THE MARCH OF THE PERSIAN ARMY. PREPARATIONS IN GREECE. It may be supposed that these preparations were more or less complete by the time that the winter of 481 set in. It was in the summer or autumn of this year that part of the land army,[96] having assembled at Kritalla in Cappadocia, began its march to Sardes. Herodotus enumerates the various places it passed, with descriptions of interesting features at each, as in a guide-book. Whether he had actually visited them himself or not, may be a matter for discussion; he could, no doubt, get plenty of information with regard to them from Ionian and other Greek merchants who traversed the great trade routes, not to speak of what was contained in the works of Ionian geographers. Crossing the Halys river, the army entered Phrygia, and arrived at the city of Kelænæ. At that town it was entertained by a certain Pythios, son of Atys, a Lydian, whose enormous wealth, as reported in Herodotus, recalls the series of Greek legends in which this land plays the part of Manoa, the city of pure gold of the legends of Elizabethan days. From Kelænæ, the army journeyed past Anaua, with its salt lake, to Kolossæ, a city of Phrygia, near which the Lykos, a tributary of the Maeander, had an underground course, ten stades long. Thence by Kydrara on the Lydian border, where was an inscribed boundary pillar erected by Crœsus; and so by Kallatebos to Sardes. ◆H. vii. 32.◆ Arrived at Sardes, the king sent heralds to demand earth and water from the States of Greece, with the exception of Athens and Lacedæmon. As in the case of the Marathonian expedition, the Persian wished to form an estimate of the amount of opposition which he might expect. ◆H. vii. 34.◆ Meanwhile the engineers at the Hellespont were constructing their bridges at Abydos, where the strait is narrowest. Those who have seen the strong current which flows through this channel will be best able to appreciate the engineering skill of those who were responsible for their construction. One bridge was made by the Egyptians, the other by the Phœnicians. The bridges first made were broken in a storm, and Herodotus tells several tales of the childish expressions of vexation employed by Xerxes; how he had the waters scourged; how he let fetters down into them, and would have had them branded. The engineers were beheaded, _pour encourager les autres_, after the simple, effective method of those days. The new bridges were more permanent structures. ◆H. vii. 36.◆