Greetings and salutations, my esteemed Laddingtons.
Today I'm comparing a book recommendation, Gates of Fire by Stephen Pressfield.
Shout out to my good friend Johan, who borrowed me this book actually a few years back, and I only recently got around to read it.
But before I begin to talk about the book, I would just like to encourage you all to follow me on Telegram and the Legio Gloria Instagram account.
We will release this fine Hammer of Thor tomorrow, so if you want more information about that, I will post on Instagram and also on the newsletter that you can sign up for on Legiogloria.com.
Now, anyway, oh, also a second thing I will mention before I begin to talk about this book.
I know everyone is always eager to comment something in the beginning of the video, so I might as well throw out a suggestion now.
Let me know if you have read any historic fiction or any history books set in ancient Greece.
After all, it's summer and we need to optimize our motivation levels.
And I always find that reading something about Greece or Rome in the summer, it's a good fit.
So comment down below if you have any book recommendations on ancient Greece.
So, true to my word, I've read this fine book, and as you might discern from the title, it's about the Battle of Thermopylae.
Now, a note on the film 300, I saw it when I was 17, it made a huge impression on me.
You know, it's basically made for ultimate testosterone motivation.
And, you know, I was pumped up and I said to myself, you know, one day I want to look like Gerard Butler, Leonidas, in that film.
So it's always been a great motivating factor for me, gym-wise, to just remember how the Spartans look there.
So nothing over the top like, you know, Arnold Swacheneger.
A lot of guys grew up watching his films.
I didn't because, well, I'm not old enough to have grown up with him as a hero.
So my physique ideals were never, you know, bodybuilding, but it was more, yeah, how Leonidas look in that film.
So anyway, the film is based on a comic that is based on the battle, so it's not super historically accurate, but it's a nice film anyway that you can watch before hitting the gym.
This, however, is more historically accurate.
So if you want a good, you know, somewhat brief overview of Spartan society, Spartan relationship with the subjugated slave cast of the Helots, how their military structure looked like, this is a good book.
The only critique I have in terms of it as a fiction novel, it's a bit gruesome at times.
I don't really need to have, you know, any sob stories to make the main character more appealing.
But other than that, it's a very good book, very immersive.
I read it through quite quickly.
It's not overly thick, but it's also very immersive.
So you want to read through it in one go.
And basically it follows a guy who's not a Spartan, but he fights as a squire for the Spartans.
So you get sort of like a third-person view of Spartan society.
And it follows from 10 years before the Battle of Thermopylae up until the battle itself.
And yeah, as is my custom, I have picked out a few segments which I thought would be good motivating quotes for you to partake in.
So let's delve into the book.
So this is a quote on Spartan mentality in terms of individualism.
And it's a quote from a man in the book here.
Have your instructors taught you why the Spartans excuse without penalty the warrior who loses his helmet or breastplate in battle, but punish with loss of all citizenship rights the man who disregards his shield.
And that is, because a warrior carries helmet and breastplate for his own protection, but his shield for the protection of the whole line.
So basically it's a good metaphor also for putting your tribe or putting your menerbund, putting your military unit, putting your brothers first.
You know, you can be careless with your own security, but dropping your shield, dropping the defense of your brothers, it's inexcusable.
So that is also something to keep in mind in this day and age of super hyper individualism.
So you know, take care of your brothers, don't be a liability.
And this can also be if you are, you know, in a group of men and you know yourself that you are weak, it's the same thing as dropping your shield, you become a liability to others, so it's not okay.
Anyway, that was just a nice little quote there, I thought.
Moving on to a very interesting term, pseudo-andrea.
And what this means is basically a faked courage.
And the example they use here is when the enemy starts banging their shields, starts shouting, start behaving really aggressively.
And this is something I've talked about before as well, that it's usually not the most confident guy that needs to, you know, posture up and act all tough.
The truly tough guys, they have no need to, you know, posture in that way.
They have no need to act tough because they have that calm confidence.
The best example I know of this is Fedor Emelianenko.
He was the best MMA fighter in the world 15 or 20 years ago.
And it's quite fun.
I remember one, a classmate I have when I went to school.
He said, because we talked about him and he was like, yeah, this guy looks like he's going out for a grocery shop when he was going into the ring.
And it's completely true.
He was completely untouched by any emotion.
He just walked into the ring, got the job done, didn't need to have an intense stare down, etc.
Now, of course, I understand certain fighters, they have intense stare downs to hype the fight and everything, but Fedor he has no pseudo-Andrea at all, calm as could be, walked into the ring, no emotion showing on his face, and yeah, got the job done.
Same thing with the Spartans, you know, they don't need to hype themselves up overly much.
So that is something to keep in mind as well.
And a term you can remember, Pseudo-Andrea.
If I pronounce it correctly, I don't know.
But keep that in mind also.
When you see a guy who's posturing really much, in you know, he wishes to appear dangerous, it's one thing to be, you know, posturing in a cocky, funny way, in a charismatic way.
That is one thing, but if someone tries to be intimidating by being all obnoxious, you don't have so much to worry about if you know how to fight.
So anyway, moving on to a motivating quote if you want to hit the gym, I thought this was a bit fun, just well written to explain how aesthetic someone is.
So I'm jumping right into a quote here.
Poliniki's supreme physical beauty.
In every aspect of his person, face as well as physique, the knight was formed as flawlessly as a god.
Naked in the gymnasium, even alongside scores of youths and warriors blessed in commonness and elevated by their training to the peak of condition, Polynikis stood out without equal, surpassing all others in symmetry of form and faultlessness of physical structure.
Clothed in white robes for the assembly, he shone like Adonis.
And armed for war, with bronze of his shield burnished, his scarlet cloak across his shoulders, and the horse hair-crested helmet of a knight pushed back upon his brow, he shone forth peerless as Achilles.
So if you have need of some extra motivation to push through some reps in the gym, just envision yourself as such a character.
And then a last quote also by said beautiful man, and he explains why he hates a younger man and is a bit harsh with the discipline.
So he's asked, why do you hate the young man so much?
And he responds, because he does not love glory.
It's good a reason as any to hate someone because they don't love glory.
So anyway, that was just some epic quotes I found.
But all in all, you know, I've talked about historical fiction as a genre before, and this is a great example of it, that you can gain so much wisdom from it by just reading a good fiction book.
So all in all, I can definitely recommend it.
You know, it's not overly long, as I said.
It's very immersive, so you'll probably read through it quite quickly.
It gives you a good insight into Spartan society and, you know, in reawakening a sense of European identity, Greece, the cradle of civilization.
And yeah, why not take the opportunity when it's sunny outside to read about some ancient glorious Spartans.
So anyway, that was just a book recommendation.
And again, follow me on Telegram and Instagram and all the usual social media.
