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Updated: May 1, 2025
Artabanus opposes the war. Repulse of Datis. Artabanus warns Xerxes of the danger of the expedition. Artabanus vindicates the character of the Greeks. Xerxes's displeasure. His angry reply to Artabanus. Xerxes's anxiety. He determines to abandon his project. Xerxes sees a vision in the night. The spirit appears a second time to Xerxes. Xerxes relates his dreams to Artabanus. Opinion of the latter.
Immense as these numbers are, they were still further increased, as the army moved on, by Xerxes's system of compelling the forces of every kingdom and province through which he passed to join the expedition; so that, at length, when the Persian king fairly entered the heart of the Greek territory, Herodotus, the great narrator of his history, in summing up the whole number of men regularly connected with the army, makes a total of about five millions of men.
Xerxes is not convinced. Advice of Artabanus in respect to employing the Ionians. Xerxes's opinion of the Ionians. Artabanus is permitted to return. Sham sea fight. Xerxes's address. Crossing the bridge. Preliminary ceremonies. The order of march. Movement of the fleet. Time occupied in the passage. Scene of confusion.
In the great battle of Salamis she acted a very conspicuous part, as will hereafter appear. The whole number of galleys of the first class in Xerxes's fleet was more than twelve hundred, a number abundantly sufficient to justify the apprehensions of Artabanus that no harbor would be found capacious enough to shelter them in the event of a sudden storm.
The springs of ancient Persia's long dead power, these. Men of Xerxes's ruthless, world-conquering hordes; the lustful, ravening wolves of Darius whom Alexander scattered in this world of ours twenty centuries beyond their time! Swiftly, accurately, even as I scanned them, we had been drilling into them. They advanced deliberately, heedless of their fallen. Their arrows had ceased to fly.
At the present day, when it is so much more difficult than it then was to obtain soldiers, and when so much more time and attention are required to train them to their work in the modern art of war, soldiers must be taken care of when obtained; but in Xerxes's day it was much easier to get new supplies of recruits than to incur any great expense in providing for the health and comfort of those already in the service.
The most remarkable of the transactions connected with Xerxes's advance through the country of Phocis, on his way to Athens, were those connected with his attack upon Delphi. Delphi was a sacred town, the seat of the oracle. It was in the vicinity of Mount Parnassus and of the Castalian spring, places of very great renown in the Greek mythology.
Thus there was a space of open water left between the line of vessels and the beach, along which Xerxes's barge was to pass when the time for the naval part of the review should arrive.
The Spartans, not content with a simple refusal, seized the embassadors and threw them into a well, telling them, as they went down, that if they wanted earth and water for the King of Persia, they might get it there. The Greeks had obtained some information of Xerxes's designs against them before they received his summons.
The king did not, however, so readily forget. The next day he demanded why his order had not been obeyed. Artabanus now began to fear for his own safety, and he determined to proceed at once to the execution of a plan which he had long been revolving, of destroying the whole of Xerxes's family, and placing himself on the throne in their stead.
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