. 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
for the 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
ascertain the numbers by a computation. They made the measure itself in
the following manner: They counted off, first, ten thousand men, and
brought them together in a compact circular mass, in the middle of the
plain, and then marked a line upon the ground inclosing them. Upon this
line, thus determined, they built a stone wall, about four feet high,
with openings on opposite sides of it, by which men might enter and go
out. When the wall was built, soldiers were sent into the
inclosure--just as corn would be poured by a husbandman into a wooden
peck--until it was full. The mass thus required to fill the inclosure
was deemed 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
inclosure was filled one hundred and seventy times with the foot
soldiers 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; 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.
There was, for example, a cavalry force of eighty thousand men. There
was also a corps 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 a million of men in the fleet.
Immense as these numbers are, they were still further 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 king fairly entered the hear