It was early on a Sunday morning when 19 Americans gathered around the statue of Leonidas in Sparta. A few minutes later they would embark on an adventure they had been planning for months. “Courage! That’s what the 300 Spartan warriors of Leonidas must have had to fight the Persians,” said the team’s leader, Lance Cummings. They took commemorative photographs and shouted “Molon Lave” (an expression meaning “Come and take [them],” which Plutarch describes as the Spartan king’s defiant response when his Persian counterpart, Xerxes, demanded he and his men lay down their weapons), then began their trek, escorted by a police vehicle. For the next eight days they followed in the footsteps of the ancient Spartans, 378 kilometers, all the way to Thermopylae (Thermopyles).
Source: ekathimerini.com
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