Xerxes
- the celebrated king of Persia, son of Darius Hystaspis, vanquished by the Greeks at Salamis, Cic. Tusc. 5, 7, 20; id. N. D. 1, 41, 115.
➳ orth. Xerses Cic. Leg. 2, 26 || acc. en, et em.
(Ξέρξης), king of Persia B. C. 485-465. The name is said by Herodotus (6.98) to signify the warrior, but it is probably the same word as the Zend ksathra and the Sanscrit kshatra, " a king." Xerxes was the son of Dareius and Atossa. Dareius was married twice. By his first wife, the daughter of Gobryas, he had three children before he was raised to the throne; and by his second wife, Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus, he had four children after he had become king of Persia. Artabazanes, the eldest son of the former marriage, and Xerxes, the eldest son of the latter, each laid claim to the succession; but Dareius decided in favour of Xerxes, no doubt through the influence of his mother Atossa, who completely ruled Dareius.
Xerxes succeeded his father at the beginning of B. C. 485. Dareius had died in the midst of his preparations against Greece, which had been interrupted by a revolt of the Egyptians. The first care of Xerxes was to reduce the latter people to subjection. He accordingly invaded Egypt at the beginning of the second year of his reign (B. C. 484), compelled the people again to submit to the Persian yoke, and then returned to Persia, leaving his brother Achaemenes, governor of Egypt. The next four years were devoted to preparations for the invasion of Greece. It was his object to collect a mighty armament, which might not simply be sufficient to conquer Europe, but which might display the power and magnificence of the greatest monarch of the world. Troops were gathered together from all quarters of the wide-spread Persian empire, and even the most distant nations subject to his sway were required to send their contingents. Critalla in Cappadocia was the place of meeting, and there they came pouring in, nomad hordes from the steppes of central Asia, dark-coloured tribes from the rivers flowing into the Indus, and negroes from the inland parts of Africa, as well as from all the intermediate countries. Immense stores of provisions were at the same time collected from all parts of the Persian empire, and deposited at suitable stations along the line of march. The fleet was furnished by the Phoenicians, Ionians and other maritime nations subject to the Persians. An agreement also was made with the Carthaginians, that they should attack the Greek cities in Sicily and Italy, while Xerxes invaded the mother country. Two great works were at the same time undertaken, which might bear witness to the grandeur and power of the Persian monarch. He ordered that a bridge of boats should be thrown across the Hellespont, and that a canal should be cut through the isthmus of Mount Athos, on which the fleet of Mardonius had been wrecked in B. C. 492. The bridge across the Hellespont stretched from the neighbourhood or Abydos on the Asiatic side to the coast between Sestos and Madytus on the European, were the strait is about an English mile in breadth. The work was entrusted to Phoenicians and Egyptians; but after it had been completed, it was destroyed by a violent storm. Xerxes was so enraged that he caused the heads of the chief engineers to be cut off, and commanded that the strait itself should be scourged, and a set of fetters cast into it. A new bridge was constructed, of which Herodotus has left us a minute account (8.36). There were in fact two bridges formed of two lines of ships; but our limits prevent us from entering into the details of their construction. The canal cut through the isthmus of Mount Athos from the Strymonic to the Toronaic gulph was about a mile and a half long, and was broad and deep enough for two triremes to sail abreast. This work is said to have occupied a multitude of workmen for a space of three years. That these works were unnecessary is no proof that they were never executed; for Xerxes' invasion of Greece must not be judged by the necessities or probabilities of any ordinary war. It was rather a lavish display of human life and human labour to gratify the caprice and magnify the power of an Eastern despot, than simply a military force collected for the conquest of a formidable enemy. The cutting of the canal through Mount Athos has been rejected as a falsehood by numerous writers both ancient and modern. Juvenal speaks of it (10.174) as a specimen of Greek mendacity,
" creditur olim Velificatus Athos, et quidquid Graecia mendax Audet in historia,"
and Niebuhr denies it most positively as a thing quite incomprehensible. ( Vorträge über alte Geschichte, vol. i. p. 403.) But since it is evident that Herodotus went in person over the whole ground traversed by the Persian army, the mere fact that he gives a most minute description of this canal (7.37) ought to convince every one of its existence even without any further evidence, since he certainly never said that he saw what he did not see. There are, however, the most distinct traces of it at the present day, as is shown by Lieutenant Wolfe, who has given an account of its present condition in the article " Athos" which he wrote in the " Penny Cyclopaedia."
In the autumn of B. C. 481 Xerxes arrived at Sardis, and early in the spring of the following year commenced his march towards the Hellespont. So great was the number of the army that it was seven days and seven nights in crossing the bridges without a moment of intermission. The march was continued through the Thracian Chersonese till it reached the plain of Doriscus, which is near the sea, and is traversed by the river Hebrus. The army was here joined by the fleet, which had not entered the Hellespont, but had sailed westward round the southernmost promontory of the Thracian Chersonese. At this plain Xerxes resolved to number both his land and naval forces. The mode employed for numbering the foot soldiers was remarkable. Ten thousand men were first numbered and packed together as closely as they could stand; a line was drawn and a wall built round the place they had occupied, into which all the soldiers entered successively, till the whole army was thus measured. There were found to be a hundred and seventy of these divisions, thus making a total of 1,700,000 foot. Besides these there were 80,000 horse, and many war chariots and camels, with about 20,000 men. Herodotus has left us a most minute and interesting catalogue of the nations comprising this mighty army with their various military equipments and different modes of fighting. The land forces contained forty-six nations. (Hdt. 7.61, foll.) The fleet consisted of 1207 triremes, and 3000 smaller vessels. Each trireme was manned by 200 rowers and 30 fighting men; and each of the accompanying vessels carried 80 men according to the calculation of Herodotus. Thus the naval force would amount to 517,610. The whole armament, both military and naval, which passed over from Asia to Doriscus, would accordingly amount to 2,317,610 men. Nor was this all. In his march from Doriscus to Thermopylae, Xerxes received a still further accession of strength. The Thracian tribes, the Macedonians, and the other nations in Europe whose territories he traversed supplied 300,000 men, and 120 triremes containing an aggregate of 24,000 men. Thus when he reached Thermopylae the land and sea forces amounted to 2,641,610 fighting men. This does not include the attendants, the slaves, the crews of the provision ships, &c., which according to the supposition of Herodotus were more in number than the fighting men; but supposing them to have been equal, the total number of male persons who accompanied Xerxes to Thermopylae reach the astounding figure of 5,283,220! In addition to this, there were the eunuchs, concubines and female cooks, of whom no one could tell the amount, nor that of the beasts of burthen, cattle and Indian dogs. (Hdt. 7.184_187.)
Such vast numbers seem incredible, and have led many writers to impeach either the veracity or the good sense of the historian. They are rejected altogether by Niebuhr in his Lectures on Ancient History, who asserts that it is impossible that the seventh book of Herodotus can be an historical relation, and considers it as fonnded on the epic poem of Choerilus. On the other hand, Heeren is disposed to receive the numerical totals of Herodotus without question. The view which Mr. Grote takes is more cautious and is characterized by his usual good sense and critical acumen. As the subject has occasioned so much controversy, his remarks deserve to be quoted at length. " To admit this overwhelming total, or anything near to it, is obviously impossible : yet the disparaging remarks which it has drawn down upon Herodotus are no way merited. He takes pains to distinguish that which informants told him, from that which he merely guessed. His description of the review at Doriscus is so detailed, that he had evidently conversed with persons who were present at it, and had learnt the separate totals promulgated by the enumerators -- infantry, cavalry, and ships of war, great and small. As to the number of triremes, his statement seems beneath the truth, as we may judge from the contemporary authority of Aeschylus, who in the " Persae" gives the exact number of 1207 Persian ships as having fought at Salamis : but between Doriscus and Salamis Herodotus has himself enumerated 647 ships as lost or destroyed, and only 120 as added. No exaggeration therefore can well be suspected in this statement. which would imply about 276,000 as the number of the crews, though there is here a confuson or omission in the narrative which we cannot clear up. But the aggregate of 3000 smaller ships, and still more that of 1,700.000 infantry, are far less trustworthy. There would be little or no motive for the enumerators to be exact, and every motive for them to exaggerate--an immense nominal total would be no less pleasing to the army than to the monarch himself -- so that the military total of land-force and ships' crews which Herodotus gives as 2,641,000 on the arrival at Thermopylae, may be dismissed as unwarrantable and incredible..... Weighing the circumstances of the case well, and considering that this army was the result of a maximum of effort throughout the vast empire -- that a great numerical total was the thing chiefly demanded -- and that prayers for exemption were regarded by the great king as a capital offence -- and that provisions had been collected for three years before along the line of march -- we may well believe that the numbers of Xerxes were greater than were ever assembled in ancient times, or perhaps at any known epoch of history. But it would be rash to pretend to guess at any positive number, in the entire absence of any ascertained data; and when we learn from Thucydides that he found it impossible to find out the exact numbers of the small armies of Greeks who fought at Mantineia, we shall not be ashamed to avow our inability to count the Asiatic multitudes at Doriscus." (Hist. of Greece, vol. v. p. 46, foll.)
After the review of Doriscus Xerxes continued his march through Thrace in three divisions, and along three different lines of road. The tribes through which he marched had to furnish a day's meal for the immense host, and for this purpose had made preparations many months beforehand. The cost of feeding such a multitude brought many of the cities of Thrace to the brink of ruin : the city of Thasos alone, on account of their possessions on the main land, expended no less a sum for this purpose than 400 talents. . On reaching Acanthus, near the isthmus of Athos, Xerxes left his fleet, which received orders to sail through the canal that had been dug across the isthmus, to double the two peninsulas of Sithonia and Pallene, and await his arrival at Therme, afterwards called Thessalonica (now Saloniki), a little to the east of the mouth of the river Axius. After joining his fleet at Therme, Xerxes marched through Mygdonia and Bottiaeis, as far as the mouth of the Haliacmon. Hitherto his march had been through territory subject to the Persian empire, and he now entered Macedonia, the monarch of which reverently tendered his submission, and undertook to conduct him further.
The Greeks had originally intended to defend the defile of Tempe, the northernmost entrance of Greece, and they sent thither a force of 10,000 men, in accordance with the urgent desires of the Thessalians. But upon arriving there the Greeks found that it would be impossible to hold the pass, as the Persians could land troops in their rear, and there was another pass across the mountains east of Tempe, by which the Persians could enter Thessaly. The Greeks therefore returned to the isthmus about the same time as Xerxes crossed the Hellespont. Their retreat was followed by the submission of the whole of Thessaly to Xerxes, who accordingly met with no opposition till he reached Thermopylae. Here the Greeks resolved to make a stand. This pass was in one important respect better adapted for defence than that of Tempe, for the mainland was here separated from the island of Euboea only by a narrow strait, so that by defending the strait with their fleet the Persians could not land troops in their rear on the mainland. Accordingly, while Leonidas, king of Sparta, conducted a land force to Thermopylae, his colleague Eurybiades sailed with the combined Greek fleet to the north of Euboea, and took up his position on the northern coast, which faced Magnesia, and which was called Artemisium from the temple of Artemis belonging to the town of Histiaea.
The remainder of the history of the invasion of Xerxes is so fully related in other articles in this work [Themistocles; Eurybiades; Leonidas ; Aristeides; Mardonius], that it is only necessary in this place to give a very brief enumeration of the subsequent events. Xerxes arrived in safety with his land forces before Thermopylae, but his fleet was overtaken by a violent storm and hurricane off the coast of Sepias in Magnesia, by which at least four hundred ships of war were destroyed, as well as an immense number of transports. The Greeks, who had in a panic deserted Artemisium and sailed to Chalcis in Euboea, thus leaving Xerxes at full liberty to communicate with his fleet, now took courage, and sailed back to their former position at Artemisium. On their arrival they found the Persian fleet, which had recovered from the effects of the storm, drawn up on the opposite coast in the neighbourhood of Aphetae. Meantime Xerxes had attempted to force his way through the pass of Thermopylae, but his troops were repulsed again and again by Leonidas and his gallant band. At last a Malian, of the name of Ephialtes, showed the Persians a pass over the mountains of Oeta, and thus enabled them to fall on the rear of the Greeks. Leonidas and his Spartans disdained to fly, and were all slain after performing miracles of valour [Leonidas]. On the same days on which Leonidas was fighting with the land forces of Xerxes, the Greek ships at Artemisium attacked the Persian fleet. In the first battle, which was not fought till late in the day, the Greeks had the advantage, and in the following night the Persian ships suffered still more from a violent storm, which blew right upon the shore at Aphetae The same storm completely destroyed a squadron of the Persian fleet, which had been sent to sail round Euboea in order to cut off the retreat of the Greeks. The Persian ships at Aphetae had been too much damaged to renew the fight on the following day, but the day after they again sailed out and offered battle to the Greeks. The contest lasted the whole day, and both sides fought with the greatest courage. Although the Greeks at the close still maintained their position, and had destroyed a great number of the enemy's ships, yet their own loss was considerable, and half the Athenian ships was disabled. Under these circumstances the Greek commanders saw that it was impossible to remain at Artemisium any longer, and their resolution to retreat was quickened by the disastrous intelligence that Xerxes was master of the pass at Thermopylae. Upon this they forthwith abandoned Artemisium and retired to Salamis, opposite the southwestern coast of Attica.
The Peloponnesians had resolved to retire within the peninsula, and to build a wall across the isthmus. It was now too late to send an army into Boeotia, and Attica thus lay exposed to the full vengeance of the invader. The fleet had been ordered to assemble at Troezen in order to co-operate with the land forces for the protection of the Peloponnesus, and Eurybiades had only remained at Salamis at the earnest entreaty of the Athenians, in order to assist them in the transport of their families. They had no time to lose. Themistocles urged them at once to remove the women, children, and infirm persons to Salamis, Aegina, and Troezen, and within six days the whole population with few exceptions left the country. The greater number were conveyed to Troezen, where they were received most hospitably, and maintained at the public expense. Meantime Xerxes had entered Phocis, which he laid waste with fire and sword. At Panopeus he sent a detachment of his army to plunder Delphi, while he himself marched into Boeotia with the main body of his forces. All the people of Boeotia submitted to him with the exception of the inhabitants of Thespiae and Plataea, which were deserted by their citizens, and were both burnt by Xerxes. Thus he reached Athens without encountering any resistance. But the detachment which had been sent against Delphi met with a signal defeat : according to tradition it was by no mortal hands that they were turned to flight, but the god defended his own sanctuary, and hurled down immense crags upon the invaders. That the Persians failed in their attempt upon Delphi must be received as an historical fact; for the offerings of the Lydian kings, and others of an earlier time, were still seen there by Herodotus ; but the means by which they were repulsed must remain unknown. About the same time as Xerxes entered Athens, his fleet arrived in the bay of Phalerum. He now resolved upon an engagement with the Greek fleet. The history of this memorable battle, of the previous dissensions among the Greek commanders, and of the glorious victory of the Greeks at the last, is fully related elsewhere. [Themistocles.] Xerxes witnessed the battle from a lofty seat, which was erected for him on the shore of the mainland on one of the declivities of Mount Aegaleos, and thus beheld with his own eyes the defeat and dispersion of his mighty armament. The Greeks expected a renewal of the battle on the following day, but Xerxes now became alarmed for his own safety, and resolved to leave Greece immediately. He was confirmed in his resolution by Mardonius, who undertook to complete the conquest with 300,000 of his troops. Xerxes accordingly ordered the fleet to sail to the Hellespont, and there to guard the bridge till his arrival; he left Mardonius the number of troops which he requested, and with the remainder set out on his march homewards. His own personal escort consisted of 60,000 men under the command of Artabazus, and he reached the Hellespont in fortyfive days from the time of his departure from Attica. His troops suffered much in the retreat from the want of provisions, and many died of hunger; but the account which Aeschylus gives in the " Persae " of the dreadful calamities which overtook the retreating army is probably much exaggerated. * See Grote, History of Greece, vol. v. pp. 190, 191, note, where forcible reasons are adduced to show that the loss of the army in crossing the river Strymon is probably a fable. On arriving at the Hellespont, Xerxes found the bridge of boats destroyed by a storm, and he crossed over to Asia by ship. He entered Sardis towards the end of the year, B. C. 480, humbled and defeated, only eight months after he had left it full of arrogance and sure of victory.
In the following year, B. C. 479, the war was continued in Greece; but Mardonius was defeated at Plataea by the combined forces of the Greeks, and on the same day another victory was gained over the Persians at Mycale in Ionia. [Mardonius.] Next year, B. C. 478, the Persians lost their last possession in Europe by the capture of Sestos on the Hellespont. Thus the struggle was virtually brought to an end, though the war still continued for several years longer. We know little more of the personal history of Xerxes. Soon after his arrival at Sardis he fell in love with the wife of his brother Masistes, whom he solicited in vain to yield to his desires. In order to gain her, he married her daughter Artaynte to his own son Dareius; but shortly afterwards he transferred his affections from the mother to the daughter. His amour with Artaynte became known to Amestris, the wife of Xerxes, by his giving to his favourite a cloak which Amestris had woven for him with her own hands. Amestris meditated and took dire revenge. She obtained possession of the wife of Masistes, and mutilated her in a horrible manner. Masistes therefore attempted to escape to Bactria with his sons, of which country he was satrap, intending there to raise the standard of revolt; but Xerxes, who anticipated his object, sent some troops after him, who killed both him and his sons. (Hdt. 9.108-113.) In B. C. 465 Xerxes, after a reign of twenty years, was murdered by Artabanus and the eunuch Spamitres, or Mithridates, as he is also called. Artabanus was an Hyrcanian by birth, and one of the highest officers of his court. He had seven sons in the prime of life, and resolved to place himself upon the throne of Persia and found a new dynasty. For this purpose it was necessary to get rid of the sons of Xerxes. According to Ctesias and Justin, Xerxes had left only two sons, Dareius and Artaxerxes, but Diodorus mentions a third, Hystaspes, who was satrap of Bactria and absent from court at his father's death. As soon as Xerxes was slain, the conspirators informed Artaxerxes that Dareius had been the murderer of his father, and persuaded the young prince to give instant orders for the execution of his brother. Artabanus shortly afterwards attempted to murder Artaxerxes, but the plot was discovered, and Artabanus and his sons were put to death. (Diod. 11.69; Ctesias, Pers. 100.29; Justin, 3.1.)
Herodotus (7.187) describes Xerxes as the tallest and handsomest man amidst the vast host which he led against Greece. His character appears to have been worse than most of the Persian monarchs; for, according to Herodotus, he was a coward as well as a cruel tyrant. The three last books of Herodotus are the great authority for the invasion of Greece by Xerxes; and long modern writers the history is best related by Mr. Grote in the fifth volume of his History of Greece, to which we have been much indebted in drawing up the preceding narrative.
(Ξέρξης), the only legitimate son of Artaxerxes I., succeeded his father as king of Persia in B. C. 425, but was murdered after a short reign of only two months by his half-brother Sogdianus or Secundianus, who thus became king. (Diod. 12.71; Ctesias, Pers. 100.44.)
(Ξέρξης) king of Arsamosata, in the western part of Armenia. Polybius relates that Antiochus was preparing to lay siege to Arsamosata, but Xerxes submitted to him, and received in consequence the daughter of the Syrian king in marriage. This Antiochus was probably Antiochus III. There are coins of Xerxes extant, of which a specimen is annexed. (Plb. 8.25; Droysen, Geschichte des Hellenismus, vol. ii. p. 73; Eckhel vol. iii. p. 204.)
(Ξέρξης), a son of Mithridates, who fell into the hands of Pompey in consequence of the insurrection of the town of Phanagoria, where he with several of his brothers had been placed for security, B. C. 64. He afterwards adorned Pompey's triumph at Rome. (Appian, Mithr. 108, 117.)
(Ξέρξης). (1) A king of Persia from B.C. 485 to 465. He was the son of Darius Hystaspis and Atossa. By the influence of Atossa, who was a daughter of Cyrus, Artabazanes, the son of Darius by his former wife, was set aside from the succession and Xerxes made him heir. Xerxes succeeded to the throne in B.C. 485, Darius having died in the midst of his warlike preparations against Greece, which had been delayed by a revolt of the Egyptians. Bred up in the luxury of the Persian court, among slaves and women, a mark for their flattery and intrigues, Xerxes had none of the experience which Darius had gained in early life. He was probably inferior to his father in ability; but the difference between them in fortune and education seems to have left more traces in their history than any disparity of nature. Ambition was not the prominent feature in the character of Xerxes; and, had he followed his unbiassed inclination, he would, perhaps, have been content to turn the preparations of Darius against the revolted Egyptians, and have abandoned the expedition against Greece, to which he was not urged on by any personal motives. But he was surrounded by men who were led by various passions and interests to desire that he should prosecute his father's plans of conquest and revenge. Mardonius was eager to renew an enterprise in which he had been foiled through unavoidable mischance, and not through his own incapacity. He had a reputation to retrieve, and might look forward to the possession of a great European satrapy, at such a distance from the court as would make him almost an absolute sovereign. He was warmly seconded by those Greeks who had been drawn to Susa by the report of the approaching invasion of their country, and who wanted foreign aid to accomplish their designs. The Thessalian house of the Aleuadae, either because they thought their power insecure, or expected to increase it by becoming vassals of the Persian king, sent their emissaries to invite him to the conquest of Greece. The exiled Pisistratidae had no other chance for the recovery of Athens. They had brought a man named Onomacritus with them to court, who was one of the first among the Greeks to practise the art of forging prophecies and oracles. While their family ruled at Athens he had been detected in fabricating verses, which he had interpolated in a work ascribed to the ancient seer Musaeus, and Hipparchus, previously his patron, had banished him from the city. But the exiles saw the use they might make of his talents, and had taken him into their service. They now recommended him to Xerxes as a man who possessed a treasure of prophetical knowledge, and the young king listened with unsuspecting confidence to the encouraging predictions which Onomacritus drew from his inexhaustible stores. These various devices at length prevailed. The imagination of Xerxes was inflamed with the prospect of rivalling or surpassing the achievements of his glorious predecessors, and of extending his dominion to the ends of the earth (Herod. vii. 8). He resolved on the invasion of Greece. First, however, in the second year of his reign, he led an army against Egypt, and brought it again under the Persian yoke, which was purposely made more burdensome and galling than before. He intrusted this conquest to the care of his brother Achaemenes, and then returned to Persia, and bent all his thoughts towards the West. Only one of his counsellors, his uncle Artabanus, is said to have been wise and honest enough to endeavour to divert him from the enterprise, and especially to dissuade him from risking his own person in it. If any reliance could be placed on the story told by Herodotus about the deliberations held on this question in the Persian cabinet, we might suspect that the influence and arts of the Magian priesthood, which we find in this reign rising in credit, had been set at work by the adversaries of Artabanus to counteract his influence over the mind of his nephew, and to confirm Xerxes in his martial mood. The vast preparations were continued with redoubled activity, to raise an armament worthy of the presence of the king. His aim was not merely to collect a force sufficient to insure the success of his undertaking and to scare away all opposition, but also, and perhaps principally, to set his whole enormous power in magnificent array, that he might enjoy the sight of it himself, and display it to the admiration of the world.
For four years longer Asia was still kept in restless turmoil; no less time was needed to provide the means of subsistence for the countless host that was about to be poured out upon Europe. Besides the stores that were to be carried in the fleet which was to accompany the army, it was necessary that magazines should be formed along the whole line of march as far as the confines of Greece. But, in addition to these prudent precautions, two works were begun, which scarcely served any other purpose than that of showing the power and majesty of Xerxes, and proving that he would suffer no obstacles to bar his progress. It would have been easy to transport his troops in ships over the Hellespont; but it was better suited to the dignity of the monarch, who was about to unite both continents under his dominion, to join them by a bridge laid upon the subject channel, and to march across as along a royal road. The storm that had destroyed the fleet which accompanied Mardonius in his unfortunate expedition had made the coast of Athos terrible to the Persians. The simplest mode of avoiding this formidable cape would have been to draw their ships over the narrow, low neck that connects the mountain with the mainland. But Xerxes preferred to leave a monument of his greatness and of his enterprise in a canal cut through the isthmus, a distance of about a mile and a half. This work employed a multitude of men for three years. The construction of the two bridges which were thrown across the Hellespont was intrusted to the skill of the Phoenicians and Egyptians.
When these preparations were drawing to a close, Xerxes set forth for Sardis, where he designed to spend the following winter, and to receive the reinforcements which he had appointed there to join the main army (B.C. 481). During his stay at Sardis the Phoenician and Egyptian engineers completed their bridges on the Hellespont; but the work was not strong enough to resist a violent storm, which broke it to pieces soon after it was finished. How far this disaster was owing to defects in its construction, which might have been avoided by ordinary skill and foresight, does not appear; but Xerxes is said to have been so much angered by the accident that he put the architects to death. Such a burst of passion would be credible enough in itself, and is only rendered doubtful by the extravagant fables that gained credit on the subject among the Greeks, who, in the bridging of the sacred Hellespont, saw the beginning of a long career of audacious impiety, and gradually transformed the fastenings with which the passage was finally secured into fetters and scourges with which the barbarian, in his madness, had thought to chastise the aggression of the rebellious stream. The construction of new bridges was committed to other engineers, perhaps to Greeks; but their names have not come down, like that of Mandrocles. By their skill two broad causeways were made to stretch from the neighbourhood of Abydus to a projecting point on the opposite shore of the Chersonesus, resting each on a row of ships, which were stayed against the strong current that bore upon them from the north by anchors and by cables fastened to both sides of the channel. The length was not far short of a mile. When all was in readiness the mighty armament was set in motion.
Early in the spring (B.C. 480) Xerxes began his march from Sardis, in all the pomp of a royal progress. The baggage led the way: it was followed by the first division of the armed crowd that had been brought together from the tributary nations; a motley throng, including many strange varieties of complexion, dress, and language, commanded by Thessalian generals, but retaining each tribe its national armour and mode of fighting. An interval was then left, after which came 1000 picked Persian cavalry, followed by an equal number of spearsmen, whose lances, which they carried with the points turned downward, ended in knobs of gold. Next, ten sacred horses, of the Nisaean breed, were led in gorgeous trappings, preceding the chariot of the Persian Zeus, drawn by eight white horses, the driver following on foot. Then came the royal chariot, also drawn by Nisaean horses, in which Xerxes sat in state; but from time to time he exchanged it for an easier carriage, which sheltered him from the sun and changes of the weather. He was followed by two bands of horse and foot, like those which went immediately before him, and by a body of 10,000 Persian infantry, the flower of the whole army, who were called the Immortals, because their number was kept constantly full. A thousand of them, who occupied the outer ranks, bore lances tipped with gold; those of the rest were similarly ornamented with silver. They were followed by an equal number of Persian cavalry. The remainder of the host brought up the rear. In this order the army reached Abydus, and Xerxes, from a lofty throne, surveyed the crowded sides and bosom of the Hellespont, and a sort of mimic sea-fight; a spectacle which Herodotus might well think sufficient to have moved him with a touch of human sympathy. The passage did not begin before the king had prayed to the rising sun, and had tried to propitiate the Hellespont itself by libations, and by casting into it golden vessels and a sword. After the bridges had been strewed with myrtle and purified with incense, the ten thousand Immortals, crowned with chaplets, led the way. The army crossed by one bridge, the baggage by the other; yet the living tide flowed without intermission for seven days and seven nights before the last man, as Herodotus heard, the king himself, the tallest and most majestic person in the host, had arrived on the European shore. In the great plain of Doriscus, on the banks of Hebrus, an attempt was made to number the land force. A space was enclosed large enough to contain 10,000 men; into this the myriads were successively poured and discharged, till the whole mass had been rudely counted. They were then drawn up according to their natural divisions, and Xerxes rode in his chariot along the ranks, while the royal scribes recorded the names, and most likely the equipments, of the different races. The real military strength of the armament was almost lost among the undisciplined hordes who could only impede its movements as well as consume its stores. The Persians were the core of both the land and the sea force; none of the other troops are said to have equalled them in discipline or in courage; and the 24,000 men who guarded the royal person were the flower of the whole nation. Yet these were much better fitted for show than for action; and of the rest, we hear that they were distinguished from the mass of the army, not only by their superior order and valour, but also by the abundance of gold they displayed, by the train of carriages, women, and servants that followed them, and by the provisions set apart for their use.
Marching through Thrace and Macedonia, Xerxes met no resistance until he reached the Pass of Thermopylae between Mount Oeta and the sea. This the Spartan king Leonidas, with about 7000 men, had occupied. For two days they beat back the huge masses of Persians who assailed the pass, but whose very numbers proved an impediment to their success. Even the Immortals were unsuccessful, and Xerxes, who was watching the battle, leaped thrice from his throne in his rage. Presently, however, by the treachery of a Malian named Ephialtes, a body of Persian troops was led by a secret path to the rear of the Greeks. Leonidas at once dismissed all his men except his immediate guard of 300 Spartans and a body of Thespians, and with these advanced into the plain and perished after an heroic struggle (B.C. 480). Meantime a storm had wrecked 400 of the Persian ships of war, and an indecisive naval battle had been fought off Artemisium. Xerxes occupied Athens, pillaged the Acropolis, but suffered a great naval defeat at Salamis, where 200 of his ships were sunk.
After this disastrous defeat at Salamis, Xerxes felt desirous of escaping from a state of things which was now becoming troublesome and dangerous, and Mardonius saw that he would gladly listen to any proposal that would facilitate his return. He was aware that, without a fleet, the war might probably be tedious, in which case the immense bulk of the present army would be only an encumbrance, from the difficulty of subsisting it. Besides, the ambition of Mardonius was flattered with the idea of his becoming the conqueror of Greece, while he feared that, if he now returned, he might be made answerable for the ill success of the expedition which he had advised. He therefore proposed to Xerxes to return into Asia with the body of the army, leaving himself, with 300,000 of the best troops, to complete the conquest of Greece. Xerxes assented, and, the army having retired into Boeotia, Mardonius made his selection, and then, accompanying the king into Thessaly, there parted from him, leaving him to pursue his march towards Asia, while he himself prepared to winter in Thessaly and Macedonia.
Widely different from the appearance of the glittering host, which a few months before had advanced over the plains of Macedonia and Thrace to the conquest of Greece, was the aspect of the crowd which was now hurrying back along the same road. The splendour, the pomp, the luxury, the waste, were exchanged for disaster and distress, want and disease. The magazines had been emptied by the careless profusion or peculation of those who had the charge of them; the granaries of the countries traversed by the retreating multitude were unable to supply its demands; ordinary food was often not to be found; and it was compelled to draw a scanty and unwholesome nourishment from the herbage of the plains, the bark and leaves of the trees. Sickness soon began to spread its ravages among them, and Xerxes was compelled to consign numbers to the care of the cities that lay on his road, already impoverished by the cost of his first visit, in the hope that they would tend their guests, and would not sell them into slavery if they recovered. The passage of the Strymon is said to have been peculiarly disastrous. The river had been frozen in the night hard enough to bear those who arrived first. But the ice suddenly gave way under the heat of the morning sun, and numbers perished in the waters. It is a little surprising that Herodotus, when he is describing the miseries of the retreat, does not notice this disaster, which is so prominent in the narrative of the Persian messenger in Aeschylus. There can, however, be no doubt as to the fact; and perhaps it may furnish a useful warning not to lay too much stress on the silence of Herodotus, as a ground for rejecting even important and interesting facts which are only mentioned by later writers, though such as he must have heard of, and might have been expected to relate. It seems possible that the story he mentions of Xerxes embarking at Eïon (viii. 118) may have arisen out of the tragical passage of the Strymon.
In forty-five days after he had left Mardonius in Thessaly, he reached the Hellespont; the bridges had been broken up by foul weather, but the fleet was there to carry the army over to Abydus. Here it rested from its fatigues, and found plentiful quarters; but intemperate indulgence rendered the sudden change from scarcity to abundance almost as deadly as the previous famine. The remnant that Xerxes brought back to Sardis was a wreck, a fragment, rather than a part of his huge host.
The history of Xerxes, after the termination of his Grecian campaign, may be comprised in a brief compass. He gave himself up to a life of dissolute pleasure, and was slain by Artabanus, a captain of the royal guards, B.C. 464.
(2) A son of Artaxerxes Mnemon, who succeeded his father, but was slain, after a reign of fortyfive days, by his brother Sogdianus.
- Paus. 2.31.5, Paus. 10.20.1
- father of Artaxerxes: Paus. 1.8.2
- crosses to Europe: Paus. 3.12.6, Paus. 8.42.8
- his army: Paus. 9.32.5
- his army attacked by lions in Thrace: Paus. 6.5.4
- invades Greece: Paus. 3.11.3, Paus. 7.6.3, Paus. 7.10.2
- overthrows Lacedaemonians at Thermopylae: Paus. 3.4.7ff., Paus. 8.52.2
- buries Lacedaemonians at Thermopylae: Paus. 9.32.9
- number of Greeks who mustered at Thermopylae to meet Xerxes: Paus. 10.20.1ff.
- Xerxes burns sanctuary of Apollo at Abae: Paus. 10.35.2
- burns Hyampolis: Paus. 10.35.6
- burns cities of Phocis: Paus. 10.33.8
- makes attempt on Delphic sanctuary: Paus. 10.7.1
- marches against Athens: Paus. 3.9.6
- captures Athens: Paus. 1.8.5
- carries off statues of Harmodius and Aristogiton from Athens: Paus. 1.8.5
- carries off image of Artemis from Brauron and image of Apollo from Branchidae: Paus. 1.16.3, Paus. 8.46.3
- his fleet defeated by Themistocles at Salamis: Paus. 1.36.2, Paus. 1.37.1, Paus. 8.52.2
- building in imitation of his tent: Paus. 1.20.4
- his execution of a Babylonian priest: Hdt. 1.183
- of Sataspes: Hdt. 4.43
- succession to the throne: Hdt. 7.2, Hdt. 7.3
- his council, and colloquies with Artabanus: Hdt. 7.8-18
- treatment of Pythius: Hdt. 7.27, Hdt. 7.28, Hdt. 7.38, Hdt. 7.39
- scourging of the Hellespont: Hdt. 7.35
- further colloquy with Artabanus: Hdt. 7.46-52
- with Demartus: Hdt. 7.101-104, Hdt. 7.209, Hdt. 7.234-237
- Xerxes' visit to the Peneus: Hdt. 7.128-130
- generosity to two Spartans: Hdt. 7.136
- his personal beauty: Hdt. 7.187
- vengeance on the dead Leonidas: Hdt. 7.238
- advice given to Xerxes by Artemisia: Hdt. 8.68, Hdt. 8.69
- Xerxes a spectator of the battle of Salamis: Hdt. 8.88, Hdt. 8.90
- his council of war after the battle: Hdt. 8.100-102
- his fear of the Greeks: Hdt. 8.203
- story of his danger of shipwreck in his return: Hdt. 8.118, Hdt. 8.119
- his passion for his brother's wife and daughter, and its consequences: Hdt. 9.108-113