The purpose of this paper is to point out that the Greeks, during the Battle of Thermopylae, had resources at their disposal that would fall into today’s intelligence disciplines of Counter Intelligence and Human Intelligence (CI/HUMINT), Signals Intelligence (SIGINT), and even Geospatial Intelligence (GEOINT). The outcome at Thermopylae could have been altered had the Greeks taken complete advantage of their assets capabilities. This paper will go into detail about how the Spartans could employ their lifetime of training for CI/HUMINT operations and how the associated Greek forces could have used their knowledge of the environment and the terrain to signal adjacent Greek states. If these things had been integrated the plight and outcome of
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The citizen would assume his place in society; the hoplite would assume his place in a line of battle. There he would be obliged to remain for the length of his life, “his feet set firmly apart, biting on his lip, taking a stand against his foe (Holland, 2005)”, with only death to redeem him from his duty. Spartans by their laws could not retreat from battle; they won or they died, “With your shield or on it (Holland, 2005).” Spartans were soldiers and the lucky few that grew old became old soldiers. In Sparta you were obligated for military service until you were 60 after which you were considered reserve-status (Souza, …show more content…
Olympus; but these withdrew when they saw the massive size of the invading army. Then after much discussion and compromise between Greek city-states, suspicious of each others ' motives, particularly the Spartans, a joint army of between six thousand and seven thousand men was sent to defend the pass at Thermopylae through which the Persians must enter mainland Greece. The two prominent Greek powers at the time were Athens and Sparta. They were also the only two Greek states that turned down Darius I’s offer of servitude by literally killing the messengers. Xerxes remembered this and prior to his attempt at conquering Greece did not send his own envoys to Sparta or Athens, completely intending on turning the citizens of the two Greek states into slaves (Holland,
The citizen would assume his place in society; the hoplite would assume his place in a line of battle. There he would be obliged to remain for the length of his life, “his feet set firmly apart, biting on his lip, taking a stand against his foe (Holland, 2005)”, with only death to redeem him from his duty. Spartans by their laws could not retreat from battle; they won or they died, “With your shield or on it (Holland, 2005).” Spartans were soldiers and the lucky few that grew old became old soldiers. In Sparta you were obligated for military service until you were 60 after which you were considered reserve-status (Souza, …show more content…
Olympus; but these withdrew when they saw the massive size of the invading army. Then after much discussion and compromise between Greek city-states, suspicious of each others ' motives, particularly the Spartans, a joint army of between six thousand and seven thousand men was sent to defend the pass at Thermopylae through which the Persians must enter mainland Greece. The two prominent Greek powers at the time were Athens and Sparta. They were also the only two Greek states that turned down Darius I’s offer of servitude by literally killing the messengers. Xerxes remembered this and prior to his attempt at conquering Greece did not send his own envoys to Sparta or Athens, completely intending on turning the citizens of the two Greek states into slaves (Holland,