by Ted Stewart
The Greek attack was not intended to confront the enemy in full force—its main purpose was to measure the strengths and weaknesses of each side. During the brief engagement, the Greeks learned several important lessons. First, the superior number of Persian ships was a disadvantage that the Greeks would not surmount easily, especially because their own ships were slower than the Persian vessels. In battle on the open sea, the Persians could envelop and decimate the Greeks. But the Greeks also learned that, if they acted with cunning and courage, they could be formidable foes in ship-to-ship warfare.
That night the Persians made a secret effort to surround the small Greek navy and destroy it. After they had moved away from the safety of the coast, however, another horrible gale struck. Two hundred Persian vessels were caught at sea. Most of them were lost.
The gods of war were not smiling on the Persian forces. The first day of battle had been a humiliating defeat on the land and sea.
The night would have been a hard one for the soldiers and the sailors. The gale raged for hours. The wind and rain would have made sleep nearly impossible, and a day of blood and killing cannot be followed by peaceful dreams, especially when it is known that the next day will be the same.
Thermopylae Pass Ninety-Eight Miles Northwest of Athens
The Greek was not loyal to the king of Sparta, or Athens, or any other city-state. He was not motivated by love of country or freedom or any other abstract concept.
The things that motivated him were far more tangible. Life. Money. Power. The favor of the king of Persia, a man who could give him the things that he most desired. Xerxes would certainly win this battle. The Greek had to gain his favor now.
He crept along the outskirts of the massive army, searching, prodding, looking for the right location, trying to find the best place to make his move. He had to do it right or they would surely kill him. After making contact, he would have to say the right things. Grovel at the right time and stand proud at the next. He would get only one chance and he had to get it right.
Finally, just as the moon was dipping toward the eastern sky and Mars was falling behind a low bank of clouds hanging over the cold waters of the sea, he found what he was looking for: a small band of Persians standing around the dying embers of a fire. Golden headbands and oval shields. Immortals standing guard.
The traitor took a deep breath. This was it! It was death or riches.
Moving from the shadows, he disarmed himself, dropping his father’s small dagger, the only weapon he had. Then he called out to the Immortals who stood around the dying fire, their spears sticking in the sand. “Persians,” he hissed through the darkness. “My brothers, I come in peace.”
The Persian soldiers sprang to life. Grabbing their swords and spears, they moved toward the sound of the man’s voice.
The dim moon cast enough light to show his shadow upon the ground. He knelt, his hands atop his head, his face staring at the dirt. “I come in the name of your leader, even the Great King Xerxes,” he cried in a desperate voice. “I must speak to him . . . he must hear me. There is something he must know.”
The leader of the Persian soldiers raced toward the cowering Greek. Standing over him, he raised his sword. The Greek pushed himself even lower, pressing his face into the sand. He closed his eyes and kept on talking, praying to his gods that the Persian would listen to him before he sliced off his head. “There is a mountain pass. A goat trail!” he cried.
The Persian seemed to hold his weapon in midair.
“High up on the mountain! I know it! I could show it! I have walked it many times. It will take your soldiers around the Greek wall, behind the Spartans. You could surround them in a short time!”
The Immortal held his sword in a strike position a long moment, then slowly lowered it and nodded to one of his men. The second soldier grabbed the intruder by his neck and jerked him off the ground. “Say what you will!” he demanded.
“This battle could be over,” the Greek stammered. “I can show you the way. But my lord . . .” here he seemed to straighten, “I do not work for free.”
What the Greek traitor said was true. There was a goat trail that began a few miles in front of Leonidas’s position. Sheer and treacherous, the trail worked its way across Mount Kallidromos before ending up a mile to the rear of the Greeks. And though it was small and isolated, it was still potentially deadly.
The Persians could use it to pass around the Greek army.
Leonidas would be surrounded.
All the Greeks would fall.
Upon learning of the great danger the mountain trail represented to his men, Leonidas had sent a thousand soldiers from a local city-state to stand guard on the trail.
Foolishly, as he would learn, he failed to send even a single Spartan to assure that the pass would be properly defended.
The Second Day
The second day of the battle at Thermopylae unfolded like the first.
Thinking the Greeks would be exhausted, Xerxes sent in fresh troops. But it did not matter—the slaughter of his forces proceeded much as it had the day before. Worse, resentment and rebellion started growing in his ranks. Having watched the previous day’s carnage, his troops had no desire to be sent to the front line. So terrified were they of the Spartan soldiers, Persian commanders had to use whips to drive some of them forward.
The day ended as had the day before.
At sea, Themistocles and his navy attacked the Persian fleet in another late afternoon hit-and-run effort. The Persians, having been battered by the storm the night before, were slow to respond, and heavy losses were once again inflicted.
Xerxes must have been frustrated as he reflected on the fortitude of the Greeks. His army had fought mightily, but had nothing to show for it. Not a yard of progress. Nothing but bodies scattered across the ground. Thousands of his men had died, maybe tens of thousands. Equally exasperating, his navy, so essential to the entire effort, was being decimated by storms and Greek maneuvers.
At this moment of frustration, the mighty Xerxes was finally brought good news. A Greek was brought before his throne. He told the king his secret. There was a pass through Mount Kallidromos. He was willing to guide the Persians. He could take them on a secret march that would bring them to the rear of Leonidas’s Greeks.
Xerxes commanded his Immortals to follow the traitor. The Immortals, who had suffered such a severe blow to their pride the day before, were thrilled at the prospect. Not only was their commander giving them the opportunity to have their pride restored, but they had the prospect of sweet revenge upon the Greeks.
The Immortals waited until dark to begin their ascent to the pass, not wanting to give away their intentions. They did not know whether the pass was guarded, but they were prepared to fight their way through whatever force they encountered.
Foolishly, without the leadership of a single Spartan, the one thousand local soldiers sent by Leonidas to guard the pass were completely unprepared. Discovered asleep, unarmed, without even guards at watch, they were taken by surprise. With the Immortals approaching up the trail, they dashed to a nearby hillside. Whether they were seeking higher ground as the best spot to defend or were simply cowards, it is not known. Either way, it did not matter. The Immortals simply passed them by and continued their march through the night.
The Final Day at Thermopylae
Leonidas was alerted by a runner of the Immortals’ approach. Knowing he was about to be surrounded, he gathered his commanders in a desperate council.
Some of the Greeks argued that the cause was now lost and a quick retreat was the only course. Others refused to give up the fight, committed to defending the pass.
In the end, most of the Greeks fled. Some, it seems, may have been commanded by the king to go in order that they might live to fight another day. One Spartan, upon being told to go back to tell their
story, answered simply, “I came with the army, not to carry messages, but to fight.” Another answered, “I should be a better man if I stayed here.”20 In the end, only Leonidas and what remained of his three hundred Spartans stayed, along with a few others who were committed to defending Greece to the bitter end—perhaps two thousand men.
Knowing that the end was near, Leonidas ordered his soldiers away from the wall and out to a broader area of the pass, leaving themselves completely unprotected. If they were doomed, he wanted his forces to have access to as many Persians as was possible.
What must the Persians have thought as they watched the hopelessly outnumbered Greeks, in utter disregard for their own safety, position themselves to inflict the greatest kill?
Even knowing that the Immortals would soon be attacking from the rear of the Greeks, the Persians did not go forth to battle with any eagerness. Indeed, Herodotus records that the Persian soldiers had to be driven again under the sting of their commanders’ whips. In addition, “Many of them were pushed into the sea and drowned; far more were trampled alive by each other, with no regard for who perished.”21
With the Immortals still somewhere on the mountain pass, the Persian slaughter commenced as it had during the two previous mornings.
At some point during the bloody melee, Leonidas was killed. A fierce battle ensued over possession of his body. The Persians wanted it as a trophy. But the Greeks were not going to easily give up the dead body of their noble king. Four times the Persians fought their way toward the body. Four times the fearless Greeks pushed them back. How many died in the fight for the remains of the fallen warrior-king is unknown, but it was many. In the end, the Greeks retained possession of their king’s body.
As the battle raged, the Immortals finally appeared, having ended their hurried march along the mountain pass. A handful of soldiers from Thebes separated themselves from the battle and surrendered. All of the others fought on. The Immortals surged forward, fighting from the rear. Surrounded, the Greeks made a courageous last stand. Most of their spears had now been hacked to pieces. They fought on with sword and shield. In the end, they were finally overcome by an onslaught of arrows—the Persians unwilling to finish the task in hand-to-hand combat.
The slaughter lasted but a few hours. Virtually all of the Greeks were killed.
As King Leonidas and his men were being slain in their courageous stand, the Persian navy was again attacking the Greek fleet. Their hope—and expectation—was to claim an identical decisive victory at sea. Yet, despite the fact that the Greeks were so outnumbered, the battle was a draw.
Upon learning of the massacre of Leonidas and his hoplites, the Greek leader Themistocles was forced to withdraw his navy from Artemisium. He sent them south to Salamis, a tiny island in the Saronic Gulf, just west of Athens.22
The narrow pass of Thermopylae was finally open. Not only that, but the Persian navy was now free of Greek resistance. Xerxes had reason to rejoice. The lands and resources to the south were within easy marching distance. But looking at the carnage around him, did Xerxes feel any joy? Or did he have to wonder how many bloody fights like this one lay ahead?
For What Purpose?
Other than the slaughter of three hundred Spartans, several thousand other brave Greeks, and maybe twenty thousand Persian soldiers, what had the three fateful days at Thermopylae accomplished?
The significance—and, despite the disheartening outcome, the battle was significant—was twofold:
First, the presence of Leonidas’s army at Thermopylae permitted the navy of Themistocles to operate at Artemisium. During those several days of storms and brief but fierce battles, the Persians lost hundreds of their ships. The success that the Greeks had in fighting the Persians confirmed that, were it not for the overwhelming advantage in Persian numbers, their ships and sailors were capable of defeating them. That advantage of numbers was at least somewhat narrowed after the debacle at Artemisium.
After witnessing the bravery and skill of the Spartan warriors, Xerxes was greatly sobered. And how could he not be? A handful of Greeks had humiliated his mighty army, striking such fear as to force him to drive his solders forward or into the sea under the crack of Persian whips.
Mulling the gloomy outcome of his victory, he asked his Spartan turncoat, Demaratus, how he could possibly defeat a large army of such courageous men. Demaratus told him that he had to divide his fleet and send three hundred ships around Greece to attack the Peloponnesian Peninsula where the city-state of Sparta was located. If those ships could roam freely around the peninsula, bringing terror, the Spartans would be forced to defend their homeland. Without the Spartans, the rest of the Greeks could easily be conquered. Once Sparta stood alone, they could then be defeated.
And the traitor was certainly right. But it did not matter any longer. After the devastating losses on the seas around Artemisium, Xerxes did not possess the naval forces for such a strategy to succeed. His fleet had been diminished to the point that dividing it was no longer possible.
Second, the battle at Thermopylae was by proper measure not a defeat; rather, it was a clear-cut case of sacrifice for a greater good. To that end, it was successful:
The death of Leonidas and of the three hundred chosen men from Lacedaemon was seen at the time for what it was: a torch, not to light a funeral pyre, but to light the hitherto divided and irresolute Greek people. . . . Without Thermopylae, there would hardly have been that extraordinary surge of pride throughout Greece which produced the spirit that was to lead to Salamis and Plataea. For the first time in their history a distinct sense of “Greekness” far overriding the almost eternal (and fratricidal) squabbles of their city-states served to unite this brilliant people.23
With the fire of Thermopylae burning in their hearts, and knowing that Greeks from throughout the entire peninsula had died in defense of all of Greece, the Persian War of 480 took on an entirely new dimension. Word spread quickly that the Greek army had been wiped out, the great Spartan king killed in a heroic battle at Thermopylae. With the sense that all of Greece was now in real jeopardy, a unity emerged that had never been seen before. United around the memory of those men who had died in defense of all of Greece, former bitter enemies put aside their differences. Some opened their gates to welcome Athenian refugees. Others volunteered their services to Themistocles.
Maybe for the first time in history, something that approached a national movement of free men stood together, voluntarily unifying to fight against an empire that sought to take their free will from them.
The Battle Turns upon the Sea
Xerxes and his army passed through Thermopylae, his navy following him along the coast. Determined to make an example for the rest of the Greeks to mull upon, Xerxes’ soldiers engaged in wholesale slaughter, rape, and destruction of everything in the little province of Phocis that lay south of Thermopylae. Many city-states, unwilling to endure the fate of Phocis, joined with Xerxes.
Weeks before, Themistocles had told the citizens of Athens to evacuate. Many had followed his advice. As the Persian army approached, panic spread among those that remained, most of them fleeing the city. Three months after crossing the Hellespont, Xerxes came to within sight of Athens, his navy covering his eastern flank. The city was mostly deserted, though a few stalwarts had stayed to defend the Acropolis, the high rock edifice that rises above the rest of the city, home of the gods of Greece. By the first week in September, those brave men had been slaughtered, the sacred site destroyed, the flames illuminating the city like a torch upon the hill.
One must wonder what Xerxes was then thinking, with Athens, deemed to be the capital of the Mediterranean West, smoldering in ruin. It was clear from the beginning of his invasion that his goal was to conquer not only Greece but the entire Mediterranean world. (Xerxes had already negotiated with Carthage, another great Mediterranean power, to support his invasion. As requested, Carth
age was simultaneously attacking Greek cities on Sicily to accomplish that joint objective.) As Xerxes watched the Acropolis glow in fire, he must have surrendered to his pride and wondered if all of the Mediterranean, and even all of Europe, would soon be in his grasp. Spain, Italy, southern France, northern Africa? What glory would be his!24
As for the Greeks, the great question was, “What next?”
The Greek fleet had taken up a defensive position at Salamis, just across a narrow strait from Athens, close enough that Themistocles and his sailors could have watched Athens burn.
With most of the Greek leaders having evacuated to Salamis, a great debate ensued, one that lasted several weeks. Finally, Themistocles convinced his fellow countrymen to fight, convincing them that the only hope they had was to defeat the Persians there and then.
Like a Thermopylae at sea, Salamis was to be their last stand.
By this point in mid-September, Xerxes also faced a crucial decision. His army had quite effectively destroyed the crops of the Grecians as they marauded through the countryside, leaving him totally dependent on his ships for resupply. The Greeks at Salamis were fully capable of harassing or destroying his resupply vessels. Worse, the weather in the Mediterranean was chancy even in the summer; now that it was September, it would only get worse.
His current situation was simply not tenable.
He too decided to stand and fight—and not only to fight, but to engage the Greek navy in a decisive battle that would rid him of the threat for good.
Athens, Greece
Themistocles knew he and King Leonidas had been betrayed at least twice and maybe many times more. Someone—it had to be a Greek—had told the Persians about the goat trail at Thermopylae. And the former Spartan king, Demaratus, had been seen among the Persians. Who knew what treachery he had committed with Xerxes, what information he had told him of the peninsula, the Spartan soldiers and their training, the local populace, the roads, the water sources and terrain.