The Battle of Thermopylae - What really happened at one of the most famous last stands in history?

If you saw the movie 300, you may be wondering what really happened at one of history's most famous last stands. Hi, my name is Dylan, and welcome to Pondering Adventurer, where I tell stories of travel, history, and the outdoors. And this week, we'll grab our gear and march to Thermopylae. Before we begin, I'd like to open with a quote by Nicolás Gómez de Vila. The enemies of myth are not the friends of reality, but of triviality. I might add that regardless of how much mythos surrounds a story, great deeds passed down to those who need to hear them are anything but trivial. This story takes us back nearly 2,500 years to a time of great conflict between the mighty Achaemenid Persian Empire and the Greek city-states around the Aegean Sea. In 499 BC, Greeks, or Hellenes as they're called, that were living under the rule of Persian-appointed tyrants, revolted. Encouraged by aid from Athens and other city-states, the Greek rebels began expelling tyrants and retaking cities around the eastern Aegean. By 493, however, the might of the Persian army under King Darius I crushed the Ionian Revolt, as it's called, and they began planning their revenge. In 490, a Persian fleet sailed for Athens to punish them for their role in the revolt. They landed at Marathon, about 25 miles from Athens, and a Greek force met them there. The battle was a resounding victory for the Greeks, and the surviving Persians sailed back east with their tails between their legs. Ten years later, in 480 BC, King Darius's successor Xerxes would seek Persian revenge against the Hellenes. Xerxes, with a massive army between 80,000 and 200,000 men strong, crossed the Hellespont and invaded Greece. His ambassadors sent requests of earth and water to all the Greek city-states, some fearing his reprisals or preferring Persian rule to other city-states, capitulated. Out of those that did not, the two largest and most prominent were Athens and Sparta. With the Persian army moving south, the Greek resistance came up with a game plan. A force of heavy infantry, or hoplites as they're called, made up of small contingents from each city-state, were to march north and hold the Persians at a choke point. This expedition would be led by one of the kings of Sparta, Leonidas, 17th in the Aegean line whose mythic origins are traced back to Heracles himself. The ancient name for Sparta's territory in the southern Peloponnese was Lacedaemon and its fighting men Lacedaemonians. Lacedaemonian leadership in military affairs was common in ancient Greece and their skills not just as fighters but also as leaders was famous around the ancient world. Plutarch says, Under King Leonidas' command were fighting men from the Tegeans, Mentoneans, Arcadians, Corinthians, Fleazians, Mycenaeans, Thesbeans, Thebans, Locrians, Phocians, and famously, 300 fellow Spartans. All for a total force between 5 to 7,000 strong. The fastest road south ran along the coast as Thessaly is extremely mountainous. At one of the narrowest sections along the route is a hot spring, hence the name Thermopylae or Hot Gates. And here was a wall built in between the Malian Gulf and Mount Caledromo. The wall was built by the Phocians to impede their northern neighbors in Thessaly. This is the location Leonidas and his men took up defensive positions. The Phocian wall was in ruin, but after a few repairs the Greeks were ready. Xerxes waited several days expecting the small force to retreat. His scouts reported that the Greek force was occupying the wall and most were not visible behind it. However, they reported that the Lacedaemonians were visible and they observed them in front of the wall exercising in the nude and caring for their hair. Xerxes was perplexed and amused by the behavior of these Lacedaemonians. According to Plutarch, he's rumored to have sent a message to King Leonidas to deliver over their weapons to which the Spartan king is supposed to have replied Herodotus, who's our main source for these events, says that Xerxes was warned about these sorts of behaviors by one of his companions. This companion in question would know as he's none other than Demaratus, a former Spartan king who was exiled and fled to Asia. Demaratus is said to have told Xerxes, It is their custom to do their hair when they're about to risk their lives. Xerxes, angered at the Greek defiance, sent in his Median and Scythian troops. The difference between Greek hoplites and Persian light infantry was evident right away. The Persians with light armor, wicker shields, and short spears were being torn to pieces by the Greeks with their heavy armor, thick shields, and long spears. Surviving Medes and Scythians retreated to the Persian lines after being thoroughly mauled by Leonidas' smaller force. Taking their place, though, was the Immortals, Xerxes' veteran troops commanded by one of his top generals, Hidarnes. The Immortals rushed headlong into the Greek position. The Lacedaemonians, however, had a surprise for them. They would turn and pretend to flee from the charging Persians, and as the gap closed, flip back at a moment's notice and cut their enemy to pieces. Between the confined space of the pass, fighting with shorter spears, and facing the discipline and fighting prowess of the Lacedaemonians, Xerxes' cracked troops fared no better than his Medes and Scythians. After the Persian retreat, day one was over, and as Herodotus says, the Greeks made it quite clear that they were the experts, and that they were fighting against amateurs. Greek morale that night was undoubtedly high. On the morning of day two, the Persian consensus was that the Greek defense would start to crack due to their lack of numbers combined with the casualties they took the previous day. Xerxes began sending waves to attack them. However, it was the same result. The units from each Greek city-state rotated to the front, and as such, the Persians were running up against fresh spears. Perplexed at what to do, Xerxes ordered a retreat. Each day that he spent held up at Thermopylae was another day of men and resources lost, and more time for the rest of Greece to prepare. Ironically, the stroke of luck that he needed would come directly from a Greek. On that second day, Xerxes received an invitation to meet with a local Malian man named Ephialtes, son of Eurydemus. He was delighted to hear from Ephialtes that a mountain path existed, which could be taken up over the mountain to the rear of the Greek position. At dusk, Xerxes sent Hydarnes and his immortals to the mountain path with Ephialtes as their guide. If all went as planned, they could descend on Leonidas and his men early the next day. The mountain path was known to the Greek defenders as well, and they had a force of Phocians guarding it near the top. Unfortunately for the Phocians, though, the dense oak forest on the side of the mountain concealed the Persian ascent until it was too late. Thinking that they were the main target of the immortals, the Phocians regrouped on a higher part of the mountain to defend themselves. Hydarnes and the Persians passed right by them without engaging. The trap was now set, and the clock was ticking for Leonidas and his men. The question of who alerted the Greeks first is unknown. It could have been a Phocian who made it down the mountain and told them. It could have been one of the units posted on the bluffs that saw them coming. Or Leonidas may have known from a prophecy. One of his companions on the expedition was a diviner named Maestius. A diviner would have been something of an army chaplain combined with an oracle. They would be attached to units of fighting men and would interpret omens by inspecting the entrails of sacrificial victims. When Maestius did this for Leonidas that night, he's said to have predicted their deaths at dawn. Perhaps Leonidas may have suspected it before they even reached Thermopylae. There's a story that the Lacedaemonians consulted the oracle at Delphi before marching north to face the Persians, and her response was this. Here is your fate, inhabitants of spacious Sparta. Either your great and glorious city will be destroyed by men descended from Perseus, or that will not be. But the borders of Lacedaemon will mourn the death of a king descended from Heracles. For neither the might of bulls nor that of lions will check the foe head on, since he has the might of Zeus. Nor, I declare, will he be checked until one of the two has been thoroughly rent asunder. In other words, either a Spartan king will fall, or Sparta herself will fall. One way or another, King Leonidas learned of the immortals passing over the mountain. To give a bit of context on what the Lacedaemonian king's decision would be next, I'll take a few excerpts from Plutarch on the Spartans. In describing the state of the Spartan people after hearing the news of their disastrous defeat at the hands of the Thebans at the Battle of Leuctra, Plutarch states, There was an even more striking contrast among the women. Any who had learned that their son was alive and was expecting him back from the battle remained dispirited and silent. Whereas, mothers of men reported killed at once made the round of the sanctuaries and visited one another in a proud, cheerful mood. He also says of the Lacedaemonian sense of fear that, They honor fear, not as something harmful like the supernatural powers they seek to ward off, but because in their opinion the state is held together above all by fear. And, The men who are most cowardly before the law are the boldest in front of the enemy. With this, it isn't a surprise that Spartan King Leonidas decides to stay in the pass and fight to the end. Before the dawn he sends away most of his fellow Greeks while they have the chance to retreat. He even tries to send away his friend the diviner Maestius. But Maestius wouldn't abandon Leonidas and he sent home his only son who accompanied the expedition and remained behind. Only about 1,200 remained. The Thebans, who Herodotus says were forced to stay, the Thesbeans, and Leonidas and his 300 Spartans. Late in the morning, the battle began. With Ephialtes, Hidarnes, and the Immortals still on the descent from the mountain path, Xerxes advanced and so did Leonidas. This time Leonidas decided to meet the Persians beyond the wall in the wider part of the pass. He did this to utilize more of his men at the same time. The two sides met and the Greeks, knowing their fate, fought leaving nothing in reserve. The Spartan King himself was in the thick of the fray. It was in this bloody part of the melee that he was cut down. A great struggle ensued where Persians and Greeks fought back and forth to retrieve his body. The sheer ferocity of the Greeks allowed them to succeed in taking their king's body behind the line. As the fighting raged though, word reached the Greeks that the Immortals had descended from the pass and were drawing close to the rear of their position. They made a quick decision to retreat behind the wall once more and regroup on a spur in front of the mountain. It was during this time that the diviner Maestius met his end, not long after his friend Leonidas. It was also at this time that according to Herodotus, the Thebans saw their chance to break from their Greek counterparts. Before the battle, the Lacedaemonians questioned where Theban loyalties would lie and so they were forced to march to Thermopylae. Herodotus says when the Greek defenders were falling back behind the wall to the spur, the Thebans went forward with their arms out in surrender and they shouted to the Persians telling them that they had been forced to fight and wanted to side with Xerxes all along. The story goes that some were taken and some were cut down anyway. The last of the Greek defenders were now trapped on the hill. If they had lost their spears in the fighting, they were down to their swords. And if they had lost their swords as well, then they were fighting with knives, hands, and teeth, as Herodotus mentions. There's a legend that one of the bravest of the battle, a Lacedaemonian named Dionysius, was warned that the Persian arrows would hide the sun, to which he responded, then the battle will be in the shade. They fought with unmatched ferocity, but ultimately, under a hail of missiles, those last remaining Greek warriors perished on that hill. The story goes that when the body of King Leonidas was discovered, Xerxes had his head cut off and placed on a spike. Herodotus tells us that this was uncharacteristic for the Persians to do to an enemy who fought bravely, which leads him to suspect that they must have held more disdain for Lacedaemonians than most other Greeks. Xerxes lost family members in the fight, including two of his brothers. Maybe the Greek defiance combined with those personal family losses caused the uncharacteristic behavior. Either way, his army continued south. Even though he succeeded in burning Athens, his navy would suffer a loss at Salamis by the great Athenian general Themistocles, and his land army under the satrap Mardonius would suffer a major defeat at Patea. The hero who turned the tide of the battle at Patea in the Greeks' favor was a Lacedaemonian commander. And not just any Lacedaemonian commander, he was Pausanias, the nephew of fallen King Leonidas. Athens and Sparta together also defeated the Persians at Mykali and Asia Minor. With three major defeats, the loss of all their garrisons in Europe, and the heavy losses to their navy, the Achaemenid Persian invasion of the west was over. As for the traitor Ephialtes, it's said that after the battle he became an exile in Thessaly. He was branded a wanted criminal with a bounty on his head, and eventually killed by a man named Athenades. Today, the waterline is a lot further out than it was 2,500 years ago. Continuous deposits of silt have turned the narrow pass into a flat plain. You can visit the remnants of the old Phocian wall up on the bluffs, as well as the monument to the Thesbeans who fought to the end, and the great statue of King Leonidas overlooking the battlefield. In the 1930s, an archaeologist named Spyridon Marinatos discovered a large number of arrowheads and spear points on a small hill in the area. These missile points he discovered match the style of those he found at the Marathon battle site. They were of the Asian type and dated to the 5th century BC. Thus it was concluded, thanks to Marinatos, that this hill was Kolonos Hill, the spur which those last brave Greeks fought to their deaths, and died under a hail of arrows and spears. Several monuments erected at the battle site have been lost to history, one being a stone lion dedicated to King Leonidas. Another was a plaque dedicated to the diviner Maestius, which contained the words, This is the memorial of fame Maestius, cut down when the Persians crossed the Spertius, a seer who clearly saw the approach of his doom, but could not stand to leave the leader of Sparta. Thanks to the work of Marinatos in identifying the location of the last stand, new monuments could be erected. Our main source for the events of the battle come from Herodotus, who would compile information and record it decades after it took place. We also get some information from Plutarch, who lived over 500 years after the events occurred. What is truth and what is legend? We may never know the extent of the details, outside of the fact that a Spartan King Leonidas led a smaller force against a much larger one from Persia and in so doing perished in the area of Kolonos Hill and the Phocean Wall. One might be quick, especially in our time, to relegate the story as an ancient myth of little value. I disagree, however. Aside from the findings at the Phocean Wall and artifacts at Kolonos Hill, we also have consistencies in behavior. Many ancient sources tell us about the Lacedaemonians, for example. We know they were not only excellent fighters, but were the premier choice for military leadership. And what of the value of Thermopylae? A quick look at Greek history ever since the battle shows in my view the spirit of the Greeks that fought to their deaths 2,500 years ago in future Greeks as well. From Thermopylae to the last stand at Alamanna by Athanasios Diakos during the Greek War of Independence to the 280 days of Greek defiance against Mussolini and Hitler during the Second World War when most countries fell instantly, I see a pattern of the people of Elas following their word to whatever end. Maybe that's the lesson of Thermopylae. Be more fearful of your reputation as one who abandons their word to others than of the trials that come with honor. As the Lacedaemonians believed, the latter holds societies together. One of those monuments rebuilt at the battlefield in our time is a plaque at the top of Kolonos Hill where the last defenders perished. On it is an epitaph from the ancient poet Simonides. I'd like to end this video by sharing it with you. Go tell them in Sparta, stranger passing by, that here, according to their word, we lie. Thank you for watching. If you enjoyed this, please consider subscribing to the channel and I'll see you on the next one.