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NOTES ON THERMOPYLAE

(1) We calculate that it would have taken at least that many Persians to drive away the 1, 000 Phokians guarding the path. While the Phokians may well have been surprised by the arrival of the Persians, they knew well enough that both Phokis (their homeland), and Thermopylae, depended greatly on their ability to hold their position. They would have fought bravely, therefore, to defend the path. However, Herodotus tells us that they scattered in some disarray as a result of Persian fire power. We feel that only overwhelming odds would have caused them to abandon their position. And, even when they retreated, they did not run away, like cowards, but chose instead to fight to the end defending a nearby hilltop. Interestingly, the Persians then chose to ignore them and marched on to Thermopylae. We suggest that only a large body of troops would feel sufficiently confident to march on while keeping their enemy to their rear. It is, therefore, quite possible that Hydarnes may have felt it necessary to take "all those under his command" (all those that survived the fighting, that is) to compensate for the superiorirty in Greek armor, resolve and discipline. Besides, at the time the Immortals set out the pass at Thermopylae was still occupied by nearly six thousand Greeks. Hydarnes could not have known when he set out that over four thousand of the Greek forces would abandon Leonidas and the defence of the pass. Thus, Hydarnes must have anticipated having to take on at least three thousand of the defenders while the remaining Greek forces occupied themselves with the main body of the Persian army. We are now of the opinion that, given these military considerations, Herodotus may have been accurate in his statement that Hydarnes set out with "those under his command" (meaning something close to the 10, 000 who had survived the fighting). Since we know that the Immortals suffered heavy losses after fierce engagements with the Greeks it is quite possible that Hydarnes may have marched with closer to 9000 men, rather than the original complement of 10, 000 (there simply would not have been enough time to go through induction ceremonies to replace those who died in the fighting). This logic also suggests that the path taken by Hydarnes would have had to be of sufficient width to accommodate a large body of men. Goat paths and narrow defiles which required that men march in single file would not have sufficed. In this respect we are in total agreement with Wallace.

(2) Wallace (1980) hiked all of the proposed paths in the late 1970s and reported his observations in "The Anopaia Path at Thermopylae." While we are in general agreement with his route, he provides no coordinates, no elevations, no precise distances traveled and no precise measures by which to fix the precise route taken by the Immortals (except time estimates). We also feel that his time estimates may be somewhat at variance with ours. For example, Herodotus tells us that the Persians encountered the Phokians at dawn, not at sunrise. However, Wallace reports that he reached the "crest of the mountain" (where the Persians encountered the Phokians) at 5.30 am. In Greece, in August, 5.35 am is sunrise, not dawn. That is sunrise follows dawn. Further, Herodotus tell us that "scouts came running down from the heights when the day was just beginning to break" and reported that the Persians were on their way. That is, it was sunrise when the scouts reported the Persians marching toward Thermopylae, which suggests that they must have skirmished with the Phokians before dawn, probably around 5 am. If this is accurate, the arrival of the Persians at the crest of Kallidromos could not have occurred at 5.30 am because it would have taken the scouts at least an an hour, "running down from the heights" to reach Thermopylae (that is, running down from the crest using goat paths), rather than taking the main path around the mountain). This suggests that they would have had to depart the battle shortly after the arrival of the Persians, but before sunrise, to arrive at Thermopylae at, or soon after sunrise.

Furthermore, as a result of our expedition we suggest that Nervopolis may not have been the location of the skirmish with the Phokians, as suggested by others, because this is not he crest of Kallidromos. We are also unclear as to which "crest" Wallace reached at 5.30 a.m. if he believes that the skirmish took place in Nevropolis (which is not the crest).

(3) Wallace estimated the length of the Anopaea to be about 25.5 kilometers (15.8 miles). He reported that it took him about 14 hrs. to cover this distance. That seems highly unlikely to us because, if that were the case, it would mean that the Persians covered that same distance by averaging about 1.1 miles per hour. That seems rather slow for hardened elite troops, in top physical condition, who had marched all the way from Asia. We believe that the actual distance they covered was closer to 20 or 21 miles, which they made in about 12.5 or 13 hrs. Of course it may be argued that their goal was to arrive at Thermopylae at the same time as the main force attacked the Greeks from the front, around 9 am. If that were the case then their slower pace may have been intentional. Herodotus writes that after the brief skirmish against the Phokians they set off at a rapid pace. Was this because they had fallen behind schedule as a result of the unanticipated encounter with the Phokians? If this is so, it may well be that their schedule was to arrive at Thermopylae about 9 am, in order to participate in a coordinated attack (from front and rear) on the Greeks. This would explain why they covered only about 13 miles from their staging area in the Gulf of Malia to Nevropolis in about eight hours. There was no need to march any faster. However, the slower pace suggested by Wallace simply does not fit the distance traveled in the available time. In all fairness to Wallace, however, he had to calculate distances from available maps. We were fortunate to possess global positioning equipment which enbaled us to fix precisely the distances we walked.

The unanticipated delay of almost an hour in the skirmish with the Phokians undoubtedly set them behind schedule and it may explain why Herodotus thought it important to mention that, from that point, the Persians "passed on and descended the mountain with all possible speed."

NOTE: Our expedition measured the path taken by Wallace using GPS units and we found it to be 21.5 walking miles in length