Thermopylæ

(literally, “the hot gates”). A famous pa leading from The aly into Locris, and the only road by which an invading army can penetrate from Northern into Southern Greece. Leonidas, at the head of 300 Spartans and 700 Thespians, at this pa withstood the whole force of the Persians during three days, August 7, 8, and 9, 480 B.C. , when Ephialtes, a Trachinian, perfidiously leading the enemy by a secret path up the mountains, brought them to the rear of the Greeks, who, thus placed between two a ailants, perished gloriously on heaps of their slaughtered foes. One Greek only returned home, and he was received with reproaches for having fled. Here also, Antiochus the Great, king of Syria, was defeated by the Romans, 191 B.C.