The throne of white marble, from which he witnessed this evidence of his power and might, was set up at Abydos on the eastern side of the Dardanelles. Here, on a day early in May, while the main body of the army together with all the animals was assembling for the crossing, Xerxes ‘saw the whole Hellespont covered in ships, and all the beaches and plains of Abydos filled with men’.

Xerxes, not unnaturally, was filled with exultation at the sight before him - the strait studded with ships, the great bridges, the dust cloud of the assembling army, the brilliant march past of the Immortals and other selected troops, the gleam of spring sunlight on cavalry and armoured men, and all the panoply of war. He then sent orders for some of the ships in his navy to give an exhibition of their prowess. A race was arranged between picked squadrons, the final heat of which was won by the Phoenicians of Sidon. (Sidon, along with Tyre and Arvad, produced the greatest mariners and pilots of antiquity.) ‘Xerxes was as pleased with the race as with the sight of his army … He congratulated himself - and the next moment burst into tears.5 His uncle Artabanus, who had tried from the very beginning to dissuade him from ‘Operation Europe’, said to him: ‘My lord, there is surely some contradiction between this behaviour and that of a minute ago. Then you called yourself a fortunate man - and yet now you weep.’

Xerxes answered him: ‘I paused for thought, and it occurred to me that human life is so sadly short. Out of all these thousands of men, not one will be alive in a hundred years.’

Artabanus was quick to seize the chance, while his monarch was temporarily out of spirits, to point out the dangers of the expedition. He was wise for his time. He realised that logistics very largely governed the success or failure of a campaign such as this. The farther the army advanced, the longer its lines of communications, and the greater the difficulty of food supplies. The land itself and the sea, he warned, were the king’s greatest enemies. The land that they were now invading would prove hostile and would not afford enough supplies for an army which, he admitted, was quite large enough for the task of subduing the Greeks. The sea was ever a treacherous element and there was no harbour on the Greek coast large enough to accommodate all the fleet in the event of bad weather. Xerxes, his serenity restored by the glory of the hour, was

not prepared to listen to the older man. He was determined to succeed where the great Darius had failed, and he had every confidence in the careful preparations that had been made to ensure the Persian success.

‘We are following’, he said, ‘in the footsteps of our fathers. We are marching to war at the ideal season of the year. We shall conquer all Europe and, without either being starved or suffering any other unpleasant circumstance, we shall return in triumph to our homeland.’

(It is difficult for the twentieth-century reader not to be reminded of the German Fuehrer in 1940 looking across the narrow seas of the Channel at the cliffs of Dover.)

Xerxes did not wish to be reminded of the possibility of failure, and the reward of Artabanus for his counsel was to be sent back home to the capital Susa. There he might act as Viceroy, and there an older man’s slow but sure approach might be useful in the government of the Empire. For the moment, it was clear that optimism and zestful confidence were what was needed around the throne of the Great King. Shortly afterwards Xerxes held a meeting of the Persian senior commanders and dispensed to them those standard platitudes that have been used throughout the ages by kings and generals. Courage was called for, the reputation of their ancestors must not be disgraced, utmost exertion, noble aims, brave enemy not to be despised, and then - ‘If we defeat them there is no other army in the world which will ever dare confront us.’

On the following day spices were burned on the bridges and boughs of myrtle were spread along the surface that the army would tread. The gods were being propitiated, and now Xerxes himself waited for sunrise. He was imploring the blessing of Ahuramazda upon the whole enterprise. The Shining One lifted above the land-mass of Asia. The men out of the East were about to conquer the lands that still lay in the darkness to the West. The Great King poured a libation of wine out of a golden goblet into the sea that he had previously chastised. He turned his face to the glory of the sun and prayed ‘that no chance might prevent him from conquering Europe or turn him back before he reached its utmost limits’. He threw the goblet into the sea, its shining flight to be followed a few seconds later by a golden bowl, and then a

Persian scimitar. All due rites had been attended to. Nothing now remained but to equal promise with performance.