Herodotus says in an earlier chapter that these were the Immortals.

The Path of the Anopæa.

Leake gives what is, in so far as it goes, a fairly accurate description of this path (“Northern Greece,” vol. ii.); but he does not say that he actually traversed it. I am inclined to think that his information was derived from the natives of old Drakospilia, which seems to have been in existence in his time. When at Thermopylæ in July–August, 1899, I was able to traverse the path from beginning to end. On the first day I had no difficulty in tracing that part of it which lies above the actual pass of Thermopylæ. I intended to follow it to its end that day; but, at a monastery on the hills above the plain west of the pass, we got upon a wrong track, leading straight down into the plain about two miles east of the Asopos ravine. On the next day I went up that ravine to try and discover a path, if any, leading eastwards from it. It took an hour and a quarter to pass through the ravine at a fairly fast walk. It is, as I have already mentioned, a magnificent chasm, with perpendicular sides ranging from seven hundred to nine hundred feet in height. Its width, never great, is in one place contracted to twelve feet. Just as we were about to issue upon the great upland valley of which I have before spoken, a small valley opened out on the left of the ravine, i.e. eastward, and up this a path led. I went up the path, which was a rough one and steep, for several miles, until I reached the new main road, high up on the mountain. On the next day I traced the path from that point to near the monastery of the Panagia, whence on the first day we had inadvertently diverged from it. For nine-tenths of the whole distance from the east end of Thermopylæ to the Asopos ravine, it is absolutely certain that this is the original path of the Anopæa, for the very good reason that it traverses the only line which can be traversed in that very difficult country. In the neighbourhood of the monastery the monks have caused new paths to be constructed, and it is therefore not possible to say with certainty which was the original line of the track. In mentioning distances, I can only speak approximately for the latter two-thirds of the road, as I could get but few compass bearings to points in my map, and these were all in the eastern third of the way. I do not think that I have exaggerated the distances given, as I have made allowances for the fact that in traversing an extremely rough track, a large part of which runs through thick forest, distances seem greater than they really are. The scenery throughout is most beautiful, finer, I think, than anything I have seen in Greece. As the track leads through a country inhabited, in so far as it is inhabited at all, by semi-civilized Vlach shepherds, it would be unadvisable to attempt to traverse it, at present, at any rate, save with a fairly large party.

I append a detailed description of the path.

Beginning at the mouth of the Asopos ravine, it goes through that chasm almost to its far extremity, a distance, I should say, of two and three-quarter or three miles. For a man or loaded mule the track is not difficult, and is still greatly used in spite of the making of the new road. The new road involves a terrific climb. The bottom of the ravine ascends but slowly; and it is possible to reach the Dorian plain from its southern extremity without attaining any high elevation.

After passing through this ravine, you begin to ascend a valley whose sides are dotted, if I remember rightly, by a scanty covering of small fir-trees. You ascend this valley in a general direction eastwards, until you emerge, after going from two to two and a half miles, on the new road, at a height of perhaps two thousand feet. Crossing that, you proceed through a more or less wooded country for some two miles, to the monastery of the Panagia, along a very rough track. The monastery is about two thousand to two thousand five hundred feet above the plain. From it a steep ascent begins through low, thick forest on the north side of the ridge of Œta, which at this point rises about one thousand feet above you on the right, i.e. on the south. The forest is largely composed of oak, but there are many fir-trees and some planes. The track is so narrow that you are obliged to walk in single file. About three miles from the monastery, when the height attained cannot be less than three thousand two hundred feet, the forest alters in character, and large fir-trees now predominate, which appear to the non-botanical eye to be what are called Scotch firs.

At one point at this part of the track you emerge on a rocky platform at the top of the rocks marked in my map as the Great Gable. The traveller through the pass can see them from the road, if he looks up the great ravine. They rise a little to the right of the line of the ravine, and are a prominent object against the sky horizon of the high range. THE STATION OF THE PHOCIANS. From this point the track leads southwards to turn the upper part of the chasm of the Great Ravine, at a point several miles from its exit near the hot springs. The view down that ravine, with a foreground of giant firs and plane-trees, the great flat plain of Malis in the middle distance, and the range of Othrys in the background, is of extraordinary magnificence. After descending into the ravine and ascending the far side of it, you arrive at the site of Palaia-Drakospilia, a deserted village. From here you ascend for a short distance through a primæval fir forest, to arrive at an open space on the ridge which runs back from the great hill above the hot springs at Thermopylæ. Half a mile away to the north, i.e. towards the summit above the pass, is an old φρούριον, which evidently guarded the path in former days. There can be little doubt that this is where the Phocians were stationed. It is at the true summit of the path, a height of certainly three thousand two hundred and probably of three thousand five hundred feet. It accords with the little Herodotus tells us of the scene of the surprise, save that the trees hereabouts are not oak, but firs. His mention of the oak-trees may, however, be taken to apply to the oak forest through which you pass before arriving at the Great Gable. From this point the path begins to descend. It is very narrow; often steep and rocky. It goes down an upland valley filled with dense primæval fir forest, between the ridge which rises above the pass, and the main ridge of Œta, which rises to a considerable height on the south, and is known by the name of Saromata. This continues for several miles,—I cannot say how many, but I should think not less than five; probably more, as it took us several hours to traverse the distance. This section of the track ends at Upper Drakospilia, a village visible from the road at Thermopylæ, and some one thousand five hundred feet above the plain. From this place there is at the present day a choice of roads down to the plain. The easier leads down to a point near the east gate of the pass, near the site which I believe to be that of Alpenoi. The other is a steep path descending to the plain at a point about half-way between the middle and east gates.

I reckon that the total distance from the Asopos ravine to the little town of Alpenoi cannot be much less than seventeen miles.

The account given of the seizure of the path is a perfectly comprehensible one. There is no question that, had the Phocians not been caught unprepared, the Persians could never have got through. Numbers would have been of little avail on a track that for the most part allows only the passage of one, or, at most, two men at a time. The fact that the defenders were, from the indications given in Herodotus’ account, caught on what is at the present day practically the only open ground after the monastery of the Panagia is passed, affords but little excuse for them. They had committed an enormous blunder in being taken unprepared; and this blunder was probably made greater by their having deposited their arms in the fort, which is not on the road, but half a mile away from it. Had they had their weapons at hand they could have fallen back on the thick forest to the east of the open space; and, had they done so, it is difficult to conceive how the Persians could possibly have forced a passage. The allegation in Herodotus that they allowed the enemy to pass under the misapprehension that they were themselves the object of attack is probably a mere cloke to a mistake in which cowardice played no small part—an excuse invented by their friends in after-time. H. vii. 217. The Persians seem to have arrived at this point while it was still dark, or at any rate, in the dimness of the dawn. They started about 7.30 in the evening, and must have reached this point before 4.30 next morning. That would give them nine hours in which to accomplish the twelve or thirteen miles from the mouth of the Asopos ravine. This is about the time which they might have been expected to take over a path of the character of that which they had traversed. At this rate of progression they would probably take three hours more at least to arrive at the point from which they would for the first time overlook the pass, the site of what is now Upper Drakospilia. But when they had arrived there, it would take much time for the long straggling column to come up; and it may well have been many hours before they were in a position to venture down the hill into the pass itself. Of the two paths which at the present day descend from Drakospilia to the road, it is most probable that only the easier one, which would lead them down to a point just outside the east gate, existed at that time. A FORLORN HOPE. The other seems to have been created by the needs of the modern Drakospilia for direct communication with Lamia and its district. It is very precipitous, very narrow, and easily capable of defence, whereas the other is not.

So far the tale of Thermopylæ is borne out in the most conspicuous way by the evidence. The remainder of the story, however, presents features which, though in accord with the purely topographical circumstances of the present day, raise problems of peculiar difficulty.

The news that the Persians had discovered the existence of the path, and had despatched a body of men to seize it, was brought to the Greek camp by deserters during the night; its actual seizure seems to have been reported after dawn by scouts, who probably made their way down from the Phocian position by the precipitous mountain slopes east of the middle gate. The tale of what ensued is thus told by Herodotus:⁠—

The explanation of the last words is given in the tale which Herodotus then proceeds to tell, to the effect that the Pythian oracle had announced to Sparta, quite at the beginning of the war, that either Sparta would be destroyed by the barbarians, or that its king would perish. Herodotus thinks that it was because Leonidas remembered this oracle, and wished to gain glory for the Spartans alone, that he sent the allies away. He is more inclined to believe this than that the allies, owing to a quarrel with him, went after so undisciplined a fashion.

He regards as evidence in favour of this view the fact that Leonidas ordered the seer Megistios, an Acarnanian, who had the previous night warned them of the coming disaster, to depart; which he refused to do.

This is a very remarkable incident in the narrative of an episode which is itself undeniably one of the most remarkable in history. It contains but little of that reliable element in Herodotus,—fact; it contains much of the unreliable element,—motive. The facts are plain, and there is no reason to doubt them. The Spartans, Thebans, and Thespians remained and took part in the final struggle; the rest of the allies departed. Who were the latter? By reference to the list of those present in the pass it will be found that they were Tegeans, Mantineans, other Arcadians, Corinthians, Phliasians, Mykenæans Paus. ii. 16, 5; x. 20, 2. (though Pausanias mentions a tradition to the effect that they remained), and the Opuntian Locrians. The calculation can only be an approximate one, but, excluding the Phocians, who were up on the path, and the Opuntian Locrians, whose number we do not know, 3500 remained, and 2800 departed.121 This division is a somewhat significant one.

The central motive in Herodotus’ story is undoubtedly the reported oracle delivered to Sparta “quite early in the war.” It is unfortunate, from the historical point of view, that the tradition assailed the historian on his weakest side. He was incurable in this respect. DIFFICULTIES IN THE NARRATIVE. Even the most glaring cases of oracular dishonesty, to which he could not shut his eyes, such as the tampering of the Alkmæonidæ with the oracle at Delphi in order to bring about the expulsion of the Peisistratidæ, never killed his faith in oracular responses in general. But in cases where, as in the present instance, an oracle came to point a moral and adorn a tale, he completely surrendered his critical faculty. The whole of Herodotus’ narrative hangs by this oracle. He rejects the story that half the army deserted the defence of its own free will, in order, in accordance with his prime motive, to produce a story to the effect that Leonidas dismissed them, knowing that he himself had to make the great act of self-abnegation, and not wishing to involve them therein. And yet Leonidas keeps the Thebans with him, and the Thespians remain of their own free will; and, apparently, he allows them to do so.

If this account be true, what was the position of those three thousand five hundred Greeks who remained to face the Persian attack on front and rear? It is not said that they sacrificed themselves to give their friends time to escape, nor is there the slightest cause to suppose that there was any reason whatever for their doing so. The scouts from the top of the mountain must have been down in the camp at least two hours before the Persians could arrive at the site of Upper Drakospilia; and, even arrived there, the latter could not possibly have descended into the pass before their numbers had gathered. It must have been late in the morning before they came down, and probably past midday before they began to assail the rear of the Greek position. Those who escaped had only a mile and a half to go before they were out of the pass at the east gate; and, once outside, they were in an easy country, over which they could travel rapidly.

Taking the story as it stands, there is no possible strategic motive for remaining to defend the middle gate; there is rather every reason for not doing so. And the men who remained there must have been perfectly aware that by remaining they merely sacrificed their own lives without really contributing anything to the defence of their fatherland. The intense sense of discipline among the Spartans may, in so far as they are concerned, of itself account for an act otherwise inexplicable. But what of the Thebans? Were they likely to allow themselves to be forced to face certain death in a case where none save a sentimental result could be attained, without displaying a feeling such as would make them most undesirable participants in the defence? And the Thespians? They must have amounted to a very large proportion of the total available fighting force of their little town. Were they likely to sacrifice themselves, as has been suggested, in the hope that if the Greek cause prospered, they might become the head of the Bœotian confederacy? How could they hope to attain such a result by deliberately placing seven hundred of their citizens in a position whose only issue was the gate of death? What measure of gratitude could they expect from a people who were responsible for their great betrayal at Thermopylæ?

It is plain that there must have been some reasonable and strong motive which induced the Thespians to remain, and made it possible for the Thebans to be retained with Leonidas. The reason given by Herodotus is inadequate to the last degree. Some other must have existed. It is probable that, as is often the case under such circumstances, part of the true reason is present in some form in the statement of the imagined motives. Two tales existed, so Herodotus says: one that the allies went away; the other that they were sent away. Possibly each of them contained a fraction of the truth. What was the situation on that eventful morning? The news of the Persians having passed the summit came not long after dawn. Leonidas must have known, if he had, as must be supposed, taken any measures to get knowledge of the path, that the Persians could not be in force at Upper Drakospilia, to use the modern name, for some hours after the news reached him; and three thousand men in the tangled forest which begins just outside the village might stop the whole Persian army. He would thus be able to maintain the pass, if he could hold his end of it. DEPARTURE OF HALF THE GREEK ARMY. Is it not possible, then, that he divided his force into what, as has been seen, was, roughly speaking, two halves, and “sent away” the one half to seize the forest path before the Persians had time to debouch from it in any strength? On the question of time it may be said that from the middle gate to Upper Drakospilia is an hour and twenty minutes by the direct but more difficult path, and about twenty minutes longer by the easier path which comes down near the east gate.

It seems an essential factor in the situation that Leonidas believed in and was able to persuade the Thespians and, it may be, the Thebans too, of the possibility of still maintaining the pass. Had the division sent to meet Hydarnes done its duty with energy, it is highly probable, judging from the history of the previous fighting, that the event would have justified his confidence. What happened to that division of two thousand eight hundred men will never be known. It may be that for some reason it arrived too late, and found the Persians in too strong a force at Drakospilia. It may be that it never attempted to carry out the orders, and retreated straightway through the east gate, and so to Elatæa. Probably the latter was the case. Had there been a reasonable excuse for their conduct it would have survived in history. But was there no excuse for their vanishing from the scene? They were face to face with a fearful danger, greater even than the danger which had faced them for a week past, great though that had been. They must have been suffering under a bitter sense of desertion, left to their fate, as it were, by those who sent them from the Isthmus. And who but Sparta was responsible for this? “Had they not done enough?” they may have argued. Were they to blame if, deserted themselves, they deserted others? And who were those “others?” Spartans, men of the race which had wished to sacrifice them; Thebans of suspicious loyalty; Thespians, who were—well, not Peloponnesians. And so they could go off with half a conscience, if not a whole one. Such reasoning would not do them honour; but men, if dishonourably treated themselves, are but too apt, in their bitter resentment, to lose the finer sense of honour.

The story of their shame but half-survived; Herodotus caught some echo of it. Those who lived to tell it had most interest in concealing it. The dead men at Thermopylæ could tell no tales; and the Thebans were too much discredited to obtain credit. There was a conspiracy of silence. The inaction of the Spartan authorities had borne terrible fruit,—far more terrible, it may be believed, than the authorities ever expected it would bear. Leonidas had been deserted and had died with his brave band. It was no good blaming the allies who deserted him, even had it been possible under the circumstances to establish the fact of their desertion. These, too, could have retaliated with a tale which would have brought discredit, or even infamy, on those who were really responsible for the disaster.

Thus it was possible to conceal the truth, and the field was open for invention. It was not difficult to supply a motive for a courage so grand as that which Leonidas had displayed,—the motive of self-sacrifice. That was absolutely the only motive which could account to the world for the extraordinary circumstances of his death; and it had the merit of being true.

He was represented as a victim self-immolated on the altar of his country’s weal. The oracle had said that the king must die for his people. And he did die, but a victim to the dishonour of a country which left him and the brave men with him to their fate.

After the departure of the Peloponnesian allies, the last scene in the tragedy began. H. vii. 223. Herodotus describes it in the simple but beautiful language of a master-artist who seeks to do justice to the grandest story of his time. Xerxes after making libation at sunrise, waited until the time when the Agora is wont to fill, and then began the attack; such being the instructions of Epialtes.122

The losses of the Persians were not confined to the rank and file of the army. Many of their prominent men fell, among others two sons of Darius.

From the tales which Herodotus tells of the personal incidents in connection with the battle, there is but little to be gathered which can be said to contribute to the history of the time.

In the tale of the two men Eurytos and Aristodemos there is a purely incidental detail which is, in its way, of significance. They had been sent away from the camp by Leonidas, and lay at Alpenoi, “in the last stage of ophthalmia.”

At the present day the reed-cutters in the marsh at the west gate suffer from this disease.

The Theban contingent did not take any part in the last battle on the mound. When the Greeks retreated from the broader part of the pass, the Thebans remained behind and surrendered. It is significant to note that this surrender was made at the time when the Greeks were made aware that the division of Hydarnes was going to attack them in the rear.

It was probably years afterwards, when Herodotus visited the scene of the battle, that he made a copy of the inscription which was engraved on the monument raised on the mound to the memory of the Peloponnesian Greeks who had fallen. Its words summarized, no doubt, the impression which the battle had made on the Greek world as a whole.

Their memory is recorded in the lines:⁠—

The next lines quoted by Herodotus refer to the Lacedæmonians alone:⁠—

The epitaph of the seer Megistios followed, written by his friend the poet Simonides.

It is remarkable that in the lines recorded by Herodotus there is no mention of the Thespians or other allies who came not from Peloponnese. It seems, however, from what Strabo says, Strabo, 425. that five memorial pillars were erected on the spot, one of which recorded the memory of the Locrians who perished; Anthol. Pal. Append. 94. and an epigram of the Megarian Philiades on the fallen Thespians is also extant, which was very possibly that engraved on one of the stelæ on the mound.

To contemporary Greeks, and to Greeks of after time, Thermopylæ seemed, if not the most important, the most impressive page in the history of the race. It was regarded as an act of pure self-sacrifice, whose splendour was such as to place it outside the range of any logical discussion as to its practical strategic value. The sole motive which was attributed to the gallant band who fought the last fight was a stern, unyielding sense of duty, such as might serve as a pattern to all after-time. There can be no doubt that this popular view had an enormous moral effect. It gave the Greek a higher ideal of his national character at his best; and in the history of any nation any sacrifice which can have that effect is but a small price to pay, even if the purely practical result of the sacrifice be small.

Before attempting any estimate of the real nature of the sacrifice, it will be well to realize how it happened that the Greek world generally came to adopt what was, in certain important respects, a mistaken view of it. Herodotus’ narrative shows clearly the cause of this phenomenon. The circumstances of the disaster were such that the Spartan authorities were left in a position to impress their own explanation on the facts that came to light. Herodotus gives what was, no doubt, the authorized version. Its origin is plain. It is from beginning to end drawn from Lacedæmonian sources. The Spartan is not merely the protagonist in the tragedy; he is practically the only actor who appears on the stage in the final act, except the unfortunate Theban, the villain of the piece. The whole story was calculated to elevate the idea which the Greek world held of the Spartan character. In one sense it had its effect. It is impossible to doubt that from that day forward the Spartans were credited with an heroic courage which knew no yielding. How strong, how thorough, how lasting was this conviction in the Greek mind is shown by the tremendous impression produced more than fifty years later by the surrender of the Spartans on Sphakteria, the desperate nature of the position in which they found themselves failing to save the shock to their national reputation. But is it not strange that the Thespians did not share the reputation? In certain respects the part which they played at Thermopylæ had been even more glorious than that of Leonidas and his men. THE LAST HOURS AT THERMOPYLÆ. The seven hundred citizens by whom they were represented constituted to them an infinitely greater stake in the perilous game than the three hundred Spartans and their attendant Helots did to Sparta.

But in one important respect the official Spartan version failed conspicuously to have the effect which it was doubtless intended to convey. The Greek did not at this or any other time allow his admiration of the national character of the Spartan to warp his judgment with regard to the Spartan government. He was perfectly well aware that the personal bravery of the Spartans in the field stood in strong contrast to the pusillanimity of the policy of their rulers. If he had any illusions on the subject at the beginning of the war, the events of the war itself were strikingly calculated to disillusion him. There can be no possible question as to the personal bravery of the Spartans in every action, whether on land or sea, in so far as pure fighting qualities are concerned; there can be no question as to the greatness of the Spartan contribution to the final result; but Sparta got little credit for the result in after-time.

It is impossible to close this chapter without making some attempt to form an estimate of the mental attitude with which Leonidas faced the situation in which he found himself involved on the morning of the final struggle in the pass. It is necessary, in examining the popular story, to remember that Leonidas’ conduct is not represented as a sacrifice to the stern duty imposed by Spartan discipline, but to one of the alternatives put forward on the authority of an oracular response. There was possibly a tinge of fatalism about the character of the man which lent a colouring to the tale of his death current at the time. He died, so it was said, to save his country, not from actual, but from predicted disaster. If this was the case, it is quite comprehensible that his Spartan bodyguard should be involved in the fate of their master. To them Spartan law and custom made the consequences of desertion worse than death. But, leaving the Theban contingent out of the question, what, under the circumstances, could possibly have induced the Thespians to involve themselves in the fate of one who was sacrificing himself to a prediction which did not concern them? What possible feeling, sentimental or practical, could have prompted them to share the fate of a self-doomed man? That was the weak spot in the Spartan version of Thermopylæ. No attempt was made to explain it. The hypothesis which lay at the root of the story made it inexplicable. Nor does it seem to have struck those who invented this story, that under the theory put forward by them, Leonidas, without any motive whatsoever, deliberately allowed 700 devoted men of a little Bœotian city to share a doom which was his and his alone.

Leonidas died a nobler death than that. It was with the grander courage of reason that he faced the terrible odds against him on that last day of his life.

The fighting of the previous days had shown him the strength of the position which he held at the middle gate. It was a desperate risk; but there was just the possibility that by detaching half his force to stop the encircling body of the foe in the difficult path which they were travelling, he might still be able to maintain the pass, and if he did maintain it he would do his country an inestimable service. It was thus with half his little army that he deliberately chose to face an enemy one hundred times his own numerical strength. He took a risk of whose magnitude he must have been well aware, to win, in case of success, a prize of incalculable greatness. He cannot have deluded himself, he may be pardoned if he deluded his allies—as to the overwhelming nature of the chances against them. He might have retreated. There is an exaggerated tendency to assume that Spartan discipline at this time forbade a commander, under any circumstances, to withdraw from a position once taken up. Artemisium and, above all, Platæa, prove this not to have been the case. He was under no such compulsion. What he did dare to do was to face odds such as men had never faced before and never have faced since, because by so doing he had a possible prospect of conferring a service of enormous value on his country. He did this, too, in spite of that bitter feeling of his countrymen’s desertion which must have been present in his mind. Nor was the nobility of his death marred by a useless sacrifice of the lives of devoted men. ORIGIN OF HERODOTUS’ VERSION. Great as was the risk, the greatness of the end to be attained in case of success justified his associating others with himself in the desperate venture.