In -480, Spartans fought against persians in the famous battle of Thermopylae

We all know the movie but what about the real story ?

Let's dive into it

Thread

Our story start in -540 with the birth of Leonidas, third son of the King.

At this time, only the oldest son of a King would become King and Leonidas wasn't born to be one.

At 7 years old, he will start like every spartan the " Agoge".

A formation to become an elite warrior

Every young spartans boys was doing it.
If you were born spartans, you couldn't avoid it.
At 7 years old, you leave your parent house and enter the army for a harsh physical and mental formation.

You will be free from it at 30 to start a family and retirement was at 45.

Let's go back to Leonidas, he make his entire formation and choose to become an Hoplite.

It was a soldier who was an expert with sword, shield and spear.

A little after 20 years old, his father died and his brother Cleomenes take the spartan crown.

After few years, his brother flee, was arrested and Leonidas take the throne in -490, he had 50 years.

Leonidas wasn't born to rule, wasn't educate to do it but a warrior is now King of Sparte.

In the same time, Persian wanted to enlarge their territory and were in many wars.

Their king Xerxes 1 had a gigantic fleet and a little less than 2 millions warriors under his command.

Against him, Greece wasn't united.
There was only 31 state city who made an alliance and Sparte was one of the leader of this resistance.

Leonidas army was 60 000 men.

Numbers weren't very important, i already wrote a thread about the importance of liberty for spartans and they could have been 100, they would have never surrender their freedom.

The fight was unavoidable.

Leonidas knew he was toast so he goes to the oracle.

The oracle said to Leonidas : " Your sacrifice is the only way to save Sparta".

So he gathered 300 of his best men to defend the Thermopylae.

He only took men who already have son to make them immortal heroes.

Why this place ? It was the main access to central Greece.

Were they really 300 ?
They were more but there were only 300 Spartans
The others were soldiers of ally army

They hold the position one day and the second day,they were betrayed by a Greek : Ephialtes who gave Xerxes the intel about a path to be able to circle the Spartan

When Leonidas saw that they were doomed, he ordered every soldier to flee and stayed with the Spartans to die on the battlefield.

All spartans were killed and Xerxes took Leonidas body, beheaded and crucify him.

This loss ... was a win because the story of 300 Spartans resisting against the entire Persians army gave hope to the entire Greece.

And years later, they will defeat the Persians but that's another story.

Leonidas died at 60 like a true hero...

Ans interesting fact...

In the movie, we saw him throw a spear to Xerxes.

The real Leonidas was an expert with spear.
At this distance he wouldn't miss Xerxes but what if he didn't want to kill Xerxes but make him bleed ?

Xerxes define himself like a god and a god don't bleed.

After Leonidas spear, every persians saw their "God" bleed.

Maybe, the plan of Leonidas was just to kill the god and not the man.

If you liked this thread.

Like and Rt, don't hesitate to leave a comment.

I'll make more people like this kind of thread.

Well, i made a typo in my last tweet, sorry and i forgot a last part.

Was this story real ?

It's Herodotus who wrote it.
He is known as the first "Historian".

He wrote a book "The histories" where you can find stories about the persian/greek wars.

He is the father of history

This thread getting more attention.

It's the perfect place to put this other thread if you want to learn more about Spartans and their love for freedom. https://twitter.com/amillionjourney/status/1364304308406222849?s=19