Sparta: Where Heroines Outshine Their Valiant Heroes
7 lessons and why pacifists must read Steven Pressfieldβs Gates of Fire
Steven Pressfieldβs Gates of Fire β The Epic Battle of Thermopylae is a historical fiction that retells the world changing battle between Persia, led by king Xerxes I, and the Greek city states, led by Sparta under their king, Leonidas I.
The war film, 300, is based on the ancient epic battle of Thermopylae. King Leonidas and 300 Spartans warriors led the Greeks against the onslaughts of a formidably massive Persian army. The odds were massively stacked against the Greeks. Despite insurmountable odds, the Greek ward off their enemies for several days until their fellow Spartan, chaffing at being declared unfit for battle betrayed his nation to the Persians.
The Spartans and their Thespian allies died to the last man, but the standard of valor they set by their sacrifice inspired the Greeks to rally and, in that fall and spring, defeat the Persians at Salamis and Plataea and preserve the beginnings of Western democracy and freedom from perishing in the cradle.
Prior to the Persian invasion the Greek city states recently ended a civil war in the city of Antirhion. The goal of that war was to unite all the contending Greek city states against their common loomingβ¦
