I found a webpage on the battle on wikipedia.org I've had to edit it somewhat to fit the size limits.
Background
Xerxes I, king of Persia, had been preparing for years to continue the war against the Greeks started by his father
Darius. In
481 BC, after four years of preparation, the army and navy of Xerxes arrived in
Asia Minor and built a bridge of ships across the
Hellespont at
Abydos to march his troops across.
Herodotus gives Xerxes' army as follows:
Fleet crew:517,610
Infantry:1,700,000
Cavalry:80,000
Arabs and Libyans:20,000
Greek allies324,000
Total2,641,610
This number needs to be at least doubled in order to account for support troops giving thus at least 5,283,220 men, which is obviously excessive.
Ctesias of Cnedus who was
Artaxerxes Mnemon's personal physician and wrote a history of Persia according to Persian sources (that unfortunately has not survived) gives 800,000 as the total number of the original army that set off from
Sardis which is repeated by several later historians. Some modern historians have gone the other way in underestimating the Persian troops. Sir Frederick Maurice
[1] claims that the army could not have surpassed 175,000 due to lack of water. Others have given numbers as low as 120,000. It is possible to make an estimate.
At the
battle of Plataea the Persian army numbered according to Herodotus 300,000 troops which is considered realistic for two reasons: First of all it gives a realistic 3 to 1 ratio with the 110,000 Greek army. It must be noted the 110,000 Greek troops of Plataea did not include forces from
Thebes,
Thessaly and the northern Greek kingdoms, which, from a belief of inevitable Greek defeat and desire to save their land from destruction, defected to the Persian side after the Persian army advanced to their region. Had they not, the Greek army could have matched Maurice's number. But even if it did not, with a 1.5 to 1 ratio the Greek army could have sought battle on an open field with a very realistic chance of defeating the invaders, since during the
Ionian Revolt and the
battle of Marathon the
phalanx showed that it could match and even defeat superior numbers of Persian infantry.
A congress was called in
Corinth in late autumn of
481 BC, and a confederate alliance of Greek city-states was formed, headed by the militaristic Sparta, whose supremely disciplined warriors were trained from birth to be the best soldiers in Greece and among the fiercest in the ancient world.
The Persian army first encountered a joint force of 10,000 Athenian and Spartan
hoplites led by
Euanetus and
Themistocles in the
Tembi valley. Upon hearing though of this, Xerxes sent the army through the Sarantaporo straight which was unguarded and sidestepped them. The hoplites, probably warned by
Alexander I of Macedon, vacated the pass. The next strategic choke point where the Persian army could have been stopped was
Thermopylae.
Xerxes' huge army was relying on a constant food supply and support by sea. Using the fleet the army could have also crossed the Maliacos bay and sidestep the Greek army. For this reason the Greek fleet was engaging the Persian fleet at
Artemision. There is disagreement on what was the Greek high strategy. Some claim that it was to slow down the army while the navy was defeated at sea. While this was probably Themistocles's strategy it is not probably what the congress of Corinth which was dominated by Sparta decided. More probably its decision was that the way to victory was to wear down the Persian Army and hold it as north as possible until it was forced out of the country due to attrition and lack of food.
Some modern historians have suggested that Xerxes could have used the same tactic as at Tembi and sidestep Thermopylae through the paths of
Mt. Kallidromio. Considering how huge the Persian army was it required a royal road to cross and could not have fit through mountain trails.
At the time the
mountain pass of Thermopylae consisted of a pass so narrow that two chariots could barely move abreaston the western side of the pass stood the sheer side of the mountain, while the east side was a cliff drop into the sea. Along the path was a series of three "gates," and at the center gate a short wall that had been erected by the
Phocians in the previous century to aid in their defense against
Thessalian invasions. It was here in the August of
480 BC that an army of some 7000 Greeks, led by the 300 Spartans of the royal guard, stood to receive the full force of the Persian army, numbering perhaps some sixty times its size. The Greek army included according to Herodotus 300 Spartans and 1000 other Laconians, 500 from
Mantinea, 500 from
Tegea, 120 from Arcadian Orchomenos, 1000 other
Arcadians, 400
Corinthians, 200 from
Floia, 80
Mycenians, 700
Thespians, 400
Thebans and the whole
Phocian and
Opuntan Locrian army of 1,000 hoplites
Knowing the likely outcome of the battle, Leonidas selected his men on one simple criterion: he took only men who had fathered sons that were old enough to take over the family responsibilities of their fathers. The rationale behind this criterion was that the
Spartans knew their death was almost certain at
Thermopylae.
Plutarch mentions, in his
Sayings of Spartan Women, that after encouraging her husband before his departure for the battlefield, Gorgo, the wife of
Leonidas I asked him what she should do when he had left. To this, Leonidas replied:
Marry a good man, and have good children. When Xerxes reached Thermopylae, he sent emisaries to the Greek forces asking to surrender their arms. To this Leonidas gave his very famous answer:
Μολών Λαβέ which meant "
Come get them". This quote has been repeated by many later generals and even politicians in order to express the Greeks' determination to risk a huge sacrifice rather than surrender without a fight.
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The Battle
The Battle of Thermopylae and movements to Salamis, courtesy of The Department of History, United States Military Academy.
When scouts initially informed Xerxes of the size of the Greek force, and of the Spartans who were performing preparations which included naked
calisthenics and combing their hair, Xerxes found the reports laughable. Not understanding the ritual significance of the Spartan preparations as the actions of men with the resolution to fight to the end, he expected the force to disband at any moment and waited four days for the Greek force to retreat. When they did not, he became increasingly frustrated by what he perceived as foolish impudence on the part of the small Greek force. On the fifth day Xerxes ordered his troops into the pass.
The Greeks deployed themselves in a
phalanx, a wall of overlapping shields and layered spearpoints, spanning the entire width of the pass. The Persians, armed with arrows and short spears, could not break through the long spears of the Greek phalanx, nor were their lightly armoured men a match for the superior armour, weaponry and discipline of the Greek
hoplites. Enormous casualties were sustained by the Persians as the disciplined Spartans orchestrated a series of feint retreats, followed by a quick turn back into formation. Because of the terrain, the Persians were unable to surround or
flank the Greeks, thus rendering their superior numbers almost useless. Greek morale was high. Herodotus wrote that when
Dienekes, a Spartan soldier, was informed that Persian arrows blotted out the sun, he remarked with characteristically
laconic prose, "So much the better, we shall fight in the shade." The Greeks defending the pass slew the Persians in a similar manner on the second day of battle, fighting in a relay manner. After watching his troops fall before the Greeks, Xerxes decided to send his legendary
Persian Immortals. However, even the Immortals lacked the power to break the determined and driven Spartan phalanx, and they, too, were forced to retreat with heavy casualties.
After the second day of fighting, a Greek,
Ephialtes, defected to the Persians and informed Xerxes of a separate path through Thermopylae, which the Persians could use to outflank the Greeks. The pass was defended by the other 1000 Greeks, from
Phocis, who had been placed there when the Greeks learned of the alternate route just before the battle, but they were not expecting to engage the Persians. Surprised by the Persian attack, the Phocians offered only a brief resistance before retreating higher up the mountain to regroup. Instead of pursuing them, however, the Persians simply advanced through the pass unopposed.
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Final stand of the Spartans and Thespians
Leonidas, realizing that further fighting would be futile, dismissed all Greek forces save the surviving Spartans and Thebans on
August 11; the Spartans having pledged themselves to fight to the death, and the Thebans held as hostages as Thebes' loyalty to Greece was questioned. However, a contingent of about 700
Thespians, led by
Demophilus, refused to leave with the other Greeks. Instead, they chose to stay in the sacrificial effort to delay the advance. The significance of the Thespians' refusal should not be passed over. The Spartans, brave as their sacrifice indubitably was, were professional soldiers, trained from birth to be ready to give their lives in combat as Spartan
law dictated. Conversely, the Thespians were citizen-soldiers (Demophilus, for example, made his living as an architect) who elected to add whatever they could to the fight, rather than allow the Spartans to be annihilated alone.
Though their bravery is often overlooked by history, it was most certainly not overlooked by the Spartans, who are said to have exchanged cloaks with the Thespians and promised to be allies for eternity.
The fighting was said to have been extremely brutal, even for hoplite combat. As their numbers diminished the Greeks retreated to a small hill in the narrowest part of the pass. The Thebans took this opportunity to surrender to the Persians
[1]. After their spears broke, the Spartans and Thespians kept fighting with their
xiphos short swords, and after those broke, they were said to have fought with their bare hands and teeth.
Although the Greeks killed many Persians, including two of Xerxes' brothers, Leonidas was eventually killed, but rather than surrender the Spartans fought fanatically to defend his body. To avoid losing any more men the Persians killed the last of the Spartans with flights of arrows.
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After the Battle
When the body of Leonidas was recovered by the Persians, Xerxes, in a rage at the loss of so many of his soldiers, ordered that the head be cut off, and the body
crucified. The mutilation of a corpse, even one of the enemy, carried a great social stigma for the Persians, and it was an act that Xerxes was said to have deeply regretted afterwards. Leonidas' body was later cut down and returned to the Spartans, where he was buried with full honors.
There is an
epitaph on a monument at site of the battle with
Simonides's
epigram,
(O xein', angellein Lakedaimoniois hoti täde keimetha tois keinon rhämasi peithomenoi.)
translated as:
Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that here, obedient to their laws, we lie.
Aftermath
While a tactical victory for the Persians, the enormous casualties caused by almost a thousand Greek soldiers was a significant blow to the Persian army (current estimates stand at 20,000 Persians dead, including the elite Immortals). Likewise, it significantly boosted the resolve of the Greeks to face the Persian onslaught. The simultaneous naval
Battle of Artemisium was a draw, whereupon the Greek (or more accurately, Athenian) navy retreated. The Persians had control of the
Aegean Sea and all of Greece as far south as
Attica; the Spartans prepared to defend the
Isthmus of Corinth and the
Peloponnese, while Xerxes sacked
Athens, whose inhabitants had already fled to
Salamis Island. In September the Greeks defeated the Persians at the naval
Battle of Salamis, which led to the rapid retreat of Xerxes. The remaining Persian army, left under the charge of
Mardonius, was defeated in the
Battle of Plataea by a combined Greek army again led by the Spartans, under the regent Pausanias.
This battle, along with
Sogdian Rock and similar actions, is used in
military academies around the world to show how a small group of well-trained and well-led soldiers can have an impact out of all proportion to their numbers. It is worth noting also that the effectiveness of the Greeks against such a vastly larger army was due in no small part to the battlefield itself. Had this battle been fought on an open field, rather than a narrow pass, the smaller Greek army could have been surrounded and defeated with ease, despite the quality of the Greek infantry. Thus Thermopylae is also regarded as being as much a lesson in the importance of favorable terrain and good strategy as it is in good training and discipline.
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