The Triumph of Sparta

The Persian fleet had returned to Asia, so ended the first Persian attack on Greece. Darius died soon after his defeat at Marathon and for four years Xerxes prepared a host to crush the Greeks. For a time, terror united all the Greeks. The army of Xerxes was certainly the greatest that had hitherto been assembled in the world. It crossed the Dardanelles 480 BC by a bridge of boats; along the coast as it advanced, moved in equally miscellaneous fleet carrying supplies. At the narrow pass of Thermopylae, a small force of 1400 men under the Spartan Leonidas resisted this multitude,. Three men was killed, but the losses they inflicted upon the Persians were