That here, obedient to their laws, we lie.

Another inscription, said to have been written by Simonides for
the tombs of the heroes of Thermopylae, is as follows:

Happy they, the chosen brave,
Whom Destiny, whom Valor led
To their consecrated grave
'Mid Thessalia's mountains dread.
Their sepulchre's a holy shrine,
Their epitaph, the engraven line
Recording former deeds divine;
And Pity's melancholy wail
Is changed to hymns of praise that load the evening gale.

Entombed in noble deed's they're laid--
Nor silent rust, nor Time's inexorable hour,
Shall e'er have power
To rend that shroud which veils their hallowed shade.
Hellas mourns the dead
Sunk in their narrow grave;
But thou, dark Sparta's chief, whose bosom bled
First in the battle's wave,
Bear witness that they fell as best beseems the brave.

Leonidas himself fell in the plain, and his body was carried
into the defile by his followers. He was buried at the north
entrance to the pass, and over his grave was erected a mound,
on which was placed the figure of a lion sculptured in stone.
The sculptured lion marked the grave of the hero down to the time