We’ll be talking about music on Wednesday and with any luck we’ll get started on 300. Here’s an older map of Greece at the time. If you’ve not read Herodotus’s account of the Battle of Thermopylae you might glance at the following passages.

201. King Xerxes, I say, was encamped within the region of Trachis in

the land of the Malians, and the Hellenes within the pass. This place

is called by the Hellenes in general Thermopylai, but by the natives

of the place and those who dwell in the country round it is called

Pylai. Both sides then were encamped hereabout, and the one had

command of all that lies beyond Trachis[208] in the direction of the

North Wind, and the others of that which tends towards the South Wind

and the mid-day on this side of the continent.[209] Continue reading →