Leonidas and his 11,000 (not 300)
Tactical Analysis of the Battle of Thermopylae
By George Bisset.
The Battle of Thermopylae can be viewed as a noble legend ending with the sacrifice of Leonidas and 3,000 of his men, many more than the 300 Spartan “Equals” of the Hippeis. It’s possible Leonidas thought of the battle as a Roman act of “devotio”, a willing human sacrifice in battle to gain the favor of the gods.
This article looks at the finer points of the battle from the perspective of a complicated and interesting military problem of the campaign to defend Greece from the Persian invasion. It was part of a joint naval and land operation intended to delay the extremely large Persian army and fleet. Today it’s generally thought the paper strength of the Persian army was 250,000 men while the fleet was 1,200 fighting ships. It was preceded by a failed attempt by the Athenians and Spartans to do the same thing at the less formidable pass of Tempe with a similarly sized army and navy that withdrew by sea after they were bypassed by the Persians. .....
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Chris Wilkins. Chris Wilkins said: Leonidas and his 11,000 (not 300) http://bit.ly/aOpZkD A very good analysis of the Battle of Thermopylae by George Bisset. [...]
Fascinating detail. I didn’t know that so much detail about the battle was available. I look forward to the next article.