Coming to the actual pass itself, along the line which Herodotus followed, we enter it by the west gate. Herodotus says (vii. 176) that the pass is not narrowest at Thermopylæ itself, _i.e._ at the middle gate, but _before_ Thermopylæ and behind it, meaning by the latter, as his next words show, the east gate. It will be seen that by using the words “before Thermopylæ,” of the west gate, he again indicates the route by which he visited the pass. #THE WEST GATE.# “In front,” he says, “by the Phœnix river, near the city of Anthele, is another place where only one waggon at a time can pass.” The road at the present day does not traverse the whole of the west gate. Crossing the bridge of Alamana, it arrives at the actual foot of the cliff at a point somewhat east of the stream which is identified with the Phœnix. In former days, coming from the west it would pass along the whole of the foot of the steep slope or cliff in which this low promontory of Œta ends towards the plain. The total length of the passage, from the west end to the site of the Turkish barracks, which I am inclined to identify with that of the Amphiktyonid temples, is just under one mile,—about 1670 yards. To the right, or south of the line of road, the hill rises either very steeply, or in the form of a cliff, to a height of between two and three hundred feet; above which the slope is gentle. The total height attained by the promontory is not great, only varying between three and four hundred feet above the level of the plain. The road was in 480 artificially constructed at this point, as is indicated by Herodotus’ use of the word δέδμηται (H. vii. 200). It can only have been a few feet wide. At the present time, the ground between the left or north side of the road and the Spercheios is in winter time marshy throughout; and even in the month of August, 1899, the eastern portion of it, extending from the road to the river, was impassable, though there had been a long drought. In Herodotus’ time it would seem to have been for the most part a marsh between the cliffs and the Asopos river, though it may well be that the sea actually came up to the road towards the east end of the gate. No passage is possible between the road and the modern river; much less can it have been so in B.C. 480. Leake speaks of the pass as “the false Thermopylæ,” and seems never to have dreamt of its being a possible site of the battle of 480. It would be quite indefensible to any force which was not large enough to occupy and defend the wide, and, to a light-armed man, easy passage of the hills above it. In some of the best known guide books the battle is described as having taken place in this gate. I do not know the authority for this statement. Apart from its indefensibility against superior numbers, Herodotus makes it quite clear that the battle took place near the hot springs in the middle gate.