now, at last, an informant was brought cringing into the royal tent. His name was Ephialtes, a native of the plain on which the Persian army was camped, and he it was who revealed to his interrogators that Callidromus did indeed possess a secret. “In the hope of a rich reward, he told the king about the trail which led over the mountain to Thermopylae”35—and even offered, in the truly fatal act of treachery, to serve the invaders as their guide.
