Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae

Thus reads an ancient stone at Thermopylae in northern Greece, the site of one of the world's greatest battles for freedom. Here, in 480 B.C., on a narrow mountain pass above the crystalline Aegean, 300 Spartan knights and their allies faced the massive forces of Xerxes, King of Persia. From the start, there was no question but that the Spartans would perish. In Gates of Fire, however, Steven Pressfield makes their courageous defense--and eventual extinction--unbearably suspenseful.

In the tradition of Mary Renault, this historical novel unfolds in flashback. Xeo, the sole Spartan survivor of Thermopylae, has been captured by the Persians, and Xerxes himself presses his young captive to reveal how his tiny cohort kept more than 100,000 Persians at bay for a week. Xeo, however, begins at the beginning, when his childhood home in northern Greece was overrun and he escaped to Sparta. There he is drafted into the elite Spartan guard and rigorously schooled in the art of war--an education brutal enough to destroy half the students, but (oddly enough) not without humor: "The more miserable the conditions, the more convulsing the jokes became, or at least that's how it seems," Xeo recalls. His companions in arms are Alexandros, a gentle boy who turns out to be the most courageous of all, and Rooster, an angry, half-Messenian youth.

Pressfield's descriptions of war are breathtaking in their immediacy. They are also meticulously assembled out of physical detail and crisp, uncluttered metaphor:

The forerank of the enemy collapsed immediately as the first shock hit it; the body-length shields seemed to implode rearward, their anchoring spikes rooted slinging from the earth like tent pins in a gale. The forerank archers were literally bowled off their feet, their wall-like shields caving in upon them like fortress redoubts under the assault of the ram.... The valor of the individual Medes was beyond question, but their light hacking blades were harmless as toys; against the massed wall of Spartan armor, they might as well have been defending themselves with reeds or fennel stalks.

The battle is recorded in Book VII of Herodotus' "Histories." When the Spartans repeatedly repel Xerxes' stunned forces, Herodotus details the scene thus: "...it became clear to all, and especially to the king [Xerxes], that though he had plenty of men, he had but very few warriors." (Histories, Book VII, trans: George Rawlinson).

The text centers around a fictional Spartan squire named Xeones, the lone Laconian warrior to survive the battle (albeit with a multitude of serious wounds). In reality, the only Spartan to survive was a fellow named Aristodemus. Supposedly, he was a messenger who tarried along the path to Thermopylae and missed the battle. He spent the rest of his life in disgrace in the eyes of his fellow Spartans, despite a heroic showing at the battle of Plataea (the decisive battle of the Persian war).

Back to Xeones. Pressfield's presentation of the story is nothing short of brilliant. Captured by the Persians, Xerxes orders his personal historian to record the infantryman's story. Through the persona of Xeones, we are informed of events in the Persian war before, during and after the battle of Thermopylae. Xeones interacts with historical figures on both sides of the war, such as the Spartans Leonidas and Dienekes, as well as Xerxes, Orontes and Artemisia.

In this way, the book is much more than simply a narrative on the battle itself. We are invited to glimpse the rigid lifestyle of a Lacedamonian warfighter. The Spartans were able to relentlessly pound their adversaries into submission, but not with superior numbers. Rather, they relied on a brutal training regimen which instilled within their men an exemplary discipline and code of honor. Today, it takes 6 months for an individual to earn the Trident and Eagle of a U.S. Navy SEAL; the most respected fighting force of the present world. 2,500 years ago, it took 13 YEARS for a Spartan youth earn his place as a Lacedamon warrior (7-20), + another 40 years of military service to his country (20-60). Thanks to an obviously arduous scholarly research, Pressfield does a magnificent job of describing for us the extreme dedication that was entailed within this rigorous lifestyle.

This is a must-read book for anyone who is even vaguely interested in military or classical history. It is also a refreshing text for everyone who tires of the modern military climate where political correctness and social engineering projects are deemed more important than combat readiness. I would recommend this book to all history buffs, anthropologists, classical scholars and students / fans of Michigan State University! I will leave you with a passage from Nietzsche which glazed thru my mind over & over as I was reading this book. It engages the austere life of the gallant warrior:

They call you heartless: but you have a heart, and I love you for being ashamed to show it. You are ashamed of your flood, while others are ashamed of their ebb.

-"Also Sprach Zarathustra," first part, section 10: "On War and Warriors," trans: Walter Kaufmann of Princeton university.

This book is a tremendous feat. All the texts bearing the name "Gates Of Fire" will exalt all who have the ability to read: MOLON LABE!


Impressions of Gates of Fire   November 29, 1999
Rebekah Smith (Chapel Hill, NC)
75 out of 89 found this review helpful

I loved this book! Five Stars means a thought provoking and powerful reading experience. Gates of Fire is a wonderful story, vividly told and built on "page-turner" techniques as effective as any I've ever met. These warriors, women, mentors, kings, and children evoke love, fear, and honor from the very first paragraph.

The jacket blurbs say "epic," and here "epic" doesn't just mean "long and involved." This historical novel is so true to its times that Homer's blend of perspective and immediacy, Herotodus' human interest and recognition of irony, the power of the gods and of fate are recognizable as you read--as well as a touch of dialogue that is about to become Platonic. By the time the first epic simile appeared in a battle narrative, Pressfield's world and the warrior society and life he had animated stood so solidly behind it that it was as powerfully moving, at least for this reader, as those of the Iliad.

Also moving were the respect and richness with which this Greek world was imagined. The result is a historical novel whose life invades the present. "What is the opposite of fear? How do I live? What is worth dying for?" As a reader you do march out with the army. You find yourself on a battlefield, not in a table-of-contents from a history book.

I recommend this book without reserve to anyone interested in Greek civilization, army life, military history, a meditation on life and time and sacrifice, or simply a good novel. Many thanks to Mr. Pressfield.


Stark and memorable   May 26, 2000
Susan Shwartz (Forest Hills, NY United States)
60 out of 69 found this review helpful

Writing in a spare, violent prose that reminds me of what I (almost) remember of the Attic Greek I once knew, Mr. Pressfield brings ancient Greece and, in particular, the Spartans and those tributary to them with shocking clarity.

He has pulled off a technical tour de force, in making a period of history far removed from us seem once again fresh and in making us care as passionately as Xeo -- who wasn't even a Spartan born.

This is a story of heroism. But it is also a story of discipline, of loyalty between fighting men and to a state. For a book as violent as this, it is also a story of profound caring, both among the characters of the story and the readers it draws.


A problematic mix   February 8, 2001
Chris
36 out of 55 found this review helpful

Zero stars for the first half, four for the second half. An average of two stars in total.

Short advice: Skip the first half if you want to get right to the battle.

Longer review:

I purchased this book eagerly, hoping for an epic account of the Thermopylae battle. Unfortunately it wasn't quite what I was looking for.

To begin with, it's inexplicable that Pressfield devoted fully half his book to a completely irrelevant backstory about his narrator, an outsider who exists primarily on the periphery of events. Not only that, this narrator has little human insight to offer about those around him. It gets worse when most of his heroic characters, or should I say caricatures, lapse into long-winded philosophical musings which simply fall flat. At other times they just make loud proclamations rather than talk the way real people do. Leonidas and Dienekes, for example, feel more like stone monuments than human beings. I couldn't care less whether they lived or died. In short, the characterisation was passionless.

The style of writing is jarring, with modern slang interspersed with more "classical" lines of dialogue. In addition, Pressfield throw names and locations about without providing much identity. The multi-layered narration failed to a large extent due to the above problems.

The premise of a survivor recounting the 'inside story' to an enemy scribe feels contrived at best. The last 20 pages descend into sheer absurdity, just for the sake of tying up loose ends. A straightforward third-person account with more consistent dialogue, focusing primarily on the battle and the people involved would have been infinitely better. As a reader, wouldn't you have loved to get inside the minds of Leonidas and Dienekes? Instead we get the lowly Xeo, a second-stringer at best.

On the plus side, Pressfield clearly excels in the description of combat. Yet even here I felt shortchanged. Only the very first individual confrontation is detailed in full; the rest are truncated, frequently with results telegraphed well in advance, not to mention irritating asides into insignificant past events or plain boring musings. This blunts any subsequent impact to a large degree. A good example would be the clandestine attack on Xerxes. Surely it wasn't necessary to give away so much so far in advance?

This book could have been better. Much better. As a reader spoiled by the likes of Sharon K Penman's Welsh trilogy and similarly-styled works, with rewarding characters and history weaved as rich tapestries, Gates Of Fire comes as a grave disappointment indeed.


Deep insights into warrior psyche; vivid battle recreation   October 27, 1999
An adult reader (Stratford CT)
34 out of 36 found this review helpful

The story of the Spartans' stand at Thermopylae is one of the great heroic legends of all time. How, then, does one tell a well known story with sufficient "freshness" to entice the modern reader? In Gates of Fire, Steven Pressfield uses a very sensible approach.

1) He Introduces elements of Ancient Greek culture to give modern readers (many of whom were shorted on ancient history by the modern educational system) familiarity with the historical and cultural context of the novel.

2) He digs deeply into the psychology of creating a social bonding unique to competitive sports and military groups: small unit cohesion. This exposition is crucial when trying to paint a sympathetic picture of men striving to kill one another at arm's length. (Or at any distance, for that matter.)

3) He paints a vivid "spearman's-eye-view" of battle by sword, shield, and spear. The requirement for vivid imagery should not be taken lightly. Today's reader is brought up in a very visual environment, what with TV and the superb directing, cinematography, and special effects of Hollywood productions. Evoking bold images with the written word is often necessary to sustain the interest of the video generation (this includes far too many Baby Boomers, in which demographic, alas, this reviewer falls.)

4) He builds an emotional bridge between the characters and the reader. The difficulty in creating this bridge, between a modern reader and an authentic ancient person, is that the "modern" viewpoint is frequently overwritten onto the ancient character(s). Most of the non-historical characters in Gates of Fire are too modern for my taste, however the linkage works well enough for the story to retain coherence.

5) Above all, Pressfield delves deeply into the "military mind," or more correctly, the warrior's psyche. An eerie reflection of the different temperaments adopted by fighting units at Thermopylae, as illustrated by Pressfield, can be found in a modern non-fiction work, __Blackhawk Down__. (A primary source based account of the firefight in Mogadishu, Somalia in 1993.) The contrast between the Thespians(emotional) and Spartans(calmly grim) is echoed by the observed/reported behaviors of Regular Army soldiers, Rangers, and Special Forces(Delta) soldiers. One could argue that Mr Pressfield modeled his ancient warriors on modern soldiers-- perhaps because they do the same job as the ancient hoplites with different equipment and tactics. Whether or not he did so, the author presents a profound male archetype with considerable skill.

Pressfield's prose and his sensible approach makes this legendary battle accessible to the modern reader within the constraints of historical fiction. Xeo's credibility as an observer suffers from an unavoidable awkwardness, as historically the Spartans were slain to the last man. Pressfield's recreation of the battle and the richness of the Ancient Greek cultural setting overwhelm any problems of logic required to place a surviving observer in a position to recount the battle from the inside -- a battle that has only been chronicled from the outside.

The result is a book of mercifully moderate length that is hard to put down. Gates of Fire provides an entertaining and enlightening look at those who fight when all rational instinct is to retreat or surrender, a story that has been retold through the ages from Thermopylae to Bastogne. As with most good authors, Pressfield tells more than the apparent story. He illustrates, for those readers unfamiliar with military arcana, why warriors fight and what they fight for. He asserts as well a timeless theme: Victory and greatness come to those who pay the price, as does the security of those far behind the shield wall.