Page:History of Greece Vol V.djvu/37

PREPARATIONS AND MARCH OF XERXES. 13 Greeks and barbarians, we need look no farther than ambition and revenge for the real motives of the invasion : considering that it had been a proclaimed project in the mind of Darius for three years previous to his death, there was no probability that his son and successor would gratuitously renounce it. Shortly after the reconquest of Egypt, he began to make his preparations, the magnitude of which attested the strength of his resolve as well as the extent of his designs. The satraps and subordinate officers, throughout the whole range of his empire, received or- ders to furnish the amplest quota of troops and munitions of war, — horse and foot, ships of war, horse-transports, provisions, or supplies of various kinds, according to the circumstances of the territory ; while rewards were held out to those who should ex- ecute the orders most efficiently. For four entire years these preparations were carried on, and as we are told that similar prep- arations had been going forward during the three years preced- ing the death of Darius, though not brought to any ultimate re- sult, we cannot doubt that the maximum of force, which the empire could possibly be made to furnish,^ was now brought to execute the schemes of Xerxes. The Persian empire was at this moment more extensive than ever it will appear at any sub- sequent period ; for it comprised maritime Thrace and Macedonia as far as the borders of Thessaly, and nearly all the islands of the JEgean north of Krete and east of Euboca, including even them acts of envy and jealousy in their dealing with mankind. But the religious interpretation does not reign alone throughout the narrative of Herodotus : it is found side by side with careful sifting of fact and specifi- cation of positive, definite, appreciable causes : and this latter vein is what really distinguishes the historian from liis age, — forming the preparation for Thucydides, in whom it appears predominant and almost exclusive. See this point illustrated in Creuzer, Historische Kunst der Grieschen, Abschnitt iii, pp. 150-159. Jager (Disputationes Herodotea, p. 16. Gottingen, 1828) professes to detect evidences of old age (senile ingenium) in the moralizing color which overspreads the history of Herodotus, but which I believe to have belonged io his middle and mature age not less than to his latter years. — if indeed he lived to be very old, which is noway proved, except upon reasons which I have ah-eady disputed in my preceding volume. See Bahr, Commentatio de Vitd et Scriptis Herodoti, in the fourth volume of his edition, c. 6, p. 388. ' Herodot. vii, 19. xupov Travra ipevvuv t^c ijTTeipov.