"Thermopylae: The Battle That Changed the World"

[conon394]

But that is not the issue. The real issue is Leonidas' choosing death - and you have chosen yet again to focus on an irrelevance rather than address this fundamental point. Answer the question, Jona; why don't you believe in the Spartans having the courage to sacrifice themselves?

I think you are realy collapsing two points into one here.

One: Did the Spartans and Thespians have the courage to fight to the death and not surrender even when the cause became completely hopeless, clearly they did. Given that the Thebans managed to surrender at some point, it seems likely the Spartans and Thespians could have surrendered as well, but did not.

Two: Did Leonidas intend to sacrifice himself and his command? I don’t think a positive answer to question one needs implies that he did. Three hundred Spartan Hippeis were not exactly a easily to replace resource, if the position was lost, why throw away a significant portion of a very finite resource? The Spartans do not seem to have felt that withdrawal was unwarranted when a position was untenable, and considering the long run what the loss of Leonidas meant to Sparta. Arrogant and apparently rather corruptible Pausanias in command happily providing the pretexts for the formation of the Delian league…

In many ways I think Ephorus’ version is perhaps more probable than Herodotus’s. The ideal the Leonidas would use his small force to launch a surprise night attack with the aim of killing the king makes a fair bit of sense. The potential gain is certainly worth the risk, and even if they fail they achieve the secondary objective of delaying the advance of the Persians, allowing the main force to withdrawal.

Edit

Three hundred Spartan Hippies

oops corrected now too Hippeis