Challenge to Cartledge's view of the size of the Spartan deployment force that other historians have provided other justifications for sending the small contingent that are equally possible and valid. Cartledge himself offers three alternative explanations before his explanation of symbolism. His first alternative explanation is that Leonidas had simply miscalculated the force needed to maintain the Isthmus pace and had acted accordingly when he realized he was outnumbered. Another proposed explanation is based on the Degree of Themistocles which rationalizes Leonidas' mobilization as an attempt to hold back the Persian advance to allow the Athenians and their allies to evacuate and abandon Attika. This approach is problematic for Cartledge because it ignores the decree as another form of Athenian propaganda and requires the reader to believe that the sacrifice of the Spartan army was planned well before Leonidas' arrival at Thermopylae. The last of these alternatives mentioned is that Leonidas acted under the worst conditions considering the discouragement of the Delphic oracles, the issues of another possible helot revolt, and Sparta's narrow foreign policy which did not encourage aiding their Greek allies. These problems accumulated with the Carneia festival and the Olympic truce which both prohibited military activity for reasons of sacrilege. Cartledge's explanation for the deployment of 300 Spartans is controversial, but his rationalization of Leonidas' decision to hold his position at Thermopylae includes several possible explanations and is therefore highly representative of the work of other historians. For all the criticism that Green and Cartledge give their sources, one finds unanimity in the way they have interpreted the end of the Persian...... middle of paper......oned by historians. When historians neglect these historiographical questions, new interpretations of the same event are created. This is evidently seen in the case of the Decree of Themistocles which could redefine Greek strategy during the Persian invasion and in the case of the Peace Treaty of Callias which could redefine how the war formally ended. This investigation into historical views of the past also established that there are points between Cartledge and Green where they provided different opinions on the same topic, as seen in the case of the Oath of Plataea. Historical truth is often a virtue rather than a reality and as historians produce their own interpretations of the past with the same sources, conflicting views emerge and all these views either fall into a representative of the current historical consensus or challenge and redefine the way in which we look at the world. past.