Historical Battles: Part Two

The Battle of Thermopylae

In 480 BC, King Xerxes I of Persia made the decision to subjugate Greece. This was not the first war with the Greeks. About ten years earlier, Xerxes's father, Darius, tried unsuccessfully to invade Greece at the Battle of Marathon. After this loss, Darius and Xerxes prepared a huge army to take Greece. Xerxes built bridges on the Hellespont (a narrow channel to the northeast) to bring his army into Greece. The many Greek city-states united with each other in order to defeat this common enemy. They sent their combined forces into a narrow mountain pass called Thermopylae, which was narrow to the point that their inferior numbers didn't matter. The Greek army consisted of several thousand hoplites led by the Spartan king Leonidas I. On the first day of the battle, the Persians attacked the pass with 10,000 soldiers, but the Greeks, who used a phalanx formation, cut the enemy army to ribbons, losing only a few hoplites in the process. On the second day of the battle, Xerxes was lost as to how he might win. But a Greek traitor, named Ephialtes, informed Xerxes of another path through the mountains. When the Greeks learned that the Persians planned to encircle them, most of the Greek army fell back. However, Leonidas and about 2,000 Greeks chose to stay and fight so that everyone else could get away. On the third day of the battle, the Persians attacked the pass with 30,000 men from both sides. The Greeks charged out of the pass with the intent of killing as many Persians as they could. The Greeks fought even both their spears and swords were broken. Despite their valor, all of the Greeks fell to the overwhelming number of soldiers and arrows.

    After his victory at Thermopylae, Xerxes moved on to destroy the city of Athens. But he found it empty, as all of the citizens had evacuated. The Greek navy later defeated Xerxes's navy at the battle of Salamis. Fearing that the Greeks would cut off his escape at the Hellespont, Xerxes retreated back into Persia. Persia would never again try to invade Greece.