51 pages • 1 hour read
Steven PressfieldGates of Fire
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1998A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Essay Topics
The difference between freedom and servility is a recurring theme of the book. Although the Spartans are attempting to preserve their own freedom, their society is predicated upon the hereditary slavery of the helots. Does the treatment of the helots by the Spartans conflict with the concept of freedom the Spartans espouse elsewhere? How does the refusal of Rooster to be elevated from his status as a helot elucidate these contradictions?
Xeones’s story is embedded within a frame-tale: the record produced by the scribe Gobartes. Why do you think the author chose to tell the story in this way? The story is told out of chronological order within this frame. Does this non-linear approach help bring out the themes of the book? Why or why not?
During the course of Alexandros’s training in the agoge, Polynikes attempts to humiliate him. What would Polynikes’s motivation for this be? What does Polynikes reveal about his motives when he apologizes to Alexandros at Thermopylae?
Of all the military gear described in the book, the shield is invested with a particular significance. How does the symbol of the shield relate to the book’s themes of loyalty, brotherhood, and self-sacrifice?
Dienekes often discusses the nature of bravery with Alexandros and Xeones and believes women to possess a kind of courage superior to that of men. Given that Dienekes acknowledges his wife, Arete, as the bravest living Spartan, how does Arete, especially on the night she interrupts the krypteia, personify women’s courage?
Spartan warriors are forbidden to carry money of their own, but coins are occasionally exchanged in the book (Pages 286, 410, 475–76). What is the significance of these coins? What does the act of giving away these coins mean to those involved?
According to Dienekes, where does phobos (fear) come from? How do the Spartans train themselves to overcome this? What does Dienekes believe to be the nature of fear, and what is fear’s opposite?
Although bereft of his city and stripped of citizenship, Bruxieus demonstrates courage in attempting to protect Diomache and Xeones. This would seem to undercut Bruxieus’s assertion that a man can only be brave standing in line with his fellow citizens. What does Bruxieus say is the source of his courage? How does this relate to the forms of courage, both male and female, described by Dienekes?
Compare the characters of Rooster and Polynikes. How are they similar and how have their respective stations in life shaped them?
