The Junior Classics, vol 7 | Page 5

Persian army would have to march round the edge of
the gulf. They could not cut straight across the country, because the
ridge of mountains called Oeta rose up and barred their way. Indeed,
the woods, rocks, and precipices came down so near the seashore, that
in two places there was only room for one single wheel track between
the steeps and the impassable morass that formed the border of the gulf
on its south side. These two very narrow places were called the gates of
the pass, and were about a mile apart. There was a little more width left
in the intervening space; but in this there were a number of springs of

warm mineral water, salt and sulphurous, which were used for the sick
to bathe in, and thus the place was called Thermopylæ, or the Hot
Gates. A wall had once been built across the westernmost of these
narrow places, when the Thessalians and Phocians, who lived on either
side of it, had been at war with one another; but it had been allowed to
go to decay, since the Phocians had found out that there was a very
steep narrow mountain path along the bed of a torrent, by which it was
possible to cross from one territory to the other without going round
this marshy coast road.
This was, therefore, an excellent place to defend. The Greek ships were
all drawn up on the further side of Euboea to prevent the Persian
vessels from getting into the strait and landing men beyond the pass,
and a division of the army was sent off to guard the Hot Gates. The
council at the Isthmus did not know of the mountain pathway, and
thought that all would be safe as long as the Persians were kept out of
the coast path.
The troops sent for this purpose were from different cities, and
amounted to about 4,000 who were to keep the pass against two
millions. The leader of them was Leonidas, who had newly become one
of the two kings of Sparta, the city that above all in Greece trained its
sons to be hardy soldiers, dreading death infinitely less than shame.
Leonidas had already made up his mind that the expedition would
probably be his death, perhaps because a prophecy had been given at
the Temple at Delphi that Sparta should be saved by the death of one of
her kings of the race of Hercules. He was allowed by law to take with
him 300 men, and these he chose most carefully, not merely for their
strength and courage, but selecting those who had sons, so that no
family might be altogether destroyed. These Spartans, with their helots
or slaves, made up his own share of the numbers, but all the army was
under his generalship. It is even said that the 300 celebrated their own
funeral rites before they set out lest they should be deprived of them by
the enemy, since, as we have already seen, it was the Greek belief that
the spirits of the dead found no rest till their obsequies had been
performed. Such preparations did not daunt the spirits of Leonidas and
his men, and his wife, Gorgo, not a woman to be faint-hearted or hold

him back. Long before, when she was a very little girl, a word of hers
had saved her father from listening to a traitorous message from the
King of Persia; and every Spartan lady was bred up to be able to say to
those she best loved that they must come home from battle "with the
shield or on it"--either carrying it victoriously or borne upon it as a
corpse.
When Leonidas came to Thermopylæ, the Phocians told him of the
mountain path through the chestnut woods of Mount Œta, and begged
to have the privilege of guarding it on a spot high up on the mountain
side, assuring him that it was very hard to find at the other end, and that
there was every probability that the enemy would never discover it. He
consented, and encamping around the warm springs, caused the broken
wall to be repaired, and made ready to meet the foe.
The Persian army were seen covering the whole country like locusts,
and the hearts of some of the southern Greeks in the pass began to sink.
Their homes in the Peloponnesus were comparatively secure--had they
not better fall back and reserve themselves to defend the Isthmus of
Corinth? But Leonidas, though Sparta was safe below the Isthmus, had
no intention of abandoning his northern allies, and kept the other
Peloponnesians to their posts, only sending messengers for further help.
Presently a Persian on horseback rode up to reconnoiter the pass. He
could not see over the wall, but