It wasn’t just the men and their arms that made feats at Thermopylae possible. It was also the wives who not only allowed their husbands to go, but whose courage and iron self-discipline was the backbone of the country. The toughness and selflessness of Spartan women is legendary. When one Spartan king was killed in a vicious coup, his mother rushed to his body, and when the killers offered to spare her if she kept quiet, she stood up and defied them. Her last words, as she offered her neck: “May this only be of service to Sparta.”
