own upon the couch under the royal pavilion. As he had no faith in the
reality of the vision, his mind was quiet and composed, and he soon fell
asleep.

At midnight, Xerxes, who was lying in an adjoining apartment, was
suddenly aroused by a loud and piercing cry from the room where
Artabanus was sleeping, and in a moment afterward Artabanus himself
rushed in, perfectly wild with terror. He had seen the vision. It had
appeared before him with a countenance and gestures expressive of great
displeasure, and after loading him with reproaches for having attempted
to keep Xerxes back from his proposed expedition into Greece, it
attempted to bore out his eyes with a red-hot iron with which it was
armed. Artabanus had barely succeeded in escaping by leaping from his
couch and rushing precipitately out of the room.[D]

[Footnote D: See Frontispiece.]

Artabanus said that he was now convinced and satisfied. It was plainly
the divine will that Xerxes should undertake his projected invasion, and
he would himself, thenceforth, aid the enterprise by every means in his
power. The council was, accordingly, once more convened. The story of
the three apparitions was related to them, and the final decision
announced that the armies were to be assembled for the march without any
further delay.

* * * * *

It is proper here to repeat, once for all in this volume, a remark which
has elsewhere often been made in the various works of this series, that
in studying ancient history at the present day, it is less important now
to know, in regard to transactions so remote, what the facts actually
were which really occurred, than it is to know the story respecting
them, which, for the last two thousand years, has been in circulation
among mankind. It is now, for example, of very little consequence
whether there ever was or never was such a personage as Hercules, but it
is essential that every educated man should know the story which
ancient writers tell in relating his doings. In this view of the case,
our object, in this volume, is simply to give the history of Xerxes just
as it stands, without stopping to separate the false from the true. In
relating the occurrences, therefore, which have been described in this
chapter, we simply give the alleged facts to our readers precisely as
the ancient historians give them to us, leaving each reader to decide
for himself how far he will believe the narrative. In respect to