his son Xerxes is going to get back at those dastardly Greeks for not submitting to the Persians. And so building this massive massive army, right now, if Herodis is to be believed here and he's not, it was like a million-man army.
But even if it wasn't a million-man army, it's absolutely massive, right? I mean, as he reports it, it took him a month for that army to cross the boat bridge that he created at the Hellespans. Absolutely massive. So second-person invasions is 480 BC.
And wherever this massive army goes, it's getting soil and water from these tiny Greek city states that are just simply too damn small to do anything about it. And so they're yielding to the Persians. They're not even putting up a fight. And even Sparta is just saying, hey, hey, let's, they're doing the Chamberlain technique, right?
Yeah, well, this, OK, this Martin's stuck, right? I mean, this Martin's are just like, hey, everyone. Basically, let's make it the fortress Peloponnesus here. Everyone comes to the Peloponnesus.
We'll build a wall across the Corinthian isthmus. And we'll make our last stand here. I mean, absolutely stupid, right? I mean, that's why Greg likes them.
Yeah, yeah. No, it's the stupidity of it. Although, although all, yeah. So now, by the way, though, this has to be preceded a little bit.
Let me put a pen in the story three years prior to this. The Athenians discover Silver Mine and Loryum, which is in Attica, just south of the city proper. And it's like winning the political lottery, right? I mean, it's the whole city's just lost their minds.
Like, yeah, let's mine the sh out of this silver. And then what we'll do is we'll just divvy it up, right? Everyone will get an equal share. And yeah, and this is brilliant.
Themistically, he's like, oh, hell no, we're not going to do that. I tell you what, this is what we should do. Now, he's got his eyes on them. He's got his eyes on the Persian threat.
He knows they're going to be coming back. And he said, but he can't sell that to the Athenians, because he knows the Athenians. They have sight, but they don't have foresight, right? So they're never going to believe this.
They ask for us partly because we're envious of them, right? They're very powerful and very wealthy, because they have these boats, right? They've got a really nice Navy and they're doing a great job by aligning their pockets with that Navy. So we should do what this silver mine invested in a bunch of triremes, build a massive fleet, knock out the Pyreus, which is this city harbor, which is three deep water ports, naturally advantageous for the creation of this fortified port ship sheds down there.
By the way, the ship sheds down there were supposed to be one of the wonders of the ancient world, right? These gleaming marble ship sheds that they had in the harbor pyreus that you could see from miles off. When the sun hit it, it looked really, I would love to have seen this. Anyway, so that's happening in 483 years prior to this massive Persian invasion.
And so that gives the time, the Athenians some time to really get their act together with learning how to release boats, right? So the triremes they're dealing with are these, these, these, which are for three banks of rowers. You get something like a total of 170 rowers in the ship. When you, when you complete the top deck, you would add Marines or archers, you know, maybe like 20 or 30 men, something like that.
But it's basically, these are basically floating missiles. That's really what they are. And their primary weapon was the ram that's just below the water that you would use to, you know, if you did a pluice or a peri-pluice maneuver and T-bone, basically the opponent triremes. But they were really fast.
That's the kicker, right? And most ships before this were called pentecontrids, something like 50 ores. So these were extremely fast. Sat low in the water, which was great for the waters around Salamis and in the pyreus.
Anyway, so this is going to work out the timing of 170 men rowing in sync with three different banks of rowers. It's really fascinating. By the way, the Athenians, the reaction is called the Athenians. Modern Greeks rebuilt this.
I don't know if you've seen any of them, have you seen any of them yet? And you guys see me like, they rebuilt a triremen, they made a triremen and operate. It's unbelievable. It's out there.
I'm dying to get on this. It's on YouTube. Can you see? Oh, yeah.
Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. So they rebuilt the triremen and they couldn't make it as...
Yeah, go ahead. Sorry, I didn't interrupt. Was themistically in charge of this pre-war preparation. We see the genus because just to reading these histories in World War II, it's not simply the production of materiality, it's training people up.
Yeah, that curve can be massive. And so it was, he mystically in charge of this as well, his vision. Or this is something we have to assume. Yeah.
So, what you do is, once you've... Now, these triremes are pretty expensive. They run about a talent a month per triremen. And they came up with something like 200 triremes.
And so you're 200 times 200 men and you're looking at basically the entire city of Athens getting expertise and rowing. So this, of course, has to be done. It can't simply be spearheaded or overseen by the mystics. This has got to have the sanction of the assembly.
The assembly's got to be fully behind this. And of course, the triremen, the immediate invent, the triremen, right? They were triremes out there in Sicily already. They were triremes in Corinth.
The Persians had triremes already. So they didn't invent them. They just made use of them. I have to confess to a little bit of...
I think there's a bit of a gap here. I mean, I'm not quite sure between them mystically saying, hey, this is a good idea. We should do this. And then the actual implementation, I don't think he was down in the shipyards overseeing the construction of these things, right?
But you can't commit yourself to a massive military buildup like this without people being willing to go out and train for this. So it's not as if he said, okay, by the way, we have to row boats here. I mean, the Athenians were a seafaring people prior to this. They just weren't a seafaring as the mystics wanted them to be.
There's actually a decent book on the battle of Salomist. This is a... Is that very straws? Yeah.
It's not bad. It's good. It's not bad. I have a silly sort of thing to add to this, as you're building up the story here.
I just read some process recently. And one of the things that struck me, maybe on this room, I mean, is you guys are correct. But the Persians didn't necessarily know a swim. That's right.
Right. You know, that's enough of your racial jokes, man. One after another with the racial stuff. They don't know how to swim.
They didn't have pools in their neighborhoods growing up. They're from the desert. They're not like you. And that's right.
You think the Georgia boy out of Georgia can't take the Georgia out of the boy. But the Greeks could swim. And so this idea of ramming the ships actually would be normalcy successful because, I mean, this is sort of gruesome to think about, but these Persians would just all drown. That's right.
Yeah. I know that. So the Persians didn't have ships, right? I mean, they were Persian rollers, Persian sailors, but they didn't have ships.
So they'd have to have planes down there. So they couldn't navigate it as well. It just wasn't actual type of their ship. I mean, they had try rings, but their try rings were heavier and harder to navigate in the waters around Salamis, as we'll see.
They also just did some really stupid things. I mean, the things that no experienced sailor would ever try. So to bring it back to the story, to try and get to the battle, as the Persians are marching southward towards Attica and the Peloponnesus, the Greeks try and kind of head them off at the pass, right? So this is a famous stand at Thermopylae, right, where you have Leonidas and his so-called 300, which is, of course, bullsh**, right?
Because there's like 7,000 other Greeks there with him, right? And he drives me crazy. The 300, whatever. So what about these other 7,000 Greeks?
When they, nothing? Meanwhile, it just turns out the exact same time. You've got the Battle of Artemesium, right? The naval Battle of Artemesium.
And so what the Persians thought they would do is with their ships, so at this point, by the way, they've got something like 1,300 ships, right? To roughly, what the Greeks are putting out into the fields, something like 300. And the Persians thought they would go around this island, right, and outflank the Athenian Armada. Well, really, it sounds, you can do that on land.
You can't do it on sea without running serious wrists. And so they exposed themselves to storms along this coast, and they got absolutely wrecked. And they lost something like 400 ships in a storm, right? How narrow was it, by the way?
So Artemesium is almost like, in some ways, narrower than Salamus, what we're going to see at Salamus. I wish I had a map behind me, and I could point it out to you. What is that at Salamus? How narrow are we talking at Salamus?
Okay, so we're talking like, you see the other shoreline. Yes. If you go down, if you're an Athens, you walk down, you can stand on the shores and look across and see Salamus. You can see, guys?
Yeah. Oh, wow. Really cool. Now, I haven't been to Salamus, but you just need it.
Yeah. Yeah. So you're sitting there looking across the water, you're like, oh my God. Yeah.
I mean, the number of ships that ended up in Salamus, so by the time the versions make it down there, they have anywhere around like 800 or 900 ships, right? But the Athenians, you know, they're, I'm sorry, the Athenians, the Greeks at that point, have something like, you know, three, 400 ships total. But of course, it's just like their map alive. When you narrow the passages, you offset numerical superiority.
And of course, they mean these waters quite well, because they're in their backyard and the Persians didn't, right? And the Persians again split their forces by trying to hem the Greeks in on Salamus so they couldn't retreat. I mean, it was just an absolute disaster, strategically from the Persian point of view. And of course, the outcome was a disaster for them as well.
But the battle at Artemisium was kind of a draw between the Greeks and the Persians, and it really gave the Greeks an opportunity to see what fighting the Persians were like, and that they realized, well, you know, there's a lot of ships, but they're, they're not great, you know, sailors, and they're not invincible. And so we have a bit of a shot here. But basically, once the news came out that the Spartans were dead at Thermopoli and everyone was basically run away, run away. They decided, okay, we need to regroup at Salamus, make our next, make our next plan there.
And so that's what they decided to do. And of course, at this time, the Athenians are like, all right, there's no way we're going to be able to stop the Persians on land. So we're going to need to vacate the city, right? And basically, so that's what they did, right?
Everyone's retreating to Salamus. The Greeks are, the Athenians have to go send their women and children into hiding. Every able-bodied male's got to jump on board the ships, right? And they've got to make their stand here.
Now, of course, as we've already discussed, the Spartans don't plan on making a stand at Salamus. They're going to, you know, this is an opportunity to regroup and high-tail it to the Peloponnesus and build that isthmy and wall, the terrible idea, right? And so the Greeks are really fractured here. And so this is where Themistichles' genius has come in, right?
So what I mean, what he does is he sends, what is it, the Aquinas or the kind of servant, man's servant who was, had a care for his kids, was a teacher for his children, go speak to Xerxes and say, hey, look, the Greeks on Salamus are divided. Now is the time to attack them. Don't let them get away from Salamus. They're going to retreat to the Peloponnesus.
If you let them get away, now's the time to hit them. And of course, this was the dirty dog. Yeah, dirty dog. This is brilliant deception on Themistichles' part.
Xerxes takes the bait and this is exactly what we're going to do. We're going to surround them at Salamus. I'm now adopted in Alex's pronunciation. And of course, even so, the Greeks don't believe it, right?
The Greeks don't think they've been penned in. So this is where Aristides comes in and says, yeah, I've seen it myself, right? I was bringing back the idols from Agena, right? The Aquinas.
I'm bringing them back. And I saw it myself there. We're penned in. And even then they didn't believe it until they finally got some traitors, some people who fled the Persians, right?
And said, no, no, no, we're actually here. You're penned in. And so the Greeks said, OK, we got to stand and fight. Right?
And so of course, that's what they did. And because they had a kind of strategic superiority or that nautical superiority in the Straits of Salamus, they were able to limit their numerical superiority and just absolutely smoked them. When I teach this to my students, I try and remind them of the miracle on ice in the 1980 Olympics. And of course, they have no clue what I'm talking about.
But I remember that very vividly. And being a hockey player in the Midwest just absolute shock that these college kids could beat the Soviet professional team arguably the greatest team in the world that had beaten them something like 10 straight times. That was what I want. Just the miracle at Salamus.
Is that one that you're making swag? That's right. No, I think it was like... Making the Rob Sled Team beat the...
Rob Sled Team, I don't think that was an 80. I think that was like 84 or 88. And John Candy was pushing the sled out so they had a lot of power by it. So this is, this is, you know, Greg had asked earlier what time this is like late September of 480 BC.
I dated it September 20th, Barry Strauss dates it September 24th, 25th. But we're talking the last week of September for ABC. September 20th is my birthday. It's also the birthday of the Ostros.
It's September 20th, you said, right? Yeah. Yeah, that's the birthday of Leo Strauss. It's never eight.
Not a very Strauss. Maybe it is a very Strauss, but... He wishes. Yeah, so of course the Persian king shocked at this outcome, right?
Gets it out here. Here's a second bit of duplicity by the mystic police, right? Themistically, initially, as we know from Plutarch, wants to erase ahead to the boat bridge at the House of Spont and burn it, thereby trapping the Persian king and his massive force within mainland Greece. And our study says you don't want to do that.
That's just a very bad idea because they're not going to be forced to fight and really the odds are against us. So the mystic police says, yeah, yeah, yeah, good idea, good idea. I'll tell him this is the plan to give him a reason to get out of here even faster, of course. So what he does, he leaves behind a fairly large force under the command of Mardonius, but takes most of his force back with him and gets a hell out of there before the Greeks can burn down his boat bridge, which they were not going to do anyway, but this is a bit of slight of hand by the mystic police yet again.
So the Persians are still in Greece for another year. This is a rump force, which is still quite sizable. It's still in Greece for another year. So you get the battle at Plataia, battle at Plataia and battle at my cow, which is my colleague, which is a sea battle.
So there was still some very important work to be done, right? But really, Stalinist was the battle that saved Western civilization because it forced the Persians to go home and had the Persian state. You would not have had the polis that was so crucial to the development of philosophy, but not just philosophy. I mean, drama, right?