XERXES AND HIS ARMY. 137

the world had yet beheld. For four years those
preparations, to which Darius had already given
three years of time, were actively continued. Horse-
men and foot-soldiers, ships of war, transports,
provisions, and supplies of all kinds were collected
far and near, the vanity of Xerxes probably inciting
him to astonish the world by the greatness of his
army.

In the autumn of the year 481 Bc. this vast army,
marching from all parts of the mighty empire,
reached Lydia and gathered in and around the city
of Sardis, the old capital of Croesus. Besides the
land army, a fleet of twelve hundred and seven
ships of war, and numerous other vessels, were
collected, and large magazines of provisions were
formed at points along the whole line of march.
For years flour and other food, from Asia and
Egypt, had been stored in cities on the route, that
the fatal enemy starvation might not attack the
mighty host.

Two important questions occupied the mind of
Xerxes. How was he to get his vast army on
European soil, and how escape those dangers from
storm which had wrecked his father’s fleet? He
might cross the sea in ships, as Datis had done,—
and be like him defeated. Xerxes thought it safest
to keep on solid land, and decided to build a bridge
of boats across the Hellespont, that ocean river now
known as the Dardanelles, the first of the two straits
which connect the Mediterranean with the Black
Sea. As for the other trouble, that of storms at sea,
he remembered the great gale which had wrecked

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