Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae

by Steven Pressfield

  Before the allied camps were even staked out, the king dispatched raiding parties into the country of Trachis, immediately north of the Gates. These were to torch every stalk of grain and capture or drive off every piece of livestock, down to hedgehogs and barn cats, which might make a meal for the enemy.

  In the wake of these raiders, reconnaissance parties were sent out, surveyors and engineers from each allied detachment, with orders to proceed as far north as the landing beaches likely to be appropriated by the Persians. These men were to map the area, as best they could in the gathering darkness, concentrating upon the roads and trails available to the Persian in his advance to the Narrows. Although the allied force possessed no cavalry, Leonidas made certain to include skilled horsemen in this party; though afoot, they could best assess how enemy cavalry might operate. Could Xerxes get horsemen up the trail? How many? How fast? How could the allies best counter this?

  Further the reconnaissance parties were to apprehend and detain any locals whose topographical knowledge could be of assistance to the allies. Leonidas wanted yard-by-yard intelligence of the immediate northern approaches and, most crucial recalling Tempe, an iron-clad assessment of the mountain defiles south and west, seeking any undiscovered track by which the Greek position could be outflanked and enveloped.

  At this point a prodigy occurred which nearly broke the allies' will before they had even unshouldered their kits. An infantryman of the Thebans trod accidentally into a nest of baby snakes and received upon the bare ankle the full poison of half a dozen infant serpents, whose venom, all hunters know, is more to be feared than a full grown's because the young ones have not yet learned how to deal it out in doses, but instead inject it into the flesh in full measure. The infantryman died within the hour amid horrible sufferings, despite being bled white by the surgeons.

  Megistias the seer was summoned while the stricken The-ban writhed yet in the throes. The remainder of the army, ordered by Leonidas to assess at once the extension and reinforcement of the ancient Phokian Wall across the Gates, nonetheless amid their labors loitered with cold dread as the snakebitten man's life, emblematic all felt of their own, ebbed rapidly and agonizingly.

  It was Megistias' son, at last, who thought to inquire the man's name.

  This was, his mates reported, Perses.

  At once all omen-spawned gloom dispelled as Megistias stated the prodigy's meaning, which could not have been plainer: this man, ill-starred in his mother's election of name, represented the enemy, who had in invading Greece stepped into a Utter of serpents. Unfledged though these were and disunited, the fanged babes yet stood capable of delivering their venom into the foe's vital stream and bringing him low.

  Night had fallen when this fortune-crossed fellow expired. Leonidas had him interred immediately with honor, then returned the men's hands at once to work. Orders were issued for every stonemason within the allied ranks to present himself, regardless of unit. Chisels, picks and levers were collected and more sent for from Alpenoi village and the surrounding countryside.

  The party set forth down the track to Trachis. The masons were ordered to destroy as much of the trail as possible, and also to chisel into the stone in plainest view the following message:

  Greeks conscripted by Xerxes:

  If under compulsion you must fight us your brothers, fight badly.

  Simultaneously work was begun on rebuilding the ancient Phokian Wall which blocked the Narrows. This fortification, when the allies arrived, was little more than a pile of rubble.

  Leonidas demanded a proper battle wall.

  A wry scene ensued as various engineers and draughtsmen of the allied militias assembled in solemn council to survey the site and propose architectural alternatives. Torches had been positioned to light the Narrows, diagrams were sketched in the dirt; one of the captains of the Corinthians produced an actual drawn-to-scale blueprint. Now the commanders began wrangling.

  The wall should be erected right at the Narrows, blocking the pass. No, suggested another, better it should be set back fifty meters, creating a triangle of death between the cliffs and the battle wall. A third captain urged a setback distance of twice that, giving the allied infantry room to mass and maneuver. Meanwhile the troops loitered about, as Hellenes will, offering their own sage counsel and wisdom.

  Leonidas simply picked up a boulder and marched to a spot. There he set the stone in place. He lifted a second and placed it beside the first. The men looked on dumbly as their commander in chief, whom all could see was well past sixty, stooped to seize a third boulder. Someone barked:

  How long do you imbeciles intend to stand by, gaping? Will you wait all night while the king builds the wall himself?

  With a cheer the troops fell to. Nor did Leonidas cease from his exertions when he saw other hands joined to labor, but continued alongside the men as the pile of stones began to rise into a legitimate fortress. Nothing fancy, brothers, the king guided the construction. For a wall of stone will not preserve Hellas, but a wall of men.

  As he had done at every engagement at which it had been my privilege to observe him, the king stripped and worked alongside his warriors, shirking nothing, but pausing to address individuals, calling by name those he knew, committing to memory the names and even nicknames of others heretofore unknown to him, often clapping these new mates upon the back in the manner of a comrade and friend. It was astonishing with what celerity these intimate words, spoken only to one man or two, were relayed warrior-to-warrior down the line, filling the hearts of all with courage.

  It was now the changing of the first watch.

  Bring me the villain.

  With these words Leonidas summoned an outlaw of the region who had fallen in with the column along the route and enlisted for pay to aid in reconnaissance. Two Skiritai brought the man forward. To my astonishment, I knew him.

  This was the youth of my own country who called himself Sphaireus, Ball Player, the wild boy who had taken to the hills following my city's destruction and had kicked about a man's stuffed skull as his sign of outlaw princeship. Now this criminal advanced into the margins of the king's fire, no longer a smooth-cheeked boy but a scarred and bearded man grown.

  I approached him. The fellow recognized me. He was delighted to resume our acquaintance and vastly amused at the fate which had brought us, two orphans of fire and sword, to this, the very epicenter of Hellas ' peril.

  The outlaw stood in sizzling high spirits over the prospect of war. He would haunt its margins and prey upon the broken and the vanquished. War to him was big business; it was clear without words that he thought me a dunce for electing to serve, and for not a penny's pay or profit.

  Whatever happened to that tasty bit of steam you used to tramp with? he asked me. What was her name-your cousin? Steam was the salacious slang of my country for a female of fair and tender years.

  She's dead, I lied, and you will be too for the price of another word.

  Easy, countryman! Back your oars. I'm only fanning the breeze.

  The king's officers summoned the brigand away before he and I could speak further. Leonidas needed a buck whose soles knew how to grip the hardscrabble track of a goat trail, some stoutheart to scramble up the sheer three-thousand-foot face of Kallidromos which towered above the Harrows. He wanted to know what was up top and how dangerous it was to get there.

  Once the enemy took possession of the Trachinian plain and the northern approaches, could the allies get a party, even a single man, across the shoulder of the mountain and into their rear?

  Ball Player appeared decidedly unenthusiastic about his participation in this hazardous venture.

  I'll go with him. This from the Skirite Hound, a mountaineer himself. Anything to get off building this miserable wall. Leonidas accepted this offer with alacrity. He instructed his paymaster to compensate the outlaw handsomely enough to get him to go, but poorly enough to make sure he came back.

  Around midnight the Phokians and Lokrians of Opus began arriving f
rom the mountains. The king welcomed the fresh allies warmly, making no mention of their near desertion but instead guiding them at once to that section of the camp which had been assigned to their use and in which hot broth and freshly baked loaves awaited them.

  A terrific storm had sprung up, north along the coast. Bolts resounded furiously in the distance; though the sky above the Gates stood yet clear and brilliant, the men were getting spooked. They were tired. The six days' hump had taken the starch out of them; fears unspoken and demons unseen began to prey upon their hearts. Nor could the newly arrived Phokians and Lokrians fail to discern the slender, not to say suicidally small, numbers of the force which proposed to hold off the myriads of the enemy.

  The native vendors, even the whores, had vanished, like rats evacuating to their holes presaging a quake.

  There was a man among the loitering locals, a merchantman's mate, he said, who had sailed for years out of Sidon and Tyre. I chanced to be present, around a fire of the Arkadians, when this fellow began to fan the flames of terror. He had seen the Persian fleet firsthand and had the following tale to tell. I was on a grain galley out of Mytilene last year. We got taken by Phoenicians, part of the Great King's fleet. They confiscated our cargo. We had to trail them in under escort and unload it at one of his supply magazines. This was at Strymon on the Thracian coast. The sight I beheld there numbed the senses with awe.

  More men began to cluster about the circle, listening gravely. The dump was big as a city. One thought, coming in, that a range of hills stood beyond it. But when you got close, the hills turned out to be salt meat, towering in hogsheads of brine, stacked to the heavens.

  I saw weapons, brothers. Stands of arms by the tens of thousands. Grain and oil, bakers' tents the size of stadiums. Every article of war materiel the mind could imagine. Sling bullets. Lead sling bullets stacked a foot high, covering an acre. The trough of oats for the King's horses was a mile long. And in the middle of all rose one oilcloth-shrouded pyramid, big as a mountain. What in heaven could be under that? I asked the officer of marines guarding us. 'Come on,' he says, 'I'll show you.' Can you guess, my friends, what rose there, stacked to the sky beneath those covers?

  Paper, the ship's mate declared.

  None of the Arkadians grasped the significance.

  Paper! the Trachinian repeated, as if to drum the meaning into his hearers' thick skulls. Paper for scribes to take inventory. Inventory of men. Horses. Arms. Grain. Orders for troops and more orders, papers for reports and requisitions, muster rolls and dispatches, courts-martial and decorations for valor. Paper to keep track of every supply the Great King is bringing, and every item of loot he plans on taking back. Paper to write down countries burned and cities sacked, prisoners taken, slaves in chains…

  At this moment my master chanced to arrive at the gathering's margins. He discerned at once the terror graven upon the listeners' faces; without a word he pressed forward into the firelight. At the sight of a Spartiate officer among his listeners, the ship's mate redoubled his fervor. He was enjoying the current of dread his tale had spawned.

  But the most fearsome remains yet to be told, brothers, the Trachinian continued. That same day, as our gaolers marched us to supper, we passed the Persian archers in their practice. Not the Olympian gods themselves could have assembled such myriads! I swear to you, mates, so numerous were the multitudes of bowmen that when they fired their volleys, the mass of arrows blocked out the sun!

  The rumormonger's eyes burned with pleasure. He turned to my master, as if to savor the flame of dread his tale had ignited even in a Spartan. To his disappointment Dienekes regarded him with a cool, almost bored detachment.

  Good, he said. Then we'll have our battle in the shade.

  In the middle of the second watch came the first panic. I was still awake, securing my master's covered shield against the rain which threatened, when I heard the telltale rustle of bodies shifting, the alteration in the rhythm of men's voices. A terror-swept camp sounds completely different from a confident one. Dienekes rose out of a sound sleep, like a sheepdog sensing murmurs of disquiet among his fold. Mother of bitches, he grunted, it's starting already.

  The first raiding parties had returned to camp. They had seen torches, cavalry brands of the Persians' mounted rangers, and had made their own prudent withdrawal before getting cut off.

  You could see the foe plainly now, they reported, from the shoulder of the mountain, two miles or less down the trail. Some of the forward sentries had made sorties on their own as well, and these had now returned to camp to confirm the report. Beyond the shoulder of Kallidromos, upon the sprawling plain of Trachis, the advance units of the Persians were arriving.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Within minutes of the sighting of the enemy forerunners, Leonidas had the entire Spartan contingent on its feet and armed, with orders to the allies to marshal in succession and be ready to move forward. The remainder of that night, and all the next day, were consumed with ravaging in earnest the plain of Trachis and the hillsides above, penetrating along the coast as far north as the Spercheios and inland to the citadel and the Trachinian cliffs. Watch fires were set across the entire plain, not little rabbit-roasters as customary, but roaring bonfires, to create the impression of vast numbers of men. The allied units shouted insults and imprecations to one another across the darkness, trying to sound as cheerful and confident as possible. By morning the plain was blanketed end-to-end in fire smoke and sea fog, exactly as Leonidas wanted. I was among the final four parties, stoking bonfires as the murky dawn came up over the gulf. We could see the Persians, mounted reconnaissance units and marine archers of the foe's fast scout corvettes, upon the far bank of the Spercheios. We shouted insults and they shouted back.

  The day passed, and another. Now the main-force units of the foe began streaming in. The plain commenced to fill with the enemy. AH Greek parties withdrew before the Median tide. The scouts could see the King's officers claiming the prime sites for His Majesty's pavilions and staking out the lushest pasturage for his horses.

  They knew the Greeks were here, and the Greeks knew they were.

  That night Leonidas summoned my master and the other enomotarchai, the platoon leaders, to the low knoll behind the Phokian Wall upon which he had established his command post. Here the king began to address the Spartan officers. Meanwhile the commanders from the other allied cities, also summoned to council, began arriving. The timing of this was as the king intended. He wanted the allied officers to overhear the words he spoke seemingly for Spartan ears alone.

  Brothers and comrades, Leonidas addressed the Lake-daemonians clustered about him, it appears that the Persian, despite our impressive showmanship, remains unconvinced of the prudence of packing his kit and embarking for home. It looks like we're going to have to fight him, after all. Hear, then, what I expect from each of you.

  You are the elect of Hellas, officers and commanders of the nation of Lakedaemon, chosen by the Isthmaian Congress to strike the first blow in defense of our homeland. Remember that our allies will take their cue from you. If you show fear, they will be afraid. If you project courage, they will match it in kind. Our deportment here must not differ from any other campaign. On the one hand, no extraordinary precautions; on the other, no unwonted recklessness. Above all, the little things. Maintain your men's training schedule without alteration. Omit no sacrifice to the gods. Continue your gymnastics and drills-at-arms. Take time to dress your hair, as always. If anything, take more time.

  By now the allied officers had arrived at the council fire and were assuming their stations amid the already assembled Spartans. Leonidas continued as if to his own countrymen, but with an ear to the new arrivals as well. Remember that these our allies have not trained their whole lives for war, as we have. They are farmers and merchants, citizen-soldiers of their cities' militias.

  Nonetheless they are not unmindful of valor or they would not be here. For the Phokians and Lokrians of Opus, this is their countr
y; they fight to defend home and family. As for the men of the other cities, Thebans and Corinthians and Tegeates, Orchomenians and Arkadians, Phliasians, Thespians, Man-tineans and the men of Mycenae, these display to my mind even nobler andreia, for they come uncompelled, not to defend their own hearths, but all Greece.

  He motioned the new arrivals forward.

  Welcome, brothers. Since I find myself among allies, I am making a long-winded speech.

  The officers settled in with an anxious chuckle. I am telling the Spartans, Leonidas resumed, what I now tell you. You are the commanders, your men will look to you and act as you do. Let no officer keep to himself or his brother officers, but circulate daylong among his men. Let them see you and see you unafraid. Where there is work to do, turn your hand to it first; the men will follow. Some of you, I see, have erected tents. Strike them at once. We will all sleep as I do, in the open. Keep your men busy. If there is no work, make it up, for when soldiers have time to talk, their talk turns to fear. Action, on the other hand, produces the appetite for more action.

  Exercise campaign discipline at all times. Let no man heed nature's call without spear and shield at his side.

  Remember that the Persian's most formidable weapons, his cavalry and his multitudes of archers and slingers, are rendered impotent here by the terrain. That is why we chose this site. The enemy can get no more than a dozen men at a time through the Narrows and mass no more than a thousand before the Wall. We are four thousand. We outnumber him four to one.

  This produced the first genuine laughter. Leonidas sought to instill courage not by his words alone but by the calm and professional manner with which he spoke them. War is work, not mystery. The king confined his instructions to the practical, prescribing actions which could be taken physically, rather than seeking to produce a state of mind, which he knew would evaporate as soon as the commanders dispersed beyond the fortifying light of the king's fire.

  Look to your grooming, gentlemen. Keep your hair, hands and feet clean. Eat, if you have to choke it down. Sleep, or pretend to. Don't let your men see you toss. If bad news comes, relay it first to those in grade above you, never directly to your men. Instruct your squires to buff each man's aspis to its most brilliant sheen. I want to see shields flashing like mirrors, for this sight strikes terror into the enemy. Leave time for your men to sharpen their spears, for he who whets his steel whets his courage.