ERSIA.]

The place of his landing was Sestos. From Sestos he went to Sardis,
and from Sardis he proceeded, in a short time, to Susa. Mardonius was
left in Greece. Mardonius was a general of great military experience and
skill, and, when left to himself, he found no great difficulty in
reorganizing the army, and in putting it again in an efficient
condition. He was not able, however, to accomplish the undertaking which
he had engaged to perform. After various adventures, prosperous and
adverse, which it would be foreign to our purpose here to detail, he was
at last defeated in a great battle, and killed on the field. The Persian
army was now obliged to give up the contest, and was expelled from
Greece finally and forever.

When Xerxes reached Susa, he felt overjoyed to find himself once more
safe, as he thought, in his own palaces. He looked back upon the
hardships, exposures, and perils through which he had passed, and,
thankful for having so narrowly escaped from them, he determined to
encounter no such hazards again. He had had enough of ambition and
glory. He was now going to devote himself to ease and pleasure. Such a
man would not naturally be expected to be very scrupulous in respect to
the means of enjoyment, or to the character of the companions whom he
would select to share his pleasures, and the life of the king soon
presented one continual scene of dissipation, revelry, and vice. He gave
himself up to such prolonged carousals, that one night was sometimes
protracted through the following day into another. The administration of
his government was left wholly to his ministers, and every personal duty
was neglected, that he might give himself to the most abandoned and
profligate indulgence of his appetites and passions.

He had three sons who might be considered as heirs to his
throne--Darius, Hystaspes, and Artaxerxes. Hystaspes was absent in a
neighboring province. The others were at home. He had also a very
prominent officer in his court, whose name, Artabanus, was the same with
that of the uncle who had so strongly attempted to dissuade him from
undertaking the conquest of Greece. Artabanus the uncle disappears
finally from view at the time when Xerxes dismissed him to return to
Susa at the first crossing of the Hellespont. This second Artabanus was
the captain of the king's body-guard and, consequently, the common
executioner of the despot's decrees. Being thus established in his
palace, surrounded by hi