Xerxes places before his council his reasons for undertaking the expedition. He must not, as a conqueror, fall short of his great predecessors. He must punish Athens, and, incidentally, conquer Greece. The Empire of Persia must be universal. Mardonius then speaks on the same side. He urges that the Ionians in Europe must not remain free; a statement of an opinion which, whether uttered or not on this particular occasion, seems to have been an essential feature of the policy of those great Persian officials who had ruled in Western Asia for twenty-five years past. There are other passages in the reported speech which are of the utmost interest. The acquisition of territory out of sheer lust of conquest is advocated, implying, to Greek minds, a marked and striking contrast to the utter absence of mere land-hunger in the Greek disposition. Mardonius’ description of the methods of Greek warfare, how that “having found out the fairest and most level spot, they go down to it and fight,” is so apt that, though the words may never have been uttered by Mardonius himself, they represent possibly, a sarcastic criticism made by some Persian with whom Herodotus has spoken. The Persian could not understand the limitations which the nature of the land of Greece placed upon the methods of warfare of its inhabitants. Finally, Mardonius urges that the Greek will be scared into submission by the mere numbers with which Persia can take the field. #XERXES DECIDES TO INVADE GREECE.# ◆H. vii. 10.◆ Of all the members of the council only one is represented as having dared to oppose the scheme. This was Artabanos, son of Hystaspes, and uncle of Xerxes. He represents the “little Persian” side of contemporary politics. He opens his speech with a passage which might have been culled from a drama of Euripides. He proceeds to point out with what disastrous results his warnings as to the “Scythian” expedition had been disregarded. He then gives a forecast of the war which, had it been made at this time, would have been singularly justified by events. After this he indulges in philosophical remarks peculiarly in accord with Herodotus’ own views, and winds up with an estimate of the Greeks peculiarly flattering to that people. The retort of Xerxes is conceived in the typical form that an absolute monarch of the East might be expected to employ towards an adviser whose advice was unpalatable. It is almost inevitable that at a time so momentous the supernatural should make its appearance in Herodotus’ history. ◆H. vii. 12, _seqq_.◆