Their assembly on this occasion was far less numerous than ever before, none attending but the chiefs with a few of their vassals.

These affirmed that they had, with the utmost diligence, tried every method to bring into the field as great a number as possible out of their respective states, but that they had not prevailed either by argument, persuasion, or authority, against those who declined the service.

Being disappointed thus on all sides, both by his own people, who delayed in Asia, and by his allies, who did not fulfil those engagements by which they had prevailed on him to comply with their invitation, the king retired beyond the pass of Thermopylae.

A range of mountains here divides Greece in the same manner as Italy is divided by the ridge of the Apennines.

Outside the strait of Thermopylae, towards the north, lie Epirus, Perrhaebia, Magnesia, Thessaly, the Achaean Phthiotis, and the Malian bay; on the inside, towards the south, the greater part of Aetolia, Acarnania, Phocis, Locris, Boeotia, and the adjacent island of Euboea, the territory of Attica, which stretches out like a promontory into the sea, and, behind that, the Peloponnesus.