It was fortunate for the Greek cause that the council which met at the Isthmus after the withdrawal from Tempe had at its disposal the information necessary for forming a true estimate of the circumstances of the time. It knew that no help was to come from outside the mainland of Greece. It knew that Thessaly was lost, and that Bœotia, East Locris, Phocis, and Doris, and last, though not least, Eubœa, must be lost also, unless some prompt action were taken to save the situation in those parts. And so, says Herodotus, “the Greeks, on coming to the Isthmus, took counsel together, in view of what Alexander had told them, as to where and in what parts they should establish the defence.” The opinion which prevailed was, that they should guard the pass of Thermopylæ, which they thought was narrower than the pass in Thessaly, and nearer to their base. “They determined therefore to guard this pass, and so prevent the passage of the barbarian into Greece, and that the naval force should sail to Artemisium in the land of Histiæotis.” There is no part of Greece where the strategical situation is so marked as in the line of defence which runs along Mount Œta. Malis is verily the entering in of the gate of Greece. The barrier of Mount Œta, the tremendous nature of which can only be appreciated by those who have seen it and traversed it, formed in a very real way the true boundary of the land, and was recognized as such by the Greek historians of this and after time. The Hellenism of the lands beyond it was a mere shadow of the reality. Thessaly, in that widest sense which included in the name all that lay between Œta, Pindus, and the Cambunian Mountains, was in respect to civilization a debateable land, in which the “barbarism” of the outer world to a great extent held sway. Nature had so ordained it by an immutable decree when she raised Œta to be alike a defence and a barrier to the Hellenism of the lands south of it.