Hellespont, and moved slowly through Thrace, Macedonia and Thessaly; while the fleet, moving on the coast circuit of the same countries, avoided the perilous promontory of Mount Athos by cutting a canal. {1573} The Greeks had determined at first to make their stand against the invaders in Thessaly, at the vale of Tempe; but they found the post untenable and were persuaded, instead, to guard the narrower Pass of Thermopylæ. It was there that the Persians, arriving at Trachis, near the Malian gulf, found themselves faced by a small body of Greeks. The spot is thus described by Herodotus: "As for the entrance into Greece by Trachis, it is, at its narrowest point, about fifty feet wide. This, however, is not the place where the passage is most contracted; for it is still narrower a little above and a little below Thermopylae. At Alpeni, which is lower down than that place, it is only wide enough for a single carriage; and up above, at the river Phœnix, near the town called Anthela, it is the same. West of Thermopylæ rises a lofty and precipitous hill, impossible to climb, which runs up into the chain of Œta; while to the east the road is shut in by the sea and by marshes. In this place are the warm springs, which the natives call 'The Cauldrons'; and above them stands an altar sacred to Hercules. A wall had once been carried across the opening; and in this there had of old times been a gateway. … King Xerxes pitched his camp in the region of Malis called Trachinia, while on their side the Greeks occupied the straits. These straits the Greeks in general call Thermopylæ (the Hot Gates); but the natives and those who dwell in the neighbourhood call them Pylæ (the Gates). … The Greeks who at this spot awaited the coming of Xerxes were the following:—From Sparta, 300 men-at-arms; from Arcadia, 1,000 Tegeans and Mantineans, 500 of each people; 120 Orchomenians, from the Arcadian Orchomenus; and 1,000 from other cities; from Corinth, 400 men; from Phlius, 200; and from Mycenæ 80. Such was the number from the Peloponnese. There were also present, from Bœotia, 700 Thespians and 400 Thebans. Besides these troops, the Locrians of Opus and the Phocians had obeyed the call of their countrymen, and sent, the former all the force they had, the latter 1,000 men. … The various nations had each captains of their own under whom they served; but the one to whom all especially looked up, and who had the command of the entire force, was the Lacedæmonian, Leonidas. … The force with Leonidas was sent forward by the Spartans in advance of their main body, that the sight of them might encourage the allies to fight, and hinder them from going over to the Medes, as it was likely they might have done had they seen Sparta backward. They intended presently, when they had celebrated the Carneian