I first learned about the feat of the Spartans at the age of twelve, when I watched the American film "300 Spartans" directed by Rudolf Mate.
Then all the boys were inspired by this film and watched it several times. Spartans were played in every yard. They made spears, swords, shields with an inverted letter "V". The phrase "with a shield or on a shield" has become winged for us.
But I never even dreamed of seeing the site of the legendary battle of the Spartans with my own eyes.
And when I recently visited Greece, I visited the site of the battle between the Spartans and the Persians.
True, it did not survive. In 480 BC, when the Battle of Thermopylae took place, it was a narrow piece of land 20 meters wide on a cliff. Now the sea (Gulf of Malian) has receded, exposing a large area of land.
Recently, I once again enjoyed watching the 1962 film 300 Spartans. In my opinion, the old film is incomparably better than the new one - the computer comic "300" on the same topic, in which the scene of the battle is only more accurately reproduced.
In life, everything was of course much more complicated than it is shown in the film.
The only reliable primary source about the feat of 300 Spartans, on which later references are based, is Book VII of Herodotus.
At the end of the VI century BC. The Persian state, having conquered by that time the Greek city-states of Asia Minor (Ionia), directed its expansion to the territory of Hellas. In 480 BC. e. A huge Persian army led by Xerxes made the transition from Asia Minor to Europe through the Hellespont.
Herodotus estimates the army of the Persians and dependent peoples at 1 million 700 thousand people. Modern historians estimate the number of Persians up to 200 thousand people, although these figures are being questioned as too high.
Representatives of the independent Greek city-states met in council in Corinth to decide how together to repel the Persian invasion.
The Spartans did not want to send a large army to Thermopylae, because they were going to defend only their own lands. The Athenians offered to send an army just to Thermopylae. At that time, the Thermopylae Passage was the only way from northern Greece to southern Greece.
The Greeks revered the gods and therefore, even during the Persian invasion, they were not going to anger the gods by refusing to celebrate. In Sparta, the festival of Karnei was celebrated, which also coincided with the 75th Olympic Games in 480 BC. There were no wars during the Olympic Games.
However, the Spartans could not completely refuse to participate in the war against Xerxes, and therefore sent a small army led by King Leonidas. Leonid selected from the citizens 300 worthy husbands who already had children so that the family would not be cut off. The rest of the Spartans were going to join the army immediately after the end of the festivities.
When the detachment left Sparta, the Spartan leadership shed crocodile tears: take, they say, Leonid, at least a thousand, to which he reasonably remarked: "To win, a thousand is not enough to die, three hundred are enough."
The combined army of the Greeks at Thermopylae consisted of permanent city detachments of professional, heavily armed hoplite warriors, sent as vanguards while the cities raised militias.
In total, up to 6 thousand hoplites gathered at Thermopylae. The Spartan detachment of 300 soldiers was led by King Leonidas; then he was about 40 years old.
To the west of Thermopylae rises a steep and high mountain. In the east, the passage goes directly to the sea and marshes. There was a road for only one wagon, 20 meters wide and 1 km long.
A wall was built in the Thermopylae Gorge, and there was once a gate in it. The wall was a low barricade made of heavy stones. The Greeks now decided to rebuild the wall and thus block the Persians from entering Hellas. They set up camp behind a wall that blocked the narrow passage of Thermopylae.
For the first two days, the Greeks successfully repelled the attacks of the Persians, thanks to the fact that they were armed with long spears and acted harmoniously in the phalanx, hiding behind large shields. The Persians could not turn around in a narrow passage and died en masse in a crush or being thrown from a steep bank.
Xerxes did not know what to do, and sent messengers to announce that he would reward whoever showed the way around the Thermopylae Gorge.
And then a certain local resident Ephialtes turned to him, volunteering for a reward to lead the Persians along a mountain path around Thermopylae. The path was guarded by a detachment of Phokians (from Central Greece) in 1000 soldiers. A select Persian detachment of 20 thousand under the command of Gidarn went covertly all night, and in the morning it suddenly fell upon the Greeks. The Phokians sent runners to inform the Greeks of the Persians' detour; the Greeks were warned of the same thing at night by a defector named Tyrrastiades from the Persian camp.
The Greeks were surrounded. What was to be done?
Obeying the will of circumstances, most of the detachments from the united Greek army went to their hometowns. Only 300 Spartans of King Leonidas, 700 Thespians and 400 Thebans remained to cover the retreat. Thespia and Thebes are cities in Greece through which the path of the Persian army inevitably had to run, so that the detachments of these cities defended their native land at Thermopylae.
Xerox offered Leonid to surrender. To which King Leonidas replied succinctly: “Come and take it!”
The Thebans Leonid allegedly forced them to stay by force - so that they would not run over to the enemies. According to Herodotus, during the retreat, the Thebans separated and surrendered, thus saving their lives at the cost of branding into slavery.
Not counting on victory, but only on a glorious death, the Spartans and Thespians took the fight. The Spartans had broken spears, they slew the enemies with short swords. By the end of the battle, they didn’t even have weapons left - they became blunt, and then hand-to-hand combat began.
All the Spartans, of course, died. King Leonid fell in battle, the brothers of King Xerxes died among the Persians.
King Xerxes personally inspected the battlefield. Finding the body of Leonid, he ordered to cut off his head and put him on a stake. Under Thermopylae fell, according to Herodotus, up to 20 thousand Persians and 4 thousand Greeks, including Spartan helots (helots are state slaves).
Of the 300 Spartans, only Aristodemus survived, who was left sick by Leonidas in the village of Alpena. Upon his return to Sparta, Aristodemus expected dishonor and disgrace. No one spoke to him, he was given the nickname Aristodem the Coward. The following year, at the battle of Plataea, he fought like a frenzy, trying to atone for his guilt.
For the head of the traitor Ephialtes, Sparta announced a reward. But he was killed by a tribesman in a quarrel.
The fallen Hellenes were buried on the same hill where they took the last battle. The names of all those who died at Thermopylae were carved on the slab. A stone with the epitaph of the poet Simonides of Ceos was placed on the grave: “Wanderer, go erect to our citizens in Lacedaemon that, keeping their covenants, here we died with our bones.”
At the site of the death of the last Spartans, they subsequently placed an empty sarcophagus - a cenotaph (so that souls find peace), on which there was a statue of a stone lion (Leonid in Greek Leo). I guard here in a stone coffin.
The remains of King Leonidas were reburied in Sparta 40 years after his death. Residents of the city, 600 years after the battle, already in Roman times, held annual competitions in honor of the national hero.
A memorial was built on this site in 1955. Every year on August 26, the "Feast of Thermopylae" is held here - in memory of the heroism of 300 Spartans and 700 Thespians.
The death of a detachment under the command of King Leonidas in September 480 BC. e. became a legend. Although another similar detachment of 300 Spartans was also completely destroyed in the 3rd Messenian War (mid-5th century BC).
History is not fair. The feat of 300 Spartans was forgotten for a long time until Napoleon revived this story in the 19th century to inspire his soldiers.
Mussolini also made attempts to exploit history for the sake of his political goals, putting the history of ancient Rome at the service of his fascist regime.
Hitler also used the spirit of the ancient Germans to create a thousand-year-old Third Reich.
Any ruler rapes history, turning well-known mythologemes into the ideologemes he needs.
In Russia, the well-known saying of the elder Philotheus was used in this way, to whom the words “Moscow is the third Rome, and there will never be a fourth” allegedly belong. The theory “Moscow is the third Rome”, as you know, served as the semantic basis of messianic ideas about the role of Russia and justification of the policy of gathering Russian lands around the Moscow principality, and later the creation of the Russian empire.
It was once thought that history belongs to kings. Then it was believed that everything was decided by the masses. Now we see that to put your own man at the head of the state means to sway politics in your direction, even despite the protests of the masses.
Why do people always fight? Why can't they solve all their problems peacefully?
Maybe innate aggressiveness interferes?
Representatives of any biological species do not fight among themselves like that.
What pushed Xerxes to conquer a small free Greece, while the Persian empire was several times larger and more powerful?
Ambition? revenge for the defeat of Darius' father at the Battle of Marathon? Or the desire for conquest?
What can be opposed to the conquest paradigm?
War is in the mind!
In the last five thousand years, only two hundred and fifteen have been without war. The whole history of mankind is one incessant war. One continuous murder! The earth is soaked in blood.
Of course, you can not interfere when the ants are fighting among themselves. But when they are ready to blow up the planet in the heat of battle...
The wars are still the same, only the atomic bomb and laser weapons have replaced the bow and arrow.
Or maybe the Spartans died in vain if Xerxes burned and plundered Athens anyway?
Did their self-sacrifice make sense?
Why didn't the Spartans surrender?
Why did they die?
Not why, but why!
They couldn't help it!
Their slogan was the words: victory or death!
Of course, we can say that the Spartans had cruel morals: they led a semi-military lifestyle, threw sick children born into the abyss, drove out cowards and traitors. It is known that the mother killed her Spartan son, who returned from the war wounded in the back.
According to rumors, in the battle of Thermopylae, another Spartan named Pantite survived, sent as a messenger to Thessaly. Upon returning to Lacedaemon (the area where Sparta was located), dishonor awaited him, and he hanged himself.
Is it possible to sacrifice one to save many?
For military leaders, this issue has long been resolved. In order to cover the retreat of the main forces, the rearguard must be left to die in order to save the retreating.
Was there a feat?
Or was it just the rearguard who died, as usually happens during a retreat?
The Spartans, of course, were in a stalemate. Someone had to cover the withdrawal of the main forces and die so that the rest could be saved.
What is this, heroism by necessity?
Could the Spartans have surrendered, as the Thebans did?
No, they couldn't. Because "either with a shield, or on a shield"!
Death was a necessity for them. They died doing their duty to their families and friends. After all, they defended their loved ones, they defended their love - Greece!
A similar feat was accomplished by 28 Panfilov heroes who blocked the road to Moscow for fascist tanks.
They saved us - the living ones.
Those who die for the sake of others want their death not to be in vain.
That is why it is so important to remember fallen heroes.
It's not for the dead, it's for the living!
500-1400 hoplites on the 3rd day
OK. 400 prisoners
Battle of Thermopylae(gr. Μάχη των Θερμοπυλών ) - a battle in September 480 BC. e. during the Greco-Persian war of 480-479. BC e. in the narrow gorge of Thermopylae, where a detachment of 300 Spartan hoplites heroically died, blocking the way for the Persian army of King Xerxes I.
The only reliable primary source about the feat of 300 Spartans and on which later references are based is Book VII of Herodotus. Regardless of Herodotus, the later author Ctesias of Cnidus told about the battle of Thermopylae according to Persian sources. Perhaps the work of Ctesias (surviving in the form of fragments) was used by Diodorus in his description of the feat of 300 Spartans. The rest of the ancient sources convey the already established legend with the addition of fictitious details.
background
The Greeks sent an army of up to 10,000 hoplites to detain the Persians at the distant approaches to the Peloponnese. At first, the allied army wanted to hold back Xerxes on the northern border of Thessaly with Macedonia, but then they retreated to the Isthm, the isthmus connecting the Peloponnese peninsula with the Balkans. However, in this case, many Greek cities on the mainland would have been defenseless, and the army moved to Thermopylae, a narrow passage in the mountains from the region of Thessaly to Central Greece. At the same time, the Greek fleet became a barrier to the Persian flotilla at Cape Artemisia near Thermopylae.
Modern view of the Thermopylae passage at the battle site. The coastline has moved away from the mountains.
Here is how Herodotus described the Thermopylae passage:
“So, near the village of Alpeny behind Thermopylae there is a road for only one wagon ... In the west of Thermopylae, an inaccessible, steep and high mountain rises, stretching to Eta. In the east, the passage goes directly to the sea and swamps... A wall was built in this gorge, and there was once a gate in it... The ancient wall was built in ancient times and has mostly collapsed from time to time. The Greeks now decided to restore the wall and thus block the barbarian's path to Hellas. There is one village very close to the road called Alpen.
The feat of the Spartans
Modern monument to Tsar Leonidas
Of the 300 Spartans, only Aristodemus survived, who was left sick by Leonidas in the village of Alpena. Upon his return to Sparta, Aristodemus expected dishonor and disgrace. No one spoke to him, he was given the nickname Aristodem the Coward. According to rumors, another Spartan named Pantit survived, sent as a messenger to Thessaly. Upon returning to Lacedaemon (the area where Sparta was located), dishonor awaited him, and he hanged himself.
Diodorus reports the last battle of 300 Spartans in legendary form. They allegedly attacked the Persian camp while it was still dark and killed many Persians, trying in the general confusion to hit Xerxes himself. Only when it dawned did the Persians notice the small number of Leonid's detachment and threw spears and arrows at him from a distance.
After the battle
Commemorative epitaph (modern) at the site of the Battle of Thermopylae.
King Xerxes personally inspected the battlefield. Finding the body of Leonidas, he ordered to cut off his head and put him on a stake. Under Thermopylae fell, according to Herodotus, up to 20 thousand Persians and 4 thousand Greeks, including Spartan helots.
The fallen Hellenes were buried on the same hill where they took the last battle. A stone with the epitaph of the poet Simonides of Ceos was placed on the grave:
In the next 479 BC. e. the Persian army was completely defeated at the Battle of Plataea in Boeotia. In that battle among the Spartans, Aristodem distinguished himself, the only survivor of the 300 warriors of King Leonidas. He fought like a frenzy, leaving the ranks, and performed great feats only because, as the Spartans themselves believed, he was looking for death because of his guilt.
For the head of the traitor Ephialtes, the son of Eurydemus, Sparta announced a reward. He was then killed by a tribesman in a quarrel. The remains of King Leonidas were reburied in Sparta 40 years after his death. Residents of the city, 600 years after the battle, already in Roman times, held annual competitions in honor of the national hero. The names of all those who fell at Thermopylae were carved on the slab.
Other Battles of Thermopylae
The following battles also took place at Thermopylae:
- In 279 BC e. the allied army of the Greeks stopped the Gallic invasion.
- In 191 BC e. Here the Syrian king of the Macedonian dynasty Antiochus III was defeated by the Romans.
300 spartans in cinema
Based on the legendary feat, 3 films were shot in Hollywood:
- Three Hundred Spartans (film) - historical film of the year with elements of melodrama. Differs from the 2007 film in relative historical accuracy (combined with unsportsmanlike figures of the Spartans).
- 300 (film) - film of the year, film adaptation of the graphic novel by Frank Miller, which tells the story of 300 Spartans in a fantastic treatment. It is a comic book film with stylized characters and low historical accuracy.
Probably the legend 300 spartans, who courageously resisted the numerically superior enemy army to the last breath, everyone heard. Hollywood films dedicated to this story made a lot of noise, although one should not expect historical accuracy from them. How did the legendary battle of thermopylae?
Persian warriors from the *immortal* guard. Fragment of painting from the royal palace
Persian Warriors. Palace bas-relief in Persepolis
The Battle of Thermopylae took place in 480 BC. e. during the Greco-Persian War. Persia at that time was a young aggressive superpower, seeking to expand its borders. Xerxes was a ruler endowed with great power, despotic and ambitious - he aspired to power over the world. He was feared, but not deified, as shown in the Hollywood movie. His appearance is also surprising - the king with piercings, hung with chains, looks, to put it mildly, strange.
King of the Persians Xerxes in the movie *300 Spartans*
The army of the attacking Persians was many times superior to the forces of the Greeks. According to various estimates, the number of Persians was from 80 to 250 thousand soldiers, the Greeks were from 5 to 7 thousand. Despite unequal forces, in the first two days the Greeks repulsed the attacks of the Persians in the Thermopylae gorge, but on the third day the course of the battle was broken. According to one version, the local resident Ephialtes told the Persians about the presence of a mountain bypass and showed him for a monetary reward, according to another, the Persians themselves discovered this path. Be that as it may, on the third day they were able to enter from the rear. The messenger warned the Spartans about this. Understanding the unsuccessful outcome of events, Leonid himself suggested that the Greeks disperse to their cities. He himself and his 300 Spartans remained.
Spartan formation
If we abandon the excessive romanticization and glorification of this decision, it becomes clear that Leonid had no other choice. Sparta had very strict laws - no one had the right to retreat from the battlefield without an order. If this happens, the Spartan will lose his civil rights, he will face shame and exile. Leonid understood that everyone would die, but he had no choice, retreat was impossible. The Spartan warrior was obliged to fight to the death, otherwise he would become an outcast in society, and he himself would wish for death, so as not to endure eternal insults and contempt.
Hoplite - ancient Greek heavily armed foot warrior
Most of the questions are the size of the Greek army. Herodotus says the following about this: “The Hellenic forces that were waiting for the Persian king in this area consisted of 300 Spartan hoplites, 1000 Tegeans and Mantineans (500 of each); further, 120 people from Orchomenus in Arcadia and 1000 from the rest of Arcadia. There were so many Arcadians. Then from Corinth 400, from Phlius 200 and 80 from Mycenae. These people came from the Peloponnese. From Boeotia there were 700 Thespians and 400 Thebans. In addition, the Hellenes called to the aid of the Opuntian Locrians with all their militia and 1000 Phocians. That is, only 5200 soldiers. In addition, they had servants - helots.
Jacques-Louis David. Battle of Thermopylae, 1814
There were indeed 300 Spartans - the number of soldiers in the guard was constant, if one died, another took his place. But besides the Spartans, there were hundreds of Greeks from other city-states, totaling up to 5,000, and in the first two days of the battle they fought together at Thermopylae. But about 1000 Greeks, in particular the Thespians, remained of their own free will and after the order of Leonidas to return home. No one detracts from the merits and courage of the Spartans, but not only they died in an unequal battle that day. The losses of the Greeks in three days amounted to about 4,000 people, the Persians - 5 times more.
Sparta is a military state full of mysteries. Although the Spartans have the best army for ancient times, they do not want to use their huge war machine for military purposes. For the Spartans, there is enough admiration and respect that the people of Sparta generously bestows on them. But in 490 BC. Sparta is threatened from the east. The Persian king Darius sent an ambassador to Sparta, with a statement of his intention to capture Greece and annex it to his gigantic empire.
Persia is the strongest power of the fifth century BC, and the Persian army was the largest in its time. The Greek city-states, which are known to have taken part in small wars, are joining forces against a mighty enemy under the leadership of the Athenian naval flotilla. Only the Spartans do not participate in the unification of military forces, pretending that the holiday in honor of Apollo delays the departure of their army. King Xerxes mobilizes a strong army.
Persian invasion
On the plain of Marathon, not far from the coast, the first battle takes place. In the hot August sun, both armies are inactive for several days. In vain do the Greeks wait for the promised reinforcements from Sparta. But then General Miltiades of Athens orders an attack and a massacre begins. The lightly armed Persian infantrymen were defeated by the Athenians. At the end of the battle, there are still 2,000 Spartan hoplites, heavily armored foot soldiers, on the Spartan side. But there is no more enemy. The Athenians proudly show the dead Persians to the Spartans.
The Persians swore revenge on the Greeks. A few years later, in 486 BC. Darius appoints his son Xerxes as his successor. His reign begins immediately with preparations for the largest invasion never seen before in history. Over the course of four years, Xerxes mobilized an army of 250,000 in order to.
Again, he is aware of the danger of uniting the Greeks. Xerxes, who calls himself the "Great King", personally commands the giant Persian army. The logistics of this progress is one of the great achievements of antiquity. Every day warriors consume millions of liters of water, millions of pounds of grain, food and meat. Only 300 Spartans come to the rescue.
Ready for the worst
The Greeks, who are much inferior to the Persians, have been preparing for a long time to meet a dangerous enemy, deciding where to meet him. It was decided to do it at Thermopylae. Mountain pass in the south, famous for its hot sulfur springs. On a narrow pass, a little over 20 meters long, the Greeks want to stop the army of Persian soldiers. The Greek troops at Thermopylae are under the command of the Spartan king Leonidas. He is an experienced commander and is ready for anything.
The Delphic oracle predicted that either the Persian king would conquer all of Greece, or the Spartan king would die. Leonid knew about it. And he also knew that the Greeks needed a victory to continue fighting after the Battle of Thermopylae.
The number of Greeks increased significantly. In early August, the Persian army slowly but inexorably approaches Thermopylae. King Xerxes himself leads the army. The balance of power is deadly. 200,000 Persians oppose 7,000 Greeks, including 300 Spartans. There was a certain calculation in the fact that so few Spartan warriors were sent. Sparta deliberately did not send a larger army, they were sure that they would lose to the huge Persian army.
They just wanted an impressive spectacle. Therefore, donating 300 people was the ideal solution. However, if the Persians are not detained at Thermopylae, this threatens to occupy the entire country. Meanwhile, the Delphic Oracle states that the Greeks should pray for "favorable winds", that they are "the best allies". Immediately after this, a severe storm raged in the Aegean Sea. Xerxes' fleet loses over 200 ships.
Invincible Phalanx
August 18, 480 BC e. Both opponents are ready for battle. The Spartans form a phalanx, a tight formation of heavily armed warriors. In the narrow gap of the pass, the heavily armed Greeks, with their long spears and large shields, were far more effective than the short-speared Persians. Thus, the Spartan phalanx becomes invincible.
Only in the evening Xerxes ordered to retreat. The narrow mountain pass was filled with corpses, the Persians did not capture a single meter of land. The first battle is over, but Leonidas and his phalanx of Spartans remain steadfast.
The next morning, Xerxes regroups his troops. Now the elite warriors are storming the passage. They call themselves "immortals". The Persian king promises a high reward for victory and threatens with death if the attackers fail. But again the Persians fail in the Spartan phalanx. Ancient sources report that the dead Persians lay around in whole mountains a meter high in front of the Greek lines.
Xerxes is forced to stop his second attack. In fact, the Persian king could afford 50 to 1 losses without feeling it, but if this battle had lasted several weeks, his army would have been demoralized. Therefore, Xerxes chooses a different path to victory. King Leonid declares that he will fight to the last man.
Trapped
A Greek named Ephialtes offers his services to Xerxes. For a high reward, he promises to lead the Persians along the secret mountain paths around Thermopylae. Elite fighters of the Persian "immortals" make their way past the Greeks at night. In the morning they find themselves on the other side of the pass. Thermopylae becomes a death trap. Rocks and the sea on one side, steep mountains on the other, and the Persians from the front and rear.
Dire consequences now await King Leonidas. He orders the Greek army to withdraw from Thermopylae. But the Spartans must stay with him and fight to the last man, because he will not surrender anyway. Exhausted and wounded, the Spartans donned their armor. King Leonidas addresses his people again.
“Have a good breakfast. We'll all be in hell by lunchtime."
Appreciation and morality
At sunrise, the attack on the Spartans and their few allies begins. Ancient authors report that both sides fought with particular ferocity. When King Leonidas was mortally wounded, his people fought like crazy, as if they wanted to resurrect their sovereign. Around noon on August 20, 480, the last act of the Battle of Thermopylae begins. In the end, all Spartan weapons are broken and armor is shattered. With the last of their strength, they defend themselves with their teeth, hands, fists against superior strength. But the Persians did not want any further losses of their own and killed all the survivors.
The Spartans and their allies were buried under a Persian hail of arrows. When it was all over, 300 Spartans and their allies died at the top of the pass. Losses in the Persian Gulf are estimated at over 20,000. Xerxes personally inspects the battlefield. When he finds Leonidas dead, he decapitates the corpse and impales the head on a stake. His soldiers must see that the Spartans are mere mortals. But the morale of the Persian warriors remains shaken. After the Battle of Thermopylae, fear of these mysterious Spartans grows in the Persian camp. And this despite the fact that the victory was won by the Persians. For the Greeks, the Battle of Thermopylae showed that not all is lost and there is hope. They got time to raise a new army in Attica. And now they bow to the heroism of 300 brave Spartans. On the other hand, the Persians are not confident in their abilities, because they did not expect to face such a strong opponent.
I first learned about the feat of the Spartans at the age of twelve, when I watched the American film "300 Spartans" directed by Rudolf Mate.
Then all the boys were inspired by this film and watched it several times. Spartans were played in every yard. They made spears, swords, shields with an inverted letter "V". The phrase "with a shield or on a shield" has become winged for us.
But I never even dreamed of seeing the site of the legendary battle of the Spartans with my own eyes.
And when I recently visited Greece, I visited the site of the battle between the Spartans and the Persians.
True, it did not survive. In 480 BC, when the Battle of Thermopylae took place, it was a narrow piece of land 20 meters wide on a cliff. Now the sea (Gulf of Malian) has receded, exposing a large area of land.
Recently, I once again enjoyed watching the 1962 film 300 Spartans. In my opinion, the old film is incomparably better than the new one - the computer comic "300" on the same topic, in which the place of the battle is only more accurately reproduced.
In life, everything was of course much more complicated than it is shown in the film.
The only reliable primary source about the feat of 300 Spartans, on which later references are based, is Book VII of Herodotus.
For the first two days, the Greeks successfully repelled the attacks of the Persians, thanks to the fact that they were armed with long spears and acted harmoniously in the phalanx, hiding behind large shields. The Persians could not turn around in a narrow passage and died en masse in a crush or being thrown from a steep bank.
Xerxes did not know what to do, and sent messengers to announce that he would reward whoever showed the way around the Thermopylae Gorge.
And then a certain local resident Ephialtes turned to him, who volunteered for a reward to lead the Persians along a mountain path around Thermopylae. The path was guarded by a detachment of Phokians (from Central Greece) in 1000 soldiers. A select Persian detachment of 20 thousand under the command of Gidarn went covertly all night, and in the morning it suddenly fell upon the Greeks. The Phokians sent runners to inform the Greeks of the Persians' detour; the Greeks were warned of the same thing at night by a defector named Tyrrastiades from the Persian camp.
The Greeks were surrounded. What was to be done?
Obeying the will of circumstances, most of the detachments from the united Greek army went to their hometowns. Only 300 Spartans of King Leonidas, 700 Thespians and 400 Thebans remained to cover the retreat. Thespia and Thebes are cities in Greece through which the path of the Persian army inevitably had to run, so that the detachments of these cities defended their native land at Thermopylae.
Xerxes invited Leonidas to surrender. To which King Leonidas replied succinctly: “Come and take it!”
Leonid allegedly forced the Thebans to stay by force - so that they would not run over to the enemies. According to Herodotus, during the retreat, the Thebans separated and surrendered, thus saving their lives at the cost of branding into slavery.
Not counting on victory, but only on a glorious death, the Spartans and Thespians took the fight. The Spartans had broken spears, they slew the enemies with short swords. By the end of the battle, they didn’t even have weapons left - they became dull, and then hand-to-hand combat began.
All the Spartans, of course, died. King Leonid fell in battle, the brothers of King Xerxes died among the Persians.
P.S. Watch and read my notes with videos about a trip to Greece: "Ancient Athens Today", "From Greece with Love", "At the Oracle in Delphi", "Wonder of the World - Meteora", "Holy Mount Athos", "The Apostle in Thessaloniki" , "Socrates is my friend", "Mysteries of Ancient Greece", "The Legend of the 300 Spartans", "The Medical Theater of Epidaurus" and others.
Nikolai Kofyrin - New Russian Literature - http://www.nikolaykofyrin.narod.ru
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