300 Spartans Walk Into Some Hot Gates

And Western Civilization is Born

Gates of Fire

By Steven Pressfield

Summary

              Gates of Fire is a work of historical fiction about the Battle of Thermopylae.  The battle took place in August of 480 B.C. at a narrow pass northwest of Athens, Greece. The Persian Empire, led by Emperor Xerxes, was on a mission to conquer the known world and had succeeded across south Asia, the Middle East, and north Africa.  The Greek city states united to repel the invaders and chose Thermopylae, the “hot gates”, as the first battleground.  A Greek force of 300 Spartans, along with their squires and other Greek allies totally around 4,000, was dispatched to the site with orders to hold off the Persian army of 300,000 for as long as they could.  The location was chosen for its natural defenses and the advantages it gave to the Greek style of war.  The Thermopylae pass, at the time of the battle, narrowed to about 50 feet wide with a steep cliff face on one side, and a 100-foot drop to a rocky shore on the other.

              The Greeks utilized a style of warfare known as the “phalanx” where heavily armored infantrymen called “hoplites” would interlock their shields in orderly ranks that protected the man to their left and right.  The soldiers in the following ranks would use spears to thrust over the shoulders of their comrades into the enemy.  This style of warfare had an emphasis on teamwork and discipline because each hoplite had to fulfill his role in order to keep the line and protect his countrymen.  If one man failed to do his job and protect the man to his left and right, it could cause a break in the line that would collapse the entire force.  This is why drill and discipline were so important, and why the professional Spartan soldiers who trained from age seven to twenty were the best.

              The Persians, by contrast, were made up of many different nations with many different fighting styles based on the terrain and culture from where they came.  They were largely made up of archers, calvary, chariots, and other open field style fighters who do not fight well in confined spaces.  Further, these Persian fighters were lightly armored, often with wicker shields which did little to stop the heavy spears and short xiphos swords of the Greeks.  These factors set the stage for a two-day long slaughter which left 20,000 Persians dead before Xerxes’s army was led around the Greeks by a Thracian named Ephialtes (“nightmare” in Greek) and eventually outflanked them.  The Spartan King, Leonidas, dismissed the bulk of the Greek army before they were out maneuvered leaving behind a force of the remaining Spartans and their Thespian allies totaling around 1,000 men.  Those Greeks were killed to a man on the third day of fighting, but their sacrifice set the stage for the battles to come.  It inspired the other Greeks to fight like the defenders of Thermopylae and it struck fear into the hearts of the Persian fighters to know that such a small force of Greeks did so much damage to their army.  At the same time as the land battle of Thermopylae, the Greeks fought the Persians to a stalemate in a nearby naval battle at Artemision before regrouping the fleet a month later at Salamis. 

In September 480 B.C., the allied Greeks won a decisive victory at Salamis which destroyed the Persian navy and took away their ability to maneuver and resupply their army from the sea.  The Persian Army, still totally around 300,000, continued their march on Greece until they were finally stopped by a force of 100,000 Greeks at Plataea.  That battle, which killed the top Persian general and first cousin to Xerxes, Mardonius, ended the war and sent the Persians on a retreat back into Asia.  The era that followed this war was known as the Golden Age of Greece which led to advances in government, art, philosophy, drama, and literature.  This golden age is the foundation of Western Civilization and continues to shape our lives today.  While Thermopylae was technically a defeat for the Greeks, it served as a moral victory which set the stage for the eventual Greek victory and birth of our way of life today.  Without the sacrifice of the 300 Spartans and their allies, the world might be very different today. 

              Steven Pressfield’s novel takes this historical event and fills in the blanks with a story about a Spartan squire named Xeones.  It picks up in the immediate aftermath of the battle of Thermopylae when the Persians were clearing the dead and found this Greek Xeones, or Xeo, barely clinging to life.  Xerxes orders his surgeons to preserve the Greek’s life so he may interrogate him and learn why the Spartans were such a formidable foe.  Xeo, who is 20 years old at the time of the story, starts his tale at age 10 in his native city of Astakos.  The city is sacked by the Argives and his entire family is murdered except for his 13-year-old cousin, Diomache, and his family’s slave, and aging man named Bruxieus.  The three spend the next two years living in the wild and suffering a series of hardships including a brutal gang rape of Diomache by a band of Argives and the crucifixion and near death of Xeones.  When Bruxieus dies the 12-year-old Xeones and 15-year-old Diomache come down from the hills to rejoin civilization.  The two part ways with Diomache going to Athens to seek a husband and a normal life, and Xeones going to Sparta to enlist in their service and seek revenge on the Argives. 

Xeones gets paired with a Spartan boy his age named Alexandros.  As is the custom, Xeo is the training partner and servant of Alexandros, who is mentored by a prominent Spartan named Dienekes.  Xenoes and Alexandros become best friends and Xeo is eventually assigned as Dienekes’s battle squire.  Xeones outlines the training, culture, and fighting style of the Spartans in his story and how he is intertwined with the warriors, their families, and their slaves.  While not true in the literal sense, this story is a great outline for the root of modern western military practices and culture.  Pressfield’s understanding of warrior culture is deep and the dialogue between the characters proves it.  His descriptions of the training, relationships, and the battles make this a hard book to put down.

Takeaways-Warfighting, Leadership, Humanity

              I have read this book multiple times at multiple stages of my life and drawn new meaning out of it each time depending on what stage of life I am at the time.  I was first assigned to read this book as a 19-year-old infantryman in the Marine Corps on my second deployment to Iraq in August of 2004.  I identified with the warrior culture that is so well captured by Pressfield, a former Marine himself.  Everything from the comradery between warfighters to the twisted sense of humor to the deep love and connection felt between men at arms.  Also, the structure of military fighting units and the dynamics up and down the ranks and between peers is the same now in modern times as it was in Gates of Fire.  There were so many parallels between the modern-day Marine Corps and Pressfield’s story of the Spartans from 2500 years ago that I felt like I knew exactly who these characters were on a deep level.

              There are two historical quotes which are supposed to have been said by the real men at the time of the battle that Pressfield included in his story.  The first was when a Thracian who had just observed the approaching Persian army warned the Spartans of their size.  The scout said that when the Persian archers fired their volleys, the arrows were so numerous they blocked out the sun.  The Spartan Dienekes replied in a very Spartan fashion, “Good. Then we will have our battle in the shade.”  Pressfield said this quote was his inspiration to write the novel.  The notion that when one is staring down certain death that they could calmly make a joke about how unphased they are was very inspiring to me.  That was exactly the type of leader I wanted to follow and exactly the type of war fighter I wanted to be. 

              The other direct quote came from the Spartan King Leonidas himself.  When the 300 Spartans and their 4,000 allies were staring down the 300,000 Persians, Emperor Xerxes sent a message to the Greeks that he did not want their lives, only their weapons.  Leonidas responded with just two words, “Molon Labe,” meaning, “Come and take them.”  This time the Spartans were face-to-face with an army so large they knew they had no chance of winning.  When offered the opportunity to leave the field with their lives, they gave the most Spartan refusal.  This no surrender sentiment has continued to inspire warriors across the centuries. 

              The last historical passage that resonated with me was the Spartan memorial left at the battle site.  It was a simple stone inscribed with the words:

              “Tell the Spartans, stranger passing by,

              That here obedient to their laws we lie.”

Like all the best Spartan quotes, there is so much packed into so few words.  First, the humility of this warrior culture.  These men voluntarily laid down their lives in a battle they knew they had no chance of winning just to delay the Persians for a few days.  Their efforts arguably saved all of Western civilization, but the monument to this event does not mention any of the men who died, who they fought, when they fought, what the stakes were, or how important this battle was to the history of mankind.  In fact, the only mention of these warriors’ accomplishments was that they upheld their ethos and remained “obedient to their laws.”  Of all the things they could brag about or praise their fallen men for, they are most proud to be true to their code.

              As I got older I began to draw more inspiration from the leadership examples in the book.  Leonidas and Dienekes took turns impressing me with their words and their actions.  Leonidas was the embodiment of leading from the front.  Obviously, he went to the battle of Thermopylae with the intent and the understanding that he would be killed.  During the battle he fought in the front rank despite being in his mid-sixties.  These are the easy to pick out examples of his leadership, but the less obvious actions stick out to me more.  During their training exercises in the field, Leonidas is out doing all the same repetitions, and enduring all the same miseries as the rest of the Spartans in the army.  Once they arrived at the hot gates, the Greeks had to rebuild some of the fortifications which had fallen apart over time.  As the men were arguing over the best way to build the wall, Leonidas just picked up a stone and started working.  This ended the argument and got everyone moving to get the job done.  Once they set up their camp that evening, Leonidas told all the Greek officers to take down their tents and sleep in the open with their men.  He advised them to carry on with an air of normalcy by eating regular meals, even if they weren’t hungry, and sleeping or pretending to sleep so the men would follow their lead.  Calm begets calm and Leonidas knew the men would reflect the attitudes of their officers and junior leaders.  In a final act of cool defiance, when the Persians were delayed in taking the field on the third and final day of fighting, Leonidas laid down and took a nap in open view of both the Greeks and Persians.  Even when Leonidas knew he would be killed before sunset, he was still relaxed and confident enough to doze in public. 

              The biggest takeaway on this most recent reading was the human element.  As I get older and my heart starts to soften, I am more deeply affected by tragedy, even in fiction.  The passage I was most effected by was just after the sacking of Astakos when ten-year-old Xeones, his thirteen-year-old cousin Diomache, and his family’s slave Bruxieus return to their home to bury their dead.

Pg 24

              We recovered Diomache’s mother’s body, and my mother’s and father’s, on the eve of the third day.  A squad of Argive infantry had set up camp around the gutted ruins of our farmhouse.  Already surveyors and claims markers had arrived from the conquering cities.  We watched, hidden, from the woods as the officials marked off the parcels with their measuring rods and scrawled upon the white wall of my mother’s kitchen garden and sign of the clan of Argos whose lands ours would now become.

              An Argive taking a piss spotted us.  We took to flight but he called after us.  Something in his voice convinced us that he and the others intended no harm.  They had had enough of blood for now.  They waved us in, gave us the bodies.  I sponged the mud and blood off my mother’s corpse, using the singlet she had made for me, for my promised passage to Ithaka.  Her flesh was like cold wax.  I did not weep neither shrouding her form in the burial robe she had woven with her own hands and which in its cupboard chest remained miraculously unstolen, nor interring her bones and my father’s beneath the stone that bore our ancestors’ blazon and signia.

              It was my place to know the rites, but I had not been taught them, awaiting my initiation to the tribe when I turned twelve.  Diomache lit the flame, and the Argives sang the paean, the only sacred song any of them knew.

                             Zeus Savior, spare us

                             Who march into your fire

                             Grant us courage to stand

                             Shield-to-shield with our brothers

                             Beneath your mighty aegis

                             We advance

                             Lord of the Thunder

                             Our Hope and our Protector

              When the hymn was over, the men raped her.

              I didn’t understand at first what they intended.  I thought she had violated some portion of the rite and they were going to beat her for it.  A soldier snatched me by the scalp, one hairy forearm around my neck to snap it.  Bruxieus found a spear at his throat and the point of a sword pricking the flesh of his back.  No one said a word.  There were six of them, armorless, in sweat-dark corselets with their rank dirty beards and the rain-sodden hair on their chests and calves coarse and matted and filthy.  They had been watching Diomache, her smooth girl’s legs and the start of breasts beneath her tunic.

              “Don’t harm them,” Diomache said simply, meaning Bruxieus and me.

              Two men took her away behind the garden wall.  They finished, then two more followed, and the last pair after that.  When it was over, the sword was lowered from Bruxieus’ back, and he crossed to carry Diomache away in his arms.  She wouldn’t let him.  She stood to her feet on her own, though she had to brace herself against the wall to do it, both her thighs dark with blood.  The Argives gave us a quarter-skin of wine and we took it.

              It was clear now that Diomache could not walk.  Bruxieus took her up in his arms.  Another of the Argives pressed a hard bread into my hands.  “Two more regiments will be coming from the south tomorrow.  Get into the mountains and go north, don’t come down till you’re out of Akarnania.” He spoke kindly, as if to his own son.  “If you find a town, don’t bring the girl in or this will happen again.”

              I turned and spat on his dark stinking tunic, a gesture of powerlessness and despair.  He caught my arm as I turned away.  “And get rid of that old man.  He’s worthless.  He’ll only wind up getting you and the girl killed.”

Reading this as a 19-year-old Marine, I hardly even noticed it as a tragedy.  As a 37-year-old husband and father of three, two of which are girls, I have a hard time even thinking about it.  There is so much packed into this passage.  There is the obvious horror of the 13-year-old girl being sexually assaulted by a group of men who had just murdered her family.  But there is also the human element which to me makes it even worse.  If Pressfield would have depicted the Argive intruders as pure monsters then this would be less terrible.  The problem for me is how realistic the scene is because he is able to show them as complicated creatures capable of both good and evil and able to toggle back and forth between both worlds.

              The Argives first come and destroy Xeones’ home, family, and future, but then they appear to show remorse and invite his group in to take their dead.  They help Xeones with the burial and even sing a hymn for his family.  Then they brutally rape Diomache, but instead of killing her, Xeones, and Bruxieus, they give them supplies they will need for the road and advice on where to go.  One soldier even goes so far as to advise how to prevent future sexual assaults on the girl which shows that he not only knew the rape was wrong, but he felt bad about it and did not want it to happen to her again.  We know that human beings have the capacity for evil and good and that individuals can often do both, but it’s rare to see both good and evil happening back and forth by the same people in the same short timeframe.  To see the Argives destroy the city and brutalize the girl, but then to take measures to care for her and her group really humanizes them and makes them the hated bad guys and the appreciated care takers at the same time.  It is much more difficult to process than if they were presented as absolute brutes who victimize without compassion.

Favorite Characters

In my earlier readings of this story my favorite character was a toss-up between Dienekes and Polynikes.  I appreciated the leadership, experience, and demeanor of Dienekes which is summed up when he is able to draw a sarcastic positive out of a sun blocking volley of arrows.  Polynikes is not much of a leader but he is recognized as perhaps the best and most talented fighter of the entire Spartan army.  His incredible harshness in dealing with matters of respect and discipline was a virtue I recognized in some of the Marines I regarded as the best.  I also really enjoyed the descriptions of his physical prowess, specifically in his actions during the night raid on Xerxes’ tent.  My least favorite character at that time was Alexandros, but he has now become my most favorite.  As a young Marine with values similar to Polynikes, I despised Alexandros for being soft and incapable of fighting with the skill and tenacity of the other Spartans.  As I came to understand leadership and personal relationships better, I grew to respect Alexandros much more and now I think he was the most influential character of the story.

There is a scene that unfolds when Dekton “Rooster” the helot squire turns down another offer to become a full Spartan warrior.  He was born the half Spartan bastard who was raised as a slave and forced to work the fields, tend to the animals, and serve as a training partner for Spartan boys in the Agoge.  Rooster spoke openly about his disdain for the Spartans and his position in their society as a slave.  He was also well known for his physical size and strength as well as his courage and fighting prowess.  On one occasion when he was 15 he saved Alexandros’s father, the Polemarch Olympieus, when he was wounded in battle.  Three enemy fighters descended to finish Olympieus off and the young boy killed them by himself and saved his master.  After this incident and on several other occasions, Rooster was offered an opportunity to leave his Messenian people and enroll in the Agoge but he refused.  On this last occasion, when he was twenty years old, he refused again.  He knew this meant his death, because the Spartans could not allow such a strong-willed slave to continue living, but he refused anyway.  Alexandros and Xeones intercepted Rooster as he was about to flee the city with his wife and son and had the following interaction:

Pg 175

              “I know you don’t respect me,” Alexandros told him.  “You think yourself my better in skill at arms, in strength and in valor.  Well, you are.  I have tried, as the gods are my witness, with every fiber of my being and still I’m not half the fighter you are.  I never will be.  You should stand in my place and I in yours.  It is the gods’ injustice that makes you a slave and me free.”

              This from Alexandros utterly disarmed Rooster.  You could see the combativeness in his eyes relent and his proud defiance slacken and abate.

              “You own more of valor than I ever will,” the bastard replied, “for you manufacture it out of a tender heart, while the gods sat me up punching and kicking from the cradle.  And you do yourself honor to speak with such candor.  You’re right, I did despise you.  Until this moment.”

              Alexandros had the humility and the honesty to admit to the slave Rooster that he was superior in fighting skill.  In normal circumstances it is difficult for us to admit to someone else when they are better, but for a Spartan warrior to admit to a slave that he is a superior fighter was an act of supreme humility and honesty.  As the story goes, this was the act that set Rooster on the path to eventually accept the offer and later become a full Spartan.  I also appreciate Alexandros for the observation Rooster made about him.  He has a tender heart and is not a fighter by nature like most of the boys in the Agoge, but he finds it in himself to keep striving in an unnatural field out of a sense of service to his nation.

              The next interaction comes after the second day of fighting at Thermopylae.  Alexandros had his jaw broken during the battle and was setting it with a mixture of amber and euphorbia.  Polynikes, who openly hated Alexandros up to this point, was helping him and reflecting on a time when Alexandros was in the Agoge and Polynikes caught him with his shield laying face down on the ground.  This infraction led to a series of drills where Polynikes punished Alexandros’s entire unit and broke all of the boys’ noses.

Pg 284

              Alexandros released the Knight’s hand.  Polynikes regarded him with sorrow.

              “Forgive me, Alexandros.”

              “For what?”

              “For breaking your nose.”

              Alexandros laughed, his broken jaw making him grimace.

              “It’s your best feature now.”

              Alexandros winced again. “I’m sorry about your father,” Polynikes said. “And Ariston.”

              He rose to move on to the next fire, glancing once to my master, then returning his gaze to Alexandros.

              “There is something I must tell you.  When Leonidas selected you for the Three Hundred, I went to him in private and argued strenuously against your inclusion.  I thought you would not fight.”

              “I know,” Alexandros’ voice ground through his cinched jaw.

              Polynikes studied him a long moment.

              “I was wrong,” he said.

              He moved on.

              Alexandros had proven himself in battle and finally gained the respect of the greatest Spartan fighter in the army.  Later that night, a small band of Greek fighters go on a night raid into the Persian camp in an attempt to kill Xerxes in his tent.  They get all the way into his chamber and as Alexandros is about to deliver a killing blow to the Persian emperor, his spear hand is cut off by a Persian officer.  The Greeks flee back to their camp and Alexandros dies of his injuries a short time later.

Pg 347

              We buried Alexandros and Lachides in the Spartan precinct beside the West Gate.  Both their breastplates and helmets, Alexandros’ and Lachides’, were preserved aside for use; their shields Rooster and I had already stacked among the arms at the camp.  No coin for the ferryman could be located among Alexandros’ kit, nor did my master or I possess a surrogate.  Somehow I had lost them all, that purse which the lady Arete had placed into my safekeeping upon the evening of that final county day in Lakedaemon.

              “Here,” Polynikes offered.

              He held out, still folded in a wrap of oiled linen, the coin his wife had burnished for himself, a silver tetradrachm minted by the citizens of Elis in his honor, to commemorate his second victory at Olympia.  Upon one face was stamped the image of Zeus Lord of the Thunder, with winged Nike above his right shoulder.  The obverse bore a crescent of wild olive in which was centered the club and lionskin of Herakles, in honor of Sparta and Lakedaemon.

              Polynikes set the coin in place himself.  He had to prise Alexandros’ jaws apart, on the side opposite the “boxer’s lunch” of amber and euphorbia which with steadfast loyalty yet held the fractured bone immobilized.  Dienekes chanted the Prayer for the Fallen; he and Polynikes slid the body, wrapped in its scarlet cloak, into the shallow trench.  It took no time to cover it with dirt.  Both Spartans stood.

              “He was the best of us all,” Polynikes said.

              The Greeks had a burial rite called Charon’s obol where they would place a silver coin in the mouth of the decedent.  They believed there was a ferryman named Charon who would take them across the river which separated the living from the dead.  Charon had to be bribed with a piece of silver so each Greek would keep a coin on their person which they would use to get to the afterlife.  In this scene, they were unable to locate Alexandros’ coin and neither Xeones nor Dienekes had one to give him so Polynikes gives away his own ferryman’s bribe so that Alexandros could cross into the afterlife.  Despite all of his struggles, in the end Alexandros was able to prove himself as a Spartan and gained the respect of everyone including his harshest critic and greatest of all Spartan fighters. 

              The three themes that stick out to me in this book are leadership, warfighting, and humanity.  Pressfield hit a home run in all three categories.  It is no wonder this is required reading in many military units.  Ten out of ten.