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526 pages, Paperback
First published October 20, 1998
“The hardship of the exercises is intended less to strengthen the back than to toughen the mind. The Spartans say that any army may win while it still has its legs under it; the real test comes when all strength is fled and the men must produce victory on will alone.”
“A king does not abide within his tent while his men bleed and die upon the field. A king does not dine while his men go hungry, nor sleep when they stand at watch upon the wall. A king does not command his men's loyalty through fear nor purchase it with gold; he earns their love by the sweat of his own back and the pains he endures for their sake. That which comprises the harshest burden, a king lifts first and sets down last. A king does not require service of those he leads but provides it to them...A king does not expend his substance to enslave men, but by his conduct and example makes them free.”
Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that here obedient to their laws we lie.Gates of Fire is a work of historical fiction that tells the story of the Battle of Thermopylae. The history itself is well known. In the fall of 480 B.C., King Xerxes led an army of 2 million soldiers in their second attempt to invade Greece. King Leonidas of Sparta led 300 Spartans and a total force of around 4,000 Greek soldiers to engage the Persians at Thermopylae (the “Hot Gates,” in Greek), a natural choke point between a mountain wall and a seaside cliff that would reduce the Persians’ numerical advantage. After four days of holding the Gates while the Persians massed, and repelling the invaders for another two days in pitched battle, the Greeks were betrayed by a man who showed the Persian Immortals a mountain trail to sneak around the Greek lines and attack them from behind. Despite knowledge that they could hold the Gates no longer, Leonidas—who had received an oracle that either he would die or Greece would fall—sent the other Greek forces home while the remaining Spartans and Thespians fought to the death to protect their escape, delay the Persians as long as possible, and inspire a nation to defend themselves from Persian rule. And their sacrifice worked. A few weeks later, the Greek Navy routed the Persian fleet at Salamis and, the following year, a unified Greek army ended the Persian invasion at the Battle of Plataea.
The central frame seems a little forced. Xerxes demanding a novel-length account from a Greek survivor? That’s not what this book reads like at all.
There were too many timeline shifts given to us in an unnecessarily complex way. We need to keep three timelines in our head: immediately after the battle of Thermopylae, Xeones’ early childhood after his city was sacked, and his rise to status among the Spartans and eventual journey to Thermopylae. And there are even timejumps within these timejumps, further impeding our ability to understand.
At least partly as a result of this the characterization suffers and it takes us longer than it should to get to know these characters.
To some degree I also think the characters’ backstory is not as engaging as it could be. Greece was a pretty brutal place to grow up, but it still had its pleasures and at no point did there seem much worth living for (as opposed to dying for). I suppose it would be fair to say that I enjoyed the characters but didn’t care much for any of their journeys before the last.