It was four hundred and eighty years before the birth of Christ. The Great King, as the Greeks called Xerxes, the Persian monarch, was leading the innumerable armies of Asia against the small and divided country of Greece. It was then split into a number of little States, not on good terms with each other, and while some were for war, and freedom, and ruin, if ruin must come, with honour, others were for peace and slavery. The Greeks, who determined to resist Persia at any cost, met together at the Isthmus of Corinth, and laid their plans of defence. The Asiatic army, coming by land, would be obliged to march through a narrow pass called ThermopylÆ, with the sea on one side of the road, and a steep and inaccessible precipice on the other. Here, then, the Greeks made up their minds to stand. They did not know, till they had marched to ThermopylÆ, that behind the pass there was a mountain path, by which soldiers might climb round and over the mountain, and fall upon their rear. As the sea on the right hand of the Pass of ThermopylÆ lies in a narrow strait, bounded by the island of Euboea, the Greeks thought that their ships would guard their rear and prevent the Persians from landing men to attack it. Their army encamped in the Pass, having wide enough ground to manoeuvre in, between the narrow northern gateway, so to speak, by which the invaders would try to enter, and a gateway to the south. Their position was also protected by an old military wall, which they repaired.

The Greek general was Leonidas, the Spartan king. He chose three hundred men, all of whom had sons at home to maintain their families and to avenge them if they fell. Now the manner of the Spartans was this: to die rather than yield. However sorely defeated, or overwhelmed by numbers, they never left the ground alive and unvictorious, and as this was well known, their enemies were seldom eager to attack such resolute fighters.

Besides the Spartans, Leonidas led some three or four thousand men from other cities, and he was joined at ThermopylÆ by the Locrians and a thousand Phocians. Perhaps he may have had six or eight thousand soldiers under him, while the Persians may have outnumbered them by the odds of a hundred to one. Why, you may ask, did the Greeks not send a stronger force? The reason was very characteristic. They were holding their sports at the time, racing, running, boxing, jumping, and they were also about to be engaged in another festival. They would not omit or put off their games however many thousand barbarians might be knocking at their gates. There is something boyish, and something fine in this conduct, but we must remember, too, that the games were a sacred festival, and that the Gods might be displeased if they were omitted.

Leonidas, then, thought that at least he could hold the Pass till the games were over, and his countrymen could join him. But when he found, on arriving at ThermopylÆ, that he would have to hold two positions, the Pass itself, and the mountain path, of whose existence he had not been aware, then some of his army wished to return home. But Leonidas refused to let them retreat, and bade the Phocians guard the path across the hills, while he sent home for reinforcements. He could not desert the people whom he had come to protect. Meanwhile the Greek fleet was also alarmed, but was rescued by a storm which wrecked many of the Persian vessels.

Xerxes was now within sight of ThermopylÆ. He sent a horseman forward to spy out the Greek camp, and this man saw the Spartans amusing themselves with running and wrestling, and combing their long hair, outside the wall. They took no notice of him, and he returning, told Xerxes how few they were, and how unconcerned. Xerxes then sent for Demaratus, an exiled king of Sparta in his camp, and asked what these things meant. 'O king!' said Demaratus, 'this is what I told you of yore, when you laughed at my words. These men have come to fight you for the Pass, and for that battle they are making ready, for it is our country fashion to comb and tend our hair when we are about to put our heads in peril.'

Xerxes would not believe Demaratus. He waited four days, and then, in a rage, bade his best warriors, the Medes and Cissians, bring the Greeks into his presence. The Medes, who were brave men, and had their defeat at Marathon, ten years before, to avenge, fell on, but their spears were short, their shields were thin, and they could not break a way into the stubborn forest of bronze and steel. In wave upon wave, all day long, they dashed against the Greeks, and left their best lying at the mouth of the Pass. 'Thereby was it made clear to all men, and not least to the king, that men are many, but heroes are few.'

Next day Xerxes called on his bodyguard, the Ten Thousand Immortals, and they came to close quarters, but got no more glory than the Medes. Thrice the King leaped from his chair in dismay as thrice the Greeks drove the barbarians in rout. And on the third day they had no better fortune.

But there was a man, a Malian, whose name is a scorn to this hour; he was called Epialtes. He betrayed to Xerxes the secret of the mountain path, probably for money. He later fled to Thessaly with a price on his head, but returned to Anticyra, and there he was slain by Athenades. Then Xerxes was glad beyond measure when he heard of the path, and sent his men along the path by night. They found the Phocians guarding it, but the Phocians disgracefully fled to the higher part of the mountain. The Persians, disdaining to pursue them, marched to the pass behind the Spartan camp, and the Greeks were now surrounded in van and rear. But news of this had come to Leonidas, and his army was not of one mind as to what they should do. Some were for retreating and abandoning a position which it was now impossible to hold. Leonidas bade them depart; but for him and his countrymen it was not honourable to turn their backs on any foe. He sent away the soothsayer, or prophet, Megistias, but he returned, and bade his son go home. The Thespians, to their immortal honour, chose to bide the brunt with Leonidas. There thus remained what was left of the Three Hundred, their personal attendants, seven hundred Thespians, and some Thebans, about whose conduct it is difficult to speak with certainty, as accounts differ. Leonidas, on this last day of his life, did not wait to be attacked in front and rear, but, sallying into the open, himself assailed the Persians. They drove the barbarians like cattle with their spears; the captains of the barbarians drove them back on the spears with whips. Many fell from the path into the sea, and there perished, and many more were trodden down and died beneath the feet of their own companions. But the spears of the Greeks broke at last in their hands, so they drew their swords, and rushed to yet closer quarters. In this charge fell Leonidas, 'the bravest man,' says the Greek historian, 'of men whose names I know,' and he knew the names of all the Three Hundred. Over the body of Leonidas fell the two brothers of Xerxes, for they fought for the corpse, and four times the Greeks drove back the Persians. Now came up the Persians with the traitor Epialtes, attacking the Greeks in the rear. Now was their last hour come, so they bore the body of the king within the wall. There they occupied a little mound in a sea of enemies, and there each man fought till he died, stabbing with his dagger when his sword was broken, and biting, and striking with the fist, when the dagger-point was blunted. Among them all, none made a better end than Eurytus. He was suffering from a disease of the eyes, but he bade them arm him, and lead him into the thick of the battle. Of another, Dieneces, it is told that hearing the arrows of the Persians would darken the sun, he answered, 'Good news! we shall fight in the shade.' One man only, Aristodemus, who also was suffering from a disease of the eyes, did not join his countrymen, but returned to Sparta. There he was scouted for a coward, but, in the following year, he fell at PlatÆa, excelling all the Spartans in deeds of valour.

This is the story of the Three Hundred. The marble lion erected where Leonidas fell has perished, and perished has the column engraved with their names, but their glory is immortal.[4]