Historical Parallels, vol. 2 of 3)

by Arthur Thomas Malkin

The next morning, with the rising sun, Xerxes offered worship to that luminary, the great object of Persian veneration, in presence of his assembled army; and after a brief delay gave orders to advance against the enemy. Hitherto the Grecians seem to have taken post in the narrowest part of the valley, where, as has been mentioned, there was only room for one carriage to pass; but now, knowing that their fate was sealed, and anxious only to sell their lives dearly, they retreated to the broader part, which had formerly been fortified, with the view of allowing freer access, and insuring a more abundant destruction of their foes. And in truth the slaughter was commensurate with their desperation, for in the three days’ conflicts 20,000 Asiatics were left dead in the pass. We should be inclined to attribute to misinformation or mistake the statement, that in the army of a warlike and conquering nation, like the Persians, the officers followed behind, furnished with scourges, with which they drove on their men to the attack, so that many were forced into the sea, and perished there, and still more trodden under foot in the press, while those who escaped were driven on the Grecian spears by the pressure from behind. At last these weapons were broken, and the combat assumed a closer character. Hand to hand they fought at the sword’s point; and now Leonidas, with others of the noblest Spartans, fell, and by his death added fresh ferocity to the combat. The possession of his body was disputed with an obstinacy which recalls the Homeric battles to our minds: two sons of Darius were slain in the struggle, in which the Greeks prevailed so far as to gain possession of the body, and four times to drive back the crowd of enemies. The scene was closed by the arrival of the Persians led by Ephialtes in the rear. The Thebans, who had hitherto co-operated with their countrymen, now separated themselves, and made submission, protesting, as indeed was true, that they had been among the first to give earth and water, and were present at Thermopylæ through compulsion.[34] The Lacedæmonians and Thespians retired to a hillock, where they continued the battle with their swords, and, when these were broken, with their hands and teeth, until they were slain to a man.

Such is the account of this celebrated conflict published by Herodotus less than thirty years after, at a time when many of the Thebans and of the Greeks who served in the Persian army must have been alive to correct any erroneous statements. But later historians, and among them Diodorus and Plutarch, give a very different version; that, when news first arrived that a Persian force was on its march across the mountain, Leonidas led his men to a night attack, in which they penetrated to the royal pavilion, and, wandering about the camp in a vain attempt to discover the fugitive king, were at last dispersed and cut to pieces. But it seems hardly probable that the Spartan king, who had garrisoned the mountain pass in expectation that it would be attempted, should have devoted his soldiers to inevitable death, until he knew that his precautions had failed: and even without this corroboration the superior credit due to a contemporary would determine our adherence to the story of Herodotus.

Several sayings, which have gained notoriety, are ascribed to Leonidas upon Plutarch’s authority. To Xerxes, who sent to bid him lay down his arms, he replied, “Come and take them.” He admonished his soldiers, before their final battle, to dine as became men who were to sup with the dead. To one who said that the multitude of the Persian arrows would darken the sun, he answered, “Is it not an advantage for us to fight in the shade?”[35]

The body of Leonidas was beheaded and exposed on a cross by order of Xerxes: an act at variance with the usual generosity of the Persians, who were noted for the respect which they paid to bravery in an enemy. The Greeks were buried where they had fallen, the Spartans and Thespians apart from the rest, and a sepulchral barrow heaped over their remains, upon which the statue of a lion was subsequently placed in honour of Leonidas. Pillars were afterwards erected by the council of Amphictyons, with inscriptions to distinguish the resting-places of the slain. A tumulus still remains in the defile of Thermopylæ, topped by the ruins of a massive basement, which is supposed by Dr. Clarke to be the monument above described, and to mark the very spot where this lofty sacrifice was completed. The following epitaph was engraved on the pillar erected in honour of those who fell before the departure of the allies: “Here four thousand Peloponnesians fought with three million of Persians.” The tomb of the Spartans was distinguished by these lines:—”Stranger, bear word to the Lacedæmonians that we lie here in obedience to their institutions.”[36] A pillar was also erected by the celebrated poet Simonides in commemoration of his friend, the seer Megistias, who being an Acarnanian, and therefore free to depart with the other Grecians, sent away his only son, but remained himself to perish with Leonidas. He placed on it this inscription:—

This tomb records Megistias’ honoured name,

Who, boldly fighting in the ranks of fame,
Fell by the Persians near Sperchius’ tide.

Both past and future well the prophet knew,

And yet, though death was open to his view,
He chose to perish at his general’s side.

At the time of the battle two Spartans, Aristodemus and Eurytus, were absent upon leave, being nearly blind from ophthalmia. Eurytus, on hearing that the Persians had turned the pass, called immediately for his armour, and, guided by a Helot, found his way to the battle in time to perish there. Aristodemus considered his illness a fair excuse to remain away from it; and this would have passed current at Sparta, the historian thinks, but for the contrast afforded by the conduct of Eurytus. As it was, the Spartans were greatly incensed: on his return he found himself a marked and dishonoured man, with whom none would converse, to whom none would give, and from whom none would receive, fire: a common method among the ancients of testifying abhorrence and renouncing intercourse; and he was usually called Aristodemus the trembler. He afterwards obliterated his disgrace at the battle of Platæa, where he was killed, after having merited the first prize of valour: but his behaviour then was considered sufficient only to restore his character, not to entitle him to the honours paid to others, the most distinguished of the slain. Another Spartan, Pantites, who had been despatched into Thessaly as a messenger, it was supposed might have hastened his return so as to have been present, and was also dishonoured. On his return to Sparta he hanged himself in despair.

The magnitude of the interest at stake, and the brilliant talents employed in celebrating the events of the Persian war, have conspired to confer extraordinary celebrity upon the self-devotion of Leonidas and his comrades. To the great merit of it we fully subscribe: its disinterestedness cannot be questioned, its wisdom and utility are justified by the panic fear of Persia still prevalent in Greece, which required to be dispelled by some lofty and spirit-stirring act of patriotism: but having paid our tribute of admiration to these brave men, and to the steady valour and patient endurance of the Athenians, we have, as will appear more fully in the next chapter, little commendation to bestow on the rest of Greece. The division of the country into small independent states, conducive perhaps to its glory, as tending to produce that extraordinary activity of mind, that multitude of distinguished names which adorn its history, was too dearly purchased by the spirit of rivalry and narrow-minded patriotism which it generated; if that feeling deserves to be called patriotism which looks merely to the aggrandisement of a single city at the expense of neighbours who should be endeared to her by the ties of blood, and by community of language, interests, and associations. One instance of this jealousy and disunion has already occurred in the tardy and ineffectual assistance sent by Peloponnesus to the northern states.