1. The 1st Mound.
2. Upper Mill.
3. Modern Baths.
4. Great Ravine.
[To face page [311].
THE LAST FIGHT.
“So the barbarians under Xerxes advanced; and the Greeks with Leonidas, as though going to meet their death, came out much more into the wider part of the pass than they had done hitherto”[124]
“Up to this time they had held their station within the wall, and from this had gone out to fight where the path was narrowest.”[125]
“On this occasion, however, the battle took place outside the narrows, and numbers of the Persians fell. For the commanders standing behind the companies with whips in their hands lashed on every man, continually urging them forward. Many of them fell into the sea and were drowned, and a still larger number were trampled to death; but no one heeded the dying. For as the Greeks knew the fate which awaited them at the hands of those who were making the circuit of the mountain, they displayed with recklessness and fury the most desperate valour against the barbarians.”[126]
“By that time the spears of most of them were broken, but they slaughtered the Persians with their swords. In this melée fell Leonidas, the bravest of men, and other famous Spartans with him, whose names I found out, for they deserved record; in fact, I discovered the names of all the three hundred.”[127]