‘To thy enemies, O king, laden with corn,’ answered his anxious councillors.
‘Why, we are going thither also,’ said the king. ‘What harm do they do by taking corn for me?’
Now that the Persians were actually at hand the Spartans and Athenians summoned the Greek states to a council of war to be held at the Isthmus of Corinth. But some of the states were afraid, and instead of attending the council they sent earth and water to Xerxes.
Thessaly, in the north, would be the first to suffer from the invading army. So a Greek force was sent to the Pass of Tempe, between Mount Olympus and Mount Ossa, to try to stop the advance of the Persians.
But there were other ways by which the enemy could slip past the Greeks, so after a time they determined to withdraw from Thessaly. The northern people, being thus left defenceless, hastened to submit to Xerxes while there was still time.
CHAPTER XLVI
‘THE BRAVEST MEN OF ALL HELLAS’
Through the Pass of Thermopylae lay the entrance from the north to the south of Greece. It was this pass that the Greeks determined to hold against the Persians when they withdrew from the Pass of Tempe.
The Pass of Thermopylae was about a mile long and the narrow road ran between the mountains and the sea. At each end of the pass the mountains were sheer cliffs, descending so close to the sea that the only pathway was a mere strip of sand.
To enter the pass, at either end, it was necessary to go through a narrow entrance called Pylae or the Gates. In the road between the Pylae or Gates there were hot springs. The Greek word for hot is thermos, and that is how the pass came to be named Thermopylae or Hot-Gates.