The Good Book (58 page)

29. ‘Be assured, however, that if you can beat the men who are here and their fellow Lacedaemonians who remain in Sparta,

30. ‘There is no other nation in the world that will venture to lift a hand in their defence.

31. ‘You have now to deal with the first kingdom and town in Greece, and with the bravest of its men.'

Chapter 70

  1. But Xerxes could not believe that so small a force could contend with his multitudes, or would even try to;

  2. So he waited four days, expecting the Greeks to run away.

  3. When on the fifth he found that they were still there, thinking that their stand was mere impudence and recklessness, he grew angry,

  4. And sent against them the Medes and Cissians, with orders to take them alive and bring them into his presence.

  5. The Medes rushed forward and charged the Greeks, but fell in vast numbers: others took the places of the slain, and would not be beaten off, though they suffered terrible losses.

  6. In this way it became clear to all, and especially to the king, that though he had plenty of combatants, he had very few warriors.

  7. The struggle, however, continued during the whole day.

  8. The Medes, having met such a rough reception, withdrew from the fight; and their place was taken by the band of Persians under Hydarnes, who were the king's special guard:

  9. It was thought they would soon finish the business. But when they joined battle with the Greeks, it was with no better success;

10. Matters went much as before, the two armies fighting in a narrow space,

11. The barbarians using shorter spears than the Greeks, and gaining no advantage from their numbers.

12. The Lacedaemonians fought in a way worthy of note, and showed themselves far more skilful than their adversaries.

13. They often turned their backs, and made as if to run away, at which the barbarians would rush after them with much noise and shouting;

14. Then the Spartans would suddenly wheel and face their pursuers, in this way destroying vast numbers of the enemy.

15. Some Spartans fell in these encounters, but only a few.

16. At last the Persians, finding all their efforts unavailing, withdrew to their quarters.

17. It is said that Xerxes, watching the battle, thrice leaped from the throne on which he sat, in terror for his army.

18. Next day the combat was renewed, but with no better success for the Persians.

19. The Greeks were so few that the barbarians hoped to find them disabled, by reason of their wounds, from offering further resistance; and so they once more attacked.

20. But the Greeks were drawn up in detachments according to their cities, and bore the brunt of the battle in turns,

21. All except the Phocians, who had been stationed on the mountain to guard the pathway.

22. So, when the Persians found no difference between that day and the preceding, they again retired to their quarters.

 

Chapter 71

  1. Now, as Xerxes was in great dilemma, and at a loss how he should deal with the emergency,

  2. Ephialtes, the son of Eurydemus, a man of Malis, came to him.

  3. Stirred by the hope of receiving a rich reward at the king's hands, he had come to tell him of the pathway which led across the mountain to the rear of Thermopylae;

  4. By which disclosure he brought destruction on the band of Greeks who had so far resisted the barbarians.

  5. This Ephialtes afterwards, from fear of the Lacedaemonians, fled into Thessaly;

  6. And during his exile, in an assembly of the Amphictyons held at Pylae, a price was set on his head by the Pylagorae.

  7. When some time had gone by, he returned from exile, and went to Anticyra, where he was slain by Athenades, a native of Trachis.

  8. Athenades did not slay him for his treachery, but for another reason:

  9. Yet the Lacedaemonians honoured Athenades none the less. Thus did Ephialtes perish a long time afterwards.

10. Xerxes was delighted by Ephialtes' information, and immediately dispatched Hydarnes and the picked Persian guardsmen to follow him over the secret path.

11. They left just as the lamps were being lit in the evening, and went quickly and silently along,

12. Beginning at the Asopus, where that stream flows through the cleft in the hills,

13. Then along the ridge of the mountain which is called, like the pathway over it, Anopaea, and ends at the city of Alpenus,

14. The first Locrian town as one comes from Malis; pasing by the stone called Melampygus and the seats of the Cercopians.

15. Here the path is at its narrowest point.

16. The Persians marched all night, with the mountains of Oeta on their right hand, and on their left those of Trachis. At dawn they found themselves close to the summit.

17. The hill was guarded by a thousand Phocian men-at-arms, who were placed there to defend not just the pathway but also their own country.

18. They had volunteered for this service, and had pledged themselves to Leonidas to maintain the post.

19. Now, during all the time that the Persians were making their way up, the Greeks were unaware of them.

20. But the whole mountain was covered with groves of oak, and it happened that the air was very still, so that the leaves which the Persians stirred as they passed by made a loud rustling.

21. Hearing this the Phocians jumped up and flew to their arms.

22. In a moment the barbarians came in sight, and, perceiving men arming themselves, were greatly amazed;

23. For they had fallen in with an enemy where they expected no opposition.

24. Hydarnes, alarmed at the sight, and fearing lest the Phocians might be Lacedaemonians, inquired of Ephialtes to what nation these troops belonged.

25. Ephialtes told him, whereupon Hydarnes arrayed his Persians for battle.

26. The Phocians, galled by the showers of arrows to which they were exposed, and imagining themselves the special object of the Persian attack,

27. Fled hastily to the crest of the mountain, and there made ready to meet death;

28. But while their mistake continued, the Persians, not thinking it worth their while to delay on account of Phocians, passed on and descended the mountain with all possible speed.

 

Chapter 72

  1. The Greeks at Thermopylae received the first warning of the destruction which dawn was bringing them,

  2. From deserters who brought news that the Persians were marching round by the hills: it was still night when these men arrived.

  3. Last of all, scouts came running down from the heights, and brought the same account, when the day was just beginning to break.

  4. Then the Greeks held a council to consider what they should do. Opinions were divided: some were strong against quitting their post, while others argued the opposite.

  5. So when the council had broken up, part of the troops departed and went home to their several states;

  6. Part however resolved to remain, and to stand by Leonidas to the last.

  7. It is said that Leonidas himself sent away the troops who departed, because he tendered their safety,

  8. But thought it unseemly that either he or his Spartans should quit the post they had been especially sent to guard.

  9. It is likely that Leonidas gave the order because he perceived the allies to be out of heart and unwilling to encounter the danger to which his own mind was made up.

10. He therefore commanded them to retreat, but said that he himself could not retreat with honour; knowing that, if he stayed, glory awaited him and the Spartans.

11. So the allies, when Leonidas ordered them to retire, obeyed him and departed.

12. Only the Thespians and the Thebans remained; and of these the Thebans were kept back by Leonidas as hostages, very much against their will.

13. The Thespians, on the contrary, stayed willingly, refusing to retreat, and declaring that they would not forsake Leonidas and his followers.

14. So they stayed with the Spartans, and died with them. Their leader was Demophilus, the son of Diadromes.

15. At sunrise Xerxes made his preparations, then waited until the time of morning when it is usual for city forums to fill, before beginning his advance.

16. Ephialtes had advised this because the descent of the mountain is much quicker, and the distance much shorter, than the way round the hills.

17. So the barbarians under Xerxes began to approach; and the Greeks under Leonidas, as they now went out determined to die,

18. Advanced much further than on previous days, until they reached the more open portion of the pass.

19. Hitherto they had held their station within the wall, and from this had sallied out to fight at the point where the pass was narrowest.

20. Now they joined battle beyond the defile, and made great slaughter among the barbarians, who fell in heaps.

21. Behind them the captains of the Persian squadrons, armed with whips, urged their men forward with continual blows.

22. Many were thrust into the sea, and there perished; a still greater number were trampled to death by their own soldiers;

23. No one heeded the dying. For the Greeks, reckless of their own safety and desperate,

24. Since they knew that, as the mountain had been crossed, their destruction was at hand,

25. Exerted themselves with the most furious valour against the barbarians.

26. By this time the spears of most of the Greeks were shivered, so with their swords they cut down the ranks of the Persians;

27. And here, as they strove, Leonidas fell fighting bravely, together with many other famous Spartans, whose names are imperishable on account of their great worthiness, all three hundred of them.

28. There fell too at the same time many famous Persians: among them, two sons of Darius, Abrocomes and Hyperanthes, his children by Phratagune, the daughter of Artanes.

29. And now there arose a fierce struggle between the Persians and the Lacedaemonians over the body of Leonidas, in which the Greeks four times drove back the enemy, and at last by their bravery succeeded in carrying away the body.

30. This combat was scarcely ended when the Persians with Ephialtes approached; and the Greeks, informed that the Persian elite troops were closing in behind them, made a change in the manner of their fighting.

31. Drawing back into the narrowest part of the pass, and retreating even behind the cross wall, they posted themselves on a hillock,

32. Where they stood drawn up together in one close body, except only the Thebans.

33. This hillock is at the entrance of the pass, where the stone lion now stands which was set up in honour of Leonidas.

34. Here the Greeks defended themselves to the last, such as still had swords using them, and the others resisting with their hands and teeth;

35. Till the barbarians, who in part had pulled down the wall and attacked them in front, in part had gone round, and now encircled them on every side,

36. Overwhelmed the remnant beneath showers of missiles.

 

Chapter 73

  1. Thus nobly did the whole body of Lacedaemonians and Thespians behave;

  2. But one man is said to have distinguished himself above the rest, namely, Dieneces the Spartan.

  3. A speech he made before the Greeks fought the Persians remains on record.

  4. One of the Trachinians told him, such was the number of the barbarians, that when they shot their arrows the sun would be darkened by their multitude.

  5. Dieneces, not at all frightened at these words, answered, ‘Our Trachinian friend brings us excellent tidings.

  6. ‘If the barbarians darken the sun, we shall have our fight in the shade.'

  7. Next to Dieneces a pair of Spartan brothers are reputed to have made themselves conspicuous: they were Alpheus and Maro, the sons of Orsiphantus.

  8.   There was also a Thespian who gained greater glory than any of his countrymen: he was Dithyrambus, the son of Harmatidas.

  9. The slain were buried where they fell, and in their honour, nor less in honour of those who died before Leonidas sent the allies away, an inscription was set up, which said:

10. ‘Here did four thousand men from Pelops' land/against three hundred thousand bravely stand.' This was in honour of all.

11. Another was for the Spartans alone: ‘Go, stranger, and to Lacedaemon tell/that here, obeying her orders, we fell.'

12. These inscriptions, and the pillars likewise, were all set up by the Amphictyons.

13. The Thebans under the command of Leontiades remained with the Greeks, and fought against the barbarians only so long as necessity compelled them.

14. No sooner did they see victory inclining to the Persians, and the Greeks under Leonidas hurrying with all speed towards the hillock,