The Anopaia Path at Thermopylai

The Anopaia Path at ThermopylaiAuthor(s): Paul W. WallaceSource: American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 84, No. 1 (Jan., 1980), pp. 15-23Published by: Archaeological Institute of AmericaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/504391 .Accessed: 22/04/2013 09:15

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The Anopaia Path at Thermopylai PAUL W. WALLACE

(P1. I) For A.R. Burn

'pctL/arrp

Abstract The Battle of Thermopylai in 480 B.C. ended with

the successful night march of the Persians along the secret Anopaia Path, led by the traitor Ephialtes. The Anopaia Path was the reason for the sinister reputation of Thermopylai, for the pass could al- ways be turned if the invaders found, or were guided around, the Anopaia Path. Many students of the battle have tried to discover the route of the Anopaia Path, but in spite of much attention, the problem of the path is still not solved. Previous explorers have chosen what seemed to them to be likely routes, but they have not given enough attention to the military requirements of the route. The Anopaia Path must have been a route open and spacious enough for a body of troops to remain a body of troops throughout its march, but most of the previous routes suggested take the Persians at some point through a narrow defile. Only the Var- dates route has this spacious character, but that route has usually been regarded as too long for the Persian maneuver. To test the route the author walked the route at night, as the Persians did, and found that the times at which he reached certain points matched those given by Herodotos for the Persian march. The topographical clues given by Herodotos also seem to be more appropriate for the Vardates route than any other. Two previous articles have appeared in this jour-

nal dealing with the topography of Thermopylai.' My own interest centers on the Anopaia Path and the night march of Ephialtes and the Persians. When they started on their march, they were en- tering a mountainous area which has probably changed little from their time to the present. The forest has of course changed, but the area is still very sparsely inhabited, and the mountain is probably almost as wild and desolate today as it was

when the Immortals walked through it on that summer night in 480 B.C. Many of the earlier students who worked on the battle were prevented from examining the topography of Mt. Kallidro- mos by dangerous conditions, as some modern students are by disinclination. Conditions indeed are not easy even today for studying the topography of the battle of Thermopylai for, although bandits and guerrillas have now abandoned the mountains, and the "semi-civilized" Vlachs whom Grundy feared have now become fully civilized, Kallidro- mos is nonetheless one of the most rugged and be- wildering Greek mountains for

,the walker.

The topography of the area along the northern slopes of the mountain and the Malian Plain now seems to be generally agreed upon: the Gates, the Phokian wall, and the hillock of the final battle are satisfactorily located. Only the Anopaia Path is still subject to much discussion, and here discussion focuses not so much on the whole course of the path as on its beginning, that is, on the route from the Malian Plain to the top of Mt. Kallidromos. As for the eastern end of the path, from Nevropolis on, I have no new information on it and nothing to add to the previous discussions of it. The route down from the area of Drakospilia seems to be the most likely route.

Four routes have been suggested for the beginning of the path; all of them have strong advocates and all seem convincing when their proponents discuss them. Those students who are arguing for their choice usually stress the difficulties which they believe the other routes possess. This is of course a fair procedure, if they have themselves ex-

1 W.K. Pritchett, "New Light on Thermopylai," AJA 62 (I958) 203-13 and Pierre A. MacKay, "Procopius' De Aedificiis and the Topography of Thermopylae," AJA 67 (1963) 241-55. Thanks are due to Pierre MacKay for sending materials which he used in his article.

My explorations at Thermopylai occurred in 1975, 1976 and

1977 and were part of the topographical research carried on by the Loyola University of Chicago Phokis-Doris Expedition. Edward W. Kase is director and principal investigator of the project, and the author is associate investigator. The expedition is funded in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.


16 PAUL W. WALLACE [AJA 84 perimented with the terrain. Only if one has walked the routes himself can he strongly assert the advantages or disadvantages of a specific course.

We are particularly indebted to A.R. Burn and W. Kendrick Pritchett, both mountain walkers of long experience, for their work in reconstructing the course of the Anopaia Path. Except for the work of Burn and Pritchett very little first-hand research has been conducted on this mountain route. Earlier travelers, except for Major General Gordon, were not interested in the path and did not attempt to follow it, and most recent scholars who have written on the subject have followed the suggestions of others which seemed most likely to them, without examining the terrain personally. The difficulty of working on a topographical problem like the Anopaia Path in the study-room rather than on the mountainside is that the student inevi- tably focuses on problems which seem significant in the library but absurd on the mountain. Whether or not oak trees2 are now limited to the Asopos valley, and whether or not the Phokians scurried up the highest peak3 of the entire path are not matters of great concern. Nor need we concern ourselves about whether the imaginary torches,4 carried by the Persians as they began the ascent, could be seen by the Greeks, nor whether a storm5 occurred just before the night march in order to have fallen leaves for the Persian feet to rustle. Accordingly more attention will here be given to

the work of those students of the battle who have examined some part of the terrain themselves.

THE ROUTES

The Asopos Gorge. The Asopos River, draining the upland area between Mt. Oite and Mt. Kalli- dromos, reaches the Malian Plain through a narrow gorge about one and one half kilometers long. This precipitous defile, one of the most remarkable geographical features in the whole area, presents itself very easily to the reader of Herodotos as the beginning of the path. It especially seems to be the best route if one has examined only the edge of the mountains near the Malian Plain and has not examined the upper regions. Both Leake6 and Grundy' (followed by Stdihlins and Hignett') chose the Asopos Gorge as the beginning of the route, but neither had examined the upper regions. Leake apparently did not attempt to traverse the route at all, and Grundy supposed the upper stretches of the route ran along the crest of the northern slopes near the Damasta monastery and not along the spine of the mountain. The beginning of this route is the gorge itself; just beyond the point where the gorge is no longer a gorge but a steep river valley, the route turns to the east and climbs a rough valley toward the monastery.

Vardates. The route which begins at Vardates was first suggested by Munro,"o followed by Far-

2 J.A.R. Munro, "Some Observations on the Persian Wars," JHS 22 (I902) 314 and in CAH IV 296; C. Hignett, Xerxes' Invasion of Greece (Oxford i963) 364. Oak trees can grow just about anywhere in these mountains. Even if oak trees do not now stand near the Phokian position, this would hardly constitute "a serious difficulty."

3 Hignett (supra n. 2) 361, 367. The true peak of Kallidro- mos is some distance to the east and is irrelevant to the topography of the Anopaia. When Herodotos (7.218) speaks of the K6pUvpLos he is merely speaking of a peak near the path, as his informant must have described it to him. Whether or not another peak farther along the path was actually a little higher is unimportant.

4 Both F. Stihlin, s.v. Thermopylen, RE 5 A (I934) 2416 and Hignett (supra n. 2) 368-69 make a great matter of whether the Greeks could see the Persian torches. It is difficult to imagine anyone seriously proposing that the Persians carried lighted torches with them as they ascended Mt. Kallidromos. In the first place, if there were any moon at all they would have had sufficient light. In the second place, burning torches would be more of a detraction than a help, for they would give more light to the hikers' eyes than to the path. We can be sure that the Persians did not carry torches, if for no other reason than that Herodotos makes no mention of a forest fire.

5 J. Labarbe, "Un temoignage capital de Polyen sur la bataille de Thermopyles," BCH 78 (1954) 1-21, attempted to fix the date of Thermopylai on the basis of the text of Polyainos. His conclusions are accepted by Pritchett (supra n. I) 203-204, but almost entirely rejected by A.R. Burn, Persia and the Greeks (London 1962) 403-405 and Hignett (supra n. 2) 449-51. Further discussion by Labarbe in "LUonidas et l'astre des tempetes," RBPh 37 (1959) 69-91. Labarbe (BCH 78 [19541 12 n. 2) suggested that the leaves which the Persians walked through had been blown down by the storm of Hdt. 7.188-91, and the point is picked up by Pritchett (203-204 n. 9), Burn (415 n. 20) and Peter Green, Xerxes at Salamis (New York 1970) 138. Though it would take nothing less than a hurricane to detach oak leaves in Greece as early as August, it is enough to remark that oak trees would have shed their leaves in previous years as well.

6 W.M. Leake, Travels in Northern Greece 2 (London I835) 53.

7 G.B. Grundy, The Great Persian War (London 1901) 301. 8 Stihlin (supra n. 4) 2415-18. Stihlin (2417) rode from the

Kalivia Eleftherochoriou to the East Gate with Ernst Meyer in 1926.

9 Hignett (supra n. 2) 370. 10o Munro (supra n. 2) in JHS 313-14, and in CAH 294-95.


1980] THE ANOPAIA PATH 17 rell," who walked through part of the area. The route was then accepted by Myres,"2 and now recently by Burn.13 A gentle valley leads west up from Vardates to Dio Vouna, turns south and con- tinues to climb, still open and of easy gradient, to a wide upland plain, called the Pergara (pl. i, fig. I) situated just behind the Trachinian Cliffs. The Pergara shelves off to the south until it reaches the upper Asopos River valley, open and level at this point.

The importance of the route through Dio Vouna was pointed out by G. Kolias,14 who thought that the Catalans took this route from Hypata in 13i1. MacKay,"5 though he had not visited this area, discusses in some detail the route through Dio Vouna and tentatively identifies the Byzantine fortifica- tion Klisoporto at Dio Vouna as the Myropoles of Procopius (de Aed. 4.2.21).

The Damasta Spur. This route was suggested by Burn,'6 though he has now abandoned it.

Near the village of Damasta the foothills of Kal- lidromos project a little farther to the north. Along this spur runs a pathway to the south toward the crest of Mt. Kallidromos. This route leads up to the village of Eleftherochori, but not via the approach to the west of the village. Instead the route approaches the village from the northeast, via a pathway which narrows to allow only one person to walk at a time, and over a saddle between two peaks. From Eleftherochori this route climbs to the Nevropolis valley on the crest of the mountain.

The Chalkomata Spring. This route was suggested first by Major General Gordon'7 many years ago, and now more recently by Pritchett."8 Gordon was the first to propose the Nevropolis valley as part of the Anopaia.

A pathway begins near the Chalkomata spring and climbs to Eleftherochori. As it nears the saddle, the path becomes the same as the Damasta route and suffers, as a candidate for the Anopaia, from its narrowness. In fact, the same arguments for and against the Damasta route can apply to this route as well.

A WALK FROM VARDATES TO THERMOPYLAI

As a result of my three summers' work in this area, I have come to believe that only one route satisfies the literary, topographical and military requirements of the Anopaia Path: 'the route which begins at Vardates. The proponents of the other routes, however, have usually regarded the Varda- tes route as too long or too difficult,1" but no one has yet examined the terrain from Vardates to Eleftherochori to determine whether or not the route is in actual fact too long or too difficult for a troop of soldiers to negotiate at night. Accordingly, I decided to test this route and

,to duplicate Ephial- tes' hike by beginning at dusk and walking through the night the entire route to Thermopylai. To my knowledge this is the first attempt to follow the Persian maneuver throughout its extent under similar conditions.

Herodotos (7.215, 217, 223) gives the following information concerning the amount of time in- volved in the hike and concerning the times at which certain points were reached. The march was begun at nightfall, probably in August with the full moon, and it must have taken about 12 hours to accomplish. The Persians left at the time of the lighting of the lamps (i.e. about 9:00 P.M.); they reached the top of the mountain at daybreak (i.e. about 5:30 A.M.); they reached Thermopylai around mid-morning (perhaps about io:oo A.M.), sometime during the process of the battle there,

11 J. Farrell, "Note on the Position of Rhoduntia," CR 24 (1910) 116-17.

12 J.L. Myres, Herodotus (Oxford 1953) 248-50. 13 A.R. Burn in Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean in

Ancient History and Prehistory: Studies Presented to Fritz Schachermeyr, ed. K.H. Kinzl (Berlin 1977) 98-103.

14Epet Io (1933) 8o-81 and 26 (1956) 374-75. 15 MacKay (supra n. I) 249-50, 253-54. 16A.R. Burn in Studies Presented to D.M. Robinson (St.

Louis 1951) 480-89. 17 Major General Thomas Gordon, Account of Two Visits to

the Anopaea (Athens 1838) 10-12. 18 Pritchett (supra n. I) 205-206, followed by Green (supra

n. 5) 115-16. In his later study, Studies in Ancient Greek

Topography Part I (Berkeley 1965) 72 n. 6, Pritchett responds to some of Hignett's criticisms of his route. Though I disagree with the beginning of Pritchett's route, I must record my ad- miration of that scholar's extremely valuable studies on the Thermopylai area.

19 Burn (supra n. 16) 487 originally thought so ("from Vardhaites to Nevropolis by this route is not less than twelve miles, a long way for a column strung out on a monopdti to cover on a summer night"), and was followed by Pritchett (supra n. i) 204 and Hignett (supra n. 2) 363-64. It should be noted that, although the route I chose is initially the same as Munro's route, it does not follow his route to the monastery on the northern slopes; instead, it joins Burn's and Pritchett's route at Eleftherochori and Nevropolis.


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ILL. i. Thermopylai and the Anopaia Path

which was begun at about the time when the "market-place is wont to fill" (i.e. about 8:00 or 9:00 A.M.).

Since my purpose in taking this hike was to experience as much as possible what the Persians did under similar conditions, my only provisions were enough food for one meal and a canteen of water. Three friends from Vardates agreed to ac- company me as far as the Amphissa-Lamia road, but they had never been in the mountains behind the village, and our group was forced to walk under my guidance.

We left Vardates20 at the time of the "lighting of the lamps" in the coffeehouse, at 9:05 P.M. on I July 1977, and reached the Amphissa-Lamia highway at 2:30 A.M., when my companions left me to return to their homes.21 I continued on alone through Eleftherochori toward Nevropolis on the top of the mountain. It was very satisfying to real- ize that, by keeping a normal pace throughout, I had reached the same point which I believe the Persians had at the same time, for I reached the crest of the mountain at 5:30 A.M., just as dawn was breaking. From Nevropolis22 I took the route

20 Burn (supra n. 13) 98 mentions a letter he received from M. Jean Michaud of the French School pointing out that the best ascent is not from directly behind Vardates, but from the Gorgopotamos area 2.5 km. to the northwest. This is definitely not the case. The route from Gorgopotamos is better for a bull- dozer creating a road but not for a walker. The hills are very steep, and the valley from Vardates is easy by comparison.

21 It is a pleasure to record my sincere gratitude to Yannis Zangoyannis, secretary of Vardates, who takes a keen interest in the antiquities and history of his area, Athanasios Demarkos, and Yannis Gkletsos, all of whom were convinced that Greek hospitality did not allow a foreigner to wander alone over the Greek mountains at night. The enthusiasm of two of them was

only slightly diminished when, three days later, they arose from their beds, where the chill and rain had driven them. Thanks are also due to four American friends, Linda Desmond, Pamela Gerardi, Lorraine McCann and Peter Pachona, who waited on the road near Eleftherochori to transport the Greek hikers to their village, and spent a stormy night in some concern for my safety.

By coincidence A.R. Burn also enjoyed the company of this same Yannis Zangoyannis, who proudly tells to all interested the communications he had with that great historian and topographer.

22 The hill in Nevropolis rising above the road which de- scends to Palaiochorio in Doris is Pritchett's (supra n. i) 2zo


1980] THE ANOPAIA PATH 19

by Drakospilia between the peaks Sastano and Elafovouni down to the plain near modern Ther- mopylai, and by :oo00 A.M. I was at the monu- ment at the Middle Gate.

The length of the hike, as best I can estimate from available maps, is about 25 kilometers, and it took 14 hours to walk it.23

MILITARY ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF THE ROUTES

The main military advantage of the Vardates route is that it is open and clear throughout. There is now much holly-oak in the area, but when the mountain was forested, holly-oak would not grow, and these prickly trees, now the worst hindrance to the walker, would not have existed. The rocky nature of the terrain, however, would not have changed much, except for the worse. Erosion in the mountains could have accentuated the rugged- ness of the terrain, making cliffs and outcrops ap- pear where they had not before; but the process would not have worked the other way. If a route, according to its geological obstacles, is now easy, we can be sure it was at least as easy in antiquity.24 The only point in this route, from Vardates to Eleftherochori, which is at all difficult, is the stretch from the upper Asopos to Eleftherochori25 (pl. I, fig. 2); though the gradient is a little steep, the walker does not even need to zig-zag, but can walk straight up the side, slackening the pace.

MacKay26 accepts this route from Dio Vouna

through Kalivia Eleftherochoriou as a possible route to Thermopylai, but regards it, citing Hau- vette,27 as difficult. As an alternative route from Dio Vouna to Eleftherochori, MacKay also mentions a route from Gardikaki (Oiti) to Prokoveni- kos (Skamnos). This is a needless detour to the south, much more difficult in fact than the route through the Kalivia, and is rightly regarded by Kirsten28 as not an ancient route at all.

Before dealing with other military concerns, it would be well to reflect on the type of soldier which made this march, how many there were, and what equipment they had with them. The Persian Immortals must have been similar to a modern commando battalion: well-disciplined, in superb condition, and trained to execute unusual and difficult maneuvers. Guesses as to the numbers which accompanied Ephialtes have ranged from 2000 to i0,000, the whole body of Immortals.29 Any number can only be a guess, for Herodotos gives no indication of how many went on the march. There is only one piece of evidence of any value for estimating the number of Persians: the number of Greeks at Thermopylai. Only enough Persians need go to accomplish their objective, which was of course to attack effectively the rear of the Greek position. Only 6ooo Greeks held the pass at Ther- mopylai, and they were kept busy by the rest of the Persian army (Hdt. 7.223). The Immortals had to be sufficient in numbers not to be in danger themselves from whatever Greeks could be de-

choice for the Phokian position. I know of no better candidate. 23 My own time schedule for the entire hike is as follows:

lv. Vardates 9:05 P.M. ar. Dio Vouna 10:00 ar. railway station Asopou I2:io A.M. ar. Asopos River 12:45 ar. Kalivia Eleftherochoriou 1:45 ar. Lamia-Amphissa highway 2:30 rest stop 2:45-3:15 ar. Eleftherochori 3:25 ar. Nevropolis (dawn) 5:30 ar. Palaiosouvala 7:00 breakfast 8:30-9:00 ar. near Drakospilia 9:30 ar. Thermopylai, Middle Gate i i:oo A.M.

24 For a brief discussion of the geology and erosion of the area, see Burn (supra n. 13) 99 and (supra n. 16) 483.

25 Pritchett (supra n. i) 207 is not describing the valley from Elafopedema to Eleftherochori. He is discussing Grundy's path, and Grundy is not clear at this point in his topography. Pritchett and Grundy are apparently speaking of the rough gorge called Tridendri which rises from the Asopos Gorge north of the rocky peak called Portes. Pritchett says he viewed

Grundy's route from the southern end of the Asopos Gorge, from a position just above the railway. The path from Elafo- pedema climbs a much gentler valley south of Portes, and is not visible from the Asopos Gorge. See Hignett (supra n. 2) 368 and Stihlin (supra n. 4) 2416-I7. Hignett (369) confuses these two ascents when he discusses Pritchett's and Stihlin's impres- sions of them, for Stiihlin rode up from the Kalivia of Elefthe- rochori, that is, south of Portes.

From Elafopedema we do not have "a mere atrapos, by which men and mules could make the laborious crossing and climb to Nevropolis," as Burn (supra n. 13) Ioo00 says, but an open valley, consisting of a series of small plateaus.

26 MacKay (supra n. I) 253. 27 A. Hauvette, Nouvelles archives des missions scientifiques 2

(1892) 376. 28 E. Kirsten in A. Philippson, Die griechischen Landschaf-

ten I part 2 (Frankfurt I95I) 651. 29 Diodoros' (11.8.5) 20,000 should be disregarded. See Pritchett (supra n. i) 203 for the various estimates. It is mis- leading to speak of "Herodotos' figure of i o,ooo," for when Herodotos says that Hydarnes was accompanied by those whom he commanded it is not necessary to assume that he meant the entire body of Immortals.


20 PAUL W. WALLACE [AJA 84 tached to meet them, but it was obviously needless to hurl all 1o,ooo Immortals against 6ooo Greeks who were already fully occupied from another di- rection. Indeed 2000 or 3000 would surely have been considered entirely adequate, and more than that would have been useless for the battle and a liability on the march.

Equipment would surely have been kept to a minimum. Each soldier would need only enough provisions for one meal, and perhaps one soldier in three would carry a waterskin. The armor would be only the basics: helmet, shield, sword, a couple of spears. Anything beyond this would be super- fluous, for they were only to be away from the rest of the army for one night, and once they had sur- rounded Leonidas, they would not close with des- perate men but shower them with missiles from a distance, as Herodotos (7.225) tells us. If their maneuver was successful, they would join the army next morning; if unsuccessful, they would simply return to the Persian camp.

The Immortals with Ephialtes, therefore, were presumably in a body of manageable size, highly disciplined, in excellent physical condition, and lightly encumbered. This is important to keep in mind in considering how long it would take to accomplish the march.

My hike from Vardates coincided very closely with the times Herodotos gives for the various stages of the Persian march. It could be objected that the time in which one person could walk the route is no indication of the amount of time which a force of about 3000 would require. The main advantage of the Vardates route is however that we are not dealing with a pathway,"3 over which soldiers would march single file, but with an open continuous valley, through which a large number of men could proceed at the same time, en masse. Under these conditions, one person would not proceed much more quickly than a large group, and there is no reason to suppose that a very unathletic modern topographer would hike more energeti- cally than troops which had walked all the way from Persia. A group of commandos like the Im-

mortals, used to mountain activity, would not have found the Anopaia Path difficult going.

There are two objections to the Damasta and Chalkomata routes, which neither Burn nor Pritch- ett attempted to answer. The first is the amount of time required for the first troops to reach the top of the mountain. From nightfall to dawn is eight hours, but Pritchett3" walked from Chalkomata to Eleftherochori in an hour and a half, which is ex- actly the amount of time it took me in 1976. By these routes the first troops reach the top of the mountain too soon. If the first troops had left at nightfall they would have reached the crest of the mountain by midnight, and would then have had a considerable wait on top of the mountain while the rest of the troops made their way single file along the narrow path. The narrowness of the path is the second objection. Just before the Chal- komata and Damasta routes reach the ridge northeast of Eleftherochori, where they join, the walker is obliged to make his way between cliffs in a very narrow defile,32 where only one person could walk at a time (pl. I, fig. 3). Both Burn and Pritchett33 recognized the necessity of avoiding paths where troops would have to walk single file, but since such conditions exist at only one point along their routes, they apparently regarded it as unimportant. But only one such defile is enough to create a bottleneck, with the whole troop waiting while the numbers dribble through the pass one at a time. If we assume the Persians numbered only about 3000, the delay at this pass would be prohibitive. And of course such a pass could be defended by a handful of Greeks. The existence of this one pass should be enough to make us abandon the Da- masta and Chalkomata routes as candidates for the Anopaia Path.

The Asopos Gorge is also narrow, but its narrowness is not the only objection to its being considered the beginning of the Anopaia Path. It is the vulnerability which it creates for the hiker. The Asopos Gorge is not believed now by most students to be the beginning of the path, though it is Hignett's choice.

30 As Burn (supra n. 16) 487 supposed. 31 Pritchett (supra n. I) 205-206. That this was one of the main routes in Turkish times from Zeituni (Lamia) in the north to Salona (Amphissa) and Levadia in the south, as Pritchett points out, is very likely correct, but that fact is irrele-

vant in considering the military requirements of the Anopaia. Nor does it prove that it was "the path used in earlier periods."

32 For a discussion of the wall called Fylaki at this defile, see MacKay (supra n. I) 247-48.

33 Burn (supra n. 5) 410-11 and Pritchett (supra n. I) 203.


1980] THE ANOPAIA PATH 21 The gorge is fairly wide open through most of

its extent, but it too has its bottleneck. After you have walked in about a quarter of a mile the gorge contracts to a very narrow defile-the narrowest being 2.30 m. (pl. I, fig. 4). A little farther still the gorge contracts again, but not as much. The Asopos Gorge, therefore, suffers from the same difficulties as the Chalkomata and Damasta routes: a large number of men would be held up together waiting for the others to go through the narrow point one or two at a time. It is also very difficult to walk on the rocky river bed.

The main objection to the Asopos Gorge as the beginning of the Anopaia Path is the great crags above, rising steeply to 300 m. or more. Only if it could be proved that the Persians controlled all the cliffs above the gorge would it be acceptable to sug- gest that the Persians went through the gorge.34 Even now, with no enemies on the cliffs above, one cannot help but feel the danger of his position beneath these cliffs. An earthquake, or just a loos- ening of a stone above from the passage of years or from the erosion of a little soil after a rain, can dislodge an avalanche of rock and provide a quick tomb to anyone walking below. But if enemies were standing here and there on the cliffs above, even if only few in number, the situation would surely have been intolerable. Enemy troops in the Asopos Gorge are simply in too vulnerable a position. The gorge is too easily defended and its se- vere nature can be too easily turned against an enemy who tried to force his way up the gorge.

THE LITERARY TESTIMONY

Herodotos' account of Thermopylai does not show the historian at his best topographically. Every route seems to conflict with some piece of

the literary evidence, which is presumably the reason for so much controversy about the route of the path. Discussion usually concentrates on only a few passages in Herodotos, which should now be considered against the Vardates route.

The first passage is 7.216, where Herodotos says that the path began at the Asopos (IpXcrua ytv or 70o 'AcWroi ^orao~ o70i 8t~ r &

,Staor4yo- MlovroF). Leake35 and Grundy36 interpreted this phrase as referring to the gorge itself. Burn"' originally used this passage to support his Damasta route ("the only way by which a route from Malis to Nevropo- lis would be likely to start by crossing the Asopos [not by going a mile up its gorge!] is, surely by way of the Damasta spur"), but in his most recent publication supporting the Vardates route he does not discuss the passage. Pritchett"3 followed Burn, applying the argument to his Chalkomata route. How such an interpretation, which implies that the name Anopaia Path was applied in part to the open Malian Plain, was supposed to be preferable is never discussed.39 Perhaps the explanation of the passage is, as Staihlin40 suggested, that the path proper was thought to begin by crossing the upper Asopos, for the phrase "where that stream flows through the cleft in the hills" certainly seems to be written from the point of view of one who is thinking of the upper part of the Asopos. Otherwise he would have said "where that stream flows into the plain from the hills." At least, that seems the more natural way of expression if one is thinking of the lower part. The Anopaia,41 the "upper" path, begins at the Asopos and runs along the ridge of the mountain, Herodotos says, which seems to mean that the path really began with the actual ascent of the mountain, from the upper Asopos to Elef- therochori. The "circuit," from Vardates to the

34 Munro, (supra n. 2) JHS 312-14 and CAH 292-93, 295- 96, thought the Lokrians were sent to defend the Asopos Gorge, but as Hignett (supra n. 2) 135-36, 369 points out, there is no proof that the Greeks occupied these cliffs. On the other hand, there is no proof that the Persians controlled them either, and it is in fact unlikely that they did. For other views of the gorge, see Burn (supra n. 5) 407-409 and Pritchett (supra n. I) 204- 20o6. The identification of Trachis with the ancient site Sidero- porto, on the west side of the Asopos at the north end of the gorge, is argued by Y. Bequignon, La VallMe du Spercheios (Paris 1937) 243-63, and seems to me convincing, but to answer Hignett's objections (supra n. 2) 356-60 would require more than a note.

35 Leake (supra n. 6) 53.

3 Grundy (supra n. 7) 302. 37 Burn (supra n. i6) 487. 38 Pritchett (supra n. I) 204-205. 39 It should be noted that what Burn says, quoted above, that

only one route could start by crossing the Asopos, is not correct. If we suppose that the Persian camp was on the right (southern) side of the Asopos, we could say that the Vardates route started by crossing the Asopos, and would make just as much sense, which is not much.

40 Stiihlin (supra n. 4) 2417. 41 The word is obscure, perhaps meaning something like

"upwards" or "upper." Cf. Hom. Od. 1.320 and Burn (supra n. 14) 482.


22 PAUL W. WALLACE [AJA 84

Asopos, is perhaps not really part of the Anopaia but the approach to it. The sharing of the name Anopaia by the path and the mountain itself (Hdt. 7.216) perhaps indicates that the name was re- stricted to the mountain.

The other passage important in this regard is 7.217, for Herodotos seems to say there that the Persians crossed the Asopos at the very beginning of their march, but the passage actually does not say when the Persians crossed the Asopos: ot llipuat, vTv 'Auwirrtv &aPfldvrI E7ropCeovro

rcrava rjvT

vIxra. It was indeed early in the night when we crossed the Asopos on our hike, at 12:45 A.M., about three and a half hours after leaving. We too continued on our march "through the whole of the night," for another five hours, until daybreak. The difficulty, of course, as has been pointed out before, is that the mountains of Trachis would be on the left and the mountains of Oite would be on the right for only the first part of the march, in the early hours of the night, before crossing the Asopos.42

Nonetheless, the Vardates route is the only route which is at all suitable to Herodotos' statement of the relation of the marchers to the mountains of Trachis and Oite. This phrase (iv 8E4 pL v t xovreiv opea r OLratov,

.v p'lrECpi, 8? r TprlXLtvt'v) consti-

tutes one of the greatest difficulties for anyone who would take the Persians up by any route other than the Vardates route.43 Pritchett"4 seems to me to struggle to fit the phrase to his route. After citing evidence that Herodotos sometimes loosely refers to the Thermopylai area as Trachis, he apparently concludes that the northern half of Kallidromos (north of Nevropolis) must have been called in Herodotos' time the "mountain of Trachis." But he never says (and he obviously cannot say) that the southern half of Kallidromos was called the mountains of Oite-an essential component if his suggestion were to be acceptable. Pritchett. may

have meant for Herodotos' words to apply only to the beginning of the route, the actual ascent, but that would expose his interpretation to the same objection which he raises against the Vardates route. If by the "mountains on the left" Herodotos meant Mt. Kallidromos, it is curious that he does not call it by name, i.e. Mt. Anopaia. The testimony of Pausanias (10.22.8-9), which clearly lo- cates the route in the Vardates area, is rejected entirely by Hignett,45 though Pritchett4" and Burn47 are too aware of Pausanias' importance for topography to dismiss him out of hand. If Pausanias had any knowledge of the territory of Ainis, then that territory, as he describes it, would certainly have included the Vardates-Dio Vouna valley, the only route in the area Pausanias is speaking of which is negotiable by an army.

Herodotos' statement (7.223) that the descent of the mountain took less time and was shorter in distance than "the way around the hills and the ascent" is certainly more appropriate to the Vardates route than any other.48 From Nevropolis down to Thermopylai took about five hours, or a little less, allowing some time for my getting lost and stop- ping to talk with shepherds. From Vardates to Nevropolis was eight and a half hours. By any of the other routes, except perhaps the Asopos Gorge, the ascent is shorter than the descent, thus contra- dicting Hdt. 7.223. Herodotos apparently thought of the hike as consisting of three segments: a circuit, an ascent, and a descent (,replosoJ , vdflpaut,, KaTardfl/3a). By my interpretation, "the way around the hills" (,reploSo3) refers to the circuit from Var- dates to the Asopos, and the "ascent" (&vpflau3) refers to the actual ascent of Kallidromos, from the Asopos to Nevropolis. From the Damasta spur or Chalkomata there is no

,reploso3; there is only an

av/flpaor. One might object to this and say that by ,reploso3

Herodotos is referring to the entire route, but in that case the terms should be reversed. It

42 This is undeniably a great difficulty and, if the sequence in Hdt. 7.217 is to be insisted upon, would be fatal to the interpretation which makes the upper Asopos the beginning of the path. See Myres (supra n. 12) 249-50.

43 As Burn (supra n. 16) 487-89 seemed to recognize in his earlier article where he quotes the opinions which J.L. Myres expressed in a letter.

44 Pritchett (supra n. I) 206, 208. See also Hignett (supra n. 2) 367.

45 Hignett (supra n. 2) 362-63. 46Pritchett (supra n. I) 208. For the limits of Ainis and

Trachis, see Pritchett 206-207 and the sources cited there. 47 Burn (supra n. 5) 414: "Pausanias, no mean topographer,

believed a tradition that the Persians went not by the steep way up but by an easier way round 'through the land of the Ainianes.' "

48 See Hignett (supra n. 2) 369 and his objections. Burn (supra n. 13) 103 now believes that Herodotos' remark about the length of the ascent and descent is the main argument against the routes which advance up the northern slopes of Kallidromos.


1980] THE ANOPAIA PATH 23 seems better to understand the "circuit" and the "ascent" as separate, and that the order Herodotos gives them is the one he meant them to have. The Persians spent part of the night in the rcptlosos, from Vardates around to the Asopos, for it was still night when deserters brought the news of the Per- sian maneuver to the Greeks (Hdt. 7.219); they had just finished the Jvaflpauv at dawn, when look- outs brought the same news to Leonidas. As soon as the Persians had accomplished the ascent, they had the skirmish with the Phokians, and imme- diately thereafter began the descent (KaT/patvov Tr opos Hdt. 7.218).

Indeed the path on the top of Mt. Kallidromos can actually be reached by a number of ways, although there is only one good way for a troop of soldiers to reach it. One can easily reach the path along the crest of Kallidromos by all of the routes suggested: from the Asopos Gorge, from the area of the Chalkomata spring, or from the Damasta spur,49 but all of these ways are either too narrow at some part or too precipitous, and all put a body of troops in too vulnerable a position. If we are reduced to looking for footpaths for single travelers over the mountain, then the search for the Anopaia Path seems hopeless. Every Greek mountain has numerous trails and pathways, and one choice is about as good as another.

The Anopaia Path at Thermopylai was something special-an unusual, and continuous, geographical feature, which allowed a body of troops to remain a body of troops throughout its march. That is the secret of the Anopaia Path, and that is what renders Thermopylai a death trap: a very de- fensible pass as long as the enemy does not know the secret of the Path. This is surely the only way to explain the "pernicious" (Hdt. 7.215) character of the Anopaia Path. There is nothing unusual about the other routes which have been suggested; they are like all other mountain paths. Only the Vardates route differs, to the extent that it is accu- rate to speak of two passes at Thermopylai--one at

the gates and one over the mountain. But the one over the mountain required a guide, a good guide like Ephialtes who knew the whole area.50

There is probably a strong subjective element in every route which modern students have chosen for the Anopaia Path. After one has walked through the mountains for a while, one route just seems like the right one. I admit the subjective element in my choice of the Vardates route, but I also think the evidence is sufficient to say that this is the only route which satisfies the military requirements. I have now walked all of the routes which others have suggested for the beginning of the Anopaia Path, and if I had to lead a troop of soldiers around the mountain, and not expose myself and the others to unnecessary danger, there is no doubt which route I would choose.

Probably the problem is ultimately insoluble, but attempts to reconstruct, with as much precision as possible, the interplay between man and nature at certain great moments in history nevertheless result in certain benefits, besides providing the topographer with an excuse to wander over the Greek mountains. The role which the Greek land has played in the history of that country is enor- mous, and only recently have political conditions been such that the student of Greek history could take advantage of what the Greek land itself has to tell us. It has been over 150 years since the travels of the great Col. Leake, and topographical research is still in its infancy, though excellent work has been done by Burn, Pritchett, Vanderpool and others. Perhaps if political conditions remain steady so that such research can continue, we may soon reach the point where we can understand fully what Aeschylus (Pers. 792-94) meant when he said that Greece was the Greeks' ally, and that Xerxes' failure in Greece was due, perhaps as much as anything else, to the Greek land.

DEPARTMENT OF CLASSICS STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK AT ALBANY

ALBANY, NEW YORK 12222

49 That the pathways ascending from Damasta were regarded, at least in Byzantine times, as having some military importance, is indicated by the existence of walls guarding the passes on either side of Liathitsa. See MacKay (supra n. I) 248-49. It seems to me very unlikely that Procopius (de Aed. 4.2-7-8)

would have had any knowledge of the width of the paths over Mt. Kallidromos.

50 Cato (Plut. vit.Cat.Mai. 13) learned the value of a guide on Mt. Kallidromos, when he, with 2000 men, followed a prisoner of war who had insufficient knowledge of the mountain.


Awi

Jie, 104

All

FIc. I. Pergara and upper Asopos from N. Kastro Orias on right. Portes on left

At" 8oi?

Ae:

9Zt

FIG. 2. Ascent from Elafopedema to Eleftherochori in foreground, from SE. Kastro Orias on left

Ar~ 44? 14 . 1cc~r l

," -~4 All8:: g""-w

fir pi ~4t9, ~: I rr*9a~::: ::: :; 40

FiG. 3. Path from Chalkomata and Damasta, near crest at Eleftherochori

IVA -

e V ?i- iNo

FiG. 4. Asopos Gorge at narrowest point

r

C)

H


Article Contentsp. [15]p. 16p. 17p. [18]p. 19p. 20p. 21p. 22p. 23[unnumbered]

Issue Table of ContentsAmerican Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 84, No. 1 (Jan., 1980), pp. 1-124Front Matter [pp. 1-88]Middle Chalcolithic Pottery from Southwestern Anatolia [pp. 5-14]The Anopaia Path at Thermopylai [pp. 15-23]Two Trojan Themes: The Iconography of Ajax Carrying the Body of Achilles and of Aeneas Carrying Anchises in Black Figure Vase Painting [pp. 25-40]The Archaistic Athena Promachos in Early Hellenistic Coinages [pp. 41-50]The Approach to the Temple of Saturn in Rome [pp. 51-62]Archaeological News from Cyprus, 1977-1978 [pp. 63-73]North African News Letter 2 [pp. 75-87]Archaeological NotesSome Recycled Vases in the West Cemetery at Eleusis [pp. 89-90]Four Bronzes in the Hirshhorn Museum [pp. 90-91]Analysis of a Clay Sample from an Etruscan Statue Found at Veii [pp. 91-92]A Wild Chous Chase [pp. 92-93]The "Romulean" Gates of the Palatine [pp. 93-96]A Proposal for the Reuse of the Tower of the Winds [pp. 96-99]

Book ReviewsReview: untitled [pp. 101-102]Review: untitled [pp. 102-103]Review: untitled [pp. 103-105]Review: untitled [pp. 105-106]Review: untitled [pp. 106-108]Review: untitled [pp. 108-109]Review: untitled [pp. 109-110]Review: untitled [pp. 110-112]Review: untitled [pp. 112-113]Review: untitled [pp. 113-115]Review: untitled [p. 115]Review: untitled [pp. 116-117]Review: untitled [pp. 117-118]Review: untitled [pp. 118-119]Review: untitled [pp. 119-120]

Books Received [pp. 120-122]Recent Dissertations in Archaeology [pp. 122-123]Addendum: The Archaeological Institute of America, 1879-1979: A Centennial Review [p. 123]Back Matter

The Anopaia Path at Thermopylai

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