CROSSING THE HELLESPONT.
B.C. 480
Winter in Asia Minor.--Destruction of the bridge.--Indignation of
Xerxes.--His ridiculous punishment of the sea.--Xerxes orders a new
bridge to be made.--Its construction.--Mode of securing the boats.--The
bridge finished.--Eclipse of the sun.--March from Sardis.--Order of
march.--Car of Jupiter.--Chariot of Xerxes.--Camp followers.--Arrival at
the plain of Troy.--The grand sacrifice.--Dejection of the army.--Mode
of enlistment.--Condition of the soldiers.--Privations and
hardships.--Storm on Mount Ida.--Abydos.--Parade of the troops.--Xerxes
weeps.--The reason of it.--Comments of writers.--Remarks of
Artabanus.--Conversation with Artabanus.--He renews his
warnings.--Anxiety of Artabanus.--Xerxes is not convinced.--Advice of
Artabanus in respect to employing the Ionians.--Xerxes's opinion of the
Ionians.--Artabanus is permitted to return.--Sham sea fight.--Xerxes's
address.--Crossing the bridge.--Preliminary ceremonies.--The order of
march.--Movement of the fleet.--Time occupied in the passage.--Scene of
confusion.
Although the ancient Asia Minor was in the same latitude as New York,
there was yet very little winter there. Snows fell, indeed, upon the
summits of the mountains, and ice formed occasionally upon quiet
streams, and yet, in general, the imaginations of the inhabitants, in
forming mental images of frost and snow, sought them not in their own
winters, but in the cold and icy regions of the north, of which,
however, scarcely any thing was known to them except what was disclosed
by wild and exaggerated rumors and legends.
[Illustration: MAP OF GREECE.]
There was, however, a period of blustering winds and chilly rains which
was called winter, and Xerxes was compelled to wait, before commencing
his invasion, until the inclement season had passed. As it was, he did
not wholly escape the disastrous effects of the wintery gales. A violent
storm arose while he was at Sardis, and broke up the bridge which he had
built across the Hellespont. When the tidings of this disaster were
brought to Xerxes at his winter quarters, he was very much enraged.
He was angry both with the sea for having destroyed the structure, and
with the architects who had built it for not having made it strong
enough to stand against its fury. He determined to punish both the waves
and the workmen. He ordered the sea to be scourged with a monstrous
whip, and directed that heavy chains should be thrown into it, as
symbols of his defiance of its power, and of his determination to
subject it to his control. The men who administered this senseless
discipline cried out to the sea, as they did it, in the following words,
which Xerxes had dictated to them: "Miserable monster! this is the
punishment which Xerxes your master inflicts upon you, on account of the
unprovoked and wanton injury you have done him. Be assured that he will
pass over you, whether you will or no. He hates and defies you, object
as you are, through your insatiable cruelty, and the nauseous bitterness
of your waters, of the common abomination of mankind."
As for the men who had built the bridge, which had been found thus
inadequate to withstand the force of a wintery tempest, he ordered every
one of them to be beheaded.
The vengeance of the king being thus satisfied, a new set of engineers
and workmen were designated and ordered to build another bridge.
Knowing, as, of course, they now did, that their lives depended upon the
stability of their structure, they omitted no possible precaution which
could tend to secure it. They selected the strongest ships, and arranged
them in positions which would best enable them to withstand the pressure
of the current. Each vessel was secured in its place by strong anchors,
placed scientifically in such a manner as to resist, to the best
advantage, the force of the strain to which they would be exposed. There
were two ranges of these vessels, extending from shore to shore,
containing over three hundred in each. In each range one or two vessels
were omitted, on the Asiatic side, to allow boats and galleys to pass
through, in order to keep the communication open. These omissions did
not interfere with the use of the bridge, as the superstructure and the
roadway above was continued over them.
The vessels which were to serve for the foundation of the bridge being
thus arranged and secured in their places, two immense cables were made
and stretched from shore to shore, each being fastened, at the ends,
securely to the banks, and resting in the middle on the decks of the
vessels. For the fastenings of these cables on the shore there were
immense piles driven into the ground, and huge rings attached to the
piles. The cables, as they passed along the decks of the vessels over
the water, were secured to them all by strong cordage, so that each
vessel was firmly and indissolubly bound to all the rest.
Over these cables a platform was made of trunks of trees, with branches
placed upon them to fill the interstices and level the surface. The
whole was then covered with a thick stratum of earth, which made a firm
and substantial road like that of a public highway. A high and close
fence was also erected on each side, so as to shut off the view of the
water, which might otherwise alarm the horses and the beasts of burden
that were to cross with the army.
When the news was brought to Xerxes at Sardis that the bridge was
completed, and that all things were ready for the passage, he made
arrangements for commencing his march. A circumstance, however, here
occurred that at first alarmed him. It was no less a phenomenon than an
eclipse of the sun. Eclipses were considered in those days as
extraordinary and supernatural omens, and Xerxes was naturally anxious
to know what this sudden darkness was meant to portend. He directed the
magi to consider the subject, and to give him their opinion. Their
answer was, that, as the sun was the guardian divinity of the Greeks,
and the moon that of the Persians, the meaning of the sudden withdrawal
of the light of day doubtless was, that Heaven was about to withhold its
protection from the Greeks in the approaching struggle. Xerxes was
satisfied with this explanation, and the preparations for the march went
on.
The movement of the grand procession from the city of Sardis was
inconceivably splendid. First came the long trains of baggage, on mules,
and camels, and horses, and other beasts of burden, attended by the
drivers, and the men who had the baggage in charge. Next came an immense
body of troops of all nations, marching irregularly, but under the
command of the proper officers. Then, after a considerable interval,
came a body of a thousand horse, splendidly caparisoned, and followed by
a thousand spearmen, who marched trailing their spears upon the ground,
in token of respect and submission to the king who was coming behind
them.
Next to these troops, and immediately in advance of the king, were
certain religious and sacred objects and personages, on which the people
who gazed upon this gorgeous spectacle looked with the utmost awe and
veneration. There were, first, ten sacred horses, splendidly
caparisoned, each led by his groom, who was clothed in appropriate
robes, as a sort of priest officiating in the service of a god. Behind
these came the sacred car of Jupiter. This car was very large, and
elaborately worked, and was profusely ornamented with gold. It was drawn
by eight white horses. No human being was allowed to set his foot upon
any part of it, and, consequently, the reins of the horses were carried
back, under the car, to the charioteer, who walked behind. Xerxes's own
chariot came next, drawn by very splendid horses, selected especially
for their size and beauty. His charioteer, a young Persian noble, sat by
his side.
Then came great bodies of troops. There was one corps of two thousand
men, the life-guards of the king, who were armed in a very splendid and
costly manner, to designate their high rank in the army, and the exalted
nature of their duty as personal attendants on the sovereign. One
thousand of these life-guards were foot soldiers, and the other
thousand horsemen. After the life-guards came a body of ten thousand
infantry, and after them ten thousand cavalry. This completed what was
strictly the Persian part of the army. There was an interval of about a
quarter of a mile in the rear of these bodies of troops, and then came a
vast and countless multitude of servants, attendants, adventurers, and
camp followers of every description--a confused, promiscuous,
disorderly, and noisy throng.
The immediate destination of this vast horde was Abydos; for it was
between Sestos, on the European shore, and Abydos, on the Asiatic, that
the bridge had been built. To reach Abydos, the route was north, through
the province of Mysia. In their progress the guides of the army kept
well inland, so as to avoid the indentations of the coast, and the
various small rivers which here flow westward toward the sea. Thus
advancing, the army passed to the right of Mount Ida, and arrived at
last on the bank of the Scamander. Here they encamped. They were upon
the plain of Troy.
The world was filled, in those days, with the glory of the military
exploits which had been performed, some ages before, in the siege and
capture of Troy; and it was the custom for every military hero who
passed the site of the city to pause in his march and spend some time
amid the scenes of those ancient conflicts, that he might inspirit and
invigorate his own ambition by the associations of the spot, and also
render suitable honors to the memories of those that fell there. Xerxes
did this. Alexander subsequently did it. Xerxes examined the various
localities, ascended the ruins of the citadel of Priam, walked over the
ancient battle fields, and at length, when his curiosity had thus been
satisfied, he ordered a grand sacrifice of a thousand oxen to be made,
and a libation of corresponding magnitude to be offered, in honor of the
shades of the dead heroes whose deeds had consecrated the spot.
Whatever excitement and exhilaration, however, Xerxes himself may have
felt, in approaching, under these circumstances, the transit of the
stream, where the real labors and dangers of his expedition were to
commence, his miserable and helpless soldiers did not share them. Their
condition and prospects were wretched in the extreme. In the first
place, none of them went willingly. In modern times, at least in England
and America, armies are recruited by enticing the depraved and the
miserable to enlist, by tendering them a bounty, as it is called, that
is, a sum of ready money, which, as a means of temporary and often
vicious pleasure, presents a temptation they can not resist. The act of
enlistment is, however, in a sense voluntary, so that those who have
homes, and friends, and useful pursuits in which they are peacefully
engaged, are not disturbed. It was not so with the soldiers of Xerxes.
They were slaves, and had been torn from their rural homes all over the
empire by a merciless conscription, from which there was no possible
escape. Their life in camp, too, was comfortless and wretched. At the
present day, when it is so much more difficult than it then was to
obtain soldiers, and when so much more time and attention are required
to train them to their work in the modern art of war, soldiers must be
taken care of when obtained; but in Xerxes's day it was much easier to
get new supplies of recruits than to incur any great expense in
providing for the health and comfort of those already in the service.
The arms and trappings, it is true, of such troops as were in immediate
attendance on the king, were very splendid and gay, though this was only
decoration, after all, and the king's decoration too, not theirs. In
respect, however, to every thing like personal comfort, whether of food
and of clothing, or the means of shelter and repose, the common soldiers
were utterly destitute and wretched. They felt no interest in the
campaign; they had nothing to hope for from its success, but a
continuance, if their lives were spared, of the same miserable bondage
which they had always endured. There was, however, little probability
even of this; for whether, in the case of such an invasion, the
aggressor was to succeed or to fail, the destiny of the soldiers
personally was almost inevitable destruction. The mass of Xerxes's army
was thus a mere herd of slaves, driven along by the whips of their
officers, reluctant, wretched, and despairing.
This helpless mass was overtaken one night, among the gloomy and rugged
defiles and passes of Mount Ida, by a dreadful storm of wind and rain,
accompanied by thunder and lightning. Unprovided as they were with the
means of protection against such tempests, they were thrown into
confusion, and spent the night in terror. Great numbers perished, struck
by the lightning, or exhausted by the cold and exposure; and afterward,
when they encamped on the plains of Troy, near the Scamander, the whole
of the water of the stream was not enough to supply the wants of the
soldiers and the immense herds of beasts of burden, so that many
thousands suffered severely from thirst.
All these things conspired greatly to depress the spirits of the men, so
that, at last, when they arrived in the vicinity of Abydos, the whole
army was in a state of extreme dejection and despair. This, however, was
of little consequence. The repose of a master so despotic and lofty as
Xerxes is very little disturbed by the mental sorrows of his slaves.
Xerxes reached Abydos, and prepared to make the passage of the strait in
a manner worthy of the grandeur of the occasion.
The first thing was to make arrangements for a great parade of his
forces, not, apparently, for the purpose of accomplishing any useful end
of military organization in the arrangement of the troops, but to
gratify the pride and pleasure of the sovereign with an opportunity of
surveying them. A great white throne of marble was accordingly erected
on an eminence not far from the shore of the Hellespont, from which
Xerxes looked down with great complacency and pleasure, on the one hand,
upon the long lines of troops, the countless squadrons of horsemen, the
ranges of tents, and the vast herds of beasts of burden which were
assembled on the land, and, on the other hand, upon the fleets of ships,
and boats, and galleys at anchor upon the sea; while the shores of
Europe were smiling in the distance, and the long and magnificent
roadway which he had made lay floating upon the water, all ready to take
his enormous armament across whenever he should issue the command.
Any deep emotion of the human soul, in persons of a sensitive physical
organization, tends to tears; and Xerxes's heart, being filled with
exultation and pride, and with a sense of inexpressible grandeur and
sublimity as he looked upon this scene, was softened by the pleasurable
excitements of the hour, and though, at first his countenance was
beaming with satisfaction and pleasure, his uncle Artabanus, who stood
by his side, soon perceived that tears were standing in his eyes.
Artabanus asked him what this meant. It made him sad, Xerxes replied, to
reflect that, immensely vast as the countless multitude before him was,
in one hundred years from that time not one of them all would be alive.
The tender-heartedness which Xerxes manifested on this occasion, taken
in connection with the stern and unrelenting tyranny which he was
exercising over the mighty mass of humanity whose mortality he mourned,
has drawn forth a great variety of comments from writers of every age
who have repeated the story. Artabanus replied to it on the spot by
saying that he did not think that the king ought to give himself too
much uneasiness on the subject of human liability to death, for it
happened, in a vast number of cases, that the privations and sufferings
of men were so great, that often, in the course of their lives, they
rather wished to die than to live; and that death was, consequently, in
some respects, to be regarded, not as in itself a woe, but rather as the
relief and remedy for woe.
There is no doubt that this theory of Artabanus, so far as it applied to
the unhappy soldiers of Xerxes, all marshaled before him when he uttered
it, was eminently true.
Xerxes admitted that what his uncle said was just, but it was, he said,
a melancholy subject, and so he changed the conversation. He asked his
uncle whether he still entertained the same doubts and fears in respect
to the expedition that he had expressed at Susa when the plan was first
proposed in the council. Artabanus replied that he most sincerely hoped
that the prognostications of the vision would prove true, but that he
had still great apprehensions of the result. "I have been reflecting,"
continued he, "with great care on the whole subject, and it seems to me
that there are two dangers of very serious character to which your
expedition will be imminently exposed."
Xerxes wished to know what they were.
"They both arise," said Artabanus, "from the immense magnitude of your
operations. In the first place, you have so large a number of ships,
galleys, and transports in your fleet, that I do not see how, when you
have gone down upon the Greek coast, if a storm should arise, you are
going to find shelter for them. There are no harbors there large enough
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 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 sunrise. The preparations were
made accordingly. In the morning, as soon as it was light, and while
waiting for the rising of the sun, they burned upon the bridge all
manner of perfumes, and strewed the way with branches of myrtle, the
emblem of triumph and joy. As the time for the rising of the sun drew
nigh, Xerxes stood with a golden vessel full of wine, which he was to
pour out as a libation as soon as the first dazzling beams should appear
above the horizon. When, at length, the moment arrived, he poured out
the wine into the sea, throwing the vessel in which it had been
contained after it as an offering. He also threw in, at the same time, a
golden goblet of great value, and a Persian cimeter. The ancient
historian who records these facts was uncertain whether these offerings
were intended as acts of adoration addressed to the sun, or as oblations
presented to the sea--a sort of peace offering, perhaps, to soothe the
feelings of the mighty monster, irritated and chafed by the chastisement
which it had previously received.
[Illustration: XERXES CROSSING THE HELLESPONT.]
One circumstance indicated that the offering was intended for the sun,
for, at the time of making it, Xerxes addressed to the great luminary a
sort of petition, which might be considered either an apostrophe or a
prayer, imploring its protection. He called upon the sun to accompany
and defend the expedition, and to preserve it from every calamity until
it should have accomplished its mission of subjecting all Europe to
the Persian sway.
The army then commenced its march. The order of march was very much the
same as that which had been observed in the departure from Sardis. The
beasts of burden and the baggage were preceded and followed by immense
bodies of troops of all nations. The whole of the first day was occupied
by the passing of this part of the army. Xerxes himself, and the sacred
portion of the train, were to follow them on the second day.
Accordingly, there came, on the second day, first, an immense squadron
of horse, with garlands on the heads of the horsemen; next, the sacred
horses and the sacred car of Jupiter. Then came Xerxes himself, in his
war chariot, with trumpets sounding, and banners waving in the air. At
the moment when Xerxes's chariot entered upon the bridge, the fleet of
galleys, which had been drawn up in preparation near the Asiatic shore,
were set in motion, and moved in a long and majestic line across the
strait to the European side, accompanying and keeping pace with their
mighty master in his progress. Thus was spent the second day.
Five more days were consumed in getting over the remainder of the army,
and the immense trains of beasts and of baggage which followed. The
officers urged the work forward as rapidly as possible, and, toward the
end, as is always the case in the movement of such enormous masses, it
became a scene of inconceivable noise, terror, and confusion. The
officers drove forward men and beasts alike by the lashes of their
whips--every one struggling, under the influence of such stimulants, to
get forward--while fallen animals, broken wagons, and the bodies of
those exhausted and dying with excitement and fatigue, choked the way.
The mighty mass was, however, at last transferred to the European
continent, full of anxious fears in respect to what awaited them, but
yet having very faint and feeble conceptions of the awful scenes in
which the enterprise of their reckless leader was to end.