Sign-In
Cart
Leonidas and Thermopylae: The Spartan King and the Battle That Outlived Him
Paperback
Historical FiguresMilitary Biographies
Currently unavailable to order
Please enter your email and a message will be sent to you when this product becomes available on our website.
Publisher: Independently Published
Pages: 278
Weight: 0.61
Height: 0.58 Width: 5.00 Depth: 8.00
Language: English
In the summer of 480 BC a Spartan king marched north with three hundred men to hold a narrow coastal pass against the army of the Persian king Xerxes. He held it for three days and died there, along with most of his escort and hundreds of allied troops whose names have rarely made it into the story. Almost everything known about Leonidas comes from a single source, written decades after his death by a historian who never claimed to have met a survivor.
This book follows the evidence as far as it goes and stops exactly where it runs out. It reconstructs the geography of Thermopylae from geological surveys rather than film sets, sets Sparta's rigid, slave-holding society against the myth built around it, and gives the Achaemenid Persian empire its own administrative reality instead of treating it as a faceless horde. It follows Leonidas from a disputed succession to the throne through two decades of Spartan politics to the three days at the pass, and then traces what happened to his memory afterward: a battle turned into a slogan by Roman-era writers, revived by nineteenth-century nationalists, quoted in a 1943 German radio speech about the army encircled at Stalingrad, and reproduced by modern films and political movements that have little to do with the events of 480 BC.
The result is a portrait of a man who is almost entirely obscured by what has been built on top of the little that can be verified about him, and an account of how a defeat at a mountain pass became one of the most reused stories in Western political culture.
Also in
Historical Figures
Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy: A Righteous Gentile vs. the Third Reich
Metaxas, Eric
Paperback
The Rise of Thomas Cromwell: Power and Politics in the Reign of Henry VIII, 1485-1534
Everett, Michael
Paperback
The Lost Founder: James Wilson and the Forgotten Fight for a People's Constitution
Wegman, Jesse
Hardcover
The Lost Empire of Emanuel Nobel: Romanovs, Revolutionaries, and the Forgotten Titan Who Fueled the World
Brunt, Douglas
Hardcover
America's Founding Son: John Quincy Adams, from President to Political Maverick
Crawford, Bob
Hardcover
Thomas Jefferson Survives: American Independence in His Time and Ours
Onuf, Peter S.
Cogliano, Francis D.
Hardcover
Rebel of the Regency: The Scandalous Saga of Caroline of Brunswick, Britain's Queen Without a Crown
Foster, Ann
Hardcover
Operation Sparrow: The Incredible True Story of the Spies Who Tricked Hitler and Won the War
Bell, Jason
Hardcover
The Hiding Place: The Triumphant True Story of Corrie Ten Boom
Sherrill, John
Boom, Corrie Ten
Paperback
A Librarian's War: The Man Who Fought World War II with Books and Brought the Joy of Reading to Millions
Manning, Molly Guptill
Hardcover
Biography of a Dangerous Idea: A New History of Race from Louis XIV to Thomas Jefferson
Curran, Andrew S.
Hardcover
The Nine: The True Story of a Band of Women Who Survived the Worst of Nazi Germany
Strauss, Gwen
Paperback
A Thousand Shall Fall: The Electrifying Story of a Soldier and His Family Who Dared to Practice Their Faith in Hitler's Germany
Mundy, Susi Hasel
Paperback
Solo and Together: Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, an Enigmatic Life and Marriage
Hansen, James R.
Hardcover
Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook
Bourdain, Anthony
Paperback
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
Kendi, Ibram X.
Paperback
The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel: Genius, Power, and Deception on the Eve of World War I
Brunt, Douglas
Paperback
The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary
Winchester, Simon
Paperback
The Confessions of Samuel Pepys: Private Revelations from Britain's Most Famed Diarist
de la Bédoyère, Guy
Hardcover
The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America
Rosen, Jeffrey
Paperback
Warriors Don't Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High
Beals, Melba Pattillo
Paperback
American Prometheus (Pulitzer Prize Winner): The Inspiration for the Major Motion Picture Oppenheimer
Bird, Kai
Sherwin, Martin J.
Paperback
Stradivari's Genius: Five Violins, One Cello, and Three Centuries of Enduring Perfection
Faber, Toby
Paperback
The First Fascist: The Sensational Life and Dark Legacy of the Marquis de Morès
Luzzatto, Sergio
Hardcover
The Widow Clicquot: The Story of a Champagne Empire and the Woman Who Ruled It
Mazzeo, Tilar J.
Paperback
The Man Behind the Cane: Preston Brooks, Political Violence, and the Road to the Civil War
Quigley, Paul
Hardcover
The Power Broker (Pulitzer Prize Winner): Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
Caro, Robert A.
Hardcover
The Forsaken Founder: Gouverneur Morris, the Unsung Patriot Who Wrote the Constitution, Stood Up to Slavery, and Survived the Reign of Terror
Greenberger, Scott S.
Hardcover
The Greatest Beer Run Ever: A Memoir of Friendship, Loyalty, and War
Molloy, J. T.
Donohue, John Chick
Paperback
The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II
Kiernan, Denise
Paperback
No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II
Goodwin, Doris Kearns
Paperback
The Book of Charlie: Wisdom from the Remarkable American Life of a 109-Year-Old Man
Von Drehle, David
Paperback
Tomboy Bride, 50th Anniversary Edition: One Woman's Personal Account of Life in Mining Camps of the West
Backus, Harriet Fish
Paperback
Miracles in American History, Volume Two: Amazing Faith That Shaped the Nation: Adapted from William J. Federer's American Minute [With 2 Paperbacks]
Federer, Susie
Federer, William J.
Paperback
The Faithful Executioner: Life and Death, Honor and Shame in the Turbulent Sixteenth Century
Harrington, Joel F.
Paperback
Master of the Senate (Pulitzer Prize Winner): The Years of Lyndon Johnson III
Caro, Robert A.
Paperback
A Human Being Died That Night: A South African Woman Confronts the Legacy of Apartheid
Gobodo-Madikizela, Pumla
Paperback
The Improbable Victoria Woodhull: Suffrage, Free Love, and the First Woman to Run for President
Collinsworth, Eden
Hardcover