The Historians' History of the World 03 [Greece to the Peloponnesian War]

DISCREPANT ACCOUNTS OF THE DEATH OF LEONIDAS

Such is the story of this memorable contest as Herodotus tells it. He is our most important source by far, and his simple words give a more realistic picture than is conveyed by any modern paraphrase. It is well to recall, however, that there are discrepant accounts of the death of Leonidas. None of these is so plausible as the description just given, but two of them are worth citing, to illustrate the historical uncertainties that attach to the subject.a Plutarch, in his parallels between the Romans and Greeks, thus describes the death of Leonidas: “Whilst they were at dinner, the barbarians fell upon them: upon which Leonidas desired them to eat heartily, for they were to sup with Pluto. Leonidas charged at the head of his troops, and after receiving a multitude of wounds, got up to Xerxes himself, and snatched the crown from his head. He lost his life in the attempt; and Xerxes, causing his body to be opened, found his heart hairy. So says Aristides, in his first book of his Persian History.” This fiction seems to have been taken from the λασιόν κῆρ of Homer.

Diodorus Siculus tells us that Leonidas, when he knew that he was circumvented, made a bold attempt by night to penetrate to the tent of Xerxes; but this the Persian king had forsaken on the first alarm. The Greeks however proceeded in search of him from one side to the other, and slew a prodigious multitude. When morning approached, the Persians perceiving the Greeks so few in number, held them in contempt; but they still did not dare to attack them in front; encompassing them on both sides, and behind, they slew them all with their spears. Such was the end of Leonidas and his party.c

AFTER THERMOPYLÆ

Where the Spartans fell, they were afterwards buried: their tomb, as Simonides sang, was an altar; a sanctuary, in which Greece revered the memory of her second founders.

The inscription of the monument raised over the slain, who died from first to last in defence of the pass, recorded that four thousand men from the Peloponnesus had fought at Thermopylæ with three hundred myriads. We ought not to expect accuracy in these numbers: the list in Herodotus, if the Locrian force is only supposed equal to the Phocian, exceeds six thousand men: the Phocians, it must be remembered, were not engaged. But it is not easy to reconcile either account with the historian’s statement, that the Grecian dead amounted to four thousand, unless we suppose that the helots, though not numbered, formed a large part of the army of Leonidas. The lustre of his achievement is not diminished by their presence. He himself and his Spartans no doubt considered their persevering stand in the post entrusted to them, not as an act of high and heroic devotion, but of simple and indispensable duty. Their spirit spoke in the lines inscribed upon their monument, which bade the passenger tell their countrymen, that they had fallen in obedience to their laws.

The Persians are said to have lost twenty thousand men: among them were several of royal blood. To console himself for this loss, and to reap the utmost advantage from his victory, Xerxes sent over to the fleet, which, having heard of the departure of the Greeks, was now stationed on the north coast of Eubœa, and by public notice invited all who were curious, to see the chastisement he had inflicted on the men who had dared to defy his power. That he had previously buried the greater part of his own dead seems natural enough, and such an artifice, so slightly differing from the universal practice of both ancient and modern belligerents, scarcely deserved the name of a stratagem. He is said also to have mutilated the body of Leonidas, and as this was one of the foremost he found on a field which had cost him so dear, we are not at liberty to reject the tradition on the ground that such ferocity was not consistent with the respect usually paid by the Persians to a gallant enemy.

At Thermopylæ Xerxes learnt a lesson which he had refused to receive from the warnings of Demaratus; and he inquired, with altered spirit, whether he had to expect many such obstacles in the conquest of Greece. The Spartan told him that there were eight thousand of his countrymen, who would all be ready to do what Leonidas had done, and that at the isthmus he would meet with a resistance more powerful and obstinate than at Thermopylæ. But if, instead of attacking the Peloponnesus on this side, where he would find its whole force collected to withstand him, he sent a detachment of his fleet to seize the island of Cythera, and to infest the coast of Laconia, the confederacy would be distracted, and its members, deprived of their head and perhaps disunited, would successively yield to his arms. The plan, whether Demaratus or Herodotus was the author, found no supporters in the Persian council.