In the forenoon the Persians began a double attack, in front and in rear. They had seen such proofs of Greek prowess that the men had to be driven into battle by the whip. As for the Greeks, they changed their tactics. Leaving the pass of the Hot Springs and the wall, they advanced into the open space. Hope of escape or victory had been given up. They would fight where they could sell their lives most dearly. And dearly did they sell them. Crowds of the Persians fell; many were trampled under foot by their comrades; many more were thrust into the marsh that bordered the road on the side of the sea. Among the slain were two brothers of the king. The Spartans and Thespians fought till their spears were broken. Leonidas seems to have fallen early in the day, and there was a furious struggle for the possession of his body. Four times did the barbarians carry it off, and four times was it recovered. As the day drew on the Immortals came upon the scene. Aware of their approach, the Greeks retreated to the pass and prolonged their resistance to the very uttermost. When their weapons failed them they used their hands and even their teeth. But the Persians now surrounded them and showered arrows and all kinds of missiles upon them. They perished to a man. One more name from among the three hundred Spartans must be preserved--Dieneces, who seems to have been a wit as well as a warrior. When a man of Trachis told him that the Persians were so numerous that their arrows would darken the sun, "'Tis well," he replied, "stranger; then we shall fight in the shade." One of the contingent was absent. He and a comrade had been lying sick of ophthalmia at a neighbouring village. They could not agree as to what should be done. One buckled on his armour and bade his attendant helot lead him--for he could not see--to the battlefield. The helot did so, and then turned and fled. His master plunged into the thick of the fight and fell. The other sick man returned to Sparta. There no one would give him light to kindle his fire, or speak to him. He wiped away the reproach by falling, after prodigies of valour, at Platæa. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 1: Canon Rawlinson does not show himself as acute as usual when he suggests that this splendid resolve of the Thespians was due to an ambition of dispossessing Thebes from the headship of the Bœotian confederacy. Mr. Grote's remark that they knew that they must be left homeless is more to the point.] III IN THE STRAITS While the army of the allied Greeks was holding the pass of Thermopylæ, their fleet occupied Artemisium. This was a promontory at the northern end of the island of Eubœa, a small stretch of coast on either side of the actual cape being known by the same name. The Persian attack was being made both by land and sea, and the Greek plan of defence was to check it at two points which were as nearly as possible in a line.