where is thermopylae and give Mythology of thermopylae?
Thermopylae (lit. “hot gates”) was a pass that the Greeks tried unsuccessfully to defend in battle against the Persians led by Xerxes, in 480 B.C. Although the Spartans who led the defense were all killed, and may have known in advance that they would be, their courage provided inspiration to the Greeks, many of whom otherwise might have willingly medized* (become Persian sympathizers), or so the Spartans feared. Although the Spartans lost at Thermopylae, the following year the Greeks did win battles they fought against the Persians. Xerxes’ fleet of Persian ships had sailed along the coastline from northern Greece into the Gulf of Malia on the eastern Aegean Sea towards the mountains at Thermopylae. The Greeks faced the Persian army at a narrow pass there that controlled the only road between Thessaly and Central Greece. The Spartan general and king Leonidas was in charge of the Greek forces that tried to restrain the vast Persian army and keep them from attacking the rear of the Gree
The name literally means Hot-Gates; in ancient times Thermopylae was a narrow pass but the sea has receded and the now the “gates” are a level plain. I have been making good progress with the writing and have reached the point where the Greek fleet falls back on Salamis and the land army falls back on the Isthmus of Corinth after the battles of Artemisium and Thermopylae.Looking as closely as I have had to at the former, I began to see both battles in a rather different perspective, justifying the slight unease caused by many of the accounts I have read of this campaign. The glorious mythology of Thermopylae is, of course, justified by the heroism of the ferocious three days resistance and the ultimate, willing sacrifice of the rearguard.The leadership and commitment demonstrated by Sparta, Greece’s foremost warrior nation, and the extraordinary example of Leonidas and his 300, and of the 700 Thespians, perhaps the entire hoplite strength of that small city, who died alongside them, un
