Foreigners,
If you go to Sparta.
Please convey to the citizens there:
We are dead here,
Keep your oath until you die.
For a long time, the Battle of Hot Spring Pass has been one of the enduring themes of Western historical literature, and this tragic story has been written in many languages. Passed down in the form of poems, biographies, and proverbs, people sang the praises of the spartan warriors for their bravery and indomitability, and regarded death as a homecoming. However, the real Battle of Hot Spring Pass was not as most rumors say, the three hundred Spartan warriors were not completely destroyed, and there was a group of people who also participated in the battle but little is known.
The Battle of Onsen Pass was a famous battle in the Hippoc War and an important battle in Western history, named after the location in Hot Spring Pass.
In 492 BC and 290 BC, the Persian army made two expeditions to Greece, but both failed. In 486 BC, king Darius I of Persia died and his son Xerxes ascended the throne. Determined to fulfill his father's last wishes, he vowed to conquer Athens and conquer Greece.
Four years of meticulous preparation were made to mobilize the entire Persian Empire while persuading the city-states to abandon resistance. Naturally, the Greek city-states were not convinced, and Athens threw the Persian emissaries into a deep pit, and Sparta threw the Persian emissaries into the bottom of the well. Under the leadership of these two most powerful city-states, the Greek city-states united to form the Greek City-State Alliance. Xerxes' plan was to advance both land and water, so the Greek coalition had to prepare for the defense of both land and sea, but the Number of Persians was too large.
Direct confrontation was obviously unwise, so the Greeks decided to use the dangerous threshold to offset and exert the individual combat effectiveness of the Greek heavy infantry. For various reasons, the hot springs became a defensive site for the Greek coalition, which was a very good choice for them. Located in central Greece, it was surrounded by mountains and rivers that were easy to defend and difficult to attack, which was not conducive to the activities of the Persian cavalry, and there was only a corridor about 5 kilometers long.
In addition, the south is a mountain, the north is a bay, and the narrowest part of the checkpoint can only be passed by one car. Unfortunately, the war hit the Festival of Kania, and according to Spartan law, any military action must cease during the Festival of Kania. At the Battle of Marathon that year, the Spartan army was late for this reason, and by the time they arrived, the Athenians had won the battle. This time, however, it was too important for them to see the hot spring pass soon fall into Persian hands, so they sent a small army.
This army was led by Leonidas, one of the two kings of Sparta, and there were 300 Spartan Royal Guards, 1,000 second-class border guards, and 300 Royal Guards. It was stipulated that the spartan king could only carry 100 people when he went out on the expedition, and the two kings could only take 200 at the same time, and 100 people must be left in the country. This time Leonidas took 300 men, in addition to some ordinary Spartan warriors or slaves, as well as other warriors of the city-state.
Cumulatively, the Greek army at the Battle of Hot Springs was about seven thousand men. But this was also hanging enough, because the Persian army was around two hundred thousand to three hundred thousand people, and the outcome of the war was doomed from the beginning. The more than seven thousand men of the Greek army were so heroic that they failed to repel the Persian army, but succeeded in delaying their attack. Valuable time was gained for other city-states to prepare for the campaign, and it can be said that it was the Battle of Thermos Pass that led to the later Greek victory.
If they had not resisted desperately, I am afraid that the Persian army would have gone all the way south, the opium would have been truly flattened, and Greece would have been conquered. However, due to their outdeclution, the Spartan warriors and the volunteer army behind the temple were all killed, and it is worth noting here that not all of them were killed. For of the three hundred Spartan warriors, two others were unable to participate because of an eye disease and one who was ordered to go out. They later returned to Sparta and were despised by their natives, one unable to bear to commit suicide and the other dying in another battle.
Leonidas I was eventually beheaded, and it was not until forty years after the end of the campaign that the remains were returned to Sparta. The great king was bestowed with the highest honor, his remains were reburied, and rituals were performed every year in honor of the hero. In the ensuing battle, Persia was triumphant, but Xerxes insisted on destroying Athens and pursued it relentlessly. Instead, it angered the Athenian navy, defeating the Persian navy at the Battle of Salamis, and defeating plataea.
At this point, Xerxes had to withdraw to Asia, and the Second Greek-Persian War ended in the victory of the Greek coalition.