Thus reads an ancient stone at Thermopylae in northern Greece, the site of one of the world’s greatest battles for freedom. Here, in 480 B.C., on a narrow mountain pass above the crystalline Aegean, 300 Spartan knights and their allies faced the massive forces of Xerxes, King of Persia. From the start, there was no question but that the Spartans would perish. In Gates of Fire, however, Steven Pressfield makes their courageous defense–and eventual extinction–unbearably suspenseful. The story is told from the point of view of Xeones of Astakos, supposedly the sole survivor among the Spartans, who Xerxes has tell his story to the court historian Gobartes. Xeones starts with the tale of how he came to Sparta.
As a youth, his village of Astakos is destroyed and his family slaughtered, but he and the cousin he loves, Diomache, escape. As they wander the countryside, Diomache is raped by soldiers and Xeones is crucified after stealing a chicken, although Diomache saves him from death. Thrown into despair, because his hands are so damaged that he can never wield a sword, Xeones heads off by himself to die. But he experiences a visitation from the Archer god Apollo Far Striker and realizes he can still wield a bow. When Diomache, who is also distraught after being violated by the soldiers, takes off, Xeones heads to Sparta where he hopes to join the army. The middle section of the book, which I found interesting but slow, deals with his life in Sparta and the training techniques used by the Spartans to create what was one of the most formidable fighting forces the world has ever seen.
The Essay on Athens Vs Sparta Family Life
Athens Vs. Sparta Athens and Sparta were both City-states in Greece in ancient times, yet they had no social similarities. They were constantly at war, and at one time at a stalemate. They existed in the same time and place, but had totally different views on life and lifestyles. There were differences in the family life of people and paradigm of Athenians and Spartans. Sparta was Drastically ...
Eventually he becomes the squire of one of the 300 knights who are chosen for Thermopylae. The final section, on the battle itself, depicts wholesale slaughter accompanied by acts of ineffable courage. It also relates two of the great lines of all time. When Xerxes offers to spare the Spartans lives if they will surrender their arms, Leonidas is reputed to have snarled, “come and get them.” And upon being told that the Persians have so many bowmen that the cloud of arrows would blot out the sun, one of the Spartans says, “good, then we’ll have our battle in the shade.” Pressfield’s descriptions of war are breathtaking in their immediacy. They are also meticulously assembled out of physical detail and crisp, uncluttered metaphor: The forerank of the enemy collapsed immediately as the first shock hit it; the body-length shields seemed to implode rearward, their anchoring spikes rooted slinging from the earth like tent pins in a gale. The forerank archers were literally bowled off their feet, their wall-like shields caving in upon them like fortress redoubts under the assault of the ram….
The valor of the individual Medes was beyond question, but their light hacking blades were harmless as toys; against the massed wall of Spartan armor, they might as well have been defending themselves with reeds or fennel stalks. Alas, even this human barrier was bound to collapse, as we knew all along it would. “War is work, not mystery,” Xeones laments. But Pressfield’s epic seems to make the opposite argument: courage on this scale is not merely inspiring but ultimately mysterious. Essentially concerning the battle of Thermopylae and the Spartans defence of their homeland from the all-conquering Persians, Gates of Fire is actually a wonderfully detailed portrayal of two entire cultures told from a number of first-person perspectives. Not only is this a staggering achievement in itself, each first-person segment is beautifully written and worthy of being a novel in it’s own right. Gates of Fire also has the distinction of being the only novel to reduce me to tears.
As Pressfield describes the final stand of the Spartans in the face of such insurmountable odds, you cannot fail to be humbled by the awesome courage exhibited by these men. This is not the courage of the insanely fearless or the deliberately heroic, but the courage of ordinary men, knowing that they were soon to die, but willing to put the survival of their nation above their personal welfare. Steven Pressfield has both humanized the battle of Thermopylae (where the Spartans held the Persian invaders for several years in an Alamo-like suicide stand) and provides a convincing look into the life, tactics, and organization of Sparta. Sparta, unique among Greek cities, maintained its conqueror/conquered distinctions. Its upper class lived and trained as professional soldiers giving them an advantage over the citizen/soldier of other Greek cities. Their heavy armor, shields, and spears created a heavy infantry second to none and against which light Persian troops, accustomed to battles of maneuver and distance, crashed and died. By describing Xeones’ life, from his childhood and the destruction of his native city of Astakos by the Argives (Sparta’s traditional enemy), through his survival as a youth without a city, to his training by the Spartans, both Xeones and those who play a key role in his life become fully articulated characters.
The Term Paper on A Review Of Courage Under Fire
Courage Under Fire In 1991, millions of people tuned in to CNN to observe a real life and death drama played out in the cities and deserts of Iraq. For the United States, the war was more or less a display of power and a preservation of economic interest. Nobody was to ever hear of the mishaps and foul-ups of the war. In many eyes the war was seen as a chance to boost American spirit and make the ...
The contrast between the comic-book heroism of Polynikes and the philosophical Dienekes enriches the traditional concept of the unfeeling Spartan. Dienekes becomes the central character of the novel with his description of man’s battle against fear. Gates of Fire is a compelling and thoughtful look into a particularly important historical moment of time, and into the nature of man in battle. I highly recommend this novel.
Bibliography:
Steven Pressfield. Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae.
Bantam; 1999.
