Page:Van Loon--The Story of Mankind.djvu/116

78 A small detachment of Spartans under Leonidas had been told to guard the narrow road between the high mountains and the sea which connected Thessaly with the southern provinces. Leonidas obeyed his orders. He fought and held the pass with unequalled bravery. But a traitor by the name of Ephialtes who knew the little byways of Malis guided a regiment of Persians through the hills and made it possible for them to attack Leonidas in the rear. Near the Warm Wells—the Thermopylae—a terrible battle was fought. When night came Leonidas and his faithful soldiers lay dead under the corpses of their enemies.

THE BATTLE OF THERMOPYLAE

But the pass had been lost and the greater part of Greece fell into the hands of the Persians. They marched upon Athens, threw the garrison from the rocks of the Acropolis and