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300 - Battle of Thermopylae - XERXES and the IMMORTALS
Herodotus reports that Xerxes was mulling over how his opponents would react to his overwhelming invasion force. He did not expect to hear the opinion (scroll down 40%) of Demaratus, the exiled-Spartan king: Brave are all the Greeks who dwell in any Dorian land; but what I am about to say does not ...
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300 - Battle of Thermopylae - USED AND RECOMMENDED SOURCES
A "primary source" is the best place to get first-hand information. A person who experiences an event, and gives an account of it, is a source of primary information. Maps, photographs, drawings, videotapes, diaries, letters, manuscripts and other similar items can be primary sources. Someone who i...
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300 - Battle of Thermopylae - BATTLE at the HOT GATES
Battle at the Hot Gates was about to begin. Xerxes, parenthetically, had already disregarded one formality. Before an invasion, Persia's Great King would typically send an emissary to cities and towns in the path of destruction. Their purpose was to demand "earth and water." If the about-to-be-crus...
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300 - Battle of Thermopylae - EPHIALTES - THE TRAITOR
Unknown to Xerxes, the narrow pass - which Leonidas and his men were using to resist the invaders - was not the only way around Thermopylae. There were other paths, known only to locals. If the Persians knew about a rearward path, they could secretly cross over the mountains, under cover of a moonli...
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300 - Battle of Thermopylae - SPARTA
For centuries before - and after - the first Persian invasion at Marathon, ancient Greece was not a united country. Cities were states unto themselves, each with their own government. Sometimes the cities helped each other; sometimes they fought each other. To avenge his father's loss at Marathon, ...
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300 - Battle of Thermopylae - LEONIDAS
What we know about Sparta in 480 BCE - a decade after the Battle of Marathon - can best be described in two words: very little. The same can be said of Leonidas, one of the Spartan kings, during that time frame. Who was Leonidas? According to Paul Cartledge, a Greek-history scholar at Cambridge Uni...
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300 - Battle of Thermopylae - LIFE IN SPARTA
At the time Xerxes and his army were traveling to Greece, Sparta was known for its military power. Ruled by two kings, plus a Council of Elders, Spartans knew that all male citizens would be part of the army. Training started at a very young age. Archeological evidence reveals, however, that Sparta...
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300 - Battle of Thermopylae - GORGO
In ancient Greece, where communication between spies and their home base took time, how did Sparta realize that Xerxes was launching an invasion? According to Herodotus, Demaratos sent a hidden message to his former city: The Lacedaemonians [Spartans] were the first of the Greeks to hear of the kin...
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300 - Battle of Thermopylae - THERMOPYLAE
Thermopylae, in central Greece, was an ideal place for the coalition-defenders to resist a Persian invasion. An east-west pass,* between the mountains and the sea, was extremely narrow. If this were the place where Xerxes’ forces were to make their way into enemy territory, they would have ext...
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300 - Battle of Thermopylae - REVENGING MARATHON
Ten years had passed since a smaller army of Athenians defeated the Persians at Marathon. Remember the story? Outnumbered during the late summer of 490 BCE, the Greeks fought with courage and resolve. After the battle - according to legend - a messenger ran the entire distance from Marathon to Athen...
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