Note 120 — Chapter VII · THERMOPYLÆ.

These last words are, I believe, the true translation of the expression in Herodotus. There would be little point in repeating the fact of the river flowing through the ravine as a sort of mark of the identity of a stream whose course the historian had recently described with considerable detail. There is much point in the indication of what investigation at the present day shows to have been the fact, that this path did start from the Asopos ravine.

My own impression is that it sprang into use originally as a means of communication between that upper valley which I have mentioned as existing in the range of Œta, and probably also the Dorian plain, and Thermopylæ, when a flood of the Asopos rendered the ravine impassable. It would also form a direct means of communication between the Œteans and Locrians without passing through Trachinia.