Author(s): Paul Cartledge

History

Thermopylae re-examines a crucial act in one of the greatest dramas in middle eastern history: the invasion of Europe from the "east" by Great King Xerxes of Persia, 150 years before Alexander the Great famously invaded the Asiatic Persian empire from the European "west".

Facing the huge inrushing Persian army at the narrow pass at Thermopylae were a few thousand Greeks, at their head King Leonidas and his 300 chosen champions from the militaristic state of Sparta, who inspired the rest by fighting courageously to the death. The battle of Thermopylae â which means "hot gates" â was at its broadest a clash of civilisations; one that momentously helped shape the identity of Classical Greece and hence the nature of our own cultural heritage.