"The” Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC is one of the most famous battles in history. The destruction of Leonidas has become a political lightning rod, an icon of stalwart resistance in the face of hopeless odds, and the primary basis for the cult of Spartan warrior supremacy.
But the fight in 480 BC is just one of twenty-seven actions fought at Thermopylae. One of these many battles of Thermopylae was a dramatic defence of the pass against a confederation of Celtic invaders in 279 BC. It’s surprising that this battle isn’t better known, as it’s one of the more comprehensively documented, with accounts from Pausanias, Justin, Polybius, Strabo, and others. Perhaps it is lost to obscurity because it lacks the drama of the fated figures of Xerxes and Leonidas, though many of the details between the fights were eerily similar.
Sadly, these details come entirely from Greek and Roman writers, who relentlessly ‘other’ the Celts. The impression given is of barbarous, bloodthirsty, and undisciplined Celtic mobs hurling themselves against the well-ordered ranks of Greeks, standing in ready, silent obedience to their professional commanders.
This is, of course, nonsense. By the third century BC, the peoples who identified as ‘Celts’ had achieved a level of sophistication and organization that enabled them to dominate much of Europe and successfully prosecute a
