Gun owner poll

[Dill]

(10-03-2019, 10:42 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: No, it didn't.  He accomplished his goal and delayed the Persians long enough for the successful naval action that prompted the Persian's retreat.  I suppose if you think dying to prevent the enslavement of your countrymen a failure then sure, he failed.  

LOL sure, that must be what I think.

Anyway, I don't see where any significant "delay" occurred. A blocking action failed. Possibly the Spartans, with a few hundred unremembered Thebans and Thespians were able to delay pursuit of the bulk of retreating Greek land forces for a day.  Whatever. Land resistance was shattered and ineffective for he remainder of that year. The Persians controlled Boeotia, the Attic peninsula and Phocis. Athens, Thespiae, and Plataea were burned. It wasn't until the next year, 479 BCE, that the Poleis combined enough allied strength to defeat the Persians at Plataea. (Not before the Persians burned Athens a second time.)

Not sure what naval action you are referring to. The battle of Artemisium was occurring at the same time as Thermopylae to protect the land army's flank, but that was pointless once the Greeks abandoned the pass, and ended in a Greek naval retreat when they couldn't sustain any more losses. 

The Persian naval defeat was at Salamis a month later, but that was a rather ad hoc affair won by same forces that had been engaged at Artemsium. I don't see how a "delay" at Thermopylae a month earlier helped the Greeks win that.