Battle of Thermopylae
August 480 BCE · in Battle View, played out step by step on the ground where it was fought
A small Greek force led by King Leonidas I of Sparta held the pass of Thermopylae for three days against the army of Xerxes I before being overwhelmed.
The sides
- Greeks, led by Leonidas: about 7,000 men
- Persia, led by Xerxes: about 60,000 men
States that fought: Achaemenid Empire, Greek City-States.
How it went
Battle of Thermopylae
Xerxes of Persia invades Greece with the largest army the Greeks have ever seen. To hold it while the fleet fights at Artemisium, Leonidas of Sparta takes some 7,000 men to the pass of Thermopylae, where the road runs between the mountains and the sea.
The middle gate
At the narrowest point, the middle gate, the pass is a few dozen metres wide. The Greeks rebuild an old Phocian wall across it and wait in front of it. Phocians guard a mountain path to the south.
The Medes attack
After four days Xerxes sends in the Medes. In the narrow pass numbers count for nothing, and the Greek phalanx, taking turns at the front, cuts them down.
The Immortals
Next come the Immortals, the king's own guard. They do no better. The Spartans feign retreats and turn on their pursuers.
The mountain path
A local man, Ephialtes, shows Xerxes the Anopaea path. In the night the Immortals march around the mountain; the Phocians guarding it pull back to a hilltop, and the Immortals march on.
The last stand
Warned, Leonidas sends most of the Greeks home. He stays with his 300, the 700 Thespians and the Thebans, and leads them out to the wider ground in front of the wall to meet the Persian army.
Kolonos hill
Leonidas falls. The Greeks fight over his body, then fall back behind the wall to a small hill, Kolonos. The Thebans surrender; the rest are surrounded and killed with arrows. Herodotus counts 20,000 Persian dead.
Thermopylae
The pass is open, and Athens is burned within weeks. But the stand becomes a legend, and a month later the Greek fleet wins at Salamis.
Herodotus gives Xerxes millions; modern guesses for his army run from 70,000 to 300,000, and this shows the part that fought in the pass. The sea has since silted up: in 480 BCE it came to the foot of the cliffs.
People and wars
- Xerxes’ invasion of Greece (480–479 BCE): Xerxes I led a vast Persian army from Sardis across the Hellespont into Greece, won at Thermopylae and burned Athens, but was defeated at sea at Salamis (480 BCE) and on land at Plataea (479 BCE).
- Greco-Persian Wars (499–449 BCE): Conflicts between the Achaemenid Empire and Greek city-states, beginning with the Ionian Revolt; Greek victories preserved the independence of mainland Greece.