Category: Battle of Thermopylae

In early June of 480 B.C., a mighty Persian army crossed the Dardanelles strait on two pontoon bridges to continue a brutal advance into Greece. Led by the great king Xerxes, the troops were bound for Thermopylae, a narrow mountain pass named for the area’s hot sulphur springs (Thermopylae means “hot gates”). Seated on the east coast of Greece, between the Malian Gulf and the Kallidromo massif, some 85 miles (136 km) northwest of Athens, it is a rugged, craggy landscape of thick brush, thorny shrubs, and steep hillsides, where severe weather—torrential downpours and scorching heat—is the norm.

The dramatically inhospitable four-mile-long pass—the quickest and easiest way to advance from the plains of Thessaly into central Greece—would soon be the site of a legendary battle, an epic, three-day episode that has been memorialised in literature and history as an iconic example of heroic resistance against insurmountable odds.

Much of what is known about the Battle of Thermopylae (and about the Greco-Persian wars generally) comes from the Greek historian Herodotus, who wrote in the fifth century B.C. Other sources include the Sicilian historian Diodorus Siculus (whose first-century B.C. account was based in part on the earlier Greek historian Ephorus), the ancient Greeks Plutarch and Ctesias of Cnidus, the modern historian George Beardoe Grundy (who performed a topographical survey of the narrow pass at Thermopylae), and to a lesser extent, the Greek tragedian Aeschylus.

No Persian account of the epic battle has survived, and many statistics related to it remain hazy. The number of troops under Xerxes’ command, for instance, is the subject of endless debate. According to Herodotus, the Persian king’s military personnel numbered 2.6 million in all. His contemporary Simonides, a poet, put the number at four million. Ctesias, meanwhile, counted 800,000, while modern scholarly estimates—based on the Persians’ logistical capabilities and constraints during that era—fall between 120,000 and 300,000.

One thing most sources agree on is that the battle was born of both vengeance and ambition. Darius, the father of Xerxes, had been defeated by the Greeks on the plain of Marathon, near Athens, a decade prior—a battle that had conclusively ended the first Persian invasion of Greece.

Ten years later, Xerxes was bent on getting even—and ultimately ahead, by subjugating all of Greece, and thereby expanding the Persian Empire westward.

Standing in his way in the summer of 480 B.C. was a rare confederate alliance of normally fractious Greek city-states—some of which were forced to suspend war with each other in order to face the greater threat from Persia. Athens, which had supported Greek cities in the Ionian Revolt and later defeated Darius in 490, led the coalition with Sparta.

The Athenian politician and general Themistocles led the Greek naval opposition, blocking the Persian fleet at the strait of Artemisium. Leonidas, king of Sparta, commanded the ground forces at Thermopylae: 300 members of his royal Spartan bodyguard, called the hippeis—the subjects of countless books, movies, poems, and songs—along with a lesser-celebrated contingent of 7,000 soldiers in all, including 1,000 Phocians, 700 Thespians, and 400 Thebans.

Leonidas, aged about 60, had ascended the throne around 490 B.C., after the previous king, his half brother, Cleomenes, died heirless. The 300 Spartans with him were an elite cadre whom Leonidas had chosen personally. He wanted only soldiers with descendants to accompany him, since he knew there was little chance of them surviving and wanted to be sure that their lineages would continue. Plutarch wrote that when the king was asked before the battle, “What, Leonidas, do you come to fight so great a number with so few?” he replied laconically, “I have enough, since they are to be killed.”

Xerxes’ forces had advanced with ease through the regions of Thrace, Macedonia, and Thessaly, where the overawed inhabitants surrendered without a fight. When Xerxes arrived at Thermopylae in mid-August, he met a stern resistance that was ready for him.

Leonidas’s plan was to hold Xerxes at the narrow pass—advantageous terrain that would act as a force multiplier for an army of inferior size. Restricted by the narrow gorge, the Persians would be unable to capitalise on their superior troop numbers, or to use their cavalry. Meanwhile, the Greek fleet could concentrate on defeating the Persian forces in the strait north of the island of Euboea, which lay close by.

That was the plan, but when Leonidas arrived at Thermopylae, he was perturbed to discover that a mountain trail—the Anopaia path—could allow the invaders to circumvent his position. It was too late to change the strategy, however; the fleet was already in position. Leonidas charged the thousand Phocians with guarding the path while his men repaired a wall that protected an opening in the middle of the pass.

Xerxes set up camp near Thermopylae and bided his time for four days. He was convinced that the Greeks, upon seeing his mighty army, would be overcome with fear and retreat. According to Plutarch, he sent a messenger to Leonidas urging him to lay down his arms, but the Spartan king, according to Plutarch, replied, “Molon labe!—Come and take them!”

On the fifth day, the Persian attack began. Their advantage in numbers was of no benefit in this tight space, as Leonidas had anticipated. While they had an abundance of courage and stamina, they were poorly trained for this terrain and lacked heavy weaponry. Their swords were shorter than those of the Greeks, and their shields were smaller. Their bows and arrows also proved useless against the Greeks’ stout shields.

The tight space suited the Greeks, who were used to fighting in a phalanx formation, shoulder to shoulder, presenting a wall of shields to the enemy. It was an opportunity for the Spartans, in particular, to demonstrate their fighting capacity—the fruits of a life given over, body and soul, to the military.

The Greeks pushed back Xerxes’ men time after time, and Persian casualties mounted. Before the first day was over, Xerxes had assembled his best troops—an elite group of 10,000 men under the command of the Persian nobleman Hydarnes. The Greeks dubbed them “the Immortals” because they seemed able to replace casualties immediately, so their ranks were never depleted.

But even they couldn’t subdue the Greeks and were soon forced to retreat. Xerxes, watching the battle from a golden throne in the foothills nearby, is said to have jumped from his seat on several occasions, filled with rage at his troops’ failure.

The next day the Persians attacked and were again unsuccessful. That is when a local Greek shepherd named Ephialtes (whose name has since become synonymous with treachery) handed them the secret to victory. Ephialtes told Xerxes about the Anopaia path, which led around the mountain ridge and ended behind the Greek positions, beside the eastern end of the pass. In exchange for a handsome reward, he promised to show the Persian soldiers the way. According to Herodotus, Xerxes entrusted the advance to Hydarnes and his Immortals, who set out from the Persian camp “about the hour when lamps are lit” and marched all night up the trail.

When Leonidas learned that the Persians had his forces surrounded, he called a council of war. Should the Greeks retreat or stand their ground? Despite the impossibility of their position, Leonidas was firm in his decision: His 300 Spartans, along with a band of Thebans, would stay and fight. His sense of honour and strict military discipline made surrender unthinkable. For a Spartan like Leonidas, there were only two options: win or die. Herodotus adds another detail to the decision: The Oracle of Delphi had foretold that either Sparta would be destroyed by the Persians or its king would die. Knowing this, Leonidas may have believed that his sacrifice would save his city-state.

Leonidas ordered the Greek fleet in the strait of Artemisium to abandon its position and ordered most of the men fighting with him on land to leave the battlefield. Those who remained ate to gather strength. According to Diodorus Siculus, Leonidas said, with grim humour, “Have a hearty breakfast, for tonight we dine in Hades!” Ephorus and Diodorus Siculus recount how Leonidas then made an audacious, early assault on the Persian camp. Herodotus’s account, however, describes a Persian offensive. Xerxes didn’t rush to attack as Hydarnes needed time to complete his preparations. The general poured out libations to the rising sun, which was revered by the Persians, and then waited until mid-morning to launch the Persian assault.

Leonidas left the protection of the narrow gorge and took up position in an open area. While dangerously exposed, he was better placed to deploy his men and kill the greatest number of enemies. The Greeks, knowing that death was the only possible outcome, fought in a heedless frenzy. When their spears were broken, they drew their swords and continued to fight.

Finally Leonidas fell. A skirmish broke out around him. The Spartans attacked the Persians and managed to hold them at bay and recover the body of their king. When the defenders saw that Hydarnes had arrived with the Immortals, they fell back and regrouped on higher ground behind the protective wall. Those who still had swords defended themselves; others fought with “fists and teeth.”The Persians eventually broke down the wall and surrounded them, but avoided hand-to-hand fighting. Instead, they finished off their enemies with arrows.

By order of Xerxes, the Theban Greeks who had survived were branded on their foreheads, marked as slaves. Herodotus recounts that Leonidas’s head was cut off, and his body impaled. He was buried in Thermopylae, along with the other soldiers. A stone funerary monument in the shape of a lion was later erected, and the poet Simonides wrote a simple epitaph to all the fallen: “Go tell the Spartans, thou that passest by / That here obedient to their words we lie.”

In 440 B.C. the bones of Leonidas were transferred to Sparta. His tomb there can be seen near the modern city of Sparta today. After Thermopylae, the Greeks went on to achieve great victories at Salamis and Plataea where they decisively defeated the Persians. Leonidas and his men had reinforced the prestige of Sparta and raised the morale of all Greeks to continue fighting against Persia. As Diodorus Siculus wrote: “These men, therefore, alone of all of whom history records, have in defeat been accorded a greater fame than all others who have won the fairest victories.”

At Thermopylae, King Leonidas authorised two Spartan soldiers to withdraw from combat because of illness. Eurytus, decided to stay, and was killed in battle. The other, Aristodemus, went home, but when he reached Sparta, he was shunned, marginalised, and deprived of his civic rights. According to Herodotus, “no Spartan would give him fire, nor speak with him; and they called him for disgrace, Aristodemus the coward.”

Xenophon writing in the early fourth century B.C., described how perceived cowards in Sparta were not allowed to share a table, were excluded from games at the gym, and were ignored during choric dances. A coward would have to give up his seat even to a younger man, and no woman would marry him. “I am not surprised if in Sparta they deem death preferable to a life so steeped in dishonour and reproach.”

Aristodemus’s torment did not last long. The following year he returned to fight the Persians, this time at the Battle of Plataea. He battled furiously, keen to make up for his “shameful” shortcomings at Thermopylae. “He plainly wished to die,” Herodotus wrote, “and so pressed forward in frenzy from his post.” Aristodemus finally died in battle in an effort to redeem himself.

The great Battle of Thermopylae and the valiant fight of 300 fearless Spartans under the command of warrior King Leonidas against 10,000 elite Persian soldiers is one of the most brilliant moments in ancient Greece’s history. And in retrospect, it proved to be no less than a fight for the defense of Western Civilization itself. Although the battle itself was lost, the war was won.

The Battle of Thermopylae also provided great tales of bravery and patriotism for many Greek generations to come — tales which will never be forgotten. Most historians believe that the epic battle took place in August, 480 BC. Thermopylae (“Hot Gates” in English) was a mountain pass with great strategic importance for those traveling south from Thessaly into central Greece.

This is where the 7,100 men of the allied Greek forces lay in wait for the invading forces.

The quarter-million strong Persian army, under King Xerxes, was advancing in central Greece with the aim of reaching Athens and taking over the city.

Xerxes was certain that conquering Greece would be easy, given the sheer numbers of his vast army. The invaders camped for five days near Thermopylae because they had no idea how many foot soldiers (“hoplites” in Greek) were waiting on the other side of the pass. They were also waiting for the Persian fleet, which had suffered damage to its ships and was delayed by bad weather off the coast of Magnesia. When the Persian army finally did attack, the battle went entirely according to plan for the Greeks — at first.

The narrowness of the pass at the middle gate negated the advantage of numbers for the imperial troops. Moreover, the Greek hoplites were better equipped, with long thrusting spears, heavy bronze and wood shields, and body armor.

The Persians had shorter spears, wicker shields, and only thick linen corselets for “armor.” For two days, the Spartans held off the lesser elements of the imperial army; the Medes and Cissians were succeeded by “The Immortals,” the elite troops of King Xerxes, to little avail. The two opposing armies were essentially representative of the two different approaches to Classical warfare.

The Persians favored long-range assault using archers, followed up by a cavalry charge, while the Greeks favored heavily-armored infantrymen, arranged in a densely-packed formation called a phalanx, with each man carrying a heavy, round bronze shield and fighting at close quarters using spears and swords.

Although the Persian tactic of rapidly firing vast numbers of arrows into the massed enemy must have been an awesome sight, the lightness of the arrows meant that they were largely ineffective against the bronze-armored hoplites. Indeed, Spartan indifference to this part of the attack was epitomized by Dieneces, who, when told that the Persian arrows would be so dense in the sky as to darken the sun, replied that, in that case, the Spartans would have the pleasure of fighting in the shade.

At close quarters, the longer spears, heavier swords, better armor, and rigid discipline of the phalanx formation meant that the Greek hoplites would hold a clear advantage, and in the narrow confines of the mountain pass, the Persians would struggle to make their vastly superior numbers have any military effect. But the tide turned when a local man, Ephialtes of Trachis, in exchange for money and favors offered to show the Persians a way around the back of the defending force. Called the “Anopaia Path,” this was a way to skirt the mountain and attack the Greek forces from behind.

Xerxes accepted the traitor’s offer, sending off what was left of his 10,000 “Immortals” at dusk. According to Herodotus, Leonidas had been aware from the beginning of the existence of the Anopaia Path and had even stationed 1,000 Phokians there to stop any attempt to surround his forces.

However, the Phokians were taken by surprise and put up little resistance. Word somehow got through to Leonidas that the position had been outflanked, and there seems to have been time to abandon the position and withdraw to the south before the Immortals arrived.

Yet Leonidas steadfastly refused to retreat. Allowing everyone else to leave, he kept his 300 Spartans with him, knowing they would fight against the Persians to the last man. Throughout history there have been innumerable interpretations of his decision to stay and fight until death. Herodotus represents it as an act of deliberate self-sacrifice carried out in accordance with an oracle, which had said that the death of a Spartan king would save Sparta from destruction. Other historians took the military approach and argued that Leonidas simply wanted to give the allied contingents time to get away. After the battle, Xerxes ordered that Leonidas’ head be put on a stake and displayed on the battlefield. As Herodotus claims in his account of the battle in book VII of The Histories, the Oracle at Delphi had been proven right when she had proclaimed that either Sparta or one of her kings must fall.

Nevertheless, the Battle of Thermopylae and the heroism of Leonidas and his brave hoplites have written one of the most brilliant pages of Greece’s long and rich history. As for Ephialtes, the greedy traitor, his name eventually became the modern Greek word for “nightmare.”

While the Battle of Thermopylae was technically a defeat for the Greeks, it was also a victory in the long run because it marked the beginning of several important Greek victories against the Persians and boosted the morale of all the Greek city-states. Encouraged by the incredible bravery of the Spartan action, the surviving allied Greek forces fought with renewed fury against the Persians.

There is no doubt that the drive to fight and win in the two camps was sparked by completely different forces. Herodotus recounted how the Persian King Xerxes had driven his men into battle with whips — while the Greeks fought of their own free will: “(The Spartans) did not have to be whipped to make them fight with all their might… Whips were only for slaves, not free men.” Although the Aristotelian concept of freedom was only formulated a century later by the great philosopher, the men who were citizens of the Greek city-states felt they were fighting to defend their freedom and autonomy.

This notion of freedom could only even begin to develop in a state free of coercion, so very unlike the world of the East. Had the Spartans at Thermopylae, and later Greek armies, fled in fear, it is likely that a Persian victory would have had the effect of promoting imperial hegemony over the concept of a free city state, coercion over free will, and authoritarianism over any remote notion of freedom.

Compared to the ancient Greek civilization of the time, the Persians, from a completely militaristic society, behaved as ruthless barbarians. Xerxes was seen as a merciless monarch and would surely have shown no quarter upon a conquered Greece. There is no doubt that, had his army won, ancient Greece as we know it would have been obliterated and history would have taken a totally different turn. It was also clearly a battle of two cultures which could not have been more entirely different. If Athens had been taken over by the Persians, there would be no Parthenon, no Aristotle, no Pericles, no Socrates, no Phidias, no Olympic Games, no Hippocrates… and the list goes on.

Seen with the longest of historical views, we can say that if the Greeks had not finally succeeded in driving out the Persian forces, ultimately there would have been no Enlightenment in Europe, nor the development of democracy or the concepts of individual freedom and human rights.

This year is the 2,500th anniversary of the Battle of Thermopylae, when the Spartan king Leonidas and around 5,000 Greek warriors stood boldly against hundreds of thousands of invaders led by the Persian king Xerxes.

For two whole days, Leonidas and his men held off the Persians at a narrow pass in central Greece, killing tens of thousands of Xerxes’ men. When Leonidas learned that Xerxes had found a way to circumvent his position he dismissed most of his men, but ordered his Spartans to remain and fight to buy time for the allies to withdraw safely. After the battle, a memorial was set up at Thermopylae with the epigram ‘Stranger, go tell the Spartans, that here, obedient to their words we lie’.

The Spartans’ courageous self-sacrifice has proved influential and enduring. The historian Diodorus claimed that the Spartans who fell at Thermopylae were ‘more responsible’ for saving Greece than those who fought in later victories over the Persians, because the mere memory of their great deeds dismayed the Persians and incited their fellow Greeks to perform similar courageous exploits.

Others have been inspired to attempt to repel invaders at the Thermopylae pass. The southern Greeks successfully held Thermopylae against Philip of Macedon in 353 BCE, and failed to repel a Celtic invasion there in 279 BCE. Antiochus the Great tried to hold off the Romans at Thermopylae in 191 BCE. In 1821 the Greeks attempted to hold a defensive position there in the early stages of the Greek War of Independence against the Ottoman Empire. There was even a doomed attempt by Allied forces to repel the invading German tank divisions at Thermopylae on April 24-25, 1941. Today the Spartans’ courage at Thermopylae proves just as inspirational, with countless sports teams across the globe called the Spartans, and the Battle of Thermopylae the subject of star-studded feature films and best-selling novels.

The Spartans and their allies were painted as fighting for ‘Greek freedom’ in the face of the threat of Persian ‘enslavement’ by ancient Greek sources. A wonderful example comes from Herodotus’ account of events just prior to Thermopylae. After the Spartans began receiving bad omens from the gods because they impiously killed ambassadors sent by Xerxes’ father Darius, two Spartans named Sperthias and Bulis volunteered to travel to Persia to sacrifice themselves to atone for the impiety. Along the way to Xerxes’ court, a Persian general advised them to collaborate because Xerxes would receive them as men of honour. But Sperthias and Bulis bluntly rejected his advice as unsound because he knew only how to be a slave, and that if he had ever tasted ‘sweet freedom’ he would urge them to fight Xerxes not only with Greek spears, but Persian battle-axes too!

This notion of the Spartans as freedom-fighters has been taken up in many modern responses to the story of Thermopylae. Rudolph Maté’s epic film The Three Hundred Spartans (1962) cast the Spartans as resisting Xerxes’ plan to create ‘one world ruled by one master’, and ends by asserting that the Spartans provided ‘a stirring example to free people throughout the world of what a few brave men can accomplish once they refuse to submit to tyranny’.

Maté’s vision inspired Frank Miller to write his graphic novel 300 (1998), which describes the Persians as ‘poised to crush Greece, an island of reason and freedom in a sea of mysticism and tyranny’. Miller’s novel in turn inspired Zack Snyder’s blockbuster film 300 (2006), which features the iconic scene in which Gerard Butler’s King Leonidas bellows, ‘This is Sparta!’ before kicking Xerxes’ ambassador down a well for daring to demand tokens of submission. Another iconic scene from the film, Leonidas’ famous (but almost certainly fictional) reply ‘come and get them’ (molôn labe) to Xerxes’ demand that the Spartans surrender their arms, has become an unofficial slogan for American gun enthusiasts in their vigorous campaign to defend their Second Amendment right to bear arms. But perhaps the most potent modern response to Thermopylae is that of the Nobel Prize-winning author Sir William Golding, who wrote, ‘It is not just that the human spirit reacts directly and beyond all argument to story of sacrifice and courage…it is because, way back at the hundredth remove, that company stood in the right line of history. A little of Leonidas lies in the fact that I can go where I like and write what I like. He contributed to setting us free’.

All this gives the impression that the 300 Spartans gave their lives so that future generations could enjoy great works of literature like Golding’s Lord of the Flies and use assault rifles whenever they want. But the reality could not be further from the truth. The only freedom the Spartans were really interested in was their own.

In the century that followed Thermopylae the Spartans would more than once sacrifice the freedom of their fellow Greeks to seal dodgy deals with the Persians. During the Peloponnesian War against Athens (433-404 BCE), a war the Spartans themselves cast as one of freedom vs Athenian tyranny, they shamelessly bargained away the freedom of the Greeks of Asia Minor in exchange for Persian assistance against Athens. Worse still, in 387 BCE, ten years after launching a campaign to ‘liberate’ the Asian Greeks from Persian rule, the Spartans abandoned them a second time to secure Persian backing for a treaty that guaranteed Spartan dominance over mainland Greece.

And it gets even worse. The Spartans’ whole lifestyle was based on the ruthless exploitation of their helot slaves, the ethnically Greek inhabitants of Laconia and Messenia they conquered in the eighth and seventh centuries BCE. Less than a century before their stand for Greek freedom at Thermopylae the Spartans had even attempted conquering their nearest Greek neighbours the Tegeans, confidently marching into battle carrying iron fetters to chain up the vanquished foe. Rather ironically, the Spartans lost the so-called ‘Battle of the Fetters’, and many Spartans ended up temporarily bound by their own fetters. The Spartans might have found themselves on the ‘right line of history’ at Thermopylae, but we should not forget how often they were prepared to trample on the freedom of others when it served their interests.

Ancient Greek warfare and conflict was a common reoccurrence during archaic and classical periods due to the fact that the city states were quarrelsome whether it be because of religious difference ( the worshiping of different Greek gods) , political and philosophical differences.

The common soldiery of ancient Greece were free citizens primary consisted of farmers or members of society with low social standing (not like those of mathematicians and philosophers whom had high statuses). Many of the solidary and free citizens were classified as hoplites who were essentially heavily armed foot soldiers who typically wielded short swords, spears and shield. The armament of the hoplite was a bronze panoply (which consisted of a bronze helmet, cuirass and greaves) however, due to the fact that citizens had to supply their own armour, some hoplites only wore the armour that they could afford and a full suit of armour was seen as an opportunity to display wealth.

One of the most infamous examples of solidary within ancient Greece was that of Sparta who, as a society , idealised the warrior lifestyle. Further to this the soldiers within Sparta were organised into bands f up to 40 men, whom ate, slept and trained together communally in order to from a fellowship with on another. Sparta however, gained its heroic ascribed status due to the bravery and compliance to authority they obtained which was demonstrated in the immortal battle of Thermopylae during the Greek-Persian war in 480 BC. The battle of Thermopylae was fought in a narrow coastal passage 15 metres wide where 300 Sparta’s accompanied by their king Leonidas as well as 6,699 other infantrymen made a stand. The battle itself lasted for tree days with the Greek force preferring close range combat whereas the Persians preferring long range skirmishing using bows and arrows which were said to ‘block out the sun with its volleys’. However due to the heavy armament of the Greek forces the arrows made little impact so as a result a three day melee broke out. However in the ned the Greek forces retreated due to a back passage being discovered which allowed for a flank by the Persian to take place. In the end however , king Leonidas and his 300 Spartans stayed behind to cover the retreat of the survivors and delay the Persians as long as possible, ultimately resulting in the death of king Leonidas and his men. This heroic display of bravery has gone down in history as ‘ as one of the most significant last stands of all time’ and demonstrates the fearlessness solidary of Sparta.

One Greek warfare tactic that, at its time was revolutionary was the creation of the phalanx -which was essentially a tightly packed , deep formation of hoplites that where armed with two handed long pikes that came to be known as the sarissa . the phalanx was excellent at repelling cavalry charges as well as negating the charges from enemy troops by not allowing them to get close (due to the wall of spears they faced). One of the greatest uses and employment of the phalanx was that of Philip of Macedon, and to a greater extent, alexander the great, whom combined the phalanx with cavalry on the flanks and a backline of light skirmishers. This strategic warfare formation and employment would consequentially help aid alexander the great in his conquest of Asia minor, Persia and Egypt.

The theory of the Spartan Mirage was first coined by Francois Ollier in the 1930s. Francois Ollier was a French historian who published a book titled ‘Le Mirage Spartiate’. The book outlined the effect of distortion of Sparta found in ancient writers like Xenophon, Plutarch, and Herodotus. These books have created a picture that the Spartan society was equal and united. The theory states that the perception of Sparta is distorted by sources written by non-Spartans. These writers either idealized or were hostile towards Sparta. After the French revolution and the growth of democracy, Sparta became a symbol of ancient society against modern freedom. However, many philosophers still idealized Spartan society. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who was a swiss philosopher, states ‘He fixed upon [the Spartans] a yoke of iron, the like of which no other people has ever born; but he tied them to that yoke, made them, so to speak, one with it, by filling up every moment of their lives. … And out of this ceaseless constraint, made noble by the purpose it served, was born that burning love of country which was always the strongest—or rather the only—passion of the Spartans.’ In 1930s Germany, the Spartan image was heavily appropriated by national socialism to focus on the worth of an authoritarian regime.

Victor Ehrenberg was a German historian who idealized Sparta’s military that was influenced by his devotion to the law. He states that Sparta was ‘the first and greatest of all authoritarian and totalitarian states, where authority dominated the political and social world of its citizens. Xenophon was an Athenian historian and philosopher who lived in Sparta. He was an admirer of Sparta but he also speaks about the negative sides of Sparta like Krypteia (the Spartan secret service). However, he still neglects most negative sides of Sparta. Lycurgus was a legendary lawgiver of Sparta. He created laws that inspired strong military and citizen equality. Xenophon believes that Lycurgus had founded Sparta’s institution and reduced the indigenous Achaean population to the same social status level as the serfs and helots. Xenophon states that ‘Now once it had struck me that Sparta, despite having one of the lowest populations, had nonetheless clearly become the most powerful and most famous in Greece, I wondered how this had ever happened. But I stopped wondering once I had pondered the Spartiate institutions, for they have achieved success by obeying the laws laid down for them by Lycurgus’.

This was his description of the Spartan society that had Lycurgus find stability. This proves that the Spartan Mirage is real as Xenophon speaks of Sparta positively and believes that Lycurgus promoted stability in the Spartan law system making Xenophon an unreliable source. Another example of the Spartan Mirage in ancient sources is Plutarch. Plutarch is from Chaeronea, Boeotia. Plutarch is a biographer, not a historian. He wrote biographies of Spartans including Lycurgus. Many modern historians find Plutarch’s ‘Life of Lycurgus’ to be a significant record of what most believed about the Spartan traditions. In this biography, he appeared to be highly influenced by Spartan kings from a later time like King Agis and Cleomenes. These kings claimed that they restored Lycurgan Sparta. Plutarch wanted Greeks and Roman’s the same to recognize the legacy which they acquired from extraordinary men and great city-states of the past. He aimed to educate. Plutarch starts the biography with a warning, ‘Generally speaking, it is impossible to make any undisputed statement about Lycurgus the lawgiver since conflicting accounts have been given of his ancestry, his travels, his death and above all his activity with respect to his laws and government, but there is least agreement about the period in which the man lived.’ This shows limitations in his writing, therefore, proving the Spartan Mirage theory. Ancient sources have stated that the Spartans were a very war-driven society. Thucydides has referred to the Spartans as ‘Liberators of Hellas’. However, it was the Spartans who gave up the freedom of Ionia to the Persians without their approval and were the ones who committed the most outrageous acts in war. The Spartan reputation of being very patriotic was heavily represented in the Battle of Thermopylae.

At Thermopylae, the Spartans only had 300 troops against the 150000 Persian troops. However, the Spartans weren’t fighting alone. As Herodotus states ‘The Hellenes who awaited the Persians in that place were these: three hundred Spartan armed men; one thousand from Tegea and Mantinea, half from each place; one hundred and twenty from Orchomenus in Arcadia and one thousand from the rest of Arcadia; that many Arcadians, four hundred from Corinth, two hundred from Phlius, and eighty Mycenaeans. These were the Peloponnesians present; from Boeotia, there were seven hundred Thespians and four hundred Thebans.’. Leonidas was a Spartan king who led the Greek states, including the Spartans, to the battle of Thermopylae. The idea that Leonidas led only 300 Spartans to the battle against 100000-150000 Persians doesn’t seem strategic. The Spartans and Leonidas were at the battle so the other Greek states had to assemble their troops and to prove they weren’t isolationists. Leonidas only stayed behind to secure the Spartans’ reputation and his victory. The Spartans never died for freedom but they died to preserve the Spartan reputation of being extraordinary. As Herodotus states ‘It is said that Leonidas himself sent them away because he was concerned that they would be killed, but felt it not fitting for himself and the Spartans to desert that post which they had come to defend at the beginning…For himself, however, it was not good to leave; if he remained, he would leave a name of great fame, and the prosperity of Sparta would not be blotted out.’ This demonstrates the idealization of Sparta through Ancient sources like Herodotus.

Ancient writers like Xenophon, Plutarch, and Herodotus, have affected how modern society perceives Sparta society. Some modern historians have concluded that Lycurgus was not a real person due to his conflicting reflections of him. This conclusion was because the Greeks discuss political and social practices in the phrases of a single founder. Modern historians agree that the Spartan Mirage exists. This theory has appeared in abundant pottery, art, and sculptural remains that modern historians like Paul Cartledge, and Stephen Hodkinson, used to critique excavations like Artemis Orthia and Acropolis. Paul Cartledge suggested that the Spartans were skilled at promoting a reputation that they were stable. Many Ancient philosophers were interested in this perspective of Sparta. This meant that further generations of modern historians will continue this perspective and opinion. Cartledge states ‘To call it a mere barracks bereft of high culture, as did certain Athenian propagandists, was probably going too far- but not all that much too far. The historical question for us is why the open and progressive Sparta of the mid-6th century metamorphosized.’ Hodkinson collected ancient evidence to expose the written evidence to a thorough archaeological view. Cartledge also agrees with Hodkinson’s approach. The purpose of his approach was to ‘consider the bearing of archaeology and art history on the Spartan economy mainly as they were constituted during the 7th and 6th centuries. Had Sparta always been the cultural desert projected by the later mirage?’

The battle of Thermopylae, under the king Xerxes (486-456 BC) the Great son of Darius the Great, was another victory for Persians in the fifth century. The Persians were advancing on the battleground with their full might. Five million, two hundred and eighty-three thousand, two hundred and twenty men excluding the cooks, women, and concubines were ready for an assault on Greeks who were led by Leonidas I (Herodotus VII, 186). The Greeks were less than half of the total army of the Persians and accurately noted by Herodotus the total number was two million, six hundred and forty-one thousand, six hundred and ten. Leonidas, the Great War leader formed this great army along with the Spartans.

The Greeks lose their heart after seeing the mighty army and a great hustle started between them. Horsemen from the Persian side went to view the Greek army and told Xerxes the whole situation which was satisfying news for him. Greeks were not enough courageous to advance and attack, nor they seem to withdraw from the battle (Herodotus VII 210). Xerxes commanded Mendez to attack the Greeks. They were skilled warriors but fought their clansmen. The fight between them was a sight to see; none of the sides was ready to withdraw. The Medes were continuously fighting the Greeks. However, the Greeks started brutally killing them, and to aid Xerxes commanded the Persian Immortals to attack the enemy. They were led by Hydranes. They were the skilled and organized warriors against the unskilled warriors. They forced the Greek army out from the narrows to the open ground. But the Greeks knew their land and secret narrow passages proved hard for Persians to approach their land. The king was presented with another strategy by, Ephialtes son of Eurydemus, a Malian to reach Thermopylae over the mountains. The horsemen with Hydranes were sent with Ephilates on the orders of Xerxes. The Persians with Ephilates and hydrates descended the mountain with all speed. Greeks were informed of their rivals seen on the mountains behind them, they gathered all the nations and clans and held a council. A great fear could be sensed on the Greek’s side. Leonidas was not able to keep the army consolidated and his allies were also not agreeing to take such a great risk of fighting an already lost battle. Thespians by Thebans alone stayed with Leonidas and fought along with him to die. (Herodotus VII, 222). Xerxes was assaulted by foreigners who were with him. Greeks with Leonidas advanced further and came outside of the narrows, into a wider part of the strait. The Greeks were thrust into the sea and some were trodden down by the horsemen. The spears were broken, and the Greeks were still fighting with now very less army. Persians also lost two sons of Darius in this battle. The men with Ephialtes arrived in the battleground and Greeks took flight leaving Persians victorious.

Xerxes passed over the place where the dead Leonidas was lying dead. Being a noble king, he spared his body. The body of Leonidas was left in the ground by the Greeks and they have pushed back into the narrows again. His men and allies left him dead between his enemies, making Xerxes triumphant. The Persians and their ally Medes celebrated in the Thermopylae.