Battle of Thermopylae
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50 free Battle of Thermopylae trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
In 480 BC a Greek force of about 7,000 men held a 100-metre-wide coastal pass against the largest army the ancient world had seen. When a local man showed the Persians a mountain track behind the Greek line, Leonidas sent most of the allies home and stayed with his 300 Spartans, 700 Thespians and a few hundred others to fight to the death. Thermopylae was a defeat, but it became the most famous last stand in history. These 50 questions cover the campaign and the legend: the Ionian Revolt and Marathon, the congress at Corinth, the Carneia festival that kept the main Spartan army at home, the Phocian wall, the Immortals, the feigned retreats, the traitor Ephialtes, the branded Thebans, the bronze arrowheads found on Kolonos Hill in 1939, and the epitaph that asks a stranger to carry news to Sparta. There are questions on the famous quips too, from "come and take them" to fighting in the shade, and on the poems, novels and the 2006 film the battle inspired. Easy questions stick to the main players; the expert tier asks about Xerxes' brothers, Cicero's Latin epitaph and the Persian Gate. Every answer is cited and explained.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which formation did the Greeks block the pass at Thermopylae?
The phalanx
The phalanx, a wall of overlapping shields and long spears, filled the pass from cliff to sea, so the Persians could not use their numbers or cavalry to get round it.
Q 02Herodotus says Xerxes delayed at Thermopylae expecting the Greeks to do what?
Flee
Flee: Xerxes found it laughable that so few would stand, Herodotus says, and on the fifth day he angrily sent his first wave with orders to bring them back alive.
Q 03Which naval battle was fought simultaneously with Thermopylae?
Artemisium
Artemisium was fought at sea on the same days, and a storm wrecked the Persian squadron sent to sail round behind the Greek fleet and trap it.
Q 04Which Athenian led his city's warships in the straits while the Greeks held the pass at Thermopylae?
Themistocles
Themistocles was later ostracised by Athens and ended his days governing the city of Magnesia for the Persian king.
Q 05Counting allies of the 300 Spartans, about how many Greeks marched to hold Thermopylae?
7,000
7,000 is the usual estimate: the 300 were only an advance guard, sent ahead to rally other cities, whose troops joined them on the march north.
Q 06Herodotus claimed Xerxes's vast army did what to rivers on its march to Thermopylae?
Drank them dry
Drank them dry: Herodotus names the Scamander, at Troy, as the first river to fail Xerxes's men and animals, though modern historians think he vastly inflated the army's size.
Q 07Who showed the Persians the mountain path behind the Greek lines at Thermopylae?
Ephialtes
Ephialtes hoped for a rich reward, but the Greeks put a price on his head instead, and he fled north and was later killed.
Q 08The wit of Spartan replies like "Molon labe" at Thermopylae gave English which word, from their homeland's name?
Laconic
Laconic comes from Laconia, the region around Sparta: when an invading king sent a threat that began 'If I enter Laconia', the Spartans are said to have sent back one word, 'If.'
Q 09Which oracle warned the Spartans before Thermopylae that their city or a king must fall?
Delphi
Delphi gave the warning in verse, and Herodotus believed it was why Leonidas sent most of the allies home and stayed to die himself.
Q 10Which Greek contingent at Thermopylae reportedly surrendered and was branded with Xerxes's royal mark?
The Thebans
The Thebans walked over with hands raised, saying they had fought under compulsion; Herodotus calls them hostages of Leonidas, a slur Plutarch later disputed.
Q 11After the pass at Thermopylae fell, the Greek fleet withdrew to which island?
Salamis
Salamis took in the Athenians who had abandoned their city, and soon afterwards the Greek fleet lured Xerxes's navy into its narrow straits and destroyed much of it.
Q 12Which battle, the year after Thermopylae, ended the second Persian invasion of Greece?
Plataea
Plataea was where Mardonius, the general Xerxes had left behind, was killed by a Greek army under Leonidas's nephew Pausanias, a death Herodotus counted as payment for the king's.
Q 13Why is the pass at Thermopylae, once a strip between cliffs and sea, now several kilometres inland?
River silt built up the shore
Q 21Which Spartan festival kept the main army from marching to Thermopylae with Leonidas?
The Carneia
The Carneia, a festival of Apollo, barred campaigning, so Sparta sent only Leonidas with an advance guard and meant to follow in full force once it ended.
Q 22Leonidas, who led the Greeks at Thermopylae, claimed descent from which mythical hero?
Heracles
Heracles was the claimed ancestor of both Spartan royal houses, and the oracle given before the battle said the city would be spared only if a king of his line died.
Q 23Expecting to die at Thermopylae, Leonidas chose for his 300 only Spartans who had what?
Living sons
Living sons were the test, Herodotus says, and the usual reading is that Leonidas expected no one to come home and wanted every family line to survive.
River silt built up the shore: the Spercheios has filled in the gulf's edge since 480 BC, and the sea that guarded the Greek flank once reached where the modern road runs.
Q 14In 191 BC, which rising power won another battle at Thermopylae by sending men over the mountain path?
Rome
Rome sent a detachment under Cato over the heights to get behind King Antiochus III, whose army panicked and broke, much as the Persians had turned the pass three centuries earlier.
Q 15Which uprising of 499-494 BC, aided by Athens, provoked the Persian invasions?
The Ionian Revolt
The Ionian Revolt saw Athenians help burn Sardis, and Herodotus says the Persian king had a servant tell him three times at every dinner, 'Master, remember the Athenians.'
Q 16How did the Spartans treat the Persian heralds who came to demand "earth and water"?
Threw them down a well
Threw them down a well, telling them to fetch their earth and water there; Sparta later sent two volunteers to Persia to die in atonement, and Xerxes sent them home unharmed.
Q 17The first Persian invasion ended with which Athenian victory in 490 BC?
Marathon
Marathon was won when the Athenians charged the larger Persian force at a run; the Spartans arrived after the fighting and could only tour the field and praise the victors.
Q 18Xerxes' army crossed into Europe over which strait on pontoon bridges?
The Hellespont
The Hellespont had first been bridged when a storm smashed the work, so Xerxes is said to have ordered the water given 300 lashes and a pair of fetters thrown in.
Q 19Near which city did the Greek allies meet and decide to defend Thermopylae?
Corinth
Corinth's Isthmus was where the allied deputies sat, from states that had agreed to drop their own wars, Athens and Aegina's among them, and fight Persia together.
Q 20Facing Xerxes, the Greeks abandoned a first stand at the Vale of Tempe after a warning from which land's king?
Macedon
Macedon's king Alexander I, though a Persian subject, sent envoys urging the 10,000 Greeks at Tempe to leave before Xerxes's army trampled them, and they took his advice.
Q 24What did the Phocians guarding the path above Thermopylae do when the Persians came?
Climbed higher
Climbed higher: under Persian arrows the Phocians took themselves for the target and made for the peak to die there, so the Persians simply hurried on past them.
Q 25Told that Persian arrows would blot out the sun, a Spartan at Thermopylae reportedly said his side would do what?
Fight in the shade
Fight in the shade: Herodotus credits the joke to a soldier named Dienekes, whom he calls the bravest Spartan there, while Plutarch gives the line to Leonidas himself.
Q 26What does "Molon labe", Leonidas's reply at Thermopylae to a demand for his weapons, mean?
Come and take them
'Come and take them' is how Plutarch records Leonidas's written answer to Xerxes, and the two Greek words are now carved beneath his statue at the pass.
Q 27Herodotus claimed Xerxes brought about how many fighting men to Thermopylae?
2.6 million
2.6 million was only the fighting force: Herodotus doubled it to count servants and camp followers, a total modern historians reject as impossible to feed.
Q 28The "Thermo" in Thermopylae refers to what at the site?
Hot springs
Hot springs rise beside the pass, and Herodotus says the Phocians had once channelled their water across the road to flood it against invaders from the north.
Q 29In which war did British Empire troops defend Thermopylae?
World War II
World War II: in April 1941 New Zealand and Australian rearguards held the pass against German tanks for a day, buying time for Allied troops to reach their evacuation ships.
Q 30Which Persian corps took over the failed first-day assault at Thermopylae and fared no better?
The Immortals
The Immortals got their name, Herodotus says, because any man lost was replaced at once, keeping the corps at exactly 10,000, but in the pass their shorter spears and numbers counted for little.