Pass, and for that battle they are making ready, for it is our country fashion to comb and tend our hair when we are about to put our heads in peril.'
Xerxes would not believe Demaratus. He waited four days, and then, in a rage, bade his best warriors, the Medes and Cissians, bring the Greeks into his presence. The Medes, who were brave men, and had their defeat at Marathon, ten years before, to avenge, fell on, but their spears were short, their shields were thin, and they could not break a way into the stubborn forest of bronze and steel. In wave upon wave, all day long, they dashed against the Greeks, and left their best lying at the mouth of the Pass. 'Thereby was it made clear to all men, and not least to the king, that men are many, but heroes are few.'
Next day Xerxes called on his bodyguard, the Ten Thousand Immortals, and they came to close quarters, but got no more glory than the Medes. Thrice the King leaped from his chair in dismay as thrice the Greeks drove the barbarians in rout. And on the third day they had no better fortune.
But there was a man, a Malian, whose name is a scorn to this hour; he was called Epialtes. He betrayed to Xerxes the secret of the mountain path, probably for money. He later fled to Thessaly with a price on his head, but returned to Anticyra, and there he was slain by Athenades. Then Xerxes was glad beyond measure when he heard of the path, and sent his men along the path by night. They found the Phocians guarding it, but the Phocians disgracefully fled to the higher part of the mountain. The Persians, disdaining to pursue them, marched to the pass behind the Spartan camp, and the Greeks were now surrounded in van and rear. But news of this had come to Leonidas, and his army was not of one mind as to what they should do. Some were for retreating and abandoning a position which it was now impossible to hold. Leonidas bade them depart; but for him and his countrymen it was not honourable to turn their backs on any foe. He sent away the soothsayer, or prophet, Megistias, but he returned, and bade his son go home. The Thespians, to their immortal honour, chose to bide the brunt with Leonidas. There thus remained what was left of the Three Hundred, their personal attendants, seven hundred Thespians, and some Thebans, about whose conduct it is difficult to speak with certainty, as accounts differ. Leonidas. on this last day of his life, did not wait to be attacked in front and rear, but, sallying into the open, himself assailed the Persians. They drove the barbarians
