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King Leonidas gathered 300 royal guards and several thousand hoplites to hold the Persians at the Hot Gates of Thermopylae.
This heroic stand by an aging King (around 60 years old) against impossible odds gave the rest of Greece hope against the…

Spartan hoplites, typically wearing red, were fierce soldiers that lived, breathed, and died warriors. Three hundred Spartans, with the help of other Greek soldiers, held off Xerxes at the battle of Thermopylae. The rest of the Spartan forces marched…

The Battle of Plataea was the final nail in the coffin for Xerxes's land invasion of Greece because of the city's advantageous location, backed up against a mountainside.
The location is important because the Persian Army pushed hard towards the…

This picture displays modern-day Thermopylae where the Phocian Wall was placed to funnel the Persian forces into the Greek Phalanx, and it also shows how narrow that space actually was.
The coastline used to be where the highway is now, and that is…

Xerxes I carried his father's ambitions and invaded Greece, making it a lot further than his father did.
Xerxes was bloodthirsty and killed anyone in his path, leading to a deadly and brutal war against the Greek city-states.