The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [169]
16. Ephialtes had advised this because the descent of the mountain is much quicker, and the distance much shorter, than the way round the hills.
17. So the barbarians under Xerxes began to approach; and the Greeks under Leonidas, as they now went out determined to die,
18. Advanced much further than on previous days, until they reached the more open portion of the pass.
19. Hitherto they had held their station within the wall, and from this had sallied out to fight at the point where the pass was narrowest.
20. Now they joined battle beyond the defile, and made great slaughter among the barbarians, who fell in heaps.
21. Behind them the captains of the Persian squadrons, armed with whips, urged their men forward with continual blows.
22. Many were thrust into the sea, and there perished; a still greater number were trampled to death by their own soldiers;
23. No one heeded the dying. For the Greeks, reckless of their own safety and desperate,
24. Since they knew that, as the mountain had been crossed, their destruction was at hand,
25. Exerted themselves with the most furious valour against the barbarians.
26. By this time the spears of most of the Greeks were shivered, so with their swords they cut down the ranks of the Persians;
27. And here, as they strove, Leonidas fell fighting bravely, together with many other famous Spartans, whose names are imperishable on account of their great worthiness, all three hundred of them.
28. There fell too at the same time many famous Persians: among them, two sons of Darius, Abrocomes and Hyperanthes, his children by Phratagune, the daughter of Artanes.
29. And now there arose a fierce struggle between the Persians and the Lacedaemonians over the body of Leonidas, in which the Greeks four times drove back the enemy, and at last by their bravery succeeded in carrying away the body.
30. This combat was scarcely ended when the Persians with Ephialtes approached; and the Greeks, informed that the Persian elite troops were closing in behind them, made a change in the manner of their fighting.
31. Drawing back into the narrowest part of the pass, and retreating even behind the cross wall, they posted themselves on a hillock,
32. Where they stood drawn up together in one close body, except only the Thebans.
33. This hillock is at the entrance of the pass, where the stone lion now stands which was set up in honour of Leonidas.
34. Here the Greeks defended themselves to the last, such as still had swords using them, and the others resisting with their hands and teeth;
35. Till the barbarians, who in part had pulled down the wall and attacked them in front, in part had gone round, and now encircled them on every side,
36. Overwhelmed the remnant beneath showers of missiles.
Chapter 73
1. Thus nobly did the whole body of Lacedaemonians and Thespians behave;
2. But one man is said to have distinguished himself above the rest, namely, Dieneces the Spartan.
3. A speech he made before the Greeks fought the Persians remains on record.
4. One of the Trachinians told him, such was the number of the barbarians, that when they shot their arrows the sun would be darkened by their multitude.
5. Dieneces, not at all frightened at these words, answered, ‘Our Trachinian friend brings us excellent tidings.
6. ‘If the barbarians darken the sun, we shall have our fight in the shade.’
7. Next to Dieneces a pair of Spartan brothers are reputed to have made themselves conspicuous: they were Alpheus and Maro, the sons of Orsiphantus.
8. There was also a Thespian who gained greater glory than any of his countrymen: he was Dithyrambus, the son of Harmatidas.
9. The slain were buried where they fell, and in their honour, nor less in honour of those who died before Leonidas sent the allies away, an inscription was set up, which said:
10. ‘Here did four thousand men from Pelops’ land/against three hundred thousand bravely stand.’ This was in honour of all.
11. Another was for the Spartans alone: ‘Go, stranger, and to Lacedaemon tell/that here, obeying her orders, we fell.’
12. These