> ordered the levy of a mighty army, and for three years busy preparations

for war went on throughout the vast empire of Persia. But, just as the

mustering was done and he was about to march, that grisly foe Death

struck him down in the midst of his schemes of conquest, and Greece was

saved,--the great Darius was no more.



Xerxes, son of Darius, succeeded him on the throne. This new monarch was

the handsomest and stateliest man in all his army. But his fair outside

covered a weak nature; timid, faint-hearted, vain, conceited, he was not

the man to conquer Greece, small as it was and great as was the empire

under his control; and the death of Darius was in all probability the

salvation of Greece.



Xerxes succeeded not only to the throne of Persia, but also to the vast

army which his father had brought together. He succeeded, moreover, to a

war, for Egypt was in revolt. But this did not last long; the army was

at once set in motion, Egypt was quickly subdued, and the Egyptians

found themselves under a worse tyranny than before.



Greece remained to conquer, and for that enterprise the timid Persian

king was not eager. Marathon could not be forgotten. Those fierce

Athenians who had defeated his father's great host were not to be dealt

with so easily as the unwarlike Egyptians. He held back irresolute, now

persuaded to war by one councillor, now to peace by another, and

finally--so we are told--driven to war by a dream, in which a tall,

stately man appeared to him and with angry countenance commanded him not

to abandon the enterprise which his father had designed. This dream came

to him again the succeeding night, and when Artabanus, his uncle, and

the advocate of peace, was made to sit on his throne and sleep in his

bed, the same figure appeared to him, and threatened to burn out his

eyes if he still opposed the war. Artabanus, stricken with terror, now

counselled war, and Xerxes determined on the invasion of Greece.



This story we are told by Herodotus, who told many things which it is

not very safe to believe. What we really know is that Xerxes began the

most stupendous preparations for war that had ever been known, and added

to the army left by his father until he had got together the greatest

host the world had yet beheld. For four years those preparations, to

which Darius had already given three years of time, were actively

continued. Horsemen and foot-soldiers, ships of war, transports,

provisions, and supplies of all kinds were collected far and near, the

vanity of Xerxes probably inciting him to astonish the world by the

greatness of his army.



In the autumn of the year 481 B.C. this vast army, marching from all

parts of the mighty empire, reached Lydia and gathered in and around the

city of Sardis, the old capital of Croesus. Besides the land army, a

fleet of twelve hundred and seven ships of war, and numerous other

vessels, were collected, and large magazines of provisions were formed

at points along the whole line of march. For years flour and other food,

from Asia and Egypt, had been stored in cities on the route, that the

fatal enemy starvation might not attack the mighty host.



Two important questions occupied the mind of Xerxes. How was he to get

his vast army on European soil, and how escape those dangers from storm

which had wrecked his father's fleet? He might cross the sea in ships,

as Datis had done,--and be like him defeated. Xerxes thought it safest

to keep on solid land, and decided to build a bridge of boats across the

Hellespont, that ocean river now known as the Dardanelles, the first of

the two straits which connect the Mediterranean with the Black Sea. As

for the other trouble, that of storms at sea, he remembered the great

gale which had wrecked the fleet of Mardonius off the stormy cape of

Mount Athos, and determined to avoid this danger. A narrow neck of land

connects Mount Athos with the mainland. Xerxes ordered that a ship-canal

should be cut through this isthmus, wide and deep enough to allow two

triremes--war-ships with three ranks of oars--to sail abreast.



This work was done by the Phoenicians, the ablest engineers at that

time in the world. A canal was made through which his whole fleet could

sail, and thus the stormy winds and waves which hovered about Mount

Athos be avoided.



This work was successfully done, but not so the bridge of boats. Hardly

had the latter been completed, when there came so violent a storm that

the cables were snapped like pack-thread and the bridge swept away. With

the weakness of a man of small mind, on hearing of this disaster Xerxes

burst into a fit of insane rage. He ordered that the heads of the chief

engineers should be cut off, but this was far from satisfying his anger.

The elements had risen against his might, and the elements themselves

must be punished. The Hellespont should be scourged for its temerity,

and three hundred lashes were actually given the water, while a set of

fetters were cast into its depths. It is further said that the water was

branded with hot irons, but it is hard to believe that even Xerxes was

such a fool as this would make him.



The rebellious water thus punished, Xerxes regained his wits, and

ordered that the bridge should be rebuilt more strongly than before.

Huge cables were made, some of flax, some of papyrus fibre, to anchor

the ships in the channel and to bind them to the shore. Two bridges were

constructed, composed of large ships laid side by side in the water,

while over each of them stretched six great cables, to moor them to the

land and to support the wooden causeway. In one of these bridges no less

than three hundred and sixty ships were employed.



And now, everything being ready, the mighty army began its march. It

presented a grand spectacle as it made its way from Sardis to the sea.

First of all came the baggage, borne on thousands of camels and other

beasts of burden. Then came one-half the infantry. The other half

marched in the rear, while between them were Xerxes and his great

body-guard, which is thus described by the Greek historian:



First came a thousand Persian cavalry and as many spearmen, each of the

latter having a golden pomegranate on the rear end of his spear, which

was carried in the air, the point being turned downward. Then came ten

sacred horses, splendidly caparisoned, and following them rolled the

sacred chariot of Zeus, drawn by eight white horses. This was succeeded

by the chariot of Xerxes himself, who was immediately attended by a

thousand horse-guards, the choicest troops of the kingdom, of whose

spears the ends glittered with golden apples. Then came detachments of

one thousand horse, ten thousand foot, and ten thousand horse. These

foot-soldiers, called the Immortals, because their number was always

maintained, had pomegranates of silver on their spears, with the

exception of one thousand, who marched in front and rear and on the

sides, and bore pomegranates of gold. After these household troops

followed the vast remaining host.



The army of Xerxes was, as we have said, superior in numbers to any the

world had ever seen. Forty-six nations had sent their quotas to the

host, each with its different costume, arms, mode of march, and system

of fighting. Only those from Asia Minor bore such arms as the Greeks

were used to fight with. Most of the others were armed with javelins or

other light weapons, and bore slight shields or none at all. Some came

armed only with daggers and a lasso like that used on the American

plains. The Ethiopians from the Upper Nile had their bodies painted half

red and half white, wore lion-and panther-skins, and carried javelins

and bows. Few of the whole army bore the heavy weapons or displayed the

solid fighting phalanx of those whom they had come to meet in war.



As to the number of men thus brought together from half the continent of

Asia we cannot be sure. Xerxes, after reaching Europe, took an odd way

of counting his army. Ten thousand men were counted and packed close

together. Then a line was drawn around them, and a wall built about the

space. The whole army was then marched in successive detachments into

this walled enclosure. Herodotus tells us that there were one hundred

and seventy of these divisions, which would make the whole army one

million seven hundred thousand foot. In addition there were eighty

thousand horse, many war-chariots, and a fleet of twelve hundred and

seven triremes and three thousand smaller vessels. According to

Herodotus, the whole host, soldiers and sailors, numbered two million

six hundred and forty thousand men, and there were as many or more

camp-followers, so that the whole number present, according to this

estimate, was over five million men. It is not easy to believe that such

a marching host as this could be fed, and it has probably been much

exaggerated; yet there is no doubt that the host was vast enough almost

to blow away all the armies of Greece with the wind of its coming.



On leaving Sardis a frightful spectacle was provided by Xerxes: the army

found itself marching between two halves of a slaughtered man. Pythius,

an old Phrygian of great riches, had entertained Xerxes with much

hospitality, and offered him all his wealth, amounting to two thousand

talents of silver and nearly four million darics of gold. This generous

offer Xerxes declined, and gave Pythius enough gold to make up his

darics to an even four millions. Then, when the army was about to march,

the old man told Xerxes that he had five sons in the army, and begged

that one of them, the eldest, might be left with him as a stay to his

declining years. Instantly the despot burst into a rage. The request of

exemption from military service was in Persia an unpardonable offence.

The hospitality of Pythius was forgotten, and Xerxes ordered that his

son should be slain, and half the body hung on each side of the army,

probably as a salutary warning to all who should have the temerity to

question the despot's arbitrary will.



On marched the great army. It crossed the plain of Troy, and here

Xerxes offered libations in honor of the heroes of the Trojan war, the

story of which was told him. Reaching the Hellespont, he had a marble

throne erected, from which to view the passage of his troops. The

bridges--which the scourged and branded waters had now spared--were

perfumed with frankincense and strewed with myrtle boughs, and, as the

march began, Xerxes offered prayers to the sun, and made libations to

the sea with a golden censer, which he then flung into the water,

together with a golden bowl and a Persian scimitar, perhaps to repay the

Hellespont for the stripes he had inflicted upon it.



At the first moment of sunrise the passage began, the troops marching

across one bridge, the baggage and attendants crossing the other. All

day the march continued, and all night long, the whip being used to

accelerate the troops; yet so vast was the host that for seven days and

nights, without cessation, the army moved on, and a week was at its end

before the last man of the great Persian host set foot on European soil.



Then down through the Grecian peninsula Xerxes marched, doubtless

inflated with pride at the greatness of his host and the might of the

fleet which sailed down the neighboring seas and through the canal which

he had cut to baffle stormy Athos. One regret alone seemed to come into

his mind, and that was that in a hundred years not one man of that vast

army would be alive. It did not occur to him that in less than one year

few of them might be alive, for all thought of any peril to his army

and fleet from the insignificant numbers of the Greeks must have been

dismissed with scorn from his mind.



Like locusts the army marched southward through Thrace, eating up the

cities as it advanced, for each was required to provide a day's meals

for the mighty host. For months those cities had been engaged in

providing the food which this army consumed in a day. Many of the cities

were brought to the verge of ruin, and all of them were glad to see the

army march on. At length Xerxes saw before him Mount Olympus, on the

northern boundary of the land of Hellas or Greece. This was the end of

his own dominions. He was now about to enter the territory of his foes.

With what fortune he did so must be left for later tales.