06 - Xerxes, Makers of History by Jacob Abbott

Dive into the fascinating history of Xerxes, the formidable ruler of the Persian Empire, as he leads his forces in the dramatic invasion of Greece. Join Deon Gines as he unravels the intricate tapestry of power, conflict, and legacy during this pivotal era.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter six of Xerxes by Jacob Abbot. This LibriVox recording
is in the public domain recording by Dionjine's set Lake City, Utah,
The Review of the Troops at Doriscus b c. Four eighty.
As soon as the expedition of Xerxes had crossed the

(00:23):
hellspont and arrived safely on the European side, as narrated
in the last chapter, it became necessary for the fleet
and the army to separate and to move for a
time in opposite directions from each other. The reader will
observe by examining the map, that the army, on reaching

(00:47):
the European shore at the point to which they would
be conducted by a bridge at Abydos, would find themselves
in the middle of a long and narrow peninsula called
the Chersonesus, and that before commencing its regular march along
the northern coast of the Aegean Sea, it would be

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necessary first to proceed for fifteen or twenty miles to
the eastward in order to get round the bay by
which the peninsula is bounded on the north and west.
While therefore the fleet went directly westward along the coast,
the army turned to the eastward, a place of rendezvous

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having been appointed on the northern coast of the sea,
where they were all soon to meet again. The army
moved on by a slow and toilsome progress until it
reached the neck of the peninsula, and then turning at
the head of the bay, it moved westward again, following

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the direction of the coast. The line of march was, however,
laid at some distance from the shore, partly for the
sake of avoiding the indentations made in the land by
gulfs and bays, and partly for the sake of crossing
the streams from the interior at points so far inland

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that the water found in them should be fresh and pure.
Notwithstanding these precautions, however, the water often failed. So immense
were the multitudes of men and of beasts, and so
craving was the thirst which the heat and the fatigues
of the march engendered, that in several instances they drank

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the little rivers dry. The first great and important river
which the army had to pass after entering Europe was
the Hebris. Not far from the mouth of the Hebris,
where it emptied into the Aegean Sea, was a great
plain which was called the Plane of Doriscus. There was

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an extensive fortress here, which had been erected by the
orders of Darius when he had subjugated this part of
the country. 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

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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.
He could establish his own headquarters in the fortress while

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his armies could be marshalled and reviewed on the plane.
The fleet, too had been ordered to draw up to
the shore at the same spot, and when the army
reached the ground, they found the vessels already in the offing.
The army accordingly halted, and the necessary arrangements were made

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for their review. The first thing was to ascertain the
numbers of the troops, and as the soldiers were too
numerous to be counted, Xerxes determined to measure the mighty
mass as so much bulk, and then ascertained the numbers
by a computation. They made the measure itself in the

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following manner. They counted off first ten thousand men and
brought them together in a compact circular mass in the
middle of the plane, and then marked a line upon
the ground, enclosing them Upon this line thus determined, they
built a stone wall about four feet high, with openings

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on opposite sides of it, by which men might enter
and go out. When the wall was built, soldiers were
sent into the enclosure, just as corn would be poured
by a husbandman into a wooden pack, until it was full.
The mass thus required to fill the enclosure was deemed

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and taken to be ten thousand men. This was the
first filling of the measure. These men were then ordered
to retire and a fresh mass was introduced, and so
on until the whole army was measured. The enclosure was
filled one hundred and seventy times with the foot soldiers

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before the process was completed, indicating as the total amount
of the infantry of the army, a force of one million,
seven hundred thousand men. This enumeration, it must be remembered,
included the land forces alone. This method of measuring the
army in bulk was applied only to the foot soldiers.

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They constituted the great mass of the forces convened. There were, however,
various other bodies of troops in the army, which from
their nature were more systematically organized than the common foot soldiers,
and so their numbers were known by the regular enrollment.

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There was, for example, a cavalry force of eighty thousand men.
There was also a core of Arabs on camels, and
another of Egyptians in war chariots, which together amounted to
twenty thousand. Then, besides these land forces, there were half

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a million of men in the fleet. Immense as these
numbers are, they were still further in 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

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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 one hundred
thousand men, which is but one fiftieth part of five

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millions is considered in modern times an immense army, and
in fact half even of that number was thought in
the time of the American Revolution a sufficient force to
threaten the colonies with overwhelming destruction. If ten thousand men

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will not do to put down rebellion, said an order
in the House of Commons, fifty thousand shell Herodotus adds
that besides the five millions regularly connected with the army,
there was an immense and promiscuous mass of women, slaves, cooks, bakers,

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and camp followers of every description, that no human powers
could estimate or number. But to return to the review
the numbers of the army having been ascertained, the next
thing was to marshal and arrange the men by nations
under their respective leaders, to be reviewed by the king.

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A very full enumeration of these divisions of the army
is given by the historians of the day, with minute
descriptions of the kind of armor which the troops of
this several nations wore. There were more than fifty of
these nations in all. Some of them were highly civilized,

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others were semi barbarous tribes, and of course they presented
as marshaled in long array upon the plane every possible
variety of dress and equipment. Some were armed with brazen
helmets and coats of mail formed of plates of iron.
Others wore linen tunics or rude garments made of the

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skins of beasts. The troops of one nation had their
heads covered with helmets, those of another with miters, and
of a third with tiaras. There was one strange looking
horde that had caps made of the skin of the
upper part of a horse's head in its natural form,

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with the ears standing up erect at the top and
the main flowing down behind. These men held the skins
of cranes before them instead of shields, so that they
looked like horned monsters, half beast and half bird, endeavoring
to assume the guys and attitude of men. There was

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another corps whose men were really horned, since they wore
caps made from the skins of the heads of oxen,
with the horns standing. Wild beasts were personated too, as
well as tame, for some nations were clothed in lions skins,
and others in panther's skins, the clothing being considered apparently

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the more honorable in proportion to the ferocity of the
brute to which it had originally belonged. The weapons, too,
were of every possible form and guy's spears, some pointed
with iron, some with stone, and others shaped simply by
being burned to a point in the fire, bows and

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arrows of every variety of material and form, swords, daggers, slings, clubs, darts, javelins,
and every other imaginable species of weapon which human ingenuity,
savage or civilized, had then conceived. Even the lasso, the

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weapon of the American aborigines of modern times, was there.
It is described by the ancient historian as a long
thong of leather, wound into a coil, and finished in
a noose at the end, which noose the rude warrior
who used the implement launched through the error at the enemy, and,

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entangling rider and horse together by means of it, brought
them both to the ground. There was every variety of taste, too,
in the fashion and the colors of the dresses which
were worn. Some were of artificial fabrics and dyed in
various and splendid hues. Some were very plain, the wearers

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of them affecting a simple and savage ferocity in the
fashion of their vesture. Some tribes had painted skins beauty
in their view, consisting apparently in hideousness. There was one
barbarian horde who wore very little clothing of any kind.
They had knotty clubs for weapons, and in lieu of address,

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they had painted their naked bodies half white and half
a bright vermilion. In all this vast array, the core
which stood at the head in respect to their rank
and the costliness and elegance of their equipment, was a
Persian squadron of ten thousand men, called the Immortals. They

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had received this designation from the fact that the body
was kept always exactly full, as whenever any one of
the number died, another soldier was instantly put into his place,
whose life was considered, in some respects a continuation of
the existence of the man who had fallen. This by

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a fiction somewhat analogous to that by which the king
in England never dies. These ten thousand Persians were an
immortal band. They were all carefully selected soldiers, and they
enjoyed very unusual privileges and honors. They were mounted troops,
and their dress and their armor were richly decorated with gold.

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They were accompanied in their campaigns by their wives and families,
for whose use carriages were provided which followed the camp,
And there was a long train of camels besides, attached
to the service of the corps, to carry provisions and
their baggage. While all these countless varieties of land troops

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were marshaling and arranging themselves upon the plain, each under
its own officers and around its own standards, the naval
commanders were employed in bringing up the fleet of galleys
to the shore, where they were anchored in a long
line not far from the beach, and with their prows

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toward the land. Thus there was a space of open
water left between the line of vessels and the beach,
along which xerxes barge was to pass when the time
for the naval part of the review should arrive. When
all things were ready, Xerxes mounted his war chariot and

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rode slowly around the plain, surveying attentively and with great
interest and pleasure, the long lines of soldiers in all
their variety of equipment and costume as they stood displayed
before him. It required a progress of many miles to
see them all. When this review of the land forces

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was concluded, the king went to the shore and embarked
on a board a royal galley which had been prepared
for him, and there seated upon the deck under a
gilded canopy, he was rowed by the oarsmen along the
line of ships between their prows and the land. The

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ships were from many nations as well as the soldiers,
and exhibited the same variety of fashion and equipment. The
land troops had come from the inland realms and provinces
which occupied the heart of Asia, while the ships and
the seamen had been furnished by the maritime regions which

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extended along the coasts of the Black and the Aegean
and the mediterrans Iranian seas. Thus the people of Egypt
had furnished two hundred ships, the Phoenicians three hundred, Cyprus fifty,
the Silicians and the Ionians one hundred each, and so

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with a great many other nations and tribes. The various
squadrons which were thus combined in forming this immense fleet,
were manned and officered, of course, from the nations that
severally furnished them, and one of them was actually commanded
in person by a queen. The name of this lady

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admiral was Artemisia. She was the queen of Karia, a
small province in the southwestern part of Asia Minor, having
Haull Ofcarnassus for its capital. Artemisia, though in history called
a queen, was in reality more properly a regent, as

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she governed in the name of her us On, who
was yet a child. The quota of ships which Caria
was to furnish was five. Artemisia, being a lady of
ambitious and masculine turn of mind and fond of adventure,
determined to accompany the expedition. Not only her own vessels,

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but also those from some neighboring islands, were placed under
her charge, so that she commanded quite an important division
of the fleet. She proved also in the course of
the voyage to be abundantly qualified for the discharge of
her duties. She became, in fact one of the ablest

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and most efficient commanders in the fleet, not only maneuvering
and managing her own particular division in a very successful manner,
but also taking a very active and important part in
the general consultations, where what she said said was listened
to with great respect, and always had great weight in

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determining the decisions. 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 Ardabanis that no harbor would

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be found capacious enough to shelter them in the event
of a sudden storm. The line which they formed on
this occasion, when drawn up side by side upon the
shore for review, must have extended many miles. Serxes moved
slowly along this line in his barge, attended by the

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officers of his court and the great generals of his army,
who surveyed the various ships as they passed them, and
noted the diverse national costumes and equipments of the men
with curiosity and pleasure. Among those who attended the king
on this occasion was a certain Greek named Damaradus, an

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exile from his native land, who had fled to Persia
and had been kindly received by Darius some years before,
having remained in the Persian court until Xerxes succeeded to
the throne and undertook the invasion of Greece. He concluded
to accompany the expedition, the story of the political difficulties

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in which Damadus became involved in his native land, and
which led to his flight from Greece, was very extraordinary.
It was this. The mother of Damadus was the daughter
of parents of high rank and great affluence in Sparta,
but in her childhood her features were extremely pleas and repulsive.

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Now there was a temple in the neighborhood of the
place where her parents resided, consecrated to Helen, a princess who,
while she lived, enjoyed the fame of being the most
beautiful woman in the world. The nurse recommended that the
child should be taken every day to this temple, and

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that petitions should be offered there at the shrine of Helen,
that the repulsive deformity of her features might be removed.
The mother consented to this plan only in joining upon
the nurse not to let anyone see the face of
her unfortunate offspring in going and returning. The nurse accordingly

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carried the child to the temple day after day, and
holding it in her arms before the shrine, implored the
mercy of Heaven for her helpless charge, and the bestow
upon it of the boon of beauty. These petitions were,
it seems, at length heard, for one day, when the

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nurse was coming down from the temple after offering her
customary prayer, she was met and accosted by a mysterious
looking woman, who asked her what it was that she
was carrying in her arms. The nurse replied that it
was a child. The woman wanted to look at it.

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The nurse refused to show the face of the child,
saying that she had been forbidden to do so. The woman, however,
insisted upon seeing its face, and at last the nurse
consented and removed the coverings. The stranger stroked down the
face of the child, saying at the same time that

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now that child should become the most beautiful woman of Sparta.
Her words proved true. The features of the young girl
rapidly changed, and her countenance soon became as one wonderful
for its loveliness as it had been before for its
hideous deformity. When she arrived at a proper age, a

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certain Spartan nobleman named Aegedis, a particular friend of the
king's made her his wife. The name of the king
of Sparta at that time was Aristan. He had been
twice married, and his second wife was still living, but
he had no children. When he came to see and

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to know the beautiful wife of Aegaddas, he wished to
obtain her for himself, and began to revolve the subject
in his mind, with a view to discover some method
by which he might hope to accomplish his purpose. He
decided at length upon the following plan. He proposed to

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Agetdis to make an exchange of gifts, offering to give
him any one object which he might choose from all
his that is Aristan's effects, provided that Agedis would, in
the same manner give to Aristan whatever Aristan might choose.
Agetdis consented to the proposal, without however, giving it any

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serious consideration. As Aristan was already married. He did not
for a moment imagine that his wife could be the
object which the king would demand. The parties to this
foolish agreement confirmed the obligation of it by a solemn oath,
and then each made known to the other what he

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had selected agetdis gained some jewel or costly garment, or
perhaps a gilded and embellished weapon, and lost forever his
beautiful wife. Ariston repudiated his own second wife and put
the prize which he had thus surreptitiously acquired in her

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place as a third. About seven or eight months after
this time, Demadus was born. The intelligence was brought to
Aristan one day by a slave when he was sitting
at a public tribunal. Aristan seemed surprised at the intelligence
and exclaimed that the child was not his. He, however,

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afterward retracted this disavowal and owned Demaradus as his son.
The child grew up, and in process of time, when
his father died, he succeeded to the throne. The magistrates, however,
who had heard the declaration of his father at the
time of his birth, remembered it and reported it to others,

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And when Aristan died and Demadus assumed the supreme power,
the next heir denied his right to the succession, and
in process of time formed a strong party against him.
A long series of civil dissensions arose, and at length
the claims of Demaratus were defeated his enemies triumphed, and

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he fled from the country to save his life. He
arrived at Suza near the close of Darius's reign, and
it was his counsel which led the king to decide
the contest among his sons for the right of succession
in favor of Xerxes. As described at the close of
the first chapter, Xerxes had remembered his obligations to Demaradus

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for this interposition. He had retained him in the royal
court after his accession to the throne, and had bestowed
upon him many marks of distinction and honor. Demaratus had
decided to accompany Xerxes on his expedition into Greece. And now,

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while the Persian officers were looking with so much pride
and pleasure on the immense preparations which they were making
for the subjugation of a foreign and hostile state, Demaradus
too was in the midst of the scene, regarding the
spectacle with no less of interest, probably and yet doubtless

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with very different feelings, since the country upon which this
dreadful cloud of gloom and destruction was about to burst
was his own native land. After the review was ended,
Xerxes sent for Demaradus to come to the castle. When
he arrived, the king addressed him as follows. You are

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a Greek, Demoradus, and you know your countrymen well. And
now as you have seen the fleet and the army
that have been displayed here today, tell me what is
your opinion. Do you think that the Greeks will undertake
to defend themselves against such a force? Will they submit

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at once without attempting any resistance. Demaratus seemed at first
perplexed and uncertain, as if not knowing exactly what answer
to make to the question. At length, he asked the
king whether it was his wish that he should respond
by speaking the blunt and honest truth, or by saying

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what would be polite and agreeable. Xerxes replied that he
wished him, of course, to speak the truth. The truth
itself would be what he would consider the most agreeable.
Since you desire it, then said Demaratus, I will speak
the exact truth. Greece is the child of poverty. The

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inhabitants of the land have learned wisdom and discipline in
the severe school of adversity, and their resolution and courage
are absolutely indomitable. They all deserve this praise. But I
speak more particularly of my own countrymen, the people of Sparta.

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I am sure that they will reject any proposal which
you may make to them for submission to your power,
and that they will resist you to the last extremity.
The disparity of numbers will have no influence whatever on
their decision. If all the rest of Greece were to

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submit to you, leaving the Spartans alone, and if they
should find themselves unable to muster more than a thousand men,
they would give you battle. Xerxes expressed great surprise at
this assertion, and thought that Damratus could not possibly mean
what he seemed to say. I appealed to yourself, said he,

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would you dare to encounter alone ten men? You have
been the prince of the Spartans, and a pants ought
at least to be equal to two common men, So
that to show that the Spartans in general could be
brought to fight a superiority of force of even ten

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to one, it ought to appear that you would dare
to engage twenty. This is manifestly absurd, in fact, for
any person to pretend to be able or willing to
fight under such a disparity of numbers Evince's only pride
and insolent presumption. And even this proportion of ten to

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one or even twenty to one, is nothing compared to
the real disparity. For even if we grant to the
Spartans as large a force as there is any possibility
of their obtaining, I shall then have a thousand to
one against them. Besides, continued the King, there is a

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great difference in the character of the troops. The Greeks
are all freemen, while my soldiers are all slaves, bound
absolutely to do my bidding without complaint or murmur. Such
soldiers as mine, who are habituated to submit entirely to
the will of another, and who live under the continual

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fear of the lash, might perhaps be forced to go
into battle against a great superiority of numbers, or under
other manifest disadvantages. But freemen never. I do not believe
that a body of Greeks could be brought to engage
a body of Persians man for man. Every consideration shows

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thus that the opinion which you have expressed is unfounded.
You could only have been led to entertain such an
opinion through ignorance and unaccountable presumption was afraid, replied Demeratus
from the first that by speaking the truth I should
offend you. I should not have given you my real

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opinion of the Spartans if you had not ordered me
to speak without reserve. You certainly can not suppose me
to have been influenced by a feeling of undue partiality
for the men whom I commended, since they have been
my most implacable and bitter enemies and have driven me

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into hopeless exile from my native land. Your father, on
the other hand, received and protected me, and the sincere
gratitude which I feel for the favors which I have
received from him and from you incline me to take
the most favorable view possible of the Persian cause. I

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certainly should not be willing, as you justly suppose, to
engage alone to men, or ten or even one, unless
there was an absolute necessity for it. I do not
say that any single Lacedemonian could successfully encounter ten or
twenty Persians, Although in personal conflicts they are certainly not

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inferior to other men. It is when they are combined
in a body, even though that body be small, that
their great superiority is seen as to their being free
and thus not easily led into battle in circumstances of
imminent danger. It must be considered that their freedom is

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not absolute, like that of savages in affray, where each
acts according to his own individual will and pleasure, but
it is qualified and controlled by law. The Spartan soldiers
are not personal slaves governed by the lash of a master,
it is true, but they have certain principles of obligation

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and duty which they all feel most solemnly bound to obey.
They stand in greater awe of the authority of this
law than your subjects do of the lash. It commands
them never to fly from the field of battle, whatever
may be the number of their adversaries. It commands them

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to preserve their ranks, to stand firm at the posts
assign them, and there to conquer or die. This is
the truth in respect to them. If what I say
seems to you absurd, I will in future be silent.
I have spoken honestly what I think because your Majesty

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commanded me to do so. And notwithstanding what I have said,
I sincerely wish that all your Majesty's desires and expectations
may be fulfill the ideas which Damaradus thus appeared to
entertain of danger to the countless and formidable hosts of

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xerxes army from so small and insignificant a power as
that of Sparta seemed to Xerxes too absurd to awaken
any serious displeasure in his mind. He only smiled therefore
at Demaratus's fears and dismissed him, Leaving a garrison and

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a governor in possession of the castle of Doriscus. Xerxes
resumed his march along the northern shores of the Aegean Sea,
the immense swarms of men filling all the roads, devouring
everything capable of being used as food, either for beast
or man, and drinking all the brooks and smaller rivers dry.

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Even with this total consumption of the food and the
water which theyined on the march, the supplies would have
been found insufficient if the whole army had advanced through
one tract of country. They accordingly divided the host into
three great columns, one of which kept near the shore,

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the other marched far in the interior, and the third
in the intermediate space. They thus exhausted the resources of
a very wide region. All the men too, that were
capable of bearing arms in the nations that these several
divisions passed on the way, they compelled to join them,

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so that the army left as it moved along a
very broad extent of country, trampled down, impoverished, desolate, and
full of lamentation and woe. The whole march was perhaps
the most gigantic crime against the rights and the happiness
of man that human would goodness has ever been able

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to commit. The army halted from time to time for
various purposes, sometimes for the performance of what they considered
religious ceremonies, which were intended to propitiate the supernatural powers
of the earth and of the air. When they reached
the Stryman, where it will be recollected, a bridge had

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been previously built so as to be ready for the
army when it should arrive, they offered a sacrifice of
five white horses to the river. In the same region,
two they halted at a place called the Nine Ways,
where Xerxes resolved to offer a human sacrifice to a

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certain god whom the Persians believed to reside in the
interior of the earth. The mode of sacrificing to this
God was to bury the wretched victims alive. The Persians
seized accordingly by xerxes orders, nine young men and nine
girls from among the people of the country, and buried

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them alive. Marching slowly on in this manner, the army
at length reached the point upon the coast where the
canal had been cut across the isthmus of Mount Athos.
The town which was nearest to this spot was acanthus
the situation of which, together with that of the canal,

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will be found upon the map. The fleet arrived at
this point by sea nearly at the same time with
the army coming by land. Xerxes examined the canal and
was extremely well satisfied with its construction. He commended the
chief engineer, whose name was Artichaeus, in the highest terms

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for the successful manner in which he had executed the work,
and rendered him very distinguished honors. It unfortunately happened, however,
that a few days after the arrival of the fleet
and the army at the canal, and before the fleet
had commenced the passage of it, that Artichaius died. The

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king considered this event as a serious calamity to him,
as he expected that other occasions would arrive on which
he would have occasion to avail himself of the engineer's
talents and skill. He ordered preparations to be made for
a most magnificent burial, and the body was in due

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time deposited in the grave with imposing funeral solemnities. A
very splendid monument, too, was raised upon the spot, which
employed for some time all the mechanical force of the
army in its erection. While Xerxes remained at Acanthus he
required the people of the neighboring country to entertain his

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army at a grand feast, the cost of which totally
ruined them. Not only was all the food of the
vicinity consumed, but all the means and resources of the
inhabitants of every kind were exhausted in the additional supplies
which they had to procure from the surrounding regions. At

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this feast, the army in general eight seated in groups
upon the ground in the open air, but for Xerxes
and the nobles of the court, a great pavilion was built,
where tables were spread and vessels and furniture of silver
and gold suitable to the dignity of the occasion were provided.

(39:45):
Almost all the property which the people of the region
had accumulated by years of patient industry, was consumed at
once in furnishing the vast amount of food which was
required for this feast and the gold, gold and silver
plate which was to be used in the pavilion during

(40:05):
the entertainment. The inhabitants of the country waited upon their
exacting and insatiable guests until they were utterly exhausted by
the fatigues of the service. When at length the feast
was ended and Xerxes and his company left the pavilion,
the vast assembly outside broke up in disorder, pulled the

(40:29):
pavilion to pieces, plundered the tables of the gold and
silver plate, and departed to their several encampments, leaving nothing
behind them. The inhabitants of the country were so completely
impoverished and ruined by these exactions that those who were
not impressed into Xerxi's service and compelled to follow his

(40:52):
army abandoned their homes and roamed away in the hope
of finding elsewhere the means of assistance, which it was
no longer possible to obtain on their own lands, and thus,
when Xerxes at last gave orders to the fleet to
pass through the canal and to his army to resume

(41:14):
its march, he left the whole region utterly depopulated and desolate.
He went on to Therma, a port situated on the
northwestern corner of the Aegean Sea, which was the last
of his places of rendezvous before his actual advance into Greece.

(41:35):
End of chapter six