It would appear that Xerxes treated them with the greatest severity:  he pillaged the treasury and temple of Bel, appropriated the golden statue which decorated the great inner hall of the ziggurat, and carried away many of the people into captivity (581).  Babylon never recovered this final blow:  the quarters of the town that had been pillaged remained uninhabited and fell into ruins; commerce dwindled and industry flagged.  The counsellors of Xerxes had, no doubt, wished to give an object-lesson to the province by their treatment of Babylon, and thus prevent the possibility of a revolution taking place in Asia while its ruler was fully engaged in a struggle with the Greeks.  Meanwhile all preparations were completed, and the contingents of the eastern and southern provinces concentrated at Kritalla, in Cappadocia, merely awaited the signal to set out.  Xerxes gave the order to advance in the autumn of 481, crossed the Halys and took up his quarters at Sardes, while his fleet prepared to winter in the neighbouring ports of Phocae and Kyme.*

     * Diodorus, who probably follows Ephorus, is the only writer
     who informs us of the place where the fleet was assembled.

Gathered together in that little corner of the world, were forces such as no king had ever before united under his command; they comprised 1200 vessels of various build, and probably 120,000 combatants, besides the rabble of servants, hucksters, and women which followed all the armies of that period.  The Greeks exaggerated the number of the force beyond all probability.  They estimated it variously at 800,000, at 3,000,000, and at 5,283,220 men; 1,700,000 of whom were able-bodied foot-soldiers, and 80,000 of them horsemen.*

* Herodotus records the epigram to the effect that 3,000,000 men attacked Thermopylae.  Ctesias and Ephorus adopt the same figures; Iso-crates is contented with 700,000 combatants and 5,000,000 men in all.

[Illustration:  227.jpg A TRIREME IN MOTION]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin:  the left portion is a free reproduction of a photograph of the bas-relief of the Acropolis; the right, of the picture of Pozzo.  The two partly overlap one another, and give both together the idea of a trireme going at full speed.

The troops which they could bring up to oppose these hordes were, indeed, so slender in number, when reckoned severally, that all hope of success seemed impossible.  Xerxes once more summoned the Greeks to submit, and most of the republics appeared inclined to comply; Athens and Sparta alone refused, but from different motives.  Athens knew that, after the burning of Sardes and the victory of Marathon, they could hope for no pity, and she was well aware that Persia had decreed her complete destruction; the Athenians were familiar with the idea of a struggle in which their very existence was at stake, and they counted on the navy with which Themistocles had just provided them