Greek history different than what Hollywood shows

By Emily Morgan
The Mirror

Modern film has given us a bright and shiny example of its own genius with Warner Bros. Picture's movie "300". The movie depicts the myth of King Leonidas of Sparta and his forces as they battle the Perisian King Xerxes at the Battle of Thermopylae in the year 480 B.C.

For a history major living in Greece, the battle is much closer now than when I lived in the United States. In our travels we visited both Sparta and the sight of the epic battle. In both places there was not a whole lot left.

For the history and mythology surrounding the battle, there is much to wade through. It is important to note that no Persian or third party accounts of the battle remain, so everything that comes down to us is from the Greek side.

Beware the bias for the mouse's squeak is always overcome by the lion's roar. The Athenians soundly beat the Persian King Darius at the Battle of Marathon in 490 B.C. and for several years Xerxes did not bother with the Greeks. When he did pay attention, he was obsessed.

Xerxes spent over four years gathering supplies and soldiers for the long campaign. The historian Herodotus estimated that Xerxes had an army of 1.7 million, double that number for the navy, and at least triple that for the servants and other crews.

Many Greek cities submitted to Xerxes without a fight. Given how small the city-states' armies would have been in comparison to Xerxes' their decision is not surprising. Several of the city-states gathered together in a Panhellenic conference. Some wanted to build a large wall at Corinth, but many cities wanted a to increase the defenses on the northern side of Greece, in the hopes of protecting more people.

The line was drawn. Thermopylae. The name actually means "hot gates" because of the hot springs that the area holds. Strategically it was a good position, a bottle neck, which would force Xerxes' large force into small pieces that the Greeks could then draw into hand to hand combat.

As soldiers sped to Thermopylae, the Athenians began preparing a naval strike. Somewhere around 7,000 men [figures vary on historical accounts] assembled to defend the Greek people from the Persian Xerxes. And according to Herodotus that number also included 300 Spartans, hence the name of the movie.

Very few of the soldiers thought they would leave the battle alive. The army was under command of King Leonidas; the second King of Sparta [yes, there were two] Leotychidas was one of the other commanders.

The first wave of Persians were repulsed by the Greeks who used the terrain of the area to their advantage.Xerxes then sent in his elite unit known as the "immortals".

The commanders of the Greek army had a clever rotation system in order so that fresh men were always at the front of the fight. And with the Persians unable to fight as they had been trained, heavy causalities were suffered that first day at Thermopylae.

On the second day, a Greek traitor named Ephialtes showed the Persians a small path that would lead the army to the weak back defense of the Greek army.

A quick council was held once the Greeks learned this, and Leonidas was to stay behind with 300 Spartans, 700 Thespians, and 900 Spartan serfs while the rest of the army retreated to fight another day [again, figures vary].

In the final open battle, Leonidas was killed and the small force re-gathered to a hill where the soldiers who remained died in a blitz of arrows. In a nutshell, that is the Battle of Thermopylae.

It barely slowed down the force of Xerxes by a week, but probably struck a mortal blow to the invaders.

Surprisingly, everything that is heralded about Ancient Greece [art, democracy, science, etc] was not practiced in Sparta.

It was a military state where the elders ruled, boys were taken away from their families for training, and all the men ate at a communal table.

So those thought to be the protectors of the Ancient Greeks were actually living a very different life than we might think.

**Emily Morgan is a junior studying abroad at the Drury Center in Volos, Greece.**