Two million against three hundred was about six or seven thousand to one… So I’ve got less of a problem than they had.

Remembering the Gates of Fire book he recalls an account of a secret mission by a small group of Spartans to get into the Persian camp and take out the king Xerxes. They went in at night, climbing over mountains and crawled through the mud and biting wind to get there unnoticed. They almost got him too.

The war would have ended instantly, as the entire Persian army was held together by their obedience to this one man. The 300 Spartans had held out for so long and against such a force they were already legendary warriors, if they had beaten the mighty Persian Empire. They would have been revered as gods.