Outside the isthmus, the Beeotians, Phocidians, Locrians, Megarians, and AEtolians formed a coalition under the leadership of the Athenians; and, as their ancestors had done scarcely two hundred years before against Xerxes and the Persians, they advanced in all haste to the pass of Thermopylae, to stop there the new barbarians.
And for several days they did stop them; and instead of three hundred heroes, as of yore in the case of Leonidas and his Spartans, only forty Greeks, they say, fell in the first engagement.

'Amongst them was a young Athenian, Cydias by name, whose shield was hung in the temple of Zeus the savior, at Athens, with this inscription:-- THIS SHIELD, DEDICATED TO ZEUS, IS THAT OF A VALIANT MAN, CYDIAS.

IT STILL BEWAILS ITS YOUNG MASTER.

FOR THE FIRST TIME HE BARE IT ON HIS LEFT ARM WHEN TERRIBLE ARES CRUSHED THE GAULS.
But soon, just as in the case of the Persians, traitors guided Brennus and his Gauls across the mountain-paths; the position of Thermopylae was turned; the Greek army owed its safety to the Athenian galleys; and by evening of the same day the barbarians appeared in sight of Delphi.
Brennus would have led them at once to the assault.

He showed them, to excite them, the statues, vases, cars, monuments of every kind, laden with gold, which adorned the approaches of the town and of the temple: "'Tis pure gold--massive gold," was the news he had spread in every direction.