Q & A WITH DR. NIC FIELDS

JT:  Dr. Fields: Since you began your career in a totally different discipline, the question begs to be answered, 'Why did you leave the field of biochemistry and when did you realize that Ancient History was going to be your vocation rather than an avocation?'

NF: When I was a small boy my parents took me to see my first motion picture. We were overseas (France was still a member of NATO and my father had been posted to Versailles) and at the camp cinema there was showing the latest blockbuster from Hollywood. I cannot recollect what the historical epic was exactly (Antony and Cleopatra perhaps), but I do remember quite vividly Julius Caesar. Anyway, a few years later I picked up my first Penguin Classic, a copy of The Conquest of Gaul and I was hooked. However, the discipline of science was the order of the day, and at school (we were now back in London) my education took the path of physics, biology and chemistry. To cut a long story short, the field of biochemistry was my first university venture, which thereupon took me into the pharmaceutical industry.

Yet Caesar kept poking his balding head out from around corners and tapping me on the shoulder. What is more, I was never completely at ease with the wonderful world of wonder drugs, so I eventually decided to return to university and studied ancient history, this time up in Newcastle. So, in a roundabout way, I became, via scientist and soldier, a scholar. Now, having recently left Edinburgh for the bucolic pleasures of south-west France, the scholar has metamorphosed into a scribbler.

JT: When did you first get the idea for writing 'Thermopylae 480 BC' and how long did it take you to complete the manuscript?

NF: Having been taught at Newcastle by John Lazenby all there is to know (and more besides) about the Persian Wars, and then visited all of its battle sites, and subsequently myself at Edinburgh having taught a course on the same subject, meant that I had accumulated a sizeable collection of notes and maps, as well as a clutter of thoughts and ideas on this olympian struggle between Hellene and Mede, East and West. So when my editor, Nikolai Bogdanovic, suggested a Campaign title on Thermopylai I leapt at the opportunity. That was back in 2006, and Thermopylae, as you know, was published in 2007.

Between the signing of a contract and the delivery of a manuscript, you normally have a period of nine to twelve months. Of course you have to appreciate that as a freelance writer I have other contracts to fulfill, other deadlines to meet, and in order to sample and enjoy the gastronomical delights of the corner of the cosmos Esther (ma femme d'esprit and photographic partner) and I now live in, I need to write a number of these monographs each year. This particular title happened to be one of four published by Osprey in 2007.

JT:  Since the majority of the images included in your monograph are from your personal collection, how much time was spent in Greece for research, including photographing the landscapes, statues, artifacts, etc?

NF: I was fortunate enough, during my second year of postgraduate studies, to secure a scholarship from the Hellenic government, which thus gave me the chance to live and study in Greece for six months. Well, six months turned into ten - the scholarship being kindly extended - and from one scholarship, I fell into another, this time from the British School at Athens, and lo and behold, three years had slipped by.

Anyway, during this time I had travelled widely throughout Greece and the Aegean, visiting sites and museums naturally, but also walking the battlefields of ancient Greece, collecting data and photographs as I went. My former military training came into its own here, a real bonus, allowing me to understand the local topography and draw up maps and make sketches. These years as a soldier also permitted me to make imperturbable observations concerning such matters as approach routes and battleground dispositions. On all of these expeditions I not only carried decent relief maps (what was then the War Office published a 1:100000 series in 1944), but also annotated photocopies of relevant passages from the ancient sources, Herodotos, Thucydides, Xenophon and Diodoros in the main, though Plutarch came into his own on occasions.

So, having served the British School (my last year was as its Assistant Director) and having completed the doctoral thesis (a thematic inquiry into the human dynamics of mercenary service during the age hoplite warfare) and gained my PhD, I started teaching American undergraduates who were visiting Greece on study abroad programmes. Instructing them principally on ancient sites and in museums, the essential aim of these twelve-week courses was to introduce the physical setting of Greek antiquity and to relate Greece's landscape, ancient monuments, and artefacts to their historical contexts. At the same time, between undergraduate programmes, I was freelancing for the Smithsonian Institute as a study leader on their museum-based educational travel programme. These long-distance tours not only gave me further opportunities to travel around Greece, but also to explore parts of Turkey and Italy. On all these journeys, my camera and notebooks were always ready to hand.

I was resident in Greece for some seven years, during which time I got to see most of the country apart from the northeastern corner and the Ionian Islands. I certainly miss Greece. It got into my blood, a wonderful land, a special people.

JT: Herodotus' 'The Histories' has been the primary source for historians and scholars when it comes to the Greco-Persian Wars, however, there is a minority who vociferously question the validity of several of his passages, most notably the number of combatants who comprised Xerxes the Great's army.  Most academics are proponents of his oeuvre, therefore, 'What should be said in defense of the 'Father of History'?

NF: An Ionian writer born in Doric-speaking Halikarnassos of good pedigree, Herodotos was a master storyteller, tireless traveller, and a genius whose true worth is frequently underrated. In truth, he was the first to make events of the past the subject of research and verification, which is what the Greek word historiē meant. The first 'historian', his prose epic, the Histories, undoubtedly ranks as the single major source of information available to us concerning the events of the Persian Wars, but contains much else, including wonderful accounts of various cultures, myths and sights. For instance, in his survey of the customs of the Persians we learn that as imperialists they were relatively tolerant and supportive of local beliefs and customs.

It also reminds us that Herodotos, with his insatiable curiosity, was not only a historian but an anthropologist as well, and as a geographer he has his merits too. He was the first to understand the relative size and situation of Europe, Africa and Asia. He was aware of the fact that the Caspian Sea was surrounded on all sides by land, and knew reports about the circumnavigation of Africa (a statement that was generally questioned until the Portuguese navigator Bartolemeo Diaz reached the Cape of Good Hope in 1487). If we believe what he says, he travelled extensively in the known world to the Greeks of the fifth century BC, from the northern shores of the Black Sea to as far south as Elephantine on the first cataract of the Nile, and from southern Italy (where he was to spend his old age) to western Iran. We have no means of checking this amazing itinerary and, much like a modern tourist, he did not command any foreign languages. Nonetheless, he was a terrific collector and teller of marvellous stories - cracking bedtime reading.

It is apparent that Herodotos' historical narrative, in its main lines, follows the surprisingly swift expansion of Persia and then describes the defeat of the Persians at the hands of the Greeks. In the words of John Lazenby, the military historian who enlightened me to the truth that ancient warfare was not the same as I was trained to do, the "Persian Wars without Herodotos would not so much be Hamlet without the prince, as Hamlet without Shakespeare". Anyway, by the winter of 481/80 BC Xerxes, who was to lead the invasion in person, was ready with his Asian forces at Sardis. Believed by Herodotos to number 2,317,610 and gathered from all over Xerxes’ empire, so richly endowed with manpower, the land force alone probably numbered around 80,000 combatants, with its main fighting strength being Iranian troops, and the rest perhaps token contingents from all the subject races. It was not that Herodotos was wrong. Rather, in this particular case he had probability been informed by his Persian source the total manpower strength available to the Great King from all corners of his vast domain.

NF: Latter writers, such as Diodoros of Sicily, have, at first glance, a good deal to add to our understanding of the Persian Wars. Sadly Diodoros' account of Marathon and of the events leading up to Xerxes' great invasion is almost entirely lost. However, book 11 has survived intact, and there are those who would argue that it provides valuable evidence to supplement or even correct Herodotos.

Let us consider the following. Diodoros' principal source, Ephoros of Kyme, is described by Polybios, who did have military experience, as one of "the most learned of the writers of earlier times" (6.45.1), but as the same time was "completely ignorant about battles on land" (12.25f). Thus Diodoros' cockamamie yarn of the commando-style raid, staged during the small dark hours prior to the final day at Thermopylai, behind enemy lines to try and liquidate Xerxes (11.10.1-4), culminating, apparently, in the annihilation of Leonidas and his swashbuckling band in the Persian camp itself, is sufficient evidence of Ephoros' shortcomings in this respect, if he was Diodoros' source. It is from Herodotos in the first place that we form our best impression of the battle of Thermopylai, though we should probably thank Ephoros via Diodoros for preserving the Laconic humour of Leonidas - arguably apocryphal but aptly appropriate - when he ordered his men "to prepare their breakfast quickly, since they would dine in Hades" (11.9.4).

JT: There is a dichotomy with respect to the involvement of the Thebans during the Greco-Persian Wars as Herodotus states that they had pro-Persian sympathies.  This was confirmed when they fought against the Greek forces at Plataea, however, we know that at a minimum, they fought on the third and final day with the remnants of the Spartan and Thespian contingents.  How do historians reconcile the fact that the 400 hoplites from Thebes fought at Thermopylae despite Herodotus' contention that the city-state had 'medised'?

NF: The 400 Thebans who turned out to fight at Thermopylai deserve all honour, even if they represented a tiny anti-Persian faction, which had nothing to lose and everything to gain. Of course, we would like to believe that Herodotos' story of their surrender at the end is untrue, more so when we consider it deeply tainted by prejudice. Let me explain.

Herodotos says of the Thebans that as they were surrendering they were yelling to the Persians they had "come to Thermopylai against their will" (7.233.1). There is no reason to doubt that at least some of them, if not all, having decided that they had done enough in the aid of a cause that was clearly hopeless, opted to surrender and survive rather than to face a certain death. Yet there is a strong element of bias - probably the product of a hostile Athenian source - in Herodotos' remarks about the Thebans both here and elsewhere in his account of the battle. For instance, he says that Leonidas was particularly anxious to pick up the continent from Thebes he took with him when he marched north to stop the Persians, because of serious accusations of medisim against the Thebans.

In reality it is possible that the Spartans were still confident that the Thebans would support them, though they presumably hoped for more than the 400 hoplites they got being that Thebes was the chief state of Boiotia. It seems this modest contingent of Thebans with Leonidas represented those in Thebes who were inclined to resist the Persians. Indeed, as Diodoros (Ephoros?) says, they were "of the other party" (11.4.7). Later, after Thermopylai, all the Boiotian states except Thespiai (enemy of Thebes) and Plataia (ally of Athens) medized, so that the reputation of all the Thebans, pro- and anti-Persian alike, was especially blackened when the Persians were eventually forced out of Greece in the following year.

JT:  Having taught, researched and written about the Battle of Thermopylae of 480 BC, what do you feel is its biggest misconception?

NF: The biggest misconception of Thermopylai must be the common belief that the Spartans made their last stand alone on that fateful, final afternoon. Posterity commemorates the Three Hundred, but how many of us recall the 'Seven Hundred' who perished the same day. Indeed, it is a remarkable fact that Thespiai willingly sent all the adult males who qualified for hoplite service to fight at Thermopylai. As far as we can tell, this tiny Boiotian state had no obligations to Sparta or even Athens, although, like next-door Plataia, there was a tendency for its citizens to gravitate towards the latter out of hostility towards the neighbourhood bully, Thebes. All the same, in a few short hours an entire generation of citizen-farmers was obliterated.

Still, justice was finally seen to be done when, in 1996, a bronze sculpture was set up and unveiled at the site of Thermopylai to commemorate the gallant citizen-soldiers of Thespiai who volunteered to fight and die with Leonidas and the Three Hundred.

NF: Athens had been abandoned and the battered Greek fleet took up station in the confined waters between Salamis and the mainland. It was here, probably around the time of the autumn equinox and almost four weeks after the fall of Thermopylai, that an epic naval encounter was fought. The Persians suffered a bloody repulse, resulting in Xerxes returning to Persia. But why had the Greeks elected to fight at 'Divine Salamis'?

Salamis turned out to be the decisive battle of the war and, we can reasonably argue by exercising the privilege of hindsight, the turning point. Following three days of indeterminate skirmishing off Artemision, which coincided with the three days of fighting at Thermopylai, the Greek fleet fell back to the island of Salamis. Here, in the narrows between what is now Ambelákia on Salamis and Pérama on the Attic coast (still a matter of scholarly dispute), the final reckoning with Xerxes' navy took place. It is possible that the Persian fleet was foxed into rowing up the channel, at night, by a message from Themistokles (doubted by many scholars), but the Greeks were informed by a deserter and were ready at dawn.

It is unclear exactly what happened that morning, and even numbers are uncertain, though the Greeks appear to have had 310 or 368 triremes and the Persians rather more. Persian morale may have been low both after a night at the oar and because they had thought the Greeks would not fight. It seems probable that the Greeks initially outnumbered the leading or right-wing Persian squadrons, and were able to cut them off and drive them ashore before turning on the left wing and driving it out to sea. All that we know for sure is that the Persian fleet was defeated and the shattered survivors sailed eastward.

Anyway, whether or not it was straightaway that Thermopylai was celebrated not as a failure, but as the ultimate triumph of moral courage and martial valour, the immediate outcome of this defeat was to act as an inspiration to those Greek states who opted to forget traditional antagonisms, form an alliance, stand fast and stop the invader. Remarkably, amongst their number was to be counted Thespiai, which supplied the coalition forces with all its surviving male population, precisely 1,800 unarmoured and poorer citizens.

JT: The illustrations by Steve Noon are extremely detailed, therefore, was it collaborative in the sense that you provided direction by suggesting revisions along the way, or did Mr. Noon research and create the artwork without any of your input?

NF: This is how it works. Each monograph written for Osprey is done so under a given contract, and each contract stipulates that the author supply full reference material for the briefing of the colour plate artist. As the artist is under no obligation to research the subject in question, the reference package has to be detailed enough (i.e. written instructions as well as pictorial material) to allow him or her to perform their task without undue worry. So I will put together information for each of the colour plates to be created, detailing the scene required and specifics therein.

Naturally, en route to the finished plate, there is input by the artists. Indeed, many of them are pretty well tuned in to the subject, and when you look at the striking art created by Steve Noon for Thermopylae, you can see he had a certain passion for this particular subject. In fact, Steve has just executed three marvellous plates for Spartacus and the Slave War. I like his work hugely.

One unwonted nightmare for me is to open one of my monographs, still hot off the press so to speak, and find an anachronism in a colour plate, such as a helmet pattern or sword type out of temporal context. There are a lot of experts out there, especially when it comes down to the minutiae concerning war gear. So you have to be confident that the reference material you are sending to the artist is as foolproof as it can be.

Let us take a straightforward example, the linen corselet that protected the torso of a hoplite. The north and east friezes of the Siphnian Treasury at Delphi, which are dated to 525 BC or thereabouts, depict hoplite figures wearing both the stiff linen corselet and the bronze bell-shaped corselet. As this is, as far as I am aware, the first pictorial evidence for the use of the linen corselet, we assume that it first appeared around 525 BC, ergo, a colour plate depicting hoplites prior to this date should show them wearing the older, heavier corselet, while after this date the newer, flexible corselet can be included. It seems simple, but it is not always the case.

JT: Historians, academics, scholars and several communities have been vocal in their renunciation of the revisionism of 'Troy', 'Alexander' and  '300'.  While the success of these movies has varied, why do you think '300' resonated with audiences while the others didn't?

NF: History according to Hollywood, not a bad thing at all. In fact, many of us get our first real taste of the ancient world via the silver screen, and, as you know, I gladly include myself in this category. Of course, many academics shook their heads or wrung their hands after having viewed an ancient epic 'with a cast of thousands' such as Troy, Alexander or 300, muttering dark words about historical inaccuracies and the like. Presentation of the past in the present is so often a controversial topic, and you can appreciate their point of view, namely once Hollywood has seized a historical theme, past-fact is usurped by present-fantasy. As Gore Vidal once famously said: "In the end, he who screens the history makes the history". Hollywood is a dream factory that stirs our imagination and makes monstrous amounts of money in the process. True, these epic films can shape modern perspectives on the ancient world, but in a grey world ruled by grey men uttering grey words, they can also act as a visual panacea to a disillusioned populace. It is heartening to think that heroes of old, such as Achilles, Alexander and Leonidas, are still worthy of the Hollywood treatment.

To catch the popular imagination, a historical epic should furnish the impression, atmosphere, and felling of history, not the sort of accuracy demanded from an academic dealing with the same historical topic. Yet the ancient sources are readily available in translation, and thus easy to check, and often more dramatic and entertaining than the modern script. Plutarch himself, for instance, would have made an ace Hollywood screenwriter. Whereas Troy attempts to rationalise the supernatural world of Homer by banishing the gods, and Alexander busies itself with the seamier side of Alexander's private life, one of the major appeals of the 300 is that somebody had obviously picked up a copy of Plutarch and read it well. For the film effectively portrays the 'Lykourgan' system, peculiar to Sparta and framed with the specific purpose of making its warriors deadly efficient in war. Still, when compared with that more effective epic, The Three Hundred Spartans, it has a good deal more blood than glory.

Anyway, to finally answer your question about revisionism, I suppose all three of these Hollywood epics full into that timeless trap of portraying Orientals as dull and decadent, and Occidentals as formidable and freedom-loving. Yet, to borrow those immortal words of Rudyard Kipling, "there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth, when two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!"