courage and a singular wisdom.

X. Such were the forces which the great king reviewed, passing
through the land-forces in his chariot, and through the fleet in a
Sidonian vessel, beneath a golden canopy. After his survey, the king
summoned Demaratus to his presence.

"Think you," said he, "that the Greeks will presume to resist me?"

"Sire," answered the Spartan, "your proposition of servitude will be
rejected by the Greeks; and even if the rest of them sided with you,
Lacedaemon still would give you battle; question not in what numbers;
had Sparta but a thousand men she would oppose you."

Marching onward, and forcibly enlisting, by the way, various tribes
through which he passed, exhausting many streams, and empoverishing
the population condemned to entertain his army, Xerxes arrived at
Acanthus: there he dismissed the commanders of his fleet, ordering
them to wait his orders at Therme, a small town which gave its name to
the Thermean Gulf (to which they proceeded, pressing ships and seamen
by the way), and afterward, gaining Therme himself, encamped his army
on the coast, spreading far and wide its multitudinous array from
Therme and Mygdonia to the rivers Lydias and Haliacmon.




CHAPTER VI.

The Conduct of the Greeks.--The Oracle relating to Salamis.--Art of