I was planning on writing some thoughts down on some of the more enjoyable books I read over the past year, but on thing that has been burrowing through my mind since reading Tom Hollands Persian Fire, an excellent history of the Greco-Persian Wars in the fifth century BC is the way we engage with the stories of heroes and heroism.
The stories of people marching off to face impossible odds to defend their way of life had an enormous impact, we can tell because we still talk about it today. But more than that, the history of the Greek culture is littered with well-known stories of heroes and heroism.
Telling the stories of the people who stood up for what they believed in, took the brave steps to defend it and sacrificed or their beliefs has resonated through time.
We still tell the stories of Homer’s heroes in the Iliad, almost three thousand years after they were brought into existence. These stories influence us and they influenced the more proximate heroes like Alexander to search for greatness.
But what does heroism mean? Why do we care about it?
These were the question I grappled with. The story of Thermopylae was the story of men marching to certain death with a limited, if existing at all, strategic value to their sacrifice. Isn’t this just an example of thoughtless sacrifice on the altar of an idea that now seems a little more dangerous than useful?
The first argument in favour of heroism is that it is a easy was to tell stories of good vs evil.
Heroes are sold to us today as archetypes of what is good, fighting against evil and protecting what it right. This may be a simplistic way of transmitting basic moral stories to younger generations, and indeed actions to defend what you believe in are often complex and good and evil do not exist in forms that are as easily identifiable as in the stories we often tell.
But heroism and the stories of the people who took a stand is not all about good versus evil. The Greeks understood this and their histories and stories tell the stories of more stormy moral waters surrounding the heroes of myth and history.
Take the famous Hercules, a character brought to life for children by Disney as a strong man with a heart of gold desperate to be a hero and finding his calling through selfless sacrifice. The contrast in this story to the mythology of a strong man whose excesses, self-centred view of the world and anger eroded every good thing in his life. The twelve labours of Hercules were extraordinary and heroic, but also penance for the drunken murder of his family.
The tale of Hercules in one of a man who, looking at him, is unbeatable. His enormous strength allows him to achieve what mere mortals cannot. But the narrative of Hercules’ story shows us that the strength seen as an attribute to many came to be the burden of Hercules life, used to achieve penance after penance for his deficiencies as a person.
Heroes do not need to be good to be remarkable.
The story of Troy is similarly filled with flawed heroics. Achillies, drenched in the blood of those defending their homes and families like Hector whose death is brought about my a small and forgotten vulnerability.
The myth of the Amazons, led by Hippolyta, a woman whose scepticism of men was proven to be correct.
These stories seek to tell us of human nature. Depressingly, they rarely resolve positively.
The common thread behind the heroes of myth and the heroes of history seems to be the element of sacrifice, this is what immortalises their names and stories.
Leonidas’ sacrifice at the Hot Gates became a story of Spartan resolve The laconic epitaph “Oh stranger, tell the Lacedaemonians that we lie here, obedient to their wordS”, serves as the message of commitment that those Spartans had to their way of life that they were willing to sacrifice themselves to defend it.
That sacrifice became more well known (at least to laypeople like myself) than the more impactful meetings of Greek states and Persians at battles like Platea and Salamis.
The motivations of peoples who resist, despite the odds, for what they believe in is something that compels people towards their causes. Arguably, the story of the Spartans had an immediate effect on Greece at the time, but the longevity of the story is the truly remarkable part of the story.
The story of heroes and heroism then is something more than the simple good vs evil that it often descends into as a way to teach us of moral stories. The Greek heroes of old were not good, nor were they bad. They were people and their motivations were of interest and remark as were the way they acted.
The stories are also used to explain history and transmit the knowledge of the ages to future generations. The form of heroism used to describe Hercules is also used to immortalise Leonidas as Thermopylae and Themistocles at Sardis, the great actors of history are real, they are flawed, and we tell their stories to inform our world today.
