=71.= Brennus, a Gallic leader, with more than 200,000 men, marched through Thessaly, laying all waste with fire and sword. A furious battle took place at Thermopylæ, and the Gauls, at last, only gained the rear of the Greek army by the same mountain path which had admitted the troops of Xerxes two hundred years before. Brennus pushed on to plunder Delphi, but an army of 4,000, well posted upon the heights of Parnassus, withstood him with success; and a violent wintry storm, which confused and benumbed the assailants, convinced devout Greeks that Apollo was once more defending his sanctuary. The Gallic leader was severely wounded, and unwilling to survive his disgrace, put an end to his own life. His army broke up into a multitude of marauding bands, without order or discipline, and the greater part perished from cold, hunger, or battle. Their countrymen, however, established a kingdom in Thrace; and another band, invited into Asia Minor by Nicomedes, became possessed of a large tract of country, which received their name as Gala´tia. =72.= During the disorders in Macedonia, Sosthenes, an officer of noble birth, had been placed at the head of affairs, instead of Antipater, who was deposed for his incapacity. After the Gauls had retired, Antipater regained the throne. But Antigonus Gonatas, who had maintained himself as an independent prince in central and southern Greece, ever since the captivity of his father, Demetrius, now appeared with an army composed mainly of Gallic mercenaries, defeated Antipater, and gained possession of Macedonia. Antiochus Soter made war against him, but was opposed with so much energy that he acknowledged Antigonus as king, and gave him his sister Phila in marriage. But Antigonus was never acceptable to either Greeks or Macedonians, and when Pyrrhus, the most popular prince of his age, returned from Italy, the whole Macedonian army was ready to desert to his side. Antigonus was defeated, and for a year or more was a fugitive, B. C. 273-271. =73.= Pyrrhus was the greatest warrior and one of the best princes of his time—a time from which truth and fidelity seemed almost to have disappeared. He might have become the most powerful monarch in the world, if his perseverance had been equal to his talents and ambition. But instead of organizing the territory he possessed, he was ever thirsting for new conquests. In a war upon southern Greece he was repulsed from Sparta, and in attempting to seize Argos by night, he was killed by a tile thrown by a woman from a house-top.