“They Died the Spartan’s Death”: Thermopylae, the Alamo, and the Mirrors of Classical Analogy

Jeremy Cox Pennsylvania State University

Abstract

ABSTRACT In moments of crisis, people often make sense of the present by activating memories of the past through particular tropes of public memory. Classical analogies are one such trope, suggesting a sense of continuity between a (seemingly) stable ancient world and a chaotic present. Despite their prominence in American rhetoric, classical analogies have received too little attention from scholars of rhetoric. In the following, I interrogate the use of classical analogies in nineteenth-century American rhetoric— a period in which the classics were a vibrant aspect of public culture—by analyzing analogies between the fall of the Alamo and the fifth-century BC battle of Thermopylae. Thermopylae analogies were activated as tropes of public memory to warrant the formation of a defiant political identity for a Texian community reeling from defeat. Through an analysis of key texts that utilized Thermopylae analogies, I show that classical analogies sometimes go beyond comparisons between the past and the present to act as “mirrors” that inspire identification with, and imitation of, the ancients.

Journal
Advances in the History of Rhetoric
Published
2016-09-01
DOI
10.1080/15362426.2016.1231638
CompPile
Search in CompPile ↗
Open Access
Closed
Topics
Export

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (0)

No articles in this index cite this work.

References (38)

  1. Southern Literary Messenger
  2. The Declaration of Independence: A Global History
  3. Confronting the Classics: Traditions, Adventures and Innovations
  4. Rhetoric and Political Culture in Nineteenth-Century America
  5. The Papers of the Texas Revolution
Show all 38 →
  1. They Called Them Greasers: Anglo Attitudes Toward Mexicans in Texas, 1821–1900
  2. The Guardian
  3. Texian Iliad: A Military History of the Texas Revolution, 1835–1836
  4. The Histories. Trans
  5. The Construction of Anglo-American Identity in the Republic of Texas, as Reflected in the…
    Journal of the Southwest 46.2
  6. Analogies at War: Korea, Munich, Dien Bien Phu, and the Vietnam Decisions of 1965
  7. “Lessons” of the Past: The Use and Misuse of History in American Foreign Policy
  8. Classical Antiquity and the Politics of America: From George Washington to George W. Bush
  9. Anglos and Mexicans in the Making of Texas, 1836–1986
  10. A Texas Scrap Book: Made up of the History, Biography, and Miscellany of Texas and Its People
  11. The Portal to Texas History. Web
  12. “To Make a New Thermopylae: Hellenism, Greek Liberation, and the Battle of Thermopylae.”
  13. Operation Enduring Analogy: World War II, the War on Terror, and the Uses of Historical Memory
    Rhetoric & Public Affairs 7.3  
  14. Thomas Jefferson, the Classical World, and Early America
  15. Open Carry Texas
  16. Political Science Quarterly 117.3
  17. The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation
  18. Moralia. Trans. Frank Cole Babbit
  19. Telegraph and Texas Register
  20. The Alamo Monument
    The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association 6.4
  21. Classica Americana: The Greek and Roman Heritage in the United States
  22. The Golden Age of the Classics in America: Greece, Rome, and the Antebellum United States
  23. A Line in the Sand: The Alamo in Blood and Memory
  24. New York Times
  25. Rome Reborn on Western Shores: Historical Imagination and the Creation of the American Republic
  26. The American Aeneas: Classical Origins of the American Self
  27. Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words that Remade America
  28. The Culture of Classicism: Ancient Greece and Rome in American Intellectual Life, 1780–1910
  29. The Mirror of Antiquity: American Women and the Classical Tradition, 1750–1900
  30. The Idea of America: Reflections on the Birth of the United States
  31. Time Maps: Collective Memory and the Social Shape of the Past
  32. Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity