Eurip. Iphig. in Taur. 104.
“For to fly is not tolerable, neither has it been our custom!”
“Each gains and yields by turns—the sod is dyed with gore.”
This action between Ross’s brigade and Clauzel’s second division was one of the most terrific during the war. “The fight,” says Napier “raged close and desperate on the crest of the position, charge succeeded charge, and each side yielded and recovered by turns.”
XLV. “So stood Leonides, with Persia’s life-blood red.”
ἐν Σπάρτᾳ δ’ ἐρέω
πρὸ Κιθαιρῶνος μάχαν:
ταῖσι Μήδειοι κάμον ἀγκυλότοξοι:
Pind. Pyth. i.
“In Sparta I will sing the fight before Cithæron, where the Median bowmen fell.” For the details of the battle, and of the Trachinian treason, see Herodotus, lib. 7. Pindar does not name Thermopylæ, but Cithæron being in its immediate neighbourhood would make the allusion at once intelligible. Pindar with instinctive good taste prefers the name “Cithæron” to that of “Thermopylæ,” the latter name, though to us so magnificent, sounding somewhat vulgar to Greek ears, as indicating the θερμὰ λουτρὰ, or hot-baths from which it was derived.