sgrace for what his countrymen
regarded a base dereliction from duty in not sharing his comrade's fate.

There was also a story of another man, who had been sent away on some
mission into Thessaly, and who did not return until all was over; and
also of two others who had been sent to Sparta, and were returning when
they heard of the approaching conflict. One of them hastened into the
pass, and was killed with his companions. The other delayed, and was
saved. Whether any or all of these rumors were true, is not now
certain; there is, however, no doubt that, with at most a few exceptions
such as these, the whole three hundred were slain.

The Thebans, early in the conflict, went over in a body to the enemy.

Xerxes came after the battle to view the ground. It was covered with
many thousands of dead bodies, nearly all of whom, of course, were
Persians. The wall of the intrenchment was broken down, and the breaches
in it choked up by the bodies. The morasses made by the water of the
springs were trampled into deep mire, and were full of the mutilated
forms of men and of broken weapons. When Xerxes came at last to the body
of Leonidas, and was told that that was the man who had been the leader
of the band, he gloried over it in great exaltation and triumph. At
length he ordered the body to be decapitated, and the headless trunk to
be nailed to a cross.

Xerxes then commanded that a great hole should be dug, and ordered all
the bodies of the Persians that had been killed to be buried in it,
except only about a thousand, which he left upon the ground. The object
of this was to conceal the extent of the loss which his army had
sustained. The more perfectly to accomplish this end, he caused the
great grave, when it was filled up, to be strewed over with leaves, so
as to cover and conceal all indications of what had been done. This
having been carefully effected, he sent the message to the fleet, which
was alluded to at the close of the last chapter, inviting the officers
to come and view the ground.

The operations of the fleet described in the last chapter, and those of
the army narrated in this, took place, it will be remembered, at the
same time, and in the same vicinity too; for, by referring to the map,
it will appear that Thermopylae was upon the coast, exactly opposite to
the channel or arm of the sea lying north of Euboea, where the naval
contests had been waged; so that, while Xerxes had been making his
desperate e