Last stand of the 300 - Battle of Thermopylae, 480 BC - The fight for Greece

It’s 480 BC and in the midst of an  invasion by the mighty Persian Empire, the famed three hundred Spartans stand side  by side with their allies. King Leonidas knows that the fight against Xerxes  begins that day, but feels only a grim (if calm) impatience to check the arrogant  hoards that would presume to conquer all. The Great King Xerxes observes the stubborn  several thousand Greeks arrayed for battle, perhaps confident his vast army will quickly  sweep aside their pitiful defences and send them scurrying back into the lands he would  soon rule.

Greek blood would redden the earth, these insolent peoples would bend the knee and  his father’s defeat at Marathon would be avenged. The ground shakes as the first wave of warriors  approaches the Allied phalanx. The war for Sparta and for all of Free Greece was on.

As with many great events of history, the events surrounding Leonidas, Xerxes and  their armies’ iconic struggle at Thermopylae can be directly traced to the earlier defeat of the  First Persian Invasion that commenced in 492 BC. During the reign of Xerxes’ father Darius, the  Persian Empire had launched a largely successful invasion in response to Greek interference in the  Ionian Revolt, which saw Darius re-conquer Thrace, subjugate Macedon to his will and solidify  Persian dominance over the Aegean Sea. However, though largely successful in  its objectives, the invasion failed to incorporate all of the Greek lands into  the king of kings’ vast domain.

Indeed, around a decade before Thermopylae at Marathon,  the allied army of Athens and Plataea defeated the invaders and denied the Persians mainland Greece. Even so, the presence of Persianized Thrace and Macedon so close to their own homes could not  have soothed concerns of those free cities that the king of kings’ designs were truly checked. The Persian or Achaemenid Empire was truly the superpower of the age.

Having its origins in  the rise of Cyrus the Great. The domain of the Great Kings covered an area from Egypt to the  Indus, from the Aral Sea to Macedon on the very doorstep of the Greek states themselves. Darius’ empire was vastly more powerful in resources and men and the King  of Kings now set to the task of organising his overland campaign to finish  the defiant Greeks states once and for all.

Alas for Darius, this was not to be. Having passed  away in 486, Xerxes assumed his father’s place and inherited the ambition of subduing the Greeks. A  revolt in Egypt in 486 delayed this, but by 481 Xerxes’ own preparations were well underway. 

As well as the pontoon bridges and a canal, supply depots dotting the Thracian and Macedonian  coastlines left the defiant Greeks in no doubt that the reckoning was fast approaching. So who was this new king of kings bent on avenging his father? Xerxes was the first  son born to Darius following his own rise to power.

His own lineage was impressive, not  only as the son of the reigning Great King but no less than a maternal grandson of Cyrus  the Great himself, through his mother Atossa. Darius obviously held high hopes for his tall  and handsome younger son as Xerxes was made heir apparent over his elder half-brother Artabazanes.  Undoubtedly noting that his predecessors had conquered before him to solidify their grip on the  throne, for Xerxes then the pressure was doubly so given his rise to the throne was through  selection rather than strict primogeniture.

Far from a coward or weakling as implied from  a reading of Herodotus, as a King of Kings, Xerxes by definition was a warrior endorsed by  a warrior elite, the succession running from father to son. Having subdued the Egyptians  and perhaps the Babylonians too in 485, Xerxes also campaigned in Africa and Asia.  All this flies in the face of the cliché effeminate caricature of the eastern despot.

As for the other great figure of Thermopylae, King Leonidas couldn’t have been more different. As the leading state, and most powerful of the alliance, Sparta could thus arguably  boast supreme status in the Greek world. At the time of Thermopylae, King Leonidas ruled  as the Agiad monarch.

Around the age of sixty at Thermopylae, Leonidas had not long reigned  as king, only having assumed the title nine years before. As the third of four sons born to  Anaxandridas II, Leonidas likely never expected to become king, though – married to Gorgo, daughter  of Cleomenes – he was well-placed to do so after the dodgy demise of his elder half-brother. Prevented from mobilising their full army due to the taboo of doing so during the yearly festival  in Apollo’s honour, this then was the king who led the famous three hundred out of Sparta to jointly  face the oncoming wrath of the Persians in 480.

Given his age of around sixty, it’s quite likely  Leonidas’ military experience was grounded in the smaller conflicts that were typical of his time. While opposition to the Persians was focused on Sparta and her Peloponnesian allies,  the joint-victors of Marathon, Athens, obviously had a vested interest in resistance,  given they were to be given particular attention by Xerxes and so also joined this alliance,  to form the Hellenic League, which was further bolstered by various other cities and islands. Thessaly too had initially elected to fight, and in that spirit reinforced a hoplite  force that would contest the Persians at the Vale of Tempe.

However, upon learning  the true extent of their foe’s numbers and realising this position was untenable,  had little choice but to yield to Xerxes. The remaining allies thus zeroed in  on Thermopylae to make their stand, while at sea the Hellenic fleet would hold  position to the east off the north of the island of Euboia to contest the Persians. The army that Xerxes had gathered at Sardis in the autumn of 481 was indeed massive  by any estimation.

To the Greeks, even the modern conservative estimates  of eighty thousand that made up the total number of the Persian army would have seemed  gigantic. Though Herodotus’ total strength of over five million is grossly overinflated,  then, a Persian force of upwards of the lower hundreds of thousands was more than enough  to crush Greek resistance once and for all. With the onset of Spring, Xerxes’ colossal  army lumbered west across the Hellespont and towards central Greece through the  vassal countries of Thrace and Macedonia.

At sea, the Greek fleet held its position  about forty miles east of the army, set to halt any Persian attempt to turn the land  forces. It’s likely too that the fleet here also sought to prevent a full Persian takeover of  Euboia, from which there was a short jump across the narrow straight into Attica and Boeotia. Luckily for the Greek fleet, the superior Persian fleet was mauled by a storm en route to the area  off of the coast of Magnesia.

Having spied their Greek foes from their temporary base of Aphetai,  the Persians decided to send a detachment to round Euboia and cut off the Artemisia fleet. This force  of ships too, however, was caught in a storm off the eastern shores of the island, while the Greeks  had sailed to engage the remaining Persians. Fighting a fierce days-long engagement with the  reduced Persian fleet, the allies too had taken significant losses, though the Persians too had  suffered.

However, unable to afford these losses unlike the Persians, the Greek fleet withdrew to  Salamis to await better circumstances to fight. Meanwhile on land, Leonidas was readying his men  at Thermopylae. Though famously narrow in general, the level passage squashed between  the mountains to the left and the sea to the right was particularly narrow at  three points: the so-called East and West Gates were particularly narrow, while the Middle  Gate – though wider – had other advantages.

This point in the pass, formidably guarded the  left flank of the holding force with a sizable sheer cliff, whereas the other gates landward  approaches were merely steep but not sheer. A further plus for Leonidas was the presence of  the Phocian Wall. Though somewhat in disrepair, a wall had been constructed by the Phocians to  help contest the invasions of their enemies the Thessalians.

The day before the commencement  of battle, Leonidas set his men to repairing it as best they could, though only so much  could be done about the major disadvantage of trying to check the Persians in this area. The Anopaia Path did present a way around the allied position, however, as with all invasions  in a time where maps were rare if non-existent, such local knowledge was beyond the foreign force.  To guard the path, the Spartan monarch dispatched about a thousand Phocians; these local men  certainly had the most to immediately lose and, in theory, were likely to sell their  lives dearly to any would-be aggressor.

As for the enemy, Xerxes’ vast army arrived  at the battlefield four days before the first blood of battle. In that time Herodotus famously  relates how a Persian scout spied the Spartans calmly combing their hair or working out near to  the Phocian Wall. On asking his advisor Demaratos what this was all about, the exiled Spartan king  signalled this was a Spartan battle preparation.

Though bizarre to the Great King, the wearing of  their hair long was actually a privilege granted on reaching manhood, alongside the more famous  donning of the red cloak. Preferring this style due to the belief it made them appear taller and  thus more imposing in battle, it’s little wonder then that Xerxes’ spy sighted the Spartan Homoioi  meticulously combing and oiling their locks. During this lull before the storm, Xerxes  also sent another envoy to the Greeks to lay down their arms, to which the Spartan  monarch laconically replied in true Spartan fashion: molon labe – “come and get them!

” This impertinent reply may have finally spurred Xerxes into action. Given the disparity between  the numbers of each host, and likely learning a larger Greek force had already dispersed on  the rumour of his might, the defiance of this meagre army may have astonished and angered  the Great King in equal measure. It’s likely his delay had been to merely await the dawning  of reality on Leonidas and his doomed comrades.

With no meek withdrawal forthcoming the King  of Kings ordered his Median and Kissian forces forward to clear the way. As intended the  superior numbers did little to tilt the scales of fortune in Xerxes’ favour. Of course,  no small amount of bravery and determination also aided the defenders; another factor to success,  however, was the way in which the Greeks fought.

Xerxes by attacking this way was allowing  the Greeks to fight the battle their way, spear-to-spear, eyeball-to-eyeball. The Greek  style of fighting common to all the levy citizen soldiers of the poleis was the phalanx formation,  the tight and near-unstoppable mass of men, shields and spears that was ideal  for defending the narrow terrain. Factor into matters the hoplite soldier’s  panoply: a man would wear the Corinthian-style bronze helmet, while his torso would have  been covered by his wide aspis shield; bronze greaves protected the lower legs of the  combatant, while on the offensive side of things, the long spear (of around two to two-and-a-half  metres long) out-reached the average Persian’s.

Further protected by a coat of bronze or linen,  in contrast to the average Persian assailant, it’s little wonder why Leonidas’ allied army was  so deadly over those three days of bloody mêlée. The Medes and Kissians would mostly be equipped  with a smaller spear and a wicker oval-shaped shield in the main. In addition, most Persian  infantry would also wield a composite bow with a quiver of iron-tipped reed arrows.

In addition to the usual double-bladed dagger – the typical side-arm of the Persian –  the more fearsome battleaxe was also a mainstay. Of these weapons, the bow was undoubtedly  the ‘national’ weapon, so to speak, and even a symbol associated with the Persian  kings. Indeed, in previous conflicts masses of volleys were often used to clear enemy formations,  yet on this first day at Thermopylae Xerxes’ mêlée-focused approach had led to severe losses.

Part of the Greek strategy ahead of the wall was to feign retreat, only to quickly halt and turn  on their pursuers. This rapid escalation of hopes and collapse of progress must have taken its toll  on Persian morale, alongside the mounting bodies of their comrades. By keeping the battle a  mobile affair, Leonidas was also cleverly mitigating the deadly effect of the Persian  archers, denying his foes a fixed target.

Having beaten off this first series of assaults,  Leonidas must have thanked the Gods that Xerxes impatiently ordered his best men forward to  engage in the later afternoon. Perhaps the king appreciated that his army was still relatively  fresh; better now than to face Xerxes’ elite when wounds and weariness were worse for his men. The Immortals, as the Greeks named them, were no joke.

Mostly made up of native Persians,  along with smaller numbers of Medes and Elamites, these elite professionals presented the  best Xerxes had to offer, while within these ten thousand so-called ‘silver-butted’ infantry  also marched the so-called ‘gold-butted’ elite within an elite: one thousand of the noblest and  bravest of the Immortals. Known as the ‘King’s spear-bearers’ but also colloquially referred  to as ‘apple-bearers’ due to the golden-shaped butts of their short spears, this inner-most  personal guard of the Great King were formed from the noble class, the other nine thousand  picked as the cream of the commoners. Led by Hydarnes, in the event – despite their own  fearsome reputation and on paper outnumbering the entire Greek force that day – the Immortals  could not dislodge Leonidas and his comrades.

Having fought off the initial  waves and then Xerxes best, Leonidas may have allowed himself a brief window  to hope that his army could hold indefinitely or long enough for Xerxes to rethink his approach. The second day of fighting was similar to the first. The Great King’s men fell on the Greek  formations like waves upon a rock, however, as in nature so too with war: over time though  relatively fewer in number the Greeks inevitably took wounds and losses, the solid rock  of defence inevitably slowly eroding.

Herodotus informs us that the Greeks fought in  relays, so that much – if not the majority – of the hard fighting must have been done by  those non-Spartiates present. Perhaps, then, Leonidas held back at times in grim respect  for his allies, though undoubtedly at other times the sixty-year-old monarch would have been  in the thick of things in true Homeric style. This period must have been frustrating for Xerxes. 

Likely observing events from an elevated position, his numbers and threats had done little to  advance his cause. What he really needed to change his fortunes was decent local knowledge  of either an alternative route into mainland Greece or a means to clear the obvious route  in front of him. Enter one of the more infamous traitors of western history, Ephialtes.

A local man from Trachis, Ephialtes – hoping for a suitably grand reward from the Great King –  offered to lead enemy soldiers along the mountain path that would allow Xerxes’ men to take the  Greeks in the rear. Leaving nothing to chance, Xerxes sent all of his Immortals with  Ephialtes, their only block en route being the unseen thousand-strong Phocian  contingent. Herodotus indicates all the remaining Immortals made the march, which means  the guardian army of Greeks must have been heavily outnumbered many times over.

Having marched through the night, Hydarnes and the Immortals closed in on  the Phocian position. Equally shocked, the Immortals loosed their arrows. The Phocians,  though brave, mistakenly believed themselves to be the intended target of the Persian elite  and retired to some high ground to exact a bloody price for their deaths.

In response, the  disciplined ranks of the Immortals merely bypassed them and continued towards the East Gate. Leonidas learned his fate was sealed with the coming of deserters in the night, the news  of the Persian manoeuvre being confirmed by his own lookouts just after dawn. Taking council  again, Leonidas sent the majority of the remaining Greeks away, electing to remain with the three  hundred (or what was left of them), as well as seven hundred Thespians and four hundred Thebans.

On the surface, modern audiences may wonder why Leonidas – faced with such a hopeless  situation – didn’t simply withdraw all his army and fight another day? According  to Herodotus, the Spartan king had his own reasons for remaining himself. According to  the Oracle at Delphi, either Sparta would be laid waste, or a king of Sparta would fall.

The Persian pincer would close on Leonidas and his remaining men between nine and ten in the morning,  though unsurprisingly – given the difficulty of exactly coordinating such an action – Hydarnes and  the Immortals were late in coming up the rear. Unlike on the previous days in which the Greeks  fought in relays at the narrowest point of the Middle Gate, Leonidas now moved his position  forward to contest the Persians in a wider area, the better to fully deploy his remaining  forces. Advancing in good order at first, as the Greeks closed with the Persians, the latter’s  volleys must have undoubtedly done some damage.

Breaking with normal custom, Leonidas then ordered  an all-out charge, and it was now that desperate fighting broke out, the king himself at the  forefront. By quickly advancing on a wider front, the arrows may have inflicted less damage  than otherwise; conversely the Persian losses were said to have exceeded those  of the previous two days. It was around this time that Leonidas likely roared his last  battle-cry and fell among many of his comrades.

A furious battle over possession of the king’s  body now ensued; the surviving Greeks ferociously pushed back the Persians four times before they  regained possession. The sheer desperation of the last fighting was related to by Herodotus,  writing that when Greek spears were broken, they wielded their swords and when they too were  lost they resorted to using their hands and teeth. Despite this last grim success, however, the  inevitable loomed with the final approach of the Immortals from the rear.

Upon realising the time was near, the Greeks withdrew through the Phocian Wall and  redeployed on a hillock to await their final fate. At this point too, the Thebans’ resolve finally  broke as they broke off from the Spartans and the Thespians, fleeing towards the Persian  lines. Many were slaughtered in a blood rage, though most offers of surrender were  taken.

These fortunate men were later branded with Xerxes mark for their troubles. With the Immortals also finally upon them, the Phocian wall breached, the enemy decided to  wisely finish those surviving Greeks with a storm of arrows. So ended the battle at Thermopylae.

With the fall of Leonidas and his rearguard, Thermopylae began its long history as arguably  the icon of the famous last stand. However, though the battle cemented the Spartan  legacy in the pages of history, their glorious last stand would have been of  limited comfort to the inhabitants of Lokris, Boeotia and Attica. Xerxes would  not soon forget Leonidas or his estimated twenty thousand losses at Thermopylae  and would exact appropriate retribution.

Athens was burned, though its population had been  evacuated. At sea, the free Greeks were far from vanquished. Though defeated at Artemision,  they scored a decisive victory at Salamis, which forced the withdrawal of the Persian fleet  back to Anatolia.

As for the Great King himself, he returned home too, leaving the bulk of his  land forces to finish business in Greece. Alas for Mardonius, the would-be-satrap of  a conquered Greece, his star would fall soon after. Gathering the largest army seen up to  that point, nearly forty thousand hoplites – Spartans included – the Greeks defeated the  Persians at Plataea, freeing themselves from the threat of Persian subjugation for good.

The defeat of the second Persian invasion of Greece did much to foster a wider ethnic and  cultural sense of Greek identity as contrasted with barbarian folk. In Athens especially the  conflict was framed as an ideological struggle, the Greeks representing freedom over  tyranny, a view of the conflict that largely persists in the western public  consciousness down to the present day.