τὸ πολιτικόν: the whole citizen body (L. & S.) rather than the ‘constitution of the state’ (Stein).
κατὰ νόμους. Xerxes, with a knowledge of improbable exactitude, alludes to the Spartan kings' double portion at feasts (vi. 57. 1 and 3); double service might therefore be expected of them.
Xerxes pictures a battle as a number of isolated combats in which each Spartan will be surrounded by a thousand Persians. But five million Persians is a great exaggeration on the author's own reckoning (ch. 185), unless the camp followers be included (ch. 186). For the Spartans' numbers cf. ch. 234. 2 n.
