Well now, the near universal praise for Alan Bloom's translations of Plato suggests that I should tackle Plato, again. There are no other significant ancient sources on a life, and anything modern would necessarily draw upon these, and these would, of course, be better than something like Leonidas: Hero of Thermopylae, which is a children's book. The best you can do is to read the entry in the Oxford Classical Dictionary and then the relevant sections of Plutarch mentioned here, as well as Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus. In a difficult struggle they were killed by the swarming Persians, pouring in on all sides. Rather than dying in the pass, Leonidas led his men right up to Xerxes' tent and, finding him absent, sought him throughout the enemy camp, killing everyone in their path. Specifically Plutarch has just accused Herodotus of obscuring or dimming 'the greatest act' of Leonidas. In his work on the malice of Herodotus (conventionally given the Latin name De malignitate Herodoti), he says that certain things neglected by that historian will be written in the Life of Leonidas. I know of no Life of Leonidas, though Plutarch apparently intended to write one.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |