7.18.2
“O King, since I have seen, as much as a man may, how the greater has often been brought low by the lesser, I forbade you to always give rein to your youthful spirit, knowing how evil a thing it is to have many desires, and remembering the end of Cyrus' expedition against the Massagetae and of Cambyses' against the Ethiopians, and I myself marched with Darius against the Scythians.
7.18.3
Knowing this, I judged that you had only to remain in peace for all men to deem you fortunate. But since there is some divine motivation, and it seems that the gods mark Hellas for destruction, I myself change and correct my judgment. Now declare the gods' message to the Persians, and bid them obey your first command for all due preparation. Do this, so that nothing on your part be lacking to the fulfillment of the gods' commission.”
7.18.4
After this was said, they were incited by the vision, and when daylight came Xerxes imparted all this to the Persians. Artabanus now openly encouraged that course which he alone had before openly discouraged.
ch. 19
7.19.1
Xerxes was now intent on the expedition and then saw a third vision in his sleep, which the Magi interpreted to refer to the whole earth and to signify that all men should be his slaves. This was the vision: Xerxes thought that he was crowned with an olive bough, of which the shoots spread over the whole earth, and then the crown vanished from off his head where it was set.
7.19.3
The Magi interpreted it in this way, and immediately every single man of the Persians who had been assembled rode away to his own province and there used all zeal to fulfill the kings command, each desiring to receive the promised gifts. Thus it was that Xerxes mustered his army, searching out every part of the continent.
ch. 20
7.20.1
For full four years note after the conquest of Egypt he was equipping his force and preparing all that was needed for it; before the fifth year was completed, he set forth on his march with the might of a great multitude.
7.20.2
This was by far the greatest of all expeditions that we know of. The one that Darius led against the Scythians is nothing compared to it; neither is the Scythian expedition when they burst into Media note in pursuit of the Cimmerians and subdued and ruled almost all the upper lands of Asia (it was for this that Darius afterwards attempted to punish them). According to the reports, the expedition led by the sons of Atreus against Troy is also nothing by comparison; neither is the one of the Mysians and Teucrians which before the Trojan war crossed the Bosporus into Europe, note subdued all the Thracians, and came down to the Ionian sea, marching southward as far as the river Peneus.
ch. 21
7.21.1
All these expeditions and whatever others have happened in addition could not together be compared with this single one. For what nation did Xerxes not lead from Asia against Hellas? What water did not fail when being drunk up, except only the greatest rivers?
7.21.2
Some people supplied him with ships, some were enrolled in his infantry, some were assigned the provision of horsemen, others of horse-bearing transports to follow the army, and others again of warships for the bridges, or of food and ships.
ch. 22
7.22.1
Since those who had earlier attempted to sail around Athos had suffered shipwreck, for about three years preparations had been underway there. Triremes were anchored off Elaeus in the Chersonese; with these for their headquarters, all sorts of men in the army were compelled by whippings to dig a canal, coming by turns to the work; the inhabitants about Athos also dug.
