Angus "Thermopyle"

[Nathan]

That'd be Thermopylae.

The details were a bit wrong too, 7000 Greeks held off the Persian army of between 250 000 and 300 000 for two days before the Persians were told of an alternative route through Thermopylae by a Greek defector and the Persians won the day.

Casualties on the Persian side were about 20 000 and the Greeks suffered 2000 or less casualties.

Still an amazing battle by the Greeks, but not as amazing as people seem to believe. The Greeks had the advantage of training and equipment.

After passing through Thermopylae king Xerxes I proceeded to sack Athens, a victory for Persia.

After the other route was taken by the Persians the Spartans sent the rest of the Greeks home. All 300 Spartan hoplites were slaughtered.

The Battle of Thermopylae

[Warmark Jay]

Bottom line: a few Greeks killed a bunch of Persians before getting killed themselves. Point being that SRD is too good and too well-read an author to "accidentally" give his character such a symbolic name. Exhibit A: a certain SRD character with the initials T.C.

The Gap series is full of similar examples: the aptly named Morn, Warden Dios (a two-fer there), Marc Vestibule....

[Loredoctor]

The story SRD gives is that the name just popped into his head. Perhaps he realised the significance after this.

[Warmark Jay]

I think it's a bit of both. It would surprise me if SRD didn't have some idea of the significance of the name, and as he says in his afterword to "The Real Story" the rest of the pieces kind of fell into place as he considered his source material (Wagner). I'm sure the name itself helped SRD to shape Angus into the happy-go-lucky rascal we know and love.