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Everybody who in any way could be made useful was dragged into that army. It was known that I had a knowledge of engineering and surveying, and I was taken into the army to help build bridges and lay out camps. "Here it was that I saw the curious method of counting the soldiers which was adopted by the officers of Xerxes's army.
The Persians seized, accordingly, by Xerxes's orders, nine young men and nine girls from among the people of the country, and buried them alive! Marching slowly on in this manner, the army at length reached the point upon the coast where the canal had been cut across the isthmus of Mount Athos.
Xerxes leaves Susa, and begins his march. The Meander. Celænæ. Pythius. The wealth of Pythius. His interview with Xerxes. The amount of Pythius's wealth. His offer to Xerxes. Gratification of Xerxes. His reply to Pythius's offer. Real character of Pythius. The entertainment of silver and gold. Xerxes's gratitude put to the test. He murders Pythius's son.
The inhabitants of the country were so completely impoverished and ruined by these exactions, that those who were not impressed into Xerxes's service and compelled to follow his army, abandoned their homes, and roamed away in the hope of finding elsewhere the means of subsistence which it was no longer possible to obtain on their own lands; and thus, when Xerxes at last gave orders to the fleet to pass through the canal, and to his army to resume its march, he left the whole region utterly depopulated and desolate.
At the moment when Xerxes's chariot entered upon the bridge, the fleet of galleys, which had been drawn up in preparation near the Asiatic shore, were set in motion, and moved in a long and majestic line across the strait to the European side, accompanying and keeping pace with their mighty master in his progress. Thus was spent the second day.
In respect to this particular story, we will add, that some people think that Mardonius was really the ghost by whose appearance Artabanus and Xerxes were so dreadfully frightened. Orders to the provinces. Mode of raising money. Modern mode of securing supplies of arms and money. Xerxes's preparations. Four years allotted to them. Arms. Provisions. Building of ships.
No human being was allowed to set his foot upon any part of it, and, consequently, the reins of the horses were carried back, under the car, to the charioteer, who walked behind. Xerxes's own chariot came next, drawn by very splendid horses, selected especially for their size and beauty. His charioteer, a young Persian noble, sat by his side. Then came great bodies of troops.
The vulgar and common errors which Sir Thomas Browne set himself to refute were such as these: That dolphins are crooked, that Jews stink, that a man hath one rib less than a woman, that Xerxes's army drank up rivers, that cicades are bred out of cuckoo-spittle, that Hannibal split Alps with vinegar, together with many similar fallacies touching Pope Joan, the Wandering Jew, the decuman or tenth wave, the blackness of negroes, Friar Bacon's brazen head, etc.
The place was celebrated for certain warm springs which here issued from the rocks, and which had been used in former times for baths. The position had been considered, long before Xerxes's day, a very important one in a military point of view, as it was upon the frontier between two Greek states that were frequently at war. One of these states, of course, was Thessaly.
Beneath the southern wall of the Acropolis was the Theatre of Bacchus, capable of seating thirty thousand persons, and the seats of which, rising one above another, were cut out of the sloping rock. Adjoining this on the east was the Ode'um, a smaller covered theatre, built by Pericles, and so constructed as to imitate the form of Xerxes's tent.
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