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S6.E6 - Gates of Fire - Book 6
20 Plays1 day ago
Adam (“Flez”) leads our discussion of Book 6: “Dienekes” from Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of The Battle of Thermopylae by Steven Pressfield.
- What are your thoughts on the theme of sacrifice in this book? (0:38 - 6:31)
- What’s an example of something that you have seen the level of effort and sacrifice correlate to success in your life? (6:32 - 10:28)
- What are your thoughts on the interaction between Xeones and Diomache? Do you agree with her perception of the world? (10:29 - 20:07)
- What examples of leadership stuck out to you in this book? What character traits are the most important in a leader? (20:08 - 25:28)
- What were your overall thoughts on this book? (25:29 - 29:32)
Next week we’ll discuss Book 7: “Leonidas” (pages 315 - 356).
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See you next week! Until then - read, reflect, and connect.
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Transcript
The Onset of the Battle of Thermopylae
00:00:39
Speaker
we finally made it to the Battle of Thermopylae. We get introduced the Persians in battle. They're a mixed match of people groups, former nations that have been conquered by Persia who are now fighting for their conqueror. They include Medes, Assyrians, Babylonians, Arabians, Egyptians, and many others. The Spartans, fighting alongside many other Greek people groups, have significantly less numbers. During the battle, Xerxes sits upon his throne, high on the cliffs above the narrow paths watching the battle.
00:01:05
Speaker
The battle is extremely brutal. Bodies are piling up, and as the waves of new soldiers come in, they are forced to climb atop the dead bodies to fight. The very ground of the battlefield is churned up and covered in human flesh and fluids. In the early fighting, Dionychis loses an eye, Leonidas suffers six separate injuries, and goes over 40 hours straight without sleep, Alexandros' his father is killed, and Greeks send letters to family knowing it will likely be their final communication.
00:01:32
Speaker
In this section, one of the themes was of sacrifice and the stark comparison of the Greeks and the Persians. So during the battle, Xerxes, as I mentioned, sits on his throne while Leonides goes sleepless nights in battle.
Sacrifice Compared: Persian vs Spartan
00:01:44
Speaker
Persia sends other nations to do its fighting initially, while for Sparta it sends its best men. Xerxes' own Persian soldiers, the 10,000 Immortals, which likely include relatives and friends of his, are not even sent into battle for many days.
00:01:58
Speaker
So what are your guys' thoughts on this theme in this section, the theme of sacrifice? So one thing that I thought was really cool in this book in particular compared to the movie is the level of preparation that goes into this battle. We didn't really talk about it last episode, but the preparation for war The marching out, the sending off, the party was way more realistic in this book than in the movie. You know, in the movie, they're just like, we got to go fight the Persians. And I'm just taking 300 bodyguards for a stroll to go meet the Persians, you know? But no, this this book seems way more realistic. There's.
00:02:46
Speaker
Supply trains, there's squires, there's herdsmen, goats, animals for their sacrifices. Supply trains, and they get to the hot gates and there's like vendors there set up selling food. There's bath houses, all this stuff. And they send out scouts and stuff to look at the terrain, make sure there's no other path.
00:03:10
Speaker
through the hot gates to make sure that they're well prepared. In addition to, by my count, there is about 7,500 to 8,000 total soldiers in addition to the 300 because there's other Greek cities that come to that came to fight with them.
00:03:28
Speaker
So all these people are preparing to die for their country and they all pretty much know that they're going to die because the Persian army is just absolutely massive.
Courage and Sacrifice Reflections
00:03:40
Speaker
And we learn in the book that they send out this small army of that many people just to try to delay the Persians for a little bit so that the rest of the Greek army can get marshaled, get mustered up.
00:03:55
Speaker
and come join the war. They just didn't have enough time for everyone to go out there. But I think it's really courageous. And I and really do admire our armed forces, people who go and fight for our country and put themselves on the line. I really respect that. And I'm very thankful for that. And I think if I were put in the position of fighting for your country, I would probably want to go fight so that my family can go live a free life and not be slaves or murdered or whatever is going to happen to them. I would want to fight for them. So I really admire the way their sacrifice in this book is portrayed. But they do a lot of work. They do a lot of prep for it. And they they rebuild that folkie and wall on the eve of battle.
00:04:49
Speaker
which in the movie again is just like some rocks and dead bodies piled up and then they push it over which in the book they kind of describe as something similar but it's not the same they like actually have a wall like a castle wall is how I envision it yeah if you're if you're going to sacrifice for something it takes a lot of effort and there should be a good reason for you to be sacrificing for it.
00:05:23
Speaker
yeah Garrett mentioned this a little bit in the last episode, but really we see kind of this juxtaposition between Xerxes and King Leonidas in that, you know, essentially Persia, they're sending these other people groups out initially. And so it's like they're they're not fighting for their land. They're fighting for their, they're a slave to this other people group or this other country down. They're fighting for that country. Whereas the Greeks are fighting for the freedom. They're fighting for their life. and something with that, you know, to me, it's like that's, you know, Kingly and Ida C kind of gives this inspiring speech where he's basically says we have so much more to fight for than these people and essentially inspires his men by to the mission behind their fighting.
Leadership Styles: Xerxes vs Leonidas
00:06:05
Speaker
Yeah, the only real people that Xerxes even cares about is the immortals, because they're his friends and family, and there's like friends and, you know, relatives in the 10,000 immortals or whatever, but
00:06:17
Speaker
He doesn't really care about any of these other people. So they're just like being sacrificed for what? No. For this dude. but Just being sacrificed. They're not being sacrificed for freedom. Yeah. So I think with that, our our level of sacrifice seems to correlate with the level of effort that will put it into something. So, you know, if we really have to sacrifice for something, we're going to put a lot more effort in. How have you guys seen this play out in your own lives?
00:06:45
Speaker
Think like with work in the past, I have gotten like in the zone of I'm going to do really well with this and kind of put blinders on and like, we really hyper focused on this one thing, get really good at it.
00:07:02
Speaker
kind of neglect other areas like is easier for me to do because I'm not married. But, you know, maybe sacrificing like a relationship or something in order just to put more energy into my job. that's That's the one thing I can think of that I've done in the past for sure or never ending pursuit of strength.
00:07:27
Speaker
and sacrificing everything else to pursue some sort of goal in hindsight, kind of silly, but yeah, ton of effort. I mean, put a ton of effort into things in the past that sacrificed areas of my life that are probably more important in hindsight. You know, thinking of high school basketball, oddly enough,
00:07:48
Speaker
I didn't make the freshman team. The glory days. Really? The glory days. Yeah. And I really wanted to make the team. Because you're ginger? Because I wasn't good.
00:08:01
Speaker
And he's a ah good example of you can't have success on your own. My parents were very supportive and put me in summer leagues and it was a lot of time and a lot of sacrifice. And I ended up making the teams the next few years. And there was a correlation with the effort and the time sacrificed that resulted in in some positive outcome.
00:08:27
Speaker
I think more modern day or modern day, just present day. I mean, it's probably things very similar and I've talked about it before. You make time for what you prioritize. So the things that you sacrifice for, you're going to spend more effort doing and there's going to ideally be the fruits of your labor. So I think of marriage. I mentioned in the last episode that there had been lots of Uh, no shortage of hard times and hard experiences, but continuing to choose to act out of a sense of duty and sacrificing for the family unit. And we've seen a lot of fruit from that effort of working through things and having a really good marriage.
00:09:21
Speaker
Garrett, what you said reminds me of something that our pastor says on a somewhat regular basis. And so he says, ah show me someone's, what they're spending their expenses on. It's like, show me their checkbook. Obviously it's like a dated reference, but show me their checkbook and show me their planner. And that will tell me what your priorities are. Like, what are you spending money on? What are you spending time on?
00:09:40
Speaker
And so those are the our main resources and whatever we're spending kind of these these things on. It's like that's what we put our value in. And you know I think for me, um one that ah like something that I think of when I was coming out of these these questions is I recall times about six years ago Ruth and I were having some conflict that was caused by me.
00:10:00
Speaker
And I remember during this time period, it was, yeah, it was it wasn't great. And so I normally have a lot of hobbies, you know, I run, I read, I play music, like to see, get to the friends, like to hike. And I remember in that time period, I just like pretty much dropped all of those, because ultimately, like what was most important to me, or one of the most important things to me was my marriage. And so when I saw that was in jeopardy, I was like, okay, I need to like shift focus, like give all my effort and time to this.
Diomache's Life and Vision
00:10:27
Speaker
It is in the section that we learn that Zioni's also got to see Diomache again. He is sent on an unknown errand by Dionychis to Athens just before leaving for Thermopylae. Here he is surprised to be reacquainted with Diomache. Now 24, she is married with two young girls, but it seems the life has been hard for her. She appears to look 40 and is living in a place for women to live who are penniless and have been put out by their husbands.
00:10:53
Speaker
She has lost her former youthful beauty, and it seems that her life did not pan out the way she imagined it to. She shares with Zione's a vision that she had during a near-death experience years ago. She notes that she saw a goddess standing over her. The goddess had a veil on, and when she removed it, the amici states that what she saw was beauty beyond beauty. She saw that this extreme beauty as being alone real, more real than anything else on earth.
00:11:19
Speaker
She felt that this beauty she perceived was always with us, but we are too blind to see it. Through this vision she perceived that her rule on earth, the shadowed and sorrow bound side of the veil from the vision, was to embody those qualities that arise from beyond and are on both sides of the veil. Those qualities being selflessness, compassion, love,
00:11:40
Speaker
She notes that this goddess that she saw was Persephone, the Greek goddess who was captured and forced to marry Hades out of the underworld. Persephone was forced to live half of her time roaming the earth, the other half with Hades and the underworld. Diarmaki states that is this goddess whose mystery she serves. Zione's time with Diarmaki ends with him asking her to run away with him. She refuses accepting her current lot in life, stating we are where we must be and we will do what we must.
00:12:09
Speaker
So what are your guys thoughts on this interaction? First off, what does put out by their husbands mean? So from my understanding and correct me if you want to say this differently, basically this is a place where it's like it's women who never got married or women who were married and were essentially deemed to be like unfit by their by their husband or the husband maybe no longer desired her or there's some that even ah they even referenced it to be almost almost kind of like an asylum in a sense. I'm really glad that we got to see some more of Diamaki.
00:12:44
Speaker
because she's been mentioned throughout the book. It's pretty sad that this is how her life ended up. She's basically in a convent with her kids and has really no hope for ever getting married again, because she's still technically married, I think, but her husband just never comes and sees her. And so she's just devoted her life to the goddess Persephone. But I think it's good we got some closure between her and Zioni's desires, really. When I was reading it, I was like, I'm hoping they end up together somehow. I know it's not going to happen because we already know the story based on the first few pages of the book, but you still, as a reader, you want to, you hope that they get together because of Zioni's love for her. And to that note, so do you agree with Diamaki's perception of the world?
00:13:37
Speaker
No, I don't because I don't believe in Greek mythology and their gods. Easy combo. All right, I'll be a little contrarian because I feel like the emotion since we were talking last episode about emotion and love and duty, the old duty. And it's just like, OK, emotionally, it's like, oh, man, they're they're back together. First off, back then was just population so much smaller that it's just normal to want to marry your cousin.
00:14:14
Speaker
I mean, depending on what state you live in, it's still... No, no, no. I'm being serious. Like, is that... is I think that would have probably been, like, even a good thing in that period. Like, you're like, oh, keeping the bud line clean. I think it is more acceptable back in the day.
00:14:30
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. And then, um, but you know, the previous book, Diana keys talks about fear and how, you know, the women like our fear. I dunno. We just, we talked about all that and he is married.
00:14:48
Speaker
And he's, he's ah Diana. He's squire who lied about having an affair and everyone's like, no, no, no. This is the most upright guy. Like he is the squire to the most upright dude in Sparta. And on a whim, he's like, let's go and get married. And you leave your husband. I mean, I know her situation's different, but he's like married with two young kids.
00:15:13
Speaker
So as on the emotional side, like I think like his desire is good in the sense that he wants to rescue his cousin from this hellhole.
00:15:25
Speaker
fully on board with that, but you didn't, you don't have to like, let's go back to the woods when we were kids and just like be savages again. And so I'm glad Diamaki said no for multiple reasons, but it was like, Hey, why don't you come back to Lake Damon with me and like live in my house and raise your kids in a safe place or something like that. You know, I just, as much as I was, yes, the, the romance side of the story. And yeah, it was absolutely heartbreaking. Again, this book is like very sad. Like there's, there's a lot of like good things to glean, but most people are dead or and in a state of dying. Like she's just had a
00:16:11
Speaker
a very traumatic life. Her parents are murdered. She was brutally gang raped. And then she kind of gets screwed by her husband and lit and is an asylum. So it's it just made me really sad. And at the same time, I don't want to necessarily be like, oh, man, I wish they I wish she had said yes, because it's like, wait a minute. We're then I'm happy that he isn't fulfilling his duty to his own wife.
00:16:40
Speaker
Do you know what I mean? There's some conflict. There's some tension, for sure. You just reminded me that in the previous book, a readie was talking to Zioni's and telling him to go see his cousin. She was telling him, almost ordering him, to leave his wife.
00:17:03
Speaker
and go actually leave the war also to run away to go and be with his cousin and get married to her. And she was kind of offended when he said to her, that would be dishonorable. Yeah. And then we see him actually in person with Diamaki and he completely changes his mind in the moment after he sees her.
00:17:30
Speaker
Maybe it's just the childhood emotions that got brought up, the nostalgia, seeing her in person, but he's a different person when he sees her. His choices are different.
00:17:44
Speaker
based on what he's had to a readie versus when he's with a thiamic. Well, yeah, I mean, I feel like it's interesting and they're, I mean, they're still trying to, you know, they're trying to force that to happen. But yeah, obviously it's easy to see. It's like, yeah, if the situation's in front of you, like emotions will often trump the more noble cause for more than noble hope. But I think, you know, Matt, I know you, your perception, you're, you don't agree at all with, with her, but I thought what I really kind of liked about that interaction character is just the level of contentedness and really this concept that she brings up it's that life is very hard and there's a lot of hard things that happen but like it doesn't mean that there's not like these eternal things that like these kind of glimpses of of really it's like glimpses of glory of like glimpses of something better
00:18:33
Speaker
And as a Christian, I believe that concept, that the idea that obviously this is kind of looking at it from a different world view, different perspective, but the idea that, you know, there's a lot of messiness in the world, but yet there still can be these very beautiful things that happen. And this beauty is always around us. And, you know, when I say this beauty, these goodness really is kind of what we're talking about.
00:18:54
Speaker
And I think that, you know, from this interaction, him wanting her and her kind of shutting down, it's like the idea, the importance of contentness. And like, she feels a responsibility to her life that she's had this far, responsibility to her husband that has left her. um And she too, for him, feels that he has a responsibility to fight still.
00:19:16
Speaker
Yeah, I should have clarified. I don't agree with her worldview, but I do agree with a lot of the concept that we are to embody the good things. There's a ah spiritual realm versus earthly realm. And as Christians, we are supposed to embody those good qualities and bring them to the side of the veil in her words.
00:19:40
Speaker
I love that imagery. like this ah what was What was the exact quote? The shadowed and sorrow bound side of the veil. That's what we're living in. I do think we are in our places for a reason. Call it fate, call it providence, whatever. But I think overall where we are in life is part of a bigger plan.
00:20:07
Speaker
So last thing I want to discuss regarding book six was on leadership.
Inspirational Leadership in Battle
00:20:10
Speaker
So in this section we see various examples of leadership. Danikis comforts Alexandros as he falls into his lap weeping after the first day of battle. King Leonidas inspires his men to battle for country and family. Palanikis asks ah Alexandros for forgiveness in the former ways that he treated him.
00:20:28
Speaker
and Dionychis in the way that he encourages men and other Greeks start to desert the battle. So ah did any of these examples of leadership stick out to you guys in particular and what character traits do you feel are most important in the leader?
00:20:43
Speaker
Dyna keys because the reverse psychology and the foresight, it was like just incredible where he calls everybody else out. Like, Hey, you all are just as afraid and you all have had the same thoughts of running back home to your mommies. So don't just like cry out for blood when you've felt the same way. And then someone's like, well, yeah, but we've stayed.
00:21:09
Speaker
And he's like, yeah, you know what, you're right. You guys have stayed. Good for you. So let's watch these guys leave. How shameful is that? You know, going back to the dishonor, like it's worse to be dishonorable than it is to be alive. And like watching them leave. And then he's like, everyone else who's here wants to be, oh, oh, and then Leonidas, no, Leonidas was the one that almost followed Dineke soon. He's like, he stopped having guards.
00:21:37
Speaker
at the end of the encampment so that people could desert if they wanted to. So he's like, all right, don't let those three go. I guess we should just stop trying to patrol these guys. But the idea, it was the foresight of we know who's in who's here to fight. We don't have any people who are half in half out. If you want to leave, you can leave. And I just thought that was brilliant because logic would say, no, no, no, you have to exert your control. You have to be an authority and control this how you want it to be. But similar to the Xerxes, where people are just kind of fighting because they're kind of forced to, or, you know, or else, sorry what's a good point which side of the fear of coin are you going to play? And it's like, you can leave.
00:22:29
Speaker
It's gonna be super dishonorable, or you can stay. And you know that if you're staying, that makes that bond even tighter with that group. And that just was an incredible scene. Did anybody read, see the ah quote on page 281 where it says, the best service only for you, my foreskin.
00:22:51
Speaker
That's all I have to add tonight. You whack at two D's. You remember that part?
00:23:01
Speaker
There's so many stories like, yeah, when they were swimming in the lake and they're like, Hey, I'm going to marry this girl. and And it's like, yeah, they're just teenage boys talking about girls and like a bunch of grown men. And it's like, yeah, they're, they're just a bunch of guys with, you know, just like today or whatever. It's like, Oh, that's, I mean, like I'm sure there are examples, but in the fraternity, a guy who wasn't in the fraternity, but will like come around during rush or was one of the guys friends and was just like hilarious that everyone liked. Do you know what I mean? Like, Oh yeah, you're part of the crowd, even though you're not a ah member or whatever, just cause you're just so funny or whatever. You know what I'm saying? Like that's what it made me think of where it's like, yeah, this guy's part of the group. This guy's hilarious because of that one embarrassing thing. Yeah. I really like Leonidas, how he's portrayed in this book. He's just an incredible leader, incredible warrior. He is so smart, but so down to earth, humble, but also inspiring and reading about him in the actual battle. Oh, actually, even before the battle, when they were trying to decide how and where to build the wall, to rebuild that wall.
00:24:17
Speaker
And all these engineers, all these architects are arguing about the best place to put it, which angle to put it at. And Leonidas just takes off his shirt and starts stacking stones. It didn't say anything. He just walks up, starts stacking stones in a spot. And then everyone is silent just watching him. And someone from the crowd is like,
00:24:44
Speaker
Are you guys going to let them build this all by yourself? Get to it. Let's get to work. And then he's walking around like the camp and talking to everyone that he's close to, learning their names, telling jokes. Even people who are not a part of the Spartan army, the other Greek cities, he's learning their names. He's being very friendly to them and inspiring courage. He's so inspiring.
00:25:14
Speaker
And it's just an awesome example of servant leadership from someone that people really look up to. Obviously he's king, so people are going to listen to him no matter what, but he does it in such a ah humble way. It's really cool.
00:25:29
Speaker
What did you guys think of this book?
Battle Depictions: Realism and Emotion
00:25:32
Speaker
This book six? I thought it was so incredible just being in the details of war. I was telling Adam, personally, I struggle to visualize this, like these battle scenes. I was telling him I kind of tend to in my mind, I make the imagery a lot smaller. Like it's hard for me to imagine thousands of people fighting.
00:25:53
Speaker
and it's because like you only hear a couple names so I can only visualize that but they're definitely like painting the picture of a very grotesque battlefield, dead bodies and the smell and all these kind of things that definitely makes it more vivid.
00:26:08
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. I really liked how real it seems. So all of the different Greek cities, all the different armies, they go in different like boxing rounds is how they describe it. They go in for a few minutes at the front line.
00:26:25
Speaker
And then after they're spent, after just a few minutes because they're fighting for their lives, literally spending everything they have, getting to the point of exhaustion. And then after a few minutes or might be hours, I think it starts off as a few minutes. And then one of the other cities comes in and takes their spot on the front line. And that first group gets a rest for a little bit.
00:26:50
Speaker
But then as the day goes on and the war starts dragging on for the next day and they start losing more and more men, the time intervals are basically nothing. They have time to just maybe get something to drink, but then they are too exhausted to even go get food or get something to drink. They're just lying on the ground and they can't hardly move. And then they had to get up, get back up and fight again.
00:27:21
Speaker
It's just incredible. It's insane. And I was trying to think of something that would be similar to today. I couldn't really think of anything because modern warfare, people don't fight like that anymore. People aren't face to face. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe the Pacer test that we all used to have to do.
00:27:42
Speaker
Map testing. The closest thing I could think of is football. Like if you were on the offensive line or defensive line and it was just nonstop for an entire day, no timeouts, no dead plays. The play just goes on for an entire day. That's how I imagine it. Yeah. You know, you say this, Matt, I think I just came up in my mind with a new sport. So it's wrestling. But instead of just two people in the ring, there's like six. It's like team wrestling.
00:28:17
Speaker
you got all your weight classes all in the ring
Book vs Movie: Humor and Iconic Lines
00:28:23
Speaker
you do that on the reri watch versus tv There's some parts in this that are like similar to the movie, I think, like ah some of the comedy that Leonidas says, when he's talking about, he does one of his speeches and he's like, brothers and allies, my own beautiful dogs from hell. and He says, like we stand already in hell, it is our home. I think that's, he says something similar in the movie.
00:28:55
Speaker
We saw, I think it was the last book where Diana Keys says he's talking to one of the people who are trying to convince them to stand down. He was like, the arrows will block out the sun. Good. Then we'll fight in the shade. Yeah, yeah that's in the movie. Yeah. Yeah. Olympias. And is it Paul and I? He's the father son. There's the father and son combo.
00:29:22
Speaker
And, uh, or no, it was, it was and cut off. Yeah. Oh, and that's right. Yeah. Oh, the movie out. The sun gets killed first.