Preview

What Did The Spartan Sacrifice

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
490 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
What Did The Spartan Sacrifice
The Spartans sacrifice

Yesterday, three hundred Spartans lost their lives. They were fighting against the Persian army. They held out for three days before one of them told the Persians how to defeat them. No word yet on who it was. Whoever it was died anyway though. Persia continues to advance. Every Spartan there knew that they were only meant to slow the Persians down. However, they had bigger plans. One Spartans journal stated it better than I could. “We do not think we will lose our battles. We will always strive to win them.” -Spartan 257 Him, and every other Spartan in that army lived, and died by that quote. While the Persians may still be on the march, many of them also lost their lives. Some believe
…show more content…
We are still working on a way to slow them down. If the Persians take over Athens, then they will burn our libraries, kill all of us, and destroy our beautiful city. The advancement must, and will be stopped. Philandros Lykourgos age 27 was one of the Spartans killed that day. He was a general, and was quickly moving further up in the ranks of the army. However, against an army of 200,000 men, he didn’t stand a fighting chance. He was killed with a sword to the neck. Others didn’t have such a quick merciful death. Some were trampled by strange beasts from other lands. Others were shot, and left to die. They still have arrows in their dead bodies. Out of the 300 Spartans that were in that army, 259 of them have been located. Theories run wild about the rest of them. Some of them may have been eaten by beasts. Others may have gone off somewhere, and been afraid to show their faces. We do not know if any of them are true. We hope to find the rest soon.
The Spartans may not have defeated, or stopped the Persians, but here’s what they DID do. They held out for three weeks against an army over 666 times the size of their own. They killed several of the Persian invaders. They killed beasts never known to them before. And they bought some time for our allies to

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The Battle of Thermopylae started out in the late summer of 480 B.C, the Spartan King Leonidas 1 held out for three days with a mere 300 hoplites against thousands upon thousands of the best Great King’s troops. Under thirty-five Persian generals, were assembled for the invasion of Greece, five whom where sons of the royal house. On the arrival of Xerxes at Thermopylae, he saw the that place was defended by a large of number of Spartans, and about seven thousand hoplites from other states, commanded by the Spartan King Leonidas.…

    • 1358 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Another misconception also is the Spartan force of 300 elite hoplite soldiers fought on their own against the 100,000-150,000 or so Persian troops. This is of course false as they had a Greek force of about 4,000 with them the first two days and a force of approximately 700 Thespians and 400 Thebans who had chosen to stay on the final day, despite Leonidas' orders for the Greek forces to retreat to evade certain death. This misconception again, is to glorify the Spartans and their efforts at Thermopylae. Their three day standoff still being an amazing feat of military prowess and elite soldier mentality, one cannot deny them this. Over all, there were 300 Spartan casualties (including Leonidas, the Spartan king), and most of the Thebans and Thespians that didn't surrender as the Persians lost close to over 20,000 men, including the death of all 10,000 of their Immortals (deemed 'Immortals' due to the swift replacement of an injured/killed Immortal, keeping their unit of 10,000 at a constant number so it would seem their force and cohesion was never changing, constantly powerful and constantly geared for war; hence immortal).…

    • 1566 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    According to Herodotus, the Greek army did not have enough troops to maintain the Persians troops so they were heavily outnumbered this lead to the Persians surround the Greek Force. A major factor on the defeat of the defeat of the Greeks was of the disunity of the Greek states.…

    • 423 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    There were a number of factors that played into the allied greek victory over the Persian forces led by king Xerxes. The first was the Spartans' superior fighting ability and military training from childhood into early adulthood. Spartans, beginning late in the sixth century used a new system governing all of it's citizens from birth.…

    • 762 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    -The whole Spartan society was aimed at producing a strong fighting force of great warriors who were willing to die for Sparta. The Spartans developed the militaristic society changing their lifestyle due to their defeat against the Argives.…

    • 4818 Words
    • 20 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Battle Of Thermoplyae

    • 555 Words
    • 3 Pages

    When this attack didn’t work Xerxes sent 10,000 men known as the Medes, to attack the Spartans and capture them. The Spartans were positioned along the wall, shoulder to shoulder and shield to shield. This method allowed them to defend themselves and not be captured by the Persians. The Medes were no match for the Spartan soldiers. In the next…

    • 555 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Persians were a brutish people, who wanted nothing more than to conquer and ruin the Greek way of life. The Persians played the Greek city-states against one another in order to inhibit success against their attacks. The Ionian Greeks were conquered by these barbarians, and their way of life was threatened. The Greek's freedom was perishing, while the power of the Persian's continued to expand. The Persians were a tolerant empire with strong leaders and some autonomy though they restricted the Ionian Greek's autonomy to make their lives easier, then pitting the Greek city-states against each other in order to have influence within Greek culture once again, though the defeat of the Persians was a crucial victory for the Greeks, because…

    • 294 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The advancements and sheer number of the Austrian offensive served little purpose as they were pummeled by the Swiss assault. This is much like the Battle of Thermopylae in that the invading force perceives that they will undoubtedly prevail , but the defensive force hold strong. The Spartans as well as the Swiss are protecting their ancient freedoms, as explained in this passage, “Sweetest of all is liberty. This we have chosen and this we pay for. We have embraced the laws of Lykurgus, and they are stern laws. They have schooled us to scorn the life of leisure, which this rich land of ours would bestow upon us if we wished, and instead to enroll ourselves in the academy of discipline and sacrifice. Guided by these laws, our fathers for twenty generations have breathed the blessed air of freedom and have paid the bill in full when it was presented. We, their sons, can do no less.” Planning to use the homefield advantage and the geography to help their defence, both in the Hot Gates and in the canyon between lakes Aegeri and Morgarten, was a brilliant strategical tactic that helped both parties. The greeks however, were not so fortunate as to win the battle. They showed resilience and strength against the enemy until the time their life was taken from…

    • 465 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Athens and Sparta, were the strongest cities , Athens and Sparta competed with the supreme political influence of Greece . Athens and Sparta's men always trained to be ready for war. Sparta's main strength lay in its ground troops, while Athens's powerful navy controlled the seas. The tide was turned in the Persian Wars when the legendary 300 Spartans led by King Leonidas slowed Xerxes' advance at Thermopylae. The Persians were later ultimately defeated at the Battle of Salamis by the superior strategy of…

    • 141 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    From the beginning of Sparta, in 900 BC, until their fall, in 192 BC, they were the superior fighting warriors across the Mediterranean sea and in the European vicinity. The spartans were the strongest, most fierce, and most feared people in Europe at the time with a highly militarized lifestyle and society. The spartans were the ultimate “super soldiers” of their time, the reason for this being, from the age of 7 all boys were required to go to military training at the Agoge and train there until the age of 20, they also had unique and extremely effective formations, ways of protection, and weapons (shields, long spears, etc.) that would help them in any scenario one could think of.…

    • 2322 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    To a very large extent Themistocles did play the key role in bringing about a Greek victory against the Persians in 480-479BC. His efforts in the pre-war years, his leadership and tactical skills at Artemisium and Salamis, and his persuasive arguments all combined to offer the Greeks hope of victory. However, Themistocles, alone, could not determine the fate of the war. It would be a mistake to suggest that other people and events did not play important roles in the defeat against the Persians as well. To gain a complete understanding of why the Persians were defeated, one needs to look at the roles of the Spartans and Pausanias, the importance of the Battle of Plataea and the mistakes of the Persians themselves. To a reasonably large extent, Themistocles contribution brought about a Greek victory, but not to full extent.…

    • 1448 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Gates of Fire Summary

    • 390 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Gates of fire is a story about Xeones, a Greek boy who is a survivor of the Battle…

    • 390 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    How Did Sparta Decline

    • 872 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Sparta simply believed that the Lycurgus system did not need to be altered. Furthermore, they were against Spartans having too much wealth or personal power. As a result, the Lycurgus system's rigidity produced a closed society plagued by the effects of inbreeding. Some historians agree that "the Spartan hegemony 'perished through 'oliganthropia'' - a lack of men. This is not because of a population decrease in Laconia but just a lack of men of the Spartan citizen class who could serve as hoplites, called 'homoioi' or 'Spartiates.'" The number of men that Sparta could call upon to send into battle diminished appreciably during the 5th and early 4th centuries B.C. This was not solely due to reduced numbers of men but also partly because they were reluctant to leave Laconia unguarded and tended to send fewer men to battle than they could have. In the 5th century battle at Thermopylae against the Persians, only 300 Spartans and 1,000 allies held off the massive invasion of Persia's King Xerxes that is estimated to number over 120,000 men. According to Herodotus, however, there were probably 8,000 Spartiates available to be deployed (Scipio,…

    • 872 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    eager for more land. After 20 long years of war the Messenians were forced to…

    • 1737 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Sparta In Ancient Greece

    • 378 Words
    • 2 Pages

    As victors, the Spartans found themselves dominant in a Greece where polis was suspicious of polis and where, within each polis, faction disputed with faction. From Ionia, which the Spartans sold back to Persia as the price of their assistance, the Persians loomed once more as a threat to the whole Greek world. The new Macedonia in the north menaced the Greeks. Perhaps wiser or more vigorous leaders would have been able to create some sort of federation among the individual poleis that could have withstood the Persians and the Macedonians, and still later, the Romans. But since this did not happen, it seems more likely that the polis as an institution was no longer thought to be the appropriate way for the Greek world to be organized. Perhaps it was too small, too provincial, and too old-fashioned to keep the peace and provide scope for economic advancement and intellectual growth.…

    • 378 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays