Then, when Critolaus was informed by his scouts that the Romans under Metellus had crossed the Spercheius, he fled to Scarpheia in Locris, without daring even to draw up the Achaeans in the pass between Heracleia and Thermopylae, and to await Metellus there. To such a depth of terror did he sink that brighter hopes were not suggested even by the spot itself, the site of the Lacedaemonian effort to save Greece480 B.C., and of the no less glorious exploit of the Athenians against the Gauls279 B.C..