The Histories · 7.228

The men were buried where they fell; and for these, as well as for those who were slain before being sent away by Leonidas, there is an inscription which runs thus: "Here once, facing in fight three hundred myriads of foemen, Thousands four did contend, men of the Peloponnese." This is the inscription for the whole body; and for the Spartans separately there is this: "Stranger, report this word, we pray, to the Spartans, that lying Here in this spot we remain, faithfully keeping their laws." This, I say, for the Lacedemonians; and for the soothsayer as follows: "This is the tomb of Megistias renowned, whom the Median foemen, Where Sperchios doth flow, slew when they forded the stream; Soothsayer he, who then knowing clearly the fates that were coming, Did not endure in the fray Sparta's good leaders to leave." The Amphictyons it was who honoured them with inscriptions and memorial…

Herodotus of Halicarnassus · trans. G. C. Macaulay, 1890
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