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

“Fly to the ends of the earth,”

“Because a warrior carries helmet and breastplate for his own protection, but his shield for the safety of the whole line.”

“Fear arises from this: the flesh. This,” he declared, “is the factory of fear.”

Conditions were deliberately contrived to make the exercise as close as possible to the rigor of actual campaign, simulating everything except casualties.

No amenities whatever were brought. Wine was at half-rations the first four days, none the second two, then no liquid at all, including water, for the final two. Rations were hard linseed loaves, which Dienekes declared fit only for barn insulation, and figs alone, nothing hot.

They could see their king, at nearly sixty, enduring every bit of misery they did. And they knew that when battle came, he would take his place not safely in the rear, but in the front rank, at the hottest and most perilous spot on the field.

As a string of the kithera vibrates purely, emitting only that note of the musical scale which is its alone, so must the individual warrior shed all which is superfluous in his spirit, until he himself vibrates at that sole pitch which his individual daimon dictates. The achievement of this ideal, in Lakedaemon, carries beyond courage on the battle

It was the standing order of my master on campaign that he be woken two hours before dawn, an hour prior to the men of his platoon. He insisted that these never behold him prone upon the earth, but awake always to the sight of their enomotarch on his feet and armed.

Beyond esoterike harmonia lies exoterike harmonia, that state of union with one’s fellows which parallels the musical harmony of the multistringed instrument or of the chorus of voices itself. In battle exoterike harmonia guides the phalanx to move and strike as one man, of a single mind and will. In passion it unites husband to wife, lover to love