CHAPTER LVIII

FROM THE BATTLE OF MARATHON TO THE MARCH OF XERXES AGAINST GREECE.

 

In the last chapter but one of the preceding volume, I de­scribed the Athenian victory at Marathon, the repulse of the Persian general Datis, and the return of his armament across the Aegean to the Asiatic coast. He had been directed to conquer both Eretria and Athens: an order which he had indeed executed in part with success, as the string of Eretrian prisoners brought to Susa attested,—but which remained still unfulfilled in regard to the city principally obnoxious to Darius. Far from satiating his revenge upon Athens, the Persian monarch was compelled to listen to the tale of an ignominious defeat. His wrath against the Athenians rose to a higher pitch than ever, and he commenced vigorous preparations for a renewed attack upon them, as well as upon Greece generally. Resolved upon assembling the entire force of his empire, he directed the various satraps and sub-governors throughout all Asia to provide troops, horses, and ships, both of war and burden. For no less than three years the empire was agitated by this immense levy, which Darius determined to conduct in person against Greece. Nor was his determination abated by a revolt of the Egyptians, which broke out about the time when his preparations were completed. He was on the point of undertaking simultaneously the two enterprises,—the conquest of Greece and the reconquest of Egypt,—when he was surprised by death, after a reign of thirty-six years. As a precaution previous to this intended march, he had nominated as successor Xerxes, his son by Atossa; for the ascendency of that queen insured to Xerxes the preference over his elder brother Artabazanes, son of Darius by a former wife, and born before the latter became king. The choice of the reigning monarch passed unquestioned, and Xerxes succeeded without opposition. It deserves to be remarked, that though we shall meet with several acts of cruelty and atrocity perpetrated in the Persian regal family, there is nothing like that systematic fratricide which has been considered necessary to guarantee succession in Turkey and other Oriental empires.

The intense wrath against Athens, which had become the predominant sentiment in the mind of Darius, was yet unappeased at the time of his death, and it was fortunate for the Athenians that his crown now passed to a prince less obstinately hostile as well as in every respect inferior. Xerxes, personally the handsomest and most stately man amid the immense crowd which he led against Greece, was in character timid and faint-hearted, over and above those defects of vanity, childish self-conceit, and blindness of appreciation, which he shared more or less with all the Persian kings. Yet we shall see that, even under his conduct, the invasion of Greece was very near proving successful: and it well might have succeeded altogether, had he been either endued with the courageous temperament, or inflamed with the fierce animosity, of his father.

On succeeding to the throne, Xerxes found the forces of the empire in active preparation, pursuant to the orders of Darius; except Egypt, which was in a state of revolt. His first necessity was to reconquer this country; a purpose for which the great military power now in readiness was found amply sufficient. Egypt was subdued and reduced to a state of much harder de­pendence than before: we may presume that the tribute was increased, as well as the numbers of the Persian occupying force maintained, by contributions levied on the natives. Achaemenes, brother of Xerxes, was installed there as satrap.

But Xerxes was not at first equally willing to prosecute the schemes of his deceased father against Greece. At least such is the statement of Herodotus; who represents Mardonius as the grand instigator of the invasion, partly through thirst for war­like enterprise, partly from a desire to obtain the intended conquest as a satrapy for himself. Nor were there wanting Grecian counsellors to enforce his recommendation, both by the promise of help and by the color of religion. The great family of the Aleuadae, belonging to Larissa, and perhaps to other towns in Thessaly, were so eager in the cause, that their principal members came to Susa to offer an easy occupation of that frontier territory of Hellas: while the exiled Peisistratids from Athens still persevered in striving to procure their own restoration at the tail of a Persian army. On the present occasion, they brought with them to Susa a new instrument, the holy mystic Onomacritus,—a man who had acquired much reputation, not by prophesying himself, but by collecting, arranging, interpreting, and delivering out, prophetic verses passing under the name of the ancient seer or poet Musaeus. Thirty years before, in the flourishing days of the Peisistratids, he had lived at Athens, enjoying the confidence of Hipparchus, and consulted by him as the expositor of these venerated documents. But having been detected by the poet Lasus of Hermione, in the very act of interpolating them with new matter of his own, Hipparchus banished him with indignation. The Peisistratids, however, now in banishment themselves, forgot or forgave this offence, and carried Onomacritus with his prophecies to Susa, announcing him as a person of oracular authority, to assist in working on the mind of Xerxes. To this purpose his interpolations, or his omissions, were now directed: for when introduced to the Persian monarch, he recited emphatically various encouraging predictions wherein the bridging of the Hellespont and the triumphant march of a barbaric host into Greece, appeared as predestined; while he carefully kept back all those of a contrary tenor, which portended calamity and disgrace. So at least Herodotus, strenuous in up­holding the credit of Bakis, Musaeus, and other Grecian prophets whose verses were in circulation, expressly assures us. The religious encouragements of Onomacritus, and the political conferation proffered by the Aleuadae, enabled Mardonius effectually to overcome the reluctance of his master. Nor indeed was it difficult to show, according to the feelings then prevalent, fiat a new king of Persia was in honor obliged to enlarge the boundaries of the empire. The conquering impulse springing from the first founder was as yet unexhausted; the insults offered by the Athenians remained still unavenged: and in addition to this double stimulus to action, Mardonius drew a captivating picture of Europe as an acquisition;—“it was the finest land in the world, produced every variety of fruit-bearing trees, and was too good a possession for any mortal man except the Persian kings.” Fifteen years before, the Milesian Aristagoras, when entreating the Spartans to assist the Ionic revolt, had exaggerated the wealth and productiveness of Asia in contrast with the poverty of Greece,—a contrast less widely removed from the truth, at that time, than the picture presented by Mardonius.

Having thus been persuaded to alter his original views, Xerxes convoked a meeting of the principal Persian counsellors, and announced to them his resolution to invade Greece, setting forth the mingled motives of revenge and aggrandizement which impelled him, and representing the conquest of Greece as carrying with it that of all Europe, so that the Persian empire would become coextensive with the tether of Zeus and the limits of the sun’s course. On the occasion of this invasion, now announced and about to take place, we must notice especially the historical manner and conception of our capital informant,—Herodotus. The invasion of Greece by Xerxes, and the final repulse of his forces, constitute the entire theme of his three last books and the principal object of his whole history, towards which the previous matter is intended to conduct. Amidst those prior circumstances, there are doubtless many which have a substantia importance and interest of their own, recounted at so much length that they appear coordinate and principal, so that the thread of the history is for a time put out of sight. Yet we shall find, if we bring together the larger divisions of his history omitting the occasional prolixities of detail, that such thread is never lost in the historian’s own mind: it may be traced by an attentive reader, from his preface and the statement immediately following it—of Croesus, as the first barbaric conqueror of the Ionian Greeks—down to the full expansion of his theme, Gracia Barbariae lento collisa duello, in the expedition of Xerxes. That expedition, as forming the consummation of his historical scheme, is not only related more copiously and continuously than any events preceding it, but is also ushered in with an unusual solemnity of religious and poetical accompaniment, so that the seventh book of Herodotus reminds us in many points of the second book of the Iliad: probably too, if the lost Grecian epics had reached us, we should trace many other cases in which the imagination of the historian has unconsciously assimilated itself to them. The dream sent by the gods to frighten Xerxes, when about to recede from his project,—as well as the ample catalogue of nations and eminent individuals embodied in the Persian host,—have both of them marked parallels in the Iliad: and Herodotus seems to delight in representing to himself the enterprise against Greece as an antithesis to that of the Atreidae against Troy. He enters into the internal feelings of Xerxes with as much familiarity as Homer into those of Agamemnon, and introduces “the counsel of Zeus” as not less direct, special, and overruling, than it appears in the Iliad and Odyssey : though the godhead in Herodotus, compared with Homer, tends to become neuter instead of masculine or feminine, and retains only the jealous instincts of a ruler, apart from the appetites, lusts, and caprices of a man: acting, moreover, chiefly as a centralized, or at least as a homogeneous, force, in place of the discordant severalty of agents conspicuous in the Homeric theology. The religious idea, so often presented elsewhere in Herodotus,—that the godhead was jealous and hostile to excessive good fortune or immoderate desires in man,—is worked into his history of Xerxes as the ever-present moral and as the main cause of its disgraceful termination: for we shall discover as we proceed, that the historian, with that honorable frankness which Plutarch calls his “malignity,” neither ascribes to his countrymen credit greater than they deserve for personal valor, nor seeks to veil the many chances of defeat which their mismanagement laid open.

I have already mentioned that Xerxes is described as having originally been averse to the enterprise, and only stimulated thereto by the persuasions of Mardonius: this was probably the genuine Persian belief, for the blame of so great a disaster would naturally be transferred from the monarch to some evil counsellor. As soon as Xerxes, yielding to persuasion, has announced to the Persian chief men whom he had convoked his resolution to bridge over the Hellespont and march to the conquest of Greece and Europe, Mardonius is represented as expressing his warm concurrence in the project, extolling the immense force of Persia and depreciating the Ionians in Europe—so he denominated them—as so poor and disunited that success was not only certain but easy. Against the rashness of this general—the evil genius of Xerxes—we find opposed the prudence and long experience of Artabanus, brother of the deceased Darius, and therefore uncle to the monarch. The age and relationship of this Persian Nestor emboldens him to undertake the dangerous task of questioning the determination which Xerxes, though professing to invite the opinions of others, had proclaimed as already settled in his own mind. The speech which Herodotus puts into the mouth of Artabanus is that of a thoughtful and religious Greek: it opens with the Grecian conception of the necessity of hearing and comparing opposite views, prior to any final decision,—reproves Mardonius for falsely depreciating the Greeks and seducing his master into personal danger,—sets forth the probability that the Greeks, if victorious at sea, would come and destroy the bridge by which Xerxes had crossed the Hellespont,—reminds the latter of the imminent hazard which Darius and his army had undergone in Scythia, from the destruction—averted only by Histiaeus and his influence—of the bridge over the Danube: such prudential suggestions being further strengthened by adverting to the jealous aversion of the godhead towards overgrown human power.

The impatient monarch silences his uncle in a tone of insult and menace: nevertheless, in spite of himself, the dissuasions work upon him so powerfully, that before night they gradually alter his resolution, and decide him to renounce the scheme. In this latter disposition he falls asleep, when a dream appears: a tall, stately man stands over him, denounces his change of opinion, and peremptorily commands him to persist in the enterprise as announced In spite of this dream, Xerxes still adheres to his altered purpose, assembles his council the next morning, and after apologizing for his angry language towards Artabanus, acquaints them to their great joy that he adopts the recommendations of the latter, and abandons his project against Greece. But in the following night, no sooner has Xerxes fallen asleep, than the same dream and the same figure again appear to him, repeating the previous command in language of terrific menace. The monarch, in a state of great alarm, springs from his bed and sends for Artabanus, whom he informs of the twice-repeated vision and divine mandate interdicting his change of resolution. “If (says he) it be the absolute will of God that this expedition against Greece should be executed, the same vision will appear to thee also, provided thou puttest on my attire, sittest in my throne, and sleepest in my bed.” Not without reluctance, Artabanus obeys this order (for it was high treason in any Persian to sit upon the regal throne) but he at length complies, expecting to be able to prove to Xerxes that the dream deserved no attention. “Many dreams (he says) are not of divine origin, nor anything better than mere wandering objects such as we have been thinking upon during the day: this dream, of whatever nature it may be, will not be foolish enough to mistake me for the king, even if I be in the royal attire and bed; but if it shall still continue to appear to thee, I shall myself confess it to be divine.” Accordingly, Artabanus is placed in the regal throne and bed, and, as soon as he falls asleep, the very same figure shows itself to him also, saying, “Art thou he who dissuadest Xerxes, on the plea of solicitude for his safety, from marching against Greece? Xerxes has already been forewarned of that which he will suffer if he disobeys, and thou too shalt not escape, either now or in future, for seeking to avert that which must and shall be.” With these words the vision assumes a threatening attitude, as though preparing to burn out the eyes of Artabanus with hot irons, when the sleeper awakes in terror, and runs to communicate with Xerxes. “I have hitherto, 0 king, recommended to thee to rest contented with that vast actual empire on account of which all mankind think thee happy; but since the divine impulsion is now apparent, and since destruction from on high is prepared for the Greeks, I too alter my opinion, and advise thee to command the Persians as God directs; so that nothing may be found wanting on thy part for that which God puts into thy hands”.

It is thus that Herodotus represents the great expedition of Xerxes to have originated: partly in the rashness of Mardonius, who reaps his bitter reward on the field of battle at Plataea,—but still more in the influence of mischievous Oneiros, who is sent by the gods—as in the second book of the Iliad—to put a cheat upon Xerxes, and even to overrule by terror both his scruples and those of Artabanus. The gods having determined—as in the instances of Astyages, Polycrates, and others—that the Persian empire shall undergo signal humiliation and repulse at the hands of the Greeks, constrain the Persian monarch into a ruinous enterprise against his own better judgment. Such religious imagination is not to be regarded as peculiar to Herod­otus, but as common to him with his contemporaries generally, Greeks as well as Persians, though peculiarly stimulated among the Greeks by the abundance of their epic or quasi-historical poetry: modified more or less in each individual narrator, it is made to supply connecting links as well as initiating causes for the great events of history. As a cause for this expedition, incomparably the greatest fact and the most fertile in consequences, throughout the political career both of Greeks and Persians, nothing less than a special interposition of the gods would have satisfied the feelings either of one nation or the other. The story of the dream has its rise, as Herodotus tells us, in Persian fancy, and is in some sort a consolation for the national vanity; but it is turned and colored by the Grecian historian, who mentions also a third dream, which appeared to Xerxes after his resolution to march was finally taken, and which the mistake of the Magian interpreters falsely construed into an encouragement, though it really threatened ruin. How much this religious conception of the sequence of events belongs to the age, appears by the fact, that it not only appears in Pindar and the Attic tragedians generally, but pervades especially the Persae of Aeschylus, exhibited seven years after the battle of Salamis,—in which we find the premonitory dreams as well as the jealous enmity of the gods towards vast power and overweening aspirations in man, though without any of that inclination, which Herodotus seems to have derived from Persian informants, to exculpate Xerxes by representing him as disposed himself to sober counsels, but driven in a contrary direction by the irresistible fiat of the gods.

While we take due notice of those religious conceptions with which both the poet and the historian surround this vast conflict Greeks and barbarians, we need look no farther than ambition and revenge for the real motives of the invasion: considering that it had been a proclaimed project in the mind of Darius for three years previous to his death, there was no probability that his son and successor would gratuitously renounce it. Shortly after the reconquest of Egypt, he began to make his preparations, the magnitude of which attested the strength of his resolve as well as the extent of his designs. The satraps and subordinate officers, throughout the whole range of his empire, received orders to furnish the amplest quota of troops and munitions of war,—horse and foot, ships of war, horse-transports, provisions, or supplies of various kinds, according to the circumstances of the territory; while rewards were held out to those who should ex­ecute the orders most efficiently. For four entire years these preparations were carried on, and as we are told that similar preparations had been going forward during the three years preced­ing the death of Darius, though not brought to any ultimate result, we cannot doubt that the maximum of force, which the empire could possibly be made to furnish, was now brought to execute the schemes of Xerxes. The Persian empire was at this moment more extensive than ever it will appear at any subsequent period; for it comprised maritime Thrace and Macedonia as far as the borders of Thessaly, and nearly all the islands of the Aegean north of Crete and east of Euboea, including even the Cyclades. There existed Persian forts and garrisons at Doriskus, Eion, and other places on the coast of Thrace, while Abdera, with the other Grecian settlements on that coast were numbered among the tributaries of Susa. It is necessary to bear in mind these boundaries of the empire, at the time when Xerxes mounted the throne, as compared with its reduced limits at the later time of the Peloponnesian war,—partly that we may understand the apparent chances of success to his expedition, as they presented themselves both to the Persians and to the medizing Greeks,—partly that we may appreciate the after­ circumstances connected with the formation of the Athenian maritime empire.

In the autumn of the year 481 BC, the vast army thus raised by Xerxes arrived, from all quarters of the empire, at or near to Sardis; a large portion of it having been directed to assemble at Kritala in Cappadocia, on the eastern side of the Halys, where it was joined by Xerxes himself on the road from Susa. From thence he crossed the Halys, and marched through Phrygia and Lydia, passing through the Phrygian towns of Kelaenae, Anaua, and Kolossae, and the Lydian town of Kallatebus, until he reached Sardis, where winter-quarters were prepared for him. But this land force, vast as it was (respecting its numbers, I shall speak farther presently), was not all that the empire had been required to furnish. Xerxes had determined to attack Greece, not by traversing the Aegean, as Datis had passed to Eretria and Marathon, but by a land force ana fleet at once: the former cross­ing the Hellespont, and marching through Thrace, Macedonia, and Thessaly; while the latter was intended to accompany and cooperate. A fleet of one thousand two hundred and seven ships of war, besides numerous vessels of service and burden, had been assembled on the Hellespont and on the coasts of Thrace and Ionia; moreover, Xerxes, with a degree of forethought much exceeding that which his father Darius had displayed in the Scythian expedition, had directed the formation of large magazines of provisions at suitable maritime stations along the line of march, from the Hellespont to the Strymonic gulf. During the four years of military preparation, there had been time to bring together great quantities of flour and other essential articles from Asia and Egypt.

If the whole contemporary world were overawed by the vast assemblage of men and muniments of war which Xerxes thus brought together, so much transcending all past, we might even say all subsequent, experience,—they were no less astounded by two enterprises which entered into his scheme,—the bridging of the Hellespont, and the cutting of a ship-canal through the isthmus of Mount Athos. For the first of the two there had indeed been a precedent, since Darius about thirty-five years be­fore had caused a bridge to be thrown over the Thracian Bosphorus, and crossed it in his march to Scythia; but this bridge, though constructed by the Ionians and by a Samian Greek, hav­ing had reference only to distant regions, seems to have been little known or little thought of among the Greeks generally, as we may infer from the fact, that the poet Aeschylus speaks as if he had never heard of it, while the bridge of Xerxes was ever remembered, both by Persians and by Greeks, as a most imposing display of Asiatic omnipotence. The bridge of boats—or rather, the two separate bridges not far removed from each other—which Xerxes caused to be thrown across the Hellespont, stretched from the neighborhood of Abydos, on the Asiatic side to the coast between Sestos and Madytus on the European, where the strait is about an English mile in breadth. The execution of the work was at first intrusted, not to Greeks, but to Phenicians and Egyptians, who had received orders long beforehand to prepare cables of extraordinary strength and size expressly for the purpose; the material used by the Phenicians was flax, that employed by the Egyptians was the fibre of the papyrus. Already had the work been completed and announced to Xerxes as available for transit, when a storm arose, so violent as altogether to ruin it. The wrath of the monarch, when apprized of this catastrophe, burst all bounds; it was directed partly against the chief-engineers, whose heads he caused to be struck off, but partly also against the Hellespont itself. He commanded that the strait should be scourged with three hundred lashes, and that a set of fetters should be let down into it as a farther punish­ment : moreover Herodotus had heard, but does not believe, that he even sent irons for the purpose of branding it. “Thou bitter water (exclaimed the scourgers while inflicting this punishment), this is the penalty which our master inflicts upon thee, because thou hast wronged him though he hath never wronged thee. King Xerxes will cross thee, whether thou wilt or not; but thou deservest not sacrifice from any man, because thou art a treacherous river of (useless) salt water.”

Such were the insulting terms heaped by order of Xerxes on the rebellious Hellespont,—Herodotus calls them “non-Hellenic and blasphemous terms,” which, together with their brevity, leads us to believe that he gives them as he heard them, and that they are not of his own invention, like so many other speeches in his work, where he dramatizes, as it were, a given position. It has been common, however, to set aside in this case not merely the words, but even the main incident of punishment inflicted on the Hellespont, as a mere Greek fable rather than a real fact: the extreme childishness and absurdity of the proceeding giving to it the air of an enemy’s calumny. But this reason will not appear sufficient, if we transport ourselves back to the time and to the party concerned. To transfer to inanimate objects the sensitive as well as the willing and designing attributes of human beings, is among the early and wide-spread instincts of mankind, and one of the primitive forms of religion: and although the enlargement of reason and experience gradually displaces this elementary Fetichism, and banishes it from the regions of reality into those of conventional fictions, yet the force of momentary passion will often suffice to supersede the acquired habit, and even an intelligent man may be impelled in a moment of agoniz­ing pain to kick or beat the lifeless object from which he has suffered. By the old procedure, never formally abolished, though gradually disused, at Athens,—an inanimate object which had caused the death of a man was solemnly tried and cast out of the border: and the Arcadian youths, when they returned hungry from an unsuccessful day’s hunting, scourged and pricked the god Pan or his statue by way of revenge. Much more may we suppose a young Persian monarch, corrupted by universal subservience around him, to be capable of thus venting an insane wrath: and the vengeance ascribed by Herodotus to Cyrus to­wards the river Gyndes (which he caused to be divided into three hundred and sixty streamlets, because one of his sacred horses had been drowned in it), affords a fair parallel to the scourging of the Hellespont by Xerxes. To offer sacrifice to rivers, and to testify in this manner gratitude for service rendered by rivers, was a familiar rite in the ancient religion. While the grounds for distrusting the narrative are thus materially weakened, the positive evidence will be found very forcible. The expedition of Xerxes took place when Herodotus was about four years old, so that he afterwards enjoyed ample opportunity of conversing with persons who had witnessed and taken part in it: and the whole of his narrative shows that he availed himself largely of such access to information. Besides, the building of the bridge across the Hellespont, and all the incidents connected with it, were acts essentially public in their nature,—known to many witnesses, and therefore the more easily verified,—the de­capitation of the unfortunate engineers was an act fearfully impressive, and even the scourging of the Hellespont, while essen­tially public, appears to Herodotus (as well as to Arrian, afterterwards), not childish but impious. The more attentively we balance, in the case before us, the positive testimony against the intrinsic negative probabilities, the more shall we be disposed to admit without diffidence the statement of our original historian.

New engineers—perhaps Greek along with, or in place of, Phenicians and Egyptians—were immediately directed to recommence the work, which Herodotus now describes in detail, and which was doubtless executed with increased care and solidity. To form the two bridges, two lines of ships—triremes and pentekonters blended together—were moored across the strait breastwise, with their sterns towards the Euxine, and their heads towards the Aegean, the stream flowing always rapidly towards the latter. They were moored by anchors head and stern, and by very long cables. The number of ships placed to carry the bridge nearest to the Euxine was three hundred and sixty: the number in the other, three hundred and fourteen. Over or through each of the two lines of ships, across from shore to shore, were stretched six vast cables, which discharged the double function of holding the ships together, and of supporting the bridge-way to be laid upon them. They were tightened by means of capstans on each shore: in three different places along the line, a gap was left between the ships for the purpose of enabling trading vessels, in voyage to or from the Euxine, to pass and repass beneath the cables.

Out of the six cables assigned to each bridge, two were of flax and four of papyrus, combined for the sake of increased strength; for it seems that in the bridges first made, which proved too weak to resist the winds, the Phenicians had employed cables of flax for one bridge, the Egyptians those of papyrus for the other. Over these again were laid planks of wood, sawn to the appropriate width, secured by ropes to keep them in their places: and lastly, upon this foundation the cause­way itself was formed, out of earth and wood, with a palisade on each side high enough to prevent the cattle which passed over from seeing the water.

The other great work which Xerxes caused to be performed, for facilitating his march, was, the cutting through of the isthmus which connects the stormy promontory of Mount Athos with the main land. That isthmus, near the point where it joins the main land, was about twelve stadia or furlongs across, from the Strymonic to the Toronaic gulf: and the canal dug by order of Xerxes was broad and deep enough for two triremes to sail abreast. In this work too, as well as in the bridge across the Hellespont, the Phenicians were found the ablest and most efficient among all the subjects of the Persian monarch; but the other tributaries, especially the Greeks from the neighboring town of Acanthus, and indeed the entire maritime forces of the empire, were brought together to assist. The head-quarters of the fleet were first at Kyme and Phocaea, next at Elaeus in the southern extremity of the Thracian Chersonese, from which point it could protect and second at once the two enterprises going forward at the Hellespont and at Mount Athos. The canal-cutting at the latter was placed under the general directions of two noble Persians,—Bubares and Artachaeus, and distributed under their measure­ment as task-work among the contingents of the various nations; an ample supply of flour and other provisions being brought for sale in the neighboring plain from various parts of Asia and Egypt.

Three circumstances in the narrative of Herodotus, respecting this work, deserve special notice. First, the superior intelli­gence of the Phenicians, who, within sight of that lofty island of Thasos which had been occupied three centuries before by their free ancestors, were now laboring as instruments to the ambition of a foreign conqueror. Amidst all the people engaged, they alone took the precaution of beginning the excavation at a breadth far greater than the canal was finally destined to occupy, so as gradually to narrow it, and leave a convenient slope for the sides: the others dug straight down, so that the time as well as the toil of their work was doubled by the con­tinual falling in of the sides,—a remarkable illustration of the degree of practical intelligence then prevalent, since the nations assembled were many and diverse. Secondly, Herodotus remarks that Xerxes must have performed this laborious work from motives of mere ostentation: “for it would have cost no trouble at all,” he observes, “to drag all the ships in the fleet across the isthmus; so that the canal was nowise needed.” So familiar a process was it, in the mind of a Greek of the fifth century BC, to transport ships by mechanical force across an isthmus; a special groove, or slip, being seemingly prepared for them: such was the case at the Diolkus across the isthmus of Corinth. Thirdly, it is to be noted, that the men who excavated the canal at Mount Athos worked under the lash; and these, be it borne in mind, were not bought slaves, but freemen, except in so far as they were tributaries of the Persian monarch; and that the father of Herodotus, a native of Halicarnassus, and a subject of the brave queen Artemisia, may perhaps have been among them. We shall find other examples as we proceed, of this indiscriminate use of the whip, and full conviction of its indispensable necessity, on the part of the Persians,—even to drive the troops of their subject-contingents on to the charge in battle. To employ the scourge in this way towards freemen, and especially towards freemen engaged in military service, was altogether repugnant both to Hellenic practice and to Hellenic feeling: the Asiatic and insular Greeks were relieved from it, as from various other hardships, when they passed out of Persian dominion to become, first allies, afterwards subjects, of Athens: and we shall be called upon hereafter to take note of this fact, when we appreciate the complaints preferred against the hegemony of Athens.

At the same time that the subject-contingents of Xerxes excavated this canal, which was fortified against the sea at its two extremities by compact earthen walls, or embankments, they also threw bridges of boats over the river Strymon: and these two works, together with the renovated double bridge across the Hellespont, were both announced to Xerxes as completed and ready for passage, on his arrival at Sardis at the beginning of winter, 181-480 bc. Whether the whole of his vast army arrived at Sardis at the same time as himself, and wintered there, may reasonably be doubted; but the whole was united at Sardis and ready to march against Greece, at the beginning of spring, 480 BC.

While wintering at Sardis, the Persian monarch despatched heralds to all the cities of Greece, except Sparta and Athens, to demand the received tokens of submission, earth and water: for news of his prodigious armament was well calculated to spread terror even among the most resolute of them. And he at the same time sent orders to the maritime cities in Thrace and Macedonia to prepare “dinner ” for himself and his vast suite as he passed on his march. That march was commenced at the first beginning of spring, and continued in spite of several threatening portents during the course of it,— one of which Xerxes was blind enough not to comprehend, though, according to Herodotus, nothing could be more obvious than its signification,—while another was misinterpreted into a favorable omen by the compli­ant answer of the Magian priests. On quitting Sardis, the vast host was divided into two nearly equal columns: a spacious interval being left between the two for the king himself, with his guards and select Persians. First of all came the baggage, carried by beasts of burden, immediately followed by one half of the entire body of infantry, without any distinction of nations: next, the select troops, one thousand Persian cavalry, with one thousand Persian spearmen, the latter being distinguished by carrying their spears with the point downwards, as well as by the spear itself, which had a golden pomegranate at its other extremity, in place of the ordinary spike or point whereby the weapon was planted in the ground when the soldier was not on duty. Behind these troops 'walked ten sacred horses, of vast power and splendidly caparisoned, bred on the Nisman plains in Media: next, the sacred chariot of Zeus, drawn by eight white horses,—wherein no man was ever allowed to mount, not even the charioteer, who walked on foot behind with the reins in his hand. Next after the sacred chariot came that of Xerxes himself, drawn by Nisaean horses; the charioteer, a noble Persian, named Patiramphes, being seated in it by the side of the monarch,—who was often accustomed to alight from the chariot and to enter a litter. Immediately about his person were a chosen body of one thousand horse-guards, the best troops and of the highest breed among the Persians, having golden apples at the reverse extremity of their spears, and followed by other detachments of one thousand horse, ten thousand foot, and ten thousand horse, all native Persians. Of these ten thousand Per­sian infantry, called the Immortals, because their number was always exactly maintained, nine thousand carried spears with pomegranates of silver at the reverse extremity, while the re­maining one thousand distributed in front, rear, and on each side of this detachment, were marked by pomegranates of gold on their spears. With them ended what we may call the household troops: after whom, with an interval of two furlongs, the remaining host followed pell-mell. Respecting its numbers and constit­uent portions I shall speak presently, on occasion of the great review at Doriskus.

On each side of the army, as it marched out of Sardis, was seen suspended one half of the body of a slaughtered man, placed there expressly for the purpose of impressing a lesson on the subjects of Persia. It was the body of the eldest son of the wealthy Pythius, a Phrygian old man resident at Keltenae, who had entertained Xerxes in the course of his march from Cappadocia to Sardis, and who had previously recommended himself by rich gifts to the preceding king Darius. So abundant was his hospitality to Xerxes, and so pressing his offers of pecuniary contribution for the Grecian expedition, that the monarch asked him what was the amount of his wealth. “I possess (replied Pythius) besides lands and slaves, two thousand talents of silver, and three million nine hundred and ninety-three thousand of golden darics, wanting only seven thousand of being four million. All this gold and silver do I present to thee, retaining only my lands and slaves, which will be quite enough.” Xerxes replied by the strongest expressions of praise and gratitude for his liberality; at the same time refusing his offer, and even giving to Pythius out of his own treasure the sum of seven thousand darics, which was wanting to make up the exact sum of four million. The latter was so elated with this mark of favor, that when the army was about to depart from Sardis, he ventured, under the influence of terror from the various menacing portents, to prefer a prayer to the Persian monarch. His five sons were all about to serve in the invading army against Greece: his prayer to Xerxes was, that the eldest of them might be left behind, as a stay to his own declining years, and that the service of the remaining four with the army might be considered as sufficient. But the un­happy father knew not what he asked. “Wretch! (replied Xerxes) dost thou dare to talk to me about thy son, when I am myself on the march against Greece, with my sons, brothers, re­latives, and friends? thou who art my slave, and whose duty it is to follow me, with thy wife and thy entire family ? Know that the sensitive soul of man dwells in his ears: on hearing good things, it fills the body with delight, but boils with wrath when it hears the contrary. As, when thou didst good deeds and madest good offers to me, thou canst not boast of having surpassed the king in generosity, —so now, when thou hast turned round and become impudent, the punishment inflicted on thee shall not be the full measure of thy deserts, but something less. For thyself and for thy four sons, the hospitality which I received from thee shall serve as protection; but for that one son whom thou especially h to keep in safety, the forfeit of his life shall be thy penalty.” He forthwith directed that the son of Pythius should be put to death, and his body severed in twain: of which one half was to be fixed on the right-hand, the other on the left-hand, of the road along which the army was to pass.

A tale essentially similar, yet rather less revolting, has been already recounted respecting Darius, when undertaking his expedition against Scythia. Both tales illustrate the intense force of sentiment with which the Persian kings regarded the obligation of universal personal service, when they were themselves in the field. They seem to have measured their strength by the number of men whom they collected around them, with little or no reference to quality: and the very mention of exemption—the idea that a subject and a slave should seek to withdraw him­self from a risk which the monarch was about to encounter—was an offence not to be pardoned. In this as in the other acts of Oriental kings, whether grateful, munificent, or ferocious, we trace nothing but the despotic force of personal will, translating itself into act without any thought of consequences, and treating subjects with less consideration than an ordinary Greek master would have shown towards his slaves.

From Sardis, the host of Xerxes directed its march to Abydos, first across Mysia and the river Kaikus,—then through Atarneus, Karine, and the plain of Thebe: they passed Adramyttium and Antandrus, and crossed the range of Ida, most part of which was on their left hand, not without some loss from stormy weather and thunder. From hence they reached Ilium and the river Skamander, the stream of which was drunk up, or probably in part trampled and rendered undrinkable, by the vast host of men and animals : in spite of the immortal interest which the Skamander derives from the Homeric poems, its magnitude is not such as to make this fact surprising. To the poems themselves, even Xerxes did not disdain to pay tribute: he ascended the holy hill of Ilium,—reviewed the Pergamus where Priam was said to have lived and reigned,—sacrificed one thousand oxen to the patron goddess Athene,—and caused the Magian priests to make libations in honor of the heroes who had fallen on that venerated spot. He even condescended to inquire into the local details, abundantly supplied to visitors by the inhabitants of Ilium, of that great real or mythical war to which Grecian chronologers had hardly yet learned to assign a precise date: and doubtless when he contemplated the narrow area of that Troy which all the Greeks confederated under Agamemnon had been unable for ten years to overcome, he could not but fancy that these same Greeks would fall an easy prey before his innu­merable host. Another day’s march between Rhoeteium, Ophryneium, and Dardanus on the left-hand, and the Teucrians of Gergis on the right-hand, brought him to Abydos, where his two newly-constructed bridges over the Hellespont awaited him.

On this transit from Asia into Europe Herodotus dwells with peculiar emphasis,—and well he might do so, since when we consider the bridges, the invading number, the unmeasured hopes succeeded by no less unmeasured calamity,—it will appear not only to have been the most imposing event of his century, but to rank among the most imposing events of all history. He surrounds it with much dramatic circumstance, not only mentioning the marble throne erected for Xerxes on a hill near Abydos, from whence he surveyed both his masses of land-force covering the shore, and his ships sailing and racing in the strait (a race in which the Phenicians of Sidon surpassed the Greeks and all the other contingents), but also superadding to this real fact a dialogue with Artabanus, intended to set forth the internal mind of Xerxes. He farther quotes certain supposed exclamations of the A by denes at the sight of his superhuman power. “Why (said one of these terror-stricken spectators), why dost thou, 0 Zeus, under the shape of a Persian man and the name of Xerxes, thus bring together the whole Luman race for the ruin of Greece? It would have been easy for thee to accomplish that without so much ado.” Such emphatic ejaculations exhibit the strong feeling which Herodotus or his informants throw into the scene, though we cannot venture to apply to them the scrutiny of his­torical criticism.

At the first moment of sunrise, so sacred in the mind of Orientals, the passage was ordered to begin: the bridges being perfumed with frankincense and strewed with myrtle boughs, while Xerxes himself made libations into the sea with a golden censer, and offered up prayers to Helios, that he might effect without hindrance his design of conquering Europe even to its farthest extremity. Along with his libation he cast into the Hel­lespont the censer itself, with a golden bowl and a Persian cimeter;— “I do not exactly know (adds the historian) whether he threw them in as a gift to Helios, or as a mark of repentance and atonement to the Hellespont for the stripes which he had inflicted upon it.” Of the two bridges, that nearest to the Euxine was devoted to the military force,—the other, to the attendants, the baggage, and the beasts of burden. The ten thousand Persians, called Immortals, all wearing garlands on their heads, were the first to pass over, and Xerxes himself, with the remaining army, followed next, though in an order somewhat different from that which had been observed in quitting Sardis : the monarch having reached the European shore, saw his troops crossing the bridges after him under the lash.” But in spite of the use of this sharp stimulus to accelerate progress, so vast were the numbers of his host, that they occupied no less than seven days and seven nights, without a moment of intermission, in the business of crossing over—a fact to be borne in mind presently, when we come to discuss the totals computed by Herodotus.

Having thus cleared the strait, Xerxes directed his march along the Thracian Chersonese, to the isthmus whereby it is joined with Thrace, between the town of Kardia on his left hand and the tomb of Helle on his right, —the eponymous heroine of the strait. After passing this isthmus, he turned westward along the coast of the gulf of Melas and the Aegean sea,—crossing the river from which that gulf derived its name, and even drink­ing its waters up—according to Herodotus—with the men and animals of his army. Having passed by the Aeolic city of Aenus and the harbor called Stentoris, he reached the sea-coast and plain called Doriskus, covering the rich delta near the mouth of the Hebrus: a fort had been built there and garrisoned by Darius. The spacious plain called by this same name reached far along the shore to Cape Serreium, and comprised in it the towns of Sale and Zone, possessions of the Samothracian Greeks planted on the territory once possessed by the Thracian Kikones on the mainland. Having been here joined by his fleet, which had doubled the southernmost promontory of the Thracian Chersonese, he thought the situation convenient for a general review and enumeration both of his land and his naval force.

Never probably in the history of mankind has there been brought together a body of men from regions so remote and so widely diverse, for one purpose and under one command, as those which were now assembled in Thrace near the mouth of the Hebrus. About the numerical total we cannot pretend to form any definite idea; about the variety of contingents there is no room for doubt. “What Asiatic nation was there (asks Herod­otus, whose conceptions of this expedition seem to outstrip his powers of language) that Xerxes did not bring against Greece?” Nor was it Asiatic nations alone, comprised within the Oxus, the Indus, the Persian gulf, the Red Sea, the Levant, the Aegean and the Euxine: we must add to these also the Egyptians, the Ethiopi­ans on the Nile south of Egypt, and the Libyans from the desert near Cyrene. Not all the expeditions, fabulous or historical, of which Herodotus had ever heard, appeared to him compar­able to this of Xerxes, even for total number; much more in respect of variety of component elements. Forty-six different nations, each with its distinct national costume, mode of arming, and local leaders, formed the vast land-force; eight other nations furnished the fleet, on board of which Persians, Medes, and Sakai served as armed soldiers or marines; and the real leaders, both of the entire army and of all its various divisions, were native Persians of noble blood, who distributed the various na­tive contingents into companies of thousands, hundreds, and tens. The forty-six nations composing the land-force were as follows: Persians, Medes, Kissians, Hyrcanians, Assyrians, Bactrians, Sakae, Indians, Arians, Parthians, Chorasmians, Sogdians, Gandarians, Dadika, Kaspians, Sarangae, Paktyes, Utii, Myki, Parikanii, Arabians, Ethiopians in Asia and Ethiopians south of Egypt, Libyans, Paphlagonians, Ligyes, Matieni, Mariandyni, Syrians, Phrygians, Armenians, Lydians, Mysians, Thracians, Kabelians, Mares, Kolchians, Alarodians, Saspeires, Sagartii. The eight nations who furnished the fleet were: Phenicians, three hundred ships of war; Egyptians, two hundred; Cypriots, one hundred and fifty; Kelekian’s, one hundred; Pamphylians, thirty; Lycians, fifty; Carians, seventy; Ionic Greeks, one hun­dred; Doric Greeks, thirty; Aeolic Greeks, sixty; Hellespontic Greeks, one hundred; Greeks from the islands in the Aegean, seventeen; in all one thousand two hundred and seven triremes, or ships of war, with three banks of oars. The descriptions of costume and arms which we find in Herodotus are curious and varied  but it is important to mention that no nation except the Lydians, Pamphylians, Cypriots and, Carians (partially also the Egyptian marines on shipboard) bore arms analogous to those of the Greeks (i. e. arms fit for steady conflict and sustained charge,—for hand combat in line as well as for defence of the person,—but inconveniently heavy either in pursuit or in flight); while the other nations were armed with missile weapons,—light shields of wicker or leather, or no shields at all,—turbans or leather caps instead of helmets,—swords, and scythes. They were not properly equipped either for fighting in regular order or for resisting the line of spears and shields which the Grecian hoplites brought to bear upon them; their persons too were much less protected against wounds than those of the latter; some of them indeed, as the Mysians and Libyans, did not even carry spears, but only staves with the end hardened in the fire. A nomadic tribe of Persians, called Sagartii, to the number of eight thousand horsemen, came armed only with a dagger and with the rope known in South America as the lasso, which they cast in the fight to entangle an antagonist. The Ethiopians from the Upper Nile had their bodies painted half red and half white, wore the skins of lions and panthers, and carried, besides the javelin, a long bow with arrows of reed, tipped with a point of sharp stone.

It was at Doriskus that the fighting men of the entire land­army were first numbered; for Herodotus expressly informs us that the various contingents had never been numbered separately, and avows his own ignorance of the amount of each. The means employed for numeration were remarkable. Ten thou­sand men were counted, and packed together as closely as possible: a line was drawn, and a wall of inclosure built around the space which they had occupied, into which all the army was directed to enter successively, so that the aggregate number of divisions, comprising ten thousand each, was thus ascertained. One hundred and seventy of these divisions were affirmed by the informants of Herodotus to have been thus numbered, con­stituting a total of one million seven hundred thousand foot, besides eighty thousand horse, many war-chariots from Libya and camels from Arabia, with a presumed total of twenty thousand additional men. Such was the vast land-force of the Per­sian monarch: his naval equipments were of corresponding magnitude, comprising not only the twelve hundred and seven triremes, or war-ships, of three banks of oars, but also three thousand smaller vessels of war and transports. The crew of each trireme comprised two hundred rowers, and thirty fighting­men, Persians or Sakae; that of each of the accompanying ves­sels included eighty men, according to an average which Herodotus supposes not far from the truth. If we sum up these items, the total numbers brought by Xerxes from Asia to the plain and to the coast of Doriskus would reach the astounding figure of two million three hundred and seventeen thousand men. Nor is this all. In the farther march from Doriskus to Thermopylae, Xerxes pressed into his service men and ships from all the people whose territory he traversed: deriving from hence a reinforcement of one hundred and twenty triremes with aggregate crews of twenty-four thousand men, and of three hundred thou­sand new land troops, so that the aggregate of his force when he appeared at Thermopylae was two million six hundred and forty thousand men. To this we are to add, according to the conjecture of Herodotus, a number not at all inferior, as attendants, slaves, sutlers, crews of the provision-craft and ships of burden, etc., so that the male persons accompanying the Persian king when he reached his first point of Grecian resistance amounted to five million two hundred and eighty-three thousand two hundred and twenty! So stands the prodigious estimate of this army, the whole strength of the Eastern world, in clear and express figures of Herodotus, who himself evidently supposes the number to have been even greater; for he conceives the number of “camp followers ” as not only equal to, but consider­ably larger than, that of fighting-men. We are to reckon, besides, the eunuchs, concubines, and female cooks, at whose number Herodotus does not pretend to guess: together with cattle, beasts of burden, and Indian dogs, in indefinite multitude, increasing the consumption of the regular army.

To admit this overwhelming total, or anything near to it, is obviously impossible: yet the disparaging remarks which it has drawn down upon Herodotus are noway merited. He takes pains to distinguish that which informants told him, from that which he merely guessed. His description of the review at Dorikus is so detailed, that he had evidently conversed with persons who were present at it, and had learned the separate totals promulgated by the enumerators,—infantry, cavalry, and ships of war, great and small. As to the number of triremes, his statement seems beneath the truth, as we may judge from the contemporary authority of Aeschylus, who in the “Persae” gives the exact number of twelve hundred and seven Persian ships as having fought at Salamis: but between Doriskus and Salamis, Herodotus has himself enumerated six hundred and forty-seven ships as lost or destroyed, and only one hundred and twenty as added. No exaggeration, therefore, can well be sus­pected in this statement, which would imply about two hundred and seventy-six thousand as the number of the crews, though there is here a confusion or omission in the narrative which we cannot clear up. But the aggregate of three thousand smaller ships, and still more, that of one million seven hundred thousand infantry, are far less trustworthy. There would be little or no motive for the enumerators to be exact, and every motive for them to exaggerate,—an immense nominal total would be no less pleasing to the army than to the monarch himself,—so that the military total of land-force and ships’ crews, which Herodotus gives as two million six hundred and forty-one thousand on the arrival at Thermopylae, may be dismissed as unwarranted and incredible. And the computation whereby he determines the amount of non-military persons present, as equal or more than equal to the military, is founded upon suppositions noway admissible; for though in a Grecian well-appointed army it was customary to reckon one light-armed soldier, or attendant, for every hoplite, no such estimate can be applied to the Persian host. A few grandees and leaders might be richly provided with attendants of various kinds, but the great mass of the army would have none at all. Indeed, it appears that the only way in which we can render the military total, which must at all events have been very great, consistent with the conditions of possible subsistence, is by supposing a comparative absence of attendants, and by adverting to the fact of the small consumption, and habitual patience as to hardship of Orientals in all ages. An Asiatic soldier will at this day make his campaign upon scanty fare, and under privations which would be intolerable to an European. And while we thus diminish the probable consumption, we have to consider that never in any case of ancient history had so much previous pains been taken to accumulate supplies on the line of march: in addition to which the cities in Thrace were required to furnish such an amount of provisions, when the army passed by, as almost brought them to ruin. Herodotus himself expresses his surprise how provisions could have been provided for so vast a multitude; and were we to admit his estimate literally, the diffi­culty would be magnified into an impossibility. Weighing the circumstances of the case well, and considering that this army was the result of a maximum of effort throughout the vast em­pire, that a great numerical total was the thing chiefly demanded, and that prayers for exemption were regarded by the Great king as a capital offence, and that provisions had been collected for three years before along the line of march,—we may well believe that the numbers of Xerxes were greater than were ever assembled in ancient times, or perhaps at any known epoch of history. But it would be rash to pretend to guess at any positive number, in the entire absence of ascertained data: and when we learn from Thucydides that he found it impossible to find out the exact numbers of the small armies of Greeks who fought at Mantineia, we shall not be ashamed to avow our inability to count the Asiatic multitudes at Doriskus. We may remark, however, that, in spite of the reinforcements received afterwards in Thrace, Macedonia, and Thessaly, it may be doubted whether the aggregate total ever afterwards increased; for Herodotus takes no account of desertions, which yet must have been very numerous, in a host disorderly, heterogeneous, without any interest in the enterprise, and wherein the numbers of each separate contingent were unknown.

Ktesias gives the total of the host at eight hundred thousand men, and one thousand triremes, independent of the war-chariots : if he counts the crews of the triremes apart from the eight hundred thousand men, as seems probable, the total will then be considerably above a million. Aelian assigns an aggregate of seven hundred thousand men: Diodorus appears to follow partly Herodotus, partly other authorities. None of these wit­nesses enable us to correct Herodotus, in a case where we are obliged to disbelieve him. He is, in some sort, an original wit­ness, having evidently conversed with persons actually present at the muster of Doriskus, giving us both their belief as to the numbers, together with the computation, true or false, circulated among them by authority. Moreover, the contemporary Aeschylus, while agreeing with him exactly as to the number of triremes, gives no specific figure as to the land-force, but conveys to us, in his Persae, a general sentiment of vast number, which may seem in keeping with the largest statement of Herodotus: the Persian empire is drained of men,—the women of Susa are left without husbands and brothers,—the Bactrian territory has not been allowed to retain even its old men. The terror-striking effect of this crowd was probably quite as great as if its numbers had really corresponded to the ideas of Herodotus.

After the numeration had taken place, Xerxes passed in his chariot by each of the several contingents, observed their equipment, and put questions to which the royal scribes noted down the answers: he then embarked on board a Sidonian trireme, which had been already fitted up with a gilt tent, and sailed along the prows of his immense fleet, moored in line about four hundred feet from the shore, and every vessel completely manned for action. Such a spectacle was well calculated to rouse emotions of arrogant confidence, and it was in this spirit that he sent forthwith for Demaratus, the exiled king of Sparta, who was among his auxiliaries,—to ask whether resistance on the part of the Greeks to such a force was even conceivable. The conversation between them, dramatically given by Herodotus, is one of the most impressive manifestations of sentiment in the Greek language. Demaratus assures him that the Spartans most certainly, and the Dorians of Peloponnesus probably, will resist him to the death, be the difference of numbers what it may. Xerxes receives the statement with derision, but exhibits no feel­ing of displeasure: an honorable contrast to the treatment of Charidemus a century and a half afterwards, by the last monarch of Persia.

Alter the completion of the review, Xerxes with the army pursued his march westward, in three divisions and along three different lines of road, through the territories of seven distinct tribes of Thracians, interspersed with Grecian maritime colonies : all was still within his own empire, and he took reinforcements from each as he passed: the Thracian Satrae were preserved from this levy by their unassailable seats amidst the woods and snows of Rhodope. The islands of Samothrace and Thasus, with their subject towns on the mainland, and the Grecian colonies Diktea, Maroneia, and Abdera, were successively laid under contribution for contingents of ships or men; and, what was still more ruinous, they were further constrained to provide a day’s meal for the immense host as it passed: for the day of his pas­sage the Great King was their guest. Orders had been trans­mitted for this purpose long beforehand, and for many months the citizens had been assiduously employed in collecting food for the army, as well as delicacies for the monarch,—grinding flour of wheat and barley, fattening cattle, keeping up birds and fowls; together with a decent display of gold and silver plate for the regal dinner. A superb tent was erected for Xerxes and his immediate companions, while the army received their rations in the open region around: on commencing the march next morning, the tent with all its rich contents was plundered, and noth­ing restored to those who had furnished it. Of course, so prodigious a host, which had occupied seven days and seven nights in crossing the double Hellespontine bridge, must also have been for many days on its march through the territory, and therefore at the charge, of each one among the cities, so that the cost brought them to the brink of ruin, and even in some cases drove them to abandon house and home. The cost incurred by the city of Thasus, on account of their possessions of the mainland, for this purpose, was no less than four hundred talents (equal to ninety-two thousand eight hundred pounds): while at Abdera, the witty Megakreon recommended to his countrymen to go in a body to the temples and thank the gods, because Xerxes was pleased to be satisfied with one meal in the day. Had the mon­arch required breakfast as well as dinner, the Abderites must have been reduced to the alternative either of exile or of utter destitution. A stream called Lissus, which seems to have been of no great importance, is said to have been drunk up by the army, together with a lake of some magnitude near Pistyrus.

Through the territory of the Edonian Thracians and the Pierians, between Pangaeus and the sea, Xerxes and his army reached the river Strymon at the important station called Ennea Hodoi, or Nine-Roads, afterwards memorable by the foundation of Amphipolis. Bridges had been already thrown over the river, to which the Magian priests rendered solemn honors by sacrificing white horses and throwing them into the stream. Nor were his religious feelings satisfied without the more precious sacrifices often resorted to by the Persians : he here buried alive nine na­tive youths and nine maidens, in compliment to Nine-Roads, the name of the spot: moreover, he also left, under the care of the Paeonians of Siris, the sacred chariot of Zeus, which had been brought from the seat of empire, but which doubtless was found inconvenient on the line of march. From the Strymon he marched forward along the Strymonic gulf, passing through the territory of the Bisaltae, near the Greek colonies of Argilus and Stageirus, until he came to the Greek town of Acanthus, hard by the isthmus of Athos, which had been recently cut through. The fierce king of the Bisaltm refused submission to Xerxes, fled to Rhodope for safety, and forbade his six sons to join the Persian host. Unhappily for themselves, they nevertheless did so, and when they came back he caused all of them to be blinded.

All the Greek cities, which Xerxes had passed by, obeyed his orders with sufficient readiness, and probably few doubted the ultimate success of so prodigious an armament. But the inhabitants of Acanthus had been eminent for their zeal and exertions in the cutting of the canal, and had probably made considerable profits during the operation; Xerxes now repaid their zeal by contracting with them the tie of hospitality, accompanied with praise and presents; though he does not seem to have ex­empted them from the charge of maintaining the army while in their territory. He here separated himself from his fleet, which was directed to sail through the canal of Athos, to double the two southwestern capes of the Chalcidic peninsula, to enter the Thermaic gulf, and to await his arrival at Therma. The fleet in its course gathered additional troops from the Greek towns in the two peninsulas of Sithonia and Pallene, as well as on the eastern side of the Thermaic gulf, in the region called Krusis, or Kxossaea, on the continental side of the isthmus of Pallene. These Greek towns were numerous, but of little individual impor­tance. Near Therma (Salonichi) in Mygdonia, in the interior of the gulf and eastward of the mouth of the Axius, the fleet awaited the arrival of Xerxes by land from Acanthus. He seems to have had a difficult march, and to have taken a route considerably inland, through Paeonia and Krestonia, —a wild, woody, and untrodden country, where his baggage-camels were set upon by lions, and where there were also wild bulls, of prodigious size and fierceness: at length he rejoined his fleet at Therma, and stretched his army throughout Mygdonia, the an­cient Pieria, and Bottiaeis, as far as the mouth of the Haliakmon.

Xerxes had now arrived within sight of Mount Olympus, the northern boundary of what was properly called Hellas; after a march through nothing but subject territory, with magazines laid up beforehand for the subsistence of his army, with additional contingents levied in his course, and probably with Thracian volunteers joining him in the hopes of plunder. The road along which he had marched was still shown with solemn reverence by the Thracians, and protected both from intruders and from tillage, even in the days of Herodotus. The Macedonian princes, the last of his western tributaries, in whose territory he now found himself,—together with the Thessalian Aleuadae,—undertook to conduct him farther. Nor did the task as yet appear difficult: what steps the Greeks were taking to oppose him, shall be related in the coming chapter.