. History of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia and Assyria . sed 1200 vessels of various build, and probably120,000 combatants, besides the rabble of servants,hucksters, and women which followed all the armies ofthat period. The Greeks exaggerated the number of theforce beyond all probability. They estimated it variouslyat 800,000, at 3,000,000, and at 5,283,220 men; 1,700,000of whom were able-bodied foot-soldiers, and 80,000 of them 1 Diodorus, who probably follows Ephorus, is the only writer who informsus of the place where the fleet was assembled. SHAMASHERIB AND THE REVOLT OP BABYLON 227 ho
. History of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia and Assyria . sed 1200 vessels of various build, and probably120,000 combatants, besides the rabble of servants,hucksters, and women which followed all the armies ofthat period. The Greeks exaggerated the number of theforce beyond all probability. They estimated it variouslyat 800,000, at 3,000,000, and at 5,283,220 men; 1,700,000of whom were able-bodied foot-soldiers, and 80,000 of them 1 Diodorus, who probably follows Ephorus, is the only writer who informsus of the place where the fleet was assembled. SHAMASHERIB AND THE REVOLT OP BABYLON 227 horsemen.^ The troops which they could bring up tooppose these hordes were, indeed, so slender in number,when reckoned severally, that all hope of success seemedimpossible. Xerxes once more summoned the Greeks tosubmit, and most of the republics appeared inclined tocomply; Athens and Sparta alone refused, but fromdifferent motives. Athens knew that, after the burning ofSardes and the victory of Marathon, they could hope for i^^^^^^^^m^l A TRIEEME IN no pity, and she was well aware that Persia had decreedher complete destruction; the Athenians were familiarwith the idea of a struggle in which their very existencewas at stake, and they counted on the navy with whichThemistocles had just provided them to enable them toemerge from the affair with honour. Sparta was notthreatened with the same fate, but she was at that timethe first military state in Greece, and the whole of the 1 Herodotus records the epigram to the effect that 3,000,000 menattacked Thermopylas. Ctesias and Ephorus adopt the same figures; Iso-crates is contented with 700,000 combatants and 5,000,000 men in all. ^ Drawn by Faucher-Gudin : the left portion is a free reproduction of aphotograph of the bas-relief of the Acropolis; the right, of the picture ofPozzo. The two partly overlap one another, and give both together the ideaof a trireme going at full speed. 228 THE LAST DAYS OP THE OLD EASTERN WORLD Pelop
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