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Many people only know a little bit about this history after watching the movie "Spartan 300 Warriors", and the Spartan 300 Warriors are real in history. The background of this history is the Battle of Hot Spring Pass in 480 BC. It is equivalent to the Spring and Autumn Period of China more than 2,000 years ago, when the Persian Empire, which claimed to have a million troops, slain from Asia to Greece. The first battle was fought at the Hot Springs Pass in north-central Greece, with spartan king Leonidas leading 300 Spartan warriors and allied troops to hold the hot spring pass. Onsen Pass is a narrow passage that is easy to defend and difficult to attack, with the sea on one side and the steep mountain wall on the other. Resisted for 3 days with natural danger, blocking the Persian army that was several times larger than itself. Finally the Persian army detoured from a path to the rear. Seeing that the enemy was suffering from the belly and back, Leonidas dismissed the Greek coalition army and led 300 warriors to resist the enemy tenaciously, and eventually all 300 warriors were killed. But in real history, there are only 298 Spartan warriors, so where did the other two go?
In the battle of Hot Spring Pass, the balance of power between the two sides was very different, some said that the Persian Empire's army poured out of the nest, there were as many as 500,000, and some said that only 200,000 people actually came. But there were thousands of warships, divided into land and water. The Greek garrison led by Spartan king Leonidas actually numbered 7,000 men, not 300 men and 200,000 men as some people understand. In fact, a 7,000-strong garrison centered on 300 Spartan Royal Guards and 1,000 second-class border infantry. The so-called second-class border people are because the Spartans are divided into three classes, the first class is citizens, such as 300 Spartan warriors; the second class is the border people, who live outside spartan city, have no citizenship but have free bodies; and the third class is Spartan slaves. But the battle of Hot Springs Pass is not controversial because the Spartan warriors really only have 300 men.
Why did The Spartan king Leonidas bring only 300 men? The Persian king Xerxes also asked the Greek prisoners of war about this question. The prisoners replied that everyone else had gone to the Olympic Games. Xerxes asked, what will the winner get? Prisoners of war were given a crown of heads woven from olive branches. Hearing this, Xerxes' men laughed a lot, they were only fighting for these illusory achievements, not for money!
At that time, the Greek Federation did have a rule that force could not be used during the Olympic Games. Moreover, the spartan kings did not have the same supreme power as our ancient emperors, and their privilege was that they could only carry 100 guards on expeditions. Even if the two kings go out at the same time, they can only take 200 guards, and Leonidas has brought 300 people, which is actually beyond the standard.
However, although the result of the Battle of Hot Spring Pass was that 300 warriors were killed, the death of the Persian army on the ground was frightening enough! Xerxes ordered the head of King Leonidas to be cut off and the body crucified, but he still asked the captives in horror whether the Spartans were like this. Answer, every Spartan is like this. It turned out that when the Spartans landed on the ground, the mother bathed the baby with spirits, and if he lost consciousness, it proved that he was not strong and let him die. Before the boy is 7 years old, his parents cultivate the habit of not crying, not making trouble, not afraid of the dark, and not afraid of loneliness. After the age of 7, he lived a collective military life, and was not allowed to wear shoes, and only one coat was worn in winter and summer. After reaching the age of 20, he became a soldier, married at the age of 30, and retired from the army at the age of 60. Thus, a Spartan warrior can be in a hundred gears. But it doesn't mean that every Spartan can see death as a homecoming.
Because when the Persian army cleaned the battlefield of the hot spring pass, it found only 298 corpses, not 300 warriors. Indeed, the two Spartans, who did not take part in the battle, one did not go to war because of an eye disease, and the other was ordered to go out to run errands. In any case, they did not take part in the fighting, and when the two returned home, they were despised by all the Spartans. No one pays any attention to them. This was the greatest humiliation for the Spartans, who were worse off alive than dead. One of them could not bear the humiliation and drew his sword to commit suicide. Another petitioned to say he was going to die in battle. He eventually died heroically, but the Spartans refused to bury him. The Spartans revered the dead king Leonidas and built a stone lion for him to remember him. In fact, Leonidas and the 298 warriors had no intention of surviving, and King Leonidas' parting instructions to the queen were: marry a good person and raise a good group of children.