Faithful to their laws...
Very often lately one can come across absolutely illiterate (in terms of content) articles on various historical topics. This evil epidemic did not spare such a famous historical figure as King Leonidas. It is difficult to say what caused this - either a general decline in culture, and the feat of the 300 Spartans belongs primarily to the cultural heritage of mankind, or cheap Hollywood crafts. Some authors claim that Leonidas ruled almost all of Greece from the age of 17 and was an unremarkable autocrat. Others believe that only 300 Spartans took part in the Battle of Thermopylae and they died only because there was no place to escape from there.
Who is Leonid
Tsar Leonidas
The Spartan Leonidas was not a king in the modern interpretation of this concept. He was rather a military leader, whose power assumed unlimited proportions only during war and only in relation to the army. Suffice it to say that there were always two kings in Sparta (legally) to discard the delusional idea of some kind of Spartan autocracy. The supreme power, to which everyone - from the king to the last helot - was subject, was personified by the council of elders (geronts). Therefore, it is not surprising that Leonid could not prove himself anywhere except during the war.
March of the Doomed
Almost 5 centuries BC, the Persians, led by the next eastern despot Xerxes, decided to once and for all put an end to small, but too freedom-loving Greece, which at that time consisted of almost a hundred dwarf states (mostly these were cities with nearby environs) . A huge motley army crossed the Hellespont and hung like a black cloud over sunny Hellas. Due to their disunity, the Greeks could not quickly gather troops to fight the Persians. Therefore, the first thought that visited the Greek strategists was one - to delay the Persians by any means. The only place where this could be done was the Thermopylae Gorge. Moreover, everyone understood that those fighters who would stand up against the 200,000-strong Persian army were doomed.
Persian King Xerxes
The first to set out on this deadly campaign were the best warriors of Hellas - the Spartans, led by one of the military leaders of Sparta, King Leonidas. There were only 300 of them, the king’s personal guard plus several dozen volunteers. On the way to the gorge, according to various sources, they were joined by 4 to 7 thousand fighters sent by Greek cities.
Start of the battle
The gorge was blocked by a low wall with two turrets. The Greeks only managed to strengthen it a little when envoys from Xerxes appeared, whose army was already approaching Thermopylae. The negotiations came to nothing, and the battle began in the morning. True, some sources claim that Xerxes gave the Greeks 4 days to think, which seems very doubtful. For what? For two days the Persians unsuccessfully attacked the iron phalanx of Greek warriors. For two days, the best warriors of Xerxes died under the swords and spears of Hellenic fighters. Almost 20 thousand Persian soldiers were left lying in the narrow passage. We can only guess what horror the Persians experienced at the end of the second day of the battle, when they heard the next order: “Forward!” It probably seemed to them that the gods themselves were fighting on the side of King Leonidas.
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We sing a song to the madness of the brave
On the third night, with the help of a traitor, the Persians managed to bypass the Greeks. Leonid and his comrades still had the opportunity to retreat, thereby saving their lives. The allies took advantage of this opportunity, with the permission of the king. At dawn they left the camp. Only the Spartans and a number of Thebans and Thespians remained in the gorge. A handful of fighters prepared for the final battle. What were these people thinking in that pre-dawn hour? Did they realize that in a few hours they would become legends? That their last fight will humanity remember as long as it exists?
Death and Immortality
I will not describe this last fight. It has been told a thousand times. I will only say that Tsar Leonidas walked in the front ranks and was one of the first to fall. The Persians tried to capture the body of the Spartan king. But for the Spartans it was the same as the loss of the banner in subsequent centuries. Only after the last fighter died and there was no one left to defend their king, the Persians took possession of his body. But now it didn't matter. Leonidas and his 300 Spartans had already stepped into immortality and became beyond the control of earthly rulers.
“Traveler, tell the Spartans about our death: Faithful to our laws, here we died with our bones.” Epitaph on a gravestone in the Thermopylae Gorge.
500-1400 hoplites on day 3
OK. 400 prisoners
Battle of Thermopylae(Greek Μάχη των Θερμοπυλών ) - battle in September 480 BC. e. during the Greco-Persian War 480-479. BC e. in the narrow gorge of Thermopylae, where a detachment of 300 Spartan hoplites died heroically, blocking the path of the Persian army of King Xerxes I.
The only reliable primary source about the feat of the 300 Spartans and on which later references are based is Book VII of Herodotus. Independently of Herodotus, the later author Ctesias of Cnidus told about the battle of Thermopylae from Persian sources. Perhaps the work of Ctesias (which came down in the form of fragments) was used by Diodorus in his description of the feat of the 300 Spartans. Other ancient sources convey an already established legend with the addition of fictitious details.
Background
The Greeks sent an army of up to 10 thousand hoplites to delay the Persians on the distant approaches to the Peloponnese. At first, the allied army wanted to contain Xerxes on the northern border of Thessaly with Macedonia, but then retreated to the Isthmus, an isthmus connecting the Peloponnese peninsula with the Balkans. However, in this case, many Greek cities on the mainland would be defenseless, and the army moved to Thermopylae, a narrow pass 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 site of the battle. The coastline has moved far from the mountains.
Here is how Herodotus described the Thermopylae Passage:
“So, near the village of Alpena beyond Thermopylae there is a road for only one cart... In the west of Thermopylae there rises an inaccessible, steep and high mountain, stretching to Eta. In the east, the passage approaches directly to the sea and swamps... A wall was built in this gorge, and there once was a gate in it... The ancient wall was built in ancient times and has mostly collapsed over time. The Hellenes now decided to rebuild the wall and thus block the barbarian’s path to Hellas. There is a village there very close to the road called Alpena.”
Feat of the Spartans
Modern monument to Tsar Leonid
Of the 300 Spartans, only Aristodemus survived, who was left sick by Leonidas in the village of Alpena. Upon his return to Sparta, dishonor and disgrace awaited Aristodemus. No one spoke to him, they gave him the nickname Aristodemus the Coward. According to rumors, another Spartan named Pantitus survived, sent as a messenger to Thessaly. Upon returning to Lacedaemon (the region where Sparta was located), dishonor also awaited him, and he hanged himself.
Diodorus conveys the last battle of the 300 Spartans in a legendary form. They allegedly attacked the Persian camp while it was still dark and killed many Persians, trying to hit Xerxes himself in the general confusion. Only when it was dawn did the Persians notice the small number of Leonidas’s detachment and pelt it with spears and arrows from a distance.
After the battle
Memorial epitaph (modern) at the site of the Battle of Thermopylae.
King Xerxes personally inspected the battlefield. Having found the body of Leonidas, he ordered his head to be cut off and impaled. According to Herodotus, up to 20 thousand Persians and 4 thousand Greeks, including Spartan helots, fell at Thermopylae.
The fallen Hellenes were buried on the same hill where they took their last battle. A stone was placed on the grave with the epitaph of the poet Simonides of Keos:
In the next 479 BC. e. The Persian army was completely defeated at the Battle of Plataea in Boeotia. In that battle, Aristodemus distinguished himself among the Spartans, the only survivor of the 300 warriors of King Leonidas. He fought like a madman, leaving the ranks, and accomplished great feats only because, as the Spartans themselves believed, he sought death because of his guilt.
Sparta announced a reward for the head of the traitor Ephialtes, son of Euridemus. He was then killed by a fellow tribesman in an argument. 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, annually held 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 made in Hollywood:
- Three Hundred Spartans (film) - historical film of the year with elements of melodrama. Differs from the 2007 film in its relative historical accuracy (combined with the non-athletic figures of the Spartans).
- 300 (film) - film of the year, a film adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel, telling the story of the 300 Spartans in a fantasy treatment. It is a comic book film with stylized characters and low historical accuracy.
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. In every yard they played Spartans. They made spears, swords, and shields with an inverted letter “V”. The phrase “with a shield or on a shield” has become a catchphrase 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 has not been preserved. In 480 BC, when the Battle of Thermopylae Gorge took place, it was a narrow piece of land 20 meters wide on a cliff face. Now the sea (Malian Gulf) has receded, exposing a large area of land.
Recently, I once again enjoyed watching the 1962 film “300.” In my opinion, the old film is incomparably better than the new one - the computer comic “300” on the same topic, which only more accurately reproduces the location of the battle.
In life, of course, everything was much more complicated than shown in the film.
The only reliable primary source about the feat of the 300 Spartans, on which later references are based, is Book VII of Herodotus.
At the end of the 6th century BC. The Persian power, having by that time conquered the Greek city-states of Asia Minor (Ionia), directed its expansion into the territory of Hellas. In 480 BC. e. A huge army of Persians 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 to be up to 200 thousand people, although these figures are also questioned as overestimated.
Representatives of the independent Greek city-states met in a council in Corinth to decide how to work together to repel the Persian invasion.
The Spartans did not want to send a large army to Thermopylae because they were only going to defend their own lands. The Athenians proposed sending an army to Thermopylae. At that time, the Thermopylae Passage was the only route from Northern Greece to Southern Greece.
The Greeks revered the gods and therefore, even during the Persian invasion, they did not intend to anger the gods by refusing to celebrate. In Sparta, the festival of Carnei was celebrated, which also coincided with the 75th Olympic Games in 480 BC. And during the Olympic Games there were no wars.
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 300 worthy husbands from the citizens who already had children, so that the line 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, Leonidas, at least a thousand, to which he reasonably remarked: “To win, a thousand is not enough, to die, three hundred is enough.”
The united Greek army at Thermopylae consisted of permanent city detachments of professional, heavily armed hoplite warriors, sent as advance troops while the cities raised militias.
In total, up to 6 thousand hoplites gathered at Thermopylae. The Spartan detachment of 300 warriors was led by King Leonidas; he was then about 40 years old.
To the west of Thermopylae a steep and high mountain rises. In the east the passage leads directly to the sea and marshes. There was a road for only one cart, 20 meters wide and 1 km long.
A wall was built in the Thermopylae Gorge, and there once was 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' path to Hellas. They set up camp behind a wall blocking the narrow Thermopylae Pass.
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, covering themselves with large shields. The Persians could not turn around in the narrow passage and died en masse in a crush or being thrown off a steep bank.
Xerxes did not know what to do, and sent messengers to announce that he would reward the one who would show the way around the Thermopylae Gorge.
And then a certain local resident Ephialtes approached him, who volunteered to lead the Persians along a mountain path around Thermopylae for a reward. The path was guarded by a detachment of Phocians (from Central Greece) of 1000 soldiers. A selected Persian detachment of 20 thousand under the command of Hydarn marched secretly all night, and by the morning they unexpectedly attacked the Greeks. The Phocians sent runners to inform the Greeks about the Persian outflanking maneuver; The Greeks were warned about this at night by a defector named Tirrastiades from the Persian camp.
The Greeks found themselves surrounded. What was to be done?
Submitting to the will of circumstances, most of the units 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. Thespiae and Thebes are cities in Greece through which the route of the Persian army inevitably had to pass, so the detachments of these cities defended their native land in Thermopylae.
Xerox suggested that Leonid surrender. To which King Leonidas answered 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 being branded into slavery.
Not counting on victory, but only on a glorious death, the Spartans and Thespians accepted the battle. The Spartans had broken spears and struck their enemies with short swords. By the end of the battle, they didn’t even have any weapons left - they were dull, and then hand-to-hand combat began.
All the Spartans, of course, died. King Leonidas fell in battle, and the brothers of King Xerxes died among the Persians.
King Xerxes personally inspected the battlefield. Having found Leonid's body, he ordered his head to be cut off and impaled. At Thermopylae, according to Herodotus, up to 20 thousand Persians and 4 thousand Greeks fell, 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, dishonor and disgrace awaited Aristodemus. No one spoke to him, they gave him the nickname Aristodemus the Coward. The next year, at the Battle of Plataea, he fought like a madman, trying to atone for his guilt.
Sparta announced a reward for the head of the traitor Ephialtes. But he was killed by a fellow tribesman in a quarrel.
The fallen Hellenes were buried on the same hill where they took their last battle. The names of all those who died at Thermopylae were carved on the slab. A stone was placed on the grave with the epitaph of the poet Simonides of Keos: “Wanderer, go and tell our citizens in Lacedaemon that, keeping their covenants, here we are laid to rest.”
At the site of the death of the last Spartans, they subsequently placed an empty sarcophagus - a cenotaph (so that souls would find peace), on which there was a statue of a stone lion (Leonidas in Greek Leo). On the sarcophagus it was written: “Of animals I am the strongest, among people the strongest is the one whom I am guarding 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.
In 1955, a memorial was built on this site. 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 unfair. The feat of the 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 the thousand-year Third Reich.
Any ruler rapes history, turning known mythologemes into the ideologemes he needs.
In Russia, this is how the famous saying of Elder Philotheus was used, to whom the words “Moscow is the third Rome, and there will never be a fourth” allegedly belonged. The theory of “Moscow is the third Rome,” as we know, served as the semantic basis for messianic ideas about the role of Russia and the justification for the policy of gathering Russian lands around the Moscow principality, and later the creation of the Russian empire.
History was once thought to belong to kings. Then they believed that everything was decided by the masses. Now we see that putting your own person at the head of the state means turning politics in your favor, even despite the protests of the popular masses.
Why do people always fight? Why can’t they solve all their problems peacefully?
Maybe innate aggressiveness is getting in the way?
Representatives of no other biological species fight each other like this.
What prompted Xerxes to conquer 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 thirst for conquest?
What can be opposed to the paradigm of conquest?
War is on our minds!
Over the past five thousand years, only two hundred and fifteen have been without war. The entire history of mankind is one continuous war. Just pure murder! The ground is all soaked in blood.
Of course, you don’t have to interfere when the ants are fighting among themselves. But when, in the heat of battle, they are ready to blow up the planet...
Wars are still the same, only bows and arrows have been replaced by atomic bombs and laser weapons.
Or maybe the Spartans died in vain if Xerxes burned and plundered Athens anyway?
Was their self-sacrifice meaningful?
Why didn't the Spartans surrender?
Why did they die?
Not why, but why!
They couldn't do otherwise!
Their slogan was: victory or death!
Of course, we can say that the Spartans had cruel morals: they led a paramilitary lifestyle, threw children born sick into the abyss, and expelled cowards and traitors. It is known that a mother killed her Spartan son, who returned from the war wounded in the back.
According to rumors, another Spartan named Pantitus survived the Battle of Thermopylae, sent as a messenger to Thessaly. Upon returning to Lacedaemon (the region where Sparta was located), dishonor also awaited him, and he hanged himself.
Is it possible to sacrifice one to save many?
For military leaders, this issue has long been resolved. To cover the retreat of the main forces, it is necessary to leave the rearguard to die in order to save the retreating ones.
Was there a feat?
Or did the rearguard simply perish, as usually happens during a retreat?
The Spartans, of course, were in a hopeless situation. Someone had to cover the retreat of the main forces and die so that the rest could be saved.
What is this, heroism out of 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 fulfilling their duty to their family 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.
This is why it is so important to remember fallen heroes.
The dead don't need this, the living need this!
Knowing in advance about imminent death, a detachment of Spartans, led by their fearless king, worthily accepted the battle of the enemy, who was many times larger in number than their forces. But the warriors of Sparta, according to their beliefs, were born to fight in battles and not know either fear or pain.
How it all began
Let's start with the fact that only some time after the end of the bloody Battle of Marathon, the inhabitants of ancient Hellas began to gradually come to their senses. Many thought that after the victory of the Greek warriors over the hordes of Persians, the invasion from their side would not be repeated, since, as they believed, they had received a worthy rebuff. Indeed, the Greeks fought very honorably and won an undeniable victory, but this was not enough to understand that a new invasion of Persian warriors was coming, which would be impossible to prevent.
In honor of the victory, Athenian coins began to be minted with the addition of an image of a laurel branch, which was supposed to remind the city residents of the courage of their own people. It is not without reason that we mentioned the Greek money, since it also has a direct bearing on the further development of events. The fact is that a huge silver mine was found near Athens. The city coin was minted from this silver, and subsequently the influential men of the city planned to divide all the wealth among themselves.
However, an outstanding citizen of the capital, Themistocles, was able to convince a meeting of influential townspeople of the need to use the wealth for the armament of the state. From that moment on, it was decided to strengthen the fleet, thanks to which 230 triremes were purchased - three-row combat ships, which made the capital's fleet the most powerful in all of Hellas. How did Themistocles manage to convince people to give up their enormous wealth and invest in the construction of ships? It’s very simple: he is one of the few who understood that fighting the Persians could only be done at sea, and on land they would face complete defeat with no chance of victory.
The Persians demand from the Greeks full recognition of their king
In October 486 BC. e. The great Persian king Darius died, and his place was taken by his own son Xerxes (or Khshayarshan ─ “king of heroes”), who, a few years after the death of his father, concentrated an army of thousands on the border with Hellas. At that moment, the king of the Persians was actively preparing for the upcoming war with the Greeks, since his plans included the conquest of Greece. He achieved an agreement with Carthage. He became his ally in raids into Sicily to plunder rich settlements, most of which were Greek.
Huge forces of a countless Persian army were drawn to the Greek borders in order to destroy the proud power once and for all. Xerxes ordered his ambassadors to convey a personal demand for the unquestioning submission of all cities to him and recognition of him as the only king. The Persians sowed panic among the population in the cities of Greece, and most of them were ready to surrender and accept Khshayarshan as king.
However, the Spartans and residents of Athens rejected this ultimatum and decided to provide worthy resistance to the formidable king. When the Persian ambassadors arrived in Sparta, they were simply thrown into a deep well, and in Athens they were brutally executed for desecrating the Greek people. They made it clear to Xerxes that they would prefer to die as free men than accept his merciful power.
Beginning of the invasion
Enraged by the insolence of the Greeks, Xerxes decided to personally lead the attack. This happened in 481 BC, in the fall, when, on his orders, hordes of Persian soldiers were concentrated near Sardis. Here the troops were preparing for battle, and already in early April 480 BC. e. The Persian troops went on a campaign against the Greeks. By June of the same year, the soldiers reached Macedonia. Thus began the Battle of Thermopylae. The date of the same battle falls on August of the same year.
To shorten the route, they decided to cross the Strymon, for which pontoon bridges were built, along which the troops crossed the river. By that time, the Persian fleet had arrived at the city of Terme, which consisted of 4.5 thousand ships, 1.5 thousand of which were combat ships, and the rest were transport ones. In addition to the huge fleet of Persian soldiers, there were about 200 thousand souls, which was more than enough to defeat the Greeks and Sparta.
The Greeks, in turn, already knew about the invasion of the hated Persian army and began to prepare to repel the inevitable attack. The Battle of Marathon strengthened many warriors, and the victory gave them courage and new strength. However, this was not enough to repel the numerous enemy invasions. The best commanders of Hellas began to look for a way out of the most difficult military situation. At the same time, the militia of the Greek army barely numbered 10 thousand soldiers. It was not difficult to compare the numerical ratio of the forces of both armies.
The Greek plan was that Xerxes' army could presumably be stopped near the settlement of Tempe, which was located near Peneus, a small river where it was possible to block the Persian passage from Macedonia to Thessaly. However, the Greeks miscalculated their strategy, as their opponents chose a route around Tempe. They moved south and came close to the Thessalian city of Larisa. The Greek soldiers had to urgently retreat, since they were not prepared for such an onslaught and did not expect that the Persians would bypass them on their own land.
Further developments
The forced retreat of the Greek army was due not only to the fact that the forces were unequal in relation to the Persians. Here, the corruption of the Thessalian aristocracy played a significant role, which, thanks to certain promises of Xerxes, began to sympathize with him very quickly. In addition, they could easily lay down the Greek militia. Therefore, the Thessalian lands had to be surrendered to the Persians without a fight. The local troops were famous for their cavalry, so with the assistance of the Greeks, the Thessalians could resist the enemy invasion. However, they had a different opinion, and after some deliberation they went over to the side of the Persian “rulers.”
Meanwhile, the Persians were actively attacking Greek lands, and to counter the Persians, the Greeks flanked their entire fleet near Artemisium, which was geographically located in the northeast of Euboea. The leader of the Greeks in the Battle of Thermopylae was Leonidas, but the Greek fleet was commanded by Eurybiades, who was a Spartan by birth and a very competent strategist. The Greeks were fully armed and awaited the arrival of one and a half thousand Persian warships. But here nature played a cruel joke on the Persians. A powerful storm broke out, destroying about seven hundred of their ships.
Looking ahead, we note that thanks to the competent strategy of Eurybiades, who positioned the fleet in the waters of the cape, the Greek fleet remained unharmed. The Persians opposed the Hellas fleet with the remaining half of their ships. A fierce two-day battle took place near Artemisium, thanks to which the Greeks managed to completely block the entrance to the Strait of Mali. The battle was supposed to take place the next day, but the Greeks were stunned by the news that the Battle of Thermopylae ended with the death of the Spartan king Leonidas and his soldiers. Further containment of the Persian fleet made no sense.
Thermopylae Gorge and the warriors of Leonidas
Now you should move to the land of the island of Euboea itself, where the Hellenic fleet was located nearby and a naval battle with the Persians took place. Not far from the northernmost point of Euboea, along the slope of steep mountains, from the sea coast there was a road through a gorge. This was Thermopylae. Greece reveres this place to this day, not only as a part of history, but also thanks to the healing sulfur springs that exist to this day. But let's go back to 480 BC. e. ─ the year of the battle of Thermopylae, where the Spartan king Leonidas was stationed with his five thousand-strong detachment.
Many famous military leaders could envy the foresight of the Greeks, since 100 years before the Battle of Thermopylae began, the Hellenes blocked the passage through the gorge with a powerful wall. Leonidas and his soldiers positioned themselves behind this fortification and awaited the Persian invasion. Thus began the Battle of Thermopylae.
We should digress a little and talk about the Greek warriors, from among whom the army of the ancient Greek state was formed. In the city-states that ancient Hellas consisted of at that time, there lived artisans, farmers, workers and citizens of other social strata of society who could afford to purchase uniforms and weapons, and, if necessary, stand up for the defense of the state. Military units were formed from these people. The warriors themselves were called hoplites. The infantry, consisting of hoplites, fought in phalanxes. Each warrior stood closely next to his comrade. They covered themselves with shields, and long spears protruded in front of them. In the event of the death of a comrade in arms, the soldiers standing behind came to their place, thus the unit moved towards the enemy without stopping. The Greeks were excellent with swords and were good masters of knife fighting. Both the Battle of Marathon and the Battle of Thermopylae did not frighten the Greeks, and they were ready for anything.
At the end of hostilities, the hoplites returned to their policies and began their usual craft. Any hoplite could lose his citizenship if he fled the battlefield or betrayed his brothers in arms. But the Spartans studied and trained in military affairs continuously throughout their lives. Their motto was that either they would all win together, or they would die together for Sparta - their land. Therefore, the Battle of Thermopylae was perceived by them as approaching another feat for the sake of their homeland.
Enemy army
The warriors of King Xerxes were an army of thousands, consisting of cavalry units and well-trained infantry. The cavalry was divided into units, which included chariots, as well as camels with warrior riders. In general, the Persian cavalry existed as independent units, which performed most of the combat missions. As a rule, it was placed when fighting on the flanks. The horsemen were armed with spears and light piercing weapons, which each warrior handled skillfully. It should be noted that the Persians were excellent horsemen, and they rode horses without saddles. In addition, the horses were not shod, and they were forced to be transported on ships to the sites of upcoming battles.
Persian warriors could not do without service personnel, so many of them had servants. It is no secret that some of the Greek warriors went over to the side of the Persians and were gladly accepted into the ranks of the army. The traitor Hellenes fought without servants, and no one doubted their courage after the defeat of the Persians at Marathon.
For the Persians, being a warrior was their life's work. After the boy reached the age of five, he was taken from his parents to special camps, where he underwent military training from an early age. If the child was from a rich family of a nobleman or from among the nobility, then he was already doomed in advance to become a commander. Children were taught fist fighting, horse riding, survival in difficult conditions, and how to use weapons. Already upon reaching the age of fifteen, the young man was a fully trained warrior.
The Persian service lasted until the age of thirty, after which the warrior had the right to engage in government affairs, continue the affairs of his father, or continue to serve. The Persian infantry skillfully wielded many types of weapons. These were spears with sharp steel tips, daggers, battle axes, knives, etc., and they defended themselves with light wicker shields. The Persians' shields completely protected them from arrows. In addition, Persian warriors were famous for their ability to shoot accurately with a bow.
The beginning of a grand battle
The history of the Battle of Thermopylae dates back to mid-August 480 BC. e. Leonidas did not have to wait long for the appearance of Xerxes' army. He foresaw possible scenarios for the development of events, so he decided to close the entrance of the Middle Gate with the main part of his soldiers, and placed about a thousand Phocian warriors to the left of the mountain, thereby blocking the passage along one path that led around the gorge.
According to his calculations, the battle in the Thermopylae Gorge was supposed to begin exactly in the place where he positioned his forces. This passage was not the only one, but for the offensive it stood out more favorably than the others from a strategic point of view.
And so the Battle of Thermopylae began. The Persians came close to the wall of the gorge, and gradually the number of those arriving at the Middle Gate grew larger. However, the Persians did not dare to go on the attack first, because they understood that it would not be so easy to fight in close walls between steep cliffs. Only five days after the psychological confrontation between the two warring sides, the king of the Persians gave the order to attack. The Persians, lined up in battle formations, went on the attack, and the battle of Thermopylae became fierce.
The fearless leader of the Greeks at the Battle of Thermopylae was King Leonidas, who also had incredible commanding instincts. He decided to undermine the military formations of the Persians, for which he had to resort to one trick.
When the Battle of Thermopylae began, his squad launched a counterattack. Having let the Persians get closer, the soldiers turned sharply towards the gorge and began to run in different directions. At this moment, the Persians thought that the vaunted Greek warriors had become cowardly, and, having destroyed the military formation, began to catch up with the fugitive Hellenes. However, the Greeks, having reached the gorge, quickly formed ranks and just as quickly began a crushing attack on the Persians. Of their numerous troops, the Kessians and Medes were the first to learn of the crushing blows of the Spartans and Greeks. Moreover, the Greeks repeatedly used their cunning tactics in one day of battle, and always successfully.
Seeing the defeat of his soldiers, Xerxes ordered Hydarnus, the commander of the “immortals” detachment, to destroy 300 Spartans and several thousand hoplites, and then free the passage into the gorge at any cost. However, they were unable to carry out the order, because they succumbed to the tricks of the Greeks and suffered huge losses.
The next day of battle
Although the Persians had a numerical advantage, their attacks were unsuccessful. The Greeks competently defended themselves in a narrow gorge, so the Persians had no chance of frontal attacks, and they suffered huge losses. In addition, Leonidas replaced the soldiers, so the heroes of the battle at Thermopylae, who gave their best yesterday, sparing no effort, could rest from incredible fatigue and recover.
It would seem that Xerxes would never be able to defeat Leonidas and his warriors. However, among the local Greeks there was a man named Ephialtes, who, for a certain sum, agreed to lead the Persians through the Anopean Gorge and bypass the army of the Spartan king from the rear. Let us recall that King Leonidas foresaw the possible development of such events and left the Phocian warriors there. Ephialtes knew their number. He reported this to the Persian king. He, in turn, sent there a detachment of thousands of “immortals” led by Hydarn.
About the retaliatory cunning of the Persians
Hydarnes and his detachment, led by Ephialtes, went around in the evening to the rear of the Greeks. At dawn they saw the Phocian warriors, whom Leonidas had left to cover the rear. Hydarn ordered the archers to shoot arrows at them. The Phocians were ready to take the fight, but the Persians ignored them and moved towards the main forces of the Spartans. The Phocian warriors immediately understood the maneuver of the Persian enemies, so their commander ordered one of them to notify the Spartans of the approaching danger. Leonidas soon learned of the threat, and he had very little time left before the arrival of Hydarn's detachment.
The wise Spartan king urgently gathered the heads of the units and informed them that the Persians would soon appear here, and further defense of the gorge would lose all meaning. Therefore, he dismissed all the soldiers. With him were only his surviving warriors ─ 300 Spartans. The Battle of Thermopylae, or rather its outcome, was a foregone conclusion. Let us also note that in addition to these people, about four hundred Theban warriors remained with Leonidas, as well as seven hundred Thespians who expressed a desire to die with the Spartans.
The final battle of the Spartans
Soon the Persians surrounded Leonidas and his army. As soon as the enemy came close to the Spartans, the Thebans, as one, threw themselves at the feet of the Persians with a plea for mercy. Leonidas kept them near him because they were traitors, and according to Spartan laws they had to die in battle to prove that they were honest and brave warriors. A small detachment of the Spartan king, led by him, rushed into an unequal battle with the soldiers of Xerxes.
In a fierce battle, Leonidas was the first to die, and the remaining soldiers continued to fight the enemy for the body of their king. Soon they managed to take the body of Leonidas, and the Spartans with the remnants of the Thespians were forced to retreat deep into the gorge under the pressure of a huge Persian army. Then it all ended very quickly. Xerxes ordered the archers to shower the Spartans with arrows until not a single enemy was visible from behind the clouds of arrows. At exactly noon, the surviving Spartans died. The Battle of Thermopylae ended with the heroic death of courageous warriors.
King Khshayarshan gave the order to his soldiers among the mountains of corpses to find the body of the hated king of Sparta. When the warriors brought the body of King Leonidas, riddled with arrows and cut up in battles, to Xerxes, he cut off his head and put it on a spear, thereby showing his rage against the heroic resistance of the Spartan opponents.
And after the end of the bloody battle, the path to Hellas was open for the king of heroes. Most of the city-policies surrendered to the Persian king without a fight. The remainder of the Greek army, which was continued under the command of Cleombrotus, the brother of the deceased king of Sparta, was forced to retreat to the area of the Peloponnese peninsula and the Isthmus of Corinth in order to provide further resistance to the Persian invasion.
At the site of the Thermopylae Gorge, at the end of the war between the Greeks and Persians, the Hellenes erected a monument in memory of the great Spartan king Leonidas and his fearless warriors - a statue of a lion. For many centuries the Spartans were revered by the Greeks. The memory of them is still alive.
Probably the legend about 300 Spartans, who courageously resisted the numerically superior enemy army until their last breath, were heard by everyone. Hollywood films dedicated to this plot caused a lot of noise, although one should not expect historical accuracy from them. How did the legendary actually take place? Battle of Thermopylae?
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 enormous power, despotic and ambitious - he sought power over the world. He was feared, but not deified, as shown in the Hollywood film. His appearance is also surprising - the king with piercings, hung with chains, looks, to put it mildly, strange.
The army of the attacking Persians was many times greater than 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 the unequal forces, in the first two days the Greeks repelled the Persian attacks in the Thermopylae gorge, but on the third day the tide of the battle was broken. According to one version, a local resident, Ephialtes, told the Persians about the presence of a mountain bypass route and showed it 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. Realizing the unsuccessful outcome of events, Leonid himself suggested that the Greeks disperse to their cities. He himself and his 300 Spartans remained.
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. A 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.
The biggest question is the size of the Greek army. Herodotus says the following about this: “The Hellenic forces, waiting in this area for the Persian king, consisted of 300 Spartan hoplites, 1000 Tegeans and Mantineans (500 each); further, 120 people from Orkhomenes 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 for help from the Opuntian Locrians with all their militia and 1000 Phocians.” That is, only 5200 warriors. In addition, there were servants with them - helots.
There really were 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, numbering up to 5,000, and in the first two days of the battle they fought together at Thermopylae. But about 1,000 Greeks, in particular the Thespians, remained of their own free will and after Leonidas’ order to return home. No one belittles the merits and courage of the Spartans, but they were not the only ones who died in the unequal battle that day. The losses of the Greeks in three days amounted to about 4,000 people, the Persians - 5 times more.
There were many legends about the state of ideal warriors.
