Battle of Thermopylae at Thermopylae, the Persians sent a mounted scout to reconnoitre. The Greeks allowed him to come up to the camp, observe them, and depart. Xerxes found the scout's reports of the size of the Greek force, and that the Spartans were indulging in callisthenics and combing their long hair, laughable. Seeking the counsel of Demaratus, an exiled Spartan king in his retinue, Xerxes was told the Spartans were preparing for battle, and it was their custom to adorn their hair when they were about to risk their lives. Demaratus called them "the bravest men in Greece" and warned the Great
Battle of Thermopylae to the battle, the Hellenes remembered the Dorians, an ethnic distinction which applied to the Spartans, as the conquerors and displacers of the Ionians in the Peloponnesus. After the battle, Spartan culture became an inspiration and object of emulation, a phenomenon known as Laconophilia. There are several analogous battles. Similarities between the Battle of Thermopylae and the Battle of Persian Gate have been recognized by both ancient and modern authors, which describe it as a kind of reversal of the Battle of Thermopylae, calling it "the Persian Thermopylae". Here, on Alexander the Great's campaign against Persia in 330 BC to