At the narrow pass of Thermopylae, which connected Thessaly to Central Greece, some 4,000 ancient Greek soldiers await an attack of epic proportions. They will soon face the largest military force ever assembled up to that time: nearly 300,000 soldiers of the mighty Persian Empire.
The Battle of Thermopylae is one of the most famous resistances in history. It is the Alamos of the ancient world. But Thermopylae is also remembered as the battle that determined the course of Western civilization and the fate of democracy. It was the defining conflict between East and West when 300 brave warriors stayed and resisted to the end.
THE PERSIAN POWER
In 480 BC, King Xerxes , leader of the Persian Empire, arrived at the Straits of Thermopylae, leading the Persian war machine, the largest fighting force ever assembled in the ancient world. The Persian army was the largest and most sophisticated army in the world at its time. He could muster 100,000 men for battle at any given time. But for this invasion, it is believed that Xerxes mustered an even larger force. Modern estimates suggest they numbered around 300,000 men. Others, however, believe that it could have been as high as 2,000,000. It was the largest army that any living Greek had ever seen crossing his country. This huge land army was accompanied by a fleet of about 1,000 warships.
The Persian Empire was huge. Its borders stretched from the Indus River in India to the Nile River in Egypt. It was the largest empire the ancient world had ever seen and possessed enormous wealth. For five years Xerxes used his wealth to raise his army, build ships, and buy munitions and food for his invasion of Greece. His intention was to burn the city-state of Athens to the ground.One has to think about the amazing differences in the sizes of the two opponents. First, we have Greece with a population of around 500 to 600,000. It's basically nothing on the world stage, almost non-existent, if you compare it to the Persian Empire, which was made up of many millions of different peoples and was literally the largest empire in the world at the time. It was, for example, as if every state in the United States had banded together to attack Cuba.
THE CAUSES
Historians are divided as to why Xerxes invaded Greece. Some believe it was part of his expansionist policy, others that it was a campaign to punish Athens for supporting the Ionian cities in their revolt against Persia 25 years earlier. It is known, moreover, that the first attempt to invade Persia to punish Athens, during the reign of Darius, had failed miserably in the battle of Marathon. Darius planned a new invasion, but died before he could carry out his plans. Persian vengeance fell to Darius' son, Xerxes. So when Xerxes became king, he had only one thing in mind: to take revenge on Athens, and for several years he planned his massive invasion.
Whatever the reasons for Xerxes' attack, this invasion comes at a critical point in the history of Athens. Democracy, one of the basic foundations of Western civilization, is very young and this invasion threatens to kill it in its infancy.
Decisive Battles - Battle of Thermopylae - using new videogame technology
The Athenian general Themistocles had proposed that the allied Greeks block the advance of the Persian army at the pass of Thermopylae, and simultaneously block the Persian navy at the Straits of Artemisium. A Greek force of approximately 7,000 men marched north to block the pass in the middle of 480 BC. The Persian army, alleged by the ancient sources to have numbered over one million, but today considered to have been much smaller (various figures are given by scholars, ranging between about 100,000 and 150,000), arrived at the pass in late August or early September.
The vastly outnumbered Greeks held off the Persians for seven days (including three of battle) before the rear-guard was annihilated in one of history's most famous last stands. During two full days of battle, the small force led by Leonidas blocked the only road by which the massive Persian army could pass. After the second day, a local resident named Ephialtes betrayed the Greeks by revealing that a small path led behind the Greek lines. Leonidas, aware that his force was being outflanked, dismissed the bulk of the Greek army and remained to guard their retreat with 300 Spartans, 700 Thespians, 400 Thebans, and perhaps a few hundred others, most of whom were killed. At Artemisium, the Greek navy, under the command of the Athenian politician Themistocles, received news of the defeat. Since the Greek strategy required both Thermopylae and Artemisium to be held, and given their losses, it was decided to withdraw to Salamis.
The Persians overran Boeotia and then captured the evacuated Athens. The Greek fleet seeking a decisive victory over the Persian armada attacked and defeated the invaders at the Battle of Salamis in late 480 BC. Fearful of being trapped in Europe, Xerxes withdrew with much of his army to Asia (losing most to starvation and disease), leaving Mardonius to attempt to complete the conquest of Greece. However, the following year saw a Greek army decisively defeat the Persians at the Battle of Plataea, thereby ending the Persian invasion. Both ancient and modern writers have used the Battle of Thermopylae as an example of the power of a patriotic army defending its native soil. The performance of the defenders is also used as an example of the advantages of training, equipment, and good use of terrain as force multipliers and has become a symbol of courage against overwhelming odds.
THE STRAIT OF THERMOPYLUS
Xerxes assembled his army in the Persian province of Lydia, in present-day Turkey, and advanced 1,370 kilometers around the Aegean Sea towards Greece. In August 480 BC he arrived at a narrow pass, at Thermopylae, in the area where the Greeks had organized their defense and where the three-day battle would unfold. It is thought that at the time, the pass was only 180 meters wide at its widest point. On the south side of the pass was Mount Kallidromos, almost 1,524 meters high and its base was a vertical cliff, about 90 meters high. On the north side of the pass there was another cliff, projecting over the Aegean Sea. Geographically, Thermopylae was a physical barrier between Northern Greece and the inland South, where the main cities were located. There was no other way to go from North to South. So Leonidas and the Spartans and all the Greeks knew that this was the only place where they could line up and resist.If one views the battle of Thermopylae from an elevated position, what one sees is a narrow passage through which the land army had to pass. And this is an advantage for the Greeks, because they could use few men to narrow the front and have a good and important defense. Passage reduces an army's strength and turns it into a weakness. His size becomes an obstacle, because he has to move everyone through this passage. So fewer men with more flexibility can defend against more men.
The Persians had never seen Greek fighting power. In their long history, the Greeks had always fought among themselves, but now for the first time they were fighting together. Greece was not yet a unified country, but a collection of small city-states, often fighting among themselves for dominance in the region. The largest of these city-states, Athens and Sparta, were notorious rivals. But at Thermopylae they put aside their differences and fought together against the common Persian enemy.
LEONIDAS AND THE 300 SPARTANS
The leader of the Greek military coalition was the Spartan king and future hero of Thermopylae, Leonidas , one of the two kings of Sparta. He was the man chosen by the allied Greek city-states to go and hold the narrow passage of Thermopylae. He chose his soldiers and was the general in charge. His mission was to stand and fight to the death. The resistance at Thermopylae would turn Leonidas into a legend. From that moment, every Greek would know his name and what he and the 300 Spartans accomplished at Thermopylae.A Greek adviser informed Xerxes of the coalition the Spartans were leading. His account is described by the ancient Greek historian Herodotus in his work Histories, one of the earliest accounts of the battle: “ Hear me, carefully. These men have come to fight against us for the passage, and they are preparing accordingly. If you succeed in trampling them down and subduing the army that remains behind in Sparta, there will not be a tribe of men, my king, who will raise their arms against you .'
THE PERSIAN FLEET
But Xerxes did not rely on his army alone to defeat Leonidas and the Greeks' defensive line. Off the coast of Thermopylae in a narrow passage of water, called the " strait of Artemisium ," the Persian navy waited ready to sail after Leonidas' army and surround it. If the Persian navy passes Artemisium , then as Xerxes' main force hits you from the front, the navy soldiers come from behind and catch you in one move. Thus, to resist Thermopylae, you must stop the Persian navy at Artemisium. To do this, 2,000 Greek ships would have to defend the Strait of Artemisium.
Was Leonidas a fearless leader or a self-destructive madman? Xerxes struck first. About 140 meters away from the Greeks, thousands of Persian archers unleashed a barrage of arrows. This was the moment that Leonidas and the Spartans had been waiting for all their lives, because the Spartans were born to fight.
THE GREEK COALITION
In 481 BC, a year before the Battle of Thermopylae, a Greek spy reported that Xerxes I was mobilizing his army. It was a force estimated at 300,000 men, a huge number. In the eyes of the Greeks it would seem as if the whole world was coming to devour them. It would really feel like the end of the world.Despite their bad relations, the Athenians turned to one of their great rivals in the region for help: the Spartans and their king, Leonidas, who was an experienced military man. He had spent his childhood enduring the harsh training that all boys in Sparta went through to learn how to become ruthless warriors. At that time he is one of the two kings of Sparta. So when the Athenians come and ask for help, they are not fools. Leonidas is an experienced warrior, but for him personally, this appeal of the Athenians will seal his fate.
THE USE OF THE ODDONE
Before deciding whether to help the Athenians, however, the Spartans, who were very god-fearing, went to consult the Oracle of Delphi. One of the most common ways to interpret the will of the gods was through oracles. The Spartans were devoted to the Oracle of Delphi, dating back to 1400 BC. and was one of the most sacred places in Greece. Inside the temple of the Oracle, above a small chasm, the Pythia answered all those who asked for information, entering a state of trance. It was thought that ethylene fumes, coming from a gap through the ground, might be causing this Pythia behavior. Modern scientists have examined the ground beneath the temple, but their studies have been fruitless. When a priest asked her a question, she would mumble something, quite unintelligible, and the priests would then take her answer and give it to the one who asked for it.
The answer that Pythia gave to the envoys of Sparta was this: " People of Sparta, either your glorious city will be plundered by the sons of Perseus, or all Sparta will mourn the death of a king, a descendant of Heracles ". Leonidas believed that he was a descendant of Hercules and that the gods had chosen him to save Sparta. So he told the elders of Sparta that he would help the Athenians fight the Persians. He believed the oracle referred to him. His death, his sacrifice saves Sparta.
But there is another reason Leonidas decided to go to battle against the Persians. Whether Xerxes aimed to conquer Greece or not, in the minds of the Spartans this was a threat. Thus the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and therefore they send their men with the Athenians. Moreover, if you are going to have a combined military defense against the Persians, it is better to be led by the best soldiers of Greece.
But the Spartan council was not convinced and granted Leonidas only a minimal force consisting of only 300 men. I believe that when these 300 were chosen, the remaining 9,000 or so Spartan soldiers would feel that they were being cut off from a great battle, because they were born for it. They knew that this battle would bring immortality to them, their family, their children, not to mention that they would also save Greece.
Leonidas selected his best warriors, but only those who had borne children, to ensure that their offspring would survive. Did Leonidas think this was a suicide mission? Maybe yes, maybe not. What he understood was that it was a great opportunity for a great military battle and an opportunity for personal and Spartan glory, which was the original motivation for the Spartans. So the challenge for Leonidas was irresistible. He would be pitted against the Persian Empire, the most powerful fighting force in the world at the time, a war machine that had conquered the world for nearly a century.
THE PASS OF THE HELLISPOND
In 481 BC, when the Greek spy discovered Xerxes' plan, he saw not only a huge army, but also a people technologically superior to the Greeks. Xerxes would do the impossible. He would walk on water. When Xerxes reached the Hellespont, a 1.5 kilometer wide waterway connecting Asia and Europe south of the Black Sea, he wanted his army to cross it. If they were to cross overland, they would have to walk around the Black Sea, which would add about two years to their advance and require them to conquer other peoples as well.
To move his massive forces across the Hellespont, Xerxes ordered his engineers to build a 1.5 kilometer long floating bridge made from old transport ships. At the time this was being done, there was a change in ship design. New ships were being built so many of the old transport ships were available for little money. So they bought the available ships and tied them together. Xerxes' engineers placed nearly 700 ships side by side to cover the 1.5 kilometer distance. Perhaps by using boulders, from bow and stern, they anchored each ship to the bottom of the sea. Then they connected the ships with two different kinds of special cables, one made of flax and the other of papyrus. When we think of papyrus, our minds usually go to paper, but the Egyptians had found a way to turn the sticky part, called crumb, into strong, durable rope. So with ropes made of flax and papyrus, Xerxes' engineers tied the ships. The technical part of the business was these long cables that reached over 1.5 kilometers. Dozens of these sections of cable, weighing about two tons each, connected the boats and were tied to both shores. The Persians then nailed wooden planks along the rails of each ship to create a level surface upon which men and animals could walk. It was an amazing feat of engineering. The Greeks, on the other side of the Hellespont, would have stopped short, because the Persians not only had a larger army, but also understood the principles of engineering.The Persian army successfully crossed the Hellespont and continued its advance around the Aegean Sea. Almost three months later, Xerxes and a Persian force of 300,000 men arrived at Thermopylae.
THE GREEK DEFENSE LINE
Thanks to the Greek spy, the Greek coalition had already created two defensive lines: The first, was the southern part of the peninsula, on the Isthmus of Corinth, to defend the city-states of the Peloponnese, and Sparta. The other was the group that had come to the North, in the Straits of Thermopylae. Here the Spartan king, Leonidas, led a coalition army consisting of 300 Spartan warriors and 4,000 soldiers from other Greek cities. Across the sea, the Athenian general Themistocles, led the Greek navy and was preparing to face the Persian fleet in the Straits of Artemisium. The battle of Thermopylae was about to begin.
Passages are wonderful things. One man with a rifle can pin down a division if the pass is narrow enough. In ancient times, you couldn't fight more men than you faced head-on. So if you could reduce the front to a few dozen men, then 100 men can pin down 100,000 men.
As often happened in ancient times, before the battle, Xerxes tried to negotiate with Leonidas. He sends a message that says, “ You are outnumbered, facing the best army in the world. Don't be stupid. Lay down your weapons and you will live. Otherwise you will all die .' Of course, Leonidas does not accept this. Then comes the most famous line from Herodotus. The messenger says: “ Prepare to die. Our arrows will cover the sun .' To him, Dienekis, Leonidas's lieutenant, replies: " Better, because then we will fight in the shadows ." And that summed up how the battle would play out.
EQUIPMENT AND FIRST DAY OF BATTLE
The Spartans were the best and toughest soldiers in Greece. The mission of the Spartans, sent to Thermopylae, was to hold the pass or die. Leonidas and his warriors took their usual battle formation, the phalanx . The Spartans fought in platoons of 8 men long and 4 men wide, shoulder to shoulder. One looked below the other, on his right shield. So there was a wall of shields ahead, a wall of brass and wood and muscle that stood there, shining in the sunlight. All Greek soldiers were heavy infantry and were called Hoplites , from the large round shield they carried and was called Oplon . Made from a hollow piece of wood and covered by a thin sheet of brass, the shield was about one meter in diameter and weighed up to 9 kilograms. The shield hilt originated in the 6th century BC, it was called the Argolic hilt and it revolutionized warfare. The oldest shields were held by a single handle in the middle. On the Argolic shield, the soldier passed his arm through a leather loop at the waist and held a handle near the edge, thus giving it more power. So he grabbed the edge of the shield and the center of his hand held it. So much more power can be applied with this shield. The Spartans painted personal images on the face of their shields. There is a story about a Spartan who had a life-sized fly painted on his shield. When his friends asked him why, he said that he would get so close to the enemy that the fly would look like a lion.
Xerxes fulfilled his promise to hide the sun by ordering 5,000 archers to shoot their arrows. His archers were from various tribes from all corners of the Persian Empire. They probably supplied their own bows, which were usually made of palm wood, a cheap material that reduced firepower. The arrows raining down on the Greeks were no match for the heavy armor of the Hoplites. They bounced off shields and helmets, doing almost no damage because they could only enter through the eye opening. The Corinthian helmet, like the shield, protected the Hoplite from Persian arrows.
The helmet was invented in Greece around the 7th century BC. Made from a single piece of brass, the helmet offered maximum protection to the Hoplite's head. But the helmets were heavy, weighing about 4.5 kilograms, and limited the soldier's hearing and vision. While most helmets were decorated in the middle with a plume across the helmet, Spartan officers such as Leonidas wore a helmet with the plume across.Some historians believe that the Spartans wore brass breastplates to protect their torsos. However, most Hoplites, at that time, wore sophisticated lamellar armor . Their strength came from the design of the layers. Composed of glued strips of linen, leather and thin brass, the plate armor formed a kind of ancient bulletproof vest. Believe it or not, many strips of leather and linen could withstand the impact of the spear and arrow, which could not penetrate them.
The primary weapon of the Hoplite was the spear , a long spear 1.5 to 2.5 meters long. Measuring 5 centimeters in diameter and weighing 1 to 2 kilograms, the spear had a deadly point. At the back of the lance was an iron shank which provided balance and gave the Hoplite a second weapon with which to kill.
In the first clash spears were flying up and down and shouting and blood was everywhere. Probably 1,000 men were killed and most of the wounds would have been fatal because they would have been to the chest or face.The hoplite's second weapon was the sword , a two-edged iron sword, half a meter to a meter long, made to pierce and cut the enemy. But the Greeks used it only if they lost their lance or if their phalanx broke up, which did not happen very often.
The battle raged for most of the day, but was not continuous. The two sides hit and slashed at each other for a few seconds and then moved away again. Maybe one side was pulling back a bit and the others were moving forward again.Having little or no armor and carrying thin wooden shields, the Persians were easy targets. Their light infantry was not designed for such a battle. They were built for speed and for attacking organized troops on the open plains of Asia. Stuck in the narrow pass, the Persians could neither maneuver nor use their cavalry. The steep slope of Mount Kallidromos, on the one hand, and the Aegean Sea, on the other, prevented the Persian cavalry from making the flanking maneuver. If one looks at the two Greek battles that we study most often, namely Marathon and Thermopylae, one sees the skill of the Greek commanders in choosing terrain where the Persians could not bring the cavalry. At Marathon they did not take it off the ships. Even if they did, it would be of no use to them because the Greeks were wedged into a narrow front and so was Thermopylae.
With each attack, more and more Persians were slaughtered. The first day was a massacre. The Spartans with their backs formed a wall and let the waves of Persians break over them. The Persians began to get the message that it might not be a good idea to charge wave after wave against them, each of whom had their equivalent of better trained special forces.
At the end of the first day, the 300 Spartans and their Greek allies killed the remaining Persians. Leonidas understands a situation, and after the first day of battle he said he had exactly what he set out to do: " I hold one of the largest land armies ever to attack Greece, I have pinned them down here and so far they can do nothing to stop it .'
THE NAVAL BATTLE OF ARTEMISIUS
But at the same time as the battle was being fought on land, the Persians were trying to gain access to the rear of the Greek defenses by sea. A great naval battle between the Greeks and the Persians stained the Strait of Artemisium with blood.
In the Straits of Thermopylae, King Leonidas and his Spartan warriors successfully repulsed the onslaught of Persian light infantry. At the same time, far from the coast of Thermopylae, in the Strait of Artemisium, a naval battle was about to break out between the Persian and Greek fleets. If we are military-minded and think of the Battle of Thermopylae in strategic terms, the first question we might ask is: " Yes, the Spartans could hold the line, but what about at sea?" Why didn't Xerxes, with an armada of 1,000 warships, land troops behind them? ».
The Athenian navy was based at Artemisium, while the Persians were based on the opposite shore of the strait, at Afetes. The Persian objective was to break the Greek line, sail through the strait of Artemisium, which was 9.5 kilometers wide, and land troops behind Leonidas and the Greek warriors and surround them. The man responsible for blocking the Persian fleet was aboard the Athenian flagship. He is considered by many to have been the mastermind behind the land and sea defenses against the Persians and is widely regarded as one of the most brilliant experts in military tactics in the ancient world: Themistocles .
When most people think of the Battle of Thermopylae, they immediately think of the 300 Spartans or Leonidas. But in reality, the undignified hero of the battle, the man who did it all, was Themistocles. In a way he was the Winston Churchill of his time. A great Athenian statesman, with great foresight of the coming battle and a great military thinker. If it wasn't for him, there wouldn't have been the Battle of Thermopylae.
The Persian navy attempted to surround the Greek fleet by sending 200 of the 1,000 ships of the SE, around the island of Evia. Sailing around Euboea, the Persian naval commander would avoid wasting his forces in a direct attack. He knows that the Greeks are not stupid enough to attack them so he will remain at his base until the smaller force sails around Euboia and encircles the Greek fleet.
But Themistocles makes a bold move, which particularly surprises the Persian commander. In the late afternoon, the Greek fleet set sail from its base to challenge the Persian fleet, which was almost six times its size. The fact that Themistocles had the audacity to attack the powerful Persian navy was one issue, but he is also caught off guard by the timing of the attack. Starting in the afternoon he knows that the naval battle will soon be over, because the light will be gone and he cannot do naval battle in the dark. So Themistocles tries to minimize his potential losses if the naval battle gets away from him, relying on the night to end it. The Persian commander orders his 800 remaining ships into the strait. Despite the enemy's severe numerical superiority, Themistocles and his fleet attempt to sink the Persian ships in a ferocious assault. The plan was to sink the ships, ram them from the side, or render all oars useless and put them out of commission. The Greeks certainly have an uphill battle, but also a great advantage: the military intelligence of Themistocles.
THEMISTOCLES
Themistocles was the son of a merchant. If he had been born earlier in Greek history, he would have belonged to a lower class. But, in the meantime, democracy was born in Athens, allowing Themistocles to throw off the shackles of his merchant class. Due to its natural harbor, Athens developed a strong maritime tradition and became an economic and naval power in the Aegean. Many Athenians, like Themistocles, became skilled sailors, able to navigate the treacherous Greek coasts. While his naval training certainly shaped his future, it was in Athenian government that he learned some of his most valuable lessons. Growing up in a developing republic, Themistocles learned the art of manipulation and political strategies. It was not a murderous policy, like that of Rome, where people were literally put to death. Themistocles used his intelligence and cunning to get into government, where he would one day wield extraordinary influence. These skills helped him build the Athenian navy, which he would need to fight the mighty Persians.In 490 BC, ten years before the Battle of Thermopylae, Athens had only 100 warships, a mere fraction compared to what the Persians could muster. Themistocles knew this because he had seen the Persian power at Marathon. He was one of the generals who had gone into battle and there he had seen Persian tactics firsthand. So he was an experienced military man. From Marathon he learned a different lesson from the one learned by the other Greek generals, who saw it as a triumph of the land forces over the navy. What Themistocles learned at Marathon was that you can't use land forces if you don't have naval support. He knew that after their humiliating defeat at Marathon, the Persians would seek revenge and return to finish what they had started. He also knew they wouldn't make the same mistake a second time. He expected the Persians to come by land and sea, bringing with them many more soldiers and ships. What Themistocles saw was a cooperation between naval forces and land forces. The navy could support land forces as long as the coast was suitable. Ground forces were to shape the coast. Themistocles knew that the Persians could not maintain an army in the interior of Greece unless they were able to supply it from the sea. Therefore, if it had a significant naval force, it became the dominant naval power in the Aegean and could render the Persians powerless. He therefore concluded that Athens' future lay not in increasing the size of its land forces, which were quite large, but in increasing its navy. The problem he faced was that no one believed him. The Athenian generals and the people had great confidence in the Athenian army and did not believe that the Persians would return. Themistocles lived every day of his political life with the thought: " We have to face this now " and followed some strategies, which probably saved the Greek world. First he had to convince Athens that it needed to invest in the navy. The most important thing was that he had to find it.
THE LIE OF THEMISTOCLES
In 483 BC, three years before the resistance at Thermopylae, miners discovered a new vein of silver in the area of Lavrio. After a year of mining, they extracted almost 2.5 tons of this precious metal. Themistocles wanted the money that came out of the silver to be spent on his navy. The challenge for him was to convince the Athenians that they didn't need extra money in their pockets, but extra warships in their harbor. Each Athenian would get 10 drachmas, about $1,500 to $1,600 in today's money, which was a lot of money. Because the Athenians did not believe in a second Persian invasion, Themistocles relied on his political acumen to win them over. He lied to them that Aegina, a small rival island just off the coast of Athens, posed a threat to the safety of Athenian merchant ships. Eventually, the Athenians were persuaded and allowed Themistocles to invest in the navy. Greek civilization may have been saved by a lie. What historians might call a lie or untruth, a politician would call clever misdirection of the people, to achieve a greater purpose. This is what Themistocles did. He knew that if he told the truth, the people would never agree. So he made up a nice story and caught on. So Themistocles took his ships.
THE NAVY OF ATHENS
Athenian warships were called triremes. The trireme was 27 meters long and 5.5 meters wide and was made mainly of pine wood. Her advantage was that she was a light boat, more like a racing boat. It was not a heavy ship. Because the purpose was embolization and so the lighter it was, the faster it went. Built for speed, the trireme's hull was open. The deck consisted of one or two planks, placed across the ship, on which stood the ship's commander and about four sailors. Despite their small sail, triremes were primarily propelled by 170 to 220 oarsmen, who were placed in three rows of oars, one above the other. The front of the trireme was shaped like a rounded bow, probably made of heavier cedar and then covered with brass or copper, making the ship capable of ramming enemy vessels. The fastest trireme, which we rebuilt today, on a 2,000 meter course, reaches 15 knots, but that is a fast pace for embolization.
By the time the Persians reached Thermopylae and Artemisium a year later, the Greeks had added over 100 additional ships to the fleet. But again the Persian fleet outnumbered the Greek fleet, nearly 6 to 1. Themistocles would discover how futile his efforts to build up the Athenian navy were.
FIRST DAY OF THE NAVAL BATTLE
At the Straits of Artemisium, Themistocles was about to lead nearly 200 Greek warships into battle against 800 Persian warships and did the unexpected. Late in the afternoon, on the first day of the battle, he attacks the much larger Persian fleet. It's a dangerous move. If he let the Persians sail through the Straits of Artemisium, Leonidas and the 300 Spartans would be surrounded and cut to pieces. Using a flag to signal the fleet, Themistocles ordered all Greek warships to retreat slowly to a narrower point in the strait, thus forming a circle. At a second signal, the Greek fleet broke out of formation and attacked the Persians. In Greek naval battles, there was no fighting between men, but they tried to maneuver the ships so as to ram and sink the enemy ships. The most common way was to come alongside at an angle and break the oars of the other ship, for they were not propelled by sails, but by oars. Thus, if the other ship's oars were broken, as one ship came alongside the other, the attacking ship would draw in its oars and allow the side of the ship to break up the other. Then the other ship was useless. In these battles, what really played a role was not so much the weight or size of the ship, but its speed. In the confined space of Artemisium, the smaller Greek fleet damaged several Persian ships, captured 30 enemy vessels, and took many prisoners. We are not exactly sure why the Greeks sailed so well on the first day at Artemisium. The Greeks and Persians had the same types of boats. Everyone had triremes so no one necessarily had the speed advantage. Whatever the reason, it was a great psychological victory for the Greek navy, and because Themistocles launched his attack late in the day, he knew the battle would not last long, thus ensuring that his potential losses would be minimal. This must have come as a complete surprise to everyone. The Persians certainly did not expect to lose to the smaller Greek fleet, nor did the Greeks expect to be so strong. And I think that was why Themistocles started it in the afternoon hours. So Themistocles won the battle at sea and certainly Leonidas and the Spartans were winning the battle on land.
THE STORM
On the first day of the engagement at Thermopylae and Artemisium, the Greeks had handled the Persians very harshly. Xerxes had been shocked and humiliated by Themistocles and the Athenian navy and had lost nearly 10,000 infantry men to Leonidas and the Spartans. The Persians returned to their camp that night licking their wounds and Xerxes wondered what he would do about it. As night fell, a terrible storm broke out, bringing lightning, wind and rain. Lightning lit up the hulls of ships at sea and corpses on land. It was a very heartbreaking night for the Persians. They probably didn't sleep as well as they would have liked, though they needed the sleep for the next day's battle. The Persian fleet, which had been sent to sail around Euboea, fell into a storm and the 200 ships sank in the Aegean. It was an omen, which the Persians could not ignore, while the Greeks accepted it with joy, because the next day would bring another bloodshed.
On the second day of the battle, the Athenians and Spartans took up their respective defensive positions. Themistocles in the Strait of Artemisium and Leonidas with his 300 Spartans in the Strait of Thermopylae. Both were ready for the second Persian attack. The sun rose on the second day and Xerxes says: “ Enough with the lower infantry. We will send the mighty” and sent forth the stalwarts of the Persian army, the silent and masked of the heavy infantry, called the Immortals. He believed that once the Immortals came into action, their attack would end the resistance immediately. So 10,000 men gathered in a square formation and advanced against the Greeks in silence. Whatever happened was coming at you. They did not wear helmets, but a tiara on their heads. The tiara was a wrapped cloth, a very thin cloth that they could see through. They were called Immortals because when one of them retired or died, another would immediately replace him. The troops stood at a distance of 45 meters from each other, in the straits of Thermopylae. The Persians are faceless and mute. But silence was not part of the Spartan psychological strategy. Finally, the Immortals began to advance and fell upon the Greek line. As on the previous day, the 300 Spartans and the rest of the Greek soldiers held on well. The spears of the Immortals could not penetrate the Greek armour, while the corresponding Greeks had no problem finding their target. Immortals wore thin armor under their tunics. The overlapping metal scales were as thick as decks of cards and weak compared to the power and precision of the Spartan spear. As for the Persian shield, it was made of wicker and was good for warding off javelins, daggers or arrows, but weak compared to the Greek, which was a shield of bronze or brass. The spear of the Greeks could easily pierce the wicker shield. Thus we see that none of the Persian military divisions were equal to the Spartans in close combat. It is clear that they had never fought against an army of Hoplites, who were as well trained, equipped and tactically flexible as the Spartans were. After two days, thousands of Persians had been killed. After each attack there was a pile of dead men there, men screaming in pain, bleeding, but mostly men in the way. They had to be driven away and in one of their attacks, groups came forward and pulled the dead out of the way. At the end of the second day, the Persian dead numbers were enormous and the land forces were once again hampered. In terms of tactics, after the first two days of the battle of Thermopylae, Leonidas would have considered himself in a very good position. He had withstood what the Persians had sent him, and he himself had lost only a few men.Meanwhile, far from the coast, Themistocles was again leading the Athenian navy against the Persian fleet in the Straits of Artemisium. The huge storm the night before had wrecked the Persian ships, which had sailed around Euboia in an attempt to surround Themistocles. With no Persian ships heading to his south, Themistocles could concentrate his force to the front. But he was still outnumbered, 5 to 1. While the exact details of the naval battle are unknown, the Greek triremes were still able to destroy many of the Persian warships. Thus, at the end of the second day at sea, a similar scenario was unfolding. The Persians had tried again to fall upon Themistocles, but fared no better on the second day. The Greek front held out both on land and at sea. It was another psychological victory for the Greeks and another blow for Xerxes. But a solution would soon become clear to the Persian king and lead to one of the most famous and heroic resistances in history.
THE SECRET PASSAGE
At the narrow pass of Thermopylae, 4,000 Greek soldiers, led by Leonidas and his band of 300 warriors, were preparing for another day of battle. Until now they had withstood and repulsed the Persian army, the largest land force ever assembled up to that time. By now, the Persians had attempted a light infantry attack and had suffered. They advanced with their best soldiers, the heavy infantry, and suffered just as badly. Things are getting a little dicey: the army is hampered, using up supplies, as it has to eat every day, and it's getting nowhere. The solution was to find a way and go behind the Spartan position. Xerxes discovered the answer: a small path from the Persian camp, around Mount Kallidromos, behind the Greek line. Historians do not know when Xerxes learned of the passage. It is believed that a Greek spy had told him this after the second day of the battle. Seeing that he could not break through the Greek defenses and knowing that food supplies were running low, Xerxes decided to use the pass. On the night of the second day, after the attack with the heavy infantry had failed, he began to move, under cover of darkness, 10,000 men up this path, to outflank the Spartan position. But Leonidas knew this passage. Before the first day of the attack, he had placed 1,000 men at the top of the pass. This force consisted of Phocaeans, residents of Fokida. As the Persians approached the Phocian line, this defensive force did not exist. At the ridge there is a junction that leads to Phocis and for some reason, the Phocian army believes that the attack will be on their homeland, Phocis and so they retreat. Fearing that their homes would be attacked, the Phocians withdraw to defend their families, leaving an open passage for the Persians. At this point, Leonidas is doomed. Above and behind him are 10,000 men who can descend the mountain at any moment. In the middle of the night, Greek scouts informed Leonidas that the Phocaeans had deserted. Knowing that he would be outflanked, Leonidas ordered the retreat of the Greek infantry. You can't just order 4,000 men to leave. There are many reasons for this. First, the enemy immediately knows what you are doing. He will attack you head on. Second, you can't wait until you're limited to the back end. You have to take relatively small groups out, in a gradual retreat, hoping it's done quietly so the enemy basically doesn't know the front is weakened, or they'll attack you. By dawn, all the Greek troops had retreated, except for Leonidas, the 300 Spartans, and about 700 soldiers from the Greek city-state of Thespies. Very few people know this information about the battle, but about 700 Thespians soldiers remained with Leonidas. They could have left, but they decided to stay and fight the Spartans to the end. The reason this is forgotten is because the battle of Thermopylae has been turned into a myth throughout history and in movies nowadays, in such a way that only 300 Spartans faced millions of Persians. But it didn't happen that way. But again, this force of a thousand was surrounded by tens of thousands of Persians. Leonidas and his men were ready for their last stand. It was a great moment, where the Spartans went forward to die and the allies went back to live. For me this is the most emotional moment of the battle. The question is why did Leonidas do this and not withdraw his soldiers? I think there are a few answers to that. Some will say that he was fulfilling the Pythian prophecy. The sacrifice in his mind has something to do with saving Sparta. And so he stays and enters a quixotic battle, which he knows he will lose. He does it not because he wants to be a martyr, nor because as a Spartan soldier he has been trained to resist and die. Exactly the opposite. As a Spartan soldier he is trained to sneak, to steal, to escape. But, as a Spartan he believes in oracles and religion and it is his duty to stay and die for the state. Perhaps Leonidas' loyalty kept him at the straits of Thermopylae, but militarily, his presence provided a covering force during a tactical retreat. Every day, every minute that may delay them, gives the Greeks who have remained in the rear an opportunity to rally the army and take up new defensive positions. The men withdrawn from the pass still have some distance to go before joining the other troops. Basically he decides to gain an extra day or two and turn himself and his bodyguard into a covering force for a strategic or tactical retreat. We still don't know why Leonidas decided to stay behind. But this final stand of his has been recorded as one of the most famous in history.
After two days of unsuccessful attempts to break through the Greek defenses at Thermopylae, the Persians discovered a way to encircle the pass. The Spartan king, Leonidas, ordered an orderly retreat for his largest fighting force. About 700 Greek soldiers remained, along with 300 Spartans and Leonidas, trapped by tens of thousands of Persian soldiers. Leonidas makes his last stand in the Straits of Thermopylae. For two days, he successfully repelled the Persian attacks. But now the Persians have trapped him. They finally found a way to outflank him and get him exactly where they wanted. Although they knew this, the Spartans calmly prepared for battle, as a Persian scout secretly watched them. He saw the Spartans exercise naked and then pour oil on themselves and clean themselves, fix their long hair and comb it. The Persians see this and do not understand. They look at it and think it's vanity, they look at it and think it's bathroom behavior. Little do they know that the Spartans are preparing their bodies for death. Cleaned and ready for battle, the Spartans take to the battlefield one last time. They are professional warriors. This is how they characterized themselves, this is how their place in society was determined. I imagine they would welcome the battle from a psychological and social point of view: " we are outnumbered, but we are better ". In his "Histories", Herodotus described the final battle: " On the one hand, the barbarians, around Xerxes, came forward, on the other hand, the Greeks, around Leonidas, seeing that they would die, came forward much more than they had done earlier, in the wider part of the pass. Knowing that death was coming for them, from those who moved around the mountain, they showed against the barbarians all the power of resistance they had and fought like madmen, caring for nothing but the moment .'
THE FINAL BATTLE
We cannot be sure what happened during the battle. But I am sure that, after the Persians attacked them from front and rear, the Greeks broke the yokes and the phalanx broke up. Because the phalanx was the basis of the Greek defense, once it was broken, the Spartans were not as strong as they had been in the last two days. The battlefield would become chaotic at this point and everyone would be fighting for themselves. Many would turn to their swords in this close combat. Herodotus tells us that all the Greek spears were broken and that they fought with all they could. He even mentions the bravery and prowess of a few Spartans by name. Besides Leonidas, it was his lieutenant, Dienekis, who seems to have distinguished himself in battle. But despite his prowess and years of intense and brutal military training, it was only a matter of time before the Spartan warriors were slaughtered. And indeed it seems that Pythia's oracle for Leonidas would soon be fulfilled. Herodotus writes that at one point, early in the battle, Leonidas was hit by Persian arrows. We can imagine the great king lying dying and watching his companions fall one after another. Leonidas fell in this battle having shown that he was a man of worth, like the heroes of the past. A great battle was taking place around the body of Leonidas. Four times the Greeks repulsed the enemy and finally took the corpse by their valor .' Herodotus says that Dienekis rescued the corpse of Leonidas and with a few remaining Spartans retreated to a narrower part of the pass. The Persians called on their archers one last time. They easily found their targets. Every Spartan had been slaughtered. After the slaughter, Xerxes walked onto the battlefield. He had lost nearly 20,000 men in three days. He ordered his soldiers to be buried, so that the rest of his army would not be disheartened by the sight of the rotting corpses. Xerxes also ordered Leonidas' head to be cut off and placed on a paluki. The good from this disaster was the heroic death of the people who held the passage so that their comrades could live and gain time for their country. It is a great heroic story. It is exactly what they would be remembered for, just as we in our culture remember the men and women who die while making the heroic sacrifice and earning the Medal of Honor. We keep it as an example for the next generation: " If this happens to you, this is what we expect from you ." The Greeks did the same thing.
The Battle of Thermopylae
THE DESTRUCTION OF ATHENS
Xerxes now had an open passage before him. The Greek city-state of Athens was doomed. Nothing now stood between him and Athens. The Persian revenge was complete. He advanced his force through the Straits of Thermopylae, basically scattering the Greek forces in front of him. Some of the Greek city-states, who had allied themselves with Athens, now go with the Persians out of self-interest.
Off the coast of Artemisium, Themistocles again holds off the Persian fleet, but this time he suffers significant casualties and loses part of his fleet. Due to the collapse of the Greek land defenses, Themistocles no longer had a reason to defend the strait. He leads his remaining ships south to regroup and fight again. Knowing that the destruction of Athens, the cradle of the Republic, was inevitable, the Athenians visited the Pythia at Delphi, seeking her guidance. " Why are you sitting around waiting for destruction? Go to the farthest parts of the earth. Zeus who sees all, gives you a wooden wall, the only thing that will be indestructible, an advantage for you and your children .' As is often the case with the Pythia, the message is secret. Many Athenians believe that the Pythia is telling them to stay behind the walls of the Acropolis. But Themistocles believes that the wooden walls are the ships of the navy and that they should evacuate the city. Two months after the resistance at Thermopylae, Xerxes fulfilled his promise to avenge the burning of the Ionian capital of Sardis and the defeat at Marathon. It took 20 years, two major invasions and the loss of tens of thousands of men. Xerxes eventually leveled Athens. But great loss of life was averted. The only casualties were those who refused to leave their temple and goddess on the Acropolis. Few people remained. It levels everything on the Acropolis, where is the holiest temple of the Athenians. Basically this is revenge for Sardis.
THE BATTLE OF SALAMINAS
A month after Xerxes had destroyed Athens, the Greeks demanded their own revenge. Themistocles lured Xerxes to the straits of Salamis, where many Athenians had fled and where the renewed Athenian navy awaited. While scholars debate the exact details, it appears that a Greek double agent gave false information to the Persians about the location of the Greeks. The Persians immediately sailed into the straits of Salamis, where they were surprised and attacked by the Greek fleet. Themistocles destroyed much of the Persian navy. The naval battle of Salamis is perhaps the most important strategic moment in the Greco-Persian War. The Persians defeated the Greeks at Thermopylae and burned Athens to the ground, but the Greek navy inflicted so much damage on the Persian fleet at Salamis that Xerxes was forced to retreat and finally set sail for his homeland, because if he did not have enough warships, for to defend his conveyances, then he would be doomed. Xerxes left Greece and never returned. Many historians believe that this was the beginning of the end of the Persian Empire, because now the Greeks began to attack the Persians on their own territory, achieving great military victories at Plataea, Mykali, Sisto. The Greeks chased the Persians as far as Asia and burned the great floating bridge that had been built across the Hellespont. They left her to burn in the Aegean, but before burning her they removed the cables of flax and papyrus that tied the ships. They kept them as trophies. The Athenians honored them so much as trophies that they placed them in their newly built Parthenon.The Life Of An Ancient Spartan | The Spartans | Timeline
CONSEQUENCES
The various Greek city-states, such as Athens and Sparta, abandoned their internal differences and eventually united to fight Persia as a unified country. A strategy first used in the Straits of Thermopylae. Sometimes we don't appreciate the importance of the battle of Thermopylae. Maybe not from a military point of view, but from a symbolic and cultural point of view. Greece was becoming what it had never been before. It was moving away from being a jumble of city-states and becoming a nation that felt like it was a nation, that it was more Greek than Athenian, more Greek than Spartan. They began to recognize their values and cultures, not as independent city-states, but as a nation, as a whole. Philip of Macedon went one step further and united the Greek city-states into one country. With this unified country, Philip's son, Alexander , eventually destroyed the Persian Empire, exporting Greek culture throughout the world and introducing Greek politics, law, art, literature, and philosophy to the subject peoples. The culture he spread became the basis of Western civilization. All this would have been completely impossible if Greece had remained a set of separate city-states. But it became a nation, there was a feeling of nationalism and this feeling started in an important place and that place was the Straits of Thermopylae. It was the last stand for Leonidas and the 300 Spartan soldiers, who remained and fought to the death while their Greek brothers retreated to fight another time. Wars are won when you break your enemy's will to keep fighting. At Thermopylae, Leonidas and the Spartans began to break the will of the Persians. It would take another 150 years, but the memory of the 300 Spartans would finally motivate the Greeks to victory over the Persians. If the Persians had won, the republic would have stopped in its first steps. And I believe that it is inconceivable that democracy would have been created anywhere else, in the Middle East or in the Greek world. That would be the end of democracy. For centuries, military scholars have examined the valiant efforts of the Spartans, where the few stood up to the many and death was the ultimate sacrifice. The story of the 300 is one of the most celebrated battles of civilization's greatest resistances.
Linls / Rebolog http://history-pages.blogspot.com/2011/08/blog-post.html
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