For the Greeks, too, as we know, sent out their colonies. They sent them to Ionia, eastward along the coast of Asia Minor, and they also sent them westward, round the heel and toe of Italy, as far as that great island of Sicily lying nearly opposite to where you see Carthage on the African shore. Sicily and the African continent lie at no great distance from each other at the nearest points. And the Carthaginians and other Phœnicians had come into conflict with the Greek colonists in Sicily long before Greece was threatened by the Persians. Xerxes, before making his attempt on Greece, assured himself that his fleet would not be attacked by the great naval power, by making an alliance with Carthage. Phœnician ships were among the best that fought for him. His plans seem to have been laid with every possible care and completeness. The overthrow of Greece, and of {135} that liberty which all Grecian states, in spite of their jealousy of each other and of their incessant quarrels, prized so very highly, seemed certain. It looked as if the King of Kings, who would rule absolutely, according to the Eastern idea, was sure to bring them under his subjection. The danger was so great that for the moment the states of Greece were able to put their jealousies on one side. Athens and Sparta, and the less powerful states with which one or other was in alliance at the time, drew together. It was a terrible moment for them. The first great battle of the war made it more terrible still. Command of the united land forces of Greece fell, naturally, into the hands of Sparta. The utmost that they were able to gather was but little over 5000 men, of which no more than 500 were actually Spartans. The smallness of the force may give us an idea of the small population of those city states of Greece. [Sidenote: Thermopylæ] With this gallant body of defenders Leonidas, the Spartan general, encountered the Persian host in the narrow mountain pass of Thermopylæ. It was a situation in which the Persian could make little or no use of his strongest arm, the cavalry, and he was held back, with heavy loss to his soldiers, so much less heavily armed than the Greeks. How that battle would have gone had it been prolonged, we cannot know, for a traitor, one of the great traitors of history, revealed to the Persians another pass across the mountains. They had partly traversed that other pass, and were already threatening the flank and rear of his army, when Leonidas was informed of their movement. He knew his position to be hopeless. He {136} bade the allied troops, who were not his countrymen, retreat and find safety if they could. As for himself and his devoted band of Spartans, they sallied out of the pass, threw themselves on the Persian masses, and went down fighting to the death, an example of gallantry to all future ages.