The Hot Gates

How big was the King's army?

Herodotus counts 1,700,000 foot soldiers, and an epitaph speaks of three million. Supply, water and road space make that impossible; modern estimates run from about 100,000 to 300,000 in all.

In the game: The muster shows the modern estimate, and says it is one.

Herodotus 7.60, 7.184-187, 7.228

Combing their hair

A Persian scout rode up and saw Spartans exercising and combing their long hair before the wall. The exiled Spartan king Demaratus told Xerxes it meant they were ready to die.

Herodotus 7.208-209

The wall and the springs

The pass ran between mountain and sea, with hot springs and an old Phocian wall. The river has since carried so much silt that the shore now lies kilometres away. Herodotus says rivers on the march were drunk dry.

In the game: Thermopylae's decree asks for wells for the host.

Herodotus 7.176, 7.196; geological surveys of the Spercheius delta

Storm and sea fight

Before the fighting, a storm off Magnesia blew for three days and wrecked hundreds of the King's ships. Then, on the same three days as the fighting in the pass, the Greek fleet fought at Artemisium, each front guarding the other's flank.

In the game: A strip at the top of the screen follows Artemisium day by day; a trireme rammed hard may break across amidships, as Herodotus describes at Salamis (8.90).

Herodotus 7.188-191, 8.1-18 (8.15 for the same days)

The Immortals and the false retreat

The Medes were thrown back, then the Immortals under Hydarnes. Herodotus says the Spartans turned as if to flee, then wheeled on their pursuers.

In the game: The Spartans feign flight once; fallen Immortals are queued again at a barracks.

Herodotus 7.210-212

The path

Ephialtes of Trachis led the Immortals at night over the Anopaea path. The Phocians guarding it fell back to a hilltop, and the Persians passed them by.

Herodotus 7.213-218

The last stand

Leonidas sent most of the army away and stayed with his 300 Spartans, 700 Thespians and 400 Thebans. They fought on the little hill in the pass until they were overwhelmed. In 1939 archaeologists found many Persian arrowheads on that hill.

Herodotus 7.219-225; S. Marinatos, excavation of 1939

'Come and take them'

Leonidas's famous reply to the demand for his arms comes from Plutarch, six centuries later. Herodotus does record the Spartan who, told the arrows would hide the sun, said they would fight in the shade.

Plutarch, Sayings of Spartans (Leonidas 11); Herodotus 7.226

Athens taken

The Athenians had left their city for Salamis and the ships. A few held the Acropolis behind wooden barricades until Persians climbed the cliff by a shrine. The temples were burned, as Sardis had been.

Herodotus 8.50-55