| Description : In 480 BC, at the beginning of the Second Persian War, a
Persian army of at least 50,000 men stood before Thermopylae under King Xerxes I. This narrow section of the only road
along the coast to inner Greece ‐ according to Herodotus only wide enough for a wagon ‐ blocked a Greek army of
almost 7000 men. At first they inflicted heavy losses on the Persians, but Ephialtes of Trachis is said to have led
Persians on a footpath over the mountains into the Greek back. The subsequent retreat of a large part of the Greek army was
still covered by 700 Thespians and 300 Spartans under Leonidas I, until their death. The local monument dedicated to
"Ω ξειν, αγγελλειν
Λακεδαιμονιοις ωτι
τηδε κειμεθα τοις
κεινων ρημασι
πειθομενοι." (Latin: Dic hospes Spartae nos te hic vidisse
iacentes, dum sanctis patriae legibus obsequimur. / German according to Friedrich Schiller: walker, if you come to Sparta,
announce there, you have seen us lying here, as the law ordered). The coin depicts the helmet of a Hoplite with a horsehair
comb, surrounded in a circle by a meandering ornament and the text "2500 ΧΡΟΝΙΑ
ΑΠΟ ΤΗ ΜΑΧΗ ΤΩΝ
ΘΕΡΜΟΠΥΛΩΝ" (2500 years since the Battle of Thermopylae) and
"ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΗ ΔΗΜΟΚΡΑΤΙΑ"
(Hellenic Republic). On the left is a palmette the mint mark of the Greek mint
Νομισματοκοπειο / Nomismatokopeio
(Bank of Greece ‐ Mint) in Halandri and the year of issue "2020", on the right below the signet "ΣΤΑΜ"
of the coin designer Georgios Stamatopoulos. |
