Thermopylae: The Battle for the West [Paperback]

As the Persian juggernaut crossed over a two mile long pontoon bridge into Europe and began its relentless march into Greece, the Greeks temporized, argued, and dithered. Finally, Sparta sent King Leonidas with three hundred Spartiates to hold the pass at Thermopylae against the Persian hordes. Leonidas stiffened his contingent with Helots (Spartan serfs) and volunteers from several other Greek city-states. Phocis, Thebes, Thespia, and a few others swelled Leonidas' ranks to a few thousand.

Upon being told that when the Persians loosed their arrows the sky went black, the Spartiate Dienekes rejoined "Then we shall fight in the shade." At a point in the pass no more than 20 yards wide Leonidas met the Persians and stopped them dead in their tracks. For three days he and his men held the mightiest empire's mightiest army at bay, slaughtering the flower of the Persian army by the hundreds, if not thousands. He might have held, but a traitorous Greek showed the Persians a mountain pass by which they could turn Leonidas' position.

Leonidas had guarded the pass with 1,000 Phocians, but the Persian "Immortals," Xerxes' best unit, brushed them aside. Upon learning of this treachery, Leonidas sent the other city-states' contingents home and prepared for his last stand. The Thebans and Thespians volunteered to stay, and Leonidas chose for his battleground a wider section of the pass. He wanted as wide a front as possible so he could kill as many Persians as possible.

The Spartans joined battle with the Persians for the last time, and the slaughter was horrific. When, as anticipated, the Immortals took them in the rear, the Spartans retreated to a hillock, formed what the Middle Ages would call a "Swiss Hedgehog," and died to the last man.

As prophecy foretold, the Spartans lost their king, but saved their city, and the rest of Greece with it. The invasion continued apace, and Athens was sacked, with her entire population fleeing to the island of Salamis. There in the straits between Salamis and Athens, the Greeks lured the Persian navy to its doom.

Winter was coming, and things hadn't quite worked out as expected. Campaigning during the winter was verboten, and sustaining such a huge army in the field over the winter wasn't practicable. Xerxes decided he had better get back to Susa, and took with him the remainder of his shattered navy and the bulk of his army. He left his seasoned field commander, Mardonius, in charge of the best Persian contingents, expecting Mardonius to complete the conquest of Greece during the next campaigning season.

Upon learning of Xerxes'withdrawal, the Spartans thought the war was over, and sent an embassy demanding satisfaction for the death of their king. Xerxes laughed in their faces and told them that Mardonius would give them satisfaction next summer. He did, but not as Xerxes expected.

Shakespeare once wrote "It is not within man's power to command success, but we shall do more--we shall deserve it." Leonidas and his 300 Spartiates could not command succes, but they did more, they deserved it.

Bradford puts the story of Leonidas in its proper place within the vast panorama of the Greco Persian Wars. He begins with the sack of Sardis and ends on the fields of Plataea. "Thermopylae" is not as scholarly as A.R. Burn's "Persian and the Greeks," but it is imminently more readable. "Thermopylae" reads somewhat like an abridgement of Peter Green's "The Greco-Persian Wars."