thought it was dangerous to take these men to fight against
their countrymen. However faithfully disposed they might be in
commencing the enterprise, a thousand circumstances might occur to shake
their fidelity and lead them to revolt, when they found themselves in
the land of their forefathers, and heard the enemies against whom they
had been brought to contend speaking their own mother tongue.

Xerxes, however, was not convinced by Artabanus's arguments. He thought
that the employment of the Ionians was perfectly safe. They had been
eminently faithful and firm, he said, under Histiaeus, in the time of
Darius's invasion of Scythia, when Darius had left them to guard his
bridge over the Danube. They had proved themselves trustworthy then, and
he would, he said, accordingly trust them now. "Besides," he added,
"they have left their property, their wives and their children, and all
else that they hold dear, in our hands in Asia, and they will not dare,
while we retain such hostages, to do any thing against us."

Xerxes said, however, that since Artabanus was so much concerned in
respect to the result of the expedition, he should not be compelled to
accompany it any further, but that he might return to Susa instead, and
take charge of the government there until Xerxes should return.

A part of the celebration on the great day of parade, on which this
conversation between the king and his uncle was held, consisted of a
naval sea fight, waged on the Hellespont, between two of the nations of
his army, for the king's amusement. The Phoenicians were the victors in
this combat. Xerxes was greatly delighted with the combat, and, in fact,
with the whole of the magnificent spectacle which the day had displayed.

Soon after this, Xerxes dismissed Artabanus, ordering him to return to
Susa, and to assume the regency of the empire. He convened, also,
another general council of the nobles of his court and the officers of
the army, to announce to them that the time had arrived for crossing the
bridge, and to make his farewell address to them before they should take
their final departure from Asia. He exhorted them to enter upon the
great work before them with a determined and resolute spirit, saying
that if the Greeks were once subdued, no other enemies able at all to
cope with the Persians would be left on the habitable globe.

On the dismission of the council, orders were given to commence the
crossing of the bridge the next day at