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[2] He now came to Thermopylae with the appointed three hundred he had selected,1 all of whom had sons. He also brought those Thebans whom I counted among the number and whose general was Leontiades son of Eurymachus.

1 The regular number of the royal body-guard, the so-called ἱππεῖς. No other translation of this sentence than what I have given is possible; but if “all of whom had sons” are added to the 300, this is inconsistent with the received tradition that there were only 300 Spartans at Thermopylae. There seems to be no explanation of the matter except Dr. Macan's theory that Herodotus made a mistake. Of course if ἐπιλεξάμενος could mean “selecting from,” the difficulty might be removed; but I do not think it can.

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Thermopylae (2)

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