“There is a custom, which, indeed, I did not first establish, but received it from the kings before me, that we Persians have never rested since the day when we took this kingdom from the Medes. So the Gods will have it, and in so doing have we greatly prospered. What nations Cyrus and Cambyses and Darius my father subdued ye know well. And since I came to this kingdom I have studied how I might show myself to be not behind them, and might not the less increase our Empire. And now I will set before you what I purpose. I will bridge over the Hellespont and cross into Europe that I may avenge my father and this nation upon the Athenians for all the wrong that they have done, burning their city with fire. Nor shall we get vengeance only, but this good also, that conquering the Athenians and their neighbors that dwell in the island of Pelops, we shall have the whole earth subject to us, for I take it that when these Greeks have been subdued there is no city or nation that shall be able to stand against us. This then is my judgment, but I would have you say what is your minds. Speak, therefore.”
Then spake Mardonius: “O my lord, thou showest thyself to be the noblest of the Persians, not of those only that have been in former times, but also of all that shall be hereafter, when thou settest forth such good counsels in such excellent words. Surely it is not well that these men of Ionia should laugh at us and go unpunished, and that when we have subdued Indians and Assyrians and Ethiopians, not because they had done us wrong, but because we would enlarge our borders, we should leave these Greeks unharmed after that they have done us wrongs grievous and many. And that we may easily vanquish them, I doubt not at all. For I myself, at the bidding of my father Darius, marched against them, and went so far as the land of Macedonia, and indeed had come to the city of Athens itself, nor did I find any that dared meet me in battle. And yet, as I hear, these Greeks are wont to fight in a most foolish and ignorant fashion. For when they have declared war against one another, then they choose out the fairest and smoothest plot that they can find, and come down to this, and so fight that they who have the better in the