With Friends Like These…

Question: The 300 Spartans died fighting them at Thermopylae, but later Sparta allied with this same enemy against Athens. Who were these ancient frenemies?

Answer: The Persians.

How is it possible that the two most powerful city-states of Ancient Greece, Athens and Sparta, are friends and the Persians are their dreaded enemy; and then Persia and Sparta become the friends, and Athens is the dreaded enemy?

Friends one day, enemies the next? Allies in one war, adversaries in another? Throughout history, it seems, hardly a war was fought, an alliance forged, or a trade agreement entered without consideration of the Latin phrase "Amicus meus, inimicus inimici mei"— "My friend, the enemy of my enemy." Never mind the pesky Latin translation, what it means is: "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

What transpired in Ancient Greece is just one of countless examples of history’s strange bedfellows …

Let’s set the stage. In 492 BC, the Persian Empire under Darius I invades Greece. Even with the Greek city-states working together to face the invaders, the Persian army still greatly outnumbers them. But other than managing to capture Macedon and Thrace, the invasion fails miserably. And after the outnumbered Greek army stuns the Persians at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC, they return home in disgrace.

Flash forward about a decade. Darius dies, and his son Xerxes begins preparing for a second Persian invasion of Greece. No fooling around this time, though. Xerxes gathers one of the largest armies ever assembled in the ancient world, along with a huge Persian naval fleet—dwarfing the numbers of the first invasion.

The Greek city-states know they are coming—and they also know they are going to be even more outnumbered this time. The Battle of Thermopylae will be the first engagement of this second Persian War. Most of us are familiar with the legend of the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae—well, the Greek army waiting for the Persians at Thermopylae probably numbered around 7,000, led by 300 Spartan hoplites (citizen-soldiers). Why so few Spartans? They had been in the middle of a sacred ceremony at the time that forbade military action, but upon hearing about the approaching danger, they decided it would be forgivable to break the rules and send a small force to impede the Persian advance. Led by Leonidus, the Spartan King figured on picking up more allies from other city-states along the way to Thermopylae—which he did.

The Greeks actually chose this spot wisely. With the sea on one side and high, impassible cliffs on the other, the Persians would be squeezed into this narrow mountain pass, depriving them of their huge numerical advantage. The Spartans would form up and make their stand at Thermopylae’s narrowest point—estimated to be around 40 or 50 feet wide at the time. That was the plan, anyway—and it worked brilliantly for the first few battles.

But when Xerxes was informed about a secret footpath through the mountains that would take the Persians behind the Spartans, everything changed. By the third day, it was clear that the Greeks were surrounded, with no hope of victory. It made no difference to the Spartans, who weren’t going anywhere, but Leonidus let the 1,100 other Greek soldiers decide for themselves whether to stay or leave—and they all stayed. Leonidus and his Spartans, along with their Greek allies, all fought to the death in one of the most legendary last stands in the history of warfare (Herodotus writes that "when their spears broke, they used their swords, and when they had no swords, they fought with their hands and teeth").

In spite of the Persian victory at Thermopylae, by the following spring the Greeks were able to gather a large army and stop the Persian invaders in a land battle while their navy destroyed what remained of the Persian fleet—dual triumphs that allowed the Greeks to go on the offensive and finally expel the Persians in 479 BC. So, ultimately, the second Greco-Persian war would end just like the first one—in complete defeat for the Persians.

What happens next is a story that’s been repeated time and again throughout history. The Greek city-states had united to defeat a common foe, but now what? They fight among themselves, of course. Sparta (the biggest land-based military power) felt increasingly threatened by the rising regional dominance of Athens (the biggest naval power). The growing rivalries would eventually erupt into the Peloponnesian War. Beginning in 431 BC and lasting 27 years, the war pitted Sparta against Athens, along with ever-shifting alliances with other city-states on each side. When the dust settled, it would mark the end of the Golden Age of Greece. Athens would lose its dominance in the region to Sparta. And the two most powerful city-states of the ancient Greek world would be conquered and absorbed into the Kingdom of Macedon less than a century later.

Sparta gets help from the enemy of their enemy

Before the Peloponnesian War ended, one interesting alliance formed that surely influenced—or even may have tipped the balance—on the war’s outcome. In 408 BC, when it appeared that Athens would be victorious and soon be the reigning power in the Aegean, this didn’t sit well with the Persians. So, King Darius II of Persia sent his son, Cyrus the Younger, to help out the Spartans. Along with the substantial financial aid and naval support of the Persians, it did the trick. Sparta gained the upper hand in the conflict and went on to become the dominant force in the Ancient Greece—but not for long.

To return the favor, Sparta decided to support the Persian prince Cyrus in a bid to oust his brother from the throne in 401 BC. They did it by sending a force of 10,000 Greek soldiers deep into the Persian Empire to fight with Cyrus. But the Persian prince was killed in the ensuing battle, which forced the Greeks to turn back—tough to do when you find yourself stranded behind enemy lines a thousand miles from home. Desperate to find someone who could get them back to their homeland safely, they elected Xenophon, a wealthy Athenian squire, who rose to the challenge. Xenophon would later write about the ordeals faced by the "ten thousand" in a work called Anabasis, a famous recounting of their long and treacherous journey through hostile territory to their eventual safety back in Greece.

On a side note: Film buffs may recall Walter Hill’s 1979 cult classic, The Warriors, about a New York street gang that has to fight its way from the Bronx to the safety of their home turf on Coney Island—Hill was drawn to the project because the story closely mirrored the events depicted in Xenophon’s work.

"We have met the enemy and he is us"

The above quip by Pogo is a pun based on American Navy Commodore Oliver Perry’s famous quotation "We have met the enemy, and they are ours" after defeating a British navy squadron on Lake Erie during the War of 1812 (Perry’s also the "Don’t give up the ship!" guy). But Pogo’s quote is a lot more relevant. While the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" strategy has been wildly successful for nations, unconventional alliances where enemies become friends to deal with a threat usually don’t last. At the end of the day, a new friend usually reverts back to being an old enemy.

A good example of this, of course, is the U.S. relationship with the Soviet Union/Russia. As the Nazis rose to power, these two sworn enemies cast aside their differences and forged an alliance (along with Great Britain) to fight a common enemy—Hitler. But once the war was won and peace was restored—and there was no longer a common foe—the natural enmity between the two nations resurfaced and the Cold War quickly heated up. Perhaps nothing has done more to shape history than this "lack of a common foe" thing. The reason for this may or may not surprise you, but it’s key to understanding everything from almost every war in history and international relations to office politics—it's easier to unite against a common foe than toward a common good.

This is nothing new. When civil war threatened Rome some 2,000 years ago, the one thing that saved them was Carthage. For several decades, rich and poor Romans alike were able to put aside their differences to fight their common enemy across the Mediterranean. But when Rome finally vanquished its rival, everything went south—call it a Pyrrhic victory at best. Without a common foe, Romans quickly turned on each other, setting off the inexorable decline of the empire. Most historians believe the far better course of action would have been to spare Carthage and let them live to fight another day,

Because it is almost always more difficult to solve internal problems (the enemy is us!), this pattern of rallying around a common foe has played out throughout human history. Nations generally coalesce most strongly around fear of enemies—real or imagined, it doesn’t matter. And those in power also find it easier to use the fear of enemies as a means to increase their power.

And if Star Trek is any indicator (and who says it’s not?), the lines between friends and enemies will continue to be blurred far into the future. In one of his many bold decisions, Captain James T. Kirk decides to join forces with one of his enemies to fight against an even more dangerous enemy—telling Spock about the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" rationale. The always skeptical Vulcan responds by telling Kirk that he should keep in mind that the Arab proverb he’s quoting was coined by a prince who was soon decapitated by his new "friend." We’re not sure if the phrase’s origins are in fact Arab (although many scholars think so) or someone really did lose their head over it (most scholars think not), but the point is well made.

Especially since when it comes to world history, sometimes it’s difficult to know who’s a friend and who’s a foe. In his novel, The Godfather, Mario Puzo advised us to "Keep your friends close but your enemies closer." But believe it or not, it was Mike Tyson, better known for mercilessly crushing opponents in the ring than his verbal eloquence, who delivered the real knockout punch on the topic when he said: "Everybody who fights you is not your enemy and everybody who helps you is not your friend."

A few unusual alliances in world history—and about those Athenians and Spartans:

• Tough love for Spartan boys—What the Spartans did best was fight, of course. Boys left their families at seven years old to begin a grueling 23-year-long training to become soldiers. And if they died in battle, they were expected to be carried home on their shields (the thinking being that only a coward would drop his shield and run away.) No tears were shed at home before they went off to war either. The last thing a Spartan mother would tell her boy was, "Come back with your shield, or on it." Jeez, mom!
• Tough break for the Athenians—At the start of the Peloponnesian War, Athens suffered a major setback when plague broke out in the city. It took the lives of somewhere between one-third and two-thirds of the city’s population, including the great statesman, general, and architect of the Athenian Empire, Pericles.
• Made in the shade—Before the battle of Thermopylae, a Spartan soldier is said to have complained that the Persians would release so many arrows that they would block out the sun. Leonidas replied to him, "Won’t it be nice, then, if we shall have shade in which to fight them?"—which is why the motto of today’s 20th Greek Armored division is "We shall fight in the shade."
• Last words at the last stand—And just before the Persians attacked, King Xerxes sent a messenger urging the Greeks to surrender and lay down their arms. Leonidas’s response to the Persians was "Molon Labe," which roughly translates to "Come and take them." –which is today’s motto of the First Army Corps of Greece.
• Hey Hun, there are Barbarians at the Gate—The Roman Empire wasn’t at its best by the fourth century, but they did what they had to do when faced by the looming threat posed by Attila and his Huns. An alliance was formed with various local tribes, including the Franks and Visigoths—who had already sacked Rome in 401. But they put aside their differences and took on the Huns, defeating them in a brutal battle in 451. The coalition fell apart after that, and Rome was sacked again in 455.
• Quite a cross to bear—In a battle for the Holy Land, one would think that the last people the religious Crusaders would seek to ally with would be the pagan Mongols—but that’s just what happened. When the English monarch Edward I arrived in the region in 1271, he had such a small number of knights, he reached out to the Mongol leader Abaqa for help in defeating the Mamluks. It failed, and this first attempt at a relationship between Christendom and the Mongols would be the last.

Visit Athens during O.A.T.’s The Aegean Islands, Athens & Istanbul adventure.