The First Two Days
On the fifth day, Xerxes sent in the Medes and the Cissians with orders to take the Greeks alive.
They could not do it. In the corridor, the Greek line held with longer spears, heavier armor, and a shield wall the Persians' wicker shields and short spears could not break. The Greek contingents rotated units through the front so no one fought exhausted. Herodotus says the Spartans used a maneuver more than once: turn and run as if broken, let the Persians pour forward out of order in pursuit, then wheel around into them. It worked repeatedly, which says less about Spartan cleverness than about how badly the Persian command understood what it was looking at.
Late in the day Xerxes committed the Immortals — the ten thousand-strong royal corps under Hydarnes, so named, we are told, because any casualty was replaced immediately so the number never changed. Some scholars think the name is a Greek mishearing of a Persian word meaning simply companions. Either way they were the best infantry in the empire, and in that corridor they fared no better than the Medes. Herodotus reports that Xerxes, watching from a throne set up above the pass, three times leapt to his feet in fear for his army.
The second day was the first day again. Fresh troops, same corridor, same result. By evening the Persians had learned that the position could not be taken from the front, and Xerxes had run out of ideas.
The Greeks were not winning. They were making the pass expensive, which was the assignment.
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