The Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BCE was a last stand by a Greek army led by King Leonidas I of Sparta against an Achaemenid Persian army led by Xerxes I during the Second Persian invasion of Greece. There is a long tradition of upholding the story of the battle as an example of virtuous self-sacrifice.[1]
- ^ Levene, D. S. (2007). "Xerxes Goes to Hollywood". In Bridges, Emma; Hall, Edith; Rhodes, P. J. (eds.). Cultural Responses to the Persian Wars: Antiquity to the Third Millennium. OUP Oxford. p. 383. ISBN 978-0-19-155751-4.