Page:History of Greece Vol XII.djvu/140

 108 HISTORY OF GKEECE. ceived respecting Xerxes,* and by stronger reason X(rxes re- specting himself, a century and a half before. Because all this turned out a ruinous mistake, the description of the feeling, given in Curtius and Diodorus, is often mistrusted as baseless rhetoric. Yet it is in reality the self-suggested illusion of untaught men, as opposed to trained and scientific judgment. But though such was the persuasion of Orientals, it found no response in the bosom of an intelligent Athenian. Among the Greeks now near Darius, was the Athenian exile Charidemus, who having incurred the implacable enmity of Alexander, had been forced to quit Athens after the Macedonian capture of Thebes, and had fled together with Ephialtes to the Persians. Darius, elate with the apparent omnipotence of his army under review, and hearing but one voice of devoted concurrence from the courtiers around him, asked the opinion of Charidemus, in full expectation of receiving an affirmative reply. So completely were the hopes of Charidemus bound up with the success of Da« rius, that he would not suppress his convictions, however unpal- atable, at a moment when there Avas yet a possibility that they might prove useful. He replied (with the same frankness as Demaratus had once employed towards Xerxes), that the vast multitude now before him were unfit to cope with the compara- tively small number of the invaders. He advised Darius to place no reliance on Asiatics, but to employ his immense treas- ures in subsidizing an increased army of Grecian mercenaries. He tendered his own hearty services either to assist or to com- mand. To Darius, what he said was alike surprising and offen- sive ; in the Persian coutiers, it provoked intolerable wrath. In- toxicated as they all were with the spectacle of their present muster, it seemed to them a combination of insult with absurdity, to pronounce Asiatics worthless as compared with Macedonians, and to teach the king that his empire could be defended by none ' Ilerodot. vii. 56 — and the colloquy between Xerxes and Demaratu«, vii. 103. 104 — where the language put by Herodotus into the mouth of Xerxes is natural and instructive. On the other hand, the superior pcne tration of Cyrus the youngei expresses supreme contempt for the military inefficiency of an Asiatic multitude — Xenophon, Anabas. i. 7, 4. Com- pare the blunt language of the Arcadian Antiochus — Xen. Ilcllcn. vii. L 38 ; and Cyropred. viii. 8, 20.