THE 300 SPARTANS

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Last Stand of the 300

The History Channel Documentary
Take a look at how Leonidas and the Spartans battled and maintained position during their fight with the Persians.
The battle of Thermopylae was the first between the Persians and Greeks during the Persian invasion of 480-479 BC.

The Greek force was very small but was determined to make a stand against the huge Persian army.
Sparta would lead the Greek army, as her reputation in the war was unmatched by any other Greek state.

The Greeks had chosen to defend a narrow pass, or gap, between the mountains of central Greece and the sea, called Thermopylae.
This pass was part of the route into Greece from the north.

Here the Greek force now waited, made up of only 300 Spartans under their king, Leonidas, and about 6000 soldiers from other Greek cities.

They faced a Persian army of perhaps 100,000 men.

The Last Stand of the 300 Spartans

In the year 480 B.C., the Greeks and the Persians fight one of the most famous battles in history at a place called Thermopylae.

Here, the mighty Persian war machine, which has conquered most of the known world, will attempt an expansion into Europe.

The only thing standing in their way will be an army led by 300 Spartans, the greatest soldiers the world has ever known.

They will fight to the very last man, and in doing so will protect the cradle of democracy during its infancy, and the battle will go down in history as the greatest military stand of all time.

Relying on brilliant tactics, lifelong training, and unshakable allegiance, the doomed Spartans achieved the impossible.

The Battle of Thermopylae is literally a textbook case, required reading even to this day at military colleges and officer training around the world.

Matthew Gonzalez, Ph.D

Guy MacLean Rogers Ph.D

Richard A.Gabriel, Ph.D

David George, Ph.D

Steven Pressfield