|
At sunrise Xerxes made libations, after which he waited until the
time when the forum is wont to fill, and then began his advance.
Ephialtes had instructed him thus, as the descent of the mountain is
much quicker, and the distance much shorter, than the way round the
hills, and the ascent. So the barbarians under Xerxes began to draw
nigh; and the Greeks under Leonidas, as they now went forth
determined to die, advanced much further than on previous days, until
they reached the more open portion of the pass. Hitherto they had held
their station within the wall, and from this had gone forth to fight at
the point where the pass was the narrowest. Now they joined battle
beyond the defile, and carried slaughter among the barbarians, who
fell in heaps. Behind them the captains of the squadrons, armed with
whips, urged their men forward with continual blows. Many were thrust
into the sea, and there perished; a still greater number were trampled
to death by their own soldiers; no one heeded the dying. For the
Greeks, reckless of their own safety and desperate, since they knew
that, as the mountain had been crossed, their destruction was nigh at
hand, exerted themselves with the most furious valour against the barbarians.
|
|