Though the resolution of the Greek deputies assembled at the Isthmus, to defend conjointly Thermopylæ and the Eubœan strait, had been taken, seemingly, not long after the retreat from Tempê, their troops and their fleet did not actually occupy these positions until Xerxes was known to have reached the Thermaic gulf. Both were then put in motion; the land-force under the Spartan king Leonidas, the naval force under the Spartan commander Eurybiadês, apparently about the latter part of the month of June. Leonidas was the younger brother, the successor, and the son-in-law, of the former Eurystheneid king Kleomenês, whose only daughter Gorgo he had married. Another brother of the same family—Dorieus, older than Leonidas—had perished, even before the death of Kleomenês, in an unsuccessful attempt to plant a colony in Sicily; and room had been thus made for the unexpected succession of the youngest brother. Leonidas now conducted from the Isthmus to Thermopylæ a select band of three hundred Spartans,—all being citizens of mature age, and persons who left at home sons to supply their places.[133] Along with them were five hundred hoplites from Tegea, five hundred from Mantineia, one hundred and twenty from the Arcadian Orchomenus, one thousand from the rest of Arcadia, four hundred from Corinth, two hundred from Phlius, and eighty from Mykenæ. There were also, doubtless, Helots and other light troops, in undefined number, and probably a certain number of Lacedæmonian hoplites, not Spartans. In their march through Bœotia they were joined by seven hundred hoplites of Thespiæ, hearty in the cause, and by four hundred Thebans, of more equivocal fidelity, under Leontiadês. It appears, indeed, that the leading men of Thebes, at that time under a very narrow oligarchy, decidedly _medized_, or espoused the Persian interest, as much as they dared before the Persians were actually in the country: and Leonidas, when he made the requisition for a certain number of their troops to assist in the defence of Thermopylæ, was doubtful whether they would not refuse compliance, and openly declare against the Greek cause. The Theban chiefs thought it prudent to comply, though against their real inclinations, and furnished a contingent of four hundred men,[134] chosen from citizens of a sentiment opposed to their own. Indeed the Theban people, and the Bœotians generally, with the exception of Thespiæ and Platæa, seem to have had little sentiment on either side, and to have followed passively the inspirations of their leaders. [133] Herodot. vii, 177, 205. ἐπιλεξάμενος ἄνδρας τε τοὺς κατεστεῶτας τριηκοσίους, καὶ τοῖσι ἐτύγχανον παῖδες ἐόντες.