The 300 and Sparta's Military Ethos

One of the most common misconceptions about Sparta today is that the Spartan army had a tradition of “do or die,” that is, that it was against Sparta's laws to retreat. This myth has its roots in Leonidas’ stand at Thermopylae, and the most important piece of evidence is the memorial that the Spartans themselves erected at Thermopylae after the Persians had been driven out of Greece. This famous monument had a dedication that in one common translation ran: “Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that here, in obedience to the laws, we lie.”

This simple epitaph is widely interpreted to mean that the 300 Spartans who died at Thermopylae had no option of retreating. Allegedly, these men lay buried in the Pass at Thermopylae, so far from home, because Sparta’s “laws” forbade retreat or surrender regardless of the odds or the certainty of death. 

Modern Monument at Thermopylae

But as I have pointed out elsewhere, Spartan forces both retreated and surrendered in a variety of other engagements over the centuries (e.g. Hysiai, Sphakteria). The Spartans didn’t seem to think there was a “law” against retreat even under far less threatening and less hopeless situations than that presented to Leonidas at Thermopylae. Are we to believe Leonidas and his 300 were the only Spartans who lived and died by Sparta’s laws? Or could there be another explanation of the epitaph?

The answer, I believe, can be found in the fact that there were, according to Herodotus, in fact three separate monuments erected to commemorate the men who fought at Thermopylae. First, there was a collective monument which read: Four thousand here from Pelops’ land, Against a million once did stand. This clearly referred to the other Peloponnesian allies that fought with the Spartans at Thermopylae on the first two days. (The Thespians appear to have erected their monument only at home, or a separate monument to the Thespians had disappeared by the time Herodotus visited the site of the battle.) Second there was the monument referred to above, and third there was “a stone lion in memory of Leonidas.”
 

No -- unfortunately not the monument to Leonidas which is lost, but possibly inspired by description: the Lion of Lucern commemorating the loss of the Swiss Guard.

In short, there were two Spartan monuments: the one to Leonidas and the one to the other Spartiates. If we separate the two, then we see the glimmer of an answer because it suggests that the “law” that the 300 obeyed may not have applied to Leonidas at all.

Leonidas had an option. Leonidas could have decided to pull-out of the Pass as soon as it became indefensible. Leonidas would not have broken any “law” if he had done so, because there was no law that required Spartans to fight until death rather than retreat or surrender.

But there was a law that required obedience to Sparta’s kings as long as they were beyond the borders of Lacedaemon in command of Sparta’s army. This law is documented and was widely respected.  Sparta’s kings could be charged, tried and exiled once they were at home, but not during war, not while campaigning abroad. As long as they were commanding the army in a military engagement outside Lacedaemon, their troops were bound to obey them, and for the most part did. 

Sulpture found in Sparta dating from the early 5th century BC. Although spontaneously called "Leonidas" by the Greek workers on the site, the helmet is not the cross-crest of the Spartan kings and so probably depicts an ordinary Spartan hoplite of the period rather than the king himself.

What this means is that once Leonidas decided to stay and die – as he no doubt believed was his destiny based on the oracle from Delphi – his body guard had no option but to stay with him. There is anecdotal evidence recorded by Plutarch that Leonidas tried to save some of his companions by asking them to deliver dispatches, but the “older men” saw through him and refused. This is consistent with a king determined to face his destiny, but distressed by the knowledge that his decision will drag three hundred of Sparta’s finest with him.

The erection of two separate monuments and the epitaph makes sense in this context as well. Leonidas was the lion, who decided to go down fighting defiantly rather than live to fight a another day. After he had made that courageous decision, however, his bodyguard had no choice and for them, therefore, they lay buried in a foreign pass not as particular heroes but simply “in obedience to the laws.” 


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The Importance of Leonidas

The final book in my trilogy on the life and death of Leonidas is now just one week away from publication, causing me to reflect on the purpose of the project. Why did I write and why should anyone read a biography, in novel form or otherwise, of King Leonidas of Sparta? In my earlier entries about Leonidas I have sketched many of his unique characteristics and emphasized his importance, often under-estimated, in Spartan history. But except for scholars of ancient history, who cares?

As a historian, of course, I think history matters because of what it teaches us about human nature. Furthermore, history shapes and influences us – even when we don’t know it. While ancient Sparta probably seems obscure and irrelevant to many modern readers, anyone familiar with ancient sources rapidly recognizes that ancient Greece was remarkably “modern.” Accounts of debates, intrigues and scandals in ancient Athens sound astonishingly similar to what goes on in modern legislatures. The fact that the monuments we see on the Acropolis today were paid for by Athens “Allies” should have been a warning to the EU….

As for Sparta, it was the role of women in Sparta that first awoke my interest — and preference — for Sparta, but I soon realized that Sparta shared far more with modern Western society than just the treatment of women. For example, Sparta was the only ancient Greek city to introduce public education for all future citizens, just as we have in Western countries today. Sparta sought to ensure a minimum standard of living for all citizens by giving each citizen an estate large enough to support him and his family, rather the same way that welfare payments and other forms of subsidies for the poor are intended to prevent abject poverty in modern Social Democracies. Despite its overwhelming military might, Sparta had only one vote in the defensive alliance it founded and headed  — a situation comparable to that of the U.S. in NATO today.  Spartan artistic and architectural style was minimalist and functional rather than highly decorative  —  something evocative of Scandinavian design today. All these factors convinced me that writing about Sparta would underline the degree to which humans have shared values across millennia.

But Leonidas is more than just a Spartan — even if he is arguably the quintessential Spartan.  And Leonidas was more than a Spartan king — even if he is Sparta’s most famous king.  Leonidas is important not as a historical personality but as a moral figure.  Leonidas fascinates us not because he was a Spartan king, but because he was prepared to defy impossible odds for the sake of freedom.

Critical to the appeal of Leonidas is that he died fighting a defensive  — not an aggressive  — battle.  Equally important is the fact that he faced death consciously; Leonidas knew he was going to die, but that did not deter or even dishearten him.  Most important of all, Leonidas did not die, like Achilles, for the sake of his own glory and even for honor, but for the lives and freedom of others.

Leonidas’ conscious decision to die in order to save Sparta from destruction was proto-Christian. His example is morally up-lifting, and his story inspirational. These, not a fascination with Ancient Sparta or Leonidas’ historical role, were the factors that made his story worth telling and make his story worth reading.

The five years of my life spent researching and writing about Leonidas have been well spent. They have opened my eyes about many aspects of human nature and enriched my understanding of the human condition. And most of all, they have inspired me to keep writing and keep searching for my own destiny. 

The Soldier Leonidas

No, this is not about Thermopylae. This is about Leonidas’ entire military career.

First and foremost, Leonidas was one of the few Spartan kings, who was a professional military man. Unlike the Spartan kings before and almost all the Spartan kings after him, Leonidas “enjoyed” the complete program of military training imposed on Spartan citizens from boyhood through ten years of active service, and a lifetime in the reserves thereafter. Thus, Leonidas was one of the only Spartan kings as familiar with every formation and drill employed by the Spartan army as his troops, and as adept with the use of weapons as his fellow citizens. Equally important, having been an ordinary ranker, he knew exactly how they thought, felt and reacted. Leonidas was as much a soldier as he was a commander. This was a significant advantage. It was what made other famous Spartan commanders like Brasidas and Lysander effective as well.

Nor was his experience confined to the drill-field. Although Sparta in the late archaic was not a city perpetually at war (as readers of Steven Pressfield’s novel Gates of Fire can be forgiven for believing), in Leonidas’ lifetime Lacedaemon was engaged in a number of significant military campaigns. Thus while Leonidas never fought the more than 20 campaigns Pressfield fantasizes about, he would have gained second- or first-hand experience from a significant albeit limited number of wars.

First, when Leonidas was still a child or youth (depending on his date of birth), Sparta made an unsuccessful attempt to drive the tyrant Polycrates out of Samos. Notably, this required deployment of a considerable force by sea and involved a forty day siege as well as an assault in which some of the Spartans managed to break into the city, but were then cut off and killed. The rest returned. The failure and the loss of life must have been traumatic for the proud Spartiates and so the topic of many discussions in syssitia across the city for years of come – probably with recriminations and a lot of “Monday-morning-quarterbacking.” Leonidas, as a young Spartan male, would undoubtedly have listened avidly to accounts of this campaign told by the veterans and to the critique of the others.

Roughly ten years later, Leonidas’ half-brother Cleomenes undertook an invasion of Attica, again by sea. Once again, Sparta’s expeditionary force was defeated and driven back to their ships, this time by Thessalian cavalry. Leonidas was by this time very likely in his late teens, if not already a young man. Conceivably, he even took part in this expedition, but, if so, only in a subordinate capacity as an ordinary ranker. Whatever his age and role, Leonidas would have learned a valuable lesson, at least second hand, about the capabilities of cavalry and the advisability of not under-estimating it.

Cleomenes undertook no less than three additional campaigns against Athens in the years to follow. In the first, he successfully dislodged the Athenian tyrant Hippias, but in the second, in which he sought to drive out Cleisthenes and restrict Athenian democracy, he found himself bottled up on the acropolis by the outraged Athenian masses and had to withdraw with his tail between his legs following a negotiated truce. Given the small and evidently informal nature of these first two campaigns (Herodotus suggests both campaigns were conducted with small volunteer forces), it is unlikely that Leonidas was an active participant in either, but, again, he would have heard a great deal about them second-hand.

Burning from the humiliation of his second defeat, however, Cleomenes next called up the full Spartan army and the allies of the Peloponnesian league. Spartan law at this time, however, required both kings to command a full army deploying outside Lacedaemon, so Cleomenes was accompanied on this fourth campaign against Athens by his co-monarch Demaratus and presumably al active units. Demaratus was not as enthusiastic about invading Attica as Cleomenes – and nor were the Peloponnesian allies. Cleomenes’ army got as far as Eleusis, but there the Corinthians drew the line. They had no quarrel with Athens, and they refused to continue. Demaratus sided with the Corinthians. While the allied army disintegrated, the conflict between Cleomenes and Demaratus hog-tied the Spartan army as well. The Spartans had no choice but to return, undefeated but humiliated again.

Leonidas was almost certainly present with the Spartan army during this last campaign against Athens. Depending on his date of birth, he might already have been a junior officer. Regardless of his military rank, as Cleomenes' half-brother and heir apparent, he almost certainly knew what was going on in the command tents, if not directly, then indirectly. While the campaign would have provided him with no combat experience, it would certainly have taught him a great deal about operations involving multi-national forces – a lesson that would be of great importance to him his later life.

The next major military campaign in Leonidas’ lifetime was the campaign against Argos that culminated in the dramatic Spartan victory at Sepeia. This campaign certainly involved the entire active Spartan army, so Leonidas’ participation is certain. Significantly, it also contained a nautical component: the Spartan army was ferried across the Gulf of Argos from Thyrea in Lacedaemon to Nauplia in the Argolid. There followed a massive confrontation with the full Argive army that was at least as numerous if not significantly larger than the all-Spartiate force facing it. Although the Argives had learned how to read the Spartan signals, Cleomenes cleverly took advantage of this to mislead the Argives into thinking the Spartans were standing down for a meal. As soon as the Argive phalanx broke up, he attacked. The ensuing slaughter allegedly deprived Argos of a generation of fighters, but Cleomenes singularly failed to follow up his battle-field victory with the occupation of the undefended city of Argos.

The “lessons learned” for Leonidas would have started with the flexibility of deployment offered by seaborne transport, and included the importance of intelligence (the Argive familiarity with Spartan signals), and, of course, the advantages of surprise.

Significantly, Cleomenes was put on trial for treason following this campaign. The accusation was that he had taken a bribe not to take Argos when it lay undefended before a victorious Spartan army -- probably because the prosecution could think of no other plausible reason why such a splendid opportunity would be wasted after over two hundred years of bitter hostilities. Herodotus specifically says that Cleomenes was charged by his “enemies” and that he was acquitted because he convinced the ephors that he could not get favorable signs from the gods.

By this time, Lenoidas was probably already married to Gorgo, Cleomenes' daughter, and he was certainly Cleomenes’ heir. It is unlikely, therefore, that he would have been counted among Cleomenes’ enemies. It is almost equally improbable, however, that he approved of Cleomenes behavior. Cleomenes was acquitted of taking a bribe and he defended himself with weapons (the will of the gods) against which the ephors were helpless; that is not the same thing as saying his actions were applauded even by his supporters. Furthermore, Leonidas will have taken careful note of the fact that failure to exploit a victory – much less defeat -- put even a Spartan king in jeopardy.

The next significant military engagement of Leonidas’ lifetime was one in which Sparta played no direct role and yet it may have been the most decisive military moment in Leonidas life prior to Thermopylae: the Battle of Marathon. In my entry “The Importance of Marathon for Sparta -- and Leonidas", I provide a comprehensive discussion of the importance of Marathon for Leonidas. To summarize, Leonidas very probably led the two thousand Spartiates, who in  a dramatic forced march covered the distance from Sparta to Athens in less than three days to come to Athens' aid. They arrived one day after the decisive battle had been won by the Athenians and Plataeans. Leonidas almost certainly toured the battlefield in company with Athenian commanders and fighters, gleaning a great deal of information about the Persians, their weapons, armor, tactics and morale. He would also have gained considerable respect for Athenian (and Plataean) fighting capacity. Leonidas would have seen first-hand at Marathon that Greek hoplites could withstand Persian missiles and Persian cavalry and inflict dramatically higher casualties than they suffered. It would also have left a psychological scar: the sense of having come too late.
 

And so we come to Thermopylae. Leonidas’ determination to deploy when he did, even if he could take only 300 Spartiates with him was, I believe, dictated by his experience at Marathon. Leonidas, who undoubtedly appreciated the military importance of Thermopylae and Artemisium, was determined not to come too late a second time.

This is not the same thing as believing he was undertaking a suicide mission. Leonidas had no reason to believe that the force he took north was not sufficient to hold the Pass until Sparta and other cities, the Karneia and the Olympic Games over, could deploy their main forces. Leonidas did not, after all, march north with just 300 men. In addition to the Spartiates, he had perioikoi troops, allies from the Peloponnesian League, Thespians, Thebans and Phocians. Leonidas had between 6,000 and 7,000 Greek hoplites at Thermopylae, a pass that at that time narrowed down to a cart track at two places.

To be sure, Leonidas allegedly knew from the Delphic oracle that his own fate was sealed. He presumably expected to die, but there was no reason to assume his death would come soon or that it would be futile. On the contrary, Delphi had promised to save Sparta, if one of her kings fell in battle. Leonidas most likely believed (or wanted to believe) that although he would die, his army would be successful. Nor did he expect all the Spartiates he took with him to die. The fact that he took only the fathers of living sons north with him was not because he expected them all to die, but because he expected some of them would die. He did not want to risk the extermination of even a single Spartiate family – not when he had so many men to choose from.

 

Leonidas’ tactical competence at Thermopylae has been questioned primarily because of his failure to put Spartiates on the mountain trail by which the pass was turned. The argument is that he failed to accurately assess the risk to his flank/rear, and the positioning of Phocian troops on this critical route was amateurish. Hindsight is always clearer than foresight. But even with hindsight, it is not completely convincing that Leonidas should have risked splitting his already very small Spartiate force by sending, say, 100 Spartiates to guard what was essentially a goat-trail. Furthermore, one thousand men out of a force just six to seven thousand strong, represents a very significant commitment of available troops, and suggests Leonidas took the threat seriously indeed. To imply that a hundred Spartans would have been better than a thousand Phocians reflects modern fascination with the Spartan military myth, but can hardly be conisdered a serious military assessment. Leonidas’ evident assumption that the locals with the greatest stake in a successful defense of Thermopylae and the best knowledge of the terrain would be the best defenders of the flanking path is more convincing than modern dismissals of such logic. It is always tempting to judge a strategy by its result – but not always fair.

Otherwise, Leonidas appears to have developed a highly effective strategy for defending the Pass, one that effectively neutralized the superiority of numbers on the Persian side and enabled a comparatively small number of defenders to hold the overwhelming might of Xerxes' army for two full days. Although – or rather because - Herodotus does not give us the casualties of the first two days, we can presume that they were not inordinate. The strategy of defending the “Middle Gate,” which was wider than the “Eastern” or “Western Gates,” appears to have given the Greeks the optimal opportunity to reduce Persian pressure while enabling them to bring sufficient numbers of their own troops to bear.

Significantly, Leondias evidently welded the different contingents together and succeeded in getting them to cooperate. Herodotus says that the allies fought in relays, or turns, so that the troops from each city had time to rest, refresh themselves and tend their wounds between taking their turn at the front. While this sounds logical and reasonable, it is far from self-evident. It would also have required considerable skill in execution – or each change would have produced confusion that the Persians could have exploited.

Equally impressive is Leonidas' performance on learning that the Persians were not only on the trail around his position but the Phocians had already been routed without even sending for reinforcements. This news must have been a horrible blow to Leonidas, one he could not have expected. Yet the surviving accounts indicate that he did not panic, but made a difficult but rational decision to send the bulk of the troops out of the pass to safety so they could "live to fight another day," while retaining a force large enough to delay the Persians long enough for the bulk of the army to get away. 

Leondias' stand at Thermopylae on the Third Day of battle was certainly a suicide mission, but not a senseless one. It was no different than the stand of the Brigadier Claude Nicholson with the 3rd Royal Tank Regiment and the Queen Victoria Rifles at Calais in 1940.  Nicholson defended Calais on the orders of Prime Minister Churchill "to the last" in order to pin down the Wehrmach and enable the evacuation of the bulk of the British Expeditionary Force at Dunkirk. Both Calais 1940 and Thermopylae 480 were military operations of vital importance to the survival of the nations the sacrificed troops were defending.

Again Leonidas showed his competence as a military leader precisely in the fact that even in a hopeless situation he was able to inflict terrible losses on the enemy and maintain the morale of his own troops. WIth the exception of some -- but not all -- Thebans, Leonidas' men fought to the death. And they fought for him. There can be no greater tribute to a military leader.