Their Last Suppers: Legends of History and Their Final Meals (15 page)

One of the kings, Leonidas, grew tired of waiting. Under Spartan law he could mobilize only his bodyguard of 300 elite troops to follow him. He elected to advance to Thermopylae, believing that when other states saw the Spartans committed to this war they would rally, put aside their differences, and fight as one Greece.

Before leaving Sparta, Leonidas informed his bodyguard that this would be a one-way mission. Sparta was going to make a stand
that would rally the nation. There would be no return for any of them. The troops accepted this without flinching.

In Spartan life, a baby was deemed either fit to be a soldier or, if a girl, hardy enough to bear one. At the age of 7 the boys were taken into military academies and worked relentlessly. By the age of 20 they had spent all their growing years in training, sometimes naked, for days on end in hostile weather to become the hardened fighting machines that Leonidas now commanded.

Taking their Helots, who were personalized slaves trained to feed and support the warriors, the Spartans marched north. Along the route other states, seeing the Spartans committed to the cause, began to send their forces in support. The Spartan heavy infantry, carrying more than 60 pounds of body armor each, with red cloaks and 8-foot spears, was a fearsome sight as it ground relentlessly toward the pass of Thermopylae.

By the end of the 6-day march more than 7,000 support troops had rallied to Leonidas. Quickly securing the pass and repairing the fragile wall left over from other conflicts, the Spartans awaited the arrival of Xerxes.

Over the next few days the Persians, who were so sure of victory that they had made no effort to secure the pass, started to arrive on the plains outside. From Egypt, India, Assyria, Arabia, Babylon, Ethiopia, and many other subject nations, the mighty force took almost 2 days to assemble outside the entrance.

On August 18, 480 B.C., the first ranks of Persian troops began to mass outside the narrow pass. Leonidas decided to give the honor of facing the first attack to the Thebians, brave troops and strong fighters in their own right. Though only about 750 in number, they had a front line of seventy men, some ten ranks deep in front of the wall, and true to Leonidas’s calculations the first Persian forces, the Medes, though many times their number, could face them only with the same numbers.

The Medes were like most of Xerxes’ forces, lightly armored with wicker shields, used to using superior numbers and flanking maneuvers to crush their foes. In straightforward head-to-head conflict with the armored Thebians they stood little chance.

From his throne on a cliff top overlooking the battlefield, Xerxes saw a slaughter unfold before him as a wall of Persian dead
was erected before his eyes. Only as the Greeks grew weary with the slaughter did the Medes hold their ground. And as the Greek troops began to tire against the enormous numbers facing them, Xerxes saw for the first time why the Spartans had such a fearsome reputation.

Like all Spartan kings, leading his troops from the middle of the first rank, Leonidas had his pipers sound the Thebian withdrawal. One second the Medes were engaged, the next they found themselves facing an empty patch of ground, at the end of which was a solid wall of metal advancing at a slow, measured tread toward them.

Making no sound and standing shoulder to shoulder, the superbly trained Spartan warriors cut through the Medes like butter, the piles of dead mounted even higher, and the Spartans drove remorselessly on until the Persians ran screaming from the pass.

Again and again that day the Persians threw different nations against the Greek lines. By the end of the afternoon they had to use whips to drive them on, such was the slaughter the Greeks inflicted on them. Leonidas continually placed fresh troops in front of them, with the Spartans always replacing weary troops and inflicting horrendous casualties on the increasingly terrified Persians.

After 7 hours, Xerxes finally decided to send in his elite troops, the 10,000 Immortals, handpicked sons of his generals and nobles, each one immaculately dressed in purple and gold. These proud troops were the cream of his empire.

When one died he was instantly replaced, hence the name
Immortal.
They made no difference. Seeing a chance to strike a heavy blow, Leonidas faced them with his Spartans, even though they had been fighting all day.

Xerxes was left fuming as his troops streamed in chaos from the pass, leaving more than 1,000 of their elite comrades behind.

After three more days of increasingly desperate fighting Xerxes was seeing his dream of Grecian conquest disappear before his eyes—until treachery came to his rescue.

A Greek farmer named Ephialtes informed him of a secret goat track that ran around the mountains and came out behind the Greeks. Sending his precious Immortals to follow Ephialtes over the mountains during the night, Xerxes knew for sure the Greeks would be defeated.

On hearing of his betrayal, and with the Persians only hours away from surrounding him, Leonidas sent all the other Greek troops to safety, telling them that the Spartans had vowed to fight to the end, and they would.

The other Greeks reluctantly left and went back to their home states to inspire everyone with the story of the Spartan bravery.

When the Immortals arrived behind Leonidas and his remaining troops that morning, Xerxes himself led the Persians in a golden chariot. It was a hollow victory. Even at the end the Spartans advanced and hacked into the Persian troops. Eventually, overwhelmed and chopped apart, the 300 Spartans lay dead around their king. More than 20,000 Persian troops died at Thermopylae; the spirit of their army was broken and never recovered.

The Greeks had been given the time they needed to mobilize. In the autumn and spring the Persian army and navy were crushed at the battles of Salamis and Plataea.

After the memory of what the 300 Spartans inflicted on them at Thermopylae, one can only imagine the effect on the Persian troops when they encountered the full Spartan army and more than 50,000 other troops at the battle of Plataea.

In defeat, Leonidas, King of Sparta, had sowed the seeds of the Greeks’ eventual victory.

MENUS

Although the Spartans were famous for spurning the luxuries of other Greek states such as Athens, they used a slave system, which ensured that the warrior class was always well fed and cared for. All manner of fishes, rabbits, hares, olives, and breads were available to them. They disdained fancy sauces, but the harsh training regimens and the wars they fought necessitated eating lots of protein to ensure muscle growth.

The meat of kid and goat, little used in the West, is an exceptionally low-fat, easy-to-cook dish. The meat of the kid is bright pink with a light covering of thin white fat, and the best goat meat should be the same color.

• Make a marinade of the oil, juice, thyme, oregano, garlic, salt, and pepper. Rub all over the rabbit. Wrap the bacon around the rabbit and secure it with cocktail sticks.
  
• Roast over medium hot coals for about 30 to 35 minutes, basting with any remaining marinade.
  
• Before serving, sprinkle with marjoram and serve with the olive paste or a selection of olives and figs.
  

• Score the fish diagonally at 2-inch intervals, rub the inside and outside with ½ the lemon juice, salt and pepper, and ½ the olive oil. Place 4 bay leaves inside each fish and sprinkle the oregano inside and out.
  
• Place the fish on a grill over hot coals and cook for about 10 to 15 minutes each side.
  
• Sprinkle the remaining olive oil and lemon juice on the fish immediately before serving.
  
• Serve with a Greek salad.
  

A deliciously simple recipe.

• Rub the chops with oil, sage, garlic, and sea salt. Cover and rest for about an hour.
  
• Put on a medium grill and cook for about 3 to 4 minutes each side, turning only once.
  
• Serve with arugula salad, goat cheese, olive oil, and lemon juice dressing.
  

• Place the sardines in a large shallow dish and cover with all the other ingredients except for the parsley. Turn them every 15 minutes for 1 hour; then drain and put them on a medium hot grill for about 3 minutes each side, or until they develop grill marks.
  
• Serve immediately with wedges of lemon and chopped parsley.
  
• Accompany with a salad of sliced red, green, and yellow peppers and sliced fennel, with an olive oil and lemon dressing.
  

• Combine, with a marble effect.
  
• For dipping, serve apples, pears, tangerines, grapes, figs, or strawberries.
  

CAPTAIN ERNST LEHMANN

On May 3, 1937, Captain Max Pruss ordered the Zeppelin airship
Hindenburg
out of its shed in Frankfurt, Germany, then shouted his customary “Schiff hoch!” (“Up ship!”). The well-trained ground crew released the mooring ropes and, giving it a symbolic push upward, watched the largest airship ever built soar into the sky. By his side in the central gondola the company representative, Captain Ernst Lehmann, checked his watch; it was 8:15 p.m.

The
Hindenburg
(LX129) was built the year before, in 1936. At 804 feet in length it was only 78 feet shorter than the
Titanic
and more than four times larger than the Goodyear blimps. In its first season to North and South America it had carried more than 2,800 passengers and was regularly turning away bookings. However, Nazi Germany was starting to take shape, and after its appearance at the Olympic Games with ominous-looking swastikas emblazoned on its tail fins, a certain frostiness had started to appear between the German and American governments.

The
Hindenburg
was originally designed to use nonflammable helium gas, which was available only in America, but remembering the use of airships by Germany as bombers over England in World War I, the Americans refused to supply the precious helium, and so it was forced to carry more than 7 million square feet of flammable hydrogen gas, a fact that helped close down the trans-Atlantic airship business in the coming days after more than 21 years of successful flights.