olopians, Magnetians, Achaeans of Phthiotis, Enianians, Malians,
Locrians, and from most of the Boeotians. Unless it were the
insignificant Phocis, no hostile country seemed to intervene between the
place where his army lay and the great object of the expedition, Attica.
Xerxes, therefore, having first viewed the pass of Tempe, and seen with
his own eyes that no enemy lay encamped beyond, passed over the Olympic
range by a road cut through the woods by his army, and proceeded
southwards across Thessaly and Achaea Phthiotis into Malis, the fertile
plain at the mouth of the Spercheius river. Here, having heard that a
Greek force was in the neighborhood, he pitched his camp not far from
the small town of Trachis.

Thus far had the Greeks allowed the invader to penetrate their country
without offering him any resistance. Originally there had been an
intention of defending Thessaly, and an army under Evsenetus, a Spartan
polemarch, and Themistocles, the great Athenian, had proceeded to Tempe,
in order to cooperate with the Thessalians in guarding the pass. But the
discovery that the Olympic range could be crossed in the,place where
the army of Xerxes afterwards passed it had shown that the position was
untenable; and it had been then resolved that the stand should be
made at the next defensible position, Thermopylae. [PLATE LXII.] Here,
accordingly, a force was found--small, indeed, if it be compared with
the number of the assailants, but sufficient to defend such a position
as that where it was posted against the world in arms. Three hundred
Spartans, with their usual retinue of helots, 700 Lacedaemonians, other
Peloponnesians to the number of 2800, 1000 Phocians, the same number
of Locrians, 700 Thespians, and 400 Thebans, formed an army of 9000
men--quite as numerous a force as could be employed with any effect in
the defile they were sent to guard. The defile was a long and narrow
pass shut in between a high mountain, Callidromus, and the sea, and
crossed at one point by a line of wall in which was a single gateway.
Unless the command of the sea were gained, or another mode of crossing
the mountains discovered, the pass could scarcely be forced.

[Illustration: PLATE LXII.]

Xerxes, however, confident in his numbers--after waiting four days at
Trachis, probably in the hope that his fleet would join him--proceeded
on the fifth day to the assault. First the Medes and Cissians, then
the famous "Immortals" were sent in