Resumo de Gates Of Fire - Steven Pressfield

Gates of Fire tells the story of a young Greek boy, Xeones, who is the sole Hellenic survivor of the epic battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC. After losing his village and family to the treachery of the Argives, Xeones wanders in the countryside with two companions, and spends his formative years as an outlaw. He eventually is captured and enslaved by the Spartans, who cast him with other slaves, called helots.
Xeones then is paired with Alexandros, the son of a high-ranking Spartan officer, whom he befriends. In contrast to the reluctant warrior that is Alexandros, Xeones also experiences the caustic rhetoric of the helot "Rooster," son of a Spartan warrior and helot mistress. It is with these two companions that Xeones is trained in the Spartan methods of war as a helot squire. He is assigned to Dionekes, a calm, focused soldier who is the mentor of Alexandros. Dionekes is selected to accompany King Leonidas and 300 Spartan warriors to defend the "hot gates" at Thermopylae in a delaying action against the Persian multitudes invading Greece under King Xerxes.
The Spartans and their allies hold the pass for several days against the onrush of the Persian army. Eventually, a greek traitor leads the Persian Immortals (elite troops of the Persian empire) through a secret mountain pass that allows them to encircle the Spartan position. Leonidas orders the evacuation of all allies, and the Spartans prepare to make their last stand. The Persians eventually overwhelm them with missile weapons. They are slain to the last, with the exception of Xeones, who is wounded severely. His health recovers as a captive of Xerxes, who desires to know more of the men that held his entire army at bay.
Xeones relates the narrative of his life and experiences with the Spartans to Xerxes. It is through his eyes that the rigors of Spartan military life are revealed. He recounts his childhood, his capture by the Spartans and his interactions with the leading men and women of Sparta. He dies soon after the defeat of the Persian navy at Salamis. Alexandros and Dionekes are killed at Thermopylae with Leonidas and the other Spartans. Rooster, who is almost put to death for sedition, eventually redeems himself as a great Spartan warrior at the battle of Platea, which effectively ends the Persian invasion of Greece.
The story provides gritty, graphic detail of life and combat in Fifth Century BC Greece. It fleshes out the history of the actual event at Thermopylae as recorded by Herodotus, and gives the reader a true feel for what it must have been like to fight as a Spartan hoplite in a phalanx against the Persians.

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