Kolonos Hill (; ) is a hill in Central Greece. It is located in the narrow coastal passage known as

Thermopylae Thermopylae (; ; Ancient: , Katharevousa: ; ; "hot gates") is a narrow pass and modern town in Lamia (city), Lamia, Phthiotis, Greece. It derives its name from its Mineral spring, hot sulphur springs."Thermopylae" in: S. Hornblower & A. Spaw ...

, and is near the city of

Lamia Lamia (; ), in ancient Greek mythology, was a child-eating monster and, in later tradition, was regarded as a type of night-haunting spirit or "daimon". In the earliest myths, Lamia was a beautiful queen of ancient Libya who had an affair with ...

History

The hill is best known as the site of the final stand of the

300 Spartans The Battle of Thermopylae ( ) was fought in 480 BC between the Achaemenid Persian Empire under Xerxes I and an alliance of Greek city-states led by Sparta under Leonidas I. Lasting over the course of three days, it was one of the most prominen ...

during the

Battle of Thermopylae The Battle of Thermopylae ( ) was fought in 480 BC between the Achaemenid Empire, Achaemenid Persian Empire under Xerxes I and an alliance of Polis, Greek city-states led by Sparta under Leonidas I. Lasting over the course of three days, it wa ...

in 480 BC.Crawford, Osbert Guy Stanhope (1955). ''Said and Done: The Autobiography of an Archaeologist''. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, p. 302 In 1939,

Spyridon Marinatos Spyridon Marinatos (; – 1 October 1974) was a Greek archaeologist who specialised in the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations of the Aegean Bronze Age. He is best known for the excavation of the Minoan site of Akrotiri on Thera, which he ...

, a Greek archaeologist found large numbers of Persian arrows around the hill, which changed the hitherto accepted identification of the site where the Greeks had fallen, slain by Persian arrows. A commemorative stone was placed on the site in antiquity, but the original stone has not survived. In 1955, a new stone was erected, with Simonides's epigram engraved on it.Herodotu
VII, 228
/ref>

References

Landforms of Phthiotis Hills of Greece Battle of Thermopylae Landforms of Central Greece {{CGreece-geo-stub