had found out that there was a very steep narrow mountain path
along the bed of a torrent, by which it was possible to cross from
one territory to the other without going round this marshy coast
road.

This was, therefore, an excellent place to defend. The Greek
ships were all drawn up on the further side of Euboea to prevent
the Persian vessels from getting into the strait and landing men
beyond the pass, and a division of the army was sent off to guard
the Hot Gates. The council at the Isthmus did not know of the
mountain pathway, and thought that all would be safe as long as
the Persians were kept out of the coast path.

The troops sent for this purpose were from different cities,
and amounted to about 4,000 who were to keep the pass against two
millions. The leader of them was Leonidas, who had newly become
one of the two kings of Sparta, the city that above all in Greece
trained its sons to be hardy soldiers, dreading death infinitely
less than shame. Leonidas had already made up his mind that the
expedition would probably be his death, perhaps because a prophecy
had been given at the Temple at Delphi that Sparta should be saved
by the death of one of her kings of the race of Hercules. He was
allowed by law to take with him 300 men, and these he chose most
carefully, not merely for their strength and courage, but selecting
those who had sons, so that no family might be altogether destroyed.
These Spartans, with their helots or slaves, made up his own share
of the numbers, but all the army was under his generalship. It is
even said that the 300 celebrated their own funeral rites before
they set out lest they should be deprived of them by the enemy,
since, as we have already seen, it was the Greek belief that the