The Numbers Game

The movie sold you on 300 Spartans versus a million Persians. The reality was different on both sides. King Leonidas actually commanded roughly 7,000 Greeks at the start of Thermopylae — the Spartans were a tiny fraction of that force.

The number 300 refers only to the Spartan citizen-soldiers. For three days they held the narrow pass, until a local traitor named Ephialtes revealed a mountain path around the defenses.

The Persians were not a mindless horde either. They were a professional army drawn from dozens of nations across the largest empire on Earth.