Thus far had the Greeks allowed the invader to penetrate their country without offering him any resistance.  Originally there had been an intention of defending Thessaly, and an army under Evsenetus, a Spartan polemarch, and Themistocles, the great Athenian, had proceeded to Tempe, in order to cooperate with the Thessalians in guarding the pass.  But the discovery that the Olympic range could be crossed in the,place where the army of Xerxes afterwards passed it had shown that the position was untenable; and it had been then resolved that the stand should be made at the next defensible position, Thermopylae. [PLATE LXII.] Here, accordingly, a force was found—­small, indeed, if it be compared with the number of the assailants, but sufficient to defend such a position as that where it was posted against the world in arms.  Three hundred Spartans, with their usual retinue of helots, 700 Lacedaemonians, other Peloponnesians to the number of 2800, 1000 Phocians, the same number of Locrians, 700 Thespians, and 400 Thebans, formed an army of 9000 men—­quite as numerous a force as could be employed with any effect in the defile they were sent to guard.  The defile was a long and narrow pass shut in between a high mountain, Callidromus, and the sea, and crossed at one point by a line of wall in which was a single gateway.  Unless the command of the sea were gained, or another mode of crossing the mountains discovered, the pass could scarcely be forced.

[Illustration:  PLATE LXII.]

Xerxes, however, confident in his numbers—­after waiting four days at Trachis, probably in the hope that his fleet would join him—­proceeded on the fifth day to the assault.  First the Medes and Cissians, then the famous “Immortals” were sent into the jaws of the pass against the immovable foe; but neither detachment could make any impression.  The long spears, large shields, and heavy armor of the Greeks, their skilful tactics, and steady array, were far more than a match for the inferior equipments and discipline of the Asiatics.  Though the attack was made with great gallantry, both on this day and the next, it failed to produce the slightest effect.  Very few of the Greeks were either slain or wounded; and it seemed as if the further advance of a million of men was to be stopped by a force less than a hundredth part of their number.

But now information reached Xerxes which completely changed the face of affairs.  There was a rough mountain-path leading from Trachis up the gorge of the Asopus and across Callidromus to the rear of the Greek position, which had been unknown to the Greeks when they decided on making their first stand at Thermopylae, and which they only discovered when their plans no longer admitted of alteration.  It was, perhaps, not much more than a goat-track, and apparently they had regarded it as scarcely practicable, since they had thought its defence might be safely entrusted to a thousand Phocians.  Xerxes, however, on learning