United States or Trinidad and Tobago ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
In his march from Doriscus to Thermopylae he received a still further accession of strength; and accordingly when he reached Thermopylae the land and sea forces amounted to 2,641,610 fighting men.
And because, when the bridge was a building, a great storm wrecked it, he bade flog the naughty waves of the sea. Then, the bridge being finished, he passed over with his host, which took seven days to accomplish. And when they were come to Doriscus he numbered them, and found them to be 1,700,000 men, besides his fleets.
Leaving a garrison and a governor in possession of the castle of Doriscus, Xerxes resumed his march along the northern shores of the Ægean Sea, the immense swarms of men filling all the roads, devouring every thing capable of being used as food, either for beast or man, and drinking all the brooks and smaller rivers dry.
The number is quite incredible; but though the exact number of the invading army cannot be determined, we may safely conclude, from all the circumstances of the case, that it was the largest ever assembled at any period of history. From Doriscus Xerxes his march along the coast through Thrace and Macedonia.
The mighty mass was, however, at last transferred to the European continent, full of anxious fears in respect to what awaited them, but yet having very faint and feeble conceptions of the awful scenes in which the enterprise of their reckless leader was to end. The fleet and the army separate. The Chersonesus. Sufferings from thirst. The Hebrus. Plain of Doriscus.
It is unnecessary to follow in detail the advance of the host along the coast of Thrace, across Chalcidice, and round the Thermaic Gulf into Pieria. If we except the counting of the fleet and army at Doriscus no circumstances of much interest diversified this portion of the march, which lay entirely through territories that had previously submitted to the Great King.
Each of these peoples has first reaped some advantage, before falling into those calamities which some of them have already suffered, as all the world knows, and some are destined to suffer whenever their time comes. Have not the Phocians, and Thermopylae, and the Thracian seaboard Doriscus, Serrhium, Cersobleptes himself been taken from you?
The position of this fortress was an important one, because it commanded the whole region watered by the Hebrus, which was a very fruitful and populous district. Xerxes had been intending to have a grand review and enumeration of his forces on entering the European territories, and he judged Doriscus to be a very suitable place for his purpose.
Upon arriving at the spacious plain of Doriscus, which is traversed by the river Hebrus, he resolved to number his forces. He found that the whole armament, both military and naval, consisted of 2,317,610 men.
The king was much amused at hearing such an account from his messenger. He sent for Demaratus, the Spartan refugee, with whom, the reader will recollect, he held a long conversation in respect to the Greeks at the close of the great review at Doriscus. When Demaratus came, Xerxes related to him what the messenger had reported.
Word Of The Day