Thermopylae 480 BC: The Carneia Festival, 700 Thespians and a Goat Path

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After his father Darius was beaten at Marathon in 490 BC, Xerxes set out to absorb all of Greece. His engineers bridged the Hellespont with nearly 700 galleys and triremes lashed together with flax and papyrus cables, and dug a canal through the Mount Athos peninsula to protect his supply ships. Modern estimates put his land army at 120,000 to 300,000 men. Many northern Greeks gave earth and water, but at the Congress of Corinth in 481 BC Athens and Sparta formed an alliance. Themistocles proposed a dual blockade: the fleet would hold the straits at Artemisium while the infantry held Thermopylae, a pass in places barely 100 meters wide between Mount Kallidromo and the Malian Gulf.

Sparta's sacred Carneia festival barred campaigning, so King Leonidas marched north with 300 men who all had living sons and gathered about 7,000 Greeks. Persian arrows failed against bronze and wood hoplite shields, longer ash spears outreached the attackers, and even the Immortals broke on feigned Spartan retreats. Then Ephialtes showed Xerxes the Anopaea path, and Hydarnes led Immortals past the Phocian guard. Leonidas sent most of the army south and stayed with a rearguard closer to 2,000 men, who died under arrow volleys on a small hill. Athens burned, but Salamis and Plataea followed.

• An oracle at Delphi warned that Sparta would be laid waste or would mourn a dead king.
• Told Persian arrows would blot out the sun, the Spartan Dienekes said they would fight in the shade.
• The 700 men of Thespia under Demophilus refused to retreat, joined by about 400 Thebans and helots.
• Herodotus records the last defenders fighting with broken weapons, hands and teeth after Greeks recovered Leonidas's body in four charges.
• In 330 BC a shepherd guided Alexander the Great around Ariobarzanes's defense of the Persian Gates by a similar mountain path.