Gates of Fire

Gates of Fire is a historical novel by the American writer Steven Pressfield, published in 1998. It recounts the Battle of Thermopylae through the account of a survivor of the fighting.

The narrator is Xeones, a perioikos, which in Sparta meant a free inhabitant who was not a citizen, born in Astakos and enslaved by the events of his childhood before he reached Sparta. He tells his story to a Persian scribe, covering his own upbringing, his service in a Spartan household, and the training and discipline that turned boys into soldiers. The battle itself is fought in a pass so narrow that the size of the Persian army could not be used to advantage, and it ends with almost everyone on the Greek side dead.

Pressfield's subject is the Spartan way of life as much as the fighting, and the book treats duty, endurance and the holding of a line as practical questions rather than as slogans. It has appeared on the professional reading lists of the United States armed forces.