Volume 13 Number 063 Thermopylae - III Lead: At Thermopylae, a small contingent of Greeks led by the Spartan King Leonidas delayed the onrushing Persian invasion. The tiny blocking force was destroyed, but its resistance paved the way to ultimate victory over Persia. Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts. Content: Thermopylae, the Hot Gates, named for a nearby sulfurous artesian spring, was in 480 BCE a narrow pass between the mountains and the Malian Gulf northwest of Athens. It was one of landside gateways to southern Greece and a well-chosen choke point where a small force could resist to great effect the regiments of Persian King Xerxes. Blocking the pass was King Leonidas with the 300, a small contingent of his elite Spartans, about 1000 warriors from other Greek cities and an equal number of slaves. Xerxes arrived and after several days of preparation entered into fruitless parlay. To the Persian’s command to lay down their arms, Leonidas is said to have laconically remarked, “Come and get them yourself.” After hearing the threat that Persian arrows would be so numerous as to blot out the sun, one of Leonidas’ seconds said, “then we will fight in the shade. The antagonists struggled over three days, August 17, 18 and 19. The carnage in the pass was horrific with Persian losses in excess of ten thousand. Xerxes eventually broke the resistance attacking from both ends of the pass by circling around through mountain paths pointed out by his Greek allies. Not a few Greeks had reckoned that Persia was too strong to resist and had treacherously or with political wisdom depending on your point of view, signed on against their fellow countrymen. Surrounded, to a man the Greeks were destroyed. The delay of three days and the slaughter of a few hundred were hardly sufficient to deflect the Persian juggernaut. Eventually Xerxes broke out into central Greece, burned an abandoned Athens, but eventually came to grief at Plataea and especially at the naval Battle of Salamis in 479. After that Xerxes quit Greece. His logistics tail, across what is now Turkey, over the Bosporus passage down through Macedonia into Greece proper, left him too vulnerable. Against a united Greece, aroused by the heroic resistance and martyrdom of the Spartans and Greek allies, and with an Aegean Sea bristling with a victorious and hostile Greek navy, he could not continue the invasion. The victory of the Greeks at Thermopylae, was not military, they all died. It was about inspiration. The heroic Spartan defense, welcoming death to the last man in protection of the homeland, inspired the Greeks to valiant resistance then and became an important part of the western military tradition to this day. On one of the monuments near Thermopylae there is inscribed a message said to have been given by Leonidas to one of the Greeks who escaped the trap. The inscription is a quote from Simonides of Ceos’ elegy, “Go, tell the Spartans, passerby, that here obedient to their laws, we lie.” After Xerxes withdrawal, the Greeks returned to what they seemed to do best, fighting among themselves. At the University of Richmond, this is Dan Roberts. Resources Burns, A.R. “Part III—The Great Invasion.” Persia and the Greeks. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1962, 313-422. Cartledge, Paul. Thermopylae: The Battle that Changed the World. Woodstock, NY: The Overlook Press, 2006. Grant, John R. “Leonidas’ Last Stand,” Phoenix Vol. 15, No 1(Spring, 1961) 14-27. Herodutus. “Book 7,” Inquiries. Herodotus Project. Translated by Shlomo Fleberbaum. http://losttrails.com/pages/Hproject/hProjectxx.html. Scott, John A. “The Spartan Repartee in Herodotus vii. 26,” The Classical Journal 10 ( 4 , Jan, 1915): 178 Simpson, R. Hope, “Leonidas’ Decision,” Phoenix Vol. 26, No 1 (Spring, 1972) 1-11. Maps Szemler, G.J., W.J. Cherf, and J.C. Kraft. “ VI—The Battle of Thermpopylai in 480 BC” and “Figures.” Thermopylai: Myth and Reality in 480 B.C. Chicago, IL: Ares Publishers, 1966, 59-77. Images Lendering, Jona. “Thermopylae,” Livius: Articles on Ancient History. March 11, 2007. June 10, 2007 <http://www.livius.org/a/battlefields/thermopylae/the rmopylae.html>. Copyright by Dan Roberts Enterprises, Inc. .