Thermopylæ lies due north from Delphi, less than twenty-five miles distant in an air line, but between them lie “many o’ershadowing mountains,” as Achilles might say, or, to be more exact, the great Parnassus cluster and the continuation of the Œta range, the watershed between the Bœotian Cephisus and the Malian Spercheius. Just where Doris and Phocis on the south meet Trachian Malis and Epicnemidian Locris on the north Mount Kallidromos is set like a boundary stone. The ridge that unites it with Mount Œta proper is now pierced by the Larissa railway-tunnel, opened in the summer of 1908, through which the northern express carries the traveller into the gorge and along the steep cliffs of the Asopus, the river that flowed down between Xerxes and Leonidas. To the east of the river’s outlet into the Malian gulf was the narrow gangway between cliffs and water, called “Hot-Gates” from the local “Thermal,” or hot springs, and the “Pylai,” or fortified gateways.

It is not unnatural that the story of Thermopylæ should have found in the imagination of men a place more secure than have even the victories at Marathon, Salamis, and Platæa. The very tragedy of defeat stands out more conspicuously against the background of the moral victory. The physical surroundings, too, are more picturesque. At the narrow entrance between cliffs and sea individual daring emerges, as in the defence of a mediæval portcullis, and in the memory remain the details of the by-path over Mount Kallidromos; the leaves under foot rustling in the darkness and betraying the ascent of the Persians to the Phocian rear-guard; the dawn breaking over the blue sea at the foot of the cliffs; and the Persian Immortals descending swiftly upon the rear of the few resolute men below. Then the long struggle in the narrow pass comes to an end and Leonidas and his men move out into the wider part before the pass. The “strength of the hills” was rendered futile by the traitor guide; the water, faithful ally during the preceding days, would now vainly strive to engulf the invaders. The Sun, god of both armies, beat down indiscriminately upon the Oriental worshippers of his heavenly fire and on the heaps of dead Greeks. Somewhere amongst them lay the unaffrighted soldier Dieneces, who had welcomed with Laconic humour the sun-obscuring Persian arrows as a grateful shade in the heat of battle.

It is disappointing, indeed, that now on the spot the actual scene requires certain stage directions. The modern coast line has been pushed far out into the bay by earthquakes and the detritus of the streams. The Spercheius now flows through a plain some two miles wide between the precipices and the sea. But the configuration of the land was still essentially unchanged when, under Brennus and his Gauls, in the third century B. C., there was another invasion hardly less formidable than that of the Persians. Before the Gauls reached Delphi there was here at Thermopylæ a repetition of the more famous struggle. The coast line still lay close to the cliffs. The Athenian fleet stood in near enough, despite the rapidly shoaling water, to harass the flank of the enemy, while the other Greeks in the narrow pass repeated the stubborn resistance of the Spartans and their allies just two hundred years before. Other details, too, were duplicated. The Gauls, unable to force the pass, resorted, as had the Persians, to the mountain path. Again it was the Phocians who strove to stop them, but the invaders, pushing by, descended on the rear of the Greeks, who were saved from the fate of Leonidas only by the presence of the Athenian fleet.

The exact topography of Thermopylæ is still a matter of controversy, and a liberal discount has long since been made from the fabulous total, given by Herodotus, of Xerxes’s host. Just who and how many of the allies remained and died after Leonidas sent the others away is also uncertain. Among those remaining with the Spartans of their own free will Pausanias mentions only the seven hundred Thespians and the eighty men from Mycenæ. The inscription written avowedly for all the Peloponnesian soldiers exaggerates the number of the Persians and fails to state definitely that all of the four thousand fought to the finish:—

But all restrictions, made in the interest of historic truth, only serve to eliminate the miraculous element. They leave undisturbed the picture of a heroism combined with military skill which, if properly supplemented, might well have kept Xerxes shut out from lower Greece indefinitely, or as long as the Greek fleet, aided by the elements, could have restrained him from moving south by the sea.

The allies of Sparta, both those who fell in the four days before the betrayal of the pathway and those who fell at the end, were duly praised, but Leonidas and his three hundred have always received, and justly, the lion’s share of honour. They represented the Lacedæmonians at their best. The moral prestige that the Spartans had temporarily forfeited by their absence from Marathon was now regained, to be still further emphasized at Platæa. Over the Spartans buried at Thermopylæ was inscribed:—

In Lacedæmon also the names of the three hundred were inscribed upon a pillar, still existing in the time of Pausanias. On the hill at Thermopylæ, where the Spartans made their last stand, was set up a marble lion to honour the name of Leonidas. In an epigram, said to have been written for the monument by Simonides, the lion is represented as saying to the passers-by:—

From the longer “encomium” by Simonides on the dead at Thermopylæ is handed down a fragment worthily translated by Sterling:—

In addition to Leonidas there was also singled out for individual honour and remembrance the seer Megistias of Acarnania, who claimed descent, proud as that of the Levitical priesthood, from the Homeric seer Melampus. From sacrifices made before sunrise on that last day, the priest gave out in advance the certainty of their impending doom. Presently deserters and scouts came in saying that the Persians had forced the heights. Leonidas, recognizing that when they were attacked in the rear also death was a foregone conclusion, commanded Megistias and the greater part of the allies to withdraw while there was still time. But the priest, refusing to depart, remained to die with Leonidas and set the seal of religious sanction on the struggle for liberty, as the modern priesthood of Greece, in the war with the Turks, by their words and blood inspired and sanctioned the patriotism of the people.

The epitaph for the priest was written by Simonides, not by public commission as poet laureate, but, as Herodotus states, by reason of guest-friendship. Even this special inscription, however, on the tomb of the Acarnanian seer, closes with a complimentary reference to Sparta. It was Sparta’s day.

A dramatic story is selected by Herodotus to embellish his account of the battle. Two Spartan soldiers, Eurytus and Aristodemus, lay at the headquarters at Alpeni, suffering with severe ophthalmia. When the news came in of the final crisis, Eurytus, putting on his armour with the help of his helot squire, was led on his blind way into the thick of the battle and fell fighting with the rest, while the helot made good his escape. Aristodemus, as might indeed seem natural in the case of a man thus incapacitated for service, remained behind and returned home. But his fellow citizens at Sparta, incensed at the contrast between the two, refused him light to kindle fire and nicknamed him the “Trembler.” Nor did any subsequent bravery wipe out his disgrace. Even when, in the closing scene of the great drama at Platæa, he surpassed all others in the reckless daring with which he fought and died, he was still excluded from his country’s roll of honour. Thus imperative did it seem that Spartan courage and love of liberty should be proclaimed to all as the rule that knew no exception.