Herodotus tells us that no Greek could hear even the word Persian without terror. But then Greece found itself in a battle for survival against this power. How was it possible for the Greeks to face and defeat this all powerful empire?

Tag words: Persians; hoplites; Herodotus; Histories; Victor Davis Hanson; The Western Way of War; Spartans; skirmishers; cavalry; Greek warfare; phalanx; Thucydides; History of the Peloponnesian Wars; Battle of Mantineia; Battle of Leuktra;

Fill in the blank: Had it not been for the SOMETHING I do not think that we should have won the war. I’ll give you the answer later in the programme.

Victor Davis Hanson. Les Carylon. William Manchester. Larry Siedentop. John Keegan.

Tag words: CS Lewis; chronological snobbery; Greek phalanx; Victor Davis Hanson; The Western Way of War; Les Carylon; The Great War; William Manchester; Goodbye to Darkness; Larry Siedentop; Inventing the Individual; Persian empire; Australian Imperial Force; Prime Minister Billy Hughes; General Monash; Pompey Elliott; Kenneth Macksey; Panzer Division; Onasander; Plutarch; John Keegan; The Face of Battle; Homer; The Iliad; Xenophon; Battle of Leuktra; Spartans;

Who issued this legendary order: All privates will retreat, all commanders will cover their withdrawal.

Victor Davis Hanson

Tag words: Phalanx; Persians; Aemilius Paulus; Battle of Pydna; Victor Davis Hanson; The Western Way of War; Spartans; Battle of Plataea; Thucididyes; History of the Peloponnesian War; hoplites; Aratos; Aristophanies; god Phobos; god Pan; Nelson Mandela; Guderian; Rommel; Israeli Defence Force; IDF; The Israeli Army; Edward Luttwak; Dan Horowitz; Palmach; operation Nachson; Harel Brigade; Corinthian helmet; 

True or false? You could grab a Greek’s spear and break its head off with your bare hands.

Victor Davis Hanson.

Tag words: Victor Davis Hanson; The Western Way of War; hoplite; thrusting spear; Persians; Aeschylus; The Persians; Marathon; Salamis; Plataea; Darius; Battle of Thermopylae Pass; Homer;

The Greek phalanx was normally eight ranks deep. Which rank did the Greeks place their best troops in? This is a trick question. I’ll give you the answer during the programme.

Victor Davis Hanson

Tag words: Victor Davis Hanson; The Western Way of War; Shield; Helmet; Greaves; Breastplate; phalanx; hoplite; Spartans; Romans; killing zone; Persians; Persian Wars; Corinthian helmet; coif; phalangites; Missiles; spears, swords, javelins, arrows, stones; bullets;

The men of Patton’s Third Army had a boast andt the Greeks, who had been at Marathon, had theirs too, that they said to their dying day. What was it?

Victor Davis Hanson.

Tag words: Patton’s Third Army; Battle of Marathon; phalanx; Herodotus; Persian Army; Victor Davis Hanson; The Western Way of War; Aeschylus; Battle of Salamis; greaves; a shield; breastplate; helmet; spear; sword; shield; Spartans; Plutarch; Death Road; Highway of Death; Gulf War

Just after Mardonius had reached Thebes, where he intended to give battle to the Greeks on ground of his own choosing, he was invited by a wealthy Theban man, together with 50 of his most distinguished nobles, to a sumptuous banquet. 50 of Thebans great nobles also attended this feast.

One of the Persian nobles there told the Theban that he was seated next to, a remarkable thing.

Tag words: Mardonius; Herodotus; JFC Fuller; Xerxes; Thermopylae; Salamis; Spartans; Athenians; Argos; Argives; Pausanias; John Marincola; Lacedaemonian; Thersander;

At last it was 1933. Hitler kept saying that he knew his destiny to become the Chancellor of the Third Reich would be achieved that year. If it didn’t then he would probably have ended up dead by his own hand.

Hitler isn’t universally loved. Even the man who would become the head of perhaps the most feared state security organisation that has ever existed in this world, the Gestapo, Heinrich Müller, had described Hitler as “an immigrant unemployed house painter”. On another occasion he’d called him “an Austrian draft dodger”.

In 1937 (well into the future from where I am right now with Hitler still hoping that he’s going to be appointed the German Chancellor), a local Nazi Party official wrote about this head of the Gestapo, Heinrich Müller ‘we can hardly imagine him as a member of the Party.”

Another internal Party memo from that same year said that it could not understand how “so odious an opponent of the movement” could have become the head of the Gestapo. But that’s a fascinating story for another time.

So, is Hitler going to realise his destiny to become the Chancellor of Germany in the course of this programme? If yes, how? Keep listening.

Tag words: Joseph Goebbels; Magda Goebbels; Nazis; Nazi Party; Pepper Mill; Bonbonniere; Therese Giehse; Richard Wagner; Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg; Heinrich Hoffmann; Eva Braun; Reinhard Heydrich; Kurt von Schröder; Franz von Papen; Hans Johannesson; Tägliche Rundschau; Abraham Plotkin; President Hindenburg; Vossische Zeitung; Reichstag; Joachim von Ribbentrop; Gestapo; Heinrich Müller;

Themistocles, the Athenian general had master minded the Greek victory at Salamis. But the war with Persia wasn’t won. Mardonius still occupied northern Greece with a large force of elite Persian troops, including the Immortals. Poised to descend on southern Greece, and Athens, yet again. What did the Athenians do to induce Themistocles to stick around, to work a little more of his magic? You wouldn’t believe me if I told you – which I’m about to do.

Tag words: Themistocles; Persia; Mardonius; Xerxes; Persian Empire; Athenians; Lacedaemonians; Spartans; Leonidas; Artabanes; Herodotus; Richard Nelson; Armies of the Greek and Persian Wars;

Gratitude – Let me offer the way the King of the Persians displayed his gratitude to the sea captain who saved his life – I bet you can imagine. On second thoughts … definitely not.

What about the Athenians? Themistocles, the man who took the right meaning from the Delphi Oracle’s prophecy, no easy thing, then masterminded the whole Salamis thing getting everybody to do what he wanted even though in almost every case it was the exact opposite of what they wanted to do – Persians and Greeks – what can you do for the man who saved Athens. Who saved all of Greece.

Well you won’t believe the real answers.

Tag words: Themistocles; Delphi Oracle; Battle of Salamis; Persians; Greeks; Athens; Victor Davis Hanson; Carnage and Culture; Saronic Gulf; Xerxes; trireme; Eurybiades; Herodotus; Histories; Napoleon; Retreat from Moscow; Grande Armée; Mardonius; JFC Fuller; Decisive Battles of the Western World; Delphi Oracle; Darius; Aeschylus; The Persians; Battle of Plataea;