The Phalanx that Saved Freedom

The oracles words have reached home
A king is to die or Sparta is to fall
The Ephors forbid her army to roam
But a true son of Herakles would answer the oracle's call
Xerxes with his horde has crossed the hellespont after punishing it with chains
They say the earth shook as this army marched down upon the Olympians' sacred lands
And after drinking from the rivers not even a drop remains
Earth and water is what the king of kings demands

He is confident in his numbers which seemed would suffice
This would be his folly
He ignored the all omens and entrails from the sacrifice
His first sign of resistance would be at the hot gates of Thermoplyae
There in front a of seven thousand strong phalanx
stood three hundred
Three hundred and just one of their kings
A gold lambda on every hoplon painted crimson red
These are Sparta's walls, here depite the Ephors rulings
They offer themselves to achieve a beautiful death
They know if they fall in this pass
That their names will live on
Their memory and their actions will forever last
The most feared phalanx, each Spartan armed with a spear and a hoplon
Every Spartan eager to kill eager to die
Their freedom and their laws they hold above all
They are fearless and know no mercy
The Persian horde would soon run into a stonewall

They thought they would overwelm and overcome
They fell in mass as they charged
With the help of Ares rage and Athena's wisdom
The phalanx could not be dislodged
And when the fodder fell the immortals took the field
With their mask,spears and bows
They form up on the battlefield
They release their arrows
They have no effect on the men of bronze
Hand to hand they fight
But these Spartans are freemen and not just glorified pawns
The immortals are sent scrambling into the night

Apollo's fiery chariot brings the morning and with it dread
A traitor a nightmare has became rich for his treachery
Leonidas the warrior king and the brave three hundred
Will stay with seven hundred Thespians while the others fllee
Nearly surrounded with no hope and no way out
Arrows now found their mark
Fathers, sons, and brothers all piled in a heap
To Hades they now embark
But their beloved city is their childrens' to keep

The king singled out, beheaded, and crucified
His head paraded through the invader's ranks
Even in death he leaves his enemies utterly terrified
The terror the Spartan phalanx wields
Would only be a taste of the battle to come
At Plataea there would be ten thousand Spartan shields
A battlecry roared, death or freedom
And now this mobile wall of shields and spears Crashes like a blow from Hephaestus's hammer into the enemy line
The Pesian army destroyed and the threat dissapears
All Hellas is saved, this time