"Go, stranger, tell Sparta that here we lie, faithful to its laws"
The Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC. J-C. opposes an alliance of Greek cities to the Achaemenid Empire. This is one of the most famous feats of arms in ancient history, outnumbered, the Greeks stand up to the enemy.
The courage and sacrifice of the thousand Spartans, Thebans and Thespians has become legendary and has been echoed time and time again in popular culture.
The Congress of Corinth
The Persian preparations obviously did not go unnoticed and a congress of the various Greek cities met in Corinth at the end of autumn 481. For once the immediate interests of Sparta and Athens merged. Athens fears revenge from the Persians for her earlier successes and Sparta finds that her great rival in the Peloponnese, Argos, is being contacted by Xerxes' envoys. All the great Greek cities, except Cyrene, Argos, Syracuse, Corcyra and Phocaea, send representatives to the temple of Poseidon at Corinth. Sparta, as the most powerful of the cities, presides over the congress. A general reconciliation occurs, as for example between Athens and Aegina, and 31 cities engage by oath in a defensive league against the Persians and prepare contingents of soldiers. The command of the troops is entrusted to two Spartans, King Leonidas I for the infantry and Eurybiade for the Greek fleet. But during the winter of 481/480, the Greeks dithered on the campaign plan and could not oppose the conquest of Thessaly by the Persian troops in the spring of 480.
The Greeks then choose in August, while the Persians invade Pieria, a very strong defensive position at Thermopylae which commands access to Boeotia and central Greece. As for the fleet, it settles in the north of Euboea in a place called Artemision in order to prevent the Persian fleet from circumventing this position. Indeed the Persians, to keep in touch with their fleet, must take the only important road which passes through Thermopylae (the "Hot Doors", because of the thermal springs there). There, between the Maliac Gulf and the mountain, the narrow causeway passes in a defile, some passages of which do not exceed 10 meters in width and which, moreover, is blocked by the remains of a wall built in a zigzag pattern. Finally, the marshes are numerous and form an additional obstacle.
Between the approximately 7,000 to 10,000 men at the disposal of Leonidas and the fleet of Eurybiades (with Themistocles at the head of the contingent of Athenian ships, by far the most numerous) the liaisons are constant.
The storm of Artemision
On leaving Thessaly the troops of Xerxes move south. The infantry leave the city of Therma and arrive thirteen days later in the trachinian plain (between the valley of Asopos and the city of Anticyre). The Persian fleet sets off about ten days later, so that the arrival of land and naval troops is joint. Eurybiades, faced with the size of the Persian fleet, left the Artemision and went along the Euboean Canal to occupy the stranglehold of Chalcis, leaving Leonidas at the mercy of a landing on his rear. But this maneuver, if it does not appear very daring, encourages the Persians to progress further south than expected and to anchor at Cape Sepias, near a rocky and steep coast where they cannot tow their ships on dry land and where the depth of the waters prevents many ships from mooring securely. A violent three-day storm will destroy about 400 ships. Several thousand men drowned. The main consequence is that Xerxes, although he retains numerical superiority, is no longer able to divide his naval forces in such a way as to convoy the army while fighting the Greek fleet. At Chalcis, Eurybiades regains confidence and goes back to take his guard at the Artemision. But despite the storm, the Persian numerical superiority appears so imposing that Eurybiades and his deputy, the Corinthian Adimantos, turn back.
It was then that Achaemenes, one of the half-brothers of Xerxes and admiral of the Persian fleet, detached a squadron of 200 ships and approximately 40,000 men to circumvent Euboea by the high seas while the rest of the fleet moved to the Aphètes anchorage, a safer anchorage than that of Cape Sepias. Warned of this diversion, which forbade them to escape through the Euboean canal to the south, and of this new anchorage, the Greeks attempted a coup de force and launched a surprise attack on the Ionians, allies of the Persians, and sank about thirty ships before returning to their home base of the Artemision. Finally, a new storm breaks out and does further damage to a Persian fleet whose ships are at anchor, while at Artemision the Greeks, as usual, pull the ships on dry land, which puts them at risk. 'shelter. Above all, this new storm causes the total destruction of the squadron sent to bypass Euboea.
The battle
First, on land, the troops of Leonidas firmly hold their position in a defile and push back the Persians, inflicting great losses, including the famous Immortals, the elite troops of Xerxes. But Leonidas is betrayed by a certain Ephialtes, son of Eurydemos, a citizen of Malia, who delivers to the Persians the means of circumventing the Greek army, by the path of Anopée. Leonidas then decides to sacrifice himself with the 300 Spartan hoplites, as well as 700 soldiers from Thespies[3], to give the Greeks time to organize their defense and the army to withdraw in good order. The 400 combatants of Thebes (probably hostages) had also received the order to participate in this last action, but they deserted at the first opportunity [4]. The Greeks resist heroically around the Spartan king and are all massacred by order of Xerxes. This battle became the emblem of the Greek resistance to the invader and of the spirit of sacrifice of the Spartans.