It seems an essential factor in the situation that Leonidas believed in and was able to persuade the Thespians and, it may be, the Thebans too, of the possibility of still maintaining the pass. Had the division sent to meet Hydarnes done its duty with energy, it is highly probable, judging from the history of the previous fighting, that the event would have justified his confidence. What happened to that division of two thousand eight hundred men will never be known. It may be that for some reason it arrived too late, and found the Persians in too strong a force at Drakospilia. It may be that it never attempted to carry out the orders, and retreated straightway through the east gate, and so to Elatæa. Probably the latter was the case. Had there been a reasonable excuse for their conduct it would have survived in history. But was there _no_ excuse for their vanishing from the scene? They were face to face with a fearful danger, greater even than the danger which had faced them for a week past, great though that had been. They must have been suffering under a bitter sense of desertion, left to their fate, as it were, by those who sent them from the Isthmus. And who but Sparta was responsible for this? “Had they not done enough?” they may have argued. Were they to blame if, deserted themselves, they deserted others? And who were those “others?” Spartans, men of the race which had wished to sacrifice them; Thebans of suspicious loyalty; Thespians, who were—well, not Peloponnesians. And so they could go off with half a conscience, if not a whole one. Such reasoning would not do them honour; but men, if dishonourably treated themselves, are but too apt, in their bitter resentment, to lose the finer sense of honour. The story of their shame but half-survived; Herodotus caught some echo of it. Those who lived to tell it had most interest in concealing it. The dead men at Thermopylæ could tell no tales; and the Thebans were too much discredited to obtain credit. There was a conspiracy of silence. The inaction of the Spartan authorities had borne terrible fruit,—far more terrible, it may be believed, than the authorities ever expected it would bear. Leonidas had been deserted and had died with his brave band. It was no good blaming the allies who deserted him, even had it been possible under the circumstances to establish the fact of their desertion. These, too, could have retaliated with a tale which would have brought discredit, or even infamy, on those who were really responsible for the disaster. Thus it was possible to conceal the truth, and the field was open for invention. It was not difficult to supply a motive for a courage so grand as that which Leonidas had displayed,—the motive of self-sacrifice. That was absolutely the only motive which could account to the world for the extraordinary circumstances of his death; and it had the merit of being true.