The enormous Persian host met with no opposition until it reached the narrow pass of Thermopylæ where it found its way blocked by the confederate Greeks under the command of LEONIDAS, King of Sparta. For two days the assaults of the Persians were hurled back with heavy slaughter by the better-disciplined and better-armed Greeks; but on the third the betrayal of a path over the mountains exposed the defenders to be taken in the rear. Finding that he was about to be surrounded, Leonidas dismissed his army, except his own contingent of three hundred Spartans whose national discipline required them to die at their post. However briefly this story be told, it would be wrong not to record that the Thespian contingent remained with them and shared their fate. When the last battle began, the devoted band charged into the thick of the enemy inflicting prodigious slaughter, Leonidas fell, and round his body the combat long raged. There two brothers of Xerxes, the king of Persia, fell fighting gallantly. While their arms lasted the Greeks kept their swarming enemies at bay. At last, their spears being broken, they retired to a hillock and sat down round the body of their king. Exposed to a shower of missiles, they perished to a man, defending themselves to the last against all who approached, with daggers, hands, and teeth. Six centuries later the names of the three hundred could still be read on a column at Sparta.