Another inscription, said to have been written by Simonides for the tombs of the heroes of Thermopylæ, 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 Of Herodotus.
On Phocis' shores the cavern's gloom
Imbrowns yon solitary tomb:
There, in the sad and silent grave
Repose the ashes of the brave
Who, when the Persian from afar
On Hellas poured the stream of war,
At Freedom's call, with martial pride,
For his loved country fought and died.
Seek'st thou the place where, 'midst the dead
The hero of the battle bled?
Yon sculptured lion, frowning near,
Points out Leonidas's bier.
—ANON.
The poet BYRON, who was peculiarly the friend of Greece, and an earnest admirer of both the genius and the heroic deeds of her sons, has written the following lines commemorating the glory of those who fell at Thermopylæ:
They fell devoted, but undying;
The very gale their names seemed sighing:
The waters murmured of their name;
The woods were peopled with their fame;
The silent pillar, lone and gray,
Claimed kindred with their sacred clay:
Their spirits wrapped the dusky mountain,
Their memory sparkled o'er the fountain;
The meanest rill, the mightiest river
Rolled mingling with their fame forever.
THE ABANDONMENT OF ATHENS.
While fighting was in progress at Thermopylæ, a Greek fleet, under the command of the Spartan Eurybi'ades, that had been sent to guard the Euboean Sea, encountered the Persian ships at Artemis'ium. In several engagements that occurred, the Athenian vessels, commanded by Themistocles, were especially distinguished; and although the contests with the enemy were not decisive, yet, says PLUTARCH, "they were of great advantage to the Greeks, who learned by experience that neither the number of ships, nor the beauty and splendor of their ornaments, nor the vaunting shouts and songs of the Persians, were anything dreadful to men who know how to fight hand-to-hand, and are determined to behave gallantly. These things they were taught to despise when they came to close action and grappled with the foe. Hence in this respect, and for this reason, Pindar's sentiments appear just, when he says of the fight at Artemisium,
"'Twas then that Athens the foundation laid
Of Liberty's fair structure.'"