Pausanias, Phocis

CHAPTER XXI.


Brennus next ordered those who dwelt near the Maliac Bay to throw bridges over the Sperchius :
which they did quickly, standing greatly in dread of him, and being very desirous that the barbarians should depart and not injure them by a long stay in their part of the country. Then Brennus passed his army across these bridges, and marched for Heraclea. And though they did not capture it, the Galati ravaged the country, and slew the men that were left in the fields. The year before the Aetolians had compelled the people of Heraclea to join the Aetolian League, and now they protected Heraclea just as if it was their own. That is why Brennus did not capture it, but he paid no great attention to it, his only anxiety being to dislodge the enemy from the passes, and get into Greece by Thermopylae.

He advanced therefore from Heraclea, and learning from deserters that a strong force from all the Greek cities was concentrated at Thermopylae, he despised his enemy, and the following day at daybreak opened battle, having no Greek seer with him, or any priests of his own country, if indeed the Celts practise divination. Thereupon the Greeks advanced silently and in good order : and when the two armies engaged, the infantry were careful not to break their line, and the light-armed troops keeping their ground discharged their darts arrows and slings at the barbarians. The cavalry on both sides was useless, not only from the narrowness of the pass, but also from the smooth and slippery and rocky nature of the ground, intersected also throughout by various mountain streams. The armour of the Galati was inferior, for their only defensive armour was the shield used in their country, and moreover they were less experienced in the art of war. But they fought like wild beasts with rage and fury and headlong incon siderate valour : and, whether hacked about by swords and battle-axes, or pierced with darts and javelins, desisted not from their furious attacks till bereft of life. Some even plucked out of their wounds the weapons with which they had been wounded, and hurled them back, or used them in hand to hand fight. Meantime the Athenians on their triremes, not without great difficulty and danger, sailed along the mud which is very plentiful in that arm of the sea, and got their vessels as near the barbarians as they could, and shot at their flanks with all kinds of darts and arrows. And the Celts by now getting far the worst of it, and in the press suffering far more loss than they could inflict, had the signal to retire to their camp given them by their commanders. Accordingly retreating in no order and in great confusion, many got trodden underfoot by one another, and many falling into the marsh disappeared in it, so that the loss in the retreat was as great as in the heat of action.

On this day the Athenians exhibited more valour than all the other Greeks, and especially Cydias, who was very voung and fought now for the first time. And as he was killed by the Galati his relations hung up his shield to Zeus Eleutherius with the following inscription,

" Here I hang in vain regret for the young Cydias, I once the shield of that good warrior, now a votive offering to Zeus, the shield which he carried on his left arm for the first time, on that day when fierce war blazed out against the Galati."

This inscription remained till Sulla's soldiers removed the shields in the portico of Zeus Eleutherius, as well as other notable things at Athens.

And after the battle at Thermopylae the Greeks buried their dead, and stripped the bodies of the barbarians. But the Galati not only asked not permission to bury their dead, but plainly did not care whether their dead obtained burial or were torn to pieces by birds and beasts. Two things in my opinion made them thus indifferent to the burial of their dead, one to strike awe in their enemies by their ferocity, the other that they do not habitually mourn for their dead. In the battle fell 40 Greeks, how many barbarians cannot be accurately ascertained, for many of them were lost in the marsh.