Leonidas, too, was fighting with his sword―a bad sign. Alkander was close enough to him to hear him grunting with each thrust. Or was he cursing? Leonidas had never hated his enemies, yet Alkander thought he could hear him snarling things at them with each blow. Alkander had to advance to keep up with him; alarmed, he looked left and right. Leonidas was getting ahead of the line, creating a small, dangerous bulge in it.
“Steady!” Dienekes shouted from the other side. “Wait for the line.”
Leonidas didn’t appear to hear him. Alkander and Dienekes had no choice but to try to close up on him, and Alkander turned to his left to make sure Alpheus was with him, but Alpheus was no longer there. He had been replaced by a man Alkander hardly knew.
Someone thrust a spear into Alkander’s hand from behind, and he plunged it into the nearest enemy at once. From behind him came more spear thrusts. The rear ranks had apparently managed to pass their spears forward, and the first two ranks were adequately armed again. The Spartan line started to surge forward. Alkander killed three men with as many stabs of his spear, and beside him, Leonidas was killing so fast that a mound of dead was building up in front of him.
But then Alkander’s second spear broke. They were only seven deep. There were no helot attendants ready and able to fetch reserve spears from the supply wagons. Each broken spear was irreplaceable. Alkander sensed that this time there would be no replacement. He took up his sword again.
Were they getting close to the East Gate? The mountain seemed so close upon their left. Alkander risked looking up to Xerxes’ throne. He didn’t have time to focus. Sweat was stinging his eyes, but he thought he saw something golden and glittering. The Great King was watching the slaughter, just as he had yesterday and the day before.
“Prepare to withdraw!” Leonidas shouted.
Dienekes passed the order to his right, Alkander to the left. Leonidas counted to three. They had done this before; he hardly thought they needed the order. They were counting in their own heads.
“Now!”
They started stepping backward in unison at a brisk pace called to them by the enomotarchs of the rear ranks. These officers called off ten paces. Then, at a shout, they turned and started running as fast as they could.
Leonidas’ lungs were laboring. His wounded thigh just wouldn’t answer the orders of his brain. He was less aware of pain than of simply losing control. He was aware of something being very, very wrong, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. Something was missing. His right was open, exposed. He was stumbling. His legs were collapsing under him, and there was no one to pick him up.
Alkander!
Alkander was not beside him anymore. Leonidas almost turned to go back, but Dienekes pushed him forward brutally with his shield, and a second later Meander was on his right―filling the gap left by Alkander with the strength and urgency of a young man who had not stood in the line for the last two days. With Dienekes pushing and Meander pulling, Leonidas staggered back to the re-formed line and turned around, still dazed and breathless.
The Persians were not in hot pursuit. No one was chasing after them. The Persians―or rather, whichever of their subject peoples had been fighting for them today―were falling down in exhaustion where they had fought.
Leonidas squinted at the field, littered again with bodies, some of which still writhed in agony or even tried to drag themselves to safety. Maybe one was Alkander, still alive as Maron and Alpheus had been that first day? But Alpheus and Maron were both dead now. They would all be dead soon. What did an hour more or less matter?
But he missed Alkander. He missed him.
“Drink this!” Dienekes ordered, handing him a skin with warm water.
Leonidas obeyed without asking where it came from.
“Do we await them here?” Dienekes asked.
“I don’t think I have the energy for a new advance.”
“Then we await them here,” Dienekes concluded, paused, and then broke the bad news. “The Thespians have been decimated. Demophilus is mortally wounded.”
“Who has taken command?” Leonidas asked, alarmed.
“Dithyrambus.”
“A good man.”
“They’re all good men. Every single one of them.”
“Every one of us,” Leonidas corrected.
Dienekes smiled gently and glanced at the sun. “We could use some shade.”
Horn signals warned them that the latest force of Persian subjects was taking the field against them. Through the West Gate new legions were deploying at a jog, their clothes bright and billowing and free of blood. A new troop, a new nation, fresh and ready to show off their courage before their Master.
But not archers. These appeared to be spearmen. Leonidas hoped they didn’t have axes, too, like the last troops. Still, without arrows, there was no need to close the distance rapidly. Leonidas was content to let the enemy come to them―until they started throwing their spears.
These were heavier and more deadly than arrows, and the problem was aggravated by the fact that many of the Greek shields had been damaged and weakened over the last two days of fighting. Leonidas was aware of men cursing violently as their shields were pierced, and then he stopped a javelin with his own aspis and heard an ominous crack.
A glance confirmed that the tip of the javelin was pointing clear through the inside face of the shield. Worse: the bolts holding the metal frame together had worked loose. Because the shaft of the javelin still extended on the outside of the shield, each time it was shoved one way or the other it acted like a wedge, wrenching the wood farther apart.
The hoplon was the quintessential component of hoplite warfare. It was the line of overlapping shields that rendered a phalanx effective. A hoplite derived his strength, his sense of invulnerability, and his identity from his shield. Earlier this morning, Leonidas’ men had killed with their shields alone. Spears were throw-away weapons, swords were often broken or lost, but shields were passed down from father to son, and the loss of a shield was a disgrace and a disaster. So the feel of his shield going soft, starting to bend and come apart, was as disorienting to Leonidas as the earth giving way beneath his feet.
Desperate to stop the extended shaft from weakening his shield any further, he lowered the hoplon in order to shear the shaft with his sword near the point of entry. It was a fatal mistake.
He had exposed his chest. The next javelin took him hard in the center of his breast with enough force to pierce through his breastplate and knock him over backwards. It took away his breath and all pain. He saw the sky, and registered that the sun was almost directly overhead, blindingly bright. It dimmed as a vulture with outstretched wings passed in front of it. He’ll soon be eating my entrails, Leonidas thought calmly, already detached from his corpse. The blood, stench, and filth all seemed to be receding. The warmth of the sun was no longer burning, but soothing. Is this immortality? Leonidas asked in astonishment, feeling weightless and disoriented. It was as if the vultures were all beneath him now.
“Didn’t I tell you it might not be all darkness beyond the grave?” a familiar voice said.
“Alkander?”
“Yes, and the others. Nikostratos and your father, too.”
“My father?” Leonidas had a great deal he wanted to discuss with his father.
Behind him, all hell broke loose.
Leonidas was dead before he hit the ground, but the enemy knew who had fallen; his gold-studded, cross-crested helmet had been pointed out to them before they took the field. It was a prize worth a thousand gold darics.
The enemy swept in, hooting and howling in triumph.
Dienekes and Meander were caught off guard; they briefly closed their shields over Leonidas’ corpse, but the enemy shoved them back in a burst of jubilant energy. One of the enemy grabbed Leonidas’ body by the foot and started dragging it away.
Meander screamed, broke out of the line, and ran forward. It was an undisciplined and un-Spartan thing to do, but Meander had been for
ced out of the agoge at age fifteen. He fought not with the discipline of decades of drill, but with the emotions of his overburdened heart.
In a moment he had caught up with the men trying to drag away Leonidas’ remains, and he was slaughtering them like a berserker. The madness of his attack terrified the enemy into pulling back long enough for Meander to wrest the corpse away from them.
Before Dienekes could bring up the rest of the Spartan line, however, the enemy recovered. In the next instant they were all over Meander. In a few seconds he was hacked to pieces. The enemy again seized hold of Leonidas’ body. The men who had killed him, determined to claim the reward Xerxes had promised, started to drag it away again. Meanwhile, others pressed forward to stop the advancing Spartan line, confident that without their king the Spartans’ fighting spirit would break.
The Spartan line was not stoppable. Fully closed up and reinforced with willpower born of blind emotion, it rolled over the men that got in its way until it had reclaimed the body of its king.
Now, however, the enemy had also been reinforced. From the rear, Persian cavalry was rushing in. They funneled through the foot soldiers, riding some of them down in their determination to seize the prize. The cavalry rode like a spearhead straight at the men trying to pass Leonidas’ body to the rear of the Spartan line. They pierced the line by knocking one man down and forcing others back. They rode right over Leonidas’ corpse in their determination to take control of it―then, whirling their horses and fighting with swords when their javelins broke on the Spartan shields, they managed to clear a space for one of them to jump down and fling Leonidas’ body over the back of a horse.
The Spartans had recovered from their initial surprise. From all sides they attacked the Persian horsemen in their midst, killing with their swords and their shields, then kicking and trampling with a savage if silent anger rarely known in Spartan history. Not one of the Persian cavalrymen got out alive, and Leonidas’ mortal remains were again in Spartan hands. Moreover, the enemy had become intimidated by the determination with which the Spartans defended even a dead king. Xerxes’ troops knew that the battle was almost over. They hesitated to die now. They hung back―and from the east, horns started blowing.
The word spread through the ranks as if carried on the very wind: “The Immortals! The Immortals!”
“Back!” the Spartans said. Maybe someone had given the order. Maybe it was just an instinctive, collective decision. They had Leonidas’ corpse, and they were not being pressed by the enemy. They pulled back warily at first, but when there was no pursuit they started jogging as fast as their weary, wounded limbs would take them. Four men had Leonidas’ body on their shoulders. When they reached the ramps leading up to the wall, they were all gasping for breath. It was noon.
What was left of the Thespian-Spartan force, a thousand men strong this morning, streamed up the three ramps onto the wall and down the ramp on the far side. Here they fell on their knees or collapsed against the back of the wall. They were gasping for breath and bleeding. No one was in command anymore.
Oliantus walked along the back of the wall, searching for Dienekes, Diodoros, or Kalliteles. They were not here. He searched for any Spartan who had fought in the front rank, but there were none. Nor were there any Spartan second rankers left.
He found Dithyrambus holding the corpse of Demophilus in his arms and weeping. He found Arion holding a rag to the stump of his arm. He found Eurytus, the bandages torn from his eyes, squinting up through swollen lids, apparently able to see light and shadow.
He looked over his shoulder. The sound of battle was carried on the wind. Not just the horns and shouts, but the clang of weapons. The Thebans were engaged. They couldn’t stay here. Here they would be slaughtered like game driven into a blind canyon. He looked around.
Behind him was the hillock where Leonidas had made the sacrifice each morning, and where Megistias had read the signs. Was that really less than six hours ago? It seemed a lifetime.
Oliantus tapped the man nearest him on the shoulder and pointed. “Up there.” The man nodded and struggled to his feet. Oliantus moved on. “Up there. Up there. On the hillock.” One by one or in pairs holding each other up, with the four men carrying Leonidas’ body in their midst, the Spartans straggled across the field to the hillock and struggled up the gentle slope. They were so exhausted, they felt as if they were scaling Taygetos.
From here, Oliantus could see the Persians pouring through the West Gate and see the Thebans giving ground before the East.
“Form up!” he ordered, registering with astonishment that he was in command. He signaled for the maybe six score survivors to form a circle around the altar on which Leonidas had sacrificed a cock at dawn. The body still lay inert in its drying blood, covered entirely by flies.
The men with Leonidas’ corpse staggered to the altar, roughly shoved the cock aside with the backs of their arms, and then gently laid their dead king upon it. Megistias emerged from a little copse of trees and came to gaze down at the lifeless remains of Leonidas.
“I thought Leonidas ordered you home,” Oliantus addressed the seer.
“He tried to save as many men as he could,” Megistias answered, “but none of us can escape our destiny. I am an old man. I sent my son home instead.”
They were distracted by an eruption of hissing and growling from the men around them. Oliantus looked back toward the field below. The Immortals had broken through the East Gate. With their captains apparently dead, some of the Theban rear rankers were throwing away their weapons and raising their hands in surrender. The sight astonished Oliantus. It made no sense to him that men would throw away freedom and honor at a moment like this, when they were so close to immortality. But his eyes were his witness. They will regret this, he thought with detachment.
Meanwhile, the Persians were pouring over the wall. Their eagerness and enthusiasm to take this object, the goal of two and half days of bitter and costly fighting, was so great that some chose to scale the wall rather than wait to file over one of the three ramps. Once over the wall, they spread out on the field before the hillock, shouting and pumping their bows in the air over their heads in triumph.
The last of the Thebans were either dead or had been taken captive. The Immortals were marching through the East Gate in good order. Hundreds of them, thousands of them, Oliantus registered. Xerxes must have sent the entire ten thousand over Kallidromos, he calculated. Xerxes had taken no chances.
Orders were being shouted. Cavalry was clattering over the ramps of the wall. The horses whinnied and fretted, and the banners of the leaders streamed in the wind. A chariot was galloping in through the West Gate, flashing in the sunlight.
For a moment Oliantus thought the Persian king was going to make another request for surrender, but then he realized archers were forming up facing them while the chariot drove far behind the archers, following the road next to the sea. Oliantus wasn’t sure if the man in the chariot was Xerxes or just another high-ranking Persian, but he was intent on meeting up with the commander of the Immortals.
A moment later Oliantus understood: the Persians were securing control of the Pass while leaving their subject archers to finish off the remnants of the defeated. Ah, yes, Oliantus thought to himself with a cynical smile, the Great King Xerxes did not negotiate with the likes of us―mere rabble in his eyes. With the death of Sparta’s king, there was no one among the Greeks he was willing to even acknowledge.
The first barrage of arrows soared into the sky. Whoever had said Persian arrows would darken the sun was right. They did dim the light of even the noonday sun.
Oliantus took up his shield and moved to the front rank of the crouching phalanx. With a sense of inner wonder, he realized he was now in command of what was left of Sparta’s elite, the remnants of her royal guard. It was an honor he had never aspired to, yet it made him proud. He, the eternal “second best,” had stepped into Leonidas’ shoes. For the next few minutes, maybe for a whole hour, he would endea
vor to follow Leonidas’ example as well. It was, he realized, an uplifting thought.
* This quote appears in Herodotus.
† A saying to this effect is attributed to Leonidas in Plutarch’s collection of “Sayings of Spartans.”
‡ This is probably Leonidas’ most famous line. It is recorded in Plutarch, but it probably has a much older and wider tradition. Its popularity is reflected in the modern monuments to Leonidas. In modern Sparti, the monument to Leonidas does not consider it necessary to identify him by name—only by this one phrase.
EPILOGUE
THERMOPYLAE
478 BC
THE INVADING HORDES WERE GONE. THEY had dissolved into memory like the morning mist or the clouds of dust with which they had smothered a parched countryside. They had gone back whence they came―beyond the Bridge to Greece, beyond the Hellespont.
But evidence of the havoc they had wrought still scarred the countryside from Thrace to Attica. The charred remains of farmsteads, the shallow graves, the felled forests, the trodden fields, and the bleached bones of slaughtered livestock marked the passing of a million men come to trample Greece into submission. It would take years, maybe decades, to recover.
But the invaders were not just gone―they had been defeated. And not just once, but twice: by sea at Salamis and by land at Plataea. They would not return again anytime soon.
Today, on the second anniversary of the last day of the battle, dignitaries from all city-states in the anti-Persian Confederation had gathered to pay homage to those who died at Thermopylae by dedicating monuments marking the battle that had taken place here. It was not common to commemorate a lost battle or to honor the defeated, but the defense at Thermopylae had struck a chord in Greek hearts. Already, and dangerously, the dead heroes here were more revered than the men who had led the allies to victory: the Spartan Pausanias, the Tegean Chileos, and Themistocles, of course, who headed the Athenian delegation.
The Peloponnesians had erected a joint monument that boasted: Four thousand here from Pelops’ land, Against a million once did stand―an exaggeration, Themistocles felt, considering that the bulk of them had fled in the end. Nevertheless, Themistocles reflected, the Peloponnesian monument was more seemly than the oversized one of a hoplite that the Thebans had put up for the four hundred of their men who had fought with Leonidas; its extravagance was apparently a futile effort to distract future generations from the fact that Thebes had switched sides afterward and fought with Persia at Plataea. That made Thebes the only city in Greece that had managed to be on the losing side in both battles, Themistocles reflected spitefully.
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