Thermopylai Thermopyles

Thermopylai ("Warm Gates") takes its name from the hot sulfurous springs around which a small spa has grown up. Here the mountains approach so close to the sea that in ancient times there was only the breadth of a single wagon at the narrowest point in the pass. The extension of the land area by alluvial deposition has completely altered its character, and the modern highway now approximately follows the ancient coastline. In the little museum on the east side of the hill is a model showing the lie of the land in antiquity.

Here Leonidas and his 300 Spartans sacrificed themselves in 480 B.C. in order to cover the retreat of the Greek army after the treachery of Ephialtes had revealed to the Persians the alternative route by a mountain track called the Anopaia. There is a modern monument on the hill on which the Spartans made their last stand, and also a tablet with the famous epitaph by Simonides, "Go tell the Spartans, thou who passest by,/ That here, obedient to their laws, we lie".