[128] Herodot. vii, 132; Diodor. xi, 3.
[129] Herodot. viii, 15-60. Compare Isokratês, Panegyric, Or. iv, p. 59.
I shall have occasion presently to remark the revolution which took place in Athenian feeling on this point between the Persian and Peloponnesian wars.
[130] The word Pass commonly conveys the idea of a path inclosed between mountains. In this instance it is employed to designate a narrow passage, having mountains on one side only, and water (or marsh ground) on the other.
[131] According to one of the numerous hypotheses for refining religious legend into matter of historical and physical fact, Hêraklês as supposed to have been an engineer, or water-finder, in very early times,—δεινὸς περὶ ζήτησιν ὑδάτων καὶ συναγωγήν. See Plutarch, Cum principibus viris philosopho esse disserendum, c. i, p. 776.
[132] About Thermopylæ, see Herodot. vii, 175, 176, 199, 200.
Ἡ δὲ αὖ διὰ Τρηχῖνος ἔσοδος ἐς τὴν Ἑλλάδα ἔστι, τῇ στεινότατον, ἡμίπλεθρον· οὐ μέντοι κατὰ τοῦτό γ’ ἔστι τὸ στεινότατον τῆς χώρης τῆς ἄλλης, ἀλλ’ ἔμπροσθέ τε Θερμοπυλέων καὶ ὄπισθε· κατά τε Ἀλπηνοὺς, ὄπισθε ἐόντας, ἐοῦσα ἁμαξιτὸς μούνη· καὶ ἔμπροσθε κατὰ Φοίνικα ποταμὸν, ἁμαξιτὸς ἄλλη μούνη.
Compare Pausanias, vii, 15, 2. τὸ στένον τὸ Ἡρακλείας τε μεταξὺ καὶ Θερμοπυλέων; Strabo, ix, p. 429; and Livy, xxxvi, 12.
Herodotus says about Thermopylæ—στεινοτέρη γὰρ ἐφαίνετο ἐοῦσα τῆς εἰς Θεσσαλίην, i. e. than the defile of Tempê.
If we did not possess the clear topographical indications given by Herodotus, it would be almost impossible to comprehend the memorable event here before us; for the configuration of the coast, the course of the rivers, and the general local phenomena, have now so entirely changed, that modern travellers rather mislead than assist. In the interior of the Maliac gulf, three or four miles of new land have been formed by the gradual accumulation of river deposit, so that the gulf itself is of much less extent, and the mountain bordering the gate of Thermopylæ is not now near to the sea. The river Spercheius has materially altered its course; instead of flowing into the sea in an easterly direction considerably north of Thermopylæ, as it did in the time of Herodotus, it has been diverted southward in the lower part of its course, with many windings, so as to reach the sea much south of the pass: while the rivers Dyras, Melas, and Asôpus, which in the time of Herodotus all reached the sea separately between the mouth of Spercheius and Thermopylæ, now do not reach the sea at all, but fall into the Spercheius. Moreover, the perpetual flow of the thermal springs has tended to accumulate deposit and to raise the level of the soil generally throughout the pass. Herodotus seems to consider the road between the two gates of Thermopylæ as bearing north and south, whereas it would bear more nearly east and west. He knows nothing of the appellation of Callidromus, applied by Livy and Strabo to an undefined portion of the eastern ridge of Œta.