For two days the slaughter continued. Then, on the third day, the Persians outflanked the Greeks by taking a trail over the mountains and around Thermopylae. The path led the Persians down to the sea to the east of the Greeks at the Middle Gate. As in past battles, Greek treason saved the Persians. At Thermopylae, the Greek traitor in question was a native of the region, Ephialtes son of Eurydemus of Trachis. In exchange for money, he guided Xerxes’ Immortals over a steep, narrow, and hard-to-follow mountain track. They set out in the evening, ‘around the lighting of the lamps,’ and traveled by night. Meanwhile, Xerxes and most of the Persian army remained at sea level, at the west end of the Thermopylae pass.As the Immortals approached the Greeks, a unit of one thousand Phocian infantrymen stationed on the ridge above Thermopylae heard them coming. By dawn’s first light it was calm and windless, and the sound carried of soldiers’ feet tramping on fallen leaves. As soon as the Persians realized that Greeks blocked their way, they worried over having stumbled into the much-feared Spartans. When the Persians learned that they were in luck, they drove the frightened Phocians off with a hail of arrows and continued downward toward Thermopylae.

Subscribe Today

• Did you enjoy our article?
• Read more in MHQ magazine
• Subscribe online and save!
 

–>

Meanwhile, the news came to the Greeks below, at the Middle Gate. The intelligence arrived in stages. First, in a pre-dawn sacrifice, the Greek seer Megistias of Acarnania made out impending death in the victim’s entrails. Then deserters, followed by lookouts, reached the Greek camp with solid news of the Persians’ movement. The Greek commanders met, debated, disagreed, and most of the men started to leave. Whether they were deserters or just soldiers doing their job is unclear. After the battle, some reports claimed that Leonidas himself dismissed most of the allied troops before the enemy could close off the far end of the pass; Herodotus was inclined to agree. In the end, about a thousand other Greeks remained with the Spartans, including the loyal Thespians and the untrustworthy Thebans (the latter virtually hostages).

Leonidas’ strategy is unclear. Perhaps he planned to have his men guard the rear and then escape at the last moment. If so, the maneuver went wrong. Or perhaps the king had now decided to die — the interpretation that Herodotus strongly preferred, although he admitted that this was controversial. The historian said that Leonidas had three reasons to have the Spartans stay: a sense of propriety, a desire to fulfill a prophecy that only the death of a king could save Sparta, and a thirst for glory — a primitive wish out of the pages of Homer. Leonidas gave Megistias permission to leave, but the soothsayer stayed and instead sent away his son, who was his only child.

At sunrise, back at the western end of the Thermopylae pass, Xerxes carried out libations. Yet he waited until mid-morning to order the advance, to ensure that the Immortals had enough time to come down from the mountains and into the eastern end of Thermopylae pass. At that point, any Greeks left at the Middle Gate would have been surrounded.

And then the Persian attack came. Instead of fighting from behind the rebuilt defensive wall, this time the Greeks at the Middle Gate came out to close with the enemy. Battling fiercely, they inflicted heavy casualties on the Persians. It was a fight to the finish. The Greeks first battled with their spears, and when their spears were all broken they used their swords. When their swords were gone, they went after the Persians with hands and teeth. When Leonidas finally fell, the Greeks drove the enemy off four times before recovering his body. Nevertheless, prior to being at last overwhelmed by Persian spears and arrows, the Greeks killed two of Xerxes’ half-brothers, Abrocomes and Hyperanthes.

Of the three hundred Spartans at Thermopylae, only two survived the battle: Pantites, who had been sent with a message to Thessaly, and Aristodamus, who was also a messenger or — in a different version — was one of two men excused for severe eye infections. The other man, Eurytus, is said to have gone into battle anyhow, led by his servant. Back in Sparta, Pantites is said to have hanged himself in disgrace, while Aristodamus overcame the nickname ‘Aristodamus the Coward’ by fighting to the death in a later battle.

Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to