What Do the Sources Tell Us About the Battles of Artemisium and Thermopylae and Who the Real Victors Were?

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What do the sources tell us about the battles of Artemisium and Thermopylae and who the real victors were? Xerxes, son of Darius and King of Persia, at the head of an army that was “far greater than any of which we know” (H.7.20) began his march on Europe with intention and entire conviction of conquering the continent, and in particular the collective states of Greece. First it is important to note the sheer scale of Xerxes invasion. Herodotus says it was so vast that “there was not a stream his army drank from that was not drunk dry” (H.7.20) and that the King had spent five years building this military, taking the finest infantry, navy and cavalry from every nation in Asia. After accounting for all for each military division, Herodotus comes to the conclusion that Xerxes reached Thermopylae at the head of an army consisting of 5,283,220 men. This statistic does seem extremely far-fetched and almost certainly a massive over estimation as simply finding this many people to fight let alone keeping them in order would have been next to impossible. Therefore, it is likely Herodotus has come up with this figure to make the events of Thermopylae seem even more heroic and further please his readers. Nepos on the other hand, reaches the figure of 700,000 infantry. This is still an insurmountable force but definitely one more realistic than the former figure. Nevertheless, both sources agree that this army was to clash head to head against “Leonidas, with 4000 soldiers” (Diodorus.4) at the Battle of Thermopylae. After abandoning Thessaly due to warning from Alexander of the scale of the Persian advancement, the Greeks set to discuss where they should make a stand. The most favored proposal was to guard the pass of Thermopylae on the grounds that it was “narrower than the pass into Thessaly and at the same time nearer to home” (H.7.175). Upon making this decision,

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