place
Thermopylae
also: Thermopylas
The mountain pass in central Greece; Cato fought there as military tribune in 191 BC in the consulship of Manius Acilius Glabrio, in the war against Antiochus III.
Reading notes
- Tusculan Disputations §1.101 the Spartans fell at Thermopylae — on whom Simonides wrote
The 300 Spartans under Leonidas who died holding the pass of Thermopylae against the Persians in 480 BC. Cicero quotes Simonides's famous epitaph ('Tell, stranger, that you saw us lying here at Sparta...') and Leonidas's grim quip about dining among the dead.