men in all.

[Illustration: 227.jpg A TRIREME IN MOTION]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin: the left portion is a free
reproduction of a photograph of the bas-relief of the
Acropolis; the right, of the picture of Pozzo. The two
partly overlap one another, and give both together the idea
of a trireme going at full speed.

The troops which they could bring up to oppose these hordes were,
indeed, so slender in number, when reckoned severally, that all hope
of success seemed impossible. Xerxes once more summoned the Greeks to
submit, and most of the republics appeared inclined to comply; Athens
and Sparta alone refused, but from different motives. Athens knew that,
after the burning of Sardes and the victory of Marathon, they could hope
for no pity, and she was well aware that Persia had decreed her complete
destruction; the Athenians were familiar with the idea of a struggle in
which their very existence was at stake, and they counted on the navy
with which Themistocles had just provided them to enable them to emerge
from the affair with honour. Sparta was not threatened with the same
fate, but she was at that time the first military state in Greece, and
the whole of the Peloponnesus acknowledged her sway; in the event of her
recognising the suzerainty of the barbarians, the latter would not fail
to require of her the renunciation of her hegemony, and she would then
be reduced to the same rank as her former rivals, Tegea and Argos.
Athens and Sparta therefore united to repulse the common enemy, and the
advantage that this alliance afforded them was so patent that none of
the other states ventured to declare openly for the great king. Argos
and Crete, the boldest of them, announced that they would observe
neutrality; the remainder, Thessalians, Boeotians, and people
of Corcyra, gave their support to the national cause, but did so
unwillingly.

Xerxes crossed the Hellespont in the spring of 480, by two bridges of
boats thrown across it between Abydos and Sestos; he then formed his
force into three columns, and made his way slowly along the coast,
protected on the left by the whole of his fleet from any possible attack
by the squadrons of the enemy. The Greeks had three lines of defence
which they could hold against him, the natural strength of which nearly
compensated them for the inferiority of their forces; these were Mount
Olympus, Mount OEta, and the isthmus of Corinth. The first, however, was
untena