I tell it as I see it

There is an ongoing buzz about the movie 300 based on the battle of thermopylae. Heres a historical background about the actual battle.

In the Battle of Thermopylae of 480 BC, an alliance of Greek city-states fought the invading Persian army at the pass of Thermopylae in central Greece. Vastly outnumbered, the Greeks held back the enemy in one of the most famous last stands of history. A small force led by King Leonidas of Sparta blocked the only road through which the massive army of Xerxes I could pass. After three days of battle a local resident named Ephialtes betrayed the Greeks, revealing a mountain path that led behind the Greek lines. Dismissing the rest of the army, King Leonidas stayed behind with 300 Spartans and 700 Thespian volunteers. Knowing it meant their own deaths, they held their position and secured the retreat of the other Greek forces. The Persians succeeded in taking the pass but sustained heavy losses, extremely disproportionate to those of the Greeks. The fierce resistance of the Spartan-led army offered Athens the invaluable time to prepare for a naval battle that would come to determine the outcome of the war.[1] The subsequent Greek victory in the Battle of Salamis left much of the Persian navy destroyed. Xerxes was forced to flee to Asia and left his army in Greece under Mardonius, who was to meet the Greeks in battle for one last time. The Spartans and other Greek allies assembled at full strength and decisively defeated the Persians in the Battle of Plataea, putting an end to the Greco-Persian War and with that, Persian expansion into Europe.

Thus King Leonidas took charge of his personal fighting unit, the 300 Spartans, and headed to Thermopylae. Leonidas was idolised by his men. He was convinced that he was going to certain death, and that his forces were not adequate for a victory. He selected only men who had fathered sons that were old enough to take over the family responsibilities.

What happened next is a remarkable testament of discipline, both mental and physical, courage, strategic planning and organisation. The Phocians and Locrians along with the spartan contingent decided to defend Thermopylae against the invading Persian army and send for more help. The persian army was vast in number and Xerxes mocked the size of the resistance.

Xerxes sent in the Medes who had been only recently conquered by the Persians perhaps, as Diodorus Siculus suggested,[14] because he wanted them to bear the brunt of the fighting.What followed was a total dominance by the spartan army. The Persians, armed with arrows and short spears, could not break through the long spears of the Greek phalanx, nor were their lightly armoured men a match for the superior armour, weaponry and discipline of the Greek hoplites.The king eventually withdrew the Medes. Having taken the measure of the enemy he threw the best troops he had into a second assault: the Immortals, an elite corps of 10,000 men. But Being able to approach the Greek line only in such numbers as the space allowed, the Immortals succeeded no better than the Medes. Xerxes had to withdraw them as well.

It was not until the spartans were betrayed by a greek traitor Ephialtes that Xerxes found a way around Thermopylae behind the spartan lines.When Leonidas learned of the persian advance, he called a council at dawn. During the council some Greeks argued for withdrawal in the face of the overwhelming Persian advance, while others pledged to stay. After the council, many of the Greek forces did choose to withdraw. Herodotus believed that Leonidas blessed their departure with an order, but he also offered the alternate point of view: that those retreating forces departed without orders. The Spartans had pledged themselves to fight to the death, while the Thebans were held as hostage against their will. However, a contingent of about 700 Thespians, led by general Demophilus, the son of Diadromes, refused to leave with the other Greeks, but cast their lot with the Spartans.The move can also be seen as a calculated strategy to delay the advance of the Persians and cover the retreat of the Greek army.

The Greeks met the persian army in the wider part of the pass, in an attempt to slaughter as many as they could. They fought with spears until every spear was shattered and then switched to xiphoi (short swords). In this struggle Herodotus tells us that two brothers of Xerxes fell, Abrocomes and Hyperanthes. Leonidas also died in the assault. This marked the end of the battle of thermoplylae.

The simultaneous naval Battle of Artemisium was a stalemate, whereupon the Athenian navy retreated. The Persians were now in control of the Aegean Sea and all of peninsular Greece as far south as Attica. The Spartans prepared to defend the Isthmus of Corinth and the Peloponnese, while Xerxes sacked an evacuated city of Athens, whose inhabitants had already fled to Salamis Island. In September the Greeks defeated the Persians at the naval Battle of Salamis, which led to the rapid retreat of Xerxes. The remaining Persian army, left under the charge of Mardonius, was defeated in the Battle of Plataea by a combined Greek army again led by the Spartans, under the regent Pausanias.