But, like the
Spanish Armada against England two thousand years later, this Persian
host was very much stronger ashore than afloat. Its army was so vast
that it covered the country like a swarm of locusts. At the
world-famous pass of Thermopylae the Spartan king, Leonidas, waited for
the Persians. Xerxes sent a summons asking the Greeks to surrender
their arms. "Come and take them," said Leonidas. Then wave after wave
of Persians rushed to the attack, only to break against the dauntless
Greeks. At last a vile traitor told Xerxes of another pass (which the
Greeks had not men enough to hold, though it was on their flank). He
thus got the chance of forcing them either to retreat or be cut off.
Once through this pass the Persians overran the country; and all the
Spartans at Thermopylae died fighting to the last.
Only the Grecian fleet remained. It was vastly out-numbered by the
Persian fleet. But it was manned by patriots trained to fight on the
water; while the Persians themselves were nearly all landsmen, and so
had to depend on the Phoenicians and colonial Greek seamen, who were
none too eager for the fray.
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