GREECE
CENTRAL GREECE
FTHIOTIS
THERMOPYLAE
2024-11-07
the Battlefield
The Thermopylae will always be remembered as the site of the heroic battlefield of Leonidas and his Spartan warriors in 480 BC. The site lies just a few hundred meters south of the hot springs. What happened here was the most unequal battle ever fought when few Greeks tried to stop a million of invading Persians.
The topography of Thermopylae shows the Kallidromos mountains rising up to 1400 m in the East, and the Malian Gulf in the West. But today's view is misleading: in antiquity the sea reached up to the steep cliffs - meanwhile the coast-line has advanced to the East due to deposits of the river Sperchios - and left only a 7 km long bottle-neck, very narrow in places.
When the Persian king Xerxes and his troops - according to the historian Herodotus 1,700,000 soldiers - invaded Greece in 480 BC, their march was to be stopped at the pass of the Thermopylae. Only 300 Spartans and 700 Thespians under the command of the Spartan king Leonidas defended this strategic pass - willing to win or die defending the freedom of their country.
The Persians asked the defenders to surrender and to hand over their arms but Leonidas' heroic answer was only: "Come and get them." The battle started near the first gate (see map above) from where the Greeks then made a tactical retreat. At the second gate the deadly fight was continued, causing great losses on the Persian side. On the third day of the battle a local resident named Ephialtes betrayed the Greeks and led the special forces of Hydarnes on the mountain path of Anopeia to the rear of the Greek troops. Leonidas clearly saw the hopelessness of his position, being attacked from both sides, and ordered his main force to withdraw. He himself remained with his 300 Spartans and fell after a desperate fight (vividly reported by Herodotus). The rest of his warriors who had escaped death retreated to the Kolonos hill where all but two Spartans were killed.
Below: View to Kolonos hill, the last stand of the Spartans, and from there to the battlefield.
Later, an epitaph (picture below left) was placed on Kolonos hill to honour the dead Spartans. It says: "Oh stranger, tell the Lacedaemonians that we lie here, trusting their words." Here, "words" does not stand for personal orders but refers to official and binding phrases. - The Kolonos hill could be identified by the finds of numerous iron and bronze spearheads of the 5th century BC (picture below right), now on display in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens.
Monuments
Opposite this historical hill stands the modern memorial with the bronze figure of Leonidas in full armour. It was erected in 1955 by funds from Greeks living in America on the place of an ancient monument. On the right and left are the marble figures of the personified mountain Taigetos and the personified river Evrotas, both in Laconia.
