the inscriptions that were engraved
upon the pillars that were set up in the pass to commemorate this great
action. One was outside the wall, where most of the fighting had been.
It seems to have been in honor of the whole number who had for two days
resisted--

"Here did four thousand men from Pelops' land
Against three hundred myriads bravely stand."

In honor of the Spartans was another column--

"Go, traveler, to Sparta tell
That here, obeying her, we fell."

On the little hillock of the last resistance was placed the figure of a
stone lion, in memory of Leonidas, so fitly named the lion-like; and
Simonides, at his own expense, erected a pillar to his friend, the seer
Megistias--

"The great Megistias' tomb you here may view,
Who slew the Medes, fresh from Spercheius fords;
Well the wise seer the coming death foreknew,
Yet scorn'd he to forsake his Spartan lords."

The names of the 300 were likewise engraven on a pillar at Sparta.

Lion, pillars, and inscriptions have all long since passed away, even
the very spot itself has changed; new soil has been formed, and there
are miles of solid ground between Mount Oeta and the gulf, so that the
Hot Gates no longer exist. But more enduring than stone or brass--nay,
than the very battle-field itself--has been the name of Leonidas. Two
thousand three hundred years have sped since he braced himself to perish
for his country's sake in that narrow, marshy coast road, under the brow
of the wooded crags, with the sea by his side. Since that time how many
hearts have glowed, how many arms have been nerved at the remembrance of
the Pass of Thermopylae, and the defeat that was worth so much more than
a victory!

SECTION XII

HOME READING LIST AND GENERAL INDEX

". . . Forsooth he cometh unto you with a tale
which holdeth children from play, and old men
from the chimney corner; and, pretending no
more, doth intend the winning of the mind from
wickedness to virtue even as the child is often
brought to take most wholesome things by hiding
them in such others as have a pleasant
taste. . . ."

--Sir Philip Sidney, _An Apologie for Poetrie_.

SECTION XII. HOME READING LIST AND GENERAL INDEX

A HOME READING LIST

Children are such omnivorous readers that teachers and parents are
constantly at their wit's end, not