producing universal panic, stopping the further issue of any
general order, and thus paralyzing the whole army.

The numbers of a Persian army, though no doubt exaggerated by the
Greeks, must have been very great, amounting, probably, on occasions,
to more than a million of combatants. Troops were drawn from the entire
empire, and were marshalled in the field according to nations,
each tribe accoutred in its own fashion. Here were seen the gilded
breastplates and scarlet kilts of the Persians and Medes; there the
woollen shirt of the Arab, the leathern jerkin of the Berber, or the
cotton dress of the native of Hindustan. Swart savage Ethiops from the
Upper Nile, adorned with a war-paint of white and red, and scantily
clad with the skins of leopards or lions, fought in one place with huge
clubs, arrows tipped with stone, and spears terminating in the horn of
an antelope. In another, Scyths, with their loose spangled trousers and
their tall pointed caps, dealt death around from their unerring blows;
while near them Assyrians, helmeted, and wearing corselets of quilted
linen, wielded the tough spear, or the still more formidable iron mace.
Rude weapons, like cane bows, unfeathered arrows, and stakes hardened at
one end in the fire, were seen side by side with keen swords and
daggers of the best steel, the finished productions of the workshops
of Phoenicia and Greece. Here the bronze helmet was surmounted with
the ears and horns of an ox; there it was superseded by a fox-skin, a
leathern or wooden skull-cap, or a head-dress fashioned out of a horse's
scalp. Besides horses and mules, elephants, camels, and wild asses,
diversified the scene, and rendered it still more strange and wonderful
to the eye of a European. One large body of cavalry was accustomed
to enter the field apparently unarmed; besides the dagger, which the
Oriental never lays aside, they had nothing but a long leathern thong.
They used this, however, just as the lasso is used by the natives of
Brazil, and the wretch at whom they aimed their deadly noose had small
chance of escape. The Persians, like the Assyrians, usually avoided
fighting during the winter, and marched out their armies against the
enemy in early spring. With the great hosts which they moved a fixed
order of march was most necessary; and we find evidence of so much
attention being paid to this point that confusion and disorder seem
scarcely ever to have arisen. When the march lay within their o