Who at Thermopyae stood side by side,
And fought together and together died,
Under earth-barrows now are laid in rest,
Their chance thrice-glorious, and their fate thrice-blest:
No tears for them, but memory’s loving gaze;
For them no pity, but proud hymns of praise.
Time shall not sweep this monument away,—
Time the destroyer; no, nor dank decay.
This not alone heroic ashes holds;
Greece’s own glory this earth-shrine enfolds,—
Leonidas, the Spartan king; a name
Of boundless honor and eternal fame.
Translated by M. P. Fitz-Gerald
At the narrow pass of Thermopylae in 480 BC, a small force of Spartans held off the much larger Persian army. The Spartans were betrayed and perished to a man when a renegade Greek led Persian forces behind them.
The monument to Leonidas and his Spartans; it includes a plaque with the famous couplet y Simonides, Go Tell the Spartans.