r the sake of reward, came
and offered to show them the way, so that they might fall on the
defenders of the pass from behind. In the stillness of the early dawn,
the Phocians heard the trampling of a multitude on the dry chestnut
leaves. They stood to arms, but as soon as the Persians shot their
arrows at them they fled away and left the path open. Soon it was known
in the camp that the foe were on the hills above. There was still time
to retreat, and Leonidas sent off all the allies to save their lives; but
he himself and his 300 Spartans, with 700 Thespians, would not leave
their post, meaning to sell their lives as dearly as possible. The
Delphic oracle had said that either Sparta or a king of Sparta must
perish, and he was ready to give himself for his country. Two young
cousins of the line of Hercules he tried to save, by telling them to bear
his messages home; but one answered that he had come to fight, not carry
letters, and the other that they would fight first, and then take home
the news. Two more Spartans, whose eyes were diseased, were at the hot
baths near. One went back with the allies, the other caused his Helot to
lead him to the camp, where, in the evening, all made ready to die, and
Leonidas sat down to his last meal, telling his friends that on the
morrow they should sup with Pluto. One of these Thespians had answered,
when he was told that the Persian arrows came so thickly as to hide the
sky, "So much the better; we shall fight in the shade."

The Persians were by this time so much afraid of these brave men that
they could only be driven against them by whips. Leonidas and his
thousand burst out on them beyond the wall, and there fought the whole
day, till everyone of them was slain, but with heaps upon heaps of dead
Persians round them, so that, when Xerxes looked at the spot, he asked in
horror whether all the Greeks were like these, and how many more Spartans
there were. Like a barbarian, he had Leonidas' body hung on a cross; but
in after times the brave king's bones were buried on the spot, and a
mound raised over the other warriors, with the words engraven--

"Go, passer-by, at Sparta tell,
Obedient to her law, we fell."

There was nothing now between the Persians and the temple at Delphi. The
priests asked the oracle if they should bury the treasures. "No," the
answer was; "the god will protect his own." And just as a party of
Persians were climbing up the heights to