Long extant, posterity admired the inscriptions which they bore; that of the Spartans became proverbial for its sublime conciseness.
"Go, stranger," it said, "and tell the Spartans that we obeyed the law--and lie here!" The private friendship of Simonides the poet erected also a monument to Megistias, the soothsayer, in which it was said truly to his honour, "That the fate he foresaw he remained to brave;" Such is the history of the battle of Thermopylae (B.C.

480).

[70].