🎓 On commitment and burning your ships behind you

Investigating the historical accuracy of popular idioms.

In a recent edition of A History of Mankind,

David Roman

wrote:

Agathocles took advantage of the fact that Syracuse’s fortifications, built under Dionysius I, were so impressive and well-designed that few men were needed to man them: he put an expeditionary army on ships and broke the Carthaginian blockade of Syracuse’s harbor. In August 310 BC, he landed this troops in Cap Bon, just to the northeast of Carthage itself, burned his ships to ensure that there would be no way out for his men³, and defeated a makeshift army including many Carthaginian citizens that the terrified senate put together as fast as it could.

3: The first of many such recorded instances in history, the most famous being Hernán Cortés’ similar move in Mexico in the 16^th century AD.

This was very exciting for me, because I’ve been curious about the idiom “burning the ships behind you” for years. In case it’s not obvious, the phrase is synonymous with the idea of committing. It began as military advice — Sun Tzu advocated for armies to burn their boats and destroy the bridges behind them as they advanced into new territory. But since apparently nobody is really sure if Sun Tzu even really ‘existed,’ it’s hard to say whether he ever had the opportunity to follow his own advice.

Unlike “burning bridges,” burning your ships behind you is not about “torching” your relationships with other people when you leave, but rather ensuring that there's “no way out but forward.”

In the interests of tracking claims back to reliable sources, I decided to try to confirm whether anyone ever really did burn their ships. After all, back when I was writing an article about how ancients exploited ceremonial roles, I realized that all the sources I was finding to say Alexander III of Macedon burned his ships were… executive consultants & motivational speakers. Too many situations like that, and I start to get suspicious.

Well-known examples of people known for burning their ships behind them as an invasion strategy include Alexander III of Macedon and Hernan Cortes. A lesser-known example is Tariq bin Ziyad, who according to Wikipedia’s “point of no return” page ordered his ships burned during the 711 CE invasion of Spain.

But the Wikipedia page on Tariq bin Ziyad himself literally (in a footnote) says that scholars think him burning his ships during the invasion was a myth first recorded hundreds of years after the relevant battles. I didn't have to go very far to cast doubt on that example…

My second clue that this phenomenon might be more myth than reality was reading The Golden Thread by Kassia St. Clair¹, where she talked about how expensive and important Viking ships were. It turns out that Vikings probably did burn their ships as one of their funerary practices for elites — along with brutally sacrificing “volunteer” slave women. It was rare, tho, and probably happened on land, not at sea, despite the pop culture image of firing flaming arrows onto boats that had been sent out to sea.

Once I started digging, I came across more stories of “the ships you came aconquering on got burned” than “conquerors burned their own ships.”

Apparently there’s an oral history in Borneo that the Mongols landed ships on the island, went off to fight, and then when they got back to the ships, found them burned… so they married into the local populations. Not quite the same thing, though.

And to add further disappointment to the investigation, according to the sources I found, Cortes probably didn't burn his ships (burning an entire ocean-going vessel is actually really hard) — though he almost definitely did destroy them. Cortes' conquest was not only blatantly in defiance of his orders, the regional governor was working to remove him from command of his ship. The sailors he was contracted with were not eager to be pressed into service as foot soldiers, and who can blame them?

I don’t know whether Agathocles really burned his ships. I kind of hope so, and not just because I want Roman’s article to be correct! But at this point, I wonder. And as far as idioms go, “burning him ships behind him” sure seems very… idiomatic.

1. This was a really good book. I should get around to writing a review at some point… in the meantime, if books like Salt and Cod appeal to you, and you’re interested in the history of fabric, definitely check out The Golden Thread.