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"Let me not then die ingloriously and without a struggle, but let me first do some great thing that shall be told among men hereafter." Throughout the course of history, certain individuals have stood out as being completely fucking awesome. Whether it's cleaving monsters' faces in half with a chainsaw bayonet in Horde Mode, defending a makeshift fortress from a sea of brain-devouring zombies or manning a machine gun nest against an unstoppable sea of charging soldiers; people have always been fascinated with badass stories of one man, by himself, taking on a endless waves of assailants, refusing to back down in the face of insurmountable odds, dying with his fingers still clutching his weapons and leaving behind a smoldering, heaping pile of severed limbs, carnage and dead enemies. These are badass one-man last stands. #7.
Agis III of Sparta, 331 BC
"He ordered the rest to make their escape with all speed and to save themselves for the service of their country, but he himself armed and rising to his knees defended himself, killed some of the enemy and was himself slain by a javelin cast." When Agis III succeeded his father as King of Sparta in 338 BC, Alexander the Great was off in Persia fighting Emperor Darius III. Figuring it was a good time to fuck some shit up, A3 as he was known in the underground hip-hop scene, rallied anti-Macedonian leaders to his cause, raised a decent army, invaded Crete and started pushing his way towards Athens.
Deciding this guy wasn't fucking around, Alexander sent his most battle hardened general and an army of 40,000 men to open a 10-gallon drum of thermonuclear whoop-ass on the Spartans. On the battlefield outside the city of Megalopolis (they just don't name cities like they used to) the two armies faced off in one of the largest battles ever fought between Greek armies in the Classical Age. Despite being outnumbered roughly two-to-one, Agis wasn't going to back down from any opportunity to drench the tip of his spear in a few gallons of human plasma. Screaming the most horrible profanities they could think of as they went, A3 charged out in front of his men and fought like a goddamned madman, slashing people with his Spartan blades, before receiving a disturbing number of reciprocal wounds across his chest, head and legs.
Figuring he was dead, A3's guards recovered his severely-wounded body, laid him on his shield and began carrying him from the field. Remembering that he was a shit-wrecking King, A3 decided he wasn't going to let a few pesky mortal wounds keep him on the sideline while his army got destroyed. So he ordered his army to retreat while he held off the onslaught. By himself.
Unable to stand and bleeding like a poorly wrapped package from the butcher shop, Agis got to his knees, gripped his blades and proceeded to hamstring enough charging enemy troops to buy his army time to withdrawal. The Macedonians backed off slowly, presumably because they'd just gotten owned by one dude on his knees. Realizing they didn't want to get anywhere near his swords, someone chucked a javelin through his torso, probably catching at least a bit of his enormous balls in the process. Further Reading: Livius.org JStor.orgDiodorus. Library of History. Trans. C.B. Wells. Harvard Univ. Press, 1967. The Cambridge Ancient History. Ed. John Boardman. Cambridge Univ. Press, 1982. Warry, John. Alexander, 324-323 BC. Osprey, 1991. #6.
Sempronius Densus, 69 AD
"No man resisted or offered to stand up in his defense, save one only, a centurion, Sempronius Densus, the single man among so many thousands that the sun beheld that day act worthily of the Roman empire, who, though he never received any favor from Galba, yet out of bravery and allegiance endeavored to defend the throne." Sempronius Densus was a grizzled old war veteran who took his job as a Roman Imperial Guard very seriously. So he wasn't about to run when he saw a few thousand mutinous Roman soldiers marching on the palace preparing to execute the Emperor. It's important to keep in mind that Densus had no particular loyalties to the Emperor Galba. He just knew that his job description called for him to put his life on the line to save the son of a bitch, and he didn't fuck around when he was on the job. So Densus walked towards the mob, brandishing his Centurion Whacking Stick--a short cudgel that Roman officers used to administer back-breaking corporal punishment to out-of-line soldiers--and ordered the advancing men to stop.
Seeing that the blood thirsty, sword carrying mob of 1,000 wasn't listening to the one dude with a stick, Densus pulled his pugio--a short dagger roughly half the size of the standard Roman sword. Thinking that should convey just how much business he meant, Densus once again screamed at them to stop. Again, they kept on marching. Certain that they'd been able to hear him that last time, Densus shrugged, probably said, "You asked for it," and lunged on the posse.
Completely surrounded, Densus fought the entire army by himself to defend a man he hardly knew. Hardened by years of combat, he slashed his way through the army, as Plutarch puts it, "for some time." His courageous stand ended when he was brought down by a blow to the back of the knee and enthusiastically murdered by the mob. Unfortunately for the guy he was guarding, the men operating his carriage were so awestruck by Densus' giant balls that they dropped their gear and ran for it, face-planting the Emperor in the turf. Galba was killed, decapitated and his head was paraded around town on a spear. Plutarch fails to mention what the mob did with Sempronius Densus' body, though we have to imagine it involved very little parading, and a whole lot of staying the hell away. As slasher films would go on to teach us, you should never assume you've actually killed anyone who can kill that many people with just a knife. Further Reading: Plutarch. Lives. Trans. John Dryden. Little, Brown, 1905. Staff, Wellesley K. Year of Four Emperors. Routledge, 2003. Tacitus. Histories. Kessinger, 2004. #5.
Dian Wei, 197 AD
"The surrounding area littered with many casualties and dead. Dian Wei received over ten cuts, yet he continued to fight despite lacking troops. Dian Wei held onto two traitors underneath his arms, killing them. The remaining traitors dared not to advance any further." Dian Wei was a monstrous cruise missile of manslaughter, which is something you'd kind of have to be if you were a guy that had a name that was a homophone for "Diane." His skill as a peerless purveyor of battle-raging carnage helped him rise through the ranks of the military of the Kingdom of Wei, until eventually he was hand-selected by the Wei King, a guy named Cao Cao, to serve as his personal bodyguard and the most badass bouncer in Imperial China.
Dian's Last Stand took place during the Battle of Wancheng in 197 AD, when he essentially curbstomped an entire army into submission by himself. Apparently, some local governor had gotten a little pissed off when Cao Cao banged the dude's aunt, and launched a surprise nighttime sneak attack on the Wei King's camp. When the hordes of oncoming warriors approached the gates they found his personal bodyguard standing at the entrance brandishing a hulking pair of 40-pound axes.
Failing to appraise just how ready he was to make them look like the losing end of a bear attack, the would-be assassins charged, and Dian commenced spraying the countryside with distasteful amounts of high-impact blood spatter. After playing giant-axe-whack-a-mole with the unfortunate bastards who reached him first, Wei got super pissed and started cracking spines with his bare hands. He killed at least 20 enemies, perhaps more, before another group of assassins that had entered the building from a different direction attacked him from behind, and he was finally brought down by a rain of blows from every direction. Dian had achieved his goal however--Cao Cao escaped to fight another day, and ended up almost single-handedly conquering all of China and eventually bringing the Three Kingdoms period to a close. Further Reading: Chen Shou. Records of the Three Kingdoms. Trans. Giao Chau. Dian Wei, 2004. Guanzhong Luo. Three Kingdoms. Trans. Moss Roberts. Univ. of California Press, 2004. #4.
The Viking at Stamford Bridge, 1066 AD
"But there was one of the Norwegians who withstood the English folk, so that they could not pass over the bridge, nor complete the victory." In 1066, the Vikings took a break from wrecking shit, and got ambushed at a place called Stamford Bridge. The Vikings didn't even have a chance to get their armor on before they noticed a tremendous army of Saxons ready to kick some ass and possibly take names (which they would probably mispronounce).
Only one of the Norsemen was ready for combat--an insane, nameless berserker conjured up from some nightmarish backwater asshole of Hell. The Saxons, seeing victory was just one frothing-at-the-mouth-berserker away, charged forward to dislodge him. This proved to be a mistake. In the horrific carnage that ensued, countless Saxon soldiers were transformed into a continuous fountain of gore, his mighty axe blows cleaving shields and helmets like they were made out of deliciously-melty butter. Arrows, spears and swords were useless against him. He seemed incapable of feeling pain, or really any sensation other than an unstoppable mad desire to kill every single person on Earth.
Eventually, one enterprising Saxon warrior figured out that, like any good video game boss, the Viking hero had a weak point. The Saxon went upstream, floated a barrel into the river, jumped in and drifted down towards the bridge. As soon as he was below the scene of the battle, this cowardly douche canoe thrust his spear up between the planks, striking the Viking juggernaut in his lone weak point: the ball sack. The Viking champion dropped down to his knees, as is to be expected from a guy who just took a piercing blow to the nads, and was subsequently cut down and probably used as firewood. Further Reading: Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Trans. Ingram, Rev. James. Everyman Press, 1912. Bury, John Bagnell, et al. The Cambridge Medieval History. Macmillan, 1913. Craughwell, Thomas J. How the Barbarian Invasions Shaped the Modern World. Rockport, 2008. Furneaux, Rupert. Invasion: 1066. London: Prentice-Hall, 1966. |
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Just to nitpick a bit - Hannibal had very few well trained troops, mostly mercenaries. This was especially the case come the Roman campaign as his crossing of the Alps was actually quite disastrous - a lot of men died and had to be bolstered by tribes of Alpine Gauls and Northern Italian tribes. Also only one elephant actually made it across but died shortly after (Burrus the brave elephant). The reason Hannibal lost in the end was not so much the diversionary attack as Romans could not afford to do that while he was in Italy, but that his senate sold him out and refused to aid him. His brother tried to bring him an additional army late in the day but was intercepted and was by no means the tactician Hannibal was, so the armies never met. Meanwhile Hannibal was unable to force an outright victory only because Romans were nutjobs who were willing to throw more men than they could technically afford to lose at him. Hannibal in Africa was far less effective. By then Romans had realised elephants are particularly hard to turn, so ingeniously decided to move out of the way when they charged. Further, Scipio had learned the old-time Roman tactic of "march in columns at enemy, repeat until dead," was far less effective against the man that brought them the Battle of Cannae. By then they had learned TACTICS. Anyway I think the comments aimed at dudl were a bit of a typical internet overreaction. Loved the article though.
Jimcrow, you are correct. Fabius was about as p***y as it gets. Fabius lost his job because he wouldn't attack Hannibal while the Carthaginians were skullf**king everything in the Italian countryside. Hannibal never had a last stand, just an elephant or two with some well trained soldiers. Hannibal left because ol Cornelius Scipio (Africanus) decided he was sick of all those Numidians running around Europe and hopped on a boa for Carthage.
dudl is clearly an idiotic 13 year old who just took a basic course in roman history. none of those were badass and none were actual last stands
"These are the nations that had their territories threatened and invaded during these wars. The USA never faced such a threat" @SandroTheMaster - The US did have their territories threatened and invaded? The Philipinnes were a US Commonwealth during WWII when it was invaded by the Japanese. And I'm pretty sure the United States felt a little threatened when hundreds of Japanese planes blew the s**t out of Pearl Harbor. Also, this may just be ignorance on my part, but I don't recall ever hearing about a Russian individual's last stand. Any examples?
SandroTheMaster, they actually listed more foreigners.Great article
How about Horatius Cocles? Hannibal? Fabius Cunctator? Horatius Cocles was a Roman soldier who defended all of Rome at the last bridge across the Tiber. He fought off the Ertuscan forces, seeking to restore the banished Roman king Tarquinius Superbus to power, while the Romans brought the bridge down behind him. Then he jumped into the Tiber and swam home. You all know about Hannibal and crossing the Alps, but you don't know everything else he did in his hatred of the Romans. First of all, Hannibal swore an oath to his father, Hamilcar, to always hate the Romans. He almost completely destroyed the Roman military--with one exception--because all but one Roman commanders tried to take him head on. These guys ended up getting whooped. After Hannibal returned from Italy, he was exiled (I don't remember why) and went to serve Rome's next most threatening enemy: Milesius of Pontus. He resisted the Romans to the last, even though the Roman empire seemed unstoppable after the Roman dictator Sulla nearly conquered Pontus. Then Hannibal, with the Romans closing in around him, took poison rather than surrender. The Romans were so afraid of him that when in despair they would say "Hannibal is at the gates!" which became our expression "The Devil is at the door!". Hannibal was the Roman grim reaper. Only one guy could fend him off, Fabius Cunctator, whose name (Cunctator) means "delayer" in Latin. He got his name because the Romans thought he could only delay the inevitable defeat. However, he was the only Roman commander left after Hannibal wiped out everyone else. One commander took half his army and tried to attack Hannibal, and had to go back to Cunctator and beg forgiveness after they were all destroyed. Cunctator never faced Hannibal in open battle, that was where Hannibal was strongest, but he fought him with gorilla tactics until Hannibal was forced to leave Italy to defend Carthage from invasion.
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The first thing I thought of when I saw this article was Dian Wei. Nice to see him mentioned. :)
The first thing I thought of when I saw this article was Dian Wei. Nice to see him mentioned. :)
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@jayman I bet you think Napolean was actually a midget or that people lived past 40 during his time don't you? @pajama_pants The article said "ALMOST". Nitpicking aside, this is a good article. I want to see movies based off of these guys now.
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Great article. Add Tomoe. For she was epic awesome. Murasaki Shikibu authored Tale of Genji (a court romance) but died before the Genpei war in the 12th c. and certainly before Tale of Heike was compiled in around the 15th c. To the commenter who thought Benkei might be small by modern standards, I actually suspect he wasn't. In the Edo period (1605-1868) the population shrunk about 10 cm due to disease, inbreeding, and malnutrition but before that they were ... taller. Benkei could have been huge by modern standards.
While I found the article good, such lists are always conceited and biased. It just even if you`re willing to accept this national bias, it is strange to regard Americans for the 20th century (or rather, WWI and WWII) when the involvement of the USA was pretty passing in these. They were important allies, no doubt, but where is it more likely to find heroic last-stands: In the army that was invading/assisting, or in the armies (heck, even the militias) of the invaded and conquered? There are thousands upon thousands of last-stand stories, but most of them just don`t amount to anything because the guy doing the last stand, well, he is killed. If you take notice, most of the cases in the list itself only got the chance to be bad-ass because the enemies they were fighting only decided to fill them with projectiles at a safe distance after losing several people. Usually, a single man in the way is met by an army with a hail of arrows. Still, not only the French and the English had several better stories of last stands during these wars, but also the Germans (look at that!) and Japanese (actually, because of the Japanese code of honor that was in effect until WWII, there is a LOT of Japanese examples). Better yet, Russia. That is a place where last stands were common, since they received the bulk of the German forces after these considered Europe as good as conquered (the Western front? It was the easy front). Hells, even Poland has some pretty interesting stories in the one-sided conflict they were forced into. Do you know how it is to make a last-stand with an anti-tank rifle? These are the nations that had their territories threatened and invaded during these wars. The USA never faced such a threat, so it is disrespectful to the nations that DID suffer through it and DID face the threat to just ham in the odd (or several) American examples in these kinds of lists.
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nice 40k reference, keep it up please but what about gary gordon and randy shugart in somalia defending mike durant and his downed helicopter from hundreds of high, angry somali milita? they were the first to get the medal of honor posthumously since vietnam. no hope of extraction. they volunteered to be dropped in. cmon
Finally, a Cracked article with a 40k reference. My life is complete.
Well. There is a great one thtat sort of goes with this. But it wasn't quite a last stand because Samuel Whittemore was just too badass to be killed. After the Battles of Lexington and Concord when Gage and his army were retreating back to Boston, Whittemore heard that an entire British brigade was coming down the road right toward his house. The 78 year old crippled old soldier grabbed hi musket, a brace of pistols and his old cavalry saber and took up position behing a stone wall and waited. His first 5 shots were so fast and accurate that the British thought they faced a large ambush, so dispatced a large party. He kiled one with his musket shot two more with his pistols and while reaching for his saber had pat of his face shot off. Then the British went to work with their bayonetes. He was found barely alive with at least 14 wounds after the British had passed. The doctor was called and he pronounced it hopeless. Being the crusty old bastard that he was, WHittemore spit in the eye of death and the doctor going on to live another 18 years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Whittemore
"The feudal Japanese shit-wrecker, Saito Musashibo Benkei, was a massive, ferocious behemoth of a man" Translation: 5'6, 155 lbs. right? Also I love "try again with less words" when the person who wrote that is probably at work or getting ready to work with 11 Cracked articles opened in tabs. If all you're trying to do is waste time, there's no reason to hurry.
Cao Cao didn't bring the Three Kingdom era to a close, Sima Yi did long after Cao Cao died of old age. I expected more historical accuracy from a Cracked article
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