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He ruled thirty years in peace, and was so much loved by the Corinthians that he went about among them in safety without any body-guard. One of them, whose name was Demaratus, a wealthy and intelligent merchant, concluded to go westward, to Magna Græcia, into the part of the world from which his ships had brought him his revenues.
With these conversing, new and dazzling views were opened to his ambition. He could not but recall the example of Demaratus, whose exile from the barren dignities of Sparta had procured him the luxuries and the splendour of oriental pomp, with the delegated authority of three of the fairest cities of Aeolia. Greater in renown than Demaratus, he was necessarily more aspiring in his views.
When Demaratus the Spartan was bidden to ask for a boon, he asked to be allowed to drive through Sardis wearing his tiara upright like that of the king. Mithropaustes, the king's cousin, took hold of Demaratus by his tiara, saying, "You have no brains for the king's tiara to cover; do you think you would become Zeus if you were given his thunderbolt to wield?"
Ancient intrenchments. View at Thermopylæ. The allied forces. Leonidas the Spartan. Debate in regard to defending Thermopylæ. The decision. Character of the Spartans. Their pride. The Spartans adorn themselves for the battle. Approach of Xerxes. The Persian horseman. His observation. Report of the horseman. Conversation with Demaratus. Xerxes encamps at the pass. Troops sent into the pass.
The most authentic parts of his work bear the same relation to his wildest legends which Henry the Fifth bears to the Tempest. There was an expedition undertaken by Xerxes against Greece; and there was an invasion of France. There was a battle at Plataea; and there was a battle at Agincourt. Cambridge and Exeter, the Constable and the Dauphin, were persons as real as Demaratus and Pausanias.
He was stoutly resisted, and disgracefully baffled, in this impotent rashness; and his fellow-king, Demaratus, whom we remember to have suddenly deserted Cleomenes at Eleusis, secretly connived with the Aeginetans in their opposition to his colleague, and furnished them with an excuse, by insinuating that Cleomenes had been corrupted by the Athenians.
But when Demaratus, an exiled king of Sparta, warned Xerxes of the valour of all the Greeks, but chiefly of the Spartans, who would give battle, however few they might be, against any foe, however many, his words seemed to Xerxes a jest, seeing how huge his own army was.
The sharp, and yet not ungraceful, retorts which I mentioned may be instanced as follows. Demaratus, being asked in a troublesome manner by an importunate fellow, Who was the best man in Lacedaemon? answered at last, "He, sir, that is the least like you."
Sparta itself had just been torn by an internal dissension between two claimants of the throne, one of whom named Demaratus had been ejected and later fled to the Persian court. The great expedition of 490 sailed straight across the Aegean, commanded by Datis and Artaphernes. Their primary objective was Eretria in Euboea, a city which had assisted the Ionians in their revolt.
After the review was ended, Xerxes sent for Demaratus to come to the castle. When he arrived, the king addressed him as follows: "You are a Greek, Demaratus, and you know your countrymen well; and now, as you have seen the fleet and the army that have been displayed here to-day, tell me what is your opinion.
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