It was the battle of Thermopylae, in Greece, a bloody fight that took place in 480 BC On one side, 300,000 men of the Persian Army, who wanted to conquer Greece. On the other, a small force of Greek soldiers led by 300 Spartan warriors, an episode depicted in the film 300, which opens in theaters this month. Owner of the largest empire at the time, the Persian king Xerxes advanced with the huge troop through mainland Greece towards Athens, in the south of the territory. The onslaught, however, ran into heroic Greek resistance at Thermopylae, in a battle that lasted three days and ended with the death of all the defenders. Despite the Persian victory at the Battle of Thermopylae, the large number of deaths caused by such a small defensive force demoralized Xerxes’ forces and delayed the offensive to control central Greece. Thanks to the sacrifice led by the 300 Spartans, the Greek troops had time to regroup and win decisive clashes against the Persians, in a war that would only end 12 years later – with the victory of the Greeks.
1. Dominating two-thirds of the known world at the time, 300,000 Persians led by King Xerxes set out to conquer Greece by crossing the Dardanelles Strait, in present-day Turkey, and demanding the surrender of the Greek city-states
2. Greeks from Athens and Sparta decided to resist. To take Athens, the Persians would have to cross the pass of Thermopylae, a kind of “funnel” to the south of the country. The 7,000 Greek warriors included 300 Spartans, led by King Leonidas
3. In antiquity, Thermopylae was a narrow defile, traversed by a track wide enough for only one wagon to pass, and protected by three low walls. It was the ideal place for the Greeks to resist
4. The reduced area prevented the Persians from using their main tactic, cavalry attacks. The way out was to use light weapons, such as short wooden spears and dagger (a kind of dagger) and resort to the precision of the arrows of their archers.
5. Greek weapons were more efficient for battle conditions. Wooden shields repelled arrows, and spears nearly 3 meters long, in the hands of highly trained soldiers, prevented the enemies from approaching. This Greek “boom” held back the Persian horde for two days
6. Greek resistance only collapsed because of the betrayal of a Greek shepherd named Epyaltes. Out of ambition or out of revenge against his compatriots (there is no consensus on why), he showed the Persians a trail that circled the pass and allowed them to reach the rear of the Greeks.
7. On the morning of the third day, Persian troops appeared behind the Greek lines. To avoid unnecessary losses, King Leonidas ordered most of the soldiers to return to their cities, keeping under his command the 300 Spartans, reinforced by 700 allies.
8. Even surrounded from front and back, the Greeks led by 300 from Sparta fought bravely. But it was a suicidal battle, and it wasn’t long before Leonidas dropped dead. His corpse was captured by the Persians and his head exposed on a spike.
9. To completely annihilate the Greeks, the Persian king Xerxes ordered the retreat of the soldiers and called his best archers, who with their arrows finished off the last warriors. In the confrontation, Xerxes lost 10,000 men, including two of his brothers.