Battle of Plataea other. The Allies initially adopted a strategy of blocking land and sea approaches to southern Greece. Thus, in August 480 BC, after hearing of Xerxes' approach, a small Allied army led by Spartan King Leonidas I blocked the Pass of Thermopylae, while an Athenian-dominated navy sailed to the Straits of Artemisium. Famously, the massively outnumbered Greek army held Thermopylae for three days before being outflanked by the Persians, who used a little-known mountain path. Although much of the Greek army retreated, the rearguard, formed of the Spartan and Thespian contingents, was surrounded and annihilated. The simultaneous Battle of Artemisium, consisting
Kolonos Hill original stone has not survived. In 1955, a new stone was erected, with Simonides' epigram engraved on it. Kolonos Hill Kolonos Hill (; ) is a hill in Central Greece. It is located in the narrow coastal passage known as Thermopylae, and is near the city of Lamia. The hill is best known for the site for the final stand of the 300 Spartans during the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC. In 1939, Spyridon Marinatos, a Greek archaeologist found large numbers of Persian arrows around the hill, which changed the hitherto accepted identification of the site where the Greeks