Page:A General Sketch of Political History from the Earlist Times.djvu/60

 48 THE GLORY OF GREECE AND RISE OF ROME would find it very difficult to keep large armies in Europe, seeing that their only road into Europe lay across the straits called the Hellespont, which we call the Dardanelles. Never had there been seen in the world an army and a fleet so huge as those which Xerxes gathered for the smiting of the Greeks. A great bridge of boats was built across the Hellespont for the army to march over. This time the Greeks The Defence of the south were united. The mountains made it of Greece. impossible for the Persian host to get into Greece except by way of certain passes. The furthest north was the pass of Tempe in Thessaly. Further south came the pass of Thermo- pylae. If the Persians got through Thermopylae, the next place at which they could be stopped was the Isthmus of Corinth ; and there was always a danger that whatever spot the Greeks chose to block the advance of the great land army, the Persian fleet might be able to effect a landing so as to take them in the rear. The Greeks then collected a very powerful fleet ; but first they had to give up the idea of protecting Thessaly, because they found that there were passes by which the Persians would be able to get round and attack their rear at Tempe. So a force under a Spartan King Leonidas was sent to hold the narrow pass of Thermopylae, where a very small body of men could easily keep an immense number of enemies at bay. Meanwhile, most of the Peloponnesian armies were gathering to guard the Isthmus of Corinth, or were on board the fleet. The fleet lay at Artemisium on the north of Euboea, where it met the Persian fleets and beat them off. But in the meantime Leonidas found that there was another pass by which the Persians could get round on his rear, so that his little army was quite certain to be crushed. Therefore, he sent away all who did not Thermopylae. . J choose rather to remain and die gloriously. Three hundred Spartans and seven hundred men of Thespiae stood fast. They held the pass against the Persian attack till they learnt that another column had made its way round to their rear. Then they marched out of the pass, and fell upon the countless hosts in the open ground, where after a mighty slaughter they were cut to pieces. So now the whole country lay open to the invaders as far as the Isthmus of Corinth, and the Greek fleet drew back to