1. Thermopylae – 48 BC

      Darius the Great ruled the Persian lands known today as Iran and Iraq, pursuing an aggressive policy of expansion. He sent his heralds to Greek cities to demand submission. Many accepted, though Athens executed their herald and Sparta threw theirs down a well. War followed and Darius’ ambitions came to an abrupt end when he was beaten at the Battle of Marathon in Greece. Although he planned another great invasion, his death prevented his return. It would fall to his son, Xerxes, to invade northern Greece with a vast army of more than two million in the spring of 480 BC.

      The Persian fleet had already won control of the sea and the Greeks could not hold the north against such a vast host. Instead, they chose to defend the pass at Thermopylae in the south. Here, the way through the mountains was a tiny path only fourteen feet wide at its narrowest point. Thermopylae means ‘Hot Gates’, named after thermal springs in the area.

      The Spartan king, Leonidas, took his personal guard of three hundred Spartans and about 7,000 other foot soldiers and archers to the pass. Of all the Greek leaders, he alone seemed to understand the desperate importance of resisting the enemy horde. When he reached the pass, his men rebuilt an ancient wall and 6,000 of them waited at the middle gate, the other thousand guarding a mountain trail above. They did not expect to survive, but Spartans were trained to scorn fear and hardship from a young age. They prided themselves on being elite warriors. The Royal Guard were all fathers, allowed to attend the king only after they had contributed to the gene pool of Sparta. They revered courage above all else.

      The Persian king sent scouts to investigate the pass. He was surprised to hear that the Spartans were limbering up and braiding their hair for battle. Unable to believe that such a small group would honestly wish to fight, he sent a warning to withdraw or be destroyed. They made him wait for four days without a reply. On the fifth, the Persian army attacked.

      From the beginning, the fighting was brutal in such a confined space. The Spartans and the other Greeks fought for three solid days, throwing the Persians back again and again. Xerxes was forced to send in his ‘Immortals’ – his best warriors. The Spartans proved they were poorly named by killing large numbers of them. Two of Xerxes’ brothers were also killed in the fighting.

      In the end, Leonidas was betrayed by a Greek traitor. The man went to Xerxes and told him about a mountain track leading around the pass at Thermopylae. Leonidas had guarded one track, but for those who knew the area, there were others. Xerxes sent more of his Immortals to the secret path and they attacked at dawn. The other Greek soldiers were quickly routed, but Leonidas and the Spartans fought on.

      When Leonidas finally fell, he had been cut off from the rest of the Spartans. A small group of the guard fought their way into the heaving mass, recovered his body and carried him to where the others were surrounded, fighting all the way. The Persians simply could not break their defence and finally Xerxes ordered them to be cut down with flight after flight of heavy arrows. He was so furious at the losses his army had suffered that he had Leonidas beheaded and his body nailed to a cross.

      The Spartans went on to play a crucial part in the war against the Persians. Leonidas and his small guard had established an extraordinary reputation, and larger forces of Spartans struck terror into the Persians at later battles. They had seen what only 300 could do and no one wanted to face 10,000 or 20,000. The Greeks won classic sea battles at Salamis and Eurymedon, destroying the Persian fleet. Over the next eight years, they beat the Persian host on land with battles at Plataea and Mycale. They lost Athens twice to the enemy and saw it completely destroyed. Much of the war has been forgotten, but the battle at Thermopylae still inspires writers and readers today. When peace returned, the Spartans placed a stone lion at the Hot Gates to mark where Leonidas created a legend. The epitaph reads: ‘Go tell the Spartans, Stranger passing by, that here, obedient to their laws, we lie’.

2. Cannae – 216 BC

      When the Latini tribe consolidated their hold on southern Italy, they joined two settlements into a city named Rome on seven hills. In the centuries that followed, they continued to explore their lands and boundaries, north and south, eventually crossing into Sicily. There, they came face to face with an outpost of the ancient and sophisticated Carthaginian empire. It was a clash of force and culture that launched generations of bitter conflict in what have come to be known as the Punic Wars and the first real test of Rome.

      The Battle of Cannae is famous in part because the Roman legions were utterly annihilated. This is a surprisingly uncommon event. History has many more examples of battles where the defeated enemy were allowed to leave the field, sometimes almost intact. Cannae was a complete destruction of an army in just one day. It was very nearly the death knell for Rome herself.

      The Romans had actually won the First Punic War, which lasted for seventeen years (264–241 BC), but it had not been a crushing defeat for the Carthaginians. They had had a gifted general in Hamilcar Barca, who had brought southern Spain under the rule of Carthage. Yet it was his son Hannibal who would invade Italy from Spain, cross the Alps with elephants and threaten the very gates of Rome. He commanded Carthaginian forces for the Second Punic War (218–201 BC).

      Cannae is in southern Italy, near the heel of the ‘boot’. Hannibal had come south the previous year, after destroying Roman armies of 40,000 and 25,000. Rome was in real danger.

      The senate appointed a Dictator, Fabius, who tried to wear Hannibal’s forces down by cutting lines of supply. It was a successful policy, but unpopular in a vengeful city that wanted to see the enemy destroyed rather than starved to death. New consuls were elected: Gaius Terentius Varro and Lucius Aemilius Paullus. The senate mustered an army of 80,000 infantry and 6,000 cavalry over which the consuls assumed joint leadership.

      Hannibal’s army had very few actual Carthaginians. When he entered what is today northern Italy, his forces consisted of 20,000 infantry (from Africa and Spain) and 6,000 cavalry. He recruited more from Gallic tribes in the north, but he was always outnumbered. In fact, the Romans had every possible advantage.

      The two armies met on 2 August 216 BC. Hannibal and his army approached along the bank of a river, so he could not easily be flanked. He left 8,000 men to protect his camp. His cavalry was placed on both flanks and his infantry took position in the centre.

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