[ 42 ) waited four days in expectation that they would certainly betake themselves to flight. At length he sent to Leonidas and commanded him to deliver up his arms. “Come thyself and take them,” replied the Spartan chief. Transported with rage, he ordered his army to fall on the Greeks, to take them alive and bring them to him in setters ; but the army of the Persians had no sooner begun the attack than it was speedily obliged to retire. The next day they renewed the combat, but with no bet ter success. Xerxes having lost all hope of making his way through the Greek troops who were determined to conqueror die, was greatly perplexed, till one Epealtes insormed him of another path over the mountains by which the Greeks might be attacked in the rear. Xerxes upon this secretly dispatched ten thousand men upon this expedition. In the mean time Leonidas, satisfied in his own mind of the impossibility of bearing up against the ene
