XERXES AND HIS ARMY.

Tue defeat of the Persian army at Marathon re-
doubled the wrath of King Darius against the
Athenians. He resolved in his autocratic mind to
sweep that pestilent city and all whom it contained
from the face of the earth. And he perhaps would
have done so had he not met a more terrible foe
even than Miltiades and his army,—the all-con-
queror Death, to whose might the greatest monarchs
must succumb. Burning with fury, Darius ordered
the levy of a mighty army, and for three years
busy preparations for war went on throughout the
vast empire of Persia. But, just as the mustering
was done and he was about to march, that grisly
foe Death struck him down in the midst of his
schemes of conquest, and Greece was saved,—the
great Darius was no more.

Xerxes, son of Darius, succeeded him on the
throne. This new monarch was the handsomest
and stateliest man in all his army. But his fair
outside covered a weak nature; timid, faint-hearted,
vain, conceited, he was not the man to conquer
Greece, small as it was and great as was the empire
under his control; and the death of Darius was in
all probability the salvation of Grecce.

185