Each shield was circular and convex ... embodied in Leonidas, hero of Thermopylae, commemorated here in a statue in the modern city of Sparta in Greece. Despite their frightening reputation ...

A scene from Thermopylae by the Italian novelist ... and falling back into the ship, his shield tumbled into the sea.” Many of us are familiar with the famous admonition of a Spartan mother ...

In response a contingent of 300 Spartans and several thousand allies were sent to occupy the narrow mountain pass of Thermopylae, not far from the Greek fleet that was anchored off the nearby ...