Evening star., 1939-07-09
BY GEORGE SYRIOTIS.

BY GEORGE SYRIOTIS.
ATHENS, July (NANAD. .-Ex-
cavations which have been carried
out by Prof. Marinatos. director of
archaeological services of the Greek
ministry OF education, in the neigh
borhood of the Gulf of Lamia have
aroused hope that discovery of the
actual tcmbs of the 300 Spartans
and 10000 Persians who perished at
the Battle of Thermopylae Is immi-
nent.
Thermopylae was fought in 4SO
B. c. and the heroism of a handful
Of Spartans under Leonidas has been
immortalized by the historian, He
rodotus.
Herodotus relates that an army of
100 900 Persians under King XerXes
invaded Greece from the north but
in order to reach the center of the
country it had to go through the
Pass of Thermopylae, a narrow road
between the mountain named CAL
lidromos and the shores of the
Maliac Gulf. which is now called the
Gulf Of Lamia, an inlet of the
Aegean Sea. The pass was strongly
fortified and guarded by 1000 Greeks
under Leonidas, King of Sparta.
In the first clash between Greeks
and Persians, Leonidas was able to
push back the enemy but later, su-
perior Persian forces reached CALI
dromos by another route. forced back
the Greeks who had fortified them
selves there and took up positions
behind them. 1t was said that the
Persians had achieved this success
owing to local treachery.
Pass Difficult to Hold.
Realizing his danger, Leonidas
ordered the bulk of his forces to
be evacuated by sea, and with only
300 Spartans, 700 Thespian VOL
unteers and few exiles from
Thebes he stood his ground in or
der to bar, or at all events to de-
lay, the advance of the Persians.
The actual pass of Thermopylae
was very difficult to hold, owing to
the nature of the ground, so Leon
ldas, with his small number of
men, took up position on a hill .
named Colonos and from there con-
fronted the huge Persian army. They
put up heroic resistance and per-
ished to the last man, but not be-
fore they had killed 10000 Per-
slams.
All the bodies of the Greeks and
the Persians were afterwards buried
in a common tomb, and later there
was erected on the hill a monu-
ment to the memory of Leonidas
1t took the form of great marble
lion and bore two inscriptions in
Greek, of which the following is
translation:
Here once from Pelop's sea-girt
region brought
Four thousand men three hostile
millions fought"
This referred to all the troops !
who fought under Leonidas. The
second inscription referred espe-
cially to the Spartans.
Go, stranger, and to listening Spar
tans tell
That here, obedient to their laws,
we fell"
1t was in order to find these tombs |
that the work under Prof. Marinatos
was begun some time ago. In an |
interview with this correspondent, |
Prof. Marinatos said that the object |
of his excavations was threefold: To |
discover the real place of the battle
and possibly to verify the different |
phases of the engagement, to dis
cover the monument to the Spartans
and Thespians who fell at Thermop-
ylae, and to locate the remains of
the 10000 Persians.
The professor has already dug up
thousands of all kinds of arrowheads
Persian, Assyrian, Babylonian and |
Egyptian. 1t is not unreasonable to
suppose that these were some of the
arrows about which the Persians
boasted, according to Herodotus,
that they were so many that their
flights would blot out the sunlight.
Two Monuments Originally.
Nearby, too, were found stone
blocks which had obviously formed
at some time the bases of monument
edl bulldlllEo. 4llC ItuldlllS Ol lIl6SC
buildings showed, on examination,
that they belonged to two different
epochs. There were two monuments,
apparently, an inner one and an
outer one. The inner part was the
older of the two. The outer monu-
ment measured about 40 feet by IL
and was approached by shallow steps.
Two separate tombs were discovered
nearby containing skeletons of an
epoch which could not be deter
mined.
This monument is probably, ac-
cording to Prof. Marinatos, the me-
mortal to the Spartans and must
have formed the base for the cele-
brated marble lion of Thermopylae.
Unfortunately neither the lion nor
the inscription were discovered at
that spot. A number of human
bones were found during the ex-
cavations, but it is doubtful whether
they belonged to the Spartans as
they were not lying close together.
Work is now proceeding at the
southwestern corner of the monu-
ment and 1t is considered possible
|