Battle of Thermopylae

The Battle of Thermopylae took place during the Greece-Persia war in roughly the 5th century BC. Some 30 city-states of central and southern Greece met in Corinth to devise a common defense (others, including the oracle at Delphi, sided with the Persians). They agreed on a combined army and navy under Spartan command, with the Athenian leader Themistokles providing the strategy. The Spartan king Leonidas led the army to the pass at Thermopylae, near present-day Lamia, the main passage from northern into central Greece. [Ancient Greece]