3. First Mound.
Sulphur Deposit in foreground.
[To face page [312].
THE TOMB OF THE FALLEN.
At the present day the reed-cutters in the marsh at the west gate suffer from this disease.
H. vii. 233.
The Theban contingent did not take any part in the last battle on the mound. When the Greeks retreated from the broader part of the pass, the Thebans remained behind and surrendered. It is significant to note that this surrender was made at the time when the Greeks were made aware that the division of Hydarnes was going to attack them in the rear.
It was probably years afterwards, when Herodotus visited the scene of the battle, that he made a copy of the inscription which was engraved on the monument raised on the mound to the memory of the Peloponnesian Greeks who had fallen. Its words summarized, no doubt, the impression which the battle had made on the Greek world as a whole.
Their memory is recorded in the lines:—
“Here, with three hundred myriads, once fought