The Battle of Thermopylae E-Book

Rupert Matthews

• Herausgeber: Spellmount
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 461

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

'Tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that here obedient to their laws we lie.' One of the most remarkable actions in ancient or modern military history took place at Thermopylae in 480BC. Rupert Matthews has personally examined the battlefield in order to try to explain how 300 Spartans could hold at bay the hordes of the Persian Emperor Xerxes. This was no vain sacrifice; the delay gave breathing space for the Greek states to organise their defence, and ultimately defend successfully their homelands. Among other intriguing revelations the author explains the importance of the half-ruined wall that sheltered the Spartans against the onslaught. With concise diagrams and maps of the entire campaign, the reader can begin to understand the extraordinary, apparently impossible outcome of the war.

Leseprobe

The Battle of Thermopylae

A Campaign in Context

A selection of Greek arms, including shield, spear, sword, sheath and greave.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data:

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Copyright © Rupert Matthews 2006

Maps Copyright © Rupert Matthews 2006

ISBN 978-0-75099-501-6

First published in the UK in 2006

This paperback edition published in 2008 by

The History Press Ltd

The Mill, Brimscombe Port

Stroud, Gloucestershire. GL5 2QG

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

The right of Rupert Matthews to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from The History Press Ltd.

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Contents

List of Maps

Acknowledgements

Preface

Checklist of Individuals, Legendary Heroes and Deities

Chapter 1 The War Begins

Chapter 2 The Persian Host

Chapter 3 The Greek League

Chapter 4 The Opening Moves

Chapter 5 Hoplites

Chapter 6 Sparta

Chapter 7 The Warships

Chapter 8 The Choice of Thermopylae

Chapter 9 The Routes to Thermopylae

Chapter 10 The Killing Ground

Chapter 11 First Blood

Chapter 12 The Waiting Game

Chapter 13 The First Day of Battle

Chapter 14 In the Trikeri Straits

Chapter 15 The Second Day of Battle

Chapter 16 The Third Day of Battle – Morning

Chapter 17 The Third Day of Battle – Afternoon

Chapter 18 The Fall of Athens

Epilogue

Bibliography

Maps

Picture credits

List of Maps

1. Greece in 480BC

2. Persian Recruitment Areas

3. The Tempe Expedition April-May 480BC

4. Xerxes’ Route to Therme March-July 480BC

5. The Strategic Position at Thermopylae

6. The Spartan Route to Thermopylae

7. The Pass at Thermopylae

8. The Trikeri Straits

9. The Path around Thermopylae

10. Artemisium 18 August 6.00 pm

11. Artemisium 18 August 7.00 pm

13. Artemisium 20 August 11.00 am

Acknowledgements

I would especially like to thank the Hoplite Association (www.hoplites.org) for their assistance. Any mistakes that remain are my fault for not consulting these expert re-enactors properly during my researches. I would also like to thank Kelly Ostler for her support and assistance on my visits to the places mentioned in this book – and especially for her excellent mapreading skills when finding the more obscure locations.

Preface

This book is the story of perhaps the most famous military campaign of the ancient world. It has everything that a writer could want: action, adventure, mystery, heroism and much more. As a story, it is thrilling. As an exercise in military history it is fascinating.

The Greeks later claimed that the entire future history of the world hinged on this one campaign. As they saw things, the vast and powerful Persian Empire was a brutal dictatorship in which nobody had any rights except by favour of the monarch – the King of Kings, or Great King. All individuality was stamped out by the autocratic system which stifled trade, the arts and freedom. In the Greek city states, the arts and sciences flourished as individual freedom was celebrated and allowed its full rein. Each of the many small states was free to choose its own system of government. This Thermopylae campaign was a war between the Free World and a Slave World.

That, at least, is how the Greeks saw it. It was an apocalyptic vision in which the stakes were high and the world trembled on the edge of an abyss. Many modern writers have followed the Greek lead and viewed the wars of which the Thermopylae Campaign formed a part as being a struggle for freedom.

As ever, of course, things were not quite that simple. Slavery was an accepted part of life in all Greek states: the much vaunted freedoms were reserved for the privileged citizens. Nor was the Persian system of government quite as brutal as the Greeks liked to maintain. Subject peoples were often allowed to run their own affairs according to their own laws, so long as they paid their taxes on time and caused no trouble. And the war was very definitely not a conflict between Greeks and Persians. Many Greek states were already within the Persian Empire, or owed allegiance to it, and their men fought on the “Persian” side in the conflict. Many other Greek states, cowed by the awesome might of the King of Kings surrendered promptly rather than fight.

But in many ways the old, Greek view of this conflict does hold true. The issues may not have been as black and white as they pretended, but this was very definitely a war between rival and incompatible cultures. It was a war in which there could be no compromise peace or diplomatic accommodation. Either Persia would conquer Greece or it would not.

In the event, of course, Persia did not conquer Greece for reasons that will be explored in this book. It was Greek culture and learning that came to dominate the Mediterranean world. Passed on by way of Rome, this Greek culture still pervades the Western World to this day. As I write in England in the early 21st century, I live in a democracy – a Greek concept – and I write in words formed of letters from an alphabet – another Greek concept. Our buildings are adorned with Greek-style columns and works of art that clearly owe much to those of Greece. None of this would be the case if Persia had conquered Greece.

The story of the wars between the mighty Persian Empire and the states of the Greek League is relatively well known. The events were dramatic and far-reaching in their importance so they were well recorded at the time and have been much explored by historians since. Of all the incidents in these wars, which stretched over several generations, none was so dramatic as the Thermopylae campaign, the subject of this book. Again, the outline story has featured in numerous books and articles.

What marks all these accounts is that they tend to concentrate on the political side of the conflict. Battles and campaigns, though they are often dealt with in some detail, are seen as background to and results of the intrigues and machinations of the rulers and politicians who fill the pages of these writings. This is understandable, for the ancient sources that we have, focus on pretty much the same things. When Plutarch wrote his Life of Themistocles, the Athenian leader, he was interested in how a man from a relatively humble background could rise to be leader of his state and what he did with that power once he got it.

For a military historian, this can all be rather frustrating. The reasons for battles in the Ancient World are given clearly enough and who won them, but only rarely is there any discussion about how the battles were fought. We read almost nothing about weapons, tactics or logistics. But how were the armies kept supplied with food? How did a Greek soldier fight? What made the Spartans so special on the battlefield?

In some accounts this is inevitable. Herodotus, writing only some 30 or so years after the events described, simply did not need to tell his readers many things that we, reading today, want to know. He did not need to set down detail on the weapons of the time, for his readers would have seen them for themselves. He did not need to explain how troops formed up for battle, as his readers would already have known.

The effects of this assumption of knowledge on the part of the reader can, in places, be unfortunate and lead to some serious misunderstandings. To take one example, Herodotus mentions clearly and specifically that the battlefield at Thermopylae was dominated by a defensive wall built by the Phocians. He does not, however, give a description of it, nor does he say much about its role in the fighting; for the simple reason that his contemporary readers would have known the type of wall he was talking about and exactly how it would have been put to use by the Greek army.

Unfortunately, many modern writers have assumed that because Herodotus does not mention it often, this Phocian Wall must have been unimportant. It was not, it was crucial to the conduct of the battle. Herodotus does not mention it often because it was commonplace. He goes into detail only on matters that were unusual and needed explanations to his audience.

Imagine a modern writer producing an account of the Allied invasion of Normandy on D-Day, 6 June 1944. He would not need to explain what a tank was, nor an aircraft. He would not need to explain that Hitler was dictator of Germany nor that Churchill was Prime Minister of Britain. All this he could assume his readers would already know. He could just get on with telling the story of what happened. But for a reader in the 40th century, unfamiliar with the situation in the mid-20th century, all this and much more would need to be explained for events to make sense.

This book is an attempt to explain to the general reader the reality of warfare in the year 480BC. It seeks to give a plausible re-creation of the tactics used in the Thermopylae Campaign and to put them into the context of the time. It explains what the weapons were like and how they were used in action. It describes the usual tactics of the different military units involved and how these would have impacted on each other in battle. I have walked the battlefields on foot and have handled replica weapons at some length. I have then used this information to put together an account of the campaign itself.

It is usual for a historian to explain something of the way in which he has treated his sources. Footnotes are the usual academic way of doing this, but I find that the constant flicking and back and forth can spoil the flow of a work for a reader. Instead, I have mentioned my sources in the body of the work and how I have interpreted them. But I have done so only when dealing with a contentious issue or when I felt it necessary for one reason or another.

The main source for the history of this campaign is The Histories of Herodotus. Herodotus was born some five years before the Thermopylae Campaign took place and wrote his monumental book some forty years later. He is quite open about his motive in writing the book, saying as the very first sentence “Herodotus of Halicarnassus here displays his inquiry, so that the human achievements may not become forgotten in time”. He also makes it clear that his main method of discovering what had happened was to go and talk to people who had been there. He was writing at a time when the veterans of the war would have been in their 60s or 70s.

Unlike some modern writers, I see no reason to disbelieve what Herodotus tells us. But it is important to be clear about his sources where possible. He will preface some sections with words such as “The Athenians say that ...” or “The story told in Syracuse is ...” So what we have in his book are largely the remarks of old men speaking with hindsight. Occasionally it is clear that Herodotus is drawing on government archives or official accounts of one kind or another, but most often he is dealing with human memory.

Inevitably, old soldiers like to dwell on their victories and to make light of their defeats – or at least seek to blame them on somebody else. And by the time Herodotus was collecting his evidence the members of the League had fallen out with each other. Men in Athens would have had good cause to blame Corinth for anything that went wrong and vice versa. All this must be borne in mind when dealing with Herodotus.

It is usual for contemporary sources to be treated with rather more respect than later histories. I’m not sure that I altogether agree. To return to an analogy from World War II, the newspapers printed on 7 June 1944 will have been carefully checked by the government censor to ensure that nothing useful to the Germans was included in their accounts of the D-Day landings that took place the previous day. A book written five years later would have been free to detail exactly which units landed where and how strong they were. But it was not until the 1990s that top secret government files were released that revealed that the Allies had cracked the code used by German military radio operators. This provided the Allies with precise information on where the German forces were and did much to explain why the Allied commanders behaved as they did. Clearly, the contemporary account was incomplete compared to that of 50 years later. Plutarch was writing his account of events 400 years later than did Herodotus. He used different sources and, at this distance in time and without any evidence to help us, we have no way of knowing if Plutarch’s sources were more or less accurate than those of Herodotus.

We must also be cautious when ancient writers claim to be telling us what happened at secret meetings or that certain people had ulterior motives for their actions. Writing within living memory of the events he describes, Herodotus could not put down something that was transparently false as the mistake would soon be pointed out and his writings lose credibility. Imagine a modern historian claiming that the Mustang was a German aircraft of World War II. But when making claims of secret deals or motives, the writer strays into territory where his claims could not be so easily disputed. Who knows what secret negotiations go on behind the scenes? Herodotus may be right when he tells these stories, or he might be wrong. We have no way of knowing. All we can do is compare the “secret” events to the public ones and try to judge if they have the ring of truth. It is not often that the ancient authors factually contradict each other. More often they give different, but not necessarily incompatible, information. It is the role of the historian to compare the different accounts and try to match them together to present a coherent and credible account of what really happened.

Finally, there is the problem of dates. All the ancient sources tie their accounts of the events to the Carneian Festival. Their readers would have known when this was and so would have understood on which dates the different events happened. However, the Carneian Festival was tied to the cycles of the moon and our understanding of exactly how is incomplete. Basically, the Carneian Festival of 480BC may have fallen on the August full moon or the September full moon. As will be seen, I favour the August date. This is not because of any great understanding of lunar cycles or ancient Greek religious festivals. It is simply that so many military events happened after the Carneian Festival and before winter weather closed in on Greece that I think that the earlier date is far more likely.

There are many other deductions that I have made in this book, some of which I explain in detail and others that I do not. No doubt some readers and scholars will disagree with me, but for better or worse, this is my interpretation of events. It is based on what I believe to be sound logic, on an understanding of how war was organised and fought in that distant age and on my understanding of how men thought back then – which was very different from how men think today. I have done my best to produce a readable and yet well researched account of a military campaign that took place some 2,500 years ago.

Checklist of Individuals, Legendary Heroes and Deities

The names of the Greeks, Persians and others who will be encountered here may be unfamiliar to many readers. To aid the reader in making sense of the sometimes convoluted relationships between them, here is a checklist that may be referred back to as necessary.

Achaemenes

Brother of Xerxes, governor of Egypt and commander of the Persian fleet during the Thermopylae Campaign.

Ahuramazda

Chief god of the Persian Zoroastrian religion.

Alexander I

King of Macedon. Alexander the Great (356-323BC) was Alexander III.

Amyntas

King of Macedon, father of Alexander I of Macedon.

Antidorus

Sea captain from Lemnos serving in the Persian fleet, he defected to the League.

Antipater

Treasurer of Thasos, a Greek city within the Persian Empire.

Architeles

Senior Athenian naval captain.

Ariabignes

Half-brother to Xerxes and a commander of part of the Persian fleet.

Aristeides

Athenian politician and opponent of Themistocles.

Aristodemus

Spartan soldier who left Thermopylae.

Artabanus

Uncle of Xerxes, he opposed the invasion of Greece.

Artemis

Greek goddess of hunting and wild country areas.

Artemisia

Queen of Halicarnassos, a Greek state within the Persian Empire.

Atachaees

Cousin of Xerxes and military engineer.

Athene

Greek goddess, patron goddess of Athens.

Arthimius

Athenian who worked as a secret agent for the Persians.

Boreus

Greek god of the north wind.

Cleombrotus

Spartan prince and military commander, younger brother of King Leonidas.

Cleomenes

Former king of Sparta who died in suspicious circumstances just before the Thermopylae campaign began.

Cobon

Priest of Apollo at Delphi.

Croesus

King of Lydia, defeated by the Persians in 546BC.

Darius

Father of Xerxes, he rose to become King of Kings after organising a coup against the previous ruler of the Persian Empire.

Datis

Persian nobleman, killed by the Spartans soon after the Marathon campaign.

Demaratus

Former king of Sparta ousted after a scandal. In 480BC he was serving as an advisor to Xerxes on Greek military matters.

Dieneces

A Spartan soldier at Thermopylae and celebrated wit.

Dionysius of Phocaea

Greek naval commander during the Ionian Revolt.

Ephialtes

Greek peasant and traitor from Malis.

Ephorus

Greek military historian who wrote in about 350 BC. His account of the Thermopylae campaign has been lost and only fragments quoted by other writers have survived.

Epicydes

Athenian nobleman and famous orator.

Euanetous

Spartan nobleman and general.

Eurybiades

Spartan admiral, during the Thermopylae campaign he was the official commander of the combined League fleet.

Eurytus

Spartan soldier at Thermopylae.

Gelon

Powerful ruler of Syracuse, willing to help the League, Gelon was unable to do so because of an invasion of Sicily by the Carthaginians.

Habrocomes

Half-brother of Xerxes and officer in the Persian army.

Habronichus

Athenian sea captain, he commanded the fast galley that carried messages between the League army and fleet.

Heracles

Legendary Greek hero and supposed ancestor of the Spartan royal family. Also known as Hercules.

Herodotus

Greek historian who wrote an account of the wars against Persia some 40 years after the Thermopylae Campaign.

Hipparchus

Athenian nobleman, exiled for political reasons, Hipparchus served with Xerxes as an advisor on Athenian affairs.

Hippias

Former dictator of Athens.

Hydarnes

Persian nobleman and commander of the elite Immortal unit.

Hyperanthes

Half-brother of Xerxes and officer in the Persian army.

Leon

Greek sailor, the first man to be killed in the Thermopylae campaign.

Leonidas

One of the two Kings of Sparta, Leonidas commanded the army of the Greek League at Thermopylae.

Leotychides

One of the two kings of Sparta. During the Thermopylae campaign he stayed in Sparta to attend to domestic and religious duties.

Lycomedes of Athens

Greek sea captain.

Mardonius

Son in law of Xerxes and Persian nobleman. He commanded the Persian infantry during the Thermopylae campaign.

Megabazus

Persian nobleman and a commander of part of the Persian fleet.

Megacreon

Citizen of Abdera, a Greek city within the Persian Empire.

Megistias

Greek seer and priest.

Miltiades

Athenian soldier and victor at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC.

Ocytus

Commander of the Corinthian ships within the League fleet.

Pantites

Spartan soldier, used as a messenger by Leonidas.

Perialla

Priestess of Apollo at Delphi.

Perseus

Legendary Greek hero and supposed founder of the royal family of Argos.

Phanias of Lesbos

Greek historian, his account of the Thermopylae campaign has been mostly lost.

Philaon

Commander of the 150 Cypriot ships in the Persian fleet.

Pindar

Greek poet who wrote an epic poem about the Thermopylae Campaign, now mostly lost.

Plutarch

Greek historian writing in the 1st century AD, he wrote a biography of Themistocles.

Prexaspes

Persian nobleman and a commander of part of the Persian fleet.

Pythia

Title of the priestess at Delphi who delivered the pronouncements of the Oracle.

Pythius of Lydia

A Greek merchant and landowner of legendary wealth living within the Persian Empire.

Scyllias

Sculptor and professional diver, perhaps of Athenian ancestry, employed by the Persians. He defected to the League.

Themistocles

Athenian politician and military commander. During the Thermopylae campaign he commanded first the Athenian army and later the Athenian fleet.

Tritantaechmes

Persian nobleman, cousin of Xerxes and officer in the army.

Tyrtaios

Greek poet of the 7th century BC, he wrote a number of famous marching songs used by the Spartans.

Xerxes

King of Kings, the Great King, ruler of the Persian Empire.

Zeus

Chief god of the Greeks.

CHAPTER 1

The War Begins

The sack of Sardis. It was Athenian involvement in the destruction of this Persian provincial capital that led to the Persian invasion.

The actual spark that started the war between the Greeks and Persians came in 499 BC, almost 20 years before the climactic Thermopylae Campaign. The underlying tensions had, however, been growing for some time.

At this period, Greece was not restricted just to the modern country of that name. Greek-speaking cities and states were scattered from southern Italy and Sicily in the west across to what is now Turkey in the east. Nor were the Greeks united. Far from it. The Greek peoples were divided into a large number of states ranging in size from a few hundred citizens up to those that numbered hundreds of thousands among their populations. Each state was independent of all others and hostilities were as usual as friendships.

Each Greek state was free to choose its own form of government. Some were ruled by kings or military strong men, others by groups of nobles and a few were democracies. Slavery was common, even in the democracies, and society was far more rigid and hierarchical than in the modern western world. There was, however, an underlying recognition that the Greeks were a people sharing a single culture that marked them out from all others, who were generally dismissed as barbarians.

In 546 BC the powerful Persian Empire conquered the land of King Croesus of Lydia, in what is now western Turkey. Many of the smaller Greek states around the coast of Asia Minor, the area then known as Ionia, had recognised some form of overlordship by Croesus. The Persians took over this relationship. At first all was well, as the Persian monarchs made no attempt to enforce taxes or obligations on their new Greek subjects that were either novel or onerous. But gradually things changed.

In 522 BC a coup took place within the Persian Empire. The details of exactly what happened are shrouded in propaganda, but the result was clear. The throne was seized by Darius, a remote cousin of the previous monarch. Darius was a bureaucrat of genius. He thoroughly modernised the administration of the Persian Empire, introduced a standardised coinage for the first time and set about ensuring that he drew the maximum benefit from his various possessions. However, he came from an agricultural society in which all wealth derived from crops and livestock. He did not understand how commerce and trade worked, nor how to tax it without damaging the wealth-producing elements.

Inevitably the self-governing Greek states on the periphery of the Persian Empire began to feel the impact of Darius’ reforms. Darius not only created a new basis for taxation, but was fearsomely efficient at collecting it. Those states that proved recalcitrant about paying found the Persian army on their doorstep. Darius’ usual tactic was to abolish whatever form of government the Greek state had and replace it with dictatorship by a Greek he could trust. The Greeks denounced this arrangement as the rule of tyrants. Unlike the modern implications of the word, this did not imply that the rule of the tyrant was cruel or despotic, merely that it was illegal.

In 499 BC a wave of rebellion swept across the Greek states of Ionia. The tyrants were expelled or executed, as were local Persian officials and tax collectors. The Ionian Greeks sent messengers to the other Greek states asking for help against the Persians and offering the rewards of plunder as an inducement. Athens rallied to the cause, sending a powerful naval squadron and some soldiers. The high point of the Ionian Revolt, as it is known, came when the Greek insurgents captured the Persian provincial capital of Sardis. The town was looted and burned.

The success of the revolt was short-lived. Once Darius mobilised the vast resources of the Persian Empire, it was only a matter of time before the Ionian cities were recaptured. In 494 the rebel fleet was defeated at the Battle of Lade, whereupon the rough alliance that had held the various Greek states together fell apart. Each state rushed to make the best terms it could with the Persian monarch, who used the proud title of King of Kings. Darius did not allow every rebellious state to make peace. An example was made of Miletus, the first state to rise, which was sacked and burned.

When Darius learned that Greeks from outside his empire had helped the rebels, he was furious. Unable to wreak his revenge on them for the time being, he took a symbolic arrow and dedicated it to his god, Ahuramazda – Darius was like most Persians of the time a Zoroastrian. He shot the arrow westward and made a solemn pledge to take his revenge on the Athenians. To keep his vengeful frame of mind alive, Darius ordered one of his servants to whisper in his ear “Master, remember the Athenians” every time he sat down to dinner.

In 492 Darius was ready to take action. He sent his son-in-law Mardonius with a powerful army to conquer Thrace. This the able young soldier did with skill and speed, though he had the misfortune of seeing his naval support fleet almost wiped out by a storm as it rounded the cape of Mount Athos.

The following year, the King of Kings sent envoys to the Greek states in what is now Greece. Each state was asked to deliver to Darius a small box of earth and a flask of water as tokens that they acknowledged the Persian King of Kings as their overlord. Some Greek states, cowed by the sheer military might of the Persian Empire did so, others prevaricated and delayed sending a reply, hoping that Darius was not really serious. The Athenians kicked the envoys out without ceremony. At Sparta, the strange, proud and ferocious Spartans threw the envoys into a well and told them to get the earth and water for themselves.

In 490, Darius sent an invasion fleet under the command of a nobleman named Datis to destroy Athens. The Persian force captured a few islands along the way, and landed on the southern end of the island of Euboea to establish a forward base. They reduced the previously impregnable cities of Eretria and Carystus in less than a week. From Euboea, the Persians landed at Marathon ready to march on Athens. They never made it.

Led by Miltiades, the Athenian army, supported by some local allies, attacked first. Despite being heavily outnumbered, the Athenians won the battle and killed some 6,400 Persians for the loss of just 192 citizens – though no doubt some non-citizens died as well. It was a remarkable victory. The Persians retreated back across the sea. It was clear, however, that the Persians would come back. The questions were when, where, and how to defeat them.

At first the victory of Marathon seemed to show that the way to ensure victory was to rely on the heavily armoured hoplite infantry, which had composed most of the victorious army at the battle. However, one faction in Athenian society disagreed. Led by a talented young orator of humble background, named Themistocles, this faction thought that the Persian expedition of 490 had been merely a fraction of the military might of the Persian Empire. They argued that if Darius mobilised his entire resources, not even the combined armies of all Greece could defeat him. However, they reasoned, logistical supply would be a key weakness of any such massive Persian invasion. Darius’ supply lines would inevitably involve merchant shipping. Cut those supply lines and the Persian invasion would be stopped.

Themistocles argued constantly that the prime need of the Athenian state was to increase the size of the navy. In this he had the support of the poorer citizens, who could expect to earn good wages from the state as oarsmen and sailors, but was opposed by the richer citizens who had to pay the taxes. The deadlock was broken in the autumn of 484.

Athens had some small silver mines at Laurium. These were leased to a private company which paid a percentage of the bullion extracted to the state. As 484 came to a close the miners suddenly and unexpectedly broke into a new seam of ore that was breathtakingly rich and large. In the first year of production the new seam produced five tons of silver, and expansion was under way. Suddenly the Athenian treasury was overflowing. After some complex intrigue and political manoeuvring, Themistocles got the money allocated to shipbuilding. Athens would have its fleet.

The Laurium strike came not a moment too soon. Disturbing news was reaching the Greeks on the mainland of events in the Persian Empire. Darius had died in 485 and his son, Xerxes, had been kept busy touring to ensure the loyalty of his subject peoples and their governors. But in the spring of 482 Xerxes sent messengers galloping out across his vast empire. They had orders to put the complex, but superbly efficient bureaucracy of his father into motion. Weapons were to be made and transported to the city of Susa. Food supplies were to be gathered together, packed into storage containers and likewise sent off to Susa. By spring 481 vast quantities of all sorts of military necessities were ready and waiting on the pleasure of Xerxes, King of Kings.

Now fresh riders went out putting the mobilisation of the armies of the Persian Empire into operation. All across the Empire the men liable for military service were called up and informed of the orders of the Great King Xerxes. Each unit had its own instructions, but by far the largest mustering was to take place at Sardis. There could be no doubt now as to the target for all these careful preparations. The long delayed invasion of Greece was about to start.

As news reached Greece that Xerxes was gathering an army at Sardis, Sparta took the lead. The two kings, Leotychides and Leonidas, sent heralds to every state and city in Greece summoning representatives to attend a conference to be held in the autumn of 481. At this point there was no formal agenda, nor any firm proposals. The meeting was intended simply to discuss the situation.

The meeting was at first intended to meet in Sparta, but was then moved to the Isthmus of Corinth. The move was probably prompted by Themistocles of Athens who rightly reasoned that it would be better to hold the gathering on relatively neutral ground. We don’t know exactly which states sent representatives, but it is certain that the majority of mainland states did attend, as did many representatives from the islands.

A question mark hangs over King Alexander I of Macedon, both at this meeting and throughout the campaign. The powerful kingdom of Macedon lay to the north of Greece, astride the route that Xerxes would follow on his invasion. The Greeks did not regard the Macedonians as being true Greeks, but neither were they classed as barbarians. The lowland areas of Macedon had adopted Greek culture and language. The ruling family, the Caranids, were believed to be descended from the ancient hero Heracles, which made them distant cousins of the Spartan kings. It is likely that a message was sent to Alexander, but equally certain that he did not attend. (This Alexander, incidentally, was an ancestor of Alexander the Great, who was the third Alexander to sit on the throne of Macedon.)

Alexander’s position was as ambiguous as the Greek view of his kingdom. When Darius had been preparing to attack the Scythians, he had sent ambassadors to King Amyntas of Macedon to request help. Strangers to the northern kingdom, the ambassadors managed to insult the ladies of the court. Alexander, then a rash young man, lost his temper and killed the Persian ambassadors. Only prompt action by his father, Amyntas, and the pressing need of Darius for allies averted a war. When he came to the throne, Alexander maintained close links to Greece. He even competed in a race at the Olympic Games, coming second. Alexander had, however, wasted no time in sending the symbolic gifts of earth and water to Darius, and then to Xerxes. In return he was allowed to rule his kingdom as an effectively independent monarch.

Now that the Persian monarch was marching against Greece, Alexander had to choose. It was typical of this wily ruler that he managed to keep on side with both Persians and Greeks. Publicly he sided with Xerxes, providing every assistance that was asked of him. Privately, he kept in touch with the Greeks and sent them messages and advice when he could. It is likely that he had a representative at the meeting held at Corinth, but took no active part.

Other states leant further toward the Persian invaders than Macedon. Those in Thessaly would be the first truly Greek states to be invaded by the advancing Persian host. The most powerful royal family of Thessaly, the Aleuadae, had long enjoyed good relations with the Persian Empire. They had been offered good terms by the King of Kings, so it is likely that they had already decided to side with Xerxes, or to “medise” as the Greeks termed it. But not every city in Thessaly was ruled by the Aleuadae and even in areas under the control of that family there were other factions. Many of these opposed submitting meekly to Xerxes.

Thessaly sent representatives, though how many is unclear. They came to the isthmus meeting to gauge the likelihood of victory over Persia. More particularly to see if the fighting men of the Peloponnese and Attica would be willing to march north to defend Thessaly. Further south the cities of Boeotia looked to powerful Thebes as their leader. It was widely believed that Thebes favoured coming to terms with Xerxes while this was still possible. No representatives from Thebes are known to have attended the conference.

It was in southern Greece that the opposition to Xerxes was strongest. Athens and Sparta had no real choice in the matter. The total destruction of these two states was the declared purpose of the invasion. For them the question was not whether to fight, but how to fight. The cities of Arcadia and Achaia would almost certainly follow the lead of Sparta, while others would follow Athens.

The powerful city state of Argos sent no representative to the conference. The lack of its fighting men and warships would be a serious blow to the Greeks. Worse, the city stood south of the Isthmus of Corinth, putting it in a position to stab any defence in the back and give victory to the Persians. Argos had been involved in years of intermittent warfare against Sparta. She might choose to aid Xerxes to defeat her local foe, she might stay neutral or she might be induced to join the defence. It was clear that the attitude of Argos would be crucial, but with no representatives present it was impossible to find out what that attitude was.

Also absent was Corcyra, modern Corfu. This was a rich and populous state which had one of the largest war fleets in the Mediterranean. Like Argos, the attitude of Corcyra was important but there was nobody at the conference to speak up. Likewise, Crete had sent nobody to the meeting.

The discussions got underway at last, and continued for some days. There was a great deal of squabbling and debating. Nevertheless some serious decisions were taken, apparently on the insistence of Themistocles and the Spartan kings. First, all quarrels between the states which had sent representatives had to be put on one side until the Persians had been dealt with. The Athenians led the way by patching up their differences with Aegina. Second, it was agreed that any Greek state that sided with Persia would be stripped of one tenth of its wealth once the war was over.

Then came the difficult subject of agreeing a genuine military alliance. Promises could be made easily enough, and were, but actually putting a united army and navy into battle was quite another. It was agreed that each state would contribute as many men and ships as possible, with each state paying and supplying its own forces. Herodotus says that there was going to be a central war chest into which each state would pay a sum of cash. No other source mentions this, so it may be a case of his Athenian sources misleading him by trying to claim a longer history for the arrangements of their own day.

Then came the vexed question of appointing a commander. Not only was pride and honour at stake – always important to the ancient Greeks – but so was trust. Each state had its own local agenda and motives. These may have been officially set aside for the period of the emergency, but no state wanted to see a rival given the command of a huge force that could then be misused.

There could have been no serious doubt, however, that the army would be commanded by one of the Spartan kings. Not only did Sparta contribute the most effective fighting force, but their kings were raised from birth to command armies. Traditionally, one Spartan king led the army in times of war while the other stayed at home to govern the kingdom. Which king was to march to war had not yet been decided.

Command of the fleet was more problematic. Of the states at the conference, Athens had the largest fleet. A proposal was put forward, presumably by the Athenians, that their admiral, Themistocles, should command the combined fleet. The proposal was voted down by a combination of the smaller states. Athenian pride was hurt and a row broke out. The dispute was solved by Themistocles himself. He stepped forward to resign his command in favour of the Spartan Eurybiades.

In theory, this put the entire military effort under Spartan control; but the forces sent by each state remained under the control of their own commander. While they were pledged to obey the orders of the Spartan commander in chief, it was by no means certain they would do so. In practice, this meant that the commander needed to call frequent councils of war at which his subordinate commanders could discuss and debate what actions to take. It was hardly a recipe for decisive military action, but it was the best that could be agreed. And at least it was agreed by all present.

Beyond that there was no agreement possible on strategy, tactics or diplomacy. There were, quite simply, too many unknown factors for any sensible decisions to be taken. Nobody knew how large the Persian army was. And there were too many key Greek states whose attitude remained in doubt.

The final decision taken at the conference was to delay taking further decisions until the spring. Meanwhile spies would be sent to Persia to ascertain the forces ranged against them. Envoys would be sent to Argos, Corcyra and Crete to ask what those states would do. A fourth envoy was to be sent to Gelon, ruler of the enormously wealthy city of Syracuse in Sicily. He was a Greek ruling a Greek city so it was hoped that he would send some help.

With that the conference broke up. The delegates went back to their homes to await events. Xerxes, meanwhile, was preparing the most powerful army the world had ever seen.

The Persian Emperor Darius from a relief at his palace at Persepolis. The servants carry a parasol and fan to keep the emperor cool. Such luxuries attended the emperor even on military campaigns.

CHAPTER 2

The Persian Host

A depiction at Persepolis of the elite guardsmen who accompanied the Persian Emperor at all times. Each man is equipped with spear and with bow, and would have worn light armour beneath the brightly coloured robes.

No aspect of the Thermopylae campaign has given rise to greater controversy than the size and composition of the army led by Xerxes into Greece. It is generally agreed that the army was very large by the standards of the day, though how numerous the host was is a matter of great dispute.

Some time in 481BC, Xerxes gave orders for his army to muster at Sardis by the following spring. The city had a number of advantages. The city stood on the lower slopes of Mount Tmolus overlooking the plain of the River Hermos. The area around the city offered plenty of water and productive fields from which the gathering force could be supplied. It was, moreover, capital of the province of Lydia with good road links to Ephesus, Smyrna and Cyme on the coast as well as to Ipsus inland, and thence on to the interior of the Persian Empire. When Xerxes was at Sardis supervising the gathering army, he could keep in touch with the rest of his empire by messenger.

Sardis had another overwhelming recommendation as the spot on which to muster an army to invade Greece. This was the city burned to the ground by the Athenian army that had crossed the sea to support the rebellious Greek cities in 504BC. By using Sardis as the mustering point, Xerxes was making it very clear what the purpose of the great expedition was to be: revenge.

Simply the fact that Xerxes was to lead the campaign in person signifies that this was to be an event of paramount importance to the Persian Empire. He had not yet led a military campaign himself, as had his predecessors as King of Kings. Xerxes had been too busy reforming his empire, overhauling the bureaucracy and putting the system of taxation on to an efficient footing to spend time leading armies. In any case, he had not faced a major war against an outside enemy before. Now that a worthy adversary was to be faced, the King of Kings decided to command in person. Such a major expedition would call upon all the resources of the vast empire that Xerxes ruled. Messengers were sent to every province demanding money, supplies and, above all, men. No province was excused contributing to the great project.

This was of course because Xerxes needed the men, money and supplies to put his invasion force together; but there was another motive. By bringing at least some men from every province, Xerxes could impress on each the great power and might of his dominions. Men overawed by the resources of their master were less likely to rebel in future and those who returned to their homes would bear witness to his might.

Xerxes was also playing a propaganda game with the Greeks. Although he clearly intended to extend the Persian Empire to encompass all of Greece, his thirst for vengeance was directed only against the Athenians and Spartans. Persian messengers were busily at work among the other Greek cities. Promises were made of light taxation and wide-ranging self-government to those states that submitted promptly. Some were told that only symbolic gifts of soil and water would be demanded, others that free passage to the soldiers of the King of Kings would suffice. All were told of the dire consequences of standing in the way of the will of Xerxes.

It was to reinforce the last point that Xerxes wanted to gather men from all over his empire at Sardis. He knew the Greeks were familiar with his provinces that lay close to them, but he also knew that countries such as India or Bactria were little better than myths and legends to most Greeks. By confronting the Greeks with very solid evidence of his mastery over such distant lands, Xerxes hoped to intimidate them and convince them that resistance was worse than futile, it was suicidal.

No records have survived from the Persian Empire to help us decide just how large was the force that Xerxes had gathered at Sardis by the end of winter. Herodotus puts the strength of Xerxes’ army at around two million men and says that they drank the rivers dry as they advanced. Many historians have dismissed this as a wild exaggeration. Some have guessed that Herodotus was out by a factor of ten, a not uncommon error; but one that Herodotus does not make elsewhere. Few historians have made an attempt to produce an accurate picture of the vast force advancing towards Thermopylae.

And yet there is enough information available to come up with what may be a reasonable assessment of the size and fighting qualities of the army that marched with Xerxes. To understand what happened at Thermopylae and to set the campaign in context it is essential to understand, or attempt to understand, the capabilities of the Persian host. To do otherwise is to duck the issue.

As with so much about the Thermopylae campaign, it is best to start with Herodotus, while always bearing in mind that he wrote with hindsight and that those who gave him his information may have had reasons to add their own viewpoint. Herodotus uses the grand review held by Xerxes of his forces at Doriscus in the spring of 480BC as the setting for a dramatised account of the army and navy under the control of the King of Kings. The information that Herodotus gives about the Persian army is not simply a bald total, he lists all the subject nations that provided troops and how they were brigaded together for active service. This information is best presented as a table (pp 26-27). Herodotus also says that about 300,000 Thracians, Macedonians and northern Greeks joined the army as it advanced.

As usual, Herodotus does not tell us where he got this information from, but it does bear all the hallmarks of being an official document of the Persian Empire. The neat rounding of all numbers is typical of the Mesopotamian bureaucracy. We know from other sources that Persian generals preferred to have units of uniform strength for logistical purposes and would group together smaller units to achieve this, as on Herodotus’ list.

There are two known sources from which Herodotus might have gained a contemporary Persian document of this kind. The first possible source was Xerxes himself. In the winter of 481/480BC, the Persians captured three Greek spies trying to enter the camp at Sardis where the army was mustering. Swift and brutal death would have been the usual punishment for such men, but Xerxes intervened. He ordered his officers to take the spies on a guided tour of the camp. They were to point out the many different nations gathering for war, their weapons and their numbers. Xerxes’s motive is clear. At the time he was trying to win over to his side as many Greek states as possible. No doubt he hoped that reports of the overwhelming nature of his army would prompt some undecided states to opt for collaboration with the Persians.

Secondly, it should be remembered that Herodotus was a native of Halicarnassus. In 480BC, when the historian was a child of about five, this city was part of the Persian Empire. Indeed, Queen Artemisia led the Halicarnassian ships to war on the Persian side. It is more than likely that Herodotus could have acquired his list from contacts in his home city. At the least, his older contemporaries who had worked with the Persian bureaucracy could tell him whether or not a document was genuine.

Whatever the source of the information given by Herodotus, it is quite clear that the list is not an accurate record of the army Xerxes led into Greece. It would have been physically impossible to march that many men along the roads available, and to keep them supplied. However, the document on which Herodotus based his figures cannot be simply ignored or dismissed. It is most likely to have been an official list of the total military forces available to Xerxes. The Persian bureaucracy would have needed such a list, and Herodotus could quite easily have obtained a copy.

The Persian Empire was an agricultural society, though several of the subject peoples followed a pastoral or even nomadic existence. In times of dire emergency all able-bodied adult men from such a society would turn out to fight. They would come with whatever lethal objects they had to hand, whether they were axes, knives, scythes or simple clubs. Such men could not be considered to be an army. They lacked training in even the simplest tactics and had no armour at all. More importantly, while the men were away from home the farms and livestock were not being tended. If all the men were away fighting for more than a few days there could be serious consequences for the farming populations, and unpaid taxes for the government.

There can be no doubt that the King of Kings would occasionally muster all the men of an area, but this would be for a short time only and for a specific purpose – either to repel a raid or perhaps to undertake construction work.

For such an army as invaded Greece, a ruler needed men who could afford to be away from home for months on end and who could spare the time to train for the battles ahead. Different agricultural societies have organised this in different ways, and the Persian Empire seems to have used a variety of methods with the various subject nations. Relatively uncivilised pastoral peoples, such as the Mysians, were simply given a number for the men they had to supply for long-term service and left to get on with it. Each man was expected to bring his own clothing and weapons as well as, most likely, food for a set period of time. Elsewhere the system was more sophisticated. The city of Babylon and its surrounding area was not asked to provide any soldiers at all. Instead it paid a heavy tax, which was then used to equip and supply more reliable troops from among the Medes and Persians themselves.

Whatever method was used, most agricultural societies can spare about one in ten of their young, fit men for lengthy service away from home. Assuming that Herodotus took his information from a genuine Persian document, it would be most likely that it was recording the total number of men that the Empire could call on for just this sort of service. In other words, it was telling Xerxes how many men he could rely on for useful armed service.

Of course, not all these men would have been available for the invasion of Greece. The Empire was surrounded by violent and hostile neighbours who would have enthusiastically crossed unguarded borders to loot and pillage. To the north, around the Black Sea, were the famously ruthless Scythians, nomads who had been unsuccessfully invaded by the Persians in 512BC. To the east lay the kingdoms of India, all of them equipped with effective armies. The Arabs to the south were more than willing to serve Xerxes in return for Persian gold, but were just as likely to raid the lands of the King of Kings if they thought they could get away with it. All these borders needed to be guarded and patrolled in sufficient strength to deter invasion.

Nor was it only against external threats that Xerxes had to guard. In 486BC the Egyptians had risen in revolt. This wealthy country had been conquered by the Persians in 525 but had never happily accepted foreign rule. The rebellion was a concerted attempt to drive out the Persians and re-establish a native dynasty of pharaohs. It had taken Xerxes two years to defeat the revolt, after which he put his own brother Achaimenes in place to rule the country. Then Babylon itself erupted in violent protest at heavy taxation.

Xerxes needed to leave troops and reliable commanders across his empire to ensure that taxes were paid, tribute collected and that no rebellions broke out. Nor could local troops be used in case they were in sympathy with any rebellious movement. Each province needed to be garrisoned by troops from elsewhere.

Quite how many of the 1.85 million men recorded by Herodotus were needed for garrison duties across the empire is unknown. Most likely it was the majority of men available for armed service. All armies suffer from natural wastage, in the form of sickness, death and desertion. The Persian army would have been no different. Added to that was the need to allow for units to be in transit, repairing fortifications and other tasks.

All told, Xerxes would have been lucky if he could have counted on a third of his army’s nominal strength being available to march with him into Greece. This would have given a total of around 600,000 men. However, there were other limits imposed on Xerxes; and we have sources apart from the imposing list of figures given by Herodotus.