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Updated: June 26, 2025
Demaratus's defense of the Spartans. They are governed by law. Xerxes resumes his march. Division of the army. The Strymon. Human sacrifices. Arrival at the canal. Death of the engineer. Burial of the engineer. A grand feast. Scene of revelry. Desolation and depopulation of the country.
If the reader will take a map of Greece and the AEgean, he will notice the island of Euboea lying along the classic coast like a rampart against Asia, leaving a channel between it and the continent quite a hundred and twenty miles in length, and scarcely an average of eight in width. The inlet on the north had admitted the fleet of Xerxes, and now it received the bold raiders from the Euxine.
The walls were partially destroyed, but this did not prevent a third rebellion in the reign of Xerxes, while the Persian monarch was absent in Greece. On this occasion, however, it was soon crushed, and Ê-Sagila, the temple of Bel, was laid in ruins.
Xerxes no sooner heard this than, being very much terrified, he proceeded to retreat out of Greece with all speed. The prudence of Themistocles and Aristides in this was afterward more fully understood at the battle of Plataea, where Mardonius, with a very small fraction of the forces of Xerxes, put the Greeks in danger of losing all.
The Greeks were a disorganized company of petty nations, welded together chiefly by unity of speech; but now, early in the fifth century B.C., occurred that famous attack upon the Western world by the Persians under Darius and his son and successor Xerxes. A few months of battling determined the fate of the Western world.
The building between the upper terrace and the mountains will be termed the "Great Eastern Edifice." Of all the existing buildings on the platform it occupies the most exalted position, being elevated from fourteen to fifteen feet above the general level of the central terrace, and being thus four or five feet higher than the "Palace of Xerxes."
For Xerxes, who was loaded with all the rewards and gifts of fortune, not satisfied with his armies of horse and foot, nor the multitude of his ships, nor his infinite treasure of gold, offered a reward to any one who could find out a new pleasure; and yet, when it was discovered, he was not satisfied with it; nor can there ever be an end to lust.
“A nimble tongue you have, Athenian, though an unbending neck.” Xerxes sat and stroked his beard, pleased at the frank reply. “Mardonius has told how you saved his and my sister’s lives, and that you are an outlaw from Athens.” “The last is all too true, great sir.” “Which means you will not pray your gods too hard for my defeat? ha?” Glaucon blushed, then looked up boldly.
Xerxes was now free to bend all his efforts against Greece, and, appreciating apparently to the full the magnitude and difficulty of the task, resolved that nothing should be left undone which could possibly be done in order to render success certain. The experience of former years had taught some important lessons.
It had been traversed seventy years before by Cyrus the Younger, with the ten thousand Greeks, and was the main road from Asia Minor into Cilicia and Syria. The narrowest part of this defile allowed only four soldiers abreast, and here Darius should have taken his stand, even as the Greeks took possession of Thermopylæ in the invasion of Xerxes.
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