Now Playing: Zero-gravity lacrosse
Well, I stand happily corrected...David's 'Australia' role was announced yesterday, and he's got the third lead! That's thrilling news, and a welcome respite from the months of mystery and fan speculation that often accompany news of a new David project. The more news that gets released about this project, the more spectacular it sounds.
I got nothin' today, except a rambling discourse about the real-life counterparts of the events and people depicted in Frank Miller's graphic novel. And a joke.
Rambling discourse first. As you know, Thermopylae literally means "the hot gates" in Greek (thermos, container for storing hot soup, + pylae, gates). At Thermopylae, there was a narrow track along the shore of the Gulf of Malis, about 50 feet wide. On one side were cliffs; on the other the Gulf. Anybody journeying north or south had to pass along this track. The path was constricted by three narrow necks (or gates), with a wall at the central gate, so it was a naturally defensible location that could be held by just a few men. The "Thermo" in "Thermopylae" refers to hot water springs that emerged from the foot of the hill. History does not record whether the 300 Spartans paused during battle to soak their aching muscles.
The Greeks were betrayed by a local man, Ephialtes, who showed Xerxes a goat path that went around the Greek position and emerged behind the lines. Ephialtes was motivated by the desire for reward, although he was later assassinated. For this act, the name of Ephialtes was forever stigmatized: it means "nightmare", and in Greek is synonymous with "traitor". In English, the closest analogue would be "quisling".
History records two survivors of the battle. One was on legitimate sick leave with an eye inflammation, and the other, a man named Aristodamus, was suspected of slacking and treated as an unperson when he crept back to Sparta. He redeemed himself (at least in Herodotus' eyes) when he charged suicidially into the Persian ranks at the battle of Plataea. Being team players, the Spartans were unimpressed by his showboating, and refused to accord him any honors after the battle. (Tough crowd.)
Dilios' character seems to be a combination of Eye Guy (as meaningofhaste calls him) and Xeones, the sole survivor of Thermopylae who narrates the Steven Pressfield novel "Gates of Fire". Xeones is captured by the Persians, and pressed by Xerxes to reveal the story of how a small band of Spartans kept an overwhelming tide of invaders at bay:
And yet, titanic as was that sense of loss, there existed a keener one which I now experienced and felt my brothers-in-arms feeling with me. It was this.
That our story would perish with us.
That no one would ever know.
I cared not for myself, for my own selfish or vainglorious purposes, but for them. For Leonidas, for Alexandros and Polynikes, for Arete bereft by her hearth and, most of all, for Dienekes. That his valor, his wit, his private thoughts that I alone was privileged to share, that these and all that he and his companions had achieved and suffered would simply vanish, drift away like smoke from a woodland fire, this was unbearable....
I would be the one. The one to go back and speak. A pain beyond all previous now seized me. Sweet life itself, even the desperately sought chance to tell the tale, suddenly seemed unendurable alongside the pain of having to take leave of these whom I had come so to love...
As poets call upon the Muse to speak through them, I croaked my inarticulate grunt to the Striker From Afar.
If indeed you have elected me, Archer, then let your fine-fletched arrows spring from my bow. Lend me your voice, Far Darter. Help me to tell the tale.
Xeones, like Dilios, feels a keen sense of guilt, almost failure, at being the one to live. His entire life and training had been devoted to preparing to die for his country, and now this.
As for the armored war rhinos....okay, no real-life counterpart there.
And now, the joke, which I was reminded of when I looked out at the ice-encrusted landscape of the back porch this morning:
Q: What's Irish and stays outside all winter?
A: Paddy O'Furniture.
