Page:History of Greece Vol V.djvu/128

 104 fflSTORY OF GREECE. those who originally marched out of that peninsula under LeoD> Idas. Yet the Amphiktyonic assembly, when they furnished words to record this memorable exploit, ought not to have inv mortalized the Peloponnesians apart from their extra-Pelopon- nesian comrades, of merit fully equal, — especially the Thespians, who exhibited the same heroic self-devotion as Leonidas and his Spartans, without having been prepared for it by the same elabo- rate and iron discipline. "While this inscription was intended as a general commemoration of the exploit, there was another near it, alike simple and impressive, destined for the Spartan dead separately : " Stranger, tell the Lacedaemonians, that we lie here, in obedience to their orders." On the hillock within the pass, where this devoted band received their death-wounds, a monu- ment was erected, with a marble hon in honor of Leonidas ; dec- orated, apparently, with an epigram by the poet Simonides. That distinguished genius composed at least one ode, of which nothing but a splendid fragment now remains, to celebrate the glories of Thermopylae ; besides several epigrams, one of which was consecrated to the prophet Megistias, " who, though well aware of the fate coming upon him, would not desert the Spartan chiefs." CHAPTER XLI. BATTLE OF SALAMS.- RETREAT OF XERXES. The sentiment, aUke durable and unanimous, with which the Greeks of after-times looked back on the battle of Thermopylae, and which they have communicated to all subsequent readers, was that of just admiration for the courage and patriotism of Leonidas and his band. But among the contemporary Greeks that sentiment, though doubtless sincerely felt, was by no means predominant : it was overpowered by the more pressing emotions of disappointment and terror. So confident were the Spartans