Left at Thermopylae

Smarting under the defeat of Marathon, Persia's great Xerxes crossed the Hellespont on a bridge of boats in the summer of 480 B. c., and marched through Thessaly. Herodotus recorded that he had 1,800,000 men; modern historians say about 180,000. Leonidas, king of Sparta, met him with only 7,000 men at Thermopylae, a narrow strip of dry shore between the cliffs of Mount Oeta and the swampy border of the Maliac Gulf. Hearing that a big detachment of Persians had found a way around the pass, Leonidas sent 5,000 soldiers to head them off. Xerxes then effected a great slaughter against the remaining Thermopylae defenders.

This year Greek archeologists have been exploring the site of Thermopylae, hoping to find some tangible trace of the battle. Last week they reported success--spears, arrows and other weapons, crusted with rust after lying 2,419 years where the warriors of Thermopylae dropped them. They were buried in silt deposited by the River Spercheius, which has enlarged the pass from a bottleneck 14 yards wide to an alluvial plain one and one-half to three miles across.

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