In June or July, the Greeks sent an army of ten thousand men to hold the mountain pass known as the Vale of Tempe, which runs between Macedonia and Thessaly. But their leaders discovered two other passes nearby. Since it would be impossible to close all three passes to Persia, they withdrew southward. Tempe had been a failure of intelligence, a sign of how little the Greeks knew about their own country and how much darkness ancient strategists often worked in.

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But Thermopylae was a better choice. Leonidas reasoned that in its confines a small number of men could hold off the Persians. Besides, Thermopylae was close enough to the harbor at Artemisium to allow a coordinated land-sea strategy. The Greek fleet at Artemisium would keep Persian reinforcements from arriving by sea and cutting off the Greek army holding the pass at Thermopylae. Recognizing the Greeks’ strategy, the Persians coordinated their attack on Artemisium and on Thermopylae. Although they had not planned matters quite so precisely, the land and sea battles there turned out to be fought on precisely the same three days in late August 480 b.c.

But having established that, modern historians run up against a series of mysteries. Numbers, first. The Greeks sent only a small force to Thermopylae, fewer in fact than at Tempe a month or two before. Why? A closer look only compounds the puzzle. The approximately seventy-one hundred Greeks at Thermopylae were made up of about four thousand Peloponnesians from nearly a dozen different states as well as about thirty-one hundred soldiers from central Greece. Some of the more noteworthy contributions, besides the three hundred Spartans, were four hundred men each from the great states of Thebes and Corinth. Yet they were each easily outstripped by the seven hundred men from the tiny city-state of Thespiae. Sparta promised to send more men soon, yet, even so, the discrepancy in numbers is striking.

Corinth and Sparta both lie in the Peloponnese, a peninsula located several hundred miles south of Thermopylae, and which is protected by the natural barrier of the narrow and mountainous Isthmus of Corinth. No Peloponnesian state wanted to risk sending a large force off to central Greece without first dispatching a smaller force to test the waters. They were particularly concerned about Thebes, the largest and strongest central Greek state, and an uncertain ally, since strong rumors circulated of its impending defection to Persia. Thespiae, a neighbor and rival of Thebes, was determined to stop Persia. The city-state’s central Greek location, however, put it directly in harm’s way. Hence, Thespiae made an all-out effort at Thermopylae.

The second question is just what were Sparta’s intentions at Thermopylae. If Thermopylae was so far away and exposed to the enemy, why bother to risk even a small number of men — much less one of Sparta’s two kings? (The dual monarchy was an unusual but established part of Spartan government.) There were good reasons, both positive and negative. On the plus side, Thermopylae was too strong a position to give up and a successful forward defense might have kept war away from the Peloponnesian homeland. Sparta, moreover, had a reputation to maintain as Greece’s leading land power. The dispatch of a king symbolized Spartan resolve, even if he had only few men with him. By his presence, Leonidas might stiffen the spines of wavering Greek states.

Besides, the three hundred Spartans were all full citizens, that is, elite soldiers, and therefore a scarce resource. In fact they made up about 4 percent of Sparta’s elite military manpower, no small amount. So they too represented Sparta’s grit and determination. And they could leverage success simply by bloodying Persia and slowing it down. A fight that caused casualties and delay would shake Persia’s resolve while giving the Greeks a taste of Persian tactics — invaluable knowledge for use in the next battle.

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