Gates of Fire is a 1998 historical fiction novel by Steven Pressfield that recounts the Battle of Thermopylae through Xeones, a perioikos[1] (free but non-citizen inhabitant of Sparta) born in Astakos,[2] and one of only three Greek survivors of the battle.
Gates of Fire was on the Commandant of the Marine Corps' Reading list. It is taught at West Point, the United States Naval Academy, and at the Marine Corps The Basic School. The novel stresses the literary themes of fate and irony as well as the military themes of honor, duty, stoicism, and esprit de corps. [3]
