There was a little more to the compromise. The Spartans themselves brought Helots , basically enslaved people, to assist. At least 4, men occupied the pass of Thermopylae to fight. The Persian army did indeed arrive at Thermopylae and, after their offer of free passage to the Greek defenders was refused, they attacked on the fifth day. For forty-eight hours, the defenders of Thermopylae held out, defeating not just the poorly trained levies sent to dull them, but the Immortals, the Persian elite.
Unfortunately for the Greeks, Thermopylae held a secret: a small pass by which the main defenses could be outflanked. On the sixth night, the second of the battle , the Immortals followed this path, brushed aside the small guard and prepared to catch the Greeks in a pincer. King Leonidas , undisputed head of the Greek defenders, was made aware of this pincer by a runner.
Unwilling to sacrifice the entire army, but determined to keep the Spartan promise to defend Thermopylae, or perhaps just act as a rearguard, he ordered everyone but his Spartans and their Helots to retreat. Many did, but the Thebans and Thespians stayed the former possibly because Leonidas insisted they stay as hostages.
When battle commenced the next day, there were Greeks left, including Spartans two having been sent on missions. Caught between the main Persian army and 10, men to their rear, all were involved in fighting and wiped out. Only Thebans who surrendered remained. It is entirely possible the above account contains other myths. Historians have suggested the full force of Greeks may have been as high as 8, to begin with or that the 1, only stayed put on the third day after being trapped by the Immortals.
The truth of the defense of Thermopylae is no less fascinating than the myth and should undercut the transformation of the Spartans into idealized supermen. Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Use precise geolocation data.
Select personalised content. Create a personalised content profile. Measure ad performance. Select basic ads. Create a personalised ads profile. Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Share Flipboard Email. Robert Wilde. History Expert. Robert Wilde is a historian who writes about European history. The rear-guard held their own, despite losing their commander Leonidas amidst brutal, drawn-out fighting.
But then the Immortals arrived, and the Greeks had to retreat to a low hill. The vicious hand-to-hand fighting had broken their spears and swords, but they fought on with daggers, hands and teeth until the Persians tired of unnecessary losses and shot them down with arrow volleys. Arrowheads of Anatolian design have been found in large numbers on the hill by modern archaeologists.
Thermopylae was a Greek defeat. The rear-guard was annihilated and the Persians rolled on to occupy central Greece. But Thermopylae did — crucially — prove that the Persian war machine could be stopped. It also tested the Greek strategy of using confined space to neutralise Persian numbers, a strategy that later proved devastatingly effective when the Greeks destroyed the Persian fleet in the narrow strait of Salamis just a month or so later.
Win or lose, the battle achieved mythic status almost at once, like the British retreat at Dunkirk in , or the massacre of the defenders at the Alamo mission in Texas in The Spartans were a minority of the defending force — not just in the army but even in the last stand — but the clash became the battle of the Spartan , not the Greek 7,, in popular imagination. In the fifth century BC, Herodotus recounts how Xerxes before Thermopylae asked the exiled Spartan king Damaratus how free Greeks could stand against him without being forced to fight under the lash.
Damaratus replied that the Spartans, though free, have a master whom they fear more than the Persians: their king and the law, which tells them not to retreat, but to stand and die.
It was Thermopylae that created the myth that Spartans always win or die. One such story is that of Aristodemus, who was one of two Spartans invalided out of the battle due to an eye infection. His comrade, Eurytus, was blinded —but he returned to the battle to fight and die.
Aristodemus, meanwhile, went home. He was ostracised and his life was made so unbearable that he preferred to die as a berserker fighting against the Persians a year later.
The Spartans still refused to forgive him, even then. The message was clear: no second chances in Sparta. Most strikingly, later sources present the whole campaign as a suicide expedition, having Leonidas tell the authorities at Sparta before the battle that his real goal is to die for Greece.
But 7, seems a large force to send out just to die for no strategic goal. Certainly, those who left on the third day did not think they had joined a suicide squad. Thermopylae became the archetype for the courageous last stand. In modern times, it has been used and abused as the yardstick for courageous sacrifice against the odds.
Also, ironically, Thermopylae has been used to glorify imperialist failures — such as the defeat at Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam in during the closing years of French control in Indo-China, or the British defeat by the Zulus at Isandlwana in KwaZulu-Natal in Sign in.
Back to Main menu Virtual events Masterclasses. A 19th-century illustration showing Thermopylae, a narrow coastal passage famous for the battle between the Greek Spartans and invading Persian forces in BC.
Leonidas needed a rear-guard to hold back the Persians — and die, if necessary It was Thermopylae that created the myth that Spartans always win or die The Spartan king Leonidas leads his army in attack during the battle of Thermopylae. He lost his life during the clash. Photo by Getty Images. Later sources present the whole campaign as a suicide expedition
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