Thermopylae

The ancient wall had been built long ago and most of it lay in ruins;

This place is called Thermopylae by most of the Hellenes, but by the natives and their neighbors Pylae.

It is not here, however, but elsewhere that the way is narrowest, namely, in front of Thermopylae and behind it;

When the Assembly met, Philip was already at Thermopylae.

We returned from the oath-taking embassy on the thirteenth of Scirophorion, when Philip was already at Thermopylae and making promises to the Phocians which they were not disposed to believe.

There remained the question of the Phocians and Thermopylae, and we must not—such was my advice—we must not repeat our experience, and throw them overboard, and so, in reliance upon a succession of idle hopes and assurances, allow ourselves to fall into the last extremity of disaster.

He told you that you need not be excited because Philip had passed Thermopylae;

Know that we have passed within the Gates, and have subdued the district of Phocis.

He was afraid that, if we reported that he intended and was already preparing to march, you would turn out and sail round with your fleet to Thermopylae, and block the passage, as you did before;

for it prevents attendance on the special meeting at Thermopylae, which had to be held before the date of the regular meeting.

And so, fellow citizens, we stayed at home because of this decree, while the other Amphictyons assembled at Thermopylae—all but one city, whose name I would not mention;

As the outcome of all that was said,they voted that before the next Pylaea the hieromnemons should assemble at Thermopylae at a time designated, bringing with them a resolution for the punishment of the Amphissians for their sins against the god and the sacred land and the Amphictyons.

I mean, said I, the question of the expedition to Thermopylae, which you see in course of preparation.

And in particular I spoke about the expedition to Thermopylae, and about the holy places, and Delphi, and the Amphictyons.

and shortly before the peace with you was concluded, ambassadors came to you from the Phocians, urging you to help them, and offering to hand over to you Alponus, Thronion, and Nicaea, the posts which controlled the roads to Thermopylae.

But as for you, who parade in your declamations, I have given orders that there be furnished to you roof-beams equal in number to the soldiers who fought at Thermopylae, all of good length, and, in the words of your Homer, "casting long shadows";

And Leonidas, king of the Lacedaemonians, set himself and those three hundred whom he had led out from Sparta against the enemy at Thermopylae, when there was offered him either base flight or glorious death.

if at Thermopylae, you vote one there;

All this is a necessary provision against Philip’s sudden raids from Macedonia against Thermopylae, the Chersonese, Olynthus, or where he will.

Were you not deceived about Phocis, Thermopylae, the Thrace-ward districts, Doriscus, Serrium, Cersobleptes himself?

Were you not deceived about Phocis, Thermopylae, the Thraceward districts, Doriscus, Serrium, Cersobleptes himself?

for they would presumably have gained nothing if Philip had not passed Thermopylae.

but they were anxious to control the council at Thermopylae and the Delphian temple —two clear gains for them;

The Thebans, for instance, were powerless to prevent Philip from pressing on and seizing the passes, or from coming in at the finish and usurping the credit of their previous exertions.

Thermopylae and the Phocian government.

It would indeed have been fair, men of Athens, to call upon those who conveyed to you Philip’s promises, on the strength of which you were induced to conclude the Peace.

Do you imagine, I said, that when he was expelling their despots, or again when he was presenting them with Nicaea and Magnesia, they ever dreamed that a Council of Ten would be established among them, as it is today, or that the same man who restored to them the Amphictyonic meeting at Thermopylae would also appropriate their own peculiar revenues?

And again, when Xerxes came against Greece and the Thebans went over to the side of the Medes, the Plataeans refused to withdraw from their alliance with us, but, unsupported by any others of the Boeotians, half of them arrayed themselves in Thermopylae against the advancing barbarian together with the Lacedaemonians and Leonidas, and perished with them;

Is he not master of Thermopylae and the passes into Greece, holding those places with his garrisons and his mercenaries?

Again, when he was marching against the Phocians, he still pretended that they were his allies, and Phocian ambassadors accompanied him on his march, and most people here at Athens contended that his passage through Thermopylae would be anything but a gain to the Thebans.

And after this, Xerxes, having campaigned against Greece, conquered the Lacedaemonians at Thermopylae and killed their king Leonidas, and taking the city of the Athenians razed it, and enslaved as many as did not escape.

Thence he advanced to Pylae and occupied the pass through which, in bygone days as well, barbarians marched against the Greeks.

Yet the action fought near Pylae and Lamia has proved to be as glorious for them as the conflict in Boeotia, not solely through the circumstances of victory in the field, over Antipater and his allies, but on the grounds of situation also.

remember the thousand who went to meet the foe at Thermopylae, who, although they engaged seven hundred thousand of the barbarians, did not flee nor suffer defeat, but laid down their lives on the spot where they were stationed, acquitting themselves so nobly that even those who eulogize them with all the resources of art can find no praises equal to their valor.

the latter going to Thermopylae to oppose the land forces with a thousand picked soldiers of their own, supported by a few of their allies, with the purpose of checking the Persians in the narrow pass from advancing farther;

Go tell the Spartans, thou who passest by, That here obedient to their laws we lie.

The Spartans took the field at Thermopylae, and, though their fortune was less happy, in bravery they far surpassed all rivals.

And now the Lacedaemonians were exposed to missiles on both sides, and reduced to the same result (to compare a small case with a great one) as that which happened at Thermopylae;

Whom would you more gladly make your comrades in the ranks than these, whose countrymen, posted at Thermopylae, chose every man to die fighting rather than to live and admit the barbarian to Greece?