hostilities were suspended, the congress re-appears, and the Greeks once more meet at the Isthmus to apportion the spoil and adjudge the prizes of valour. In the next year we hear of no common plan of operations, the fleet and army seeming to act independently of each other; yet we observe that the chiefs of the medizing Thebans were taken to the Isthmus (Corinth) to be tried, after the battle of Platæa. It appears then that, under the stress of the great Persian invasion, the Greeks were brought into an alliance or confederation; and for the two years from midsummer 481 to midsummer 479 a congress continued to meet, with more or less interruption, at the Isthmus, consisting of plenipotentiaries from the various cities. This congress directed the affairs of the nation, so far as they were in any way connected with the Persian invasion. When the Barbarians were finally defeated, and there was no longer any alarm from that source, the congress seems to have discontinued its meetings. But the alliance remained; the cities continued to act in common, at any rate, so far as naval operations were concerned, and Sparta was still the leading power." _E. Abbott, Pericles and the Golden Age of Athens, chapter 3._ ALSO IN: _C. O. Müller, History and Antiquity of the Doric Race, volume 1, appendix 4._ GREECE: B. C. 480. The Persian War: Thermopylæ. "Now when tidings of the battle that had been fought at Marathon [B. C. 490] reached the ears of King Darius, the son of Hystaspes, his anger against the Athenians," says Herodotus, "which had been already roused by their attack on Sardis, waxed still fiercer, and he became more than ever eager to lead an army against Greece. Instantly he sent off messengers to make proclamation through the several states that fresh levies were to be raised, and these at an increased rate; while ships, horses, provisions and transports were likewise to be furnished. So the men published his commands; and now all Asia was in commotion by the space of three years." But before his preparations were completed Darius died. His son Xerxes, who ascended the Persian throne, was cold to the Greek undertaking and required long persuasion before he took it up. When he did so, however, his preparations were on a scale more stupendous than those of his father, and consumed nearly five years. It was not until ten years after Marathon that Xerxes led from Sardis a host which, Herodotus computes at 1,700,000 men, besides half a million more which manned the fleet he had assembled. "Was there a nation in all Asia," cries the Greek historian, "which Xerxes did not bring with him against Greece? Or was there a river, except those of unusual size, which sufficed for his troops to drink?" By a bridge of boats at Abydos the army crossed the