The Hot Gates

My name is Ariston, of Sparta, and I am a dead man. We are all dead men. We have known this since we offered our libations to the gods and marched north to this narrow pass they call the "Hot Gates."

The Persian is not an army; he is a plague. His numbers stain the land from the mountains to the sea, a tapestry of countless nations under one mad god-king’s banner. You can hear them at night—the braying of their strange beasts, the clatter of their cookpots, the murmur of a thousand foreign tongues. The sound is like the ocean, and we are but a rock upon the shore.

But a rock can break a wave.

For two days, we have broken them. In this tight space, their numbers mean nothing. Their finest troops, the Immortals, are anything but. We fight in the phalanx, a wall of bronze and flesh. My shield, my aspis, protects the man to my left. The man to my right protects me. It is the whole of our law. It is the only thing that matters.

Leonidas, our king, fights in the front line. He is not a king who commands from the rear. He is the tip of the spear. When the Medes came in their bright robes, we broke them. When the Cissians came with their wicker shields, we slaughtered them. They fell upon our spears like wheat upon the scythe.

But a rock, no matter how stout, is worn down by the endless sea.

Today was different. The Persian king, Xerxes, did not send his subjects. He sat upon his golden throne upon the hill and watched as he sent his best. The Immortals came again, and again, we held. The pass was choked with their dead, the air thick with the iron-scent of blood and the screams of dying men.

My spear is heavy. My arm is numb. The bronze of my helmet is dented from a blow that would have split my skull. My throat is raw with dust and war cries.

And then came the betrayal.

It was not a Persian who broke us, but a Greek. A traitor, Ephialtes of Malis, led them along the mountain path—the Anopaea. He showed them how to get behind us. Our Phocian guards were swept aside.

When the news reached our ranks, a grim silence fell. We all knew the oracle. "Sparta will be mourned by a king of her line, or her lands will be laid waste." Leonidas knew it, too.

He dismissed the allies. There was no reason for them to die. But the Spartans, the Thespians, and the Thebans? We stayed. This was no longer a battle to win a war. It was a battle to win time. To show all of Greece that the Persian could be bled. That a free man, fighting for his home, is worth ten of the Great King’s slaves.

So now, on this third morning, we prepare for our final stand. We will march out from the wall, into the widest part of the pass. We will meet the enemy in the open. There will be no more narrow defile to protect our flanks. There will be only the kill, until we are killed.

Leonidas looks at us, his three hundred. His eyes are calm. "Eat a good breakfast, men," he says, his voice as steady as if he were at home in the syssitia. "For tonight, we dine in Hades."

We laugh. It is a harsh, joyful sound. We are not afraid. Fear is for those with a future.

I tighten the strap on my shield. I think of the Eurotas River, cold and clear. I think of my wife’s face. I will not see them again. But my son will. And he will know that his father stood with the king, at the Hot Gates, and that he did not run.

The sun rises. The Persian drums begin to beat. The sea of enemies advances.

I take my place in the line. My spear feels light in my hand. I look to the man on my left, and I ready my shield.

Let them come.