On the green slope of Mount Ægaleos, which commanded a full view of Salamis and the straits, the silken tents of the King and his Court were erected, a camp that was like a palace. Purple-dyed hangings, gilded tent poles with pomegranates of pure gold at the top of each, carpets bright with colour, carved furniture inlaid with ivory, all made up a display of luxurious pomp. Before the royal tents a golden throne had been erected. Fan-bearers took their post on either side, nobles who held the office of sword-bearers and cup-bearers waited at the steps of the throne. On either side and on the slope below the ranks of the "Immortal Guard" were formed, ten thousand veterans, with armour and equipments gleaming with silver and gold. Along the shore from the white marble cliffs of Sunium by the port of Phalerum and far up the winding coast-line of the straits, hundreds of thousands more of this army of many nations stood in battle array. They were to witness the destruction of the Great King's enemies, and to take an active part in it when, as all expected, disabled Greek galleys would be driven ashore, and their crews would ask in vain for quarter. They were to share, too, in the irruption into Salamis once the fleet was master of the straits, and when the people of Athens, no longer protected by the sea, would be at the mercy of the Asiatic warriors. Amid the blare of trumpets the King took his seat upon his throne, and watched his great armada sweeping towards the straits like a floating city. In those hundreds of long, low-sided ships thousands of slaves strained at the banks of heavy oars, encouraged by the shouts of the picked warriors who crowded the decks, and if their energies flagged, stimulated to new exertions by the whip of their taskmasters. From every point of vantage in Salamis, women, old men, children, all who could not fight, looked out upon the sea, watching with heart-rending anxiety the signs of the approaching struggle. Death or slavery and untold misery would be their fate if numbers should prevail in the battle. In our days, in the hours before such a decisive struggle a people watches the newspapers, and waits for tidings of the fight in a turmoil of mingled hopes and fears. But whatever may be the result the individual, who is thus a spectator at a distance, runs no personal risks. It was otherwise in those days of merciless heathen warfare, and here all would see for themselves the changing fortunes of the fight on which their own fate depended.