s sleep, all tending
to one object, the invasion of Greece. As we learn from Ctesias that
the eunuch Natacas was one of the parasites most influential with
Xerxes, it is probable that so important a personage in the intrigues
of a palace was, with the evident connivance of the magi, the
instrument of Mardonius. And, indeed, from this period the politics
of Persia became more and more concentrated in the dark plots of the
seraglio. Thus superstition, flattery, ambition, all operating upon
him, the irresolution of Xerxes vanished. Artabanus himself affected
to be convinced of the expediency of the war; and the only object now
remaining to the king and his counsellors was to adapt the
preparations to the magnitude of the enterprise. Four additional
years were not deemed an idle delay in collecting an army and fleet
destined to complete the conquest of the world.

"And never," says Herodotus, "was there a military expedition
comparable to this. Hard would it be to specify one nation of Asia
which did not accompany the Persian king, or any waters, save the
great rivers, which were not exhausted by his armament." Preparations
for an expedition of three years were made, to guard against the
calamities formerly sustained by the Persian fleet. Had the success
of the expedition been commensurate with the grandeur of its
commencement, perhaps it would have ranked among the sublimest
conceptions of military genius. All its schemes were of a vast and
gigantic nature. Across the isthmus, which joins the promontory of
Athos to the Thracian continent, a canal was formed--a work of so
enormous a labour, that it seems almost to have justified the
skepticism of later writers [52], but for the concurrent testimony of
Thucydides and Lysias, Plato, Herodotus, and Strabo.

Bridges were also thrown over the river Strymon; the care of
provisions was intrusted to the Egyptians and Phoenicians, and stores
were deposited in every station that seemed the best adapted for
supplies.

V. While these preparations were carried on, the great king, at the
head of his land-forces, marched to Sardis. Passing the river Halys,
and the frontiers of Lydia, he halted at Celaenae. Here he was
magnificently entertained by Pythius, a Lydian, esteemed, next to the
king himself, the richest of mankind. This wealthy subject proffered
to the young prince, in prosecution of the war, the whole of his
treasure, amounting to two thousand talents of silver