confidence of the Persian monarch was changed into despondence
and perplexity.

While in the uncertainty caused by these repeated failures to
force a passage, Xerxes learned, from a Greek traitor, of a
secret path over the mountains, by which he was able to throw
a force of twenty thousand men into the rear of the brave
defenders of the pass. Leonidas, seeing that his post was no
longer tenable, now dismissed all his allies that desired to
retire, and retained only three hundred fellow-Spartans, with
some Thespians and Thebans--in all about one thousand men. He
would have saved two of his kinsmen, by sending them with messages
to Sparta; but the one said he had come to bear arms, not to
carry letters, and the other that his deeds would tell all that
Sparta desired to know. Leonidas did not wait for an attack, but
sallying forth from the pass, and falling suddenly upon the
Persians, he penetrated to the very center of their host, where
the battle raged furiously, and two of the brothers of Xerxes
were slain. Then the surviving Greeks, with the exception of
the Thebans, fell back within the pass and took their final stand
upon a hillock, where they fought with the valor of desperation
until every man was slain. The Thebans, however, who from the first
had been distrusted by Leonidas, threw down their arms early in
the fight, and begged for quarter.

The conflict itself, and the glory of the struggle on the part
of the Spartans, have been favorite themes with the poets of
succeeding ages. The following description is by HAYGARTH:

Long and doubtful was the fight;