Lini Wall’s Reviews > Gates of Fire > Status Update

“….the warrior in these moments finds himself lifted as if by the hand of a god. He cannot tell where his being leaves off and that of the comrade beside him begins. In that moment the phalanx forms a unity so dense and all-divining that it performs not merely at the level of a machine or engine of war but, surpassing that, to the state of a single organism, a beast of one blood and heart.”

“Let those we spared this day stand beside us in line of battle on that day when we teach the Persian once and for all what valor free men can bring to bear against slaves, no matter how vast their numbers or how fiercely they are driven on by their child-king's whip."

“Without a city who were we, what were we? A dislocation of the faculties seemed to unman all. No one could think. A numb shock possessed our hearts. Life had become like a play, a tragedy one had seen enacted on the stage—the fall of Ilium, the sack of Thebes. Only now it was real, performed by actors of flesh and blood, and those actors were ourselves.”

This is my fave writing style, let’s hope for plot

“….yet bravest of all was declared the Spartan Dienekes. It is said that on the eve of battle, he was told by a native of Trachis that the Persian archers were so numerous that, when they fired their volleys, the mass of arrows blocked out the sun. Dienekes, however, quite undaunted by this prospect, remarked with a laugh, ‘Good. Then we'll have our battle in the shade.’”

Oh I’m already so pumped 😂