ugh
to afford anchorage ground for such an immense number of vessels."

"And what is the other danger?" asked Xerxes.

"The other is the difficulty of finding food for such a vast multitude
of _men_ as you have brought together in your armies. The quantity of
food necessary to supply such countless numbers is almost incalculable.
Your granaries and magazines will soon be exhausted, and then, as no
country whatever that you can pass through will have resources of food
adequate for such a multitude of mouths, it seems to me that your march
must inevitably end in a famine. The less resistance you meet with, and
the further you consequently advance, the worse it will be for you. I do
not see how this fatal result can possibly be avoided; and so uneasy and
anxious am I on the subject, that I have no rest or peace."

"I admit," said Xerxes, in reply, "that what you say is not wholly
unreasonable; but in great undertakings it will never do to take counsel
wholly of our fears. I am willing to submit to a very large portion of
the evils to which I expose myself on this expedition, rather than not
accomplish the end which I have in view. Besides, the most prudent and
cautious counsels are not always the best. He who hazards nothing gains
nothing. I have always observed that in all the affairs of human life,
those who exhibit some enterprise and courage in what they undertake are
far more likely to be successful than those who weigh every thing and
consider every thing, and will not advance where they can see any
remote prospect of danger. If my predecessors had acted on the
principles which you recommend, the Persian empire would never have
acquired the greatness to which it has now attained. In continuing to
act on the same principles which governed them, I confidently expect the
same success. We shall conquer Europe, and then return in peace, I feel
assured, without encountering the famine which you dread so much, or any
other great calamity."

On hearing these words, and observing how fixed and settled the
determinations of Xerxes were, Artabanus said no more on the general
subject, but on one point he ventured to offer his counsel to his
nephew, and that was on the subject of employing the Ionians in the war.
The Ionians were Greeks by descent. Their ancestors had crossed the
AEgean Sea, and settled at various places along the coast of Asia Minor,
in the western part of the provinces of Caria, Lydia, and Mysia.
Artabanus