dispersed each to their several
cities, while others of them were ready to remain there together with
Leonidas.

220. However it is reported also that Leonidas himself sent them away,
having a care that they might not perish, but thinking that it was not
seemly for himself and for the Spartans who were present to leave the
post to which they had come at first to keep guard there. I am inclined
rather to be of this latter opinion, 221 namely that because Leonidas
perceived that the allies were out of heart and did not desire to face
the danger with him to the end, he ordered them to depart, but held that
for himself to go away was not honourable, whereas if he remained, a
great fame of him would be left behind, and the prosperity of Sparta
would not be blotted out: for an oracle had been given by the Pythian
prophetess to the Spartans, when they consulted about this war at the
time when it was being first set on foot, to the effect that either
Lacedemon must be destroyed by the Barbarians, or their king must lose
his life. This reply the prophetess gave them in hexameter verses, and
it ran thus:

"But as for you, ye men who in wide-spaced Sparta inhabit,
Either your glorious city is sacked by the children of Perses,
Or, if it be not so, then a king of the stock Heracleian
Dead shall be mourned for by all in the boundaries of broad Lacedemon.
Him 222 nor the might of bulls nor the raging of lions shall hinder;
For he hath might as of Zeus; and I say he shall not be restrained,
Till one of the other of these he have utterly torn and divided." 223

I am of opinion that Leonidas considering these things and desiring to
lay up for himself glory above all the other Spartans, 224 dismissed the
allies, rather than that those who departed did so in such disorderly
fashion, because they were divided in opinion.

221. Of this the following has been to my mind a proof as convincing as
any other, namely that Leonidas is known to have endeavoured to dismiss
the soothsayer also who accompanied this army, Megistias the Acarnanian,
who was said to be descended from Melampus, that he might not perish
with them after he had declared from the victims that which was about
to come to pass for them. He however when he was bidden to go would
not himself depart, but sent away his son who was with him in the army,
besides whom he had no other child.

222. The allies then who were dismissed departed and went away, obeying
the