Then came great bodies of troops. There was one corps of two thousand men, the life-guards of the king, who were armed in a very splendid and costly manner, to designate their high rank in the army, and the exalted nature of their duty as personal attendants on the sovereign. One thousand of these life-guards were foot soldiers, and the other thousand horsemen. After the life-guards came a body of ten thousand infantry, and after them ten thousand cavalry. This completed what was strictly the Persian part of the army. There was an interval of about a quarter of a mile in the rear of these bodies of troops, and then came a vast and countless multitude of servants, attendants, adventurers, and camp followers of every description--a confused, promiscuous, disorderly, and noisy throng.
The immediate destination of this vast horde was Abydos; for it was between Sestos, on the European shore, and Abydos, on the Asiatic, that the bridge had been built. To reach Abydos, the route was north, through the province of Mysia. In their progress the guides of the army kept well inland, so as to avoid the indentations of the coast, and the various small rivers which here flow westward toward the sea. Thus advancing, the army passed to the right of Mount Ida, and arrived at last on the bank of the Scamander. Here they encamped. They were upon the plain of Troy.
The world was filled, in those days, with the glory of the military exploits which had been performed, some ages before, in the siege and capture of Troy; and it was the custom for every military hero who passed the site of the city to pause in his march and spend some time amid the scenes of those ancient conflicts, that he might inspirit and invigorate his own ambition by the associations of the spot, and also render suitable honors to the memories of those that fell there. Xerxes did this. Alexander subsequently did it. Xerxes examined the various localities, ascended the ruins of the citadel of Priam, walked over the ancient battle fields, and at length, when his curiosity had thus been satisfied, he ordered a grand sacrifice of a thousand oxen to be made, and a libation of corresponding magnitude to be offered, in honor of the shades of the dead heroes whose deeds had consecrated the spot.