Page:History of Greece Vol V.djvu/97

 BATTLES OF THERMOPYL^ AND ARTEMISIUM. 73 impracticable, at the same time building a wall across it near to the western gate. They had done this in order to keep off the attacks of the Thessalians, who had been trying to extend their conquests southward and eastward. The warm springs, here as in other parts of Greece, were consecrated to Herakles,i whose legendary exploits and sufferings ennobled all the surrounding region, — mount CEta, Trachis, cape Kenoeum, Lichades islands, the river Dyras : some fragments of these legends have been transmitted and adorned by the genius of Sophokles, in his drama of t-he Trachinian maidens. Such was the general scene — two narrow openings with an intermediate mile of enlarged road and hot springs between them — which passed in ancient times by the significant name of ThermopyliB, the Hot Gates ; or sometimes, more briefly, Pylae — The Gates. At a point also near Trachis, between the moun- tains and the sea, about two miles outside or westward of Ther- mopylas, the road was hardly less narrow, but it might be turaed by marching to the westward, since the adjacent mountains were lower, and presented less difficulty of transit ; while at Ther- mopylas itself, the overhanging projection of mount CEta was steep, woody, and impracticable, leaving access, from Thessaly into Lokris and the territories southeast of CEta, only through the strait gate ; 2 save and except an unfrequented as well as cir- ________ . 9 — ' According to one of the numerous hypotheses for refining religious legend into matter of historical and physical fact, Herakles was supposed to have been an engineer, or water-finder, in very early times, — deivog nepl ^TjTTjaiv vduTuv Kal avvayuyriv. See Plutarch, Cum principibus viris phi- losopho esse disserendum, c. i, p. 776. 'H (5' av 6/.U. Tpiixlvoc eao6o^ ic '^fjv 'EAAarfa eari, Ty cTEivoTarov, f//j,tTr2,e- '9pov ■ oil fxEVTOi Kara tovto y' earc to arecvoTarov tjjq X^PV? ''W fJ-^^VCt ^^^ e/iTzpocy&e re Qepfio7vv7,£uv Kal oTtic'&e • Kara re 'AA7rj?vot)f, onLad^e tovrag, iovaa u/xa^iToc [iovvtj • Kal E/nrpooOe kutu ^oiviKa TroTa/j.dv, u/ia^iTog^ uXkri UOVVT). Compare Pausanias, vii, 1 5, 2. rb arevov to 'HpaK?iei.ag ts [XETa^v Kal QEpixonvliuv ; Strabo, ix, p. 429 ; and Livy, xxxvi, 12. Herodotus says about Themiopyloe — oteivotept} yap kaivETo iovaa t^{ elg QEaaalirjv, i. e. than the defile of Tempe. If we did not possess the clear topographical indications given by Herod ©lus, it would be almost impossible to comprehend the memorable event VOL. V. 4
 * About Thermopylae, see Herodot. vii, 175, 176, 199, 200.