Page:Greece from the Coming of the Hellenes to AD. 14.djvu/278

248 came not only a decline in literature and art, but a change in their central home to such places as Pergamus, Alexandria, or Syracuse.

Yet in spite of this decline in vigour, the Greeks showed in the presence of the next great national danger that they had not quite forgotten their ancient valour. In B.C. 280 a horde of Celts (Gauls), numbering, say the historians (with no doubt some exaggeration), 300,000 souls, crossed the Alps into Pannonia, and there divided into two hosts for the invasion of Macedonia and Greece. The next year Macedonia and Thrace were overrun, the king (Ptolemy Ceraunus) killed, and the country everywhere ravaged and plundered. These Celts appear to have gone back home for the winter, but the next year a horde of over 150,000 foot and 20,000 horse entered Greece. The danger called forth almost for the last time a combined movement of Greek states in defence of freedom. The Barbarians marched down to Thermopylae, which was being held by a combined army of Athenians, Boeotians, Phocians, Megarians, and Aetolians, supported by a fleet off the shore. The Gauls discovered the path over Mount Callidromus by which Leonidas had of old been surrounded; but the Greeks defended themselves with courage, and were able to get on board their ships in safety. The Gauls, however, had won the pass, and thence, like one column of Xerxes' army, made for Delphi, attracted by the report of the immense wealth stored there. The repulse which they met with at Delphi was attributed, like that of the troops of Xerxes, to the direct interposition of the god and the