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Essay on Gates of Fire
Gates of fire” is a convincing and solicitous look into a predominantly significant historical moment of time, as well as into the nature of man in battle. It takes the form of Xeones' story, intermixed with sporadic remarks by the Persian scholars who write out his dictation. Gates of Fire tells the story of Thermopylae, one of the most well known of ancient battles. Disreputably, three hundred Spartans along with no more than seven thousand allied Greeks held off an attacking army of two million Persians for a number of days. The performance of all the Greeks was heroic, however that of the Spartans was idiotically so. In the end they died to the last man, rejecting to surrender.
But their altruism bought time for the Greek City States. What pursued were the Persian defeats at Salamis and Plataea. Ancient and modern historians come together in seeing the battle as one of the huge turning points. (Steven Pressfield, 1998)Steven Pressfield has both made more humane the battle of Thermopylae where the Spartans held the Persian attackers for a number of years in an Alamo-like suicide stand and presents a compelling look into the life, tactics, as well as organization of Sparta. Sparta, unique among Greek cities, upholds its conqueror/conquered characteristics. Its upper class lived and taught as professional soldiers giving them a benefit over the citizen/soldier of other Greek cities. Their heavy protective covering, shields, and spears formed a heavy infantry second to none and against which light Persian troops, familiarized to battles of contrive and distance, crashed and died.
By unfolding Xeones' life, from his childhood and the obliteration of his native city of Astakos by the Argives which was Sparta's conventional enemy, through his endurance as a youth without a city, to his training by the Spartans, both Xeone and those who play an important role in his life turn out to be completely articulated characters.......
