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Updated: June 17, 2025
There is some doubt whether Caracallus construed this response as an absolute refusal, and thereupon undertook his expedition, or whether he regarded it as inviting further negotiation, and sent a second embassy, whose arguments and persuasions induced Artabanus to consent to the proposed alliance.
Artabanus was of opinion that the enterprise which the king was contemplating was not only distant and dangerous, but that the country of the Scythians was of so little value that the end to be obtained by success would be wholly inadequate to compensate for the exertions, the costs, and the hazards which he must necessarily incur in the prosecution of it. But Darius was not to be dissuaded.
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.
He held a few solemn state councils, at which he appeared to determine all things and was actually guided by Artabanus and Mardonius. Now, at last, all the colossal machinery which was to crush down Hellas was being set in motion.
The soldiers of Macrinus, who had never had much confidence in their leader, were demoralized by ill success, and showed themselves inclined to throw off the restraints of discipline. Those of Artabanus, a militia rather than a standing force, were unaccustomed to sustained efforts; and having been now for some months in the field, had grown weary, and wished to return home.
He thought that the public voice was generally in his favor. Then, besides, he was already in possession of the throne, and by consenting to plead his cause before his uncle, he seemed to be virtually abandoning all this vantage ground, and trusting instead to the mere chance of Artabanus's decision. Atossa, however, recommended to him to accede to the plan of referring the question to Artabanus.
There is no doubt that this theory of Artabanus, so far as it applied to the unhappy soldiers of Xerxes, all marshaled before him when he uttered it, was eminently true. Xerxes admitted that what his uncle said was just, but it was, he said, a melancholy subject, and so he changed the conversation.
The king who has been called Artabanus IV. or Volagases II. may have maintained himself in this region, while Volagases I. continued to rule in the Western provinces and to be the only monarch known to the Romans and the Jews. If this be the true account of the matter, we may regard Volagases I. as having most probably reigned from A.D. 51 to about A.D. 78 a space of twenty-seven years.
At any rate he was an Arsacid; and he felt keenly the diminution of his own influence involved in the transfer to an alien race of the sovereignty wielded for five centuries by the descendants of the first Arsaces. He had set his forces in motion, while the contest between Artabanus and Artaxerxes was still in progress, in the hope of affording substantial help to his relative.
Artabanus, his uncle, dissuaded him from the enterprise, setting forth especially the probability that the Greeks, if victorious at sea, would destroy the bridge, and thus prevent his safe return. Mardonius advised differently, urging ambition and revenge, motives not lost on the Persian monarch.
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