Sparta 300 Warum nur wählten die Spartaner den sicheren Tod?
Das Jahr vor Christi Geburt. Griechenland steht vor der schwersten Schlacht seiner Geschichte, denn Persiens König Xerxes rüstet sich für einen alles vernichtenden Eroberungsfeldzug. Die griechischen Befehlshaber sind ratlos, denn einer. Erzählt wird aus der Sicht von Dilios, einem Soldaten aus Sparta. Die Spartaner werden als ein Volk von gnadenlosen Kriegern gezeigt, die missgebildete. spartanische Hopliten, Tegeaten und Mantineer, aus Orchomenos, aus dem restlichen Arkadien, aus Korinth, aus Phleius, 80 aus. Der Mythos um Spartaner wichtigen Gebirgsschlucht an der griechischen Ostküste, trifft Xerxes' Heer auf die Männer aus Sparta. Die Toten der Thermopylen waren seitdem ein ausreichender Grund, allen Griechen Respekt, ja Angst vor Sparta einzuflößen. Das hatten. Mit „“ brachte der amerikanische Regisseur Zack Snyder die Geschichte der historischen Schlacht an den Thermophylen v. Chr. in. zieht Leonidas, König von Sparta, mit nur Soldaten gegen eine Armee von 1 Million in die legendäre Schlacht bei den Thermopylen. Mit:Gerard Butler,Lena.
Sparta 300 Die Spartaner waren gar nicht so nett
Aber bereits kurze Zeit später wurden sie zu Helden und Vorbildern ganzer Generationen. Home Geschichte Thermopylen v. Namensräume Artikel Diskussion. Also einigte man sich darauf, mit einem Vorauskommando den Thermopylen-Pass zu besetzen, während die vereinigte Flotte die Perser am Kap Artemision im Norden der Meerjungfrau Englisch Euböa aufhalten sollte. Die Griechen hatten keine Chance, Überlebende gab Auftragskiller nicht. Damals kämpften bei den Thermopylen in Mittelgriechenland wenige Tausend griechische Krieger gegen das Heer des persischen Weltreichs. Das Kommando über die Truppen hatte der spartanische König Leonidas.Sparta 300 Navigation menu Video
Spartan Warrior (300 Spartans). - The Best Documentary Ever Tom Wood Truppen, deren Heimatländer Natürlich Blond Kinox hinter dem Pass lagen und daher unmittelbar der Plünderung durch die Perser ausgesetzt sein würden, schlossen sich Leonidas an. Leonidas lasse überhaupt keine Strategie erkennen. Aber Athen und Sparta verweigerten sich. Welle um Welle griff die dicht gedrängte Phalanx der schwer gepanzerten griechischen Hopliten an, deren Zentrum die spartanischen Elitekrieger bildeten. Also Let It Shine man sich darauf, mit einem Vorauskommando den Thermopylen-Pass zu besetzen, während die vereinigte Flotte die Perser am Kap Artemision im Norden der Insel Euböa aufhalten sollte. Zugelassene Drittanbieter verwenden diese Tools auch in Verbindung mit der Anzeige von Werbung durch uns. Auch im Film "" erinnert viel an den Heroenkult der Faschisten.Hoplites were armed with a round shield, spear and iron short sword. In battle, they used a formation called a phalanx, in which rows of hoplites stood directly next to each other so that their shields overlapped with one another.
During a frontal attack, this wall of shields provided significant protection to the warriors behind it. If the phalanx broke or if the enemy attacked from the side or the rear, however, the formation became vulnerable.
Although these many city-states vied with one another for control of land and resources, they also banded together to defend themselves from foreign invasion.
Twice at the beginning of the fifth century B. In B. Under Xerxes I, the Persian army moved south through Greece on the eastern coast, accompanied by the Persian navy moving parallel to the shore.
In the late summer of B. Leonidas established his army at Thermopylae, expecting that the narrow pass would funnel the Persian army toward his own force.
For two days, the Greeks withstood the determined attacks of their far more numerous enemy. A local Greek told Xerxes about this other route and led the Persian army across it, enabling them to surround the Greeks.
Much of the Greek force retreated rather than face the Persian army. An army of Spartans, Thespians and Thebans remained to fight the Persians.
Leonidas and the Spartans with him were all killed, along with most of their remaining allies. In September B. Leonidas achieved lasting fame for his personal sacrifice.
Hero cults were an established custom in ancient Greece from the eighth century B. Dead heroes were worshipped, usually near their burial site, as intermediaries to the gods.
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The Battle of Marathon in B. The battle was fought on the Marathon plain of northeastern Attica and marked the first blows of the Greco-Persian War.
With the Persians closing in on the Greek capitol, Athenian general One of the greatest ancient historians, Thucydides c. The two most powerful city-states in ancient Greece, Athens and Sparta, went to war with each other from to B.
The Peloponnesian War marked a significant power shift in ancient Greece, favoring Sparta, and also ushered in a period of regional decline that signaled the The classical period was an era of war and conflict—first between the Greeks and the Persians, then between the The story of the Trojan War—the Bronze Age conflict between the kingdoms of Troy and Mycenaean Greece—straddles the history and mythology of ancient Greece and inspired the greatest writers of antiquity, from Homer, Herodotus and Sophocles to Virgil.
For the number of them that disappeared beneath the mud was great. It is also said that on the southern side of the track stood cliffs that overlooked the pass.
However, a glance at any photograph of the pass shows there are no cliffs, only steep slopes covered in thorny bushes and trees. Although no obstacle to individuals, such terrain would not be passable by an army and its baggage train.
On the north side of the roadway was the Malian Gulf , into which the land shelved gently. When at a later date, an army of Gauls led by Brennus attempted to force the pass, the shallowness of the water gave the Greek fleet great difficulty getting close enough to the fighting to bombard the Gauls with ship-borne missile weapons.
Along the path itself was a series of three constrictions, or "gates" pylai , and at the centre gate a wall that had been erected by the Phocians, in the previous century, to aid in their defence against Thessalian invasions.
The terrain of the battlefield was nothing that Xerxes and his forces were accustomed to. Although coming from a mountainous country, the Persians were not prepared for the real nature of the country they had invaded.
The pure ruggedness of this area is caused by torrential downpours for four months of the year, combined with an intense summer season of scorching heat that cracks the ground.
Vegetation is scarce and consists of low, thorny shrubs. The hillsides along the pass are covered in thick brush, with some plants reaching 10 feet 3.
With the sea on one side and steep, impassable hills on the other, King Leonidas and his men chose the perfect topographical position to battle the Persian invaders.
Today, the pass is not near the sea, but is several kilometres inland because of sedimentation in the Malian Gulf. The old track appears at the foot of the hills around the plain, flanked by a modern road.
On the fifth day after the Persian arrival at Thermopylae and the first day of the battle, Xerxes finally resolved to attack the Greeks.
First, he ordered 5, archers to shoot a barrage of arrows, but they were ineffective; they shot from at least yards away, according to modern day scholars, and the Greeks' wooden shields sometimes covered with a very thin layer of bronze and bronze helmets deflected the arrows.
According to Herodotus and Diodorus, the king, having taken the measure of the enemy, threw his best troops into a second assault the same day, the Immortals , an elite corps of 10, men.
On the second day, Xerxes again sent in the infantry to attack the pass, "supposing that their enemies, being so few, were now disabled by wounds and could no longer resist.
Later that day, however, as the Persian king was pondering what to do next, he received a windfall; a Trachinian named Ephialtes informed him of the mountain path around Thermopylae and offered to guide the Persian army.
Herodotus reports that Xerxes sent his commander Hydarnes that evening, with the men under his command, the Immortals, to encircle the Greeks via the path.
However, he does not say who those men were. Anopaea behind the cliffs that flanked the pass. It branched, with one path leading to Phocis and the other down to the Malian Gulf at Alpenus, the first town of Locris.
At daybreak on the third day, the Phocians guarding the path above Thermopylae became aware of the outflanking Persian column by the rustling of oak leaves.
Herodotus says they jumped up and were greatly amazed. Learning from a runner that the Phocians had not held the path, Leonidas called a council of war at dawn.
While many of the Greeks took him up on his offer and fled, around two thousand soldiers stayed behind to fight and die. Knowing that the end was near, the Greeks marched into the open field and met the Persians head-on.
Many of the Greek contingents then either chose to withdraw without orders or were ordered to leave by Leonidas Herodotus admits that there is some doubt about which actually happened.
Leonidas' actions have been the subject of much discussion. It is commonly stated that the Spartans were obeying the laws of Sparta by not retreating.
It has also been proposed that the failure to retreat from Thermopylae gave rise to the notion that Spartans never retreated.
The most likely theory is that Leonidas chose to form a rearguard so that the other Greek contingents could get away. If they had all remained at the pass, they would have been encircled and would eventually have all been killed.
The Thebans have also been the subject of some discussion. Herodotus suggests they were brought to the battle as hostages to ensure the good behavior of Thebes.
However, this alone does not explain the fact that they remained; the remainder of Thespiae was successfully evacuated before the Persians arrived there.
At dawn, Xerxes made libations , pausing to allow the Immortals sufficient time to descend the mountain, and then began his advance. The Greeks this time sallied forth from the wall to meet the Persians in the wider part of the pass, in an attempt to slaughter as many Persians as they could.
Tearing down part of the wall, Xerxes ordered the hill surrounded, and the Persians rained down arrows until every last Greek was dead.
The pass at Thermopylae was thus opened to the Persian army, according to Herodotus, at the cost to the Persians of up to 20, fatalities.
When the Persians recovered Leonidas' body, Xerxes, in a rage, ordered that the body be decapitated and crucified. Herodotus observes this was very uncommon for the Persians, as they traditionally treated "valiant warriors" with great honour the example of Pytheas, captured off Skiathos before the Battle of Artemisium , strengthens this suggestion.
Legend has it that he had the very water of the Hellespont whipped because it would not obey him. After the Persians' departure, the Greeks collected their dead and buried them on the hill.
After the Persian invasion was repulsed, a stone lion was erected at Thermopylae to commemorate Leonidas. With Thermopylae now opened to the Persian army, the continuation of the blockade at Artemisium by the Greek fleet became irrelevant.
The simultaneous naval Battle of Artemisium had been a tactical stalemate, and the Greek navy was able to retreat in good order to the Saronic Gulf , where they helped to ferry the remaining Athenian citizens to the island of Salamis.
Following Thermopylae, the Persian army proceeded to sack and burn Plataea and Thespiae , the Boeotian cities that had not submitted, before it marched on the now evacuated city of Athens and accomplished the Achaemenid destruction of Athens.
Luring the Persian navy into the Straits of Salamis, the Greek fleet was able to destroy much of the Persian fleet in the Battle of Salamis , which essentially ended the threat to the Peloponnese.
Fearing the Greeks might attack the bridges across the Hellespont and trap his army in Europe, Xerxes now retreated with much of the Persian army back to Asia, [] though nearly all of them died of starvation and disease on the return voyage.
Thermopylae is arguably the most famous battle in European ancient history, repeatedly referenced in ancient, recent, and contemporary culture.
In Western culture at least, it is the Greeks who are lauded for their performance in battle. The battle itself had shown that even when heavily outnumbered, the Greeks could put up an effective fight against the Persians, and the defeat at Thermopylae had turned Leonidas and the men under his command into martyrs.
That boosted the morale of all Greek soldiers in the second Persian invasion. It is sometimes stated that Thermopylae was a Pyrrhic victory for the Persians [] [] i.
However, there is no suggestion by Herodotus that the effect on the Persian forces was that. The idea ignores the fact that the Persians would, in the aftermath of Thermopylae, conquer the majority of Greece, [] and the fact that they were still fighting in Greece a year later.
For instance, Cawkwell states: "he was successful on both land and sea, and the Great Invasion began with a brilliant success. Xerxes had every reason to congratulate himself", [] while Lazenby describes the Greek defeat as "disastrous".
The fame of Thermopylae is thus principally derived not from its effect on the outcome of the war but for the inspirational example it set.
So almost immediately, contemporary Greeks saw Thermopylae as a critical moral and culture lesson. In universal terms, a small, free people had willingly outfought huge numbers of imperial subjects who advanced under the lash.
More specifically, the Western idea that soldiers themselves decide where, how, and against whom they will fight was contrasted against the Eastern notion of despotism and monarchy—freedom proving the stronger idea as the more courageous fighting of the Greeks at Thermopylae, and their later victories at Salamis and Plataea attested.
While this paradigm of "free men" outfighting "slaves" can be seen as a rather sweeping over-generalization there are many counter-examples , it is nevertheless true that many commentators have used Thermopylae to illustrate this point.
Militarily, although the battle was actually not decisive in the context of the Persian invasion, Thermopylae is of some significance on the basis of the first two days of fighting.
The performance of the defenders is used as an example of the advantages of training, equipment, and good use of terrain as force multipliers.
There are several monuments around the battlefield of Thermopylae. One of which is a statue of King Leonidas I, portrayed as bearing a spear, and shield.
A well-known epigram , usually attributed to Simonides , was engraved as an epitaph on a commemorative stone placed on top of the burial mound of the Spartans at Thermopylae.
It is also the hill on which the last of them died. The text from Herodotus is: [70]. The form of this ancient Greek poetry is an elegiac couplet , commonly used for epitaphs.
Some English renderings are given in the table below. It is also an example of Laconian brevity , which allows for varying interpretations of the meaning of the poem.
It was well known in ancient Greece that all the Spartans who had been sent to Thermopylae had been killed there with the exception of Aristodemus and Pantites , and the epitaph exploits the conceit that there was nobody left to bring the news of their deeds back to Sparta.
Greek epitaphs often appealed to the passing reader always called 'stranger' for sympathy, but the epitaph for the dead Spartans at Thermopylae took this convention much further than usual, asking the reader to make a personal journey to Sparta to break the news that the Spartan expeditionary force had been wiped out.
The stranger is also asked to stress that the Spartans died 'fulfilling their orders'. A variant of the epigram is inscribed on the Polish Cemetery at Monte Cassino.
John Ruskin expressed the importance of this ideal to Western civilization as follows:. Also obedience in its highest form is not obedience to a constant and compulsory law, but a persuaded or voluntary yielded obedience to an issued command His name who leads the armies of Heaven is "Faithful and True" Cicero recorded a Latin variation in his Tusculanae Disputationes 1.
It features a bronze statue of Leonidas. The metope below depicts battle scenes. The two marble statues on the left and the right of the monument represent, respectively, the river Eurotas and Mount Taygetos , famous landmarks of Sparta.
In , a second monument was officially unveiled by the Greek government, dedicated to the Thespians who fought with the Spartans.
The monument is made of marble and features a bronze statue depicting the god Eros , to whom the ancient Thespians accorded particular religious veneration.
Under the statue, a sign reads: "In memory of the seven hundred Thespians. Herodotus' colorful account of the battle has provided history with many apocryphal incidents and conversations away from the main historical events.
These accounts are obviously not verifiable, but they form an integral part of the legend of the battle and often demonstrate the laconic speech and wit of the Spartans to good effect.
For instance, Plutarch recounts, in his Sayings of Spartan Women , upon his departure, Leonidas' wife Gorgo asked what she should do if he did not return, to which Leonidas replied, "Marry a good man and have good children.
It is reported that, upon arriving at Thermopylae, the Persians sent a mounted scout to reconnoitre. The Greeks allowed him to come up to the camp, observe them, and depart.
Xerxes found the scout's reports of the size of the Greek force, and that the Spartans were indulging in callisthenics and combing their long hair, laughable.
Seeking the counsel of Demaratus , an exiled Spartan king in his retinue, Xerxes was told the Spartans were preparing for battle, and it was their custom to adorn their hair when they were about to risk their lives.
Demaratus called them "the bravest men in Greece" and warned the Great King they intended to dispute the pass. He emphasized that he had tried to warn Xerxes earlier in the campaign, but the king had refused to believe him.
He added that if Xerxes ever managed to subdue the Spartans, "there is no other nation in all the world which will venture to lift a hand in their defence.
Herodotus also describes Leonidas' reception of a Persian envoy. The ambassador told Leonidas that Xerxes would offer him the kingship of all Greece if he joined with Xerxes.
Leonidas answered: "If you had any knowledge of the noble things of life, you would refrain from coveting others' possessions; but for me to die for Greece is better than to be the sole ruler over the people of my race.
Such laconic bravery doubtlessly helped to maintain morale. Herodotus writes that when Dienekes , a Spartan soldier, was informed that Persian arrows would be so numerous as "to block out the sun", he retorted, "So much the better After the battle, Xerxes was curious as to what the Greeks had been trying to do presumably because they had had so few men and had some Arcadian deserters interrogated in his presence.
The answer was: all the other men were participating in the Olympic Games. When Xerxes asked what the prize was for the winner, the answer was: "an olive-wreath".
Upon hearing this, Tigranes , a Persian general, said: "Good heavens, Mardonius , what kind of men are these that you have pitted against us?
It is not for riches that they contend but for honour! Men that fight not for gold, but for glory. The Battle of Thermopylae has remained a cultural icon of western civilization ever since it was fought.
The battle is revisited in countless adages and works of popular culture, such as in films e. The battle is also discussed in many articles and books on the theory and practice of warfare.
Prior to the battle, the Hellenes remembered the Dorians , an ethnic distinction which applied to the Spartans , as the conquerors and displacers of the Ionians in the Peloponnesus.
After the battle, Spartan culture became an inspiration and object of emulation, a phenomenon known as Laconophilia. Greece has announced two commemorative coins to mark years since the historic battle.
Similarities between the Battle of Thermopylae and the Battle of Persian Gate have been recognized by both ancient and modern authors, [] which describe it as a kind of reversal of the Battle of Thermopylae, [] calling it "the Persian Thermopylae".
There are even accounts that a local shepherd informed Alexander's forces about the secret path, just as a local Greek showed the Persian forces a secret path around the pass at Thermopylae.
No real consensus exists; even the most recent estimates by academics vary between , and , As Holland puts it, "in short From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For other battles at Thermopylae, see Battle of Thermopylae disambiguation. For the film, see The Spartans.
Persians defeated Greek states in BC. Second Persian invasion of Greece. Main article: Herodotus. Main article: Battle of Thermopylae in popular culture.
Main article: Sparta in popular culture. Ancient Greece portal Greece portal War portal. Retrieved 26 November Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 30 August The Organization of Xerxes' Army.
Iranica Antiqua Vol. Understanding Emerson: "The American scholar" and his struggle for self-reliance. Princeton University Press.
The Greek and Persian Wars B. London: Pan. New York: Da Capo Press. Thereupon the Spartans sent these men to Media for execution.
The Battle for the West: Thermopylae.
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At daybreak on the third day, the Phocians guarding the path above Thermopylae became aware of the outflanking Persian column by Sparta 300 rustling of oak leaves. Ephor 2 Kelly Craig I'd rather die in honor then live in shame! Thereupon the Spartans sent these men to Media for execution. Was this review helpful to you? It is also an example of Laconian brevitywhich allows for varying interpretations of the meaning of the poem. In a later passage, describing a Gaulish attempt to force the pass, Pausanias states "The cavalry on both sides proved useless, as the ground at the Pass is not only narrow, but also smooth because of the Weihnachtsherzen rock, while most of it is slippery owing to its being covered with streams Almost everything that is known about Leonidas comes from the work of the Greek historian Herodotus c. According to Herodotus [51] [67] and Diodorus Menderes[68] the Greek army included the Telekom Sport App forces:. barberadelnebbioso.eu: Kostenlose Lieferung und Rückgabe. Infidel Sparta Spartaner Krieger Kämpfer Leonidas Schlacht Helm Schild Molon. Chr., am dritten Tag der Schlacht bei den Thermopylen, Spartaner den nur 15m breiten Engpass gegen eine Übermacht von geschätzt. Sparta 300 - Weitere Details
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Edit Cast Cast overview, first billed only: Gerard Butler King Leonidas Lena Headey Queen Gorgo Dominic West Theron David Wenham Dilios Vincent Regan Captain Michael Fassbender Stelios Tom Wisdom Astinos Andrew Pleavin Daxos Andrew Tiernan Ephialtes Rodrigo Santoro Xerxes Giovani Cimmino Loyalist Greg Kramer By turns charismatic and ruthless, brilliant and power hungry, diplomatic and The term Ancient, or Archaic, Greece refers to the years B.
Archaic Greece saw advances in art, poetry and technology, but is known as the age in which the polis, or city-state, was The so-called golden age of Athenian culture flourished under the leadership of Pericles B.
Pericles transformed his Live TV. This Day In History. History at Home. Training as a Hoplite Leonidas was the son of the Spartan king Anaxandrides died c.
Battle of Thermopylae Under Xerxes I, the Persian army moved south through Greece on the eastern coast, accompanied by the Persian navy moving parallel to the shore.
Last Stand of the The Kill Zone. Spartans: Implements of Death. The Battle of Marathon. Julius Caesar. Thucydides One of the greatest ancient historians, Thucydides c.
Peloponnesian War The two most powerful city-states in ancient Greece, Athens and Sparta, went to war with each other from to B.
Trojan War The story of the Trojan War—the Bronze Age conflict between the kingdoms of Troy and Mycenaean Greece—straddles the history and mythology of ancient Greece and inspired the greatest writers of antiquity, from Homer, Herodotus and Sophocles to Virgil.
Herodotus Herodotus was a Greek writer and geographer credited with being the first historian. Pericles The so-called golden age of Athenian culture flourished under the leadership of Pericles B.
Although no obstacle to individuals, such terrain would not be passable by an army and its baggage train. On the north side of the roadway was the Malian Gulf , into which the land shelved gently.
When at a later date, an army of Gauls led by Brennus attempted to force the pass, the shallowness of the water gave the Greek fleet great difficulty getting close enough to the fighting to bombard the Gauls with ship-borne missile weapons.
Along the path itself was a series of three constrictions, or "gates" pylai , and at the centre gate a wall that had been erected by the Phocians, in the previous century, to aid in their defence against Thessalian invasions.
The terrain of the battlefield was nothing that Xerxes and his forces were accustomed to. Although coming from a mountainous country, the Persians were not prepared for the real nature of the country they had invaded.
The pure ruggedness of this area is caused by torrential downpours for four months of the year, combined with an intense summer season of scorching heat that cracks the ground.
Vegetation is scarce and consists of low, thorny shrubs. The hillsides along the pass are covered in thick brush, with some plants reaching 10 feet 3.
With the sea on one side and steep, impassable hills on the other, King Leonidas and his men chose the perfect topographical position to battle the Persian invaders.
Today, the pass is not near the sea, but is several kilometres inland because of sedimentation in the Malian Gulf. The old track appears at the foot of the hills around the plain, flanked by a modern road.
On the fifth day after the Persian arrival at Thermopylae and the first day of the battle, Xerxes finally resolved to attack the Greeks. First, he ordered 5, archers to shoot a barrage of arrows, but they were ineffective; they shot from at least yards away, according to modern day scholars, and the Greeks' wooden shields sometimes covered with a very thin layer of bronze and bronze helmets deflected the arrows.
According to Herodotus and Diodorus, the king, having taken the measure of the enemy, threw his best troops into a second assault the same day, the Immortals , an elite corps of 10, men.
On the second day, Xerxes again sent in the infantry to attack the pass, "supposing that their enemies, being so few, were now disabled by wounds and could no longer resist.
Later that day, however, as the Persian king was pondering what to do next, he received a windfall; a Trachinian named Ephialtes informed him of the mountain path around Thermopylae and offered to guide the Persian army.
Herodotus reports that Xerxes sent his commander Hydarnes that evening, with the men under his command, the Immortals, to encircle the Greeks via the path.
However, he does not say who those men were. Anopaea behind the cliffs that flanked the pass. It branched, with one path leading to Phocis and the other down to the Malian Gulf at Alpenus, the first town of Locris.
At daybreak on the third day, the Phocians guarding the path above Thermopylae became aware of the outflanking Persian column by the rustling of oak leaves.
Herodotus says they jumped up and were greatly amazed. Learning from a runner that the Phocians had not held the path, Leonidas called a council of war at dawn.
While many of the Greeks took him up on his offer and fled, around two thousand soldiers stayed behind to fight and die. Knowing that the end was near, the Greeks marched into the open field and met the Persians head-on.
Many of the Greek contingents then either chose to withdraw without orders or were ordered to leave by Leonidas Herodotus admits that there is some doubt about which actually happened.
Leonidas' actions have been the subject of much discussion. It is commonly stated that the Spartans were obeying the laws of Sparta by not retreating.
It has also been proposed that the failure to retreat from Thermopylae gave rise to the notion that Spartans never retreated.
The most likely theory is that Leonidas chose to form a rearguard so that the other Greek contingents could get away.
If they had all remained at the pass, they would have been encircled and would eventually have all been killed.
The Thebans have also been the subject of some discussion. Herodotus suggests they were brought to the battle as hostages to ensure the good behavior of Thebes.
However, this alone does not explain the fact that they remained; the remainder of Thespiae was successfully evacuated before the Persians arrived there.
At dawn, Xerxes made libations , pausing to allow the Immortals sufficient time to descend the mountain, and then began his advance.
The Greeks this time sallied forth from the wall to meet the Persians in the wider part of the pass, in an attempt to slaughter as many Persians as they could.
Tearing down part of the wall, Xerxes ordered the hill surrounded, and the Persians rained down arrows until every last Greek was dead. The pass at Thermopylae was thus opened to the Persian army, according to Herodotus, at the cost to the Persians of up to 20, fatalities.
When the Persians recovered Leonidas' body, Xerxes, in a rage, ordered that the body be decapitated and crucified. Herodotus observes this was very uncommon for the Persians, as they traditionally treated "valiant warriors" with great honour the example of Pytheas, captured off Skiathos before the Battle of Artemisium , strengthens this suggestion.
Legend has it that he had the very water of the Hellespont whipped because it would not obey him. After the Persians' departure, the Greeks collected their dead and buried them on the hill.
After the Persian invasion was repulsed, a stone lion was erected at Thermopylae to commemorate Leonidas. With Thermopylae now opened to the Persian army, the continuation of the blockade at Artemisium by the Greek fleet became irrelevant.
The simultaneous naval Battle of Artemisium had been a tactical stalemate, and the Greek navy was able to retreat in good order to the Saronic Gulf , where they helped to ferry the remaining Athenian citizens to the island of Salamis.
Following Thermopylae, the Persian army proceeded to sack and burn Plataea and Thespiae , the Boeotian cities that had not submitted, before it marched on the now evacuated city of Athens and accomplished the Achaemenid destruction of Athens.
Luring the Persian navy into the Straits of Salamis, the Greek fleet was able to destroy much of the Persian fleet in the Battle of Salamis , which essentially ended the threat to the Peloponnese.
Fearing the Greeks might attack the bridges across the Hellespont and trap his army in Europe, Xerxes now retreated with much of the Persian army back to Asia, [] though nearly all of them died of starvation and disease on the return voyage.
Thermopylae is arguably the most famous battle in European ancient history, repeatedly referenced in ancient, recent, and contemporary culture.
In Western culture at least, it is the Greeks who are lauded for their performance in battle. The battle itself had shown that even when heavily outnumbered, the Greeks could put up an effective fight against the Persians, and the defeat at Thermopylae had turned Leonidas and the men under his command into martyrs.
That boosted the morale of all Greek soldiers in the second Persian invasion. It is sometimes stated that Thermopylae was a Pyrrhic victory for the Persians [] [] i.
However, there is no suggestion by Herodotus that the effect on the Persian forces was that. The idea ignores the fact that the Persians would, in the aftermath of Thermopylae, conquer the majority of Greece, [] and the fact that they were still fighting in Greece a year later.
For instance, Cawkwell states: "he was successful on both land and sea, and the Great Invasion began with a brilliant success.
Xerxes had every reason to congratulate himself", [] while Lazenby describes the Greek defeat as "disastrous".
The fame of Thermopylae is thus principally derived not from its effect on the outcome of the war but for the inspirational example it set.
So almost immediately, contemporary Greeks saw Thermopylae as a critical moral and culture lesson. In universal terms, a small, free people had willingly outfought huge numbers of imperial subjects who advanced under the lash.
More specifically, the Western idea that soldiers themselves decide where, how, and against whom they will fight was contrasted against the Eastern notion of despotism and monarchy—freedom proving the stronger idea as the more courageous fighting of the Greeks at Thermopylae, and their later victories at Salamis and Plataea attested.
While this paradigm of "free men" outfighting "slaves" can be seen as a rather sweeping over-generalization there are many counter-examples , it is nevertheless true that many commentators have used Thermopylae to illustrate this point.
Militarily, although the battle was actually not decisive in the context of the Persian invasion, Thermopylae is of some significance on the basis of the first two days of fighting.
The performance of the defenders is used as an example of the advantages of training, equipment, and good use of terrain as force multipliers.
There are several monuments around the battlefield of Thermopylae. One of which is a statue of King Leonidas I, portrayed as bearing a spear, and shield.
A well-known epigram , usually attributed to Simonides , was engraved as an epitaph on a commemorative stone placed on top of the burial mound of the Spartans at Thermopylae.
It is also the hill on which the last of them died. The text from Herodotus is: [70]. The form of this ancient Greek poetry is an elegiac couplet , commonly used for epitaphs.
Some English renderings are given in the table below. It is also an example of Laconian brevity , which allows for varying interpretations of the meaning of the poem.
It was well known in ancient Greece that all the Spartans who had been sent to Thermopylae had been killed there with the exception of Aristodemus and Pantites , and the epitaph exploits the conceit that there was nobody left to bring the news of their deeds back to Sparta.
Greek epitaphs often appealed to the passing reader always called 'stranger' for sympathy, but the epitaph for the dead Spartans at Thermopylae took this convention much further than usual, asking the reader to make a personal journey to Sparta to break the news that the Spartan expeditionary force had been wiped out.
The stranger is also asked to stress that the Spartans died 'fulfilling their orders'. A variant of the epigram is inscribed on the Polish Cemetery at Monte Cassino.
John Ruskin expressed the importance of this ideal to Western civilization as follows:. Also obedience in its highest form is not obedience to a constant and compulsory law, but a persuaded or voluntary yielded obedience to an issued command His name who leads the armies of Heaven is "Faithful and True" Cicero recorded a Latin variation in his Tusculanae Disputationes 1.
It features a bronze statue of Leonidas. The metope below depicts battle scenes. The two marble statues on the left and the right of the monument represent, respectively, the river Eurotas and Mount Taygetos , famous landmarks of Sparta.
In , a second monument was officially unveiled by the Greek government, dedicated to the Thespians who fought with the Spartans.
The monument is made of marble and features a bronze statue depicting the god Eros , to whom the ancient Thespians accorded particular religious veneration.
Under the statue, a sign reads: "In memory of the seven hundred Thespians. Herodotus' colorful account of the battle has provided history with many apocryphal incidents and conversations away from the main historical events.
These accounts are obviously not verifiable, but they form an integral part of the legend of the battle and often demonstrate the laconic speech and wit of the Spartans to good effect.
For instance, Plutarch recounts, in his Sayings of Spartan Women , upon his departure, Leonidas' wife Gorgo asked what she should do if he did not return, to which Leonidas replied, "Marry a good man and have good children.
It is reported that, upon arriving at Thermopylae, the Persians sent a mounted scout to reconnoitre. The Greeks allowed him to come up to the camp, observe them, and depart.
Xerxes found the scout's reports of the size of the Greek force, and that the Spartans were indulging in callisthenics and combing their long hair, laughable.
Seeking the counsel of Demaratus , an exiled Spartan king in his retinue, Xerxes was told the Spartans were preparing for battle, and it was their custom to adorn their hair when they were about to risk their lives.
Demaratus called them "the bravest men in Greece" and warned the Great King they intended to dispute the pass.
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