The Battle Of Thermopylae: Brief Summary

The historical event I chose for my project is the last stand of the three hundred Spartans and eight hundred and fifty or so other Greek warriors at the Thermopylae pass during the Greece-Persian war or as it is better known as the Persian Wars.

The Persian Wars were a military struggle between the City-States of Greece and the Persian Empire. During this event, the Persians achieved the greatest engineering feat of that time, when the mighty Persian Army crossed Hellespont, the narrowest point between Greece and the Persian Empire, by building a bridge of ships to save him time and resources to cross the sea to Greece and crossing soldiers, and calvary. Xerxes brought anywhere between three hundred thousand to a couple of million troops the number of troops is widely disputed by historians, Believing that the original count by historians and scribes was greatly exaggerated.

The Persians marched towards Greece and met them at Thermopylae where the Greeks held off the Persians for two days before a traitor and turncoat, by the name of Ephialtes, let King Xerxes, son of King Darius who failed to take over Greece just ten years before, know of a pass that his army could flank the Greeks from behind. (By Anirudh April 17, 2016, https://learnodo-newtonic.com/battle-of-thermopylae-facts) So when the Greeks found out about the traitor/turncoat who told King Xerxes about the pass to flank them. Leonidas had the majority of the Greek soldiers retreated as Leonidas and his three hundred Spartans fought the bulk of the Persian army it is recorded that King Leonidas said to his men at breakfast “Tonight we dine in Hades” the thing that impressed me the most was Xerxes he tried to stick to tradition and kill all of the Spartans with a sword and spear but the Spartans were so sure they would die that they fought like demons that Xerxes, suffering major moral and troop loss, ordered all of his troops retreat and he used his archers to kill them all but the most amazing thing is the number of Persians killed in those final hours of the Spartans managed to kill anywhere between 6.6% to 28.5% of the Persian Army. Now 6.6% may not sound like a lot but considering that Xerxes had any number between seventy thousand to three hundred thousand troops with him on this campaign.

That means close to 20,000 people in the service of the Persian Army died. That’s one of the best soldiers to enemy kill rates one to twenty. The Greeks lost only about one thousand troops. That is a lot of people lost just to go home in defeat when just ten years ago you old man King Darius had the same thing happen to him.

Bibliography

1. Anirudh – https://learnodo-newtonic.com/battle-of-thermopylae-facts
2. Kate Lohnes-Donald Sommerville – https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Thermopylae-Greek-history-480-BC
3. Decisive Battles – Thermopylae (greece Vs Persia)
4. Zakerias Rowland-Jones – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8M4w-82iVXs