Originally Published in Madras Courier
Editorial Note
The consummation of any grand strategy warrants a coherent leadership, leading into the future while managing the present tasks.
Xerxes, the Persian King of Kings, mounts his throne on a promontory, from where he gazes down at the million and half of his armies assembled to launch a second invasion of Greece in less than a decade. The decision to go to war was the natural consequence of an ominous apparition, presumably the ghost of Darius, Xerxes’s father, defeated at Marathon and demanding revenge by appearing twice to Xerxes and once to his uncle and royal counsel Artabanus.Â