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It was against a king who had grown so proud, who had carried through such mighty tasks, and who had made himself master of so many men, that our ancestors and the Lacedaemonians marched forth, first dividing the danger: the latter going to Thermopylae to oppose the land forces with a thousand1 picked soldiers of their own, supported by a few of their allies, with the purpose of checking the Persians in the narrow pass from advancing farther; while our ancestors sailed to Artemisium with sixty triremes2 which they had manned to oppose the whole armada of the enemy.
1 There were originally in all about four thousand, according to Hdt. 7.202.
Isocrates. Isocrates with an English Translation in three volumes, by George Norlin, Ph.D., LL.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1980.
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