300 The Musical

A Numbers Game How many soldiers actually fought and died at Thermopylae? The earliest source material about the last stand of the Spartans comes from Herodotus in the 4th century B.C. He claimed that the Persian forces numbered about two million strong, but historians today suggest Xerxes’s forces were only between 100,000 and 300,000.

As for the Greeks? The combined troops likely numbered between 4,000 and 7,000. On the last day of the battle, however, Leonidas dismissed most of the army after learning that the Persians had discovered the “secret” path.

March 28, 2025 | 5:48 am