Battle
A coalition closes the coastal road and withstands two days of assaults before a night march along Anopaia creates the decisive second front.
Military history
The fullest account, that of Herodotus, does not begin with three hundred men alone. The Greeks choose Thermopylae to close the land route while their fleet moves to Artemisium. Leonidas arrives with an advance force from several cities, restores the Phocian Wall, and leaves one thousand Phocians to guard the upper path. The ancient shoreline, marshes, and slopes restrict the front; Greek units can rotate and Persian waves cannot employ their full mass at once. After four days of waiting, assaults by the Medes, Cissians, and then the Immortals fail over two days. Intelligence produces the break: Ephialtes guides Hydarnes along Anopaia, the Phocian guard is surprised at dawn, and the rear route is no longer secure. Most Greeks leave; Spartans, Thespians, and Thebans remain for a final battle that the sources do not recount in the same way. Persian victory opens the road but does not decide the war by itself.
After abandoning Tempe, the allies send hoplites to Thermopylae and a fleet to Artemisium. The two positions are close and are intended to keep the Persian army and fleet from freely supporting one another. The land battle should therefore not be read as a duel detached from the naval campaign.
Herodotus lists 300 Spartans, 3,100 other Peloponnesians, 700 Thespians, 400 Thebans, and 1,000 Phocians, plus the full levy of the Opuntian Locrians. The Carneia and Olympic Games delay the main reinforcements: the initial deployment is not yet presented as a last stand.
The decisive relationship is a corridor between gulf and mountain, unlike the modern landscape in which the shoreline lies much farther away. Geoarchaeological evidence supports the presence of a freshwater marsh in the central gate in 480 BCE, while other work disputes an overly simple reading of the wall as a barrier running straight across the road.
Herodotus describes Hydarnes’s march, the night council, the allies’ departure, and the encirclement on the mound of Kolonos. Diodorus and Plutarch preserve another sequence in which the Greeks attack the Persian camp at night; Plutarch also disputes Herodotus’s presentation of the Thebans. These versions are kept separate.
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Military history
VII.175–177 et VII.201–234 ; surtout 201–206 pour le déploiement, 208–218 pour l'attente et Anopaia, 219–225 pour le retrait et le dernier combat.
Establishing the Thermopylae–Artemisium plan, Greek catalog, wall, four days of waiting, assaults, the roles of Ephialtes and Hydarnes, the council, the presence of Thespians and Thebans, and the encirclement at Kolonos.
View ↗VIII.15 et VIII.21–25 ; surtout VIII.24–25 pour le lien avec Artémision, les morts grecs, les hilotes et les totaux de pertes.
Relating the fall of Thermopylae to the withdrawal from Artemisium and documenting the difficulty of reading bodies and numbers after the battle.
View ↗XI.4–11 ; surtout XI.4.4–7, XI.6–9 pour les forces et le contournement, XI.10.1–4 pour l'attaque nocturne et le fratricide.
Preserving a different ancient tradition on strengths, the final Greek group, the night march, and confusion in the Persian camp without merging it with Herodotus.
View ↗Moralia 865D–867A, §§31–33 ; surtout §32 sur les Thébains et §33 sur la reddition et le marquage.
Documenting the pro-Theban countertradition and explicit criticism of Herodotus’s presentation.
View ↗Moralia 225A–D, « Leonidas, son of Anaxandridas », surtout 225C–D.
Placing ‘Come and take them’ and Leonidas’s retorts within later literary traditions, distinct from contemporary verbatim statements from the battle.
View ↗Section THE BATTLE, paragraphes sur le paysage ancien, le passage d'environ 9 km et jusqu'à 20 m, Artémision, les deux jours et le dernier groupe ; crédits des musées et objets « Bronze arrow heads from the battlefield of Thermopylae, Kolonos Hill » et « Anopaia path ».
Grounding the institutional context, sea–mountain relationship, function of the pass, and physical landmarks at Kolonos and Anopaia; its strength figures remain estimates, not primary facts.
View ↗1980, pp.15–23 ; abstract sur l'exigence d'une route assez spacieuse, la route de Vardates et la correspondance des temps de marche avec Hérodote.
Supporting the night march as a formed-unit maneuver and the lack of certainty over Anopaia’s modern route.
View ↗2010, pp.241–253 ; abstract et reconstruction paléogéographique fondée sur données géomorphologiques, stratigraphiques, paléontologiques, forages et tomographie.
Establishing the alteration of the Spercheios delta and the presence of a freshwater marsh in the central gate at the time of the battle.
View ↗2015, pp.127–144 ; abstract p.127 et pp.134–135 (PDF pp.7–8) sur le mur phocidien comme circuit ouvert possible et la mission des Phocidiens.
Bounding the reconstruction of the wall and proposing an alternative reading of the Phocian guard; these proposals remain identified as specialist interpretations.
View ↗1998, pp.365–379 ; surtout pp.368–375 et 376–378 (PDF pp.3–14).
Comparing Herodotus with Ephorus traditions transmitted by Diodorus and Plutarch, especially the night attack, Thebans, and final battle.
View ↗2024, pp.50–66 ; abstract et discussion de la relation entre Hérodote VII.202, VIII.25, les hilotes et les chiffres de morts.
Avoiding reduction of the dead to named hoplites or treatment of the totals in VIII.25 as a transparent census.
View ↗Section « Exploring place in the Classical world », paragraphes sur l'absence de cartes classiques, les liens Hestia et le déplacement du rivage par sédimentation.
Framing the reading of maps and the distinction between the ancient landscape described in the texts and the modern landscape; explicitly used as an institutional cartographic source.
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