ld back the Greeks, who
were eager to burn the bridge.

The frightened monarch was not slow in taking this advice. Leaving a
strong force in Greece, under the command of his general Mardonius, he
marched with the speed of fear for the bridge. But he had nearly
exhausted the country of food in his advance, and starvation and plague
attended his retreat, many of the men being obliged to eat leaves,
grass, and the bark of trees, and great numbers of them dying before the
Hellespont was reached.

Here he found the bridge gone. A storm had destroyed it. He was forced
to have his army taken across in ships. Not till Asia Minor was reached
did the starving troops obtain sufficient food,--and there gorged
themselves to such an extent that many of them died from repletion. In
the end Xerxes entered Sardis with a broken army and a sad heart, eight
months after he had left it with the proud expectation of conquering the
western world.

_PLATAEA'S FAMOUS DAY._

On a certain day, destined to be thereafter famous, two strong armies
faced each other on the plain north of the little Boeotian town of
Plataea. Greece had gathered the greatest army it had ever yet put into
the field, in all numbering one hundred and ten thousand men, of whom
nearly forty thousand were hoplites, or heavy-armed troops, the
remainder light-armed or unarmed. Of these Sparta supplied five thousand
hoplites and thirty-five thousand light-armed Helots, the greatest army
that warlike city had ever brought into action. The remainder of Laconia
furnished five thousand hoplites and five thousand Helot attendants.
Athens sent eight thousand hoplites, and the remainder of the army came
from various states of Greece. This host was in strange contrast to the
few thousand warriors with whom Greece had met the vast array of Xerxes
at Thermopylae.

Opposed to this force was the army which Xerxes had left behind him on
his flight from Greece, three hundred thousand of his choicest troops,
under the command of his trusted general Mardonius. This host was not a
mob of armed men, like that which Xerxes had led. It embraced the best
of the Persian forces and Greek auxiliaries, and the hopes of Greece
still seemed but slight, thus outnumbered three to one. But the Greeks
fought for liberty, and were inspired with the spirit of their recent
victories; the Persians were disheartened and disunited: this difference
of feeling went far to equalize the hosts.

And now,