Thanks to films such as 300, by Zack Snyder, and the accompanying graphic novel, many people with no real background in ancient history can give a brief overview of the battle of Thermopylae. What few people know about, however, is what the novels forgot: the heroic deeds by seven hundred Thespians, who died side by side with the Spartans at the very end.
Overview of the Thermopylae
Herodotus tells us in his 'History', that, in 5th century B.C.E, the Persians, led by King Xerxes the Great, invaded mainland Greece in an attempt to finish the task Xerxes' late father Darius had left to him: to punish the Athenians, and other Greek city states, for their interference in the revolts of Persian cities on the Ionian coast. Through great technical feats Xerxes managed to transport an army, numbering, according to Herodotus, 2.5 million men (although the general consensus from historians such as Holland and de Souza is now more like 100,000 - 200,000.) from Asia Minor all the way round, through Macedon and Thessaly, to a region of the Greek mainland, then named Phocis. Here they were halted not by just 300 Spartans, but an allied coalition force of far greater numbers. Here they used the topography as a kind of funnel, hoping to trap the Persians into a head-on battle, where the Greek heavy-infantry was vastly superior to their lightly-armoured, Persian counterparts. The allies held out for seven days, although fighting only occurred in the final three, causing huge numbers of casualties on the Persian side, far out of proportion to the number of Greek casualties. They were finally undone by a Greek, Ephialtes, who betrayed to the Persians a path over the cliffs either side, and round to the back of the Greeks, now they could be encircled, and their tactics were useless.
Tactical Explanation for Thermopylae
Due to the huge numbers of the enemy, the Greeks could not fight a regular, pitched battle, on open ground, as was the Greek custom, but had to simply hold on to tight straits, where the enemy numbers would count for less, and the Greek fighting style of the phalanx would come into play. The reasons cited by many for the contesting of Thermopylae was that it allowed the Greeks time to equip a fleet and an army for the decisive naval and ground battles at Salamis and Plataea respectively, however the results were, in fact, disastrous, and led to the Persians advancing huge distances into Greek territory, resulting in the razing of Athens.
Thespian Involvement
Modern popular culture would lead us to believe that the Spartans stood alone in Thermopylae, defending it with just spears, shields, and their courage. The truth of the matter is not quite so accurate. There were in fact 700 Thespians, 900 helots (the race enslaved by the Spartans allowing for their extensive military training), along with numerous other allied troops, hailing from many city states, mainly Peloponnesians, but including soldiers from Phocis, Locris, Thebes, and other areas of mainland Greece. Rather than the Spartans taking the lionshare of the fighting, all the Greeks would have taken turns in the fighting equally, suffering equally heavy losses. When the Greeks realised they were encircled, the overall commander of the Greek armed forces at Thermopylae and one of the Spartan Kings (there were two always two Kings at any one time in Sparta), Leonidas, sent the other Greeks home, proposing to stay with the Spartans to die as their laws dictated. All other Greeks agreed to leave, save for Demophilus, commander of the Thespian contingent, who refused to leave. They died fighting with the Spartans at the very end of the battle.
Reasons for the Thespian Sacrifice
On the Spartan side of things, it was quite obvious why they chose to die at Thermopylae. According to Plutarch in On Sparta, Lycurgan law demanded the Spartans returned victorious, or not at all. Many who returned home from battle without victory, or with reasons which the government found unsatisfactory were branded as traitors, had their citizenship removed and were outcast from society. It was not uncommon for them to take their own lives if their status as traitors was not revoked. The Thespian side is harder to see. The Thespians were not soldiers by trade, unlike the Spartans they did not have a slave race to look after everyday affairs, and had to attend to production of food, the construction of buildings, and the production of goods themselves. Demophilus himself was by no means a soldier (an architect by trade), had no reason to stay. His city would have been next on the Persians march, and after their involvement in Thermopylae the Persians may have treated Thespis quite harshly, but his death was never a certainty. The Thespains remained. Not out of a sense of urgency, or lack of options, as in the case of the Spartans, but purely out of love for their city, a sense of honour, and a true sense of bravery.
Sources:
Plutarch, On Sparta, ed. Richard J. A. Talbert, (London: Penguin Classics, 2005)
de Souza, Philip (2003). The Greek and Persian Wars, 499-386 BC. Osprey Publishing,
Holland, Tom (2006). Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West.
Herodotus, The Histories, Macan translation of books 7–9 of The Histories (The Perseus Digital Library) (1908)
