Cave of Kratos

"The path of betrayal. This is where that traitor snuck the Persian army past Sparta's defenses."

―Kassandra upon entering the cave, c. 431 BCE

The entrance of the cave in Phokis

The Cave of Kratos was a cave delved into the side of the Mount Parnassos in Phokis, Greece. It led to the Hot Gates of Thermopylai in Malis.

History

In 480 BCE, during the Second Persian invasion of Greece in the Greco-Persian Wars, King Xerxes I of Persia offered a great sum of money as a reward to anyone who knew a way to defeat the Spartans and their Greek allies who held the pass at Thermopylai. Tempted by the lure of wealth and power, the Greek Ephialtes of Trachis betrayed his countrymen and led a detachment of the Persian army through the cave to the other side of the Hot Gates, allowing the invading forces to flank and entrap the men commanded by King Leonidas I.

Upon being notified of Ephialtes' treachery, Leonidas decided that he and the Spartans would stay and fight in an attempt to delay the Persians and buy time for the remaining Greeks to retreat and alert their own cities of the oncoming army. His men would not be alone, however, as both the 700 Thespians under General Demophilus and the 400 Thebans refused to leave out of duty to their homelands. The next day, the Persians surrounded the Greeks on either side of the pass and killed them to a man, before resuming their march to Athens.

Decades later, in 420 BCE, the cult known as the Followers of Ares claimed the cave for their own. During the Peloponnesian War, the misthios Kassandra explored it, stealing the Followers' treasures and killing them.

Behind the scenes

The name of this location refers to Kratos, the divine personification of strength in Greek mythology.

According to Herodotos' Histories, the Persians took a goat path up the mountain to go around the Greeks' position instead of using a cave. The Greeks were aware of the path on arrival and had stationed a force of 1,000 Phokians on the route to prevent a flanking. On the final day of the battle, Ephialtes led the Persian commander Hydarnes and a force of 20,000 Immortals along the path. When the Phokians saw the division, they thought they were being attacked and retreated to a nearby hill to make their own stand. However, this left the path unguarded, and the Persians only loosed a volley of arrows to keep the Phokians away before continuing unimpeded.

Furthermore, in order for the Persians to take the cave as the game suggests, they would had to have followed the cliffs along Malis until they could find level terrain to walk on, march into Phokis to the edge of the Sanctuary of Delphi—which no Greek would have allowed given the location's sanctity and religious significance—in order to enter the cave, and complete the trek by climbing down a steep cliff face that only has enough room on its countless small ledges for a few men at a time, just so they could flank the Greeks below. By comparison, a worn goat path is the simpler and much shorter route to take.

Appearances

• Assassin's Creed: Odyssey (first appearance)
• Echoes of History (indirect mention only)