mily might altogether be
destroyed. These Spartans, with their helots or slaves, made up his own
share of the numbers, but all the army was under his generalship. It is
even said that the 300 celebrated their own funeral rites before they
set out lest they should be deprived of them by the enemy, since, as we
have already seen, it was the Greek belief that the spirits of the dead
found no rest till their obsequies had been performed. Such preparations
did not daunt the spirits of Leonidas and his men, and his wife, Gorgo,
was not a woman to be faint-hearted or hold him back. Long before, when
she was a very little girl, a word of hers had saved her father from
listening to a traitorous message from the King of Persia; and every
Spartan lady was bred up to be able to say to those she best loved that
they must come home from battle "with the shield or on it"--either
carrying it victoriously or borne upon it as a corpse.

When Leonidas came to Thermopylae, the Phocians told him of the mountain
path through the chestnut woods of Mount Oeta, and begged to have the
privilege of guarding it on a spot high up on the mountain side,
assuring him that it was very hard to find at the other end, and that
there was every probability that the enemy would never discover it. He
consented, and encamping around the warm springs, caused the broken wall
to be repaired, and made ready to meet the foe.

The Persian army were seen covering the whole country like locusts, and
the hearts of some of the southern Greeks in the pass began to sink.
Their homes in the Peloponnesus were comparatively secure--had they not
better fall back and reserve themselves to defend the Isthmus of
Corinth? But Leonidas, though Sparta was safe below the Isthmus, had no
intention of abandoning his northern allies, and kept the other
Peloponnesians to their posts, only sending messengers for further
help.

Presently a Persian on horseback rode up to reconnoiter the pass. He
could not see over the wall, but in front of it and on the ramparts, he
saw the Spartans, some of them engaged in active sports, and others in
combing their long hair. He rode back to the king, and told him what he
had seen. Now, Xerxes had in his camp an exiled Spartan Prince, named
Demaratus, who had become a traitor to his country, and was serving as
counselor to the enemy. Xerxes sent for him, and asked whether his
countrymen were mad to be thus employed instead of fleeing away; but
Demarat