Blog number eighty 11 March (Has it been that long since I blogged?) 2007
I was watching the History channel the other night and they had the battle of Thermopolis, which was between the Persians and the Greeks. The Persians were coming to punish the Athenians for burning one of the Persian's cities along with an important temple in that city. The force of the Persians was three hundred thousand. The defenders numbered seven thousand.
Three hundred Spartans fronted the rest of the Greeks in a narrow pass where the Persians were at a disadvantage because of the difference in the way the two armies fought.
The first day the three hundred Spartans killed thousands of Persians. Now, it wasn't said, but from inferences, I don't think the rest of the Greeks got into the battle at all. The next day, same thing.
The Persians found a way around the pass so that ten thousand of them came up behind the Greeks, who were now surrounded. Six thousand of the Greeks were sent back out of the way before the ten thousand Persians completed the flank attack. All that were left to fight the hundreds of thousands of Persians were the remnants of the three hundred Spartans and a thousand of some other Greek city's troops. The Spartans and the other thousand Greeks were slaughtered.
Now here's the part I don't get. The ten thousand Persians came up behind the Greeks in the same narrow pass. Why didn't some of the Spartans go to the rear and fight those ten thousand just like they had been fighting the three hundred thousand in front of them? Why didn't the seven thousand stay and slaughter the Persians? From what I gathered, the front of the battle was the mirror image of the rear. Am I missing something?
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