in to fall upon the brave defenders of Thermopylae.

The Greeks in the pass knew when morning dawned of the danger that
awaited them, for Megistias the soothsayer told of it, and certain
messengers running before the Persians confirmed his prophecy. "Then the
Greeks held a council, considering what they should do; and they were
divided; for some would not leave the post where they had been set, and
others were very eager to depart. And when the council was broken up,
some departed, going each to their own cities, and others made ready to
abide in the pass with Leonidas. Some say, indeed, that Leonidas sent
away them that departed, having a care for their safety; but it did not
become him and the Spartans that were with him, he said, to leave their
post that they had come to keep at the first. And indeed it seems fit to
be believed that Leonidas, seeing that the others were faint-hearted and
would not willingly abide the peril, bade them go, but that he himself
held it to be a shameful thing to depart. For he knew that he should get
for himself great glory by abiding at his post, and that the prosperity
of Sparta should not be destroyed."

The allies, therefore, with the exception of the Thespians and the
Thebans, departed, and the brave remainder prepared themselves for their
death. Hitherto, Leonidas had stood on the defensive in order to spare
the lives of his men, but now, knowing that death must come, he desired
only to work as great havoc among the Persians as possible, and he
therefore marched his men out before the wall and fell upon the vanguard
of the Persian army. It does not seem strange that the hired soldiers
should have feared to meet this little band of Greeks, and indeed it is
told that the Persian captains were obliged to go behind their troops
and with whips scourge them to the fight. Many of the Persians were
forced into the sea and so died; some were trodden under foot, and
thousands fell by the hands of the Greeks. But it was not only the
Persians who fell in this fierce struggle; Leonidas was one of the first
who was slain, and many other Spartans fell with him.

But the death of their leader did not demoralize the Greeks--it only
made them more reckless and more desperate. At length they saw that the
end was close at hand; the "Immortals," who had come in the night over
the mountain, had arrived, and were ready to fall upon their rear.
Closely pressed by the Persians, they drew back to the narrow