the existence of the track, resolved at once to make trial of it.  His Persian soldiers were excellent mountaineers.  He ordered Hydarnes to take the “Immortals,” and, guided by a native, to proceed along the path by night, and descend with early dawn into the rear of the Greeks, who would then be placed between two fires.  The operation was performed with complete success.  The Phocian guard, surprised at the summit, left the path free while they sought a place of safety.  The Greeks in the pass below, warned during the night of their danger, in part fled, in part resolved on death.  When morning came, Leonidas, at the head of about half his original army, moved forward towards the Malian plain, and there met the advancing Persians.  A bloody combat ensued, in which the Persians lost by far the greater number; but the ranks of the Greeks were gradually thinned, and they were beaten back step by step into the narrowest part of the pass, where finally they all perished, except the four hundred Thebans, who submitted and were made prisoners.

So terminated the first struggle on the soil of Greece, between the invaders and the invaded.  It seemed to promise that, though at vast cost, Persia would be victorious.  If her loss in the three days’ combat was 20,000 men, as Herodotus states, yet, as that of her enemy was 4000, the proportionate advantage was on her side.

But, for the conquest of such a country as Greece, it was requisite, not only that the invader should succeed on land, but also that he should be superior at sea.  Xerxes had felt this, and had brought with him a fleet, calculated, as he imagined, to sweep the Greek navy from the Egean.  As far as the Pagasaean Gulf, opposite the northern extremity of Euboea, his fleet had advanced without meeting an enemy.  It had encountered one terrible storm off the coast of Magnesia, and had lost 400 vessels; but this loss was scarcely felt in so vast an armament.  When from Aphetse, at the mouth of the gulf, the small Greek fleet, amounting to no more than 271 vessels, was seen at anchor off Artemisium, the only fear which the Persian commanders entertained was lest it should escape them.  They at once detached 200 vessels to sail round the Coast coast of Euboea, and cut off the possibility of retreat.  When, however, these vessels were all lost in a storm, and when in three engagements on three successive days, the Greek fleet showed itself fully able to contend against the superior numbers of its antagonist, the Persians themselves could not fail to see that their naval supremacy was more than doubtful.  The fleet at Artemisium was not the entire Greek naval force; on another occasion it might be augumented, while their own could scarcely expect to receive reinforcements.  The fights at Artemisium foreshadowed a day when the rival fleets would no longer meet and part on equal terms, but Persia would have to acknowledge herself inferior.