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Article · Ancient Greece

The Battle of Thermopylae: 300 Spartans and the Persian Empire

The Battle of Thermopylae, fought in August 480 BCE, is one of the most famous battles in world history. A small force of Greek soldiers, led by 300 Spartans under the Spartan king Leonidas, held the narrow coastal pass of Thermopylae for three days against the entire Persian army of Xerxes I. The Greek stand at Thermopylae was a tactical defeat — the Spartans and their allies were eventually surrounded and killed to the last man — but it was a strategic and moral victory. The delay allowed the rest of Greece to prepare, and the sacrifice of the Spartans became one of the most famous military legends of the Western world. Herodotus, the Greek “father of history,” wrote his most famous account of the battle, and the modern world has been fascinated by it ever since.

This page is a complete guide to the Battle of Thermopylae. It explains the context, the battle itself, and the legacy. It links back to the Persian Wars cluster, the Battle of Marathon page, and the Ancient Sparta cluster.

The Strategic Background

In 480 BCE, the Persian king Xerxes I, son of Darius, invaded Greece with what the ancient sources claim was an enormous army. Herodotus says 2.6 million men, but the real figure was probably closer to 100,000–200,000, supported by a fleet of about 600–1,200 ships. The Persian army was the largest that the Greek world had ever faced, and it included subject peoples from every part of the Achaemenid Empire: Persians, Medes, Bactrians, Indians, Egyptians, Ethiopians, and many more.

The Greek cities, divided and fearful, eventually formed a defensive coalition under Spartan leadership. The Greek strategy was to hold the Persian army at Thermopylae — the narrowest point on the road from northern into central Greece — while the Greek fleet engaged the Persian navy at the same time. The two engagements were coordinated, and a Greek success at Thermopylae would allow the Greek fleet to engage the Persian navy at Salamis.

Thermopylae was a near-perfect defensive position. The pass was about 15 meters (50 feet) wide at its narrowest, with the sea on one side and a sheer mountain wall on the other. The ancient road was the only practical route for an army moving south into central Greece. A small force could hold the pass against a much larger one, and the Persian numbers, so decisive in open battle, would count for little in the narrow gorge.

The Greek Force

The Greek force that defended Thermopylae was not just 300 Spartans. It was a coalition force that included:

The total Greek force was probably about 7,000 hoplites, supported by an unknown number of light-armed troops and helots.

The Greek Commanders

The Greek commander was the Spartan king Leonidas, son of Anaxandrides, of the Agiad house. Leonidas was the husband of Gorgo, the daughter of Cleomenes I, and the father of Pleistarchus, who would become king after Leonidas’ death.

Leonidas was a man of unusual determination. The Spartans consulted the Oracle at Delphi, which prophesied that Sparta would be saved by the death of a king. Two kings were available, Leonidas and his co-king Leotychides. Leonidas volunteered, knowing that the prophecy pointed to him.

The Three Days of Battle

The Persian army reached Thermopylae in mid-August 480 BCE. The first day of the battle was a long series of Persian attacks on the Greek line. The Persian troops — Medes and Elamites in the front line, the famous “Immortals” later — were thrown at the Greek phalanx in wave after wave, but they were unable to break it. The Greek hoplites, fighting in a phalanx eight or more ranks deep, beat off every attack. The Persian light troops and cavalry were useless in the narrow pass.

The second day was a repetition of the first. Xerxes watched the fighting from a throne he had set up on a hill above the pass, and he sent his best troops, the Immortals, into the battle. The Immortals were also beaten back. The Greek losses were negligible; the Persian losses were heavy.

On the third night, a Greek traitor named Ephialtes approached the Persian camp and offered to show the Persians a path around the Greek position. The path led over the mountain, and at the top was a small Greek force of Phocians guarding the pass. Xerxes sent a force under the commander Hydarnes along the path, and the Phocians were eventually surrounded and forced to retreat. (According to Herodotus, the Phocians had earlier given the Greeks a false sense of security about the path, and the Persian force was able to take the Phocians by surprise.)

At dawn on the third day, Leonidas received news that the Persians were coming around behind him. He dismissed the bulk of the Greek force, keeping only the 300 Spartans, the 700 Thespians, and the 400 Thebans. The Spartans and the Thespians refused to leave, choosing to die in the pass. The Thebans stayed as well, but the Greeks suspected (and Herodotus later reported) that they were hostages rather than volunteers.

The Last Stand

The remaining Greek force took up a position in the narrowest part of the pass. They fought, according to Herodotus, with their hands, their teeth, and their bare bodies after their spears and swords were broken. The Persian arrows, shot in such numbers that they hid the sun, killed almost all of them.

Leonidas was killed early in the fighting, and the Spartans and Thespians fought to recover his body. Four times, according to Herodotus, the Greeks pushed the Persians back. The Spartan dead included all 300 Spartans and 700 Thespians. The 400 Thebans, after holding out for a while, surrendered to the Persians; the Persian general later had them executed on suspicion of treachery.

The Persian army marched south, and Athens was evacuated and burned. But the Greek fleet, which had been fighting the Persian fleet at the same time, won the decisive naval victory at Salamis, and the Persian army was forced to retreat to Asia. The Greeks won the war the next year at Plataea, and the Persian invasion was over.

The Legacy of Thermopylae

The Battle of Thermopylae has been the subject of a vast literature. Herodotus, who wrote the most famous ancient account, used the battle as the centerpiece of his history of the Persian Wars. The Greek historian Diodorus Siculus, the Roman poet Horace, the Greek orator Aelius Aristides, and dozens of other ancient writers treated the battle. In the modern era, the battle has been the subject of the graphic novel 300 by Frank Miller, the film 300 (2006) by Zack Snyder, and countless other works of popular culture.

The famous phrase “Molon labe” — “Come and take them” — is the supposed response of Leonidas to the Persian demand that the Spartans surrender their arms. The phrase has become a popular slogan in modern political debates, used variously by gun-rights advocates, Greek nationalists, and defenders of heroic resistance to overwhelming odds.