accountable perversion of public sentiment, those who are
not born to greatness have had no means of attaining to it except as
heroes in war. Many men have, indeed, by their mental powers or their
moral excellences, acquired an extended and lasting _posthumous_ fame;
but in respect to all immediate and exalted distinction and honor, it
will be found, on reviewing the history of the human race, that there
have generally been but two possible avenues to them: on the one hand,
high birth, and on the other, the performance of great deeds of carnage
and destruction. There must be, it seems, as the only valid claim to
renown, either blood inherited or blood shed. The glory of the latter is
second, indeed, to that of the former, but it is _only_ second. He who
has sacked a city stands very high in the estimation of his fellows. He
yields precedence only to him whose grandfather sacked one.

This state of things is now, it is true, rapidly undergoing a change.
The age of chivalry, of military murder and robbery, and of the glory of
great deeds of carnage and blood, is passing away, and that of peace, of
industry, and of achievements for promoting the comfort and happiness of
mankind is coming. The men who are now advancing to the notice of the
world are those who, through their commerce or their manufactures, feed
and clothe their fellow-men by millions, or, by opening new channels or
new means for international intercourse, civilize savages, and people
deserts; while the glory of killing and destroying is less and less
regarded, and more and more readily forgotten.

In the days of Xerxes, however, there was no road to honor but by war,
and Mardonius found that his only hope of rising to distinction was by
conducting a vast torrent of military devastation over some portion of
the globe; and the fairer, the richer, the happier the scene which he
was thus to inundate and overwhelm, the greater would be the glory. He
was very much disposed, therefore, to urge on the invasion of Greece by
every means in his power.

Artabanus, on the other hand, the uncle of Xerxes, was a man advanced in
years, and of a calm and cautious disposition. He was better aware than
younger men of the vicissitudes and hazards of war, and was much more
inclined to restrain than to urge on the youthful ambition of his
nephew. Xerxes had been able to present some show of reason for his
campaign in Egypt, by calling the resistance which that country offered
t