To Make a New Thermopylae

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'To Make a New Thermopylae': Hellenism, Greek Liberation, and the Battle of Thermopylae

Author(s): Ian Macgregor MorrisSource: Greece & Rome, Second Series, Vol. 47, No. 2 (Oct., 2000), pp. 211-230Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/826935Accessed: 07/01/2009 07:52

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Greece& Rome,Vol.47, No. 2, October 000

TO MAKE A NEW THERMOPYLAE:HELLENISM, GREEK LIBERATION, AND THEBATTLE OF THERMOPYLAE*

By IAN MACGREGOR MORRIS

In the eighteenth century, attitudes towards ancient Greece werechanging from an antiquarian interest in literature and art, into awider emotional affiliation that permeated many aspects of artistic andpolitical life. With this new attitude came an interest in contemporaryGreece and an awareness of and concern about her state under Turkishrule which, by the early nineteenth century, culminated in growingsympathy for the cause of Greek liberation. Of all the characters andincidents of ancient Greek history, none played such a central part inthis tradition as those involved in the Battle of Thermopylae of 480B.C., so that by the very eve of the Greek revolution in 1821 Byroncould call on his contemporaries to 'make a new Thermopylae'. Thehistory of Thermopylae in the late eighteenth and early nineteenthcenturies is, in many ways, the history of contemporary hellenism.The story of the eighteenth-century obsession with Thermopylaebegins in earnest in 1737. Richard Glover, at the age of 25, publishedLeonidas,a blank verse epic poem in nine books, some 5,000 lines long.Modern critics have been less than kind to Glover, usually dismissing hiswork without reason or evidence.1 Yet in the eighteenth century thereaction was quite different. The poem was 'for a short time the mostpopular poem in the English language,'2 and its popularity encouragedGlover to publish an extended version in 1770 and to write a sequelpublished posthumously in 1787. It went through three editions in thefirst year, was translated into French, into German four times, and intoDanish; eminent artists illustrated scenes from it, and it was twiceadapted for the stage.3 Glover himself became the toast of literarycircles: Swift, in a letter to Pope - a close acquaintance of Glover -wrote that Leonidas 'hath great vogue';4 Joseph Warton and John Scottpraised it for its classical 'simplicity', and Robert Southey for its'classical propriety', claiming that he read it more than any otherpoem, and did so 'always with renewed pleasure'.5 Henry Fieldingdescribed Glover as 'a celebrated poet of our nation',6 and Byron


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TO MAKE A NEW THERMOPYLAEincluded him in a list of poet-orators of whom he wrote: 'These aregreatnames, I may imitate, I can never equal them'.7The poem is a retelling of the events before and during the battle ofThermopylae. Glover closely follows his historical sources - mainlyHerodotus, Diodorus, and Plutarch - adding embellishments onlywhere they allow.8Although modern critics have accused him of writingthe poem on behalf of a political faction opposed to Robert Walpole'sministry,9 any objective reading of the poem refutes such a claim.Although there are political elements to the poem, they are implicitlycritical of the partisan politics of the time and remain secondary toartistic concerns. Glover's objective was to compose a poem on theHomeric model, and his direct rejection of many of the norms of neo-classical epic theory - as epitomized by Dryden and even Pope - placehim in the forefront of the new literarytrends that came to fruition in theromanticism of the early nineteenth century. He lies somewhere inbetween neo-classicism and romanticism, and while describing him asa Romantic would be going too far, to describe him as a hellenistwould not.

Glover's hellenism can be seen in two ways, the first literary,and thesecond political. Firstly, he avoids what many at the time saw as theover-sophistication and artificiality of modern poetry, in favour of'simplicity', an ambiguous term, but one often favourably applied toGlover. Critics such as Joseph Warton and William Cowper considered'simplicity' as the very essence of ancient Greek poetry, especiallyHomer. Contemporaries saw in Glover's poetry a conscious emulationof Homer, an attempt to return to ancient models of poetry.?1In theseventeenth century, during the height of the literary genre that wouldlater be termed 'neo-classicism', writers such as Milton and Dryden,while greatly admiring ancient literaturehad tended to believe that theirChristian age could improve upon it." However, one of the centraltenets of the hellenism of the eighteenth century was the belief that,despite the great literature of the Augustan age, no such improvementhad been made. As such, imitation was a virtue. Secondly, there isGlover's attitude to the Greeks themselves. Glover was among agrowing group of writers who were turning from Roman to Greekmodels, not just in literary, but also in moral terms. In Leonidas, thecharacters - both Greek and Persian - epitomize varying ideals andaspects of virtue. Glover is not so simplistic as to create perfectexemplars in his characters, a quality Dryden had thought essentialfor an epic hero.'2 Rather, he uses the charactersto elucidate the ideas

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TO MAKE A NEW THERMOPYLAEwhich ancient Greece was increasingly being seen to represent. Forexample, Leonidas' address to the Spartan assembly:

Why this astonishment on ev'ry face,Ye men of Sparta?Does the name of deathCreate this fear and wonder? O my friends!Why do we labour through the arduous paths,Which lead to virtue? Fruitless were the toil,Above the reach of human feet were plac'dThe distant summit, if the fear of deathCould intercept our passage. But in vainHis blackest frowns and terrours he assumesTo shake the firmness of the mind, which knows,That wanting virtue life is pain and woe,That wanting liberty ev'n virtue mourns,And looks around for happiness in vain.

(Leonidas I.126-38)Liberty and virtue: two concepts inextricablylinked and seen, by many,to be embodied in their purest form in ancient Greece. The placing ofthese ideals in ancient Greece was the real beginning of hellenism. InGlover there was an attitude of admiration to the ancient Greeks thatwas primarily concerned with the people themselves. Before the eight-eenth century, while there had been much admiration for the artisticachievements of ancient Greece, the people of ancient Greece them-selves were viewed with a general suspicion.13As such, the concentra-tion on the people rather than their art was something new. JamesThomson, in both The Seasons(1726-44) and Liberty(1735) had shownelements of this, but in both of these works the Greeks were notportrayedas an exceptional people, but merely as worthy of comparisonwith Romans and Britons. While Glover never actually claimed theancient Greeks were exceptional, within his concentration on a Greekstory and Greek virtue lay the seeds of such an idea.Furthermore, while Thomson's Liberty,or Mark Akenside's Pleasuresof The Imagination (1742) both placed eighteenth-century ideals inAncient Greece, Glover took this one step further. His poem associatedthese ideals with one specific event and group of characters, and thesuccess of Leonidasensured this association in the popular imagination.Such an association was not completely new: the ideals of liberty, virtue,and patriotism can be found in connection with Thermopylae inSimonides and Herodotus, throughout antiquity, and in mediaevaland renaissance accounts. However, the success of this poem meantthat Thermopylae was increasingly identified as the exemplar of these

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TO MAKE A NEW THERMOPYLAEideals. In the 1720s, James Thomson had made no mention of Leonidasamong his list of Greek 'worthies' in TheSeasons,but in the final revisededition of the poem, published in 1744, the Spartan stands as the bestexample of Lycurgan schooling. In the wake of Leonidas,Thermopylaehad become an essential archetype.

* * *

In the mid-eighteenth century, travel to Greece itself, though still notpart of the Grand Tour, was gradualiy becoming more common. Thesetravellers varied in intent, ranging from trade and botany to the study ofantiquities, but they all contributed to an awareness of Greece, notmerely as the scene and origin of classical literature, but as an actualplace. Travellers' accounts of this seemingly exotic land were fuelled by,and in turn furtherfuelled, the growing passion for hellenism. Althoughthe primaryinterest of many of these earlier travellers ay in the remainsof ancient art, by the 1750s a new aspect was beginning to emerge.Robert Wood's The Ruins of Palmyra, published in 1753, is a painstak-ingly illustrated record of that ancient city. However a passage in thepreface shows that Wood's interests lay beyond archaeology:It is impossible to consider with indifference those countries which gave birth to lettersand arts, where soldiers, orators, philosophers, poets and artists have shewn the boldestand happiest flights of genius, and done the greatest honour to human nature.Circumstances of climate and situation, otherwise trivial,became interesting from thatconnection with greatmen, and greatactions, which historyand poetry have given them:the life of Miltiades or Leonidas could never be read with so much pleasure, as on theplains of Marathon or at the streightsof Thermopylae; the Iliad has new beauties on thebanks of the Scamander, and the Odyssey is most pleasing in the countries whereUlysses travelled and Homer sung. The particular pleasure, it is true, which animagination warmed on the spot receives from those scenes of heroick actions, thetraveller can only feel, nor is it to be communicated by description. But classical groundnot only makes us always relish the poet, or historian more, but sometimes helps us tounderstand them better.Wood was, along withJames Stuart,among the firstEnglish travellerstovisit Thermopylae. His fascination with the landscape is the beginningof a trend that was to reach its climax with the Romantic poets. TheGreek landscape, for Wood, represents a continuity with antiquity, thatis in some ways more powerful than the ruins. In his later work onHomer,14Wood used the geography of Troy to explicate the Iliad, andmuch as modern classicists may scorn his method, his contemporariesdid not. There arose a belief, fostered by the likes of Winckelmann andGoethe, in the importance of visiting the setting of ancient literature f it

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TO MAKE A NEW THERMOPYLAEwas to be fully appreciated, and with this new attitude came aninevitable concentration on the subject-matter of the literature, ratherthan simply on the literature itself. Moreover, Wood's choice of ex-amples - Troy, Marathon, Thermopylae - places the emphasis onactions rather than art: Troy, in this case, was important not merelyas the setting of Homer's poem, but also as the site of a greathistorical-as far as Wood was concerned - event. Later writers, especially thoseconcerned with Thermopylae, turned more and more to the land itselffor simile and allegory. Robert Collvil, writing in 1771, defined heroismas being like 'Sparta o'er the Malian bay';John Scott in 1782 visualizedhow 'epic's voice sonorous calls to Oeta's cliffs'; and eleven years laterHenry Boyd called on his readers to: 'Reflect on Sparta,and reverethoserites, and that far celebrated soil, Which bred Leonidas.'l5 In each case itwas the naturalimagery - Sparta hanging over the bay, the cliffs of Oeta,the soil of Sparta - that lent power and meaning to the piece.This growing emphasis on the relevance of and reaction to locationand landscape can be clearly seen in a contrast of two traveller'saccounts written some sixty years apart. Richard Pococke visitedThermopylae in about 1740 and relates the event in simple terms:Our road was between the sea and high mountains; these mountains are calledCoumaita, and are doubtless the old mount Oeta, so that I began to look for thefamous passage called Thermopylae, where the Spartans with a few men opposed thegreat army of the Persians.16On finding the change in the landscape,17he is equally passionless:. . . The sea must have lost, and left the passage wider, though possibly it was a wayround the cape by the sea side, where there might be some narrow passes.Edward Dodwell's account of his visit to the Pass in 1805 is quitedifferent:As we approached the Pass of Thermopylae, the scenery assumed at once an aspect ofmore beauty and sublimity. To our left were the lofty and shattered precipices of Oeta,covered with forests, while silverlines of descending springs sparkled n the shade ... Thescene was one of voluptuous blandishments. No gratificationwas wanting which theenrapturedlover of landscape could desire ... We now approached the spot where thebest blood of Greece, and of other nations, had so often been spilt.'1And his reaction to the change in the landscape:... The whole country has since experienced greatphysical as well as moral revolutions.The sea has retired; rivers have altered their courses, and towns, castles, and temples

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TO MAKE A NEW THERMOPYLAEhave been swept from the face of the earth, or ingulfed in marshes, and overgrownwithweeds and bushes.

Here a moral element emerged, the change in the landscape reflectingthe degeneration of Greece: the very land itself is affected by the generalmalaise. Pococke's reaction was one of reporting his observations withan objective accuracy, while Dodwell's was a passionate hymn to thelocation of a great event. Pococke was both interested and curious aboutthe event that took place here, but it was only the interest of anantiquarian. His failure to see the pass as he had visualized it bringsonly the question as to whether the geography had indeed changed, andthe comment, without any sense of disappointment, that he might havebeen in the wrong place. However, Dodwell presented a sharpchange inemphasis. The beauty of the location, itself a testament to nature, alsoserved as a simile to the momentous events that took place there.Moreover, the change in that landscape was both representative of,and indeed part of, the moral change that had swept Greece. Not onlyhave the monuments fallen into ruin and the people themselves into amoral degradationbut, in this location so synonymous with liberty, eventhe very land itself had metamorphosed.

Dodwell was an accomplished artist and during his trips in Greecemade some 400 sketches, along with 600 sketches made by his travellingcompanion, an Italian artist named Pomardi. From these he selectedthirty which were reproduced as coloured prints in Views of Greece(1821). While regrettingthe restrictionon the number of printshe couldreproduce, Dodwell informed his readers that the views selected... comprise of nearly all the remains of any note in Greece, as well as those sceneswhich have become particularlycelebrated, and by their connexion with the ancienthistory of that country, have obtained the admiration and recollection of the moderntraveller.19Thermopylae was one of these selected views, and his print of the Pass[Figure 1] reflects his impression of its beauty. In his explanation of theprint, Dodwell described how... the eye is attractedto the massy form of Mt. Oeta, covered with forests and brokenwith glens and valleys. The sun was setting behind the mountain, which was envelopedin a tint of aerialblue.20The physical beauty again predominated. Dodwell saw no need todiscuss the events that took place here, that is, the reason this scenewas 'particularlycelebrated'. That would have been well known to his

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Fig. 1: 'Thermopylae' by Edward Dodwell from Viewsin Greece(1821).readers. The mere act of selecting Thermopylae for inclusion wastestament enough to the importance of the place. However his con-centration on the beauty of the place served to emphasize this im-portance.This highly sentimental reaction to landscape is pivotal in the wayDodwell viewed Thermopylae. The 'sublimity' of the place for theRomantics was an inextricable combination of aesthetic beauty - itsappearance - and spiritualbeauty - effectively the events that took placethere and the ideas those events represented. Yet not all travellersfoundthe Pass beautiful. Edward Clarke had visited the Pass some five yearsbefore Dodwell, and provides a sharp contrast. His anticipation as heapproached it reveals his feelings on the subject:We now set out upon the most interesting part of all our travels, - an expedition to theSTRAITS OF THERMOPYLAE.21This is a significant statement for a man whose travels had alreadytakenin much of Europe, Egypt, Palestine, and Greece. His thoughts onleaving the pass are worth quoting in full:We looked back towards the whole passage with regret; marvelling, at the same time, thatwe should quit with reluctance a place, which, without the interest thrown over it byantient history, would be one of the most disagreeable upon earth. Unwholesome air,

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TO MAKE A NEW THERMOPYLAEmephitic exhalationsbursting through the rifted and rotten surface of a corruptedsoil, asif the land around were diseased; a filthy and fetid quagmire; 'a heaven fat with frogs';stagnant but reeking pools; hot and sulphureous springs; in short, such a scene ofmorbid nature, as suggested to the fertile imaginationof the antient Poets their ideas of aland poisoned by 'the blood of Nessus', and that calls to mind their descriptions ofTartarus.22This picturesque description leaves little doubt as to Clarke's impres-sion. Dodwell's 'voluptuous blandishments' find no place in such alandscape. And yet Clarke proved himself as much a Romantic asDodwell. Despite the physical appearance, Thermopylae was stillsublime:... [such a scene] can only become delightful from the most powerful circumstances ofassociation that were ever produced by causes diametricallyopposite;- an associationcombining, in the mere mention of the place, all that is great, and good, and honourable;all that has been embalmed as most dear in the minds of grateful prosperity. In theoverwhelming recollection of the sacrifice that was here offered, every other considera-tion is forgotten;the Pass of Thermopylae ecomes consecrated;it is made a source of thebest feelings of the human heart; and it 'shall be had in ever lasting remembrance'.23For Clarke,Thermopylae's spiritualbeauty is emphasized by its physicalugliness. Despite the 'fetid quagmire', it is still 'consecrated'. WhileDodwell had expressed the sublimity of the place in terms of its beauty,and illustrated it with his painting, Clarke saw it in terms of theremembrance of the event. Yet Clarke clearly felt he could not ignorethe landscape, and so rather than avoid the seeming paradox betweenthe physical appearance and the spiritual 'beauty', he uses themtogether. Thus his illustration of the Pass [Figure 2] concentrates onthe heroes who fell there. His identification of the tumulus as theSpartans' grave - the polyandrium mentioned by Strabo - was confidentand boldly stated.24His engravingof it served to illustratewhat he saw asthe most significantaspect of the site, namely the sacrifice of the Greeks:this predominates over 'every other consideration'. This too is part ofthe landscape.Thus while only one of these writersexpressed Thermopylae in termsof the landscape, both the Romantic writers reacted to it, and both usedit to emphasize the 'sublime' nature of the place. In essence, theirattitudes to what the Pass representedwas remarkablysimilar. However,it was, of course, the Romantic poets who most fully realized the powerof landscape, and within this context it was Byron who most fullyillustrated it. In The Gaiour,written in 1813, some two years after hisfirst visit to Greece, he uses the landscape to its fullest effect:

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Fig. 2: 'The Tomb of the Spartans' from E. Clarke, Travels in Various Countries,vol. 4 (1812).

Clime of the unforgotten brave! -Whose land from plain to mountain-caveWas Freedoms's home or Glory's grave -Shrine of the mighty! Can it be,That this is all remains of thee?Approach thou craven crouching slave -Say, is this not Thermopylae?These waters blue that round you laveOh servile offspring of the free -Pronounce what sea, what shore is this?The gulf, the rock of Salamis!... Bear witness, Greece, thy living page,Attest it many a deathless age!While kings in dusty darkness hid,Have left a nameless pyramid,Thy heroes - though the general doomHath swept the column from their tomb,A mightier monument command,The mountains of their native land!25

Here Thermopylae and Salamis exist in the land, and yet not in thepeople. Moreover, the land is the monument to the ancient heroes in

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TO MAKE A NEW THERMOPYLAEways which marble can never be: not only is it where they fought, butalso it is what they fought for. Indeed, man-made monuments seem tospeak more of man's vanity than his deeds: one is reminded of Shelley'sOzymandias.Thus, in turning to landscape instead of monuments, thefocus of idealization of the ancient world is changed from art to action.The worth of the ancients was best seen in their deeds, which displaytheir virtue, rather than their genius for art. This is not to say thatancient art was ignored, but that admiration of ancient Greece wasconcentrating on the ancient Greeks themselves.In the extracts from Dodwell and Byron one can see the source ofphilhellenism. Like many travellers,they were shocked by the state of theGreece they saw. The Greeks displayed an ignorance of their own pastand a seeming contentment with 'slavery' which seemed quite at oddswith the virtues of their supposed ancestors.Many turned away,blamingthe situationon the moral degradationof the Greeks, and becoming whatone modern commentator described as 'miso-hellenists'.26For theseobservers, the modern Greeks had betrayed their heritage, and were sofar changed that no reversal of their fortune was possible. A few,however, not only blamed this state of affairs on the Turks, but alsosought to rectify it. This is perhaps the best definition of philhellenism.Working on the idea that liberty and virtue are inextricable - an ideacommon throughout the eighteenth century and shown in Glover'sspeech of Leonidas to his Spartans quoted above - they hoped forboth a political and moral regeneration of Greece. The solution lay ineducating the Greeks to their glorious past, and then inspiringthem withexemplars from it. And the most powerful of these exemplars wasThermopylae.

* * *

Before going on to illustratethe ways in which Thermopylae was usedwithin this political context, it should be explained why Thermopylae, asopposed to any other exemplar, is so powerful. The first reason is apractical one: for the purposes of rousing the Greeks against the Turks,Leonidas was simply the most suitable Greekfigure. To the philhellenes,the age after Alexander was one of decline whilst Byzantium was noteven seen as Greek. Within the limited period they considered, manymilitary figures abound, but each had certain limitations. Alexander,despite his victories, had too many personal vices and often appeared asan example to avoid, not to emulate; Epaminondas, although militarilysuccessful and seemingly virtuous, made his reputationin battles against

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TO MAKE A NEW THERMOPYLAEother Greeks, and as such was hardly suitable as a unifying figure. Onlythe charactersof the Persian Wars presented the right image of patrioticdefence of liberty,whilst the wars also provided an easy parallelbetweenthe Turks and the Persians. Yet of the heroes of the PersianWars, whichwould serve as the best exemplar?There is Miltiades of Marathon, laterconvicted of tyranny;Themistocles of Salamis, who later was ostracizedand sought refuge in Persia; Pausanias of Plataea, later accused ofattempts at tyranny; Leotychides of Mycale, later disgraced overbribery. The fact that by dying in battle, Leonidas could not blackenhis own name is not unimportant. He alone was untainted.The second reason for Thermopylae's importance is the key to thecontinual power of the battle as an exemplar, from antiquity to thepresent day. In dying, Leonidas became a martyr for Greece. Modernhistorians may argue that he was thinking only of Sparta, but the ideathat he was a pan-hellenist dates back at least to Plutarch, and is impliedby Herodotus. Moreover, both Herodotus and Plutarch agree - itself arare occurrence - that Leonidas knew he was going to die, and choseonly those 'with sons living' to accompany him. Thermopylae was not adefeat, it was a sacrifice. As such it becomes a moral act, as much as thedeath of Socrates orJesus.27Three extracts from the writings of SamuelTaylor Coleridge serve to illustrate the idea. The first is taken from hisnotebooks:Moral excellence almost essential to the sublime effect of particularaction, Leonidas &his Spartans - the 23rd Dragoons at Talavera - still more the Mamaluke & Winkelried.28

Coleridge is contrasting two kinds of courage, on the one hand that ofLeonidas or Winkelried,29 on the other that of the Dragoons atTalavera30 or the Mamaluke.31He differentiates the types of heroismshown by Winkelried and the Mamaluke as follows:In the former the state of mind arose from Reason, Morals, Liberty, the sense of dutyowing to the independence of his country etc - in short, containing or compatible withthe highest perfection & development of the human Faculties, Moral & Intellectual- inthe latter, predicative only of mere animal Habit, Ferocity, & unreasoned Antipathy toStrangers .. .32

The essence of these definitions, as shown in the firstextract, can also beapplied to Leonidas as opposed to the Dragoons.33In an article in TheCourier, Coleridge takes the idea further, again using Leonidas as anexample of the positive kind of heroism:

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TO MAKE A NEW THERMOPYLAEThe splendid qualities of courage and enthusiasm, which, being the frequent com-panions and in given circumstances the necessary agents of virtue, are too oftenthemselves hailed as virtues by their own title. But courage and enthusiasm have equallycharacterised the best and worst beings, a Satan, equally with an Abdiel - a Bonaparteequally with a Leonidas.34These extracts show Coleridge's thinking clearly: the heroism of aLeonidas is a moral heroism. While it necessitates physical bravery, itis much more than that because the source of that braveryis moral. It ispremeditated and inspired by a love of 'liberty',which to the eighteenth-and nineteenth-century mind was inextricablyconnected to 'virtue',as isshown in the quote from Glover's Leonidas. The patriotic self-sacrificefor liberty is the ultimate act of virtue, and so in the case of Thermopylaethe martial overtones are secondary to the virtues of the heroes. As suchThermopylae serves as a perfect exemplar for philhellenism. Firstly, themartial element serves as a perfect military exemplar, the battling ofoverwhelming odds against the 'old enemy', the Turks being identifiedwith the Persians. The fact that Thermopylae was a defeat is unim-portant because as an exemplar it shows the attitude and courage withwhich such a battle should be fought, and furthermoreit was seen as thefirst step to the eventual Greek victory. Secondly, its overriding moralelement provides for the idea of moral regeneration. As such the twinaims of philhellenism - moral and political regeneration- find their idealexemplar in Thermopylae.

* * *

The use of Thermopylae, and of Leonidas in particular, to encourageideas of, and support for, Greek liberation, can be seen clearly in the1770s. Marie Gabriel Auguste Florent, Comte de Choiseul-Gouffiervisited Greece in the late 1770s and published VoyagePittoresquede laGrecein 1782. That he later became the French ambassador to theOttoman Empire and completely recanted his philhellenic sentiments isnot important here. What is significant is his use of Leonidas. Thefrontispiece to the Voyage [Figure 3] depicts 'Greece in chains', and isexplained in detail. She is surrounded by monuments to classical Greekheroes who fought for liberty,and rests on the tomb of Leonidas, behindwhich is a pillar bearing Simonides' famous epigramto the Spartans.Onthe rock above her are the words 'Exoriare Aliquis'. That much isexplained. Any eighteenth-century reader cognisant with the classicswould understand the implication. The quote comes from Virgil:'exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor'35- 'let some avenging spirit

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Fig. 3: 'Greece in Chains' from Choiseul-Gouffier, Voyage Pittoresque de laGrece (1782).

arise from these bones' - and is Dido's final curse on the departingAeneas. The inference is unmistakable:while other heroes have monu-ments, only Leonidas is described as having a tomb. Of all the heroesmentioned, Leonidas has pride of place, and it is on his remains that thechained figure of Greece rests. As such, the call for an avenger centresaround him. While other heroes can serve as inspiration, it is the spirit ofLeonidas that must be emulated.As one would expect, it is Byron who most fully illustrates this idea.

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TO MAKE A NEW THERMOPYLAEChildeHarold'sPilgrimagewas mostly written in Greece, during Byron'sfirst visit in 1810-11.

Fair Greece! sad relic of departed worth!Immortal, though no more! though fallen, great!Who now shall lead thy scatter'd children forth,And now long accustom'd bondage uncreate?Not such thy sons who whilome did await,The hopeless warriors of a willing doom,In bleak Thermopylae's sepulchral strait-Oh! who that gallant spirit shall resume,Leap from Eurotas' banks, and call thee from the tomb?36

He compares the glorious past with the degraded present state ofGreece, and then calls on Leonidas - 'thatgallant spirit'- having alreadyshown him to be the height of ancient excellence, as the spirit themodern Greeks must emulate. The difference between ancient andmodern Greece - the 'departedworth' - is the presence of such a spirit.A year after Childe Harold appeared, William Haygarth publishedGreece,a Poem. Little is known of Haygarth, and his poem was over-shadowed by Byron's,37but in it he expressed a much more ferventphilhellenism than any other writer of the time:I have ventured to predict in poetry what I certainlyshould not be so hardy as foretell inprose - the moral regeneration of Greece.38Few at the time dared to show such optimism, even the likes of Byronrestrictingthemselves to calls for such a regeneration. No other poet soillustrates the philhellenic notion that the Greeks needed to be educatedas to their past. Haygarth imagined himself with a Greek peasant at thesite of Thermopylae, promising:

I will striveTo raise thy broken spirit, and with talesOf thy forefathers'deeds, waken the fireWhich slumbers, not extinguish'd, in thy breast.(Greece 1.517-20)

There follows a stirring account of the 'heroes who here fell In Free-dom's phalanx' (1.522-3) and 'died, as they had liv'd, triumphantly'(1.573). Then Haygarth told the peasant the purpose of the tale:Deeply impress this tale upon thy breast;And when thy country calls thee from thy plainsTo fight for liberty, remember thoseWho bled, unconquer'd, with Leonidas!(Greece1.574-77)

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TO MAKE A NEW THERMOPYLAEHaygarth thus explained clearly the purpose of these classical exem-plars: the inspiring of the modern Greeks to the moral regenerationwhich was the precondition of political regeneration. Furthermore, heshowed his optimism for such a regenerationin askingnot whether sucha revolt will occur, but rather when it will happen. In ancient Greece'ev'ryfathertaughthis child these tales' (1.578-79) but now 'those timesare past' (1.590). It is the foreigner's task to tell the tales:

... now a stranger's handMust sweep the strings, and feebly wake the chordsTo tell Greece, how noble were the sires,How weak and how degen'rate are the sons.(Greece 1.590-93)

Haygarthnot only sought to inspire the idea of a Greek revival,but evendescribed the role the philhellenes would have to play. This philhellen-ism permeated every aspect of his poem. He emphasized the importanceof Thermopylae in his water-colour of the Pass [Figure 4], one of nineplates that adorned the poem. Here the view is dominated by Mt. Oeta,that 'Bulwarkof Greece, whilst Greece still had a name' (1.601). Onceagain there is the recurrent theme of landscape, yet while Dodwell usedthe landscape of Thermopylae to show how much Greece had changed,Haygarth highlighted that which remained the same. He used the imageof the mountain to show what the Greeks had fought for: the gates, andvery freedom, of Greece. In so doing, he drew attention to the presentplight of Greece and the idea of regainingthat freedom. For even thoughfreedom has flown, the gates still stand.Six years later, on the very eve of the Greek War of Independence,Byron made the call even more clear. 'The Isles of Greece' is a songwithin Don Juan sung by a Greek bard lamenting the condition of hiscountry. He reflects on Marathon where he 'dream'd that Greece mightstill be free', and on 'sea-born Salamis', but they are only memories.Then he makes what is probably philhellenism's most direct invocationto Thermopylae:

Must we but weep o'er days more blest?Must we but blush? - Our fathers bled.Earth! render back from out thy breastA remnant of our Spartan dead!Of the three hundred grant but three,To make a new Thermopylae!39

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Fig. 4: 'Thermopylae' by William Haygarth from Greece, a Poem (1814).

It is by recreatingthe spirit of Thermopylae that Greece, in both a moraland political sense, can be rejuvenated.That is what is meant by makinga new Thermopylae. It is the reclaiming of the spirit that, for thephilhellenes, was the very essence of ancient Greece.* * *

The effects of philhellenism on the attainment of Greek Independence istoo broad a question to address here. Suffice it to say that thephilhellenes who fought in Greece itself died in sufficient numbers towarm western Europe to the cause. Furthermore, despite the persistentopposition of the Great Powers to any form of Greek Independence, itwas those same Powers that seemingly inadvertently ensured it. Of allthe senior British politicians of the time, only George Canning was aphilhellene, Byron describing him as 'our last, our best, our onlyorator'.40 It was under Canning's brief ministry in 1827 that theTreaty of London, that called for an end to the ongoing war inGreece, was signed; and it was under the provisions of that treaty thatEdward Codrington, himself a philhellene, led the allied fleet intoNavarino.It was in terms of awakening the Greeks to their past, or at least the

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TO MAKE A NEW THERMOPYLAEphilhellenic interpretation of that past, that philhellenism's real successlay. Among Greeks educated outside Greece itself western-style phil-hellenism, based on an admiration of antiquity, was taking root. RigasVelestinlis, although born in Thessaly, spent much of his life travellingand worked at the French consulate in Wallachia. Executed by theTurks in 1798, he became a martyrfor Greek liberation,and his HellenicMarseillaise a revolutionary anthem. Translated by Byron as a GreekWarSong, the poem, having called upon the Greeks to rise, then turns tothe most powerful of classical exemplars:

Sparta, Sparta, why in slumbersLethargic dost thou lie?

Awake and join thy numbersWith Athens, old ally!Leonidas recalling,That chief of ancient song,Who sav'd ye once from falling,The terrible! the strong!Who made that bold diversionIn old Thermopylae,And warring with the PersianTo keep his country free;With his three hundred wagingThe battle, long he stood,And like a lion raging,Expir'd in seas of blood.

(stanza 3)Rigas called the spirit of Leonidas from the grave as Choiseul-Gouffierhad done, and related the events of the battle, thus fulfilling thephilhellenists' aim of educating the Greeks to their own past. AntoniosMartelaos, a resident on the Ionian islands which during his lifetimewere under Venetian, French, Russian, and British control, also wrote aMarseillaise. He too called on Leonidas:

Rise to see how manyLike Leonidas there will be!Rise and feel happy,For Greece will live again.Rise and you will seeHow bravely we fight;How we beat our enemies;How much we resemble you!41

These verses, written in the years between the two great revolts againstthe Turks, not surprisingly focused on the martial element, and

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TO MAKE A NEW THERMOPYLAELeonidas was evoked as a martial figure. However, after Greece hadwon her independence Thermopylae began to take on the moralconnotations implicit in the writings of Coleridge and others. Con-stantine Cavafy's Thermopylaewas written some seventy years after theend of the war and shows what Thermopylae had come to represent: amoral idea, shed of its martialovertones, a paradigm of the very kind ofmoral excellence the miso-hellenists had thought to be missing and thephilhellenes had sought to restore. The poem shows that, even if onlywithin the bounds of literature,they had succeeded:

Honour to those who in the life they leaddefine and guard a Thermopylae.Never betraying what is right,consistent and just in all they do ...And even more honour is due to themwhen they foresee (as many do foresee)That Ephialtes will turn up in the end,that the Medes will break through after all.42

NOTES* The illustrations to this article are reproduced with the permission of the Librarian,JohnRylands University Libraryof Manchester.1. George Saintsburyclaimed that it would be 'difficult to imagine, and would hardlybe possibleto find, even in the long list of mistaken 'long poem' writersof the last two centuries, more tediousstuff than his' (The CambridgeHistory of EnglishLiterature, ol. X (1913), 149); E. M. W. Tillyardgoes so far as to redefine epic poetry itself, and specificallyexcludes Leonidas(The EnglishEpicandits Background 1968), 6, 494). However neither critic supports his claims. William Cowper oncewrote that TheAthenaid,Glover's sequel to Leonidas,was 'condemned I dare say by those who havenever read the half of it' (letter to Lady Hesketh, 4 Feb 1789), and his words can be taken for thevast majority of modern critics' attitudes to Glover's work in general. See my article on Glover inP. N. Review (forthcoming).2. J. Collins, The Greek nfluenceon EnglishPoetry (1910), 63.3. Joseph Simpson, The Patriot (1785); J. P. Roberdeau, Thermopylae,or Invasion Repulsed(1792).4. May 31, 1737. See Worksof Swift, ed. Scott (1824), 73.5. J. Warton, Essay on the Geniusof Pope (1782), ii. 401n; J. Scott, Poetical Works(1782) 207;R. Southey, Joan ofArc (1794), preface; letter to H. W. Bedford, 13 November 1794 (in TheLifeand Correspondencef RobertSouthey, ed. Charles Southey (London, 1849), i. 191).6. H. Fielding, A Journey From this World into the Next (1742) c. 7. Goldgar argues thatFielding's praise of Glover is a 'remnant of his anti-Walpole partisanship',a vestige of the faction -of which both Fielding and Glover were a part - that sought to depose Robert Walpole's ministry(WeslyanEditionof the Worksof Henry Fielding:Miscellanies Vol.II, ed. B. A. Goldgar (1983), 37n. 2). However, the work was completed afterWalpole's fall from power, and as Fielding felt free tocriticize many of his former colleagues in the faction (ibid, xxv), any praise that remains is surely

not such a 'remnant'.7. Letter to John Hanson, April 2, 1807; see Byron's Letters and Journals, vol. I, edL. A. Marchand (1993), 113.8. The only case in which he deviates from the sources is in having Leonidas as the last of theGreeks to die, a necessary device for the central hero of an epic poem.

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TO MAKE A NEW THERMOPYLAE9. For example T. Arnold, TheEnglishPoets,ed. Ward (1889), 239; W. Minto, Literature n theGeorgianEra (1894), 75; Percival, Political Ballads (1916), 144; E. Rothstein, Restorationand 18thCentury Poetry (1981), 205; L. Sutherland, Politics and Finance in the 18th Century (1984), 78;C. Gerrard, ThePatriot Opposition o Walpole(1994), 80.

10. Henry Pemberton wrote the work of literarycriticism Observationson Poetry, EspeciallytheEpic, Occasionedby the Late Poem Upon Leonidas (1738), pointing out at great length Glover'sHomeric qualities. Poets, too, made the connection. See, for example, Matthew Green, whodescribed Glover as:This, this is he, that was foretoldShould emulate our Greeks of old.

(From TheSpleen (1737); see Alexander Chamlers, The Worksof theEnglishPoets (1810), xv. 167).Similarly,William Thompson wrote to Glover that 'Homer's Self revives again in thee' (From Tothe Authorof Leonidas:A Poem,An Epistle (1757), line 37).11. T. Ram, TheNeo-classicalEpic 1650-1720 (1971).12. Ibid., 182.13. Ibid., 8-14, 32ff.14. R. Wood, A ComparativeView of the Antient and presentState of the Troade. To which isprefixedan Essay on the Original Genius of Homer (1767); later republished as An Essay on theOriginalGeniusand WritingsofHomer,with a ComparativeViewoftheAncient andpresentStateof theTroade,ed. J. Bryant (1775).15. R. Collvil, 'The Caledonian Heroine', line 355, in OccasionalPoems (1771); J. Scott, 'TheMuse', lines 48-9, in ThePoetical WorksofJohn Scott (1782); H. Boyd, 'The Helots - A Tragedy',lines 313-15, in Poems (1793).16. R. Pococke, A Descriptionof theEast, vol. I (1743), 42.17. In 480 B.C. the Pass of Thermopylae, sandwiched between the mountains and the sea, waswide enough only for two cartsto pass one another.A gradual deposit of silt has now createda plainsome four miles wide, although it has been estimated that in the early nineteenth century it was

considerablyless than that (G. Szemler et al., Thermopylai:Myth and Realityin 480 B.C. (Chicago1996), Map I).18. E. Dodwell, A Classicaland TopologicalTour ThroughGreeceduringthe Years1801, 1805 and1806 (London, 1819), ii. 66.19. E. Dodwell, Viewsof Greece London, 1821), preface.20. Ibid, Description o Plate of Thermopylae.21. E. Clarke, Travels in VariousCountries,vol. 4 (London, 1812), 238.22. Ibid., 251.23. Ibid., 251-224. Ibid., 240-1.25. Lines 103-13 and 126-33.26. G. Dandoulakis, TheStruggle or GreekIndependence:he Contributionof Greekand EnglishPoetry, Dissertation, Loughborough University of Technology (1985), 305.27. The idea of comparing Leonidas with Jesus appeared in TheAthenaid, Glover's 30-booksequel to Leonidas.Although Herodotus records that Xerxes had the Spartan'shead erected on apole, Glover has the Persian king crucify Leonidas' corpse. The passages make an implicitcomparison with the crucifixion of Jesus and the idea of self-sacrifice. See TheAthenaid 15.244-87, 17.327-34, 20.246-355, 24.292-97, 26.145-48 and 313-22.28. K. Coburn (ed.), The NotebooksofSamuel TaylorColeridge London, 1973), vol.3, no. 3637.29. Arnold von Winkelried, a Swiss national hero who died at the battle of Semprach in 1386against the Hapsburgs. Coleridge describes how he 'with his bundle of Spears turned towards hisBreast in order to break the Austrian Pike-men' (Coleridge, Notebooks,vol. 3, no.3312) sacrificedhis life to win Swiss freedom. See F. Adams and C. Cunningham, The Swiss ConfederationLondon,1889) 6, and G. Thuirer,Free and Swiss (London, 1970), 36.

30. At the battle of Talavera in 1809 the 23rd Dragoons charged the French guns, and althoughthe charge was broken by an unseen watercoursethey continued the attack,heroicallyif somewhatpointlessly, losing over half their complement in the process. See J. Fortescue, TheHistory of theBritishArmy (London, 1912), vii. 251-4, who claims the dragoons attacked 'without any word ofcommand' and describes the charge as a 'mad exploit' (p.253).

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230 TO MAKE A NEW THERMOPYLAE31. The Mamalukes (or Mamelukes) were Egyptian mercenaries. Coleridge (Notebooks,vol. 3,no. 3312) relates the story of one who, when his horse refused to charge the French lines, backedthe animal onto the enemy, killing himself in the process.32. Notebooks,vol. 3, no. 3312.33. It should be noted that Coleridge's definition of the Dragoons' actions is not as harsh ornegative as that of the Mamaluke, although the motivation behind those actions - violent instinctratherthan moral excellence - is similar.34. The Courier,13 January1809.35. Aeneid4.625.36. Canto II, stanza 73.37. Terence Spencer wrote that 'of all the philhellenic poets of the first two decades of thenineteenth century, the one who was most cruelly crushed out of existence by the reputation ofByron was WilliamHaygarth ... [hispoem] was published, a splendid quarto,in 1814 - too late;forthe sun of Byron was alreadyabove the horizon.' (Fair Greece,Sad Relic,2nd ed., 1974, 281). Theeffect of this 'crushing' out of existence seems all the harsher when one discovers that Haygarthwrote much of his poem in 1811 while still in Greece, before Byron completed ChildeHarold,and

did not publish until 1814 merely because of what he described as 'the naturalapprehensionwhichthe Author feels for the fate of a first performance' (Greece,a Poem, preface, v).38. Greece,a Poem, in threeparts;with Notes, ClassicalIllustrations,and Sketchesof the Scenery(London, 1814), Notes p. 276.39. Canto III, stanza 86, verse 7 (lines 725-30).40. Age of Bronze (1823), stanza 13, line 552.41. Translated by G. Dandoulakis, op. cit., 278.42. Translated by E. Keeley, Passionsand AncientDays (1972).

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To Make a New Thermopylae