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

Our allied brothers are on the road to home now. The king gestured down the track, the road that ran to southern Greece and safety. We must cover their withdrawal; otherwise the enemy's cavalry will roll unimpeded through these Gates and ride our comrades down before they've gotten ten miles. If we can hold a few hours more, our brothers will be safe.

He inquired if any among the assembly wished also to speak.

Alpheus stepped to the fore. I'm hungry too so I'll keep it short. He drew up shyly, in the unwonted role of speaker. I realized for the first time that his brother, Maron, stood nowhere among the ranks. This hero had died during the night, I heard a man whisper, of wounds sustained the previous day.

Alpheus spoke quickly, unblessed by the orator's gift but graced simply with the sincerity of his heart. In one way only have the gods permitted mortals to surpass them. Man may give that which the gods cannot, all he possesses, his life. My own I set down with joy, for you, friends, who have become the brother I no longer possess.

He turned abruptly and melted back into the ranks.

The men began calling for Dithyrambos. The Thespian stepped forth with his usual profane glint.

He gestured toward the pass beyond the Narrows, where the advance parties of the Persians had arrived and begun staking out the marshal' ing salients for the army. Just go out there, he proclaimed, and have fun!

Dark laughter cut the assembly. Several others of the Thespians spoke. They were more curt than the Spartans. When they finished, Polynikes stepped to the front.

It is no hard thing for a man raised under the laws of Lykurgus to offer up his life for his country. For me and for these Spartans, all of whom have living sons, and who have known since boyhood that this was the end they were called to, it is an act of completion before the gods.

He turned solemnly toward the Thespians and the freed squires and helots.

But for you, brothers and friends… for you who will this day see all extinguished forever…

The runner's voice cracked and broke. He choked and blew snot into his hand in lieu of the tears to whose issue his will refused to permit. For long moments he could not summon speech. He motioned for his shield; it was passed to him. He displayed it aloft. This aspis was my father's and his father's before him. I have sworn before God to die before another man took this from my hand.

He crossed to the ranks of the Thespians, to a man, an obscure warrior among them. Into the fellow's grasp he placed the shield. The man accepted it, moved profoundly, and presented his own to Polynikes. Another followed, and another, until twenty, thirty shields had traded hands.

Others exchanged armor and helmets with the freed squires and helots. The black cloaks of the Thespians and the scarlet of the Lakedaemonians intermingled until all distinction between the nations had been effaced. The men called for Dienekes. They wanted a quip, a wisecrack, something short and pithy as he was known for. He resisted. You could see he did not wish to speak.

Brothers, I'm not a king or a general, I've never held rank beyond that of a platoon commander.

So I say to you now only what I would say to my own men, knowing the fear that stands unspoken in each heart – not of death, but worse, of faltering or failing, of somehow proving unworthy in this, the ultimate hour.

These words had struck the mark; one could read it plain on the faces of the silent, raptly attending men.

Here is what you do, friends. Forget country. Forget king. Forget wife and children and freedom. Forget every concept, however noble, that you imagine you fight for here today. Act for this alone: for the man who stands at your shoulder. He is everything, and everything is contained within him. That's all I know. That's all I can tell you.

He finished and stepped back. At the rear of the assembly a commotion was heard. The ranks rustled; into view emerged the Spartan Eurytus. This was the man, stricken with field blindness, who had been evacuated to Alpenoi village, along with the envoy Aristodemos, felled by this same inflammation. Now Eurytus returned, sightless, yet armed and in armor, led by his squire.

Without a word he steered himself into place among the ranks.

The men, whose courage had already been high, felt this now refire and redouble.

Leonidas stepped forth now and reassumed the skeptron of command. He proposed that the Thespian captains take these final moments to commune in private with their own countrymen, while he spoke apart for the Spartans alone.

The men of the two cities divided, each to its own. There remained just over two hundred Peers and freedmen of Lakedaemon. These assembled, without regard to rank or station, compactly about their king. All knew Leonidas would address appeals to nothing so grand as liberty or law or the preservation of Hellas from the tyrant's yoke.

Instead he spoke, in words few and plain, of the valley of the Eurotas, of Parnon and Taygetos and the cluster of five unwalled villages which alone comprise that polis and commonwealth which the world calls Sparta. A thousand years from now, Leonidas declared, two thousand, three thousand years hence, men a hundred generations yet unborn may for their private purposes make journey to our country.

They will come, scholars perhaps, or travelers from beyond the sea, prompted by curiosity regarding the past or appetite for knowledge of the ancients. They will peer out across our plain and probe among the stone and rubble of our nation. What will they learn of us? Their shovels will unearth neither brilliant palaces nor temples; their picks will prise forth no everlasting architecture or art. What will remain of the Spartans? Not monuments of marble or bronze, but this, what we do here today.

Out beyond the Narrows the enemy trumpets sounded. Clearly now could be seen the vanguard of the Persians and the chariots and armored convoys of their King. Now eat a good breakfast, men. For we'll all be sharing dinner in hell.

His Majesty witnessed at close range, with His own eyes, I the magnificent valor demonstrated by the Spartans, Thespians and their emancipated squires and servants upon this, the final morning of defense of the pass. He has no need of my recounting the events of this battle. I will report only those instances and moments which may have escaped the notice of His Majesty's vantage, again, as he has requested, to shed light upon the character of the Hellenes he there called his enemy.

Foremost among all, and indisputable in claim to preeminence, may be only one man, the Spartan king, Leonidas. As His Majesty knows, the main force of the Persian army, advancing as it had on the previous two days along the track from Trachis, did not commence its assault until long after the sun was fully up. The hour of attack in fact was closer to midday than morning and came while the Ten Thousand Immortals had not yet made their appearance in the allied rear.

Such was Leonidas' disdain for death that he actually slept for most of this interval. Snoozed might be a more apt description, so free from care was the posture the king assumed upon the earth, cushioned upon his cloak as a ground cloth, legs crossed at the ankles, arms folded across his breast, his eyes shaded fay a straw sun hat and his head pillowed insouciantly upon the bowl of his shield. He might have been a boy, herding goats in some sleepy summer dale.

Of what does the nature of kingship consist? What are its qualities in itself; what the qualities it inspires in those who attend it? These, if one may presume to divine the meditations of His Majesty's heart, are the questions which most preoccupy his own reason and reflection.