Counselors of Xerxes.--Age and character of Mardonius.--The avenues to renown.--Blood inherited and blood shed.--Character of Artabanus.--His advice to Xerxes.--The Ionian rebellion.--First invasion of Greece.--Xerxes convenes a public council.--His speech.--Xerxes recounts the aggressions of the Athenians.--Xerxes proposes to build a bridge over the Hellespont.--Excitement of Mardonius.--His speech.--Mardonius expresses his contempt of the Greeks.--Predictions of Mardonius.--Pause in the assembly.--Speech of Artabanus.--His apologies.--Artabanus opposes the war.--Repulse of Datis.--Artabanus warns Xerxes of the danger of the expedition.--Artabanus vindicates the character of the Greeks.--Xerxes's displeasure.--His angry reply to Artabanus.--Xerxes's anxiety.--He determines to abandon his project.--Xerxes sees a vision in the night.--The spirit appears a second time to Xerxes.--Xerxes relates his dreams to Artabanus.--Opinion of the latter.--Artabanus takes Xerxes's place.--The spirit appears a third time.--Artabanus is convinced.--The invasion decided upon.--Mardonius probably the ghost. The two great counselors on whose judgment Xerxes mainly relied, so far as he looked to any other judgment than his own in the formation of his plans, were Artabanus, the uncle by whose decision the throne had been awarded to him, and Mardonius, the commander-in-chief of his armies. Xerxes himself was quite a young man, of a proud and lofty, yet generous character, and full of self-confidence and hope. Mardonius was much older, but he was a soldier by profession, and was eager to distinguish himself in some great military campaign. It has always been unfortunate for the peace and happiness of mankind, under all monarchical and despotic governments, in every age of the world, that, through some depraved and unaccountable perversion of public sentiment, those who are not born to greatness have had no means of attaining to it except as heroes in war. Many men have, indeed, by their mental powers or their moral excellences, acquired an extended and lasting _posthumous_ fame; but in respect to all immediate and exalted distinction and honor, it will be found, on reviewing the history of the human race, that there have generally been but two possible avenues to them: on the one hand, high birth, and on the other, the performance of great deeds of carnage and destruction. There must be, it seems, as the only valid claim to renown, either blood inherited or blood shed. The glory of the latter is second, indeed, to that of the former, but it is _only_ second. He who has sacked a city stands very high in the estimation of his fellows. He yields precedence only to him whose grandfather sacked one.