Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae (Mass Market Paperback)

by Steven Pressfield (Author)
Key Phrases: battle train, eight footers, other squires, Ball Player, Three Hundred, Royal Surgeon (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that here obedient to their laws we lie.

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.

Alas, even this human barrier was bound to collapse, as we knew all along it would. "War is work, not mystery," Xeo laments. But Pressfield's epic seems to make the opposite argument: courage on this scale is not merely inspiring but ultimately mysterious. --Marianne Painter --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly
Pressfield's first novel, The Legend of Bagger Vance, was about golf, but here he puts aside his putter and picks up sword and shield as he cleverly and convincingly portrays the clash between Greek hoplites and Persian heavy infantry in the most heroic confrontation of the Hellenic Age: the battle of Thermopylae ("the Hot Gates") in 480 B.C. The terrifying spectacle of classical infantry battle becomes vividly clear in his epic treatment of the Greeks' magnificent last stand against the invading Persians. Driven to understand the courage and sacrifice of his Greek foes, the Persian king, Xerxes, compels Xeones, a captured Greek slave, to explain why the Greeks would give their lives to fight against overwhelming odds. Xeones' tale covers his years of training and adventure as the loyal and devoted servant of Dienekes, a noble Spartan soldier, and he describes the six-day ordeal during which a few hundred Greeks held off thousands of Persian spears and arrows, until a Greek traitor led the Persians to an alternate route. Rich with historical detail, hot action and crafty storytelling, Pressfield's riveting story reveals the social and political framework of Spartan life?ending with the hysteria and brutality of the spear-thrusting, shield-bashing clamor that defined a Spartan's relationship with his family, community, country and fellow warriors. Literary Guild and Military Book Club selections; film rights sold to Universal Studios for George Clooney and Robert Lawrence's Maysville Pictures; UK rights to Bantam, Spanish rights to Grijalbo Mondadori, Italian rights to Rizzoli.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Bantam (August 31, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553580531
• ISBN-13: 978-0553580532
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (678 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #27,905 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars From a Spartan's perspective, January 7, 2002

By	Sarantos Katsihtis (Toronto, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews

As a teenager training in track & field events I crossed the grandiose statue of Leonidas with its dignified stand at the entrance of our stadium in Sparta numerous times. Cognizant of the stories and the legend of the king of Sparta, I had always admired this noble hero and the spirit he represented for our society. However, I hadn't realized the full scope of his charisma and the significance of his accomplishments to our civilization until much later. While studying abroad I became familiar with the writings of ancient Greek historians like Herodotus and Thucydides, as well as with the works of contemporary historical analysts and professors. I read about Spartan history with a passion, even though I didn't major in classics and grew to appreciate immensely my ancestors' ethos and contributions to Western civilization. Without a doubt Pressfield's novel Gates of Fire has been the most influential reading that I have encountered of the tale of the "300 Spartans".
The story in Gates of Fire revolves around the heroic stand of the Spartans against the millions of invading Persians. Thermopylae, the site of the heroic battle is a narrow passage between the enormous mountain ranges and ocean cliffs in central Greece. The Persian masses were advancing undisturbed in their conquest of southern Greece. The Greeks with an army of seven thousand with King Leonidas at the helm marched to Thermopylae, the only place that they stood a slim chance of resisting the invasion due to the nature of the extremely narrow site.
In reply to king Xerxes' demand of their surrendering of weapons, Leonidas answered with the infamous "Molon lave", "Come and take them from us". The Persian king couldn't believe the Greeks response in light of the fact they knew of the formidable forces the Persians had amassed. The Persian king waited four days for them to change their mind. The heroic battle started on the fifth.
The Greeks fought using brilliant strategies that took advantage of the natural escarpment and their defensive wall, and fought bravely and with discipline. They managed to hold the pass for days and in the process they decimated tens of thousands of the Persians army. Unfortunately, a traitor informed the Persians of a "goat path" that an elite force of ten thousand took to encircle the Greeks. Realizing the imminent the king of Sparta calmly convinced the Greek forces to retreat in order to live and fight another battle. Leonidas himself, true to Spartan tradition and rule, stayed to the end with his three hundred elite and a group of seven hundred locals of Thespiotia.
The battle was body to body combat, of the fiercest imaginable. Bravely, one by one the Spartans fell in their effort to take as many of the enemy they could with them, and with their sacrifice to provide an example of devotion to the ideals of their country that will remain enduring through the centuries. The Greek allies were able to regroup and using the example set by the Spartans won triumphantly in the sea battle of Salamina that followed.
With his novel Gates of Fire, Pressfield displays his incredible skill in describing and re-enacting the battle scenes. He captures all dimensions of this heroic saga, even the metaphysical. The characters in the story became real, you sympathize with them and feel their emotions as they prepare and take their final stance in the battlefield. Their ultimate sacrifice in honour of their peers, their wives and family, their city and its ideals, for the perseverance of their culture and its institutions. Pressfield provides such a thrilling account of the battle that you can't help but become mesmerized.
The battle at Thermopylae takes place in the second half of the novel. In the first half the author sketches the characters which we later empathize with. He also provides a very detailed and accurate account of the Spartan society. He has obviously researched extensively Spartan matters and provides a true historical lesson of military training, the role of women in their society, and the economic and political system of lykurgos' legacy.
I was personally very pleased to see a different spin put on the Spartan society than that from some contemporary historians that consider the Spartans strictly a military society. Contrary to this commonly held belief the Spartans were highly involved with the arts. Their ancient theatre of Orthia Artemidos could seat over ten thousand and played a central role in their culture. One only has to read Pausanias' "Lakonica" to understand the significance of architecture in the city. Pausanias provides a detailed eyewitness account of the monumental city buildings and statues present in Sparta especially on Afetaidos odos, something that has been neglected by contemporary historians. Most evidence of this great civilization was destroyed and lost with the violent earthquakes that have plagued the region, others destroyed by invaders of subsequent time periods and many lost to "archaeologists" like Fourmont who according to his own account destroyed anything he found of value at Sparta in 1730 and which he could not carry to France so other contemporaries don't find them and take the glory from him.
Ancient Sparta had numerous intellectuals, poets and artists that were highly regarded throughout the then known world. Among them Gitiades, Alkman and Hilon, one of the seven wise men of the ancient world.

Again, thank you Mr. Pressfield for writing such an enthralling novel, based on the battle at Thermopylae and the 300 Spartans, my ancestors. This is truly an incredibly gripping and moving novel.
I read " Tides of War" and thought it was a superb novel, too.

178 of 226 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Laconians Arise! To the gates!, June 7, 2001

By	D. Roberts "Hadrian12" (Battle Creek, Michigan United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

In 480 BC, led by the Persian king Xerxes, son of Darius, the Persians arrived on the border of Thessaly and Greece with an invading force totalling over 2 million. Here, at a mountain pass called Thermopylae, 300 Spartan warriors + a handful of squires and allies made one of the most valiant stands in military history. The Lacedamonians held the pass for the better part of a week, slaying something like 20,000 Persians (of which roughly 18,000 were university of Michigan fans). The title of Pressfield's book is appropriate as in Greek Thermo = "hot" and Pylae = "gates."

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!

84 of 105 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Impressions of Gates of Fire, November 29, 1999

By	Rebekah Smith (Chapel Hill, NC) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.