Now, on the eve of battle at Thermopylae, Demaratus deciphered a strange report brought back from the Greek camp by a Persian spy on horseback. The spy had caught the Spartans outdoors drawn up in lines, outside the rebuilt wall at the Middle Gate, but they practiced maneuvers that left him baffled. While some of the Spartans exercised naked, others combed their hair. Xerxes too found this behavior odd, but Demaratus explained that the Spartans were in the habit of grooming their hair before risking their lives. What the scout had seen, therefore, was a deadly sign of Spartan ferocity. No wonder Xerxes held his men back for four days. Why fight a battle when the enemy might be scared into retreating? On the fifth day, however, Xerxes’ patience wore out. He sent his soldiers against the Greeks.

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On one side stood a Greek army spearheaded by Spartan soldiers. With his bronze helmet, breastplate, and greaves, each Spartan seemed to be sheathed in metal. There was bronze too in the plating of his shield, which was large, circular, and convex in shape. A crimson-colored, sleeveless wool tunic extended from his waist to mid-thigh. The braids of his long hair ran out from under his helmet, while a horsehair plume swayed above it. The long hair, a Spartan trademark, was meant to look fearsome. Each Spartan was barefoot, itself a symbol of toughness. He carried a short iron sword and a long pike. The latter, which was his main weapon, was an ash-wood spear, about nine feet long, with an iron head and a bronze butt spike. Arranged in close order in a phalanx, shields interlocking, the Spartans thrust at the enemy with their pikes.

On the other side stood the Persian and Median infantrymen of Iran. By comparison with the Spartans, they looked as if they were dressed for the parade ground rather than the battlefield. Each Iranian wore a brightly colored, sleeved, knee-length tunic, under which an iron-scaled breastplate protected the torso, but he had neither helmet nor greaves. He wore a felt hat or a turban on his head, while his lower body was covered either by a long draped robe or by a pair of trousers. He wore gold jewelry, even into battle. His feet were protected by shoes. His shield was smaller than a Greek’s and made of wicker rather than of wood and bronze plating. The Persian spear was much shorter than the Greek pike, which put the Iranians at a disadvantage. Nor could the dagger carried by an Iranian outreach the Spartan sword. Unlike the Greek infantryman, the typical Iranian soldier carried a quiver full of cane arrows with bronze or iron points and a bow with its ends shaped like animal heads. Yet Persian arrows could do little damage against a wall of Greek shields or a rapid charge by bronze-covered infantrymen. No wonder that a Spartan at Thermopylae named Dieneces is said to have quipped that he did not mind if the Persians’ barrage of arrows was so thick that it blocked out the sun, since he preferred to fight in the shade.

But equipment was only part of the story. Thermopylae was a triumph of Greek military science over Persian blundering. Leonidas chose his terrain wisely and his tactics logically. The battle opened with wave after wave of Persians attacking, but each broke on the long spears and the rugged training of the Greek infantrymen. The Persians’ best troops, the so-called Immortals, did no better than their less elite comrades when they were committed to the fight late in the first day. Spartan casualties were light, but Persian losses were huge. Xerxes had to concede that when it came to soldiers he had ‘many people but few men,’ or so Herodotus said. But kings do not give up illusions easily.

Every Greek contingent took its turn in the line except the Phocians, who were posted on guard duty. But the Spartans stood out for their prowess. They had the only full-time army in Greece, and their training outpaced anything that the Great King’s men — or the other Greeks — had undergone. With the exception of the kings, every Spartan citizen was schooled in a rigid, military education called simply ‘the Upbringing.’ Only trained and hardened Spartans could have carried out the following maneuver at Thermopylae: turning and retreating in an orderly way and then, once they had tricked the Persians into charging them with a roar, changing course in an instantaneous wheel and crushing the enemy.

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