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Battle Of Thermopylae Essay

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The Battle of Thermopylae took place simultaneously with the naval battle at Artemisium, in August 480 BC, at the narrow coastal pass of Thermopylae, which was also known as "The Hot Gates". The Persian invasion was in fact a delayed response to the defeat of their first attempt, it ended with the Athenian victory at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC. It was made clear with his strategy that Xerxes' expedition was undoubtedly directed towards Athens. However, his actual intent was to succeed in the conquest of Greece, and if it were to come into fruition, the Persian Empire could effortlessly spread into Europe. At the Battle of Marathon, King Darius attacked the Athenian and Ionian armies. However, his actual intent was to succeed in the conquest …show more content…

In the previous times when Heracles was around, Thermopylae was said and believed to be essential to the demise of their hero. Thermopylae also neighbors the city of Delphi, where the famed oracle resided, which was vital to their next step. The oracle at Delphi served as a significant part of the process in preparation for the battle. Earlier on, Sparta, Athens, and a few other Greek cities, gathered at the Isthmus of Corinth (narrow land bridge which connects the Peloponnese peninsula with the rest of the mainland of Greece) to decide if they were going to combat Xerxes and his forces, and if they were to do so, how. Demaratus explained to King Xerxes that the Spartans "behaved as they did because they were fighting for an ideal dearer than mere life itself: the ideal of freedom". Indeed they were, ever since the prominent oracle at Delphi had prophesied that “either the Spartan people would be uprooted by the barbarians or their king would die" (Herodotus, 195). Subsequently, Leonidas, pushed to be made the commander in chief of the troops so that he could make this a suicide mission. However, he disguised it as an act of

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