Mardonius had no desire to encounter this danger again. Now the promontory of Mount Athos, though high and rocky itself, was connected with the main land by an isthmus level and low, and not very broad. Xerxes determined on cutting a canal through this isthmus, so as to take his fleet of galleys across the neck, and thus avoid the stormy navigation of the outward passage. Such a canal would be of service not merely for the passage of the great fleet, but for the constant communication which it would be necessary for Xerxes to maintain with his own dominions during the whole period of the invasion.
It might have been expected that the Greeks would have interfered to prevent the execution of such a work as this; but it seems that they did not, and yet there was a considerable Greek population in that vicinity. The promontory of Athos itself was quite extensive, being about thirty miles long and four or five wide, and it had several towns upon it. The canal which Xerxes was to cut across the neck of this peninsula was to be wide enough for two triremes to pass each other. Triremes were galleys propelled by three banks of oars, and were vessels of the largest class ordinarily employed; and as the oars by which they were impelled required almost as great a breadth of water as the vessels themselves, the canal was, consequently, to be very wide.
The engineers, accordingly, laid out the ground, and, marking the boundaries by stakes and lines, as guides to the workmen, the excavation was commenced. Immense numbers of men were set at work, arranged regularly in gangs, according to the various nations which furnished them. As the excavation gradually proceeded, and the trench began to grow deep, they placed ladders against the sides, and stationed a series of men upon them; then the earth dug from the bottom was hauled up from one to another, in a sort of basket or hod, until it reached the top, where it was taken by other men and conveyed away.
The work was very much interrupted and impeded, in many parts of the line, by the continual caving in of the banks, on account of the workmen attempting to dig perpendicularly down. In one section-the one which had been assigned to the Phoenicians-this difficulty did not occur; for the Phoenicians, more considerate than the rest, had taken the precaution to make the breadth of their part of the trench twice as great at the top as it was below. By this means the banks on each side were formed to a gradual slope, and consequently stood firm. The canal was at length completed, and the water was let in.
North of the promontory of Mount Athos the reader will find upon the map the River Strymon, flowing south, not far from the boundary between Macedon and Thrace, into the Ægean Sea. The army of Xerxes, in its march from the Hellespont, would, of course, have to cross this river; and Xerxes having, by cutting the canal across the isthmus of Mount Athos, removed an obstacle in the way of his fleet, resolved next to facilitate the progress of his army by bridging the Strymon.
The king also ordered a great number of granaries and store-houses to be built at various points along the route which it was intended that his army should pursue. Some of these were on the coasts of Macedonia and Thrace, and some on the banks of the Strymon. To these magazines the corn raised in Asia for the use of the expedition was conveyed, from time to time, in transport ships, as fast as it was ready, and, being safely deposited, was protected by a guard. No very extraordinary means of defense seems to have been thought necessary at these points, for, although the scene of all these preliminary arrangements was on the European side of the line, and in what was called Greek territory, still this part of the country had been long under Persian dominion. The independent states and cities of Greece were all further south, and the people who inhabited them did not seem disposed to interrupt these preparations. Perhaps they were not aware to what object and end all these formidable movements on their northern frontier were tending.
Xerxes, during all this time, had remained in Persia. The period at length arrived when, his preparations on the frontiers being far advanced toward completion, he concluded to move forward at the head of his forces to Sardis. Sardis was the great capital of the western part of his dominions, and was situated not far from the frontier. He accordingly assembled his forces, and, taking leave of his capital of Susa with much parade and many ceremonies, he advanced toward Asia Minor. Entering and traversing Asia Minor, he crossed the Halys, which had been, in former times, the western boundary of the empire, though its limits had now been extended very far beyond. Having crossed the Halys, the immense procession advanced into Phrygia.
A very romantic tale is told of an interview between Xerxes and a certain nobleman named Pythius, who resided in one of the Phrygian towns. The circumstances were these: After crossing the Halys, which river flows north into the Euxine Sea, the army went on to the westward through nearly the whole extent of Phrygia, until at length they came to the sources of the streams which flowed west into the Ægean Sea. One of the most remarkable of these rivers was the Meander. There was a town built exactly at the source of the Meander-so exactly, in fact, that the fountain from which the stream took its rise was situated in the public square of the town, walled in and ornamented like an artificial fountain in a modern city. The name of this town was Celænæ.
When the army reached Celænæ and encamped there, Pythius made a great entertainment for the officers, which, as the number was very large, was of course attended with an enormous expense. Not satisfied with this, Pythius sent word to the king that if he was, in any respect, in want of funds for his approaching campaign, he, Pythius, would take great pleasure in supplying him.
Xerxes was surprised at such proofs of wealth and munificence from a man in comparatively a private station. He inquired of his attendants who Pythius was. They replied that, next to Xerxes himself, he was the richest man in the world. They said, moreover, that he was as generous as he was rich. He had made Darius a present of a beautiful model of a fruit-tree and of a vine, of solid gold. He was by birth, they added, a Lydian.
Lydia was west of Phrygia, and was famous for its wealth. The River Pactolus, which was so celebrated for its golden sands, flowed through the country, and as the princes and nobles contrived to monopolize the treasures which were found, both in the river itself and in the mountains from which it flowed, some of them became immensely wealthy.
Xerxes was astonished at the accounts which he heard of Pythius's fortune. He sent for him, and asked him what was the amount of his treasures. This was rather an ominous question; for, under such despotic governments as those of the Persian kings, the only real safeguard of wealth was, often, the concealment of it. Inquiry on the part of a government, in respect to treasures accumulated by a subject, was, often, only a preliminary to the seizure and confiscation of them.
Pythius, however, in reply to the king's question, said that he had no hesitation in giving his majesty full information in respect to his fortune. He had been making, he said, a careful calculation of the amount of it, with a view of determining how much he could offer to contribute in aid of the Persian campaign. He found, he said, that he had two thousand talents of silver, and four millions, wanting seven thousand, of staters of gold.
The stater was a Persian coin. Even if we knew, at the present day, its exact value, we could not determine the precise amount denoted by the sum which Pythius named, the value of money being subject to such vast fluctuations in different ages of the world. Scholars who have taken an interest in inquiring into such points as these, have come to the conclusion that the amount of gold and silver coin which Pythius thus reported to Xerxes was equal to about thirty millions of dollars.