On August 7, 480 B.C. Leonidas, King of Sparta, with 300 Spartans and a few Thebans held the pass at Thermopylae against the Persian army. Actually it was probably more like 4,000 but the legends in these matters are frequently more important than the literal facts.
They were buried where they fell. And they saved western civilization. Herodotus tells us that the following inscription was placed above their tomb:
Go, stranger, and tell the Spartans that we lie here according to their will.
I don’t care whether it’s true or not. It ought to be true.
I like the rhymed translation better:
Go tell the Spartans, passerby,
That here, obedient to their laws, we lie.
Moe, I llike that better than Rawlinson’s verse translation: