Titans of History

The laconic wit of the Lacedaemonians spread the legend of Spartan intrepidity across the world. Asked by Xerxes’ envoy to order his army to lay down its arms, Leonidas replied, “Come and get them.” His men were no less defiant. When the Persians threatened to let loose so many arrows that the light of the sun would be blotted out, one Spartan commented, “So much the better. We will fight in the shade.”

Xerxes was confident of victory after his scout reported that the Spartans appeared to be preparing for battle by performing stretching exercises and combing their long hair. But as wave upon wave of Persians tried to force their way through the pass the next day, they were cut down in their thousands. The oncoming Persians were forced to scale a wall of their fallen comrades, and then they found themselves in a death trap. After three days of hurling tens of thousands of men at the small band of Greeks, Xerxes withdrew to rethink.

Had it not been for the actions of one man, the Delphic Oracle might have been proved false. But when a Greek traitor called Ephialtes showed the Persians a hidden path that led behind Greek lines, the fate of Leonidas was sealed. Leonidas sent away the bulk of his army. With 700 Thespians who chose to stay, and 400 Thebans who deserted almost immediately, Leonidas and his 300 Spartans set themselves up as a rearguard to delay the Persian advance and protect the retreating Greeks. They knew they would die fighting.

They fought with spears. When their spears shattered they fought with swords. Once those were broken, they fought with teeth and hands until they fell. The historian Herodotus estimated that this tiny band inflicted losses of 20,000 on the Persians. When Leonidas’ body was recovered, Xerxes, raging impotently at his ignominious victory, ordered that the dead king be decapitated and his body crucified. Forty years later Leonidas’ remains were finally returned to the Spartans, to be buried with the honor they were due.

Leonidas’ last stand inspired the Greeks to rally and fight for their freedom. Their subsequent victories over the Persians at sea (Salamis) and on land (Plataea) ensured that Xerxes was the first, and last, Persian sovereign to set foot on Greek soil. The suicidal bravery of the Spartans, so gloriously victorious in defeat, is commemorated in a famous epitaph inscribed on a stone marking the place where they fell at Thermopylae:

Go tell it in Sparta, stranger passing by,

That here, obedient to their laws, we lie.

HERODOTUS

?484–430/420 BC

[I write] in the hope of thereby preserving from decay the remembrance of what men have done.

Herodotus, The Histories, Book I

Herodotus was the West’s “Father of History.” An adventurous traveler, he used his gift for storytelling to recount the upheavals affecting the lands where Europe, Asia and Africa meet. He is best known as a hawk-eyed observer of the epic wars between Greece and Persia in the 5th century BC, but he also charted the growing rivalry between Athens and Sparta.

Herodotus was the first to employ many of the techniques of modern historical writing, and although his credibility has sometimes been called into question, modern research has often proved him right.

He was probably born in Halicarnassus, then under Persian rule, but he lived for much of his life in Athens, where he met the Greek dramatist Sophocles. Herodotus left Athens for Thurii, a colony in southern Italy that was sponsored by Athens. The last event recorded by Herodotus took place in 430 BC, although it is not certain when he died.

If our knowledge of his life is sketchy, our understanding of Herodotus’ times is exceptional, thanks to the work he undertook. He traveled extensively through Egypt, Libya, Syria, Babylonia, Lydia and Phrygia. He sailed up the Hellespont to Byzantium, visited Thrace and Macedonia, and journeyed north to the Danube, then traveled east along the northern coast of the Black Sea.

Herodotus’ masterpiece was his Histories, divided into nine books, each named after one of the Greek muses. The first five books concern the background to the Greco-Persian Wars of 499–479 BC. The final four comprise a history of the wars themselves, culminating in the invasion of Greece by the Persian king Xerxes at the head of a vast army.