Herodotus—The Histories

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BOOK ONE

hese are the researches of Herodotus of

Halicarnassus, which he publishes, in the hope of
thereby preserving from decay the remembrance
of what men have done, and of preventing the
great and wonderful actions of the Greeks and the
Barbarians from losing their due meed of glory;
and withal to put on record what were their
grounds of feuds. According to the Persians best
informed in history, the Phoenicians began to
quarrel. This people, who had formerly dwelt on
the shores of the Erythraean Sea, having migrated
to the Mediterranean and settled in the parts
which they now inhabit, began at once, they say,
to adventure on long voyages, freighting their ves-
sels with the wares of Egypt and Assyria. They
landed at many places on the coast, and among

Th e H i s t o r i e s

o f

H e r o d o t u s o f H a l i c a r n a s s u s

the rest at Argos, which was then preeminent
above all the states included now under the com-
mon name of Hellas. Here they exposed their
merchandise, and traded with the natives for five
or six days; at the end of which time, when almost
everything was sold, there came down to the
beach a number of women, and among them the
daughter of the king, who was, they say, agreeing
in this with the Greeks, Io, the child of Inachus.
The women were standing by the stern of the ship
intent upon their purchases, when the
Phoenicians, with a general shout, rushed upon
them. The greater part made their escape, but
some were seized and carried off. Io herself was
among the captives. The Phoenicians put the
women on board their vessel, and set sail for
Egypt. Thus did Io pass into Egypt, according to
the Persian story, which differs widely from the
Phoenician: and thus commenced, according to
their authors, the series of outrages.

At a later period, certain Greeks, with whose
name they are unacquainted, but who would

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probably be Cretans, made a landing at Tyre, on
the Phoenician coast, and bore off the king’s
daughter, Europe. In this they only retaliated; but
afterwards the Greeks, they say, were guilty of a
second violence. They manned a ship of war, and
sailed to Aea, a city of Colchis, on the river
Phasis; from whence, after despatching the rest of
the business on which they had come, they carried
off Medea, the daughter of the king of the land.
The monarch sent a herald into Greece to demand
reparation of the wrong, and the restitution of his
child; but the Greeks made answer that, having
received no reparation of the wrong done them in
the seizure of Io the Argive, they should give none
in this instance.

In the next generation afterwards, according to
the same authorities, Alexander the son of Priam,
bearing these events in mind, resolved to procure
himself a wife out of Greece by violence, fully per-
suaded, that as the Greeks had not given satisfac-
tion for their outrages, so neither would he be
forced to make any for his. Accordingly he made

prize of Helen; upon which the Greeks decided
that, before resorting to other measures, they
would send envoys to reclaim the princess and
require reparation of the wrong. Their demands
were met by a reference to the violence which had
been offered to Medea, and they were asked with
what face they could now require satisfaction,
when they had formerly rejected all demands for
either reparation or restitution addressed to them.

Hitherto the injuries on either side had been mere
acts of common violence; but in what followed
the Persians consider that the Greeks were great-
ly to blame, since before any attack had been
made on Europe, they led an army into Asia. Now
as for the carrying off of women, it is the deed,
they say, of a rogue: but to make a stir about such
as are carried off, argues a man a fool. Men of
sense care nothing for such women, since it is
plain that without their own consent they would
never be forced away. The Asiatics, when the
Greeks ran off with their women, never troubled
themselves about the matter; but the Greeks, for

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the sake of a single Lacedaemonian girl, collected
a vast armament, invaded Asia, and destroyed the
kingdom of Priam. Henceforth they ever looked
upon the Greeks as their open enemies. For Asia,
with all the various tribes of barbarians that
inhabit it, is regarded by the Persians as their
own; but Europe and the Greek race they look on
as distinct and separate.

Such is the account which the Persians give of
these matters. They trace to the attack upon Troy
their ancient enmity towards the Greeks. The
Phoenicians, however, as regards Io, vary from
the Persian statements. They deny that they used
any violence to remove her into Egypt; she herself,
they say, having formed an intimacy with the cap-
tain, while his vessel lay at Argos, and perceiving
herself to be with child, of her own free will
accompanied the Phoenicians on their leaving the
shore, to escape the shame of detection and the
reproaches of her parents. Whether this latter
account be true, or whether the matter happened
otherwise, I shall not discuss further. I shall pro-

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ceed at once to point out the person who first
within my own knowledge inflicted injury on the
Greeks, after which I shall go forward with my
history, describing equally the greater and the
lesser cities. For the cities which were formerly
great have most of them become insignificant;
and such as are at present powerful, were weak in
the olden time. I shall therefore discourse equally
of both, convinced that human happiness never
continues long in one stay.

Croesus, son of Alyattes, by birth a Lydian, was
lord of all the nations to the west of the river
Halys. This stream, which separates Syria from
Paphlagonia, runs with a course from south to
north, and finally falls into the Euxine. So far as
our knowledge goes, he was the first of the bar-
barians who had dealings with the Greeks, forc-
ing some of them to become his tributaries, and
entering into alliance with others. He conquered
the Aeolians, Ionians, and Dorians of Asia, and
made a treaty with the Lacedaemonians. Up to
that time all Greeks had been free. For the

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Cimmerian attack upon Ionia, which was earlier
than Croesus, was not a conquest of the cities, but
only an inroad for plundering.

The sovereignty of Lydia, which had belonged to
the Heraclides, passed into the family of Croesus,
who were called the Mermnadae, in the manner
which I will now relate. There was a certain king
of Sardis, Candaules by name, whom the Greeks
called Myrsilus. He was a descendant of Alcaeus,
son of Hercules. The first king of this dynasty was
Agron, son of Ninus, grandson of Belus, and
great-grandson of Alcaeus; Candaules, son of
Myrsus, was the last. The kings who reigned
before Agron sprang from Lydus, son of Atys,
from whom the people of the land, called previ-
ously Meonians, received the name of Lydians.
The Heraclides, descended from Hercules and the
slave-girl of Jardanus, having been entrusted by
these princes with the management of affairs,
obtained the kingdom by an oracle. Their rule
endured for two and twenty generations of men,
a space of five hundred and five years; during the

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whole of which period, from Agron to Candaules,
the crown descended in the direct line from father
to son.

Now it happened that this Candaules was in love
with his own wife; and not only so, but thought
her the fairest woman in the whole world. This
fancy had strange consequences. There was in his
bodyguard a man whom he specially favoured,
Gyges, the son of Dascylus. All affairs of greatest
moment were entrusted by Candaules to this per-
son, and to him he was wont to extol the sur-
passing beauty of his wife. So matters went on for
a while. At length, one day, Candaules, who was
fated to end ill, thus addressed his follower: “I see
thou dost not credit what I tell thee of my lady’s
loveliness; but come now, since men’s ears are less
credulous than their eyes, contrive some means
whereby thou mayst behold her naked.” At this
the other loudly exclaimed, saying, “What most
unwise speech is this, master, which thou hast
uttered? Wouldst thou have me behold my mis-
tress when she is naked? Bethink thee that a
woman, with her clothes, puts off her bashful-

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ness. Our fathers, in time past, distinguished right
and wrong plainly enough, and it is our wisdom
to submit to be taught by them. There is an old
saying, ‘Let each look on his own.’ I hold thy wife
for the fairest of all womankind. Only, I beseech
thee, ask me not to do wickedly.”

Gyges thus endeavoured to decline the king’s pro-
posal, trembling lest some dreadful evil should
befall him through it. But the king replied to him,
“Courage, friend; suspect me not of the design to
prove thee by this discourse; nor dread thy mis-
tress that mischief befall thee at her hands. Be sure
I will so manage that she shall not even know that
thou hast looked upon her. I will place thee
behind the open door of the chamber in which we
sleep. When I enter to go to rest she will follow
me. There stands a chair close to the entrance, on
which she will lay her clothes one by one as she
takes them off. Thou wilt be able thus at thy
leisure to peruse her person. Then, when she is
moving from the chair toward the bed, and her
back is turned on thee, be it thy care that she see
thee not as thou passest through the doorway.”

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Gyges, unable to escape, could but declare his
readiness. Then Candaules, when bedtime came,
led Gyges into his sleeping-chamber, and a
moment after the queen followed. She entered,
and laid her garments on the chair, and Gyges
gazed on her. After a while she moved toward the
bed, and her back being then turned, he glided
stealthily from the apartment. As he was passing
out, however, she saw him, and instantly divining
what had happened, she neither screamed as her
shame impelled her, nor even appeared to have
noticed aught, purposing to take vengeance upon
the husband who had so affronted her. For among
the Lydians, and indeed among the barbarians
generally, it is reckoned a deep disgrace, even to a
man, to be seen naked.

No sound or sign of intelligence escaped her at
the time. But in the morning, as soon as day
broke, she hastened to choose from among her
retinue such as she knew to be most faithful to
her, and preparing them for what was to ensue,
summoned Gyges into her presence. Now it had
often happened before that the queen had desired

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to confer with him, and he was accustomed to
come to her at her call. He therefore obeyed the
summons, not suspecting that she knew aught of
what had occurred. Then she addressed these
words to him: “Take thy choice, Gyges, of two
courses which are open to thee. Slay Candaules,
and thereby become my lord, and obtain the
Lydian throne, or die this moment in his room. So
wilt thou not again, obeying all behests of thy
master, behold what is not lawful for thee. It must
needs be that either he perish by whose counsel
this thing was done, or thou, who sawest me
naked, and so didst break our usages.” At these
words Gyges stood awhile in mute astonishment;
recovering after a time, he earnestly besought the
queen that she would not compel him to so hard
a choice. But finding he implored in vain, and that
necessity was indeed laid on him to kill or to be
killed, he made choice of life for himself, and
replied by this inquiry: “If it must be so, and thou
compellest me against my will to put my lord to
death, come, let me hear how thou wilt have me
set on him.” “Let him be attacked,” she
answered, “on the spot where I was by him

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shown naked to you, and let the assault be made
when he is asleep.”

All was then prepared for the attack, and when
night fell, Gyges, seeing that he had no retreat or
escape, but must absolutely either slay Candaules,
or himself be slain, followed his mistress into the
sleeping-room. She placed a dagger in his hand
and hid him carefully behind the self-same door.
Then Gyges, when the king was fallen asleep,
entered privily into the chamber and struck him
dead. Thus did the wife and kingdom of
Candaules pass into the possession of Gyges, of
whom Archilochus the Parian, who lived about
the same time, made mention in a poem written in
iambic trimeter verse.

Gyges was afterwards confirmed in the possession
of the throne by an answer of the Delphic oracle.
Enraged at the murder of their king, the people
flew to arms, but after a while the partisans of
Gyges came to terms with them, and it was agreed
that if the Delphic oracle declared him king of the

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Lydians, he should reign; if otherwise, he should
yield the throne to the Heraclides. As the oracle
was given in his favour he became king. The
Pythoness, however, added that, in the fifth gen-
eration from Gyges, vengeance should come for
the Heraclides; a prophecy of which neither the
Lydians nor their princes took any account till it
was fulfilled. Such was the way in which the
Mermnadae deposed the Heraclides, and them-
selves obtained the sovereignty.

When Gyges was established on the throne, he
sent no small presents to Delphi, as his many sil-
ver offerings at the Delphic shrine testify. Besides
this silver he gave a vast number of vessels of
gold, among which the most worthy of mention
are the goblets, six in number, and weighing alto-
gether thirty talents, which stand in the
Corinthian treasury, dedicated by him. I call it the
Corinthian treasury, though in strictness of speech
it is the treasury not of the whole Corinthian peo-
ple, but of Cypselus, son of Eetion. Excepting
Midas, son of Gordias, king of Phrygia, Gyges

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was the first of the barbarians whom we know to
have sent offerings to Delphi. Midas dedicated the
royal throne whereon he was accustomed to sit
and administer justice, an object well worth look-
ing at. It lies in the same place as the goblets pre-
sented by Gyges. The Delphians call the whole of
the silver and the gold which Gyges dedicated,
after the name of the donor, Gygian.

As soon as Gyges was king he made an in-road on
Miletus and Smyrna, and took the city of
Colophon. Afterwards, however, though he
reigned eight and thirty years, he did not perform
a single noble exploit. I shall therefore make no
further mention of him, but pass on to his son and
successor in the kingdom, Ardys.

Ardys took Priene and made war upon Miletus. In
his reign the Cimmerians, driven from their
homes by the nomads of Scythia, entered Asia and
captured Sardis, all but the citadel. He reigned
forty-nine years, and was succeeded by his son,
Sadyattes, who reigned twelve years. At his death
his son Alyattes mounted the throne.

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This prince waged war with the Medes under
Cyaxares, the grandson of Deioces, drove the
Cimmerians out of Asia, conquered Smyrna, the
Colophonian colony, and invaded Clazomenae.
From this last contest he did not come off as he
could have wished, but met with a sore defeat;
still, however, in the course of his reign, he per-
formed other actions very worthy of note, of
which I will now proceed to give an account.

Inheriting from his father a war with the
Milesians, he pressed the siege against the city by
attacking it in the following manner. When the
harvest was ripe on the ground he marched his
army into Milesia to the sound of pipes and
harps, and flutes masculine and feminine. The
buildings that were scattered over the country he
neither pulled down nor burnt, nor did he even
tear away the doors, but left them standing as
they were. He cut down, however, and utterly
destroyed all the trees and all the corn throughout
the land, and then returned to his own dominions.
It was idle for his army to sit down before the
place, as the Milesians were masters of the sea.

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The reason that he did not demolish their build-
ings was that the inhabitants might be tempted to
use them as homesteads from which to go forth to
sow and till their lands; and so each time that he
invaded the country he might find something to
plunder.

In this way he carried on the war with the
Milesians for eleven years, in the course of which
he inflicted on them two terrible blows; one in
their own country in the district of Limeneium,
the other in the plain of the Maeander. During
six of these eleven years, Sadyattes, the son of
Ardys who first lighted the flames of this war,
was king of Lydia, and made the incursions.
Only the five following years belong to the reign
of Alyattes, son of Sadyattes, who (as I said
before) inheriting the war from his father,
applied himself to it unremittingly. The Milesians
throughout the contest received no help at all
from any of the Ionians, excepting those of
Chios, who lent them troops in requital of a like
service rendered them in former times, the
Milesians having fought on the side of the

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Chians during the whole of the war between
them and the people of Erythrae.

It was in the twelfth year of the war that the fol-
lowing mischance occurred from the firing of the
harvest-fields. Scarcely had the corn been set
alight by the soldiers when a violent wind carried
the flames against the temple of Minerva Assesia,
which caught fire and was burnt to the ground.
At the time no one made any account of the cir-
cumstance; but afterwards, on the return of the
army to Sardis, Alyattes fell sick. His illness con-
tinued, whereupon, either advised thereto by
some friend, or perchance himself conceiving the
idea, he sent messengers to Delphi to inquire of
the god concerning his malady. On their arrival
the Pythoness declared that no answer should be
given them until they had rebuilt the temple of
Minerva, burnt by the Lydians at Assesus in
Milesia.

Thus much I know from information given me by
the Delphians; the remainder of the story the
Milesians add.

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The answer made by the oracle came to the ears
of Periander, son of Cypselus, who was a very
close friend to Thrasybulus, tyrant of Miletus at
that period. He instantly despatched a messenger
to report the oracle to him, in order that
Thrasybulus, forewarned of its tenor, might the
better adapt his measures to the posture of
affairs.

Alyattes, the moment that the words of the ora-
cle were reported to him, sent a herald to
Miletus in hopes of concluding a truce with
Thrasybulus and the Milesians for such a time
as was needed to rebuild the temple. The herald
went upon his way; but meantime Thrasybulus
had been apprised of everything; and conjectur-
ing what Alyattes would do, he contrived this
artifice. He had all the corn that was in the city,
whether belonging to himself or to private per-
sons, brought into the market-place, and issued
an order that the Milesians should hold them-
selves in readiness, and, when he gave the sig-
nal, should, one and all, fall to drinking and
revelry.

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The purpose for which he gave these orders was
the following. He hoped that the Sardian herald,
seeing so great store of corn upon the ground, and
all the city given up to festivity, would inform
Alyattes of it, which fell out as he anticipated. The
herald observed the whole, and when he had
delivered his message, went back to Sardis. This
circumstance alone, as I gather, brought about the
peace which ensued. Alyattes, who had hoped
that there was now a great scarcity of corn in
Miletus, and that the people were worn down to
the last pitch of suffering, when he heard from the
herald on his return from Miletus tidings so con-
trary to those he had expected, made a treaty with
the enemy by which the two nations became close
friends and allies. He then built at Assesus two
temples to Minerva instead of one, and shortly
after recovered from his malady. Such were the
chief circumstances of the war which Alyattes
waged with Thrasybulus and the Milesians.

This Periander, who apprised Thrasybulus of the
oracle, was son of Cypselus, and tyrant of

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Corinth. In his time a very wonderful thing is said
to have happened. The Corinthians and the
Lesbians agree in their account of the matter.
They relate that Arion of Methymna, who as a
player on the harp, was second to no man living
at that time, and who was, so far as we know, the
first to invent the dithyrambic measure, to give it
its name, and to recite in it at Corinth, was car-
ried to Taenarum on the back of a dolphin.

He had lived for many years at the court of
Periander, when a longing came upon him to sail
across to Italy and Sicily. Having made rich prof-
its in those parts, he wanted to recross the seas to
Corinth. He therefore hired a vessel, the crew of
which were Corinthians, thinking that there was
no people in whom he could more safely confide;
and, going on board, he set sail from Tarentum.
The sailors, however, when they reached the open
sea, formed a plot to throw him overboard and
seize upon his riches. Discovering their design, he
fell on his knees, beseeching them to spare his life,
and making them welcome to his money. But they
refused; and required him either to kill himself

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outright, if he wished for a grave on the dry land,
or without loss of time to leap overboard into the
sea. In this strait Arion begged them, since such
was their pleasure, to allow him to mount upon
the quarter-deck, dressed in his full costume, and
there to play and sing, and promising that, as
soon as his song was ended, he would destroy
himself. Delighted at the prospect of hearing the
very best harper in the world, they consented, and
withdrew from the stern to the middle of the ves-
sel: while Arion dressed himself in the full cos-
tume of his calling, took his harp, and standing
on the quarter-deck, chanted the Orthian. His
strain ended, he flung himself, fully attired as he
was, headlong into the sea. The Corinthians then
sailed on to Corinth. As for Arion, a dolphin, they
say, took him upon his back and carried him to
Taenarum, where he went ashore, and thence pro-
ceeded to Corinth in his musician’s dress, and told
all that had happened to him. Periander, however,
disbelieved the story, and put Arion in ward, to
prevent his leaving Corinth, while he watched
anxiously for the return of the mariners. On their
arrival he summoned them before him and asked

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them if they could give him any tiding of Arion.
They returned for answer that he was alive and in
good health in Italy, and that they had left him at
Tarentum, where he was doing well. Thereupon
Arion appeared before them, just as he was when
he jumped from the vessel: the men, astonished
and detected in falsehood, could no longer deny
their guilt. Such is the account which the
Corinthians and Lesbians give; and there is to this
day at Taenarum, an offering of Arion’s at the
shrine, which is a small figure in bronze, repre-
senting a man seated upon a dolphin.

Having brought the war with the Milesians to a
close, and reigned over the land of Lydia for fifty-
seven years, Alyattes died. He was the second
prince of his house who made offerings at Delphi.
His gifts, which he sent on recovering from his
sickness, were a great bowl of pure silver, with a
salver in steel curiously inlaid, a work among all
the offerings at Delphi the best worth looking at.
Glaucus, the Chian, made it, the man who first
invented the art of inlaying steel.

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On the death of Alyattes, Croesus, his son, who
was thirty-five years old, succeeded to the throne.
Of the Greek cities, Ephesus was the first that he
attacked. The Ephesians, when he laid siege to the
place, made an offering of their city to Diana, by
stretching a rope from the town wall to the tem-
ple of the goddess, which was distant from the
ancient city, then besieged by Croesus, a space of
seven furlongs. They were, as I said, the first
Greeks whom he attacked. Afterwards, on some
pretext or other, he made war in turn upon every
Ionian and Aeolian state, bringing forward,
where he could, a substantial ground of com-
plaint; where such failed him, advancing some
poor excuse.

In this way he made himself master of all the
Greek cities in Asia, and forced them to become
his tributaries; after which he began to think of
building ships, and attacking the islanders.
Everything had been got ready for this purpose,
when Bias of Priene (or, as some say, Pittacus
the Mytilenean) put a stop to the project. The

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king had made inquiry of this person, who was
lately arrived at Sardis, if there were any news
from Greece; to which he answered, “Yes, sire,
the islanders are gathering ten thousand horse,
designing an expedition against thee and against
thy capital.” Croesus, thinking he spake seri-
ously, broke out, “Ah, might the gods put such
a thought into their minds as to attack the sons
of the Lydians with cavalry!” “It seems, oh!
king,” rejoined the other, “that thou desirest
earnestly to catch the islanders on horseback
upon the mainland,- thou knowest well what
would come of it. But what thinkest thou the
islanders desire better, now that they hear thou
art about to build ships and sail against them,
than to catch the Lydians at sea, and there
revenge on them the wrongs of their brothers
upon the mainland, whom thou holdest in slav-
ery?” Croesus was charmed with the turn of the
speech; and thinking there was reason in what
was said, gave up his ship-building and con-
cluded a league of amity with the Ionians of the
isles.

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Croesus afterwards, in the course of many years,
brought under his sway almost all the nations to
the west of the Halys. The Lycians and Cilicians
alone continued free; all the other tribes he
reduced and held in subjection. They were the
following: the Lydians, Phrygians, Mysians,
Mariandynians, Chalybians, Paphlagonians,
Thynian and Bithynian Thracians, Carians,
Ionians, Dorians, Aeolians and Pamphylians.

When all these conquests had been added to the
Lydian empire, and the prosperity of Sardis was
now at its height, there came thither, one after
another, all the sages of Greece living at the time,
and among them Solon, the Athenian. He was
on his travels, having left Athens to be absent ten
years, under the pretence of wishing to see the
world, but really to avoid being forced to repeal
any of the laws which, at the request of the
Athenians, he had made for them. Without his
sanction the Athenians could not repeal them, as
they had bound themselves under a heavy curse
to be governed for ten years by the laws which
should be imposed on them by Solon.

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On this account, as well as to see the world, Solon
set out upon his travels, in the course of which he
went to Egypt to the court of Amasis, and also
came on a visit to Croesus at Sardis. Croesus
received him as his guest, and lodged him in the
royal palace. On the third or fourth day after, he
bade his servants conduct Solon. over his trea-
suries, and show him all their greatness and mag-
nificence. When he had seen them all, and, so far
as time allowed, inspected them, Croesus
addressed this question to him. “Stranger of
Athens, we have heard much of thy wisdom and
of thy travels through many lands, from love of
knowledge and a wish to see the world. I am curi-
ous therefore to inquire of thee, whom, of all the
men that thou hast seen, thou deemest the most
happy?” This he asked because he thought him-
self the happiest of mortals: but Solon answered
him without flattery, according to his true senti-
ments, “Tellus of Athens, sire.” Full of astonish-
ment at what he heard, Croesus demanded
sharply, “And wherefore dost thou deem Tellus
happiest?” To which the other replied, “First,
because his country was flourishing in his days,

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and he himself had sons both beautiful and good,
and he lived to see children born to each of them,
and these children all grew up; and further
because, after a life spent in what our people look
upon as comfort, his end was surpassingly glori-
ous. In a battle between the Athenians and their
neighbours near Eleusis, he came to the assistance
of his countrymen, routed the foe, and died upon
the field most gallantly. The Athenians gave him a
public funeral on the spot where he fell, and paid
him the highest honours.”

Thus did Solon admonish Croesus by the example
of Tellus, enumerating the manifold particulars of
his happiness. When he had ended, Croesus
inquired a second time, who after Tellus seemed
to him the happiest, expecting that at any rate, he
would be given the second place. “Cleobis and
Bito,” Solon answered; “they were of Argive race;
their fortune was enough for their wants, and
they were besides endowed with so much bodily
strength that they had both gained prizes at the
Games. Also this tale is told of them:- There was
a great festival in honour of the goddess Juno at

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Argos, to which their mother must needs be taken
in a car. Now the oxen did not come home from
the field in time: so the youths, fearful of being
too late, put the yoke on their own necks, and
themselves drew the car in which their mother
rode. Five and forty furlongs did they draw her,
and stopped before the temple. This deed of theirs
was witnessed by the whole assembly of worship-
pers, and then their life closed in the best possible
way. Herein, too, God showed forth most evi-
dently, how much better a thing for man death is
than life. For the Argive men, who stood around
the car, extolled the vast strength of the youths;
and the Argive women extolled the mother who
was blessed with such a pair of sons; and the
mother herself, overjoyed at the deed and at the
praises it had won, standing straight before the
image, besought the goddess to bestow on Cleobis
and Bito, the sons who had so mightily honoured
her, the highest blessing to which mortals can
attain. Her prayer ended, they offered sacrifice
and partook of the holy banquet, after which the
two youths fell asleep in the temple. They never
woke more, but so passed from the earth. The

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Argives, looking on them as among the best of
men, caused statues of them to be made, which
they gave to the shrine at Delphi.”

When Solon had thus assigned these youths the
second place, Croesus broke in angrily, “What,
stranger of Athens, is my happiness, then, so
utterly set at nought by thee, that thou dost not
even put me on a level with private men?”

“Oh! Croesus,” replied the other, “thou askedst a
question concerning the condition of man, of one
who knows that the power above us is full of jeal-
ousy, and fond of troubling our lot. A long life
gives one to witness much, and experience much
oneself, that one would not choose. Seventy years
I regard as the limit of the life of man. In these
seventy years are contained, without reckoning
intercalary months, twenty-five thousand and two
hundred days. Add an intercalary month to every
other year, that the seasons may come round at
the right time, and there will be, besides the sev-
enty years, thirty-five such months, making an
addition of one thousand and fifty days. The

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whole number of the days contained in the seven-
ty years will thus be twenty-six thousand two
hundred and fifty, whereof not one but will pro-
duce events unlike the rest. Hence man is wholly
accident. For thyself, oh! Croesus, I see that thou
art wonderfully rich, and art the lord of many
nations; but with respect to that whereon thou
questionest me, I have no answer to give, until I
hear that thou hast closed thy life happily. For
assuredly he who possesses great store of riches is
no nearer happiness than he who has what suf-
fices for his daily needs, unless it so hap that luck
attend upon him, and so he continue in the enjoy-
ment of all his good things to the end of life. For
many of the wealthiest men have been unfavoured
of fortune, and many whose means were moder-
ate have had excellent luck. Men of the former
class excel those of the latter but in two respects;
these last excel the former in many. The wealthy
man is better able to content his desires, and to
bear up against a sudden buffet of calamity. The
other has less ability to withstand these evils
(from which, however, his good luck keeps him
clear), but he enjoys all these following blessings:

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he is whole of limb, a stranger to disease, free
from misfortune, happy in his children, and
comely to look upon. If, in addition to all this, he
end his life well, he is of a truth the man of whom
thou art in search, the man who may rightly be
termed happy. Call him, however, until he die, not
happy but fortunate. Scarcely, indeed, can any
man unite all these advantages: as there is no
country which contains within it all that it needs,
but each, while it possesses some things, lacks
others, and the best country is that which con-
tains the most; so no single human being is com-
plete in every respect- something is always lack-
ing. He who unites the greatest number of advan-
tages, and retaining them to the day of his death,
then dies peaceably, that man alone, sire, is, in my
judgment, entitled to bear the name of ‘happy.’
But in every matter it behoves us to mark well the
end: for oftentimes God gives men a gleam of
happiness, and then plunges them into ruin.”

Such was the speech which Solon addressed to
Croesus, a speech which brought him neither
largess nor honour. The king saw him depart with

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much indifference, since he thought that a man
must be an arrant fool who made no account of
present good, but bade men always wait and
mark the end.

After Solon had gone away a dreadful vengeance,
sent of God, came upon Croesus, to punish him,
it is likely, for deeming himself the happiest of
men. First he had a dream in the night, which
foreshowed him truly the evils that were about to
befall him in the person of his son. For Croesus
had two sons, one blasted by a natural defect,
being deaf and dumb; the other, distinguished far
above all his co-mates in every pursuit. The name
of the last was Atys. It was this son concerning
whom he dreamt a dream that he would die by
the blow of an iron weapon. When he woke, he
considered earnestly with himself, and, greatly
alarmed at the dream, instantly made his son take
a wife, and whereas in former years the youth had
been wont to command the Lydian forces in the
field, he now would not suffer him to accompany
them. All the spears and javelins, and weapons
used in the wars, he removed out of the male

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apartments, and laid them in heaps in the cham-
bers of the women, fearing lest perhaps one of the
weapons that hung against the wall might fall and
strike him.

Now it chanced that while he was making
arrangements for the wedding, there came to
Sardis a man under a misfortune, who had upon
him the stain of blood. He was by race a
Phrygian, and belonged to the family of the king.
Presenting himself at the palace of Croesus, he
prayed to be admitted to purification according to
the customs of the country. Now the Lydian
method of purifying is very nearly the same as the
Greek. Croesus granted the request, and went
through all the customary rites, after which he
asked the suppliant of his birth and country,
addressing him as follows:- “Who art thou,
stranger, and from what part of Phrygia fleddest
thou to take refuge at my hearth? And whom,
moreover, what man or what woman, hast thou
slain?” “Oh! king,” replied the Phrygian, “I am
the son of Gordias, son of Midas. I am named
Adrastus. The man I unintentionally slew was my

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own brother. For this my father drove me from
the land, and I lost all. Then fled I here to thee.”
“Thou art the offspring,” Croesus rejoined, “of a
house friendly to mine, and thou art come to
friends. Thou shalt want for nothing so long as
thou abidest in my dominions. Bear thy misfor-
tune as easily as thou mayest, so will it go best
with thee.” Thenceforth Adrastus lived in the
palace of the king.

It chanced that at this very same time there was in
the Mysian Olympus a huge monster of a boar,
which went forth often from this mountain coun-
try, and wasted the corn-fields of the Mysians.
Many a time had the Mysians collected to hunt
the beast, but instead of doing him any hurt, they
came off always with some loss to themselves. At
length they sent ambassadors to Croesus, who
delivered their message to him in these words:
“Oh! king, a mighty monster of a boar has
appeared in our parts, and destroys the labour of
our hands. We do our best to take him, but in
vain. Now therefore we beseech thee to let thy son
accompany us back, with some chosen youths

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and hounds, that we may rid our country of the
animal.” Such was the tenor of their prayer.

But Croesus bethought him of his dream, and
answered, “Say no more of my son going with
you; that may not be in any wise. He is but just
joined in wedlock, and is busy enough with that.
I will grant you a picked band of Lydians, and all
my huntsmen and hounds; and I will charge those
whom I send to use all zeal in aiding you to rid
your country of the brute.”

With this reply the Mysians were content; but the
king’s son, hearing what the prayer of the
Mysians was, came suddenly in, and on the
refusal of Croesus to let him go with them, thus
addressed his father: “Formerly, my father, it was
deemed the noblest and most suitable thing for
me to frequent the wars and hunting-parties, and
win myself glory in them; but now thou keepest
me away from both, although thou hast never
beheld in me either cowardice or lack of spirit.
What face meanwhile must I wear as I walk to the
forum or return from it? What must the citizens,

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what must my young bride think of me? What
sort of man will she suppose her husband to be?
Either, therefore, let me go to the chase of this
boar, or give me a reason why it is best for me to
do according to thy wishes.”

Then Croesus answered, “My son, it is not
because I have seen in thee either cowardice or
aught else which has displeased me that I keep
thee back; but because a vision which came before
me in a dream as I slept, warned me that thou
wert doomed to die young, pierced by an iron
weapon. It was this which first led me to hasten
on thy wedding, and now it hinders me from
sending thee upon this enterprise. Fain would I
keep watch over thee, if by any means I may cheat
fate of thee during my own lifetime. For thou art
the one and only son that I possess; the other,
whose hearing is destroyed, I regard as if he were
not.”

“Ah! father,” returned the youth, “I blame thee
not for keeping watch over me after a dream so
terrible; but if thou mistakest, if thou dost not

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apprehend the dream aright, ‘tis no blame for me
to show thee wherein thou errest. Now the
dream, thou saidst thyself, foretold that I should
die stricken by an iron weapon. But what hands
has a boar to strike with? What iron weapon does
he wield? Yet this is what thou fearest for me.
Had the dream said that I should die pierced by a
tusk, then thou hadst done well to keep me away;
but it said a weapon. Now here we do not com-
bat men, but a wild animal. I pray thee, therefore,
let me go with them.”

“There thou hast me, my son,” said Croesus, “thy
interpretation is better than mine. I yield to it, and
change my mind, and consent to let thee go.”

Then the king sent for Adrastus, the Phrygian,
and said to him, “Adrastus, when thou wert smit-
ten with the rod of affliction- no reproach, my
friend- I purified thee, and have taken thee to live
with me in my palace, and have been at every
charge. Now, therefore, it behoves thee to requite
the good offices which thou hast received at my
hands by consenting to go with my son on this

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hunting party, and to watch over him, if per-
chance you should be attacked upon the road by
some band of daring robbers. Even apart from
this, it were right for thee to go where thou
mayest make thyself famous by noble deeds. They
are the heritage of thy family, and thou too art so
stalwart and strong.”

Adrastus answered, “Except for thy request, Oh!
king, I would rather have kept away from this
hunt; for methinks it ill beseems a man under a
misfortune such as mine to consort with his hap-
pier compeers; and besides, I have no heart to it.
On many grounds I had stayed behind; but, as
thou urgest it, and I am bound to pleasure thee
(for truly it does behove me to requite thy good
offices), I am content to do as thou wishest. For
thy son, whom thou givest into my charge, be sure
thou shalt receive him back safe and sound, so far
as depends upon a guardian’s carefulness.”

Thus assured, Croesus let them depart, accompa-
nied by a band of picked youths, and well pro-
vided with dogs of chase. When they reached

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Olympus, they scattered in quest of the animal; he
was soon found, and the hunters, drawing round
him in a circle, hurled their weapons at him. Then
the stranger, the man who had been purified of
blood, whose name was Adrastus, he also hurled
his spear at the boar, but missed his aim, and
struck Atys. Thus was the son of Croesus slain by
the point of an iron weapon, and the warning of
the vision was fulfilled. Then one ran to Sardis to
bear the tidings to the king, and he came and
informed him of the combat and of the fate that
had befallen his son.

If it was a heavy blow to the father to learn that
his child was dead, it yet more strongly affected
him to think that the very man whom he himself
once purified had done the deed. In the violence
of his grief he called aloud on Jupiter Catharsius
to be a witness of what he had suffered at the
stranger’s hands. Afterwards he invoked the same
god as Jupiter Ephistius and Hetaereus- using the
one term because he had unwittingly harboured
in his house the man who had now slain his son;
and the other, because the stranger, who had been

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sent as his child’s guardian, had turned out his
most cruel enemy.

Presently the Lydians arrived, bearing the body of
the youth, and behind them followed the homi-
cide. He took his stand in front of the corse, and,
stretching forth his hands to Croesus, delivered
himself into his power with earnest entreaties that
he would sacrifice him upon the body of his son-
“his former misfortune was burthen enough; now
that he had added to it a second, and had brought
ruin on the man who purified him, he could not
bear to live.” Then Croesus, when he heard these
words, was moved with pity towards Adrastus,
notwithstanding the bitterness of his own calami-
ty; and so he answered, “Enough, my friend; I
have all the revenge that I require, since thou
givest sentence of death against thyself. But in
sooth it is not thou who hast injured me, except
so far as thou hast unwittingly dealt the blow.
Some god is the author of my misfortune, and I
was forewarned of it a long time ago.” Croesus
after this buried the body of his son, with such
honours as befitted the occasion. Adrastus, son of

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Gordias, son of Midas, the destroyer of his broth-
er in time past, the destroyer now of his purifier,
regarding himself as the most unfortunate wretch
whom he had ever known, so soon as all was
quiet about the place, slew himself upon the
tomb. Croesus, bereft of his son, gave himself up
to mourning for two full years.

At the end of this time the grief of Croesus was
interrupted by intelligence from abroad. He learnt
that Cyrus, the son of Cambyses, had destroyed
the empire of Astyages, the son of Cyaxares; and
that the Persians were becoming daily more pow-
erful. This led him to consider with himself
whether it were possible to check the growing
power of that people before it came to a head.
With this design he resolved to make instant trial
of the several oracles in Greece, and of the one in
Libya. So he sent his messengers in different direc-
tions, some to Delphi, some to Abae in Phocis,
and some to Dodona; others to the oracle of
Amphiaraus; others to that of Trophonius; others,
again, to Branchidae in Milesia. These were the
Greek oracles which he consulted. To Libya he

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sent another embassy, to consult the oracle of
Ammon. These messengers were sent to test the
knowledge of the oracles, that, if they were found
really to return true answers, he might send a sec-
ond time, and inquire if he ought to attack the
Persians.

The messengers who were despatched to make trial
of the oracles were given the following instruc-
tions: they were to keep count of the days from the
time of their leaving Sardis, and, reckoning from
that date, on the hundredth day they were to con-
sult the oracles, and to inquire of them what
Croesus the son of Alyattes, king of Lydia, was
doing at that moment. The answers given them
were to be taken down in writing, and brought
back to him. None of the replies remain on record
except that of the oracle at Delphi. There, the
moment that the Lydians entered the sanctuary,
and before they put their questions, the Pythoness
thus answered them in hexameter verse:-

I can count the sands, and I can measure the

ocean;

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I have ears for the silent, and know what the

dumb man meaneth;

Lo! on my sense there striketh the smell of a shell-

covered tortoise,

Boiling now on a fire, with the flesh of a lamb, in

a cauldron-

Brass is the vessel below, and brass the cover

above it.

These words the Lydians wrote down at the
mouth of the Pythoness as she prophesied, and
then set off on their return to Sardis. When all the
messengers had come back with the answers
which they had received, Croesus undid the rolls,
and read what was written in each. Only one
approved itself to him, that of the Delphic oracle.
This he had no sooner heard than he instantly
made an act of adoration, and accepted it as true,
declaring that the Delphic was the only really
oracular shrine, the only one that had discovered
in what way he was in fact employed. For on the

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departure of his messengers he had set himself to
think what was most impossible for any one to
conceive of his doing, and then, waiting till the
day agreed on came, he acted as he had deter-
mined. He took a tortoise and a lamb, and cutting
them in pieces with his own hands, boiled them
both together in a brazen cauldron, covered over
with a lid which was also of brass.

Such then was the answer returned to Croesus
from Delphi. What the answer was which the
Lydians who went to the shrine of Amphiarans
and performed the customary rites obtained of
the oracle there, I have it not in my power to men-
tion, for there is no record of it. All that is known
is that Croesus believed himself to have found
there also an oracle which spoke the truth.

After this Croesus, having resolved to propitiate
the Delphic god with a magnificent sacrifice,
offered up three thousand of every kind of sacri-
ficial beast, and besides made a huge pile, and
placed upon it couches coated with silver and
with gold, and golden goblets, and robes and

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vests of purple; all which he burnt in the hope of
thereby making himself more secure of the favour
of the god. Further he issued his orders to all the
people of the land to offer a sacrifice according to
their means. When the sacrifice was ended, the
king melted down a vast quantity of gold, and ran
it into ingots, making them six palms long, three
palms broad, and one palm in thickness. The
number of ingots was a hundred and seventeen,
four being of refined gold, in weight two talents
and a half; the others of pale gold, and in weight
two talents. He also caused a statue of a lion to be
made in refined gold, the weight of which was ten
talents. At the time when the temple of Delphi
was burnt to the ground, this lion fell from the
ingots on which it was placed; it now stands in
the Corinthian treasury, and weighs only six tal-
ents and a half, having lost three talents and a half
by the fire.

On the completion of these works Croesus sent
them away to Delphi, and with them two bowls
of an enormous size, one of gold, the other of sil-
ver, which used to stand, the latter upon the right,

Herodotus

the former upon the left, as one entered the tem-
ple. They too were moved at the time of the fire;
and now the golden one is in the Clazomenian
treasury, and weighs eight talents and forty-two
minae; the silver one stands in the corner of the
ante-chapel, and holds six hundred amphorae.
This is known because the Delphians fill it at the
time of the Theophania. It is said by the
Delphians to be a work of Theodore the Samian,
and I think that they say true, for assuredly it is
the work of no common artist. Croesus sent also
four silver casks, which are in the Corinthian trea-
sury, and two lustral vases, a golden and a silver
one. On the former is inscribed the name of the
Lacedaemonians, and they claim it as a gift of
theirs, but wrongly, since it was really given by
Croesus. The inscription upon it was cut by a
Delphian, who wished to pleasure the
Lacedaemonians. His name is known to me, but I
forbear to mention it. The boy, through whose
hand the water runs, is (I confess) a
Lacedaemonian gift, but they did not give either
of the lustral vases. Besides these various offer-
ings, Croesus sent to Delphi many others of less

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account, among the rest a number of round silver
basins. Also he dedicated a female figure in gold,
three cubits high, which is said by the Delphians
to be the statue of his baking-woman; and further,
he presented the necklace and the girdles of his
wife.

These were the offerings sent by Croesus to
Delphi. To the shrine of Amphiaraus, with whose
valour and misfortune he was acquainted, he sent
a shield entirely of gold, and a spear, also of solid
gold, both head and shaft. They were still existing
in my day at Thebes, laid up in the temple of
Ismenian Apollo.

The messengers who had the charge of conveying
these treasures to the shrines, received instruc-
tions to ask the oracles whether Croesus should
go to war with the Persians and if so, whether he
should strengthen himself by the forces of an ally.
Accordingly, when they had reached their desti-
nations and presented the gifts, they proceeded to
consult the oracles in the following terms:-
“Croesus, of Lydia and other countries, believing

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that these are the only real oracles in all the
world, has sent you such presents as your discov-
eries deserved, and now inquires of you whether
he shall go to war with the Persians, and if so,
whether he shall strengthen himself by the forces
of a confederate.” Both the oracles agreed in the
tenor of their reply, which was in each case a
prophecy that if Croesus attacked the Persians, he
would destroy a mighty empire, and a recommen-
dation to him to look and see who were the most
powerful of the Greeks, and to make alliance with
them.

At the receipt of these oracular replies Croesus
was overjoyed, and feeling sure now that he
would destroy the empire of the Persians, he sent
once more to Pytho, and presented to the
Delphians, the number of whom he had ascer-
tained, two gold staters apiece. In return for this
the Delphians granted to Croesus and the Lydians
the privilege of precedency in consulting the ora-
cle, exemption from all charges, the most hon-
ourable seat at the festivals, and the perpetual

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right of becoming at pleasure citizens of their
town.

After sending these presents to the Delphians,
Croesus a third time consulted the oracle, for hav-
ing once proved its truthfulness, he wished to
make constant use of it. The question whereto he
now desired an answer was- “Whether his king-
dom would be of long duration?” The following
was the reply of the Pythoness:-

Wait till the time shall come when a mule is

monarch of Media;

Then, thou delicate Lydian, away to the pebbles

of Hermus;

Haste, oh! haste thee away, nor blush to behave

like a coward.

Of all the answers that had reached him, this
pleased him far the best, for it seemed incredible
that a mule should ever come to be king of the

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Medes, and so he concluded that the sovereignty
would never depart from himself or his seed after
him. Afterwards he turned his thoughts to the
alliance which he had been recommended to con-
tract, and sought to ascertain by inquiry which
was the most powerful of the Grecian states. His
inquiries pointed out to him two states as pre-
eminent above the rest. These were the
Lacedaemonians and the Athenians, the former of
Doric, the latter of Ionic blood. And indeed these
two nations had held from very, early times the
most distinguished place in Greece, the being a
Pelasgic, the other a Hellenic people, and the one
having never quitted its original seats, while the
other had been excessively migratory; for during
the reign of Deucalion, Phthiotis was the country
in which the Hellenes dwelt, but under Dorus, the
son of Hellen, they moved to the tract at the base
of Ossa and Olympus, which is called Histiaeotis;
forced to retire from that region by the
Cadmeians, they settled, under the name of
Macedni, in the chain of Pindus. Hence they once
more removed and came to Dryopis; and from

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Dryopis having entered the Peloponnese in this
way, they became known as Dorians.

What the language of the Pelasgi was I cannot say
with any certainty. If, however, we may form a
conjecture from the tongue spoken by the Pelasgi
of the present day- those, for instance, who live at
Creston above the Tyrrhenians, who formerly
dwelt in the district named Thessaliotis, and were
neighbours of the people now called the Dorians-
or those again who founded Placia and Scylace
upon the Hellespont, who had previously dwelt
for some time with the Athenians- or those, in
short, of any other of the cities which have
dropped the name but are in fact Pelasgian; if, I
say, we are to form a conjecture from any of
these, we must pronounce that the Pelasgi spoke
a barbarous language. If this were really so, and
the entire Pelasgic race spoke the same tongue, the
Athenians, who were certainly Pelasgi, must have
changed their language at the same time that they
passed into the Hellenic body; for it is a certain
fact that the people of Creston speak a language

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unlike any of their neighbours, and the same is
true of the Placianians, while the language spoken
by these two people is the same; which shows that
they both retain the idiom which they brought
with them into the countries where they are now
settled.

The Hellenic race has never, since its first origin,
changed its speech. This at least seems evident to
me. It was a branch of the Pelasgic, which sepa-
rated from the main body, and at first was scanty
in numbers and of little power; but it gradually
spread and increased to a multitude of nations,
chiefly by the voluntary entrance into its ranks of
numerous tribes of barbarians. The Pelasgi, on
the other hand, were, as I think, a barbarian race
which never greatly multiplied.

On inquiring into the condition of these two
nations, Croesus found that one, the Athenian,
was in a state of grievous oppression and distrac-
tion under Pisistratus, the son of Hippocrates,
who was at that time tyrant of Athens.
Hippocrates, when he was a private citizen, is said

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to have gone once upon a time to Olympia to see
the Games, when a wonderful prodigy happened
to him. As he was employed in sacrificing, the
cauldrons which stood near, full of water and of
the flesh of the victims, began to boil without the
help of fire, so that the water overflowed the pots.
Chilon the Lacedaemonian, who happened to be
there and to witness the prodigy, advised
Hippocrates, if he were unmarried, never to take
into his house a wife who could bear him a child;
if he already had one, to send her back to her
friends; if he had a son, to disown him. Chilon’s
advice did not at all please Hippocrates, who dis-
regarded it, and some time after became the father
of Pisistratus. This Pisistratus, at a time when
there was civil contention in Attica between the
party of the Sea-coast headed by Megacles the son
of Alcmaeon, and that of the Plain headed by
Lycurgus, one of the Aristolaids, formed the pro-
ject of making himself tyrant, and with this view
created a third party. Gathering together a band
of partisans, and giving himself out for the pro-
tector of the Highlanders, he contrived the fol-
lowing stratagem. He wounded himself and his

Herodotus

mules, and then drove his chariot into the market-
place, professing to have just escaped an attack of
his enemies, who had attempted his life as he was
on his way into the country. He besought the peo-
ple to assign him a guard to protect his person,
reminding them of the glory which he had gained
when he led the attack upon the Megarians, and
took the town of Nisaea, at the same time per-
forming many other exploits. The Athenians,
deceived by his story, appointed him a band of cit-
izens to serve as a guard, who were to carry clubs
instead of spears, and to accompany him wherev-
er he went. Thus strengthened, Pisistratus broke
into revolt and seized the citadel. In this way he
acquired the sovereignty of Athens, which he con-
tinued to hold without disturbing the previously
existing offices or altering any of the laws. He
administered the state according to the estab-
lished usages, and his arrangements were wise
and salutary.

However, after a little time, the partisans of
Megacles and those of Lycurgus agreed to forget
their differences, and united to drive him out. So

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Pisistratus, having by the means described first
made himself master of Athens, lost his power
again before it had time to take root. No sooner,
however, was he departed than the factions which
had driven him out quarrelled anew, and at last
Megacles, wearied with the struggle, sent a herald
to Pisistratus, with an offer to re-establish him on
the throne if he would marry his daughter.
Pisistratus consented, and on these terms an agree-
ment was concluded between the two, after which
they proceeded to devise the mode of his restora-
tion. And here the device on which they hit was
the silliest that I find on record, more especially
considering that the Greeks have been from very
ancient times distinguished from the barbarians
by superior sagacity and freedom from foolish
simpleness, and remembering that the persons on
whom this trick was played were not only Greeks
but Athenians, who have the credit of surpassing
all other Greeks in cleverness. There was in the
Paeanian district a woman named Phya, whose
height only fell short of four cubits by three fin-
gers’ breadth, and who was altogether comely to
look upon. This woman they clothed in complete

Herodotus

armour, and, instructing her as to the carriage
which she was to maintain in order to beseem her
part, they placed her in a chariot and drove to the
city. Heralds had been sent forward to precede
her, and to make proclamation to this effect:
“Citizens of Athens, receive again Pisistratus with
friendly minds. Minerva, who of all men honours
him the most, herself conducts him back to her
own citadel.” This they proclaimed in all direc-
tions, and immediately the rumour spread
throughout the country districts that Minerva was
bringing back her favourite. They of the city also,
fully persuaded that the woman was the veritable
goddess, prostrated themselves before her, and
received Pisistratus back.

Pisistratus, having thus recovered the sovereignty,
married, according to agreement, the daughter of
Megacles. As, however, he had already a family of
grown up sons, and the Alcmaeonidae were sup-
posed to be under a curse, he determined that
there should be no issue of the marriage. His wife
at first kept this matter to herself, but after a time,

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either her mother questioned her, or it may be that
she told it of her own accord. At any rate, she
informed her mother, and so it reached her
father’s ears. Megacles, indignant at receiving an
affront from such a quarter, in his anger instantly
made up his differences with the opposite faction,
on which Pisistratus, aware of what was planning
against him, took himself out of the country.
Arrived at Eretria, he held a council with his chil-
dren to decide what was to be done. The opinion
of Hippias prevailed, and it was agreed to aim at
regaining the sovereignty. The first step was to
obtain advances of money from such states as
were under obligations to them. By these means
they collected large sums from several countries,
especially from the Thebans, who gave them far
more than any of the rest. To be brief, time
passed, and all was at length got ready for their
return. A band of Argive mercenaries arrived
from the Peloponnese, and a certain Naxian
named Lygdamis, who volunteered his services,
was particularly zealous in the cause, supplying
both men and money.

Herodotus

In the eleventh year of their exile the family of
Pisistratus set sail from Eretria on their return
home. They made the coast of Attica, near
Marathon, where they encamped, and were
joined by their partisans from the capital and by
numbers from the country districts, who loved
tyranny better than freedom. At Athens, while
Pisistratus was obtaining funds, and even after
he landed at Marathon, no one paid any atten-
tion to his proceedings. When, however, it
became known that he had left Marathon, and
was marching upon the city, preparations were
made for resistance, the whole force of the state
was levied, and led against the returning exiles.
Meantime the army of Pisistratus, which had
broken up from Marathon, meeting their adver-
saries near the temple of the Pallenian Minerva,
pitched their camp opposite them. Here a certain
soothsayer, Amphilytus by name, an
Acarnanian, moved by a divine impulse, came
into the presence of Pisistratus, and approaching
him uttered this prophecy in the hexameter mea-
sure:-

The Histories–Book One

Now has the cast been made, the net is out-spread

in the water,

Through the moonshiny night the tunnies will

enter the meshes.

Such was the prophecy uttered under a divine
inspiration. Pisistratus, apprehending its meaning,
declared that he accepted the oracle, and instant-
ly led on his army. The Athenians from the city
had just finished their midday meal, after which
they had betaken themselves, some to dice, others
to sleep, when Pisistratus with his troops fell upon
them and put them to the rout. As soon as the
flight began, Pisistratus bethought himself of a
most wise contrivance, whereby the might be
induced to disperse and not unite in a body any
more. He mounted his sons on horseback and
sent them on in front to overtake the fugitives,
and exhort them to be of good cheer, and return
each man to his home. The Athenians took the
advice, and Pisistratus became for the third time
master of Athens.

Herodotus

Upon this he set himself to root his power more
firmly, by the aid of a numerous body of merce-
naries, and by keeping up a full exchequer, partly
supplied from native sources, partly from the
countries about the river Strymon. He also
demanded hostages from many of the Athenians
who had remained at home, and not left Athens
at his approach; and these he sent to Naxos,
which he had conquered by force of arms, and
given over into the charge of Lygdamis. Farther,
he purified the island of Delos, according to the
injunctions of an oracle, after the following fash-
ion. All the dead bodies which had been interred
within sight of the temple he dug up, and removed
to another part of the isle. Thus was the tyranny
of Pisistratus established at Athens, many of the
Athenians having fallen in the battle, and many
others having fled the country together with the
son of Alcmaeon.

Such was the condition of the Athenians when
Croesus made inquiry concerning them.
Proceeding to seek information concerning the
Lacedaemonians, he learnt that, after passing

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through a period of great depression, they had
lately been victorious in a war with the people of
Tegea; for, during the joint reign of Leo and
Agasicles, kings of Sparta, the Lacedaemonians,
successful in all their other wars, suffered contin-
ual defeat at the hands of the Tegeans. At a still
earlier period they had been the very worst gov-
erned people in Greece, as well in matters of inter-
nal management as in their relations towards for-
eigners, from whom they kept entirely aloof. The
circumstances which led to their being well gov-
erned were the following:- Lycurgus, a man of dis-
tinction among the Spartans, had gone to Delphi,
to visit the oracle. Scarcely had he entered into the
inner fane, when the Pythoness exclaimed aloud,

Oh! thou great Lycurgus, that com’st to my beau-

tiful dwelling,

Dear to love, and to all who sit in the halls of

Olympus,

Whether to hail thee a god I know not, or only a

mortal,

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But my hope is strong that a god thou wilt prove,
Lycurgus. Some report besides, that the Pythoness
delivered to him the entire system of laws which
are still observed by the Spartans. The
Lacedaemonians, however. themselves assert that
Lycurgus, when he was guardian of his nephew,
Labotas, king of Sparta, and regent in his room,
introduced them from Crete; for as soon as he
became regent, he altered the whole of the exist-
ing customs, substituting new ones, which he
took care should be observed by all. After this he
arranged whatever appertained to war, establish-
ing the Enomotiae, Triacades, and Syssitia,
besides which he instituted the senate,’ and the
ephoralty. Such was the way in which the
Lacedaemonians became a well-governed people.

On the death of Lycurgus they built him a temple,
and ever since they have worshipped him with the
utmost reverence. Their soil being good and the
population numerous, they sprang up rapidly to
power, and became a flourishing people. In con-
sequence they soon ceased to be satisfied to stay
quiet; and, regarding the Arcadians as very much

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their inferiors, they sent to consult the oracle
about conquering the whole of Arcadia. The
Pythoness thus answered them:

Cravest thou Arcady? Bold is thy craving. I shall

not content it.

Many the men that in Arcady dwell, whose food

is the acorn-

They will never allow thee. It is not I that am nig-

gard.

I will give thee to dance in Tegea, with noisy foot-

fall,

And with the measuring line mete out the glorious
champaign. When the Lacedaemonians received
this reply, leaving the rest of Arcadia untouched,
they marched against the Tegeans, carrying with
them fetters, so confident had this oracle (which
was, in truth, but of base metal) made them that
they would enslave the Tegeans. The battle, how-
ever, went against them, and many fell into the

Herodotus

enemy’s hands. Then these persons, wearing the
fetters which they had themselves brought, and
fastened together in a string, measured the Tegean
plain as they executed their labours. The fetters in
which they worked were still, in my day, pre-
served at Tegea where they hung round the walls
of the temple of Minerva Alea.

Throughout the whole of this early contest with
the Tegeans, the Lacedaemonians met with noth-
ing but defeats; but in the time of Croesus, under
the kings Anaxandrides and Aristo, fortune had
turned in their favour, in the manner which I will
now relate. Having been worsted in every engage-
ment by their enemy, they sent to Delphi, and
inquired of the oracle what god they must propi-
tiate to prevail in the war against the Tegeans.
The answer of the Pythoness was that before they
could prevail, they must remove to Sparta the
bones of Orestes, the son of Agamemnon. Unable
to discover his burial-place, they sent a second
time, and asked the god where the body of the
hero had been laid. The following was the answer
they received:-

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Level and smooth is the plain where Arcadian

Tegea standeth;

There two winds are ever, by strong necessity,

blowing,

Counter-stroke answers stroke, and evil lies upon

evil.

There all-teeming Earth doth harbour the son of

Atrides;

Bring thou him to thy city, and then be Tegea’s

master.

After this reply, the Lacedaemonians were no
nearer discovering the burial-place than before,
though they continued to search for it diligently;
until at last a man named Lichas, one of the
Spartans called Agathoergi, found it. The
Agathoergi are citizens who have just served their
time among the knights. The five eldest of the
knights go out every year, and are bound during
the year after their discharge to go wherever the

Herodotus

State sends them, and actively employ themselves
in its service.

Lichas was one of this body when, partly by good
luck, partly by his own wisdom, he discovered the
burial-place. Intercourse between the two States
existing just at this time, he went to Tegea, and,
happening to enter into the workshop of a smith,
he saw him forging some iron. As he stood mar-
velling at what he beheld, he was observed by the
smith who, leaving off his work, went up to him
and said,

“Certainly, then, you Spartan stranger, you would
have been wonderfully surprised if you had seen
what I have, since you make a marvel even of the
working in iron. I wanted to make myself a well
in this room, and began to dig it, when what
think you? I came upon a coffin seven cubits long.
I had never believed that men were taller in the
olden times than they are now, so I opened the
coffin. The body inside was of the same length: I
measured it, and filled up the hole again.”

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Such was the man’s account of what he had seen.
The other, on turning the matter over in his mind,
conjectured that this was the body of Orestes, of
which the oracle had spoken. He guessed so,
because he observed that the smithy had two bel-
lows, which he understood to be the two winds,
and the hammer and anvil would do for the
stroke and the counterstroke, and the iron that
was being wrought for the evil lying upon evil.
This he imagined might be so because iron had
been discovered to the hurt of man. Full of these
conjectures, he sped back to Sparta and laid the
whole matter before his countrymen. Soon after,
by a concerted plan, they brought a charge
against him, and began a prosecution. Lichas
betook himself to Tegea, and on his arrival
acquainted the smith with his misfortune, and
proposed to rent his room of him. The smith
refused for some time; but at last Lichas persuad-
ed him, and took up his abode in it. Then he
opened the grave, and collecting the bones,
returned with them to Sparta. From henceforth,
whenever the Spartans and the Tegeans made trial

Herodotus

of each other’s skill in arms, the Spartans always
had greatly the advantage; and by the time to
which we are now come they were masters of
most of the Peloponnese.

Croesus, informed of all these circumstances, sent
messengers to Sparta, with gifts in their hands,
who were to ask the Spartans to enter into
alliance with him. They received strict injunctions
as to what they should say, and on their arrival at
Sparta spake as follows:-

“Croesus, king of the Lydians and of other
nations, has sent us to speak thus to you: ‘Oh
Lacedaemonians, the god has bidden me to make
the Greek my friend; I therefore apply to you, in
conformity with the oracle, knowing that you
hold the first rank in Greece, and desire to
become your friend and ally in all true faith and
honesty.’”

Such was the message which Croesus sent by his
heralds. The Lacedaemonians, who were aware
beforehand of the reply given him by the oracle,

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were full of joy at the coming of the messengers,
and at once took the oaths of friendship and
alliance: this they did the more readily as they had
previously contracted certain obligations towards
him. They had sent to Sardis on one occasion to
purchase some gold, intending to use it on a stat-
ue of Apollo- the statue, namely, which remains
to this day at Thornax in Laconia, when Croesus,
hearing of the matter, gave them as a gift the gold
which they wanted.

This was one reason why the Lacedaemonians
were so willing to make the alliance: another was,
because Croesus had chosen them for his friends
in preference to all the other Greeks. They there-
fore held themselves in readiness to come at his
summons, and not content with so doing, they
further had a huge vase made in bronze, covered
with figures of animals all round the outside of
the rim, and large enough to contain three hun-
dred amphorae, which they sent to Croesus as a
return for his presents to them. The vase, howev-
er, never reached Sardis. Its miscarriage is
accounted for in two quite different ways. The

Herodotus

Lacedaemonian story is that when it reached
Samos, on its way towards Sardis, the Samians
having knowledge of it, put to sea in their ships of
war and made it their prize. But the Samians
declare that the Lacedaemonians who had the
vase in charge, happening to arrive too late, and
learning that Sardis had fallen and that Croesus
was a prisoner, sold it in their island, and the pur-
chasers (who were, they say, private persons)
made an offering of it at the shrine of Juno: the
sellers were very likely on their return to Sparta to
have said that they had been robbed of it by the
Samians. Such, then, was the fate of the vase.

Meanwhile Croesus, taking the oracle in a wrong
sense, led his forces into Cappadocia, fully
expecting to defeat Cyrus and destroy the empire
of the Persians. While he was still engaged in
making preparations for his attack, a Lydian
named Sandanis, who had always been looked
upon as a wise man, but who after this obtained
a very great name indeed among his countrymen,
came forward and counselled the king in these
words:

The Histories–Book One

“Thou art about, oh! king, to make war against
men who wear leathern trousers, and have all
their other garments of leather; who feed not on
what they like, but on what they can get from a
soil that is sterile and unkindly; who do not
indulge in wine, but drink water; who possess no
figs nor anything else that is good to eat. If, then,
thou conquerest them, what canst thou get from
them, seeing that they have nothing at all? But if
they conquer thee, consider how much that is pre-
cious thou wilt lose: if they once get a taste of our
pleasant things, they will keep such hold of them
that we shall never be able to make them loose
their grasp. For my part, I am thankful to the
gods that they have not put it into the hearts of
the Persians to invade Lydia.”

Croesus was not persuaded by this speech, though
it was true enough; for before the conquest of
Lydia, the Persians possessed none of the luxuries
or delights of life.

The Cappadocians are known to the Greeks by
the name of Syrians. Before the rise of the Persian

Herodotus

power, they had been subject to the Medes; but at
the present time they were within the empire of
Cyrus, for the boundary between the Median and
the Lydian empires was the river Halys. This
stream, which rises in the mountain country of
Armenia, runs first through Cilicia; afterwards it
flows for a while with the Matieni on the right,
and the Phrygians on the left: then, when they are
passed, it proceeds with a northern course, sepa-
rating the Cappadocian Syrians from the
Paphlagonians, who occupy the left bank, thus
forming the boundary of almost the whole of
Lower Asia, from the sea opposite Cyprus to the
Euxine. Just there is the neck of the peninsula, a
journey of five days across for an active walker.

There were two motives which led Croesus to
attack Cappadocia: firstly, he coveted the land,
which he wished to add to his own dominions;
but the chief reason was that he wanted to
revenge on Cyrus the wrongs of Astyages, and
was made confident by the oracle of being able so
to do: for Astyages, son of Cyaxares and king of
the Medes, who had been dethroned by Cyrus,

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son of Cambyses, was Croesus’ brother by mar-
riage. This marriage had taken place under cir-
cumstances which I will now relate. A band of
Scythian nomads, who had left their own land on
occasion of some disturbance, had taken refuge in
Media. Cyaxares, son of Phraortes, and grandson
of Deioces, was at that time king of the country.
Recognising them as suppliants, he began by
treating them with kindness, and coming present-
ly to esteem them highly, he intrusted to their care
a number of boys, whom they were to teach their
language and to instruct in the use of the bow.
Time passed, and the Scythians employed them-
selves, day after day, in hunting, and always
brought home some game; but at last it chanced
that one day they took nothing. On their return to
Cyaxares with empty hands, that monarch, who
was hot-tempered, as he showed upon the occa-
sion, received them very rudely and insultingly. In
consequence of this treatment, which they did not
conceive themselves to have deserved, the
Scythians determined to take one of the boys
whom they had in charge, cut him in pieces, and
then dressing the flesh as they were wont to dress

Herodotus

that of the wild animals, serve it up to Cyaxares
as game: after which they resolved to convey
themselves with all speed to Sardis, to the court of
Alyattes, the son of Sadyattes. The plan was car-
ried out: Cyaxares and his guests ate of the flesh
prepared by the Scythians, and they themselves,
having accomplished their purpose, fled to
Alyattes in the guise of suppliants.

Afterwards, on the refusal of Alyattes to give up
his suppliants when Cyaxares sent to demand
them of him, war broke out between the Lydians
and the Medes, and continued for five years, with
various success. In the course of it the Medes
gained many victories over the Lydians, and the
Lydians also gained many victories over the
Medes. Among their other battles there was one
night engagement. As, however, the balance had
not inclined in favour of either nation, another
combat took place in the sixth year, in the course
of which, just as the battle was growing warm,
day was on a sudden changed into night. This
event had been foretold by Thales, the Milesian,
who forewarned the Ionians of it, fixing for it the

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very year in which it actually took place. The
Medes and Lydians, when they observed the
change, ceased fighting, and were alike anxious to
have terms of peace agreed on. Syennesis of
Cilicia, and Labynetus of Babylon, were the per-
sons who mediated between the parties, who has-
tened the taking of the oaths, and brought about
the exchange of espousals. It was they who
advised that Alyattes should give his daughter
Aryenis in marriage to Astyages, the son of
Cyaxares, knowing, as they did, that without
some sure bond of strong necessity, there is wont
to be but little security in men’s covenants. Oaths
are taken by these people in the same way as by
the Greeks, except that they make a slight flesh
wound in their arms, from which each sucks a
portion of the other’s blood.

Cyrus had captured this Astyages, who was his
mother’s father, and kept him prisoner, for a rea-
son which I shall bring forward in another of my
history. This capture formed the ground of quar-
rel between Cyrus and Croesus, in consequence of
which Croesus sent his servants to ask the oracle

Herodotus

if he should attack the Persians; and when an eva-
sive answer came, fancying it to be in his favour,
carried his arms into the Persian territory. When
he reached the river Halys, he transported his
army across it, as I maintain, by the bridges which
exist there at the present day; but, according to
the general belief of the Greeks, by the aid of
Thales the Milesian. The tale is that Croesus was
in doubt how he should get his army across, as
the bridges were not made at that time, and that
Thales, who happened to be in the camp, divided
the stream and caused it to flow on both sides of
the army instead of on the left only. This he effect-
ed thus:- Beginning some distance above the
camp, he dug a deep channel, which he brought
round in a semicircle, so that it might pass to rear-
ward of the camp; and that thus the river, divert-
ed from its natural course into the new channel at
the point where this left the stream, might flow by
the station of the army, and afterwards fall again
into the ancient bed. In this way the river was
split into two streams, which were both easily
fordable. It is said by some that the water was
entirely drained off from the natural bed of the

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river. But I am of a different opinion; for I do not
see how, in that case, they could have crossed it
on their return.

Having passed the Halys with the forces under his
command, Croesus entered the district of
Cappadocia which is called Pteria. It lies in the
neighbourhood of the city of Sinope upon the
Euxine, and is the strongest position in the whole
country thereabouts. Here Croesus pitched his
camp, and began to ravage the fields of the
Syrians. He besieged and took the chief city of the
Pterians, and reduced the inhabitants to slavery:
he likewise made himself master of the surround-
ing villages. Thus he brought ruin on the Syrians,
who were guilty of no offence towards him.
Meanwhile, Cyrus had levied an army and
marched against Croesus, increasing his numbers
at every step by the forces of the nations that lay
in his way. Before beginning his march he had
sent heralds to the Ionians, with an invitation to
them to revolt from the Lydian king: they, how-
ever, had refused compliance. Cyrus, notwith-
standing, marched against the enemy, and

Herodotus

encamped opposite them in the district of Pteria,
where the trial of strength took place between the
contending powers. The combat was hot and
bloody, and upon both sides the number of the
slain was great; nor had victory declared in favour
of either party, when night came down upon the
battle-field. Thus both armies fought valiantly.

Croesus laid the blame of his ill success on the
number of his troops, which fell very short of the
enemy; and as on the next day Cyrus did not
repeat the attack, he set off on his return to
Sardis, intending to collect his allies and renew
the contest in the spring. He meant to call on the
Egyptians to send him aid, according to the terms
of the alliance which he had concluded with
Amasis, previously to his league with the
Lacedaemonians. He intended also to summon to
his assistance the Babylonians, under their king
Labynetus, for they too were bound to him by
treaty: and further, he meant to send word to
Sparta, and appoint a day for the coming of their
succours. Having got together these forces in
addition to his own, he would, as soon as the win-

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ter was past and springtime come, march once
more against the Persians. With these intentions
Croesus, immediately on his return, despatched
heralds to his various allies, with a request that
they would join him at Sardis in the course of the
fifth month from the time of the departure of his
messengers. He then disbanded the army consist-
ing of mercenary troops- which had been engaged
with the Persians and had since accompanied him
to his capital, and let them depart to their homes,
never imagining that Cyrus, after a battle in
which victory had been so evenly balanced, would
venture to march upon Sardis.

While Croesus was still in this mind, all the sub-
urbs of Sardis were found to swarm with snakes,
on the appearance of which the horses left feeding
in the pasture-grounds, and flocked to the sub-
urbs to eat them. The king, who witnessed the
unusual sight, regarded it very rightly as a prodi-
gy. He therefore instantly sent messengers to the
soothsayers of Telmessus, to consult them upon
the matter, His messengers reached the city, and
obtained from the Telmessians an explanation of

Herodotus

what the prodigy portended, but fate did not
allow them to inform their lord; for ere they
entered Sardis on their return, Croesus was a pris-
oner. What the Telmessians had declared was that
Croesus must look for the entry of an army of for-
eign invaders into his country, and that when they
came they would subdue the native inhabitants;
since the snake, said they, is a child of earth, and
the horse a warrior and a foreigner. Croesus was
already a prisoner when the Telmessians thus
answered his inquiry, but they had no knowledge
of what was taking place at Sardis, or of the fate
of the monarch.

Cyrus, however, when Croesus broke up so sud-
denly from his quarters after the battle at Pteria,
conceiving that he had marched away with the
intention of disbanding his army, considered a lit-
tle, and soon saw that it was advisable for him to
advance upon Sardis with all haste, before the
Lydians could get their forces together a second
time. Having thus determined, he lost no time in
carrying out his plan. He marched forward with
such speed that he was himself the first to

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announce his coming to the Lydian king. That
monarch, placed in the utmost difficulty by the
turn of events which had gone so entirely against
all his calculations, nevertheless led out the
Lydians to battle. In all Asia there was not at that
time a braver or more warlike people. Their man-
ner of fighting was on horseback; they carried
long lances, and were clever in the management of
their steeds.

The two armies met in the plain before Sardis. It
is a vast flat, bare of trees, watered by the Hyllus
and a number of other streams, which all flow
into one larger than the rest, called the Hermus.
This river rises in the sacred mountain of the
Dindymenian Mother, and falls into the sea near
the town of Phocaea.

When Cyrus beheld the Lydians arranging them-
selves in order of battle on this plain, fearful of
the strength of their cavalry, he adopted a device
which Harpagus, one of the Medes, suggested to
him. He collected together all the camels that had
come in the train of his army to carry the provi-

Herodotus

sions and the baggage, and taking off their loads,
he mounted riders upon them accoutred as horse-
men. These he commanded to advance in front of
his other troops against the Lydian horse; behind
them were to follow the foot soldiers, and last of
all the cavalry. When his arrangements were com-
plete, he gave his troops orders to slay all the
other Lydians who came in their way without
mercy, but to spare Croesus and not kill him, even
if he should be seized and offer resistance. The
reason why Cyrus opposed his camels to the
enemy’s horse was because the horse has a natur-
al dread of the camel, and cannot abide either the
sight or the smell of that animal. By this stratagem
he hoped to make Croesus’s horse useless to him,
the horse being what he chiefly depended on for
victory. The two armies then joined battle, and
immediately the Lydian war-horses, seeing and
smelling the camels, turned round and galloped
off; and so it came to pass that all Croesus’s hopes
withered away. The Lydians, however, behaved
manfully. As soon as they understood what was
happening, they leaped off their horses, and
engaged with the Persians on foot. The combat

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was long; but at last, after a great slaughter on
both sides, the Lydians turned and fled. They
were driven within their walls and the Persians
laid siege to Sardis.

Thus the siege began. Meanwhile Croesus, think-
ing that the place would hold out no inconsider-
able time, sent off fresh heralds to his allies from
the beleaguered town. His former messengers had
been charged to bid them assemble at Sardis in the
course of the fifth month; they whom he now sent
were to say that he was already besieged, and to
beseech them to come to his aid with all possible
speed. Among his other allies Croesus did not
omit to send to Lacedaemon.

It chanced, however, that the Spartans were them-
selves just at this time engaged in a quarrel with
the Argives about a place called Thyrea, which
was within the limits of Argolis, but had been
seized on by the Lacedaemonians. Indeed, the
whole country westward, as far as Cape Malea,
belonged once to the Argives, and not only that
entire tract upon the mainland, but also Cythera,

Herodotus

and the other islands. The Argives collected troops
to resist the seizure of Thyrea, but before any bat-
tle was fought, the two parties came to terms, and
it was agreed that three hundred Spartans and
three hundred Argives should meet and fight for
the place, which should belong to the nation with
whom the victory rested. It was stipulated also
that the other troops on each side should return
home to their respective countries, and not remain
to witness the combat, as there was danger, if the
armies stayed, that either the one or the other, on
seeing their countrymen undergoing defeat, might
hasten to their assistance. These terms being
agreed on, the two armies marched off, leaving
three hundred picked men on each side to fight for
the territory. The battle began, and so equal were
the combatants, that at the close of the day, when
night put a stop to the fight, of the whole six hun-
dred only three men remained alive, two Argives,
Alcanor and Chromius, and a single Spartan,
Othryadas. The two Argives, regarding themselves
as the victors, hurried to Argos. Othryadas, the
Spartan, remained upon the field, and, stripping

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the bodies of the Argives who had fallen, carried
their armour to the Spartan camp. Next day the
two armies returned to learn the result. At first
they disputed, both parties claiming the victory,
the one, because they had the greater number of
survivors; the other, because their man remained
on the field, and stripped the bodies of the slain,
whereas the two men of the other side ran away;
but at last they fell from words to blows, and a
battle was fought, in which both parties suffered
great loss, but at the end the Lacedaemonians
gained the victory. Upon this the Argives, who up
to that time had worn their hair long, cut it off
close, and made a law, to which they attached a
curse, binding themselves never more to let their
hair grow, and never to allow their women to wear
gold, until they should recover Thyrea. At the
same time the Lacedaemonians made a law the
very reverse of this, namely, to wear their hair
long, though they had always before cut it close.
Othryadas himself, it is said, the sole survivor of
the three hundred, prevented by a sense of shame
from returning to Sparta after all his comrades had
fallen, laid violent hands upon himself in Thyrea.

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Although the Spartans were engaged with these
matters when the herald arrived from Sardis to
entreat them to come to the assistance of the
besieged king, yet, notwithstanding, they instant-
ly set to work to afford him help. They had com-
pleted their preparations, and the ships were just
ready to start, when a second message informed
them that the place had already fallen, and that
Croesus was a prisoner. Deeply grieved at his mis-
fortune, the Spartans ceased their efforts.

The following is the way in which Sardis was
taken. On the fourteenth day of the siege Cyrus
bade some horsemen ride about his lines, and
make proclamation to the whole army that he
would give a reward to the man who should first
mount the wall. After this he made an assault, but
without success. His troops retired, but a certain
Mardian, Hyroeades by name, resolved to
approach the citadel and attempt it at a place
where no guards were ever set. On this side the
rock was so precipitous, and the citadel (as it
seemed) so impregnable, that no fear was enter-
tained of its being carried in this place. Here was

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the only portion of the circuit round which their
old king Meles did not carry the lion which his
leman bore to him. For when the Telmessians had
declared that if the lion were taken round the
defences, Sardis would be impregnable, and
Meles, in consequence, carried it round the rest of
the fortress where the citadel seemed open to
attack, he scorned to take it round this side,
which he looked on as a sheer precipice, and
therefore absolutely secure. It is on that side of the
city which faces Mount Tmolus. Hyroeades, how-
ever, having the day before observed a Lydian sol-
dier descend the rock after a helmet that had
rolled down from the top, and having seen him
pick it up and carry it back, thought over what he
had witnessed, and formed his plan. He climbed
the rock himself, and other Persians followed in
his track, until a large number had mounted to
the top. Thus was Sardis taken, and given up
entirely to pillage.

With respect to Croesus himself, this is what
befell him at the taking of the town. He had a son,
of whom I made mention above, a worthy youth,

Herodotus

whose only defect was that he was deaf and
dumb. In the days of his prosperity Croesus had
done the utmost that be could for him, and
among other plans which he had devised, had sent
to Delphi to consult the oracle on his behalf. The
answer which he had received from the Pythoness
ran thus:-

Lydian, wide-ruling monarch, thou wondrous

simple Croesus,

Wish not ever to hear in thy palace the voice thou

hast prayed for

Uttering intelligent sounds. Far better thy son

should be silent!

Ah! woe worth the day when thine car shall first

list to his accents.

When the town was taken, one of the Persians
was just going to kill Croesus, not knowing who
he was. Croesus saw the man coming, but under
the pressure of his affliction, did not care to avoid

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the blow, not minding whether or no he died
beneath the stroke. Then this son of his, who was
voiceless, beholding the Persian as he rushed
towards Croesus, in the agony of his fear and
grief burst into speech, and said, “Man, do not
kill Croesus.” This was the first time that he had
ever spoken a word, but afterwards he retained
the power of speech for the remainder of his life.

Thus was Sardis taken by the Persians, and
Croesus himself fell into their hands, after having
reigned fourteen years, and been besieged in his
capital fourteen days; thus too did Croesus fulfill
the oracle, which said that he should destroy a
mighty empire by destroying his own. Then the
Persians who had made Croesus prisoner brought
him before Cyrus. Now a vast pile had been
raised by his orders, and Croesus, laden with fet-
ters, was placed upon it, and with him twice seven
of the sons of the Lydians. I know not whether
Cyrus was minded to make an offering of the to
some god or other, or whether he had vowed a
vow and was performing it, or whether, as may
well be, he had heard that Croesus was a holy

Herodotus

man, and so wished to see if any of the heavenly
powers would appear to save him from being
burnt alive. However it might be, Cyrus was thus
engaged, and Croesus was already on the pile,
when it entered his mind in the depth of his woe
that there was a divine warning in the words
which had come to him from the lips of Solon,
“No one while he lives is happy.” When this
thought smote him he fetched a long breath, and
breaking his deep silence, groaned out aloud,
thrice uttering the name of Solon. Cyrus caught
the sounds, and bade the interpreters inquire of
Croesus who it was he called on. They drew near
and asked him, but he held his peace, and for a
long time made no answer to their questionings,
until at length, forced to say something, he
exclaimed, “One I would give much to see con-
verse with every monarch.” Not knowing what he
meant by this reply, the interpreters begged him to
explain himself; and as they pressed for an
answer, and grew to be troublesome, he told them
how, a long time before, Solon, an Athenian, had
come and seen all his splendour, and made light of
it; and how whatever he had said to him had fall-

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en out exactly as he foreshowed, although it was
nothing that especially concerned him, but
applied to all mankind alike, and most to those
who seemed to themselves happy. Meanwhile, as
he thus spoke, the pile was lighted, and the outer
portion began to blaze. Then Cyrus, hearing from
the interpreters what Croesus had said, relented,
bethinking himself that he too was a man, and
that it was a fellow-man, and one who had once
been as blessed by fortune as himself, that he was
burning alive; afraid, moreover, of retribution,
and full of the thought that whatever is human is
insecure. So he bade them quench the blazing fire
as quickly as they could, and take down Croesus
and the other Lydians, which they tried to do, but
the flames were not to be mastered.

Then, the Lydians say that Croesus, perceiving by
the efforts made to quench the fire that Cyrus had
relented, and seeing also that all was in vain, and
that the men could not get the fire under, called
with a loud voice upon the god Apollo, and
prayed him, if he ever received at his hands any
acceptable gift, to come to his aid, and deliver him

Herodotus

from his present danger. As thus with tears he
besought the god, suddenly, though up to that
time the sky had been clear and the day without a
breath of wind, dark clouds gathered, and the
storm burst over their heads with rain of such vio-
lence, that the flames were speedily extinguished.
Cyrus, convinced by this that Croesus was a good
man and a favourite of heaven, asked him after he
was taken off the pile, “Who it was that had per-
suaded him to lead an army into his country, and
so become his foe rather than continue his
friend?” to which Croesus made answer as fol-
lows: “What I did, oh! king, was to thy advantage
and to my own loss. If there be blame, it rests
with the god of the Greeks, who encouraged me
to begin the war. No one is so foolish as to prefer
war to peace, in which, instead of sons burying
their fathers, fathers bury their sons. But the gods
willed it so.”

Thus did Croesus speak. Cyrus then ordered his
fetters to be taken off, and made him sit down
near himself, and paid him much respect, looking
upon him, as did also the courtiers, with a sort of

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wonder. Croesus, wrapped in thought, uttered no
word. After a while, happening to turn and per-
ceive the Persian soldiers engaged in plundering
the town, he said to Cyrus, “May I now tell thee,
oh! king, what I have in my mind, or is silence
best?” Cyrus bade him speak his mind boldly.
Then he put this question: “What is it, oh! Cyrus,
which those men yonder are doing so busily?”
“Plundering thy city,” Cyrus answered, “and car-
rying off thy riches.” “Not my city,” rejoined the
other, “nor my riches. They are not mine any
more. It is thy wealth which they are pillaging.”

Cyrus, struck by what Croesus had said, bade all
the court to withdraw, and then asked Croesus
what he thought it best for him to do as regarded
the plundering. Croesus answered, “Now that the
gods have made me thy slave, oh! Cyrus, it seems
to me that it is my part, if I see anything to thy
advantage, to show it to thee. Thy subjects, the
Persians, are a poor people with a proud spirit. If
then thou lettest them pillage and possess them-
selves of great wealth, I will tell thee what thou
hast to expect at their hands. The man who gets

Herodotus

the most, look to having him rebel against thee.
Now then, if my words please thee, do thus, oh!
king:- Let some of thy bodyguards be placed as
sentinels at each of the city gates, and let them
take their booty from the soldiers as they leave the
town, and tell them that they do so because the
tenths are due to Jupiter. So wilt thou escape the
hatred they would feel if the plunder were taken
away from them by force; and they, seeing that
what is proposed is just, will do it willingly.”

Cyrus was beyond measure pleased with this
advice, so excellent did it seem to him. He praised
Croesus highly, and gave orders to his bodyguard
to do as he had suggested. Then, turning to
Croesus, he said, “Oh! Croesus, I see that thou
are resolved both in speech and act to show thy-
self a virtuous prince: ask me, therefore, whatev-
er thou wilt as a gift at this moment.” Croesus
replied, “Oh! my lord, if thou wilt suffer me to
send these fetters to the god of the Greeks, whom
I once honoured above all other gods, and ask
him if it is his wont to deceive his benefactors-

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that will be the highest favour thou canst confer
on me.” Cyrus upon this inquired what charge he
had to make against the god. Then Croesus gave
him a full account of all his projects, and of the
answers of the oracle, and of the offerings which
he had sent, on which he dwelt especially, and
told him how it was the encouragement given him
by the oracle which had led him to make war
upon Persia. All this he related, and at the end
again besought permission to reproach the god
with his behaviour. Cyrus answered with a laugh,
“This I readily grant thee, and whatever else thou
shalt at any time ask at my hands.” Croesus, find-
ing his request allowed, sent certain Lydians to
Delphi, enjoining them to lay his fetters upon the
threshold of the temple, and ask the god, “If he
were not ashamed of having encouraged him, as
the destined destroyer of the empire of Cyrus, to
begin a war with Persia, of which such were the
first-fruits?” As they said this they were to point
to the fetters- and further they were to inquire, “If
it was the wont of the Greek gods to be ungrate-
ful?”

Herodotus

The Lydians went to Delphi and delivered their
message, on which the Pythoness is said to have
replied- “It is not possible even for a god to
escape the decree of destiny. Croesus has been
punished for the sin of his fifth ancestor, who,
when he was one of the bodyguard of the
Heraclides, joined in a woman’s fraud, and, slay-
ing his master, wrongfully seized the throne.
Apollo was anxious that the fall of Sardis should
not happen in the lifetime of Croesus, but be
delayed to his son’s days; he could not, however,
persuade the Fates. All that they were willing to
allow he took and gave to Croesus. Let Croesus
know that Apollo delayed the taking of Sardis
three full years, and that he is thus a prisoner
three years later than was his destiny. Moreover it
was Apollo who saved him from the burning pile.
Nor has Croesus any right to complain with
respect to the oracular answer which he received.
For when the god told him that, if he attacked the
Persians, he would destroy a mighty empire, he
ought, if he had been wise, to have sent again and
inquired which empire was meant, that of Cyrus
or his own; but if he neither understood what was

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said, nor took the trouble to seek for enlighten-
ment, he has only himself to blame for the result.
Besides, he had misunderstood the last answer
which had been given him about the mule. Cyrus
was that mule. For the parents of Cyrus were of
different races, and of different conditions- his
mother a Median princess, daughter of King
Astyages, and his father a Persian and a subject,
who, though so far beneath her in all respects,
had married his royal mistress.”

Such was the answer of the Pythoness. The
Lydians returned to Sardis and communicated it
to Croesus, who confessed, on hearing it, that the
fault was his, not the god’s. Such was the way in
which Ionia was first conquered, and so was the
empire of Croesus brought to a close.

Besides the offerings which have been already
mentioned, there are many others in various parts
of Greece presented by Croesus; as at Thebes in
Boeotia, where there is a golden tripod, dedicated
by him to Ismenian Apollo; at Ephesus, where the
golden heifers, and most of the columns are his

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gift; and at Delphi, in the temple of Pronaia,
where there is a huge shield in gold, which he
gave. All these offerings were still in existence in
my day; many others have perished: among them
those which he dedicated at Branchidae in
Milesia, equal in weight, as I am informed, and in
all respects like to those at Delphi. The Delphian
presents, and those sent to Amphiaraus, came
from his own private property, being the first-
fruits of the fortune which he inherited from his
father; his other offerings came from the riches of
an enemy, who, before he mounted the throne,
headed a party against him, with the view of
obtaining the crown of Lydia for Pantaleon. This
Pantaleon was a son of Alyattes, but by a differ-
ent mother from Croesus; for the mother of
Croesus was a Carian woman, but the mother of
Pantaleon an Ionian. When, by the appointment
of his father, Croesus obtained the kingly dignity,
he seized the man who had plotted against him,
and broke him upon the wheel. His property,
which he had previously devoted to the service of
the gods, Croesus applied in the way mentioned
above. This is all I shall say about his offerings.

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101

Lydia, unlike most other countries, scarcely offers
any wonders for the historian to describe, except
the gold-dust which is washed down from the
range of Tmolus. It has, however, one structure of
enormous size, only inferior to the monuments of
Egypt and Babylon. This is the tomb of Alyattes,
the father of Croesus, the base of which is formed
of immense blocks of stone, the rest being a vast
mound of earth. It was raised by the joint labour
of the tradesmen, handicraftsmen, and courtesans
of Sardis, and had at the top five stone pillars,
which remained to my day, with inscriptions cut
on them, showing how much of the work was
done by each class of workpeople. It appeared on
measurement that the portion of the courtesans
was the largest. The daughters of the common
people in Lydia, one and all, pursue this traffic,
wishing to collect money for their portions. They
continue the practice till they marry; and are wont
to contract themselves in marriage. The tomb is
six stades and two plethra in circumference; its
breadth is thirteen plethra. Close to the tomb is a
large lake, which the Lydians say is never dry.
They call it the Lake Gygaea.

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The Lydians have very nearly the same customs as
the Greeks, with the exception that these last do
not bring up their girls in the same way. So far as
we have any knowledge, they were the first nation
to introduce the use of gold and silver coin, and
the first who sold goods by retail. They claim also
the invention of all the games which are common
to them with the Greeks. These they declare that
they invented about the time when they colonised
Tyrrhenia, an event of which they give the fol-
lowing account. In the days of Atys, the son of
Manes, there was great scarcity through the
whole land of Lydia. For some time the Lydians
bore the affliction patiently, but finding that it did
not pass away, they set to work to devise remedies
for the evil. Various expedients were discovered
by various persons; dice, and huckle-bones, and
ball, and all such games were invented, except
tables, the invention of which they do not claim
as theirs. The plan adopted against the famine
was to engage in games one day so entirely as not
to feel any craving for food, and the next day to
eat and abstain from games. In this way they
passed eighteen years. Still the affliction contin-

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103

ued and even became more grievous. So the king
determined to divide the nation in half, and to
make the two portions draw lots, the one to stay,
the other to leave the land. He would continue to
reign over those whose lot it should be to remain
behind; the emigrants should have his son
Tyrrhenus for their leader. The lot was cast, and
they who had to emigrate went down to Smyrna,
and built themselves ships, in which, after they
had put on board all needful stores, they sailed
away in search of new homes and better suste-
nance. After sailing past many countries they
came to Umbria, where they built cities for them-
selves, and fixed their residence. Their former
name of Lydians they laid aside, and called them-
selves after the name of the king’s son, who led
the colony, Tyrrhenians.

Thus far I have been engaged in showing how the
Lydians were brought under the Persian yoke.
The course of my history now compels me to
inquire who this Cyrus was by whom the Lydian
empire was destroyed, and by what means the
Persians had become the lords paramount of Asia.

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And herein I shall follow those Persian authorities
whose object it appears to be not to magnify the
exploits of Cyrus, but to relate the simple truth. I
know besides three ways in which the story of
Cyrus is told, all differing from my own narrative.

The Assyrians had held the Empire of Upper Asia
for the space of five hundred and twenty years,
when the Medes set the example of revolt from
their authority. They took arms for the recovery
of their freedom, and fought a battle with the
Assyrians, in which they behaved with such gal-
lantry as to shake off the yoke of servitude, and to
become a free people. Upon their success the
other nations also revolted and regained their
independence.

Thus the nations over that whole extent of coun-
try obtained the blessing of self-government, but
they fell again under the sway of kings, in the
manner which I will now relate. There was a cer-
tain Mede named Deioces, son of Phraortes, a
man of much wisdom, who had conceived the

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105

desire of obtaining to himself the sovereign
power. In furtherance of his ambition, therefore,
he formed and carried into execution the follow-
ing scheme. As the Medes at that time dwelt in
scattered villages without any central authority,
and lawlessness in consequence prevailed
throughout the land, Deioces, who was already a
man of mark in his own village, applied himself
with greater zeal and earnestness than ever before
to the practice of justice among his fellows. It was
his conviction that justice and injustice are
engaged in perpetual war with one another. He
therefore began his course of conduct, and
presently the men of his village, observing his
integrity, chose him to be the arbiter of all their
disputes. Bent on obtaining the sovereign power,
he showed himself an honest and an upright
judge, and by these means gained such credit with
his fellow-citizens as to attract the attention of
those who lived in the surrounding villages. They
had long been suffering from unjust and oppres-
sive judgments; so that, when they heard of the
singular uprightness of Deioces, and of the equity

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of his decisions, they joyfully had recourse to him
in the various quarrels and suits that arose, until
at last they came to put confidence in no one else.

The number of complaints brought before him
continually increasing, as people learnt more and
more the fairness of his judgments, Deioces, feel-
ing himself now all important, announced that he
did not intend any longer to hear causes, and
appeared no more in the seat in which he had
been accustomed to sit and administer justice. “It
did not square with his interests,” he said, “to
spend the whole day in regulating other men’s
affairs to the neglect of his own.” Hereupon rob-
bery and lawlessness broke out afresh, and pre-
vailed through the country even more than
heretofore; wherefore the Medes assembled from
all quarters, and held a consultation on the state
of affairs. The speakers, as I think, were chiefly
friends of Deioces. “We cannot possibly,” they
said, “go on living in this country if things con-
tinue as they now are; let us therefore set a king
over us, that so the land may be well governed,
and we ourselves may be able to attend to our

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107

own affairs, and not be forced to quit our coun-
try on account of anarchy.” The assembly was
persuaded by these arguments, and resolved to
appoint a king.

It followed to determine who should be chosen to
the office. When this debate began the claims of
Deioces and his praises were at once in every
mouth; so that presently all agreed that he should
be king. Upon this he required a palace to be built
for him suitable to his rank, and a guard to be
given him for his person. The Medes complied,
and built him a strong and large palace, on a spot
which he himself pointed out, and likewise gave
him liberty to choose himself a bodyguard from
the whole nation. Thus settled upon the throne,
he further required them to build a single great
city, and, disregarding the petty towns in which
they had formerly dwelt, make the new capital the
object of their chief attention. The Medes were
again obedient, and built the city now called
Agbatana, the walls of which are of great size and
strength, rising in circles one within the other. The
plan of the place is that each of the walls should

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out-top the one beyond it by the battlements. The
nature of the ground, which is a gentle hill,
favours this arrangement in some degree, but it
was mainly effected by art. The number of the cir-
cles is seven, the royal palace and the treasuries
standing within the last. The circuit of the outer
wall is very nearly the same with that of Athens.
Of this wall the battlements are white, of the next
black, of the third scarlet, of the fourth blue, of
the fifth orange; all these are coloured with paint.
The two last have their battlements coated respec-
tively with silver and gold.

All these fortifications Deioces caused to be raised
for himself and his own palace. The people were
required to build their dwellings outside the cir-
cuit of the walls. When the town was finished, he
proceeded to arrange the ceremonial. He allowed
no one to have direct access to the person of the
king, but made all communication pass through
the hands of messengers, and forbade the king to
be seen by his subjects. He also made it an offence
for any one whatsoever to laugh or spit in the
royal presence. This ceremonial, of which he was

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109

the first inventor, Deioces established for his own
security, fearing that his compeers, who were
brought up together with him, and were of as
good family as he, and no whit inferior to him in
manly qualities, if they saw him frequently would
be pained at the sight, and would therefore be
likely to conspire against him; whereas if they did
not see him, they would think him quite a differ-
ent sort of being from themselves.

After completing these arrangements, and firmly
settling himself upon the throne, Deioces contin-
ued to administer justice with the same strictness
as before. Causes were stated in writing, and sent
in to the king, who passed his judgment upon the
contents, and transmitted his decisions to the par-
ties concerned: besides which he had spies and
eavesdroppers in all parts of his dominions, and if
he heard of any act of oppression, he sent for the
guilty party, and awarded him the punishment
meet for his offence.

Thus Deioces collected the Medes into a nation,
and ruled over them alone. Now these are the

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tribes of which they consist: the Busae, the
Paretaceni, the Struchates, the Arizanti, the Budii,
and the Magi.

Having reigned three-and-fifty years, Deioces was
at his death succeeded by his son Phraortes. This
prince, not satisfied with a dominion which did
not extend beyond the single nation of the Medes,
began by attacking the Persians; and marching an
army into their country, brought them under the
Median yoke before any other people. After this
success, being now at the head of two nations,
both of them powerful, he proceeded to conquer
Asia, overrunning province after province. At last
he engaged in war with the Assyrians- those
Assyrians, I mean, to whom Nineveh belonged,
who were formerly the lords of Asia. At present
they stood alone by the revolt and desertion of
their allies, yet still their internal condition was as
flourishing as ever. Phraortes attacked them, but
perished in the expedition with the greater part of
his army, after having reigned over the Medes
two-and-twenty years.

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On the death of Phraortes his son Cyaxares
ascended the throne. Of him it is reported that he
was still more war-like than any of his ancestors,
and that he was the first who gave organisation to
an Asiatic army, dividing the troops into compa-
nies, and forming distinct bodies of the spearmen,
the archers, and the cavalry, who before his time
had been mingled in one mass, and confused
together. He it was who fought against the
Lydians on the occasion when the day was
changed suddenly into night, and who brought
under his dominion the whole of Asia beyond the
Halys. This prince, collecting together all the
nations which owned his sway, marched against
Nineveh, resolved to avenge his father, and cher-
ishing a hope that he might succeed in taking the
town. A battle was fought, in which the Assyrians
suffered a defeat, and Cyaxares had already
begun the siege of the place, when a numerous
horde of Scyths, under their king Madyes, son of
Prtotohyes, burst into Asia in pursuit of the
Cimmerians whom they had driven out of
Europe, and entered the Median territory.

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The distance from the Palus Maeotis to the river
Phasis and the Colchians is thirty days’ journey
for a lightly-equipped traveller. From Colchis to
cross into Media does not take long- there is only
a single intervening nation, the Saspirians, passing
whom you find yourself in Media. This however
was not the road followed by the Scythians, who
turned out of the straight course, and took the
upper route, which is much longer, keeping the
Caucasus upon their right. The Scythians, having
thus invaded Media, were opposed by the Medes,
who gave them battle, but, being defeated, lost
their empire. The Scythians became masters of
Asia.

After this they marched forward with the design
of invading Egypt. When they had reached
Palestine, however, Psammetichus the Egyptian
king met them with gifts and prayers, and pre-
vailed on them to advance no further. On their
return, passing through Ascalon, a city of Syria,
the greater part of them went their way without
doing any damage; but some few who lagged
behind pillaged the temple of Celestial Venus. I

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have inquired and find that the temple at Ascalon
is the most ancient of all the temples to this god-
dess; for the one in Cyprus, as the Cyprians them-
selves admit, was built in imitation of it; and that
in Cythera was erected by the Phoenicians, who
belong to this part of Syria. The Scythians who
plundered the temple were punished by the god-
dess with the female sickness, which still attaches
to their posterity. They themselves confess that
they are afflicted with the disease for this reason,
and travellers who visit Scythia can see what sort
of a disease it is. Those who suffer from it are
called Enarees.

The dominion of the Scythians over Asia lasted
eight-and-twenty years, during which time their
insolence and oppression spread ruin on every
side. For besides the regular tribute, they exacted
from the several nations additional imposts,
which they fixed at pleasure; and further, they
scoured the country and plundered every one of
whatever they could. At length Cyaxares and the
Medes invited the greater part of them to a ban-
quet, and made them drunk with wine, after

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which they were all massacred. The Medes then
recovered their empire, and had the same extent
of dominion as before. They took Nineveh- I will
relate how in another history- and conquered all
Assyria except the district of Babylonia. After this
Cyaxares died, having reigned over the Medes, if
we include the time of the Scythian rule, forty
years.

Astyages, the son of Cyaxares, succeeded to the
throne. He had a daughter who was named
Mandane concerning whom he had a wonderful
dream. He dreamt that from her such a stream of
water flowed forth as not only to fill his capital,
but to flood the whole of Asia. This vision he laid
before such of the Magi as had the gift of inter-
preting dreams, who expounded its meaning to
him in full, whereat he was greatly terrified. On
this account, when his daughter was now of ripe
age, he would not give her in marriage to any of
the Medes who were of suitable rank, lest the
dream should be accomplished; but he married
her to a Persian of good family indeed, but of a

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quiet temper, whom he looked on as much inferi-
or to a Mede of even middle condition.

Thus Cambyses (for so was the Persian called)
wedded Mandane, and took her to his home, after
which, in the very first year, Astyages saw anoth-
er vision. He fancied that a vine grew from the
womb of his daughter, and overshadowed the
whole of Asia. After this dream, which he sub-
mitted also to the interpreters, he sent to Persia
and fetched away Mandane, who was now with
child, and was not far from her time. On her
arrival he set a watch over her, intending to
destroy the child to which she should give birth;
for the Magian interpreters had expounded the
vision to foreshow that the offspring of his daugh-
ter would reign over Asia in his stead. To guard
against this, Astyages, as soon as Cyrus was born,
sent for Harpagus, a man of his own house and
the most faithful of the Medes, to whom he was
wont to entrust all his affairs, and addressed him
thus- “Harpagus, I beseech thee neglect not the
business with which I am about to charge thee;

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neither betray thou the interests of thy lord for
others’ sake, lest thou bring destruction on thine
own head at some future time. Take the child
born of Mandane my daughter; carry him with
thee to thy home and slay him there. Then bury
him as thou wilt.” “Oh! king,” replied the other,
“never in time past did Harpagus disoblige thee in
anything, and be sure that through all future time
he will be careful in nothing to offend. If therefore
it be thy will that this thing be done, it is for me
to serve thee with all diligence.”

When Harpagus had thus answered, the child was
given into his hands, clothed in the garb of death,
and he hastened weeping to his home. There on
his arrival he found his wife, to whom he told all
that Astyages had said. “What then,” said she, “is
it now in thy heart to do?” “Not what Astyages
requires,” he answered; “no, he may be madder
and more frantic still than he is now, but I will not
be the man to work his will, or lend a helping
hand to such a murder as this. Many things for-
bid my slaying him. In the first place the boy is my
own kith and kin; and next Astyages is old, and

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has no son. If then when he dies the crown should
go to his daughter- that daughter whose child he
now wishes to slay by my hand- what remains for
me but danger of the fearfullest kind? For my own
safety, indeed, the child must die; but some one
belonging to Astyages must take his life, not I or
mine.”

So saying he sent off a messenger to fetch a cer-
tain Mitradates, one of the herdsmen of Astyages,
whose pasturages he knew to be the fittest for his
purpose, lying as they did among mountains
infested with wild beasts. This man was married
to one of the king’s female slaves, whose Median
name was Spaco, which is in Greek Cyno, since in
the Median tongue the word “Spaca” means a
bitch. The mountains, on the skirts of which his
cattle grazed, lie to the north of Agbatana,
towards the Euxine. That part of Media which
borders on the Saspirians is an elevated tract, very
mountainous, and covered with forests, while the
rest of the Median territory is entirely level
ground. On the arrival of the herdsman, who
came at the hasty summons, Harpagus said to

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him- “Astyages requires thee to take this child
and lay him in the wildest part of the hills, where
he will be sure to die speedily. And he bade me tell
thee, that if thou dost not kill the boy, but any-
how allowest him to escape, he will put thee to
the most painful of deaths. I myself am appointed
to see the child exposed.”

The herdsman on hearing this took the child in
his arms, and went back the way he had come till
he reached the folds. There, providentially, his
wife, who had been expecting daily to be put to
bed, had just, during the absence of her husband,
been delivered of a child. Both the herdsman and
his wife were uneasy on each other’s account, the
former fearful because his wife was so near her
time, the woman alarmed because it was a new
thing for her husband to be sent for by Harpagus.
When therefore he came into the house upon his
return, his wife, seeing him arrive so unexpected-
ly, was the first to speak, and begged to know
why Harpagus had sent for him in such a hurry.
“Wife,” said he, “when I got to the town I saw
and heard such things as I would to heaven I had

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never seen such things as I would to heaven had
never happened to our masters. Every one was
weeping in Harpagus’s house. It quite frightened
me, but I went in. The moment I stepped inside,
what should I see but a baby lying on the floor,
panting and whimpering, and all covered with
gold, and wrapped in clothes of such beautiful
colours. Harpagus saw me, and directly ordered
me to take the child my arms and carry him off,
and what was I to do with him, think you? Why,
to lay him in the mountains, where the wild beasts
are most plentiful. And he told me it was the king
himself that ordered it to be done, and he threat-
ened me with such dreadful things if I failed. So I
took the child up in my arms, and carried him
along. I thought it might be the son of one of the
household slaves. I did wonder certainly to see the
gold and the beautiful baby-clothes, and I could
not think why there was such a weeping in
Harpagus’s house. Well, very soon, as I came
along, I got at the truth. They sent a servant with
me to show me the way out of the town, and to
leave the baby in my hands; and he told me that
the child’s mother is the king’s daughter

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Mandane, and his father Cambyses, the son of
Cyrus; and that the king orders him to be killed;
and look, here the child is.”

With this the herdsman uncovered the infant, and
showed him to his wife, who, when she saw him,
and observed how fine a child and how beautiful
he was, burst into tears, and clinging to the knees
of her husband, besought him on no account to
expose the babe; to which he answered, that it
was not possible for him to do otherwise, as
Harpagus would be sure to send persons to see
and report to him, and he was to suffer a most
cruel death if he disobeyed. Failing thus in her
first attempt to persuade her husband, the woman
spoke a second time, saying, “If then there is no
persuading thee, and a child must needs be seen
exposed upon the mountains, at least do thus.
The child of which I have just been delivered is
stillborn; take it and lay it on the hills, and let us
bring up as our own the child of the daughter of
Astyages. So shalt thou not be charged with
unfaithfulness to thy lord, nor shall we have man-
aged badly for ourselves. Our dead babe will have

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a royal funeral, and this living child will not be
deprived of life.”

It seemed to the herdsman that this advice was the
best under the circumstances. He therefore fol-
lowed it without loss of time. The child which he
had intended to put to death he gave over to his
wife, and his own dead child he put in the cradle
wherein he had carried the other, clothing it first
in all the other’s costly attire, and taking it in his
arms he laid it in the wildest place of all the
mountain-range. When the child had been three
days exposed, leaving one of his helpers to watch
the body, he started off for the city, and going
straight to Harpagus’s house, declared himself
ready to show the corpse of the boy. Harpagus
sent certain of his bodyguard, on whom he had
the firmest reliance, to view the body for him,
and, satisfied with their seeing it, gave orders for
the funeral. Thus was the herdsman’s child
buried, and the other child, who was afterwards
known by the name of Cyrus, was taken by the
herdsman’s wife, and brought up under a differ-
ent name.

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When the boy was in his tenth year, an accident
which I will now relate, caused it to be discovered
who he was. He was at play one day in the village
where the folds of the cattle were, along with the
boys of his own age, in the street. The other boys
who were playing with him chose the cowherd’s
son, as he was called, to be their king. He then
proceeded to order them about some he set to
build him houses, others he made his guards, one
of them was to be the king’s eye, another had the
office of carrying his messages; all had some task
or other. Among the boys there was one, the son
of Artembares, a Mede of distinction, who
refused to do what Cyrus had set him. Cyrus told
the other boys to take him into custody, and when
his orders were obeyed, he chastised him most
severely with the whip. The son of Artembares, as
soon as he was let go, full of rage at treatment so
little befitting his rank, hastened to the city and
complained bitterly to his father of what had been
done to him by Cyrus. He did not, of course, say
“Cyrus,” by which name the boy was not yet
known, but called him the son of the king’s

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cowherd. Artembares, in the heat of his passion,
went to Astyages, accompanied by his son, and
made complaint of the gross injury which had
been done him. Pointing to the boy’s shoulders, he
exclaimed, “Thus, oh! king, has thy slave, the son
of a cowherd, heaped insult upon us.”

At this sight and these words Astyages, wishing to
avenge the son of Artembares for his father’s sake,
sent for the cowherd and his boy. When they
came together into his presence, fixing his eyes on
Cyrus, Astyages said, “Hast thou then, the son of
so mean a fellow as that, dared to behave thus
rudely to the son of yonder noble, one of the first
in my court?” “My lord,” replied the boy, “I only
treated him as he deserved. I was chosen king in
play by the boys of our village, because they
thought me the best for it. He himself was one of
the boys who chose me. All the others did accord-
ing to my orders; but he refused, and made light
of them, until at last he got his due reward. If for
this I deserve to suffer punishment, here I am
ready to submit to it.”

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While the boy was yet speaking Astyages was
struck with a suspicion who he was. He thought
he saw something in the character of his face like
his own, and there was a nobleness about the
answer he had made; besides which his age
seemed to tally with the time when his grandchild
was exposed. Astonished at all this, Astyages
could not speak for a while. At last, recovering
himself with difficulty, and wishing to be quit of
Artembares, that he might examine the herdsman
alone, he said to the former, “I promise thee,
Artembares, so to settle this business that neither
thou nor thy son shall have any cause to com-
plain.” Artembares retired from his presence, and
the attendants, at the bidding of the king, led
Cyrus into an inner apartment. Astyages then
being left alone with the herdsman, inquired of
him where he had got the boy, and who had given
him to him; to which he made answer that the lad
was his own child, begotten by himself, and that
the mother who bore him was still alive with him
in his house. Astyages remarked that he was very
ill-advised to bring himself into such great trou-
ble, and at the same time signed to his bodyguard

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to lay hold of him. Then the herdsman, as they
were dragging him to the rack, began at the begin-
ning, and told the whole story exactly as it hap-
pened, without concealing anything, ending with
entreaties and prayers to the king to grant him
forgiveness.

Astyages, having got the truth of the matter from
the herdsman, was very little further concerned
about him, but with Harpagus he was exceeding-
ly enraged. The guards were bidden to summon
him into the presence, and on his appearance
Astyages asked him, “By what death was it,
Harpagus, that thou slewest the child of my
daughter whom I gave into thy hands?”
Harpagus, seeing the cowherd in the room, did
not betake himself to lies, lest he should be con-
futed and proved false, but replied as follows:-
“Sire, when thou gavest the child into my hands I
instantly considered with myself how I could con-
trive to execute thy wishes, and yet, while guiltless
of any unfaithfulness towards thee, avoid imbru-
ing my hands in blood which was in truth thy
daughter’s and thine own. And this was how I

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contrived it. I sent for this cowherd, and gave the
child over to him, telling him that by the king’s
orders it was to be put to death. And in this I told
no lie, for thou hadst so commanded. Moreover,
when I gave him the child, I enjoined him to lay it
somewhere in the wilds of the mountains, and to
stay near and watch till it was dead; and I threat-
ened him with all manner of punishment if he
failed. Afterwards, when he had done according
to all that I commanded him, and the child had
died, I sent some of the most trustworthy of my
eunuchs, who viewed the body for me, and then I
had the child buried. This, sire, is the simple
truth, and this is the death by which the child
died.”

Thus Harpagus related the whole story in a plain,
straightforward way; upon which Astyages, let-
ting no sign escape him of the anger that he felt,
began by repeating to him all that he had just
heard from the cowherd, and then concluded with
saying, “So the boy is alive, and it is best as it is.
For the child’s fate was a great sorrow to me, and
the reproaches of my daughter went to my heart.

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Truly fortune has played us a good turn in this.
Go thou home then, and send thy son to be with
the new comer, and to-night, as I mean to sacrifice
thank-offerings for the child’s safety to the gods
to whom such honour is due, I look to have thee
a guest at the banquet.”

Harpagus, on hearing this, made obeisance, and
went home rejoicing to find that his disobedience
had turned out so fortunately, and that, instead of
being punished, he was invited to a banquet given
in honour of the happy occasion. The moment he
reached home he called for his son, a youth of
about thirteen, the only child of his parents, and
bade him go to the palace, and do whatever
Astyages should direct. Then, in the gladness of
his heart, he went to his wife and told her all that
had happened. Astyages, meanwhile, took the son
of Harpagus, and slew him, after which he cut
him in pieces, and roasted some portions before
the fire, and boiled others; and when all were duly
prepared, he kept them ready for use. The hour
for the banquet came, and Harpagus appeared,
and with him the other guests, and all sat down to

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the feast. Astyages and the rest of the guests had
joints of meat served up to them; but on the table
of Harpagus, nothing was placed except the flesh
of his own son. This was all put before him,
except the hands and feet and head, which were
laid by themselves in a covered basket. When
Harpagus seemed to have eaten his fill, Astyages
called out to him to know how he had enjoyed the
repast. On his reply that he had enjoyed it exces-
sively, they whose business it was brought him the
basket, in which were the hands and feet and
head of his son, and bade him open it, and take
out what he pleased. Harpagus accordingly
uncovered the basket, and saw within it the
remains of his son. The sight, however, did not
scare him, or rob him of his self-possession. Being
asked by Astyages if he knew what beast’s flesh it
was that he had been eating, he answered that he
knew very well, and that whatever the king did
was agreeable. After this reply, he took with him
such morsels of the flesh as were uneaten, and
went home, intending, as I conceive, to collect the
remains and bury them.

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Such was the mode in which Astyages punished
Harpagus: afterwards, proceeding to consider
what he should do with Cyrus, his grandchild, he
sent for the Magi, who formerly interpreted his
dream in the way which alarmed him so much,
and asked them how they had expounded it. They
answered, without varying from what they had
said before, that “the boy must needs be a king if
he grew up, and did not die too soon.” Then
Astyages addressed them thus: “The boy has
escaped, and lives; he has been brought up in the
country, and the lads of the village where he lives
have made him their king. All that kings com-
monly do he has done. He has had his guards, and
his doorkeepers, and his messengers, and all the
other usual officers. Tell me, then, to what, think
you, does all this tend?” The Magi answered, “If
the boy survives, and has ruled as a king without
any craft or contrivance, in that case we bid thee
cheer up, and feel no more alarm on his account.
He will not reign a second time. For we have
found even oracles sometimes fulfilled in an
unimportant way; and dreams, still oftener, have

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wondrously mean accomplishments.” “It is what
I myself most incline to think,” Astyages rejoined;
“the boy having been already king, the dream is
out, and I have nothing more to fear from him.
Nevertheless, take good heed and counsel me the
best you can for the safety of my house and your
own interests.” “Truly,” said the Magi in reply,
“it very much concerns our interests that thy
kingdom be firmly established; for if it went to
this boy it would pass into foreign hands, since he
is a Persian: and then we Medes should lose our
freedom, and be quite despised by the Persians, as
being foreigners. But so long as thou, our fellow-
countryman, art on the throne, all manner of hon-
ours are ours, and we are even not without some
share in the government. Much reason therefore
have we to forecast well for thee and for thy sov-
ereignty. If then we saw any cause for present fear,
be sure we would not keep it back from thee. But
truly we are persuaded that the dream has had its
accomplishment in this harmless way; and so our
own fears being at rest, we recommend thee to
banish thine. As for the boy, our advice is that

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thou send him away to Persia, to his father and
mother.”

Astyages heard their answer with pleasure, and
calling Cyrus into his presence, said to him, “My
child, I was led to do thee a wrong by a dream
which has come to nothing: from that wrong thou
wert saved by thy own good fortune. Go now
with a light heart to Persia; I will provide thy
escort. Go, and when thou gettest to thy journey’s
end, thou wilt behold thy father and thy mother,
quite other people from Mitradates the cowherd
and his wife.”

With these words Astyages dismissed his grand-
child. On his arrival at the house of Cambyses, he
was received by his parents, who, when they
learnt who he was, embraced him heartily, having
always been convinced that he died almost as
soon as he was born. So they asked him by what
means he had chanced to escape; and he told them
how that till lately he had known nothing at all
about the matter, but had been mistaken- oh! so

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widely!- and how that he had learnt his history by
the way, as he came from Media. He had been
quite sure that he was the son of the king’s
cowherd, but on the road the king’s escort had
told him all the truth; and then he spoke of the
cowherd’s wife who had brought him up, and
filled his whole talk with her praises; in all that he
had to tell them about himself, it was always
Cyno- Cyno was everything. So it happened that
his parents, catching the name at his mouth, and
wishing to persuade the Persians that there was a
special providence in his preservation, spread the
report that Cyrus, when he was exposed, was
suckled by a bitch. This was the sole origin of the
rumour.

Afterwards, when Cyrus grew to manhood, and
became known as the bravest and most popular
of all his compeers, Harpagus, who was bent on
revenging himself upon Astyages, began to pay
him court by gifts and messages. His own rank
was too humble for him to hope to obtain
vengeance without some foreign help. When
therefore he saw Cyrus, whose wrongs were so

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similar to his own, growing up expressly (as it
were) to be the avenger whom he needed, he set
to work to procure his support and aid in the
matter. He had already paved the way for his
designs, by persuading, severally, the great
Median nobles, whom the harsh rule of their
monarch had offended, that the best plan would
be to put Cyrus at their head, and dethrone
Astyages. These preparations made, Harpagus,
being now ready for revolt, was anxious to make
known his wishes to Cyrus, who still lived in
Persia; but as the roads between Media and
Persia were guarded, he had to contrive a means
of sending word secretly, which he did in the fol-
lowing way. He took a hare, and cutting open its
belly without hurting the fur, he slipped in a let-
ter containing what he wanted to say, and then
carefully sewing up the paunch, he gave the hare
to one of his most faithful slaves, disguising him
as a hunter with nets, and sent him off to Persia
to take the game as a present to Cyrus, bidding
him tell Cyrus, by word of mouth, to paunch the
animal himself, and let no one be present at the
time.

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All was done as he wished, and Cyrus, on cutting
the hare open, found the letter inside, and read as
follows:- “Son of Cambyses, the gods assuredly
watch over thee, or never wouldst thou have
passed through thy many wonderful adventures-
now is the time when thou mayst avenge thyself
upon Astyages, thy murderer. He willed thy
death, remember; to the gods and to me thou
owest that thou art still alive. I think thou art not
ignorant of what he did to thee, nor of what I suf-
fered at his hands because I committed thee to the
cowherd, and did not put thee to death. Listen
now to me, and obey my words, and all the
empire of Astyages shall be thine. Raise the stan-
dard of revolt in Persia, and then march straight
on Media. Whether Astyages appoint me to com-
mand his forces against thee, or whether he
appoint any other of the princes of the Medes, all
will go as thou couldst wish. They will be the first
to fall away from him, and joining thy side, exert
themselves to overturn his power. Be sure that on
our part all is ready; wherefore do thou thy part,
and that speedily.”

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Cyrus, on receiving the tidings contained in this
letter, set himself to consider how he might best
persuade the Persians to revolt. After much
thought, he hit on the following as the most expe-
dient course: he wrote what he thought proper
upon a roll, and then calling an assembly of the
Persians, he unfolded the roll, and read out of it
that Astyages appointed him their general. “And
now,” said he, “since it is so, I command you to
go and bring each man his reaping-hook.” With
these words he dismissed the assembly.

Now the Persian nation is made up of many
tribes. Those which Cyrus assembled and per-
suaded to revolt from the Medes were the princi-
pal ones on which all the others are dependent.
These are the Pasargadae, the Maraphians, and
the Maspians, of whom the Pasargadae are the
noblest. The Achaemenidae, from which spring
all the Perseid kings, is one of their clans. The rest
of the Persian tribes are the following: the
Panthialaeans, the Derusiaeans, the Germanians,
who are engaged in husbandry; the Daans, the

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Mardians, the Dropicans, and the Sagartians,
who are nomads.

When, in obedience to the orders which they had
received, the Persians came with their reaping-
hooks, Cyrus led them to a tract of ground, about
eighteen or twenty furlongs each way, covered
with thorns, and ordered them to clear it before
the day was out. They accomplished their task;
upon which he issued a second order to them, to
take the bath the day following, and again come
to him. Meanwhile he collected together all his
father’s flocks, both sheep and goats, and all his
oxen, and slaughtered them, and made ready to
give an entertainment to the entire Persian army.
Wine, too, and bread of the choicest kinds were
prepared for the occasion. When the morrow
came, and the Persians appeared, he bade them
recline upon the grass, and enjoy themselves.
After the feast was over, he requested them to tell
him “which they liked best, to-day’s work, or yes-
terday’s?” They answered that “the contrast was
indeed strong: yesterday brought them nothing
but what was bad, to-day everything that was

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good.” Cyrus instantly seized on their reply, and
laid bare his purpose in these words: “Ye men of
Persia, thus do matters stand with you. If you
choose to hearken to my words, you may enjoy
these and ten thousand similar delights, and never
condescend to any slavish toil; but if you will not
hearken, prepare yourselves for unnumbered toils
as hard as yesterday’s. Now therefore follow my
bidding, and be free. For myself I feel that I am
destined by Providence to undertake your libera-
tion; and you, I am sure, are no whit inferior to
the Medes in anything, least of all in bravery.
Revolt, therefore, from Astyages, without a
moment’s delay.”

The Persians, who had long been impatient of the
Median dominion, now that they had found a
leader, were delighted to shake off the yoke.
Meanwhile Astyages, informed of the doings of
Cyrus, sent a messenger to summon him to his
presence. Cyrus replied, “Tell Astyages that I shall
appear in his presence sooner than he will like.”
Astyages, when he received this message, instant-
ly armed all his subjects, and, as if God had

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deprived him of his senses, appointed Harpagus
to be their general, forgetting how greatly he had
injured him. So when the two armies met and
engaged, only a few of the Medes, who were not
in the secret, fought; others deserted openly to the
Persians; while the greater number counterfeited
fear, and fled.

Astyages, on learning the shameful flight and dis-
persion of his army, broke out into threats
against Cyrus, saying, “Cyrus shall nevertheless
have no reason to rejoice”; and directly he seized
the Magian interpreters, who had persuaded him
to allow Cyrus to escape, and impaled them;
after which, he armed all the Medes who had
remained in the city, both young and old; and
leading them against the Persians, fought a bat-
tle, in which he was utterly defeated, his army
being destroyed, and he himself falling into the
enemy’s hands.

Harpagus then, seeing him a prisoner, came near,
and exulted over him with many jibes and jeers.
Among other cutting speeches which he made, he

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alluded to the supper where the flesh of his son
was given him to eat, and asked Astyages to
answer him now, how he enjoyed being a slave
instead of a king? Astyages looked in his face, and
asked him in return, why he claimed as his own
the achievements of Cyrus? “Because,” said
Harpagus, “it was my letter which made him
revolt, and so I am entitled to all the credit of the
enterprise.” Then Astyages declared that “in that
case he was at once the silliest and the most unjust
of men: the silliest, if when it was in his power to
put the crown on his own head, as it must
assuredly have been, if the revolt was entirely his
doing, he had placed it on the head of another;
the most unjust, if on account of that supper he
had brought slavery on the Medes. For, supposing
that he was obliged to invest another with the
kingly power, and not retain it himself, yet justice
required that a Mede, rather than a Persian,
should receive the dignity. Now, however, the
Medes, who had been no parties to the wrong of
which he complained, were made slaves instead of
lords, and slaves moreover of those who till
recently had been their subjects.”

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Thus after a reign of thirty-five years, Astyages
lost his crown, and the Medes, in consequence of
his cruelty, were brought under the rule of the
Persians. Their empire over the parts of Asia
beyond the Halys had lasted one hundred and
twenty-eight years, except during the time when
the Scythians had the dominion. Afterwards the
Medes repented of their submission, and revolted
from Darius, but were defeated in battle, and
again reduced to subjection. Now, however, in the
time of Astyages, it was the Persians who under
Cyrus revolted from the Medes, and became
thenceforth the rulers of Asia. Cyrus kept
Astyages at his court during the remainder of his
life, without doing him any further injury. Such
then were the circumstances of the birth and
bringing up of Cyrus, and such were the steps by
which he mounted the throne. It was at a later
date that he was attacked by Croesus, and over-
threw him, as I have related in an earlier portion
of this history. The overthrow of Croesus made
him master of the whole of Asia.

The customs which I know the Persians to
observe are the following: they have no images of

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the gods, no temples nor altars, and consider the
use of them a sign of folly. This comes, I think,
from their not believing the gods to have the same
nature with men, as the Greeks imagine. Their
wont, however, is to ascend the summits of the
loftiest mountains, and there to offer sacrifice to
Jupiter, which is the name they give to the whole
circuit of the firmament. They likewise offer to
the sun and moon, to the earth, to fire, to water,
and to the winds. These are the only gods whose
worship has come down to them from ancient
times. At a later period they began the worship of
Urania, which they borrowed from the Arabians
and Assyrians. Mylitta is the name by which the
Assyrians know this goddess, whom the Arabians
call Alitta, and the Persians Mitra.

To these gods the Persians offer sacrifice in the
following manner: they raise no altar, light no
fire, pour no libations; there is no sound of the
flute, no putting on of chaplets, no consecrated
barley-cake; but the man who wishes to sacrifice
brings his victim to a spot of ground which is pure
from pollution, and there calls upon the name of
the god to whom he intends to offer. It is usual to

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have the turban encircled with a wreath, most
commonly of myrtle. The sacrificer is not allowed
to pray for blessings on himself alone, but he
prays for the welfare of the king, and of the whole
Persian people, among whom he is of necessity
included. He cuts the victim in pieces, and having
boiled the flesh, he lays it out upon the tenderest
herbage that he can find, trefoil especially. When
all is ready, one of the Magi comes forward and
chants a hymn, which they say recounts the origin
of the gods. It is not lawful to offer sacrifice
unless there is a Magus present. After waiting a
short time the sacrificer carries the flesh of the vic-
tim away with him, and makes whatever use of it
he may please.

Of all the days in the year, the one which they cel-
ebrate most is their birthday. It is customary to
have the board furnished on that day with an
ampler supply than common. The richer Persians
cause an ox, a horse, a camel, and an ass to be
baked whole and so served up to them: the poor-
er classes use instead the smaller kinds of cattle.
They eat little solid food but abundance of

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dessert, which is set on table a few dishes at a
time; this it is which makes them say that “the
Greeks, when they eat, leave off hungry, having
nothing worth mention served up to them after
the meats; whereas, if they had more put before
them, they would not stop eating.” They are very
fond of wine, and drink it in large quantities. To
vomit or obey natural calls in the presence of
another is forbidden among them. Such are their
customs in these matters.

It is also their general practice to deliberate upon
affairs of weight when they are drunk; and then
on the morrow, when they are sober, the decision
to which they came the night before is put before
them by the master of the house in which it was
made; and if it is then approved of, they act on it;
if not, they set it aside. Sometimes, however, they
are sober at their first deliberation, but in this case
they always reconsider the matter under the influ-
ence of wine.

When they meet each other in the streets, you may
know if the persons meeting are of equal rank by

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the following token: if they are, instead of speak-
ing, they kiss each other on the lips. In the case
where one is a little inferior to the other, the kiss
is given on the cheek; where the difference of rank
is great, the inferior prostrates himself upon the
ground. Of nations, they honour most their near-
est neighbours, whom they esteem next to them-
selves; those who live beyond these they honour
in the second degree; and so with the remainder,
the further they are removed, the less the esteem
in which they hold them. The reason is that they
look upon themselves as very greatly superior in
all respects to the rest of mankind, regarding oth-
ers as approaching to excellence in proportion as
they dwell nearer to them; whence it comes to
pass that those who are the farthest off must be
the most degraded of mankind. Under the domin-
ion of the Medes, the several nations of the
empire exercised authority over each other in this
order. The Medes were lords over all, and gov-
erned the nations upon their borders, who in their
turn governed the States beyond, who likewise
bore rule over the nations which adjoined on
them. And this is the order which the Persians

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also follow in their distribution of honour; for
that people, like the Medes, has a progressive
scale of administration and government.

There is no nation which so readily adopts foreign
customs as the Persians. Thus, they have taken the
dress of the Medes, considering it superior to their
own; and in war they wear the Egyptian breast-
plate. As soon as they hear of any luxury, they
instantly make it their own: and hence, among
other novelties, they have learnt unnatural lust
from the Greeks. Each of them has several wives,
and a still larger number of concubines.

Next to prowess in arms, it is regarded as the
greatest proof of manly excellence to be the father
of many sons. Every year the king sends rich gifts
to the man who can show the largest number: for
they hold that number is strength. Their sons are
carefully instructed from their fifth to their twen-
tieth year, in three things alone,- to ride, to draw
the bow, and to speak the truth. Until their fifth
year they are not allowed to come into the sight
of their father, but pass their lives with the

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women. This is done that, if the child die young,
the father may not be afflicted by its loss.

To my mind it is a wise rule, as also is the follow-
ing- that the king shall not put any one to death
for a single fault, and that none of the Persians
shall visit a single fault in a slave with any
extreme penalty; but in every case the services of
the offender shall be set against his misdoings;
and, if the latter be found to outweigh the former,
the aggrieved party shall then proceed to punish-
ment.

The Persians maintain that never yet did any one
kill his own father or mother; but in all such cases
they are quite sure that, if matters were sifted to
the bottom, it would be found that the child was
either a changeling or else the fruit of adultery; for
it is not likely, they say, that the real father should
perish by the hands of his child.

They hold it unlawful to talk of anything which it
is unlawful to do. The most disgraceful thing in
the world, they think, is to tell a lie; the next

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worst, to owe a debt: because, among other rea-
sons, the debtor is obliged to tell lies. If a Persian
has the leprosy he is not allowed to enter into a
city, or to have any dealings with the other
Persians; he must, they say, have sinned against
the sun. Foreigners attacked by this disorder, are
forced to leave the country: even white pigeons
are often driven away, as guilty of the same
offence. They never defile a river with the secre-
tions of their bodies, nor even wash their hands in
one; nor will they allow others to do so, as they
have a great reverence for rivers. There is another
peculiarity, which the Persians themselves have
never noticed, but which has not escaped my
observation. Their names, which are expressive of
some bodily or mental excellence, all end with the
same letter- the letter which is called San by the
Dorians, and Sigma by the Ionians. Any one who
examines will find that the Persian names, one
and all without exception, end with this letter.

Thus much I can declare of the Persians with
entire certainty, from my own actual knowledge.
There is another custom which is spoken of with

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reserve, and not openly, concerning their dead. It
is said that the body of a male Persian is never
buried, until it has been torn either by a dog or a
bird of prey. That the Magi have this custom is
beyond a doubt, for they practise it without any
concealment. The dead bodies are covered with
wax, and then buried in the ground.

The Magi are a very peculiar race, different
entirely from the Egyptian priests, and indeed
from all other men whatsoever. The Egyptian
priests make it a point of religion not to kill any
live animals except those which they offer in sac-
rifice. The Magi, on the contrary, kill animals of
all kinds with their own hands, excepting dogs
and men. They even seem to take a delight in the
employment, and kill, as readily as they do other
animals, ants and snakes, and such like flying or
creeping things. However, since this has always
been their custom, let them keep to it. I return to
my former narrative.

Immediately after the conquest of Lydia by the
Persians, the Ionian and Aeolian Greeks sent

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ambassadors to Cyrus at Sardis, and prayed to
become his lieges on the footing which they had
occupied under Croesus. Cyrus listened attentive-
ly to their proposals, and answered them by a
fable. “There was a certain piper,” he said, “who
was walking one day by the seaside, when he
espied some fish; so he began to pipe to them,
imagining they would come out to him upon the
land. But as he found at last that his hope was
vain, he took a net, and enclosing a great draught
of fishes, drew them ashore. The fish then began
to leap and dance; but the piper said, ‘Cease your
dancing now, as you did not choose to come and
dance when I piped to you.’” Cyrus gave this
answer to the Ionians and Aeolians, because,
when he urged them by his messengers to revolt
from Croesus, they refused; but now, when his
work was done, they came to offer their alle-
giance. It was in anger, therefore, that he made
them this reply. The Ionians, on hearing it, set to
work to fortify their towns, and held meetings at
the Panionium, which were attended by all
excepting the Milesians, with whom Cyrus had
concluded a separate treaty, by which he allowed

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them the terms they had formerly obtained from
Croesus. The other Ionians resolved, with one
accord, to send ambassadors to Sparta to implore
assistance.

Now the Ionians of Asia, who meet at the
Panionium, have built their cities in a region
where the air and climate are the most beautiful
in the whole world: for no other region is equally
blessed with Ionia, neither above it nor below it,
nor east nor west of it. For in other countries
either the climate is over cold and damp, or else
the heat and drought are sorely oppressive. The
Ionians do not all speak the same language, but
use in different places four different dialects.
Towards the south their first city is Miletus, next
to which lie Myus and Priene; all these three are
in Caria and have the same dialect. Their cities in
Lydia are the following: Ephesus, Colophon,
Lebedus, Teos, Clazomenae, and Phocaea. The
inhabitants of these towns have none of the pecu-
liarities of speech which belong to the three first-
named cities, but use a dialect of their own. There
remain three other Ionian towns, two situate in

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isles, namely, Samos and Chios; and one upon the
mainland, which is Erythrae. Of these Chios and
Erythrae have the same dialect, while Samos pos-
sesses a language peculiar to itself. Such are the
four varieties of which I spoke.

Of the Ionians at this period, one people, the
Milesians, were in no danger of attack, as Cyrus
had received them into alliance. The islanders also
had as yet nothing to fear, since Phoenicia was
still independent of Persia, and the Persians them-
selves were not a seafaring people. The Milesians
had separated from the common cause solely on
account of the extreme weakness of the Ionians:
for, feeble as the power of the entire Hellenic race
was at that time, of all its tribes the Ionic was by
far the feeblest and least esteemed, not possessing
a single State of any mark excepting Athens. The
Athenians and most of the other Ionic States over
the world, went so far in their dislike of the name
as actually to lay it aside; and even at the present
day the greater number of them seem to me to be
ashamed of it. But the twelve cities in Asia have
always gloried in the appellation; they gave the

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temple which they built for themselves the name
of the Panionium, and decreed that it should not
be open to any of the other Ionic States; no State,
however, except Smyrna, has craved admission to
it.

In the same way the Dorians of the region which
is now called the Pentapolis, but which was for-
merly known as the Doric Hexapolis, exclude all
their Dorian neighbours from their temple, the
Triopium: nay, they have even gone so far as to
shut out from it certain of their own body who
were guilty of an offence against the customs of
the place. In the games which were anciently cel-
ebrated in honour of the Triopian Apollo, the
prizes given to the victors were tripods of brass;
and the rule was that these tripods should not be
carried away from the temple, but should then
and there be dedicated to the god. Now a man of
Halicarnassus, whose name was Agasicles, being
declared victor in the games, in open contempt of
the law, took the tripod home to his own house
and there hung it against the wall. As a punish-
ment for this fault, the five other cities, Lindus,

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Ialyssus, Cameirus, Cos, and Cnidus, deprived the
sixth city, Halicarnassus, of the right of entering
the temple.

The Ionians founded twelve cities in Asia, and
refused to enlarge the number, on account (as I
imagine) of their having been divided into twelve
States when they lived in the Peloponnese; just as
the Achaeans, who drove them out, are at the pre-
sent day. The first city of the Achaeans after
Sicyon, is Pellene, next to which are Aegeira,
Aegae upon the Crathis, a stream which is never
dry, and from which the Italian Crathis received
its name,- Bura, Helice- where the Ionians took
refuge on their defeat by the Achaean invaders-
Aegium, Rhypes, Patreis, Phareis, Olenus on the
Peirus, which is a large river- Dyme and Tritaeeis,
all sea-port towns except the last two, which lie
up the country.

These are the twelve divisions of what is now
Achaea, and was formerly Ionia; and it was owing
to their coming from a country so divided that the
Ionians, on reaching Asia, founded their twelve

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States: for it is the height of folly to maintain that
these Ionians are more Ionian than the rest, or in
any respect better born, since the truth is that no
small portion of them were Abantians from
Euboea, who are not even Ionians in name; and,
besides, there were mixed up with the emigration
Minyae from Orchomenus, Cadmeians,
Dryopians, Phocians from the several cities of
Phocis, Molossians, Arcadian Pelasgi, Dorians
from Epidaurus, and many other distinct tribes.
Even those who came from the Prytaneum of
Athens, and reckon themselves the purest Ionians
of all, brought no wives with them to the new
country, but married Carian girls, whose fathers
they had slain. Hence these women made a law,
which they bound themselves by an oath to
observe, and which they handed down to their
daughters after them, “That none should ever sit
at meat with her husband, or call him by his
name”; because the invaders slew their fathers,
their husbands, and their sons, and then forced
them to become their wives. It was at Miletus that
these events took place.

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The kings, too, whom they set over them, were
either Lycians, of the blood of Glaucus, son of
Hippolochus, or Pylian Caucons of the blood of
Codrus, son of Melanthus; or else from both
those families. But since these Ionians set more
store by the name than any of the others, let them
pass for the pure-bred Ionians; though truly all
are Ionians who have their origin from Athens,
and keep the Apaturia. This is a festival which all
the Ionians celebrate, except the Ephesians and
the Colophonians, whom a certain act of blood-
shed excludes from it.

The Panionium is a place in Mycale, facing the
north, which was chosen by the common voice of
the Ionians and made sacred to Heliconian
Neptune. Mycale itself is a promontory of the
mainland, stretching out westward towards
Samos, in which the Ionians assemble from all
their States to keep the feast of the Panionia. The
names of festivals, not only among the Ionians
but among all the Greeks, end, like the Persian
proper names, in one and the same letter.

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The above-mentioned, then, are the twelve towns
of the Ionians. The Aeolic cities are the follow-
ing:- Cyme, called also Phriconis, Larissa,
Neonteichus, Temnus, Cilla, Notium, Aegiroessa,
Pitane, Aegaeae, Myrina, and Gryneia. These are
the eleven ancient cities of the Aeolians.
Originally, indeed, they had twelve cities upon the
mainland, like the Ionians, but the Ionians
deprived them of Smyrna, one of the number. The
soil of Aeolis is better than that of Ionia, but the
climate is less agreeable.

The following is the way in which the loss of
Smyrna happened. Certain men of Colophon had
been engaged in a sedition there, and being the
weaker party, were driven by the others into ban-
ishment. The Smyrnaeans received the fugitives,
who, after a time, watching their opportunity,
while the inhabitants were celebrating a feast to
Bacchus outside the walls, shut to the gates, and
so got possession of the town. The Aeolians of the
other States came to their aid, and terms were
agreed on between the parties, the Ionians con-
senting to give up all the moveables, and the

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Aeolians making a surrender of the place. The
expelled Smyrnaeans were distributed among the
other States of the Aeolians, and were everywhere
admitted to citizenship.

These, then, were all the Aeolic cities upon the
mainland, with the exception of those about
Mount Ida, which made no part of this confeder-
acy. As for the islands, Lesbos contains five cities.
Arisba, the sixth, was taken by the
Methymnaeans, their kinsmen, and the inhabi-
tants reduced to slavery. Tenedos contains one
city, and there is another which is built on what
are called the Hundred Isles. The Aeolians of
Lesbos and Tenedos, like the Ionian islanders, had
at this time nothing to fear. The other Aeolians
decided in their common assembly to follow the
Ionians, whatever course they should pursue.

When the deputies of the Ionians and Aeolians,
who had journeyed with all speed to Sparta,
reached the city, they chose one of their number,
Pythermus, a Phocaean, to be their spokesman. In
order to draw together as large an audience as

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possible, he clothed himself in a purple garment,
and so attired stood forth to speak. In a long dis-
course he besought the Spartans to come to the
assistance of his countrymen, but they were not to
be persuaded, and voted against sending any suc-
cour. The deputies accordingly went their way,
while the Lacedaemonians, notwithstanding the
refusal which they had given to the prayer of the
deputation, despatched a penteconter to the
Asiatic coast with certain Spartans on board, for
the purpose, as I think, of watching Cyrus and
Ionia. These men, on their arrival at Phocaea, sent
to Sardis Lacrines, the most distinguished of their
number, to prohibit Cyrus, in the name of the
Lacedaemonians, from offering molestation to
any city of Greece, since they would not allow it.

Cyrus is said, on hearing the speech of the herald,
to have asked some Greeks who were standing by,
“Who these Lacedaemonians were, and what was
their number, that they dared to send him such a
notice?” When he had received their reply, he
turned to the Spartan herald and said, “I have

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never yet been afraid of any men, who have a set
place in the middle of their city, where they come
together to cheat each other and forswear them-
selves. If I live, the Spartans shall have troubles
enough of their own to talk of, without concern-
ing themselves about the Ionians.” Cyrus intend-
ed these words as a reproach against all the
Greeks, because of their having market-places
where they buy and sell, which is a custom
unknown to the Persians, who never make pur-
chases in open marts, and indeed have not in their
whole country a single market-place.

After this interview Cyrus quitted Sardis, leaving
the city under the charge of Tabalus, a Persian,
but appointing Pactyas, a native, to collect the
treasure belonging to Croesus and the other
Lydians, and bring after him. Cyrus himself pro-
ceeded towards Agbatana, carrying Croesus
along with him, not regarding the Ionians as
important enough to be his immediate object.
Larger designs were in his mind. He wished to
war in person against Babylon, the Bactrians, the

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Sacae, and Egypt; he therefore determined to
assign to one of his generals the task of conquer-
ing the Ionians.

No sooner, however, was Cyrus gone from Sardis
than Pactyas induced his countrymen to rise in
open revolt against him and his deputy Tabalus.
With the vast treasures at his disposal he then
went down to the sea, and employed them in hir-
ing mercenary troops, while at the same time he
engaged the people of the coast to enrol them-
selves in his army. He then marched upon Sardis,
where he besieged Tabalus, who shut himself up
in the citadel.

When Cyrus, on his way to Agbatana, received
these tidings, he returned to Croesus and said,
“Where will all this end, Croesus, thinkest thou? It
seemeth that these Lydians will not cease to cause
trouble both to themselves and others. I doubt me
if it were not best to sell them all for slaves.
Methinks what I have now done is as if a man
were to ‘kill the father and then spare the child.’

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Thou, who wert something more than a father to
thy people, I have seized and carried off, and to
that people I have entrusted their city. Can I then
feel surprise at their rebellion?” Thus did Cyrus
open to Croesus his thoughts; whereat the latter,
full of alarm lest Cyrus should lay Sardis in ruins,
replied as follows: “Oh! my king, thy words are
reasonable; but do not, I beseech thee, give full
vent to thy anger, nor doom to destruction an
ancient city, guiltless alike of the past and of the
present trouble. I caused the one, and in my own
person now pay the forfeit. Pactyas has caused the
other, he to whom thou gavest Sardis in charge; let
him bear the punishment. Grant, then, forgiveness
to the Lydians, and to make sure of their never
rebelling against thee, or alarming thee more, send
and forbid them to keep any weapons of war,
command them to wear tunics under their cloaks,
and to put buskins upon their legs, and make them
bring up their sons to cithern-playing, harping,
and shop-keeping. So wilt thou soon see them
become women instead of men, and there will be
no more fear of their revolting from thee.”

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Croesus thought the Lydians would even so be
better off than if they were sold for slaves, and
therefore gave the above advice to Cyrus, know-
ing that, unless he brought forward some notable
suggestion, he would not be able to persuade him
to alter his mind. He was likewise afraid lest, after
escaping the danger which now pressed, the
Lydians at some future time might revolt from the
Persians and so bring themselves to ruin. The
advice pleased Cyrus, who consented to forego
his anger and do as Croesus had said. Thereupon
he summoned to his presence a certain Mede,
Mazares by name, and charged him to issue
orders to the Lydians in accordance with the
terms of Croesus’ discourse. Further, he com-
manded him to sell for slaves all who had joined
the Lydians in their attack upon Sardis, and above
aught else to be sure that he brought Pactyas with
him alive on his return. Having given these orders
Cyrus continued his journey towards the Persian
territory.

Pactyas, when news came of the near approach of
the army sent against him, fled in terror to Cyme.

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Mazares, therefore, the Median general, who had
marched on Sardis with a detachment of the army
of Cyrus, finding on his arrival that Pactyas and
his troops were gone, immediately entered the
town. And first of all he forced the Lydians to
obey the orders of his master, and change (as they
did from that time) their entire manner of living.
Next, he despatched messengers to Cyme, and
required to have Pactyas delivered up to him. On
this the Cymaeans resolved to send to Branchidae
and ask the advice of the god. Branchidae is situ-
ated in the territory of Miletus, above the port of
Panormus. There was an oracle there, established
in very ancient times, which both the Ionians and
Aeolians were wont often to consult.

Hither therefore the Cymaeans sent their deputies
to make inquiry at the shrine, “What the gods
would like them to do with the Lydian, Pactyas?”
The oracle told them, in reply, to give him up to
the Persians. With this answer the messengers
returned, and the people of Cymd were ready to
surrender him accordingly; but as they were
preparing to do so, Aristodicus, son of

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Heraclides, a citizen of distinction, hindered
them. He declared that he distrusted the response,
and believed that the messengers had reported it
falsely; until at last another embassy, of which
Aristodicus himself made part, was despatched,
to repeat the former inquiry concerning Pactyas.

On their arrival at the shrine of the god,
Aristodicus, speaking on behalf of the whole
body, thus addressed the oracle: “Oh! king,
Pactyas the Lydian, threatened by the Persians
with a violent death, has come to us for sanctuary,
and lo, they ask him at our hands, calling upon
our nation to deliver him up. Now, though we
greatly dread the Persian power, yet have we not
been bold to give up our suppliant, till we have
certain knowledge of thy mind, what thou
wouldst have us to do.” The oracle thus ques-
tioned gave the same answer as before, bidding
them surrender Pactyas to the Persians; where-
upon Aristodicus, who had come prepared for
such an answer, proceeded to make the circuit of
the temple, and to take all the nests of young
sparrows and other birds that he could find about

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the building. As he was thus employed, a voice, it
is said, came forth from the inner sanctuary,
addressing Aristodicus in these words: “Most
impious of men, what is this thou hast the face to
do? Dost thou tear my suppliants from my tem-
ple?” Aristodicus, at no loss for a reply, rejoined,
“Oh, king, art thou so ready to protect thy sup-
pliants, and dost thou command the Cymaeans to
give up a suppliant?” “Yes,” returned the god, “I
do command it, that so for the impiety you may
the sooner perish, and not come here again to
consult my oracle about the surrender of suppli-
ants.”

On the receipt of this answer the Cymaeans,
unwilling to bring the threatened destruction on
themselves by giving up the man, and afraid of
having to endure a siege if they continued to har-
bour him, sent Pactyas away to Mytilene. On this
Mazares despatched envoys to the Mytilenaeans
to demand the fugitive of them, and they were
preparing to give him up for a reward (I cannot
say with certainty how large, as the bargain was
not completed), when the Cymaeans hearing

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what the Mytilenaeans were about, sent a vessel
to Lesbos, and conveyed away Pactyas to Chios.
From hence it was that he was surrendered. The
Chians dragged him from the temple of Minerva
Poliuchus and gave him up to the Persians, on
condition of receiving the district of Atarneus, a
tract of Mysia opposite to Lesbos, as the price of
the surrender. Thus did Pactyas fall into the hands
of his pursuers, who kept a strict watch upon him
that they might be able to produce him before
Cyrus. For a long time afterwards none of the
Chians would use the barley of Atarneus to place
on the heads of victims, or make sacrificial cakes
of the corn grown there, but the whole produce of
the land was excluded from all their temples.

Meanwhile Mazares, after he had recovered
Pactyas from the Chians, made war upon those
who had taken part in the attack on Tabalus, and
in the first place took Priene and sold the inhabi-
tants for slaves, after which he overran the whole
plain of the Maeander and the district of
Magnesia, both of which he gave up for pillage to
the soldiery. He then suddenly sickened and died.

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Upon his death Harpagus was sent down to the
coast to succeed to his command. He also was of
the race of the Medes, being the man whom the
Median king, Astyages, feasted at the unholy ban-
quet, and who lent his aid to Place Cyrus upon
the throne. Appointed by Cyrus to conduct the
war in these parts, he entered Ionia, and took the
cities by means of mounds. Forcing the enemy to
shut themselves up within their defences, he
heaped mounds of earth against their walls, and
thus carried the towns. Phocaea was the city
against which he directed his first attack.

Now the Phocaeans were the first of the Greeks
who performed long voyages, and it was they
who made the Greeks acquainted with the
Adriatic and with Tyrrhenia, with Iberia, and the
city of Tartessus. The vessel which they used in
their voyages was not the round-built merchant-
ship, but the long penteconter. On their arrival at
Tartessus, the king of the country, whose name
was Arganthonius, took a liking to them. This
monarch reigned over the Tartessians for eighty
years, and lived to be a hundred and twenty years

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old. He regarded the Phocaeans with so much
favour as, at first, to beg them to quit Ionia and
settle in whatever part of his country they liked.
Afterwards, finding that he could not prevail
upon them to agree to this, and hearing that the
Mede was growing great in their neighbourhood,
he gave them money to build a wall about their
town, and certainly he must have given it with a
bountiful hand, for the town is many furlongs in
circuit, and the wall is built entirely of great
blocks of stone skilfully fitted together. The wall,
then, was built by his aid.

Harpagus, having advanced against the
Phocaeans with his army, laid siege to their city,
first, however, offering them terms. “It would
content him,” he said, “if the Phocaeans would
agree to throw down one of their battlements,
and dedicate one dwelling-house to the king.”
The Phocaeans, sorely vexed at the thought of
becoming slaves, asked a single day to deliberate
on the answer they should return, and besought
Harpagus during that day to draw off his forces
from the walls. Harpagus replied, “that he under-

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stood well enough what they were about to do,
but nevertheless he would grant their request.”
Accordingly the troops were withdrawn, and the
Phocaeans forthwith took advantage of their
absence to launch their penteconters, and put on
board their wives and children, their household
goods, and even the images of their gods, with all
the votive offerings from the fanes except the
paintings and the works in stone or brass, which
were left behind. With the rest they embarked,
and putting to sea, set sail for Chios. The
Persians, on their return, took possession of an
empty town.

Arrived at Chios, the Phocaeans made offers for
the purchase of the islands called the Oenussae,
but the Chians refused to part with them, fearing
lest the Phocaeans should establish a factory
there, and exclude their merchants from the com-
merce of those seas. On their refusal, the
Phocaeans, as Arganthonius was now dead, made
up their minds to sail to Cyrnus (Corsica), where,
twenty years before, following the direction of an
oracle, they had founded a city, which was called

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Alalia. Before they set out, however, on this voy-
age, they sailed once more to Phocaea, and sur-
prising the Persian troops appointed by Harpagus
to garrison town, put them all to the sword. After
this laid the heaviest curses on the man who
should draw back and forsake the armament; and
having dropped a heavy mass of iron into the sea,
swore never to return to Phocaea till that mass
reappeared upon the surface. Nevertheless, as
they were preparing to depart for Cyrnus, more
than half of their number were seized with such
sadness and so great a longing to see once more
their city and their ancient homes, that they broke
the oath by which they had bound themselves and
sailed back to Phocaea.

The rest of the Phocaeans who kept their oath,
proceeded without stopping upon their voyage,
and when they came to Cyrnus established them-
selves along with the earlier settlers at Alalia and
built temples in the place. For five years they
annoyed their neighbours by plundering and pil-
laging on all sides, until at length the
Carthaginians and Tyrrhenians leagued against

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them, and sent each a fleet of sixty ships to attack
the town. The Phocaeans, on their part, manned
all their vessels, sixty in number, and met their
enemy on the Sardinian sea. In the engagement
which followed the Phocaeans were victorious,
but their success was only a sort of Cadmeian vic-
tory.’ They lost forty ships in the battle, and the
twenty which remained came out of the engage-
ment with beaks so bent and blunted as to be no
longer serviceable. The Phocaeans therefore sailed
back again to Alalia, and taking their wives and
children on board, with such portion of their
goods and chattels as the vessels could bear, bade
adieu to Cyrnus and sailed to Rhegium.

The Carthaginians and Tyrrhenians, who had got
into their hands many more than the Phocaeans
from among the crews of the forty vessels that
were destroyed, landed their captives upon the
coast after the fight, and stoned them all to death.
Afterwards, when sheep, or oxen, or even men of
the district of Agylla passed by the spot where the
murdered Phocaeans lay, their bodies became dis-
torted, or they were seized with palsy, or they lost

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the use of some of their limbs. On this the people
of Agylla sent to Delphi to ask the oracle how
they might expiate their sin. The answer of the
Pythoness required them to institute the custom,
which they still observe, of honouring the dead
Phocaeans with magnificent funeral rites, and
solemn games, both gymnic and equestrian. Such,
then, was the fate that befell the Phocaean pris-
oners. The other Phocaeans, who had fled to
Rhegium, became after a while the founders of
the city called Vela, in the district of Oenotria.
This city they colonised, upon the showing of a
man of Posidonia, who suggested that the oracle
had not meant to bid them set up a town in
Cyrnus the island, but set up the worship of
Cyrnus the hero.

Thus fared it with the men of the city of Phocaea
in Ionia. They of Teos did and suffered almost the
same; for they too, when Harpagus had raised his
mound to the height of their defences, took ship,
one and all, and sailing across the sea to Thrace,
founded there the city of Abdera. The site was one
which Timesius of Clazomenae had previously

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tried to colonise, but without any lasting success,
for he was expelled by the Thracians. Still the
Teians of Abdera worship him to this day as a
hero.

Of all the Ionians these two states alone, rather
than submit to slavery, forsook their fatherland.
The others (I except Miletus) resisted Harpagus
no less bravely than those who fled their country,
and performed many feats of arms, each fighting
in their own defence, but one after another they
suffered defeat; the cities were taken, and the
inhabitants submitted, remaining in their respec-
tive countries, and obeying the behests of their
new lords. Miletus, as I have already mentioned,
had made terms with Cyrus, and so continued at
peace. Thus was continental Ionia once more
reduced to servitude; and when the Ionians of the
islands saw their brethren upon the mainland sub-
jugated, they also, dreading the like, gave them-
selves up to Cyrus.

It was while the Ionians were in this distress, but
still, amid it all, held their meetings, as of old, at

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the Panionium, that Bias of Priene, who was pre-
sent at the festival, recommended (as I am
informed) a project of the very highest wisdom,
which would, had it been embraced, have enabled
the Ionians to become the happiest and most
flourishing of the Greeks. He exhorted them “to
join in one body, set sail for Sardinia, and there
found a single Pan-Ionic city; so they would
escape from slavery and rise to great fortune,
being masters of the largest island in the world,
exercising dominion even beyond its bounds;
whereas if they stayed in Ionia, he saw no
prospect of their ever recovering their lost free-
dom.” Such was the counsel which Bias gave the
Ionians in their affliction. Before their misfor-
tunes began, Thales, a man of Miletus, of
Phoenician descent, had recommended a different
plan. He counselled them to establish a single seat
of government, and pointed out Teos as the fittest
place for it; “for that,” he said, “was the centre of
Ionia. Their other cities might still continue to
enjoy their own laws, just as if they were inde-
pendent states.” This also was good advice.

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After conquering the Ionians, Harpagus proceed-
ed to attack the Carians, the Caunians, and the
Lycians. The Ionians and Aeolians were forced to
serve in his army. Now, of the above nations the
Carians are a race who came into the mainland
from the islands. In ancient times they were sub-
jects of king Minos, and went by the name of
Leleges, dwelling among the isles, and, so far as I
have been able to push my inquiries, never liable
to give tribute to any man. They served on board
the ships of king Minos whenever he required;
and thus, as he was a great conqueror and pros-
pered in his wars, the Carians were in his day the
most famous by far of all the nations of the earth.
They likewise were the inventors of three things,
the use of which was borrowed from them by the
Greeks; they were the first to fasten crests on hel-
mets and to put devices on shields, and they also
invented handles for shields. In the earlier times
shields were without handles, and their wearers
managed them by the aid of a leathern thong, by
which they were slung round the neck and left
shoulder. Long after the time of Minos, the

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Carians were driven from the islands by the
Ionians and Dorians, and so settled upon the
mainland. The above is the account which the
Cretans give of the Carians: the Carians them-
selves say very differently. They maintain that
they are the aboriginal inhabitants of the part of
the mainland where they now dwell, and never
had any other name than that which they still
bear; and in proof of this they show an ancient
temple of Carian Jove in the country of the
Mylasians, in which the Mysians and Lydians
have the right of worshipping, as brother races to
the Carians: for Lydus and Mysus, they say, were
brothers of Car. These nations, therefore, have the
aforesaid right; but such as are of a different race,
even though they have come to use the Carian
tongue, are excluded from this temple.

The Caunians, in my judgment, are aboriginals;
but by their own account they came from Crete.
In their language, either they have approximated
to the Carians, or the Carians to them- on this
point I cannot speak with certainty. In their cus-
toms, however, they differ greatly from the

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Carians, and not only so, but from all other men.
They think it a most honourable practice for
friends or persons of the same age, whether they
be men, women, or children, to meet together in
large companies, for the purpose of drinking
wine. Again, on one occasion they determined
that they would no longer make use of the foreign
temples which had been long established among
them, but would worship their own old ancestral
gods alone. Then their whole youth took arms,
and striking the air with their spears, marched to
the Calyndic frontier, declaring that they were dri-
ving out the foreign gods.

The Lycians are in good truth anciently from
Crete; which island, in former days, was wholly
peopled with barbarians. A quarrel arising there
between the two sons of Europa, Sarpedon and
Minos, as to which of them should be king,
Minos, whose party prevailed, drove Sarpedon
and his followers into banishment. The exiles
sailed to Asia, and landed on the Milyan territo-
ry. Milyas was the ancient name of the country
now inhabited by the Lycians: the Milyae of the

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present day were, in those times, called Solymi. So
long as Sarpedon reigned, his followers kept the
name which they brought with them from Crete,
and were called Termilae, as the Lycians still are
by those who live in their neighbourhood. But
after Lycus, the son of Pandion, banished from
Athens by his brother Aegeus had found a refuge
with Sarpedon in the country of these Termilae,
they came, in course of time, to be called from
him Lycians. Their customs are partly Cretan,
partly Carian. They have, however, one singular
custom in which they differ from every other
nation in the world. They take the mother’s and
not the father’s name. Ask a Lycian who he is, and
he answers by giving his own name, that of his
mother, and so on in the female line. Moreover, if
a free woman marry a man who is a slave, their
children are full citizens; but if a free man marry
a foreign woman, or live with a concubine, even
though he be the first person in the State, the chil-
dren forfeit all the rights of citizenship.

Of these nations, the Carians submitted to
Harpagus without performing any brilliant

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exploits. Nor did the Greeks who dwelt in Caria
behave with any greater gallantry. Among them
were the Cnidians, colonists from Lacedaemon,
who occupy a district facing the sea, which is
called Triopium. This region adjoins upon the
Bybassian Chersonese; and, except a very small
space, is surrounded by the sea, being bounded on
the north by the Ceramic Gulf, and on the south
by the channel towards the islands of Syme and
Rhodes. While Harpagus was engaged in the con-
quest of Ionia, the Cnidians, wishing to make
their country an island, attempted to cut through
this narrow neck of land, which was no more
than five furlongs across from sea to sea. Their
whole territory lay inside the isthmus; for where
Cnidia ends towards the mainland, the isthmus
begins which they were now seeking to cut
through. The work had been commenced, and
many hands were employed upon it, when it was
observed that there seemed to be something
unusual and unnatural in the number of wounds
that the workmen received, especially about their
eyes, from the splintering of the rock. The
Cnidians, therefore, sent to Delphi, to inquire

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what it was that hindered their efforts; and
received, according to their own account, the fol-
lowing answer from the oracle:-

Fence not the isthmus off, nor dig it through-
Jove would have made an island, had he wished.
So the Cnidians ceased digging, and when
Harpagus advanced with his army, they gave
themselves up to him without striking a blow.

Above Halicarnassus and further from the coast,
were the Pedasians. With this people, when any
evil is about to befall either themselves or their
neighbours, the priestess of Minerva grows an
ample beard. Three times has this marvel hap-
pened. They alone, of all the dwellers in Caria,
resisted Harpagus for a while, and gave him much
trouble, maintaining themselves in a certain
mountain called Lida, which they had fortified;
but in course of time they also were forced to sub-
mit.

When Harpagus, after these successes, led his
forces into the Xanthian plain, the Lycians of

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Xanthus went out to meet him in the field: though
but a small band against a numerous host, they
engaged in battle, and performed many glorious
exploits. Overpowered at last, and forced within
their walls, they collected into the citadel their
wives and children, all their treasures, and their
slaves; and having so done, fired the building, and
burnt it to the ground. After this, they bound
themselves together by dreadful oaths, and sally-
ing forth against the enemy, died sword in hand,
not one escaping. Those Lycians who now claim
to be Xanthians, are foreign immigrants, except
eighty families, who happened to be absent from
the country, and so survived the others. Thus was
Xanthus taken by Harpagus, and Caunus fell in
like manner into his hands; for the Caunians in
the main followed the example of the Lycians.

While the lower parts of Asia were in this way
brought under by Harpagus, Cyrus in person sub-
jected the upper regions, conquering every nation,
and not suffering one to escape. Of these con-
quests I shall pass by the greater portion, and give
an account of those only which gave him the most

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trouble, and are the worthiest of mention. When
he had brought all the rest of the continent under
his sway, he made war on the Assyrians.

Assyria possesses a vast number of great cities,
whereof the most renowned and strongest at this
time was Babylon, whither, after the fall of
Nineveh, the seat of government had been
removed. The following is a description of the
place:- The city stands on a broad plain, and is an
exact square, a hundred and twenty furlongs in
length each way, so that the entire circuit is four
hundred and eighty furlongs. While such is its
size, in magnificence there is no other city that
approaches to it. It is surrounded, in the first
place, by a broad and deep moat, full of water,
behind which rises a wall fifty royal cubits in
width, and two hundred in height. (The royal
cubit is longer by three fingers’ breadth than the
common cubit.)

And here I may not omit to tell the use to which
the mould dug out of the great moat was turned,
nor the manner wherein the wall was wrought. As

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fast as they dug the moat the soil which they got
from the cutting was made into bricks, and when
a sufficient number were completed they baked
the bricks in kilns. Then they set to building, and
began with bricking the borders of the moat, after
which they proceeded to construct the wall itself,
using throughout for their cement hot bitumen,
and interposing a layer of wattled reeds at every
thirtieth course of the bricks. On the top, along
the edges of the wall, they constructed buildings
of a single chamber facing one another, leaving
between them room for a four-horse chariot to
turn. In the circuit of the wall are a hundred gates,
all of brass, with brazen lintels and side-posts.
The bitumen used in the work was brought to
Babylon from the Is, a small stream which flows
into the Euphrates at the point where the city of
the same name stands, eight days’ journey from
Babylon. Lumps of bitumen are found in great
abundance in this river.

The city is divided into two portions by the river
which runs through the midst of it. This river is
the Euphrates, a broad, deep, swift stream, which

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rises in Armenia, and empties itself into the
Erythraean sea. The city wall is brought down on
both sides to the edge of the stream: thence, from
the corners of the wall, there is carried along each
bank of the river a fence of burnt bricks. The
houses are mostly three and four stories high; the
streets all run in straight lines, not only those par-
allel to the river, but also the cross streets which
lead down to the water-side. At the river end of
these cross streets are low gates in the fence that
skirts the stream, which are, like the great gates in
the outer wall, of brass, and open on the water.

The outer wall is the main defence of the city.
There is, however, a second inner wall, of less
thickness than the first, but very little inferior to
it in strength. The centre of each division of the
town was occupied by a fortress. In the one stood
the palace of the kings, surrounded by a wall of
great strength and size: in the other was the sacred
precinct of Jupiter Belus, a square enclosure two
furlongs each way, with gates of solid brass;
which was also remaining in my time. In the mid-
dle of the precinct there was a tower of solid

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masonry, a furlong in length and breadth, upon
which was raised a second tower, and on that a
third, and so on up to eight. The ascent to the top
is on the outside, by a path which winds round all
the towers. When one is about half-way up, one
finds a resting-place and seats, where persons are
wont to sit some time on their way to the summit.
On the topmost tower there is a spacious temple,
and inside the temple stands a couch of unusual
size, richly adorned, with a golden table by its
side. There is no statue of any kind set up in the
place, nor is the chamber occupied of nights by
any one but a single native woman, who, as the
Chaldaeans, the priests of this god, affirm, is cho-
sen for himself by the deity out of all the women
of the land.

They also declare- but I for my part do not credit
it- that the god comes down in person into this
chamber, and sleeps upon the couch. This is like
the story told by the Egyptians of what takes
place in their city of Thebes, where a woman
always passes the night in the temple of the
Theban Jupiter. In each case the woman is said to

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be debarred all intercourse with men. It is also
like the custom of Patara, in Lycia, where the
priestess who delivers the oracles, during the time
that she is so employed- for at Patara there is not
always an oracle- is shut up in the temple every
night.

Below, in the same precinct, there is a second tem-
ple, in which is a sitting figure of Jupiter, all of
gold. Before the figure stands a large golden table,
and the throne whereon it sits, and the base on
which the throne is placed, are likewise of gold.
The Chaldaeans told me that all the gold togeth-
er was eight hundred talents’ weight. Outside the
temple are two altars, one of solid gold, on which
it is only lawful to offer sucklings; the other a
common altar, but of great size, on which the full-
grown animals are sacrificed. It is also on the
great altar that the Chaldaeans burn the frankin-
cense, which is offered to the amount of a thou-
sand talents’ weight, every year, at the festival of
the God. In the time of Cyrus there was likewise
in this temple a figure of a man, twelve cubits
high, entirely of solid gold. I myself did not see

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this figure, but I relate what the Chaldaeans
report concerning it. Darius, the son of
Hystaspes, plotted to carry the statue off, but had
not the hardihood to lay his hands upon it.
Xerxes, however, the son of Darius, killed the
priest who forbade him to move the statue, and
took it away. Besides the ornaments which I have
mentioned, there are a large number of private
offerings in this holy precinct.

Many sovereigns have ruled over this city of
Babylon, and lent their aid to the building of its
walls and the adornment of its temples, of whom
I shall make mention in my Assyrian history.
Among them two were women. Of these, the ear-
lier, called Semiramis, held the throne five genera-
tions before the later princess. She raised certain
embankments well worthy of inspection, in the
plain near Babylon, to control the river, which, till
then, used to overflow, and flood the whole coun-
try round about.

The later of the two queens, whose name was
Nitocris, a wiser princess than her predecessor,

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not only left behind her, as memorials of her occu-
pancy of the throne, the works which I shall
presently describe, but also, observing the great
power and restless enterprise of the Medes, who
had taken so large a number of cities, and among
them Nineveh, and expecting to be attacked in
her turn, made all possible exertions to increase
the defences of her empire. And first, whereas the
river Euphrates, which traverses the city, ran for-
merly with a straight course to Babylon, she, by
certain excavations which she made at some dis-
tance up the stream, rendered it so winding that it
comes three several times in sight of the same vil-
lage, a village in Assyria, which is called
Ardericea; and to this day, they who would go
from our sea to Babylon, on descending to the
river touch three times, and on three different
days, at this very place. She also made an
embankment along each side of the Euphrates,
wonderful both for breadth and height, and dug a
basin for a lake a great way above Babylon, close
alongside of the stream, which was sunk every-
where to the point where they came to water, and
was of such breadth that the whole circuit mea-

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sured four hundred and twenty furlongs. The soil
dug out of this basin was made use of in the
embankments along the waterside. When the
excavation was finished, she had stones brought,
and bordered with them the entire margin of the
reservoir. These two things were done, the river
made to wind, and the lake excavated, that the
stream might be slacker by reason of the number
of curves, and the voyage be rendered circuitous,
and that at the end of the voyage it might be nec-
essary to skirt the lake and so make a long round.
All these works were on that side of Babylon
where the passes lay, and the roads into Media
were the straightest, and the aim of the queen in
making them was to prevent the Medes from
holding intercourse with the Babylonians, and so
to keep them in ignorance of her affairs.

While the soil from the excavation was being thus
used for the defence of the city, Nitocris engaged
also in another undertaking, a mere by-work
compared with those we have already mentioned.
The city, as I said, was divided by the river into
two distinct portions. Under the former kings, if a

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man wanted to pass from one of these divisions to
the other, he had to cross in a boat; which must,
it seems to me, have been very troublesome.
Accordingly, while she was digging the lake,
Nitocris be. thought herself of turning it to a use
which should at once remove this inconvenience,
and enable her to leave another monument of her
reign over Babylon. She gave orders for the hew-
ing of immense blocks of stone, and when they
were ready and the basin was excavated, she
turned the entire stream of the Euphrates into the
cutting, and thus for a time, while the basin was
filling, the natural channel of the river was left
dry. Forthwith she set to work, and in the first
place lined the banks of the stream within the city
with quays of burnt brick, and also bricked the
landing-places opposite the river-gates, adopting
throughout the same fashion of brickwork which
had been used in the town wall; after which, with
the materials which had been prepared, she built,
as near the middle of the town as possible, a stone
bridge, the blocks whereof were bound together
with iron and lead. In the daytime square wood-
en platforms were laid along from pier to pier, on

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which the inhabitants crossed the stream; but at
night they were withdrawn, to prevent people
passing from side to side in the dark to commit
robberies. When the river had filled the cutting,
and the bridge was finished, the Euphrates was
turned back again into its ancient bed; and thus
the basin, transformed suddenly into a lake, was
seen to answer the purpose for which it was
made, and the inhabitants, by help of the basin,
obtained the advantage of a bridge.

It was this same princess by whom a remarkable
deception was planned. She had her tomb con-
structed in the upper part of one of the principal
gateways of the city, high above the heads of the
passers by, with this inscription cut upon it:- “If
there be one among my successors on the throne
of Babylon who is in want of treasure, let him
open my tomb, and take as much as he chooses-
not, however, unless he be truly in want, for it will
not be for his good.” This tomb continued
untouched until Darius came to the kingdom. To
him it seemed a monstrous thing that he should be
unable to use one of the gates of the town, and

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that a sum of money should be lying idle, and
moreover inviting his grasp, and he not seize upon
it. Now he could not use the gate, because, as he
drove through, the dead body would have been
over his head. Accordingly he opened the tomb;
but instead of money, found only the dead body,
and a writing which said- “Hadst thou not been
insatiate of pelf, and careless how thou gottest it,
thou wouldst not have broken open the sepul-
chres of the dead.”

The expedition of Cyrus was undertaken against
the son of this princess, who bore the same name
as his father Labynetus, and was king of the
Assyrians. The Great King, when he goes to the
wars, is always supplied with provisions carefully
prepared at home, and with cattle of his own.
Water too from the river Choaspes, which flows
by Susa, is taken with him for his drink, as that is
the only water which the kings of Persia taste.
Wherever he travels, he is attended by a number
of four-wheeled cars drawn by mules, in which
the Choaspes water, ready boiled for use, and

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stored in flagons of silver, is moved with him from
place to place.

Cyrus on his way to Babylon came to the banks
of the Gyndes, a stream which, rising in the
Matienian mountains, runs through the country
of the Dardanians, and empties itself into the river
Tigris. The Tigris, after receiving the Gyndes,
flows on by the city of Opis, and discharges its
waters into the Erythraean sea. When Cyrus
reached this stream, which could only be passed
in boats, one of the sacred white horses accompa-
nying his march, full of spirit and high mettle,
walked into the water, and tried to cross by him-
self; but the current seized him, swept him along
with it, and drowned him in its depths. Cyrus,
enraged at the insolence of the river, threatened so
to break its strength that in future even women
should cross it easily without wetting their knees.
Accordingly he put off for a time his attack on
Babylon, and, dividing his army into two parts, he
marked out by ropes one hundred and eighty
trenches on each side of the Gyndes, leading off

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from it in all directions, and setting his army to
dig, some on one side of the river, some on the
other, he accomplished his threat by the aid of so
great a number of hands, but not without losing
thereby the whole summer season.

Having, however, thus wreaked his vengeance on
the Gyndes, by dispersing it through three hundred
and sixty channels, Cyrus, with the first approach
of the ensuing spring, marched forward against
Babylon. The Babylonians, encamped without
their walls, awaited his coming. A battle was
fought at a short distance from the city, in which
the Babylonians were defeated by the Persian king,
whereupon they withdrew within their defences.
Here they shut themselves up, and made light of
his siege, having laid in a store of provisions for
many years in preparation against this attack; for
when they saw Cyrus conquering nation after
nation, they were convinced that he would never
stop, and that their turn would come at last.

Cyrus was now reduced to great perplexity, as
time went on and he made no progress against the

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place. In this distress either some one made the
suggestion to him, or he bethought himself of a
plan, which he proceeded to put in execution. He
placed a portion of his army at the point where
the river enters the city, and another body at the
back of the place where it issues forth, with orders
to march into the town by the bed of the stream,
as soon as the water became shallow enough: he
then himself drew off with the unwarlike portion
of his host, and made for the place where Nitocris
dug the basin for the river, where he did exactly
what she had done formerly: he turned the
Euphrates by a canal into the basin, which was
then a marsh, on which the river sank to such an
extent that the natural bed of the stream became
fordable. Hereupon the Persians who had been
left for the purpose at Babylon by the, river-side,
entered the stream, which had now sunk so as to
reach about midway up a man’s thigh, and thus
got into the town. Had the Babylonians been
apprised of what Cyrus was about, or had they
noticed their danger, they would never have
allowed the Persians to enter the city, but would
have destroyed them utterly; for they would have

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made fast all the street-gates which gave upon the
river, and mounting upon the walls along both
sides of the stream, would so have caught the
enemy, as it were, in a trap. But, as it was, the
Persians came upon them by surprise and so took
the city. Owing to the vast size of the place, the
inhabitants of the central parts (as the residents at
Babylon declare) long after the outer portions of
the town were taken, knew nothing of what had
chanced, but as they were engaged in a festival,
continued dancing and revelling until they learnt
the capture but too certainly. Such, then, were the
circumstances of the first taking of Babylon.

Among many proofs which I shall bring forward
of the power and resources of the Babylonians,
the following is of special account. The whole
country under the dominion of the Persians,
besides paying a fixed tribute, is parcelled out into
divisions, which have to supply food to the Great
King and his army during different portions of the
year. Now out of the twelve months which go to
a year, the district of Babylon furnishes food dur-
ing four, the other of Asia during eight; by the

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which it appears that Assyria, in respect of
resources, is one-third of the whole of Asia. Of all
the Persian governments, or satrapies as they are
called by the natives, this is by far the best. When
Tritantaechmes, son of Artabazus, held it of the
king, it brought him in an artaba of silver every
day. The artaba is a Persian measure, and holds
three choenixes more than the medimnus of the
Athenians. He also had, belonging to his own pri-
vate stud, besides war horses, eight hundred stal-
lions and sixteen thousand mares, twenty to each
stallion. Besides which he kept so great a number
of Indian hounds, that four large villages of the
plain were exempted from all other charges on
condition of finding them in food.

But little rain falls in Assyria, enough, however, to
make the corn begin to sprout, after which the
plant is nourished and the ears formed by means
of irrigation from the river. For the river does not,
as in Egypt, overflow the corn-lands of its own
accord, but is spread over them by the hand, or by
the help of engines. The whole of Babylonia is,
like Egypt, intersected with canals. The largest of

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them all, which runs towards the winter sun, and
is impassable except in boats, is carried from the
Euphrates into another stream, called the Tigris,
the river upon which the town of Nineveh for-
merly stood. Of all the countries that we know
there is none which is so fruitful in grain. It makes
no pretension indeed of growing the fig, the olive,
the vine, or any other tree of the kind; but in grain
it is so fruitful as to yield commonly two-hun-
dred-fold, and when the production is the great-
est, even three-hundred-fold. The blade of the
wheat-plant and barley-plant is often four fingers
in breadth. As for the millet and the sesame, I
shall not say to what height they grow, though
within my own knowledge; for I am not ignorant
that what I have already written concerning the
fruitfulness of Babylonia must seem incredible to
those who have never visited the country. The
only oil they use is made from the sesame-plant.
Palm-trees grow in great numbers over the whole
of the flat country, mostly of the kind which bears
fruit, and this fruit supplies them with bread,
wine, and honey. They are cultivated like the fig-
tree in all respects, among others in this. The

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natives tie the fruit of the male-palms, as they are
called by the Greeks, to the branches of the date-
bearing palm, to let the gall-fly enter the dates and
ripen them, and to prevent the fruit from falling
off. The male-palms, like the wild fig-trees, have
usually the gall-fly in their fruit.

But that which surprises me most in the land,
after the city itself, I will now proceed to mention.
The boats which come down the river to Babylon
are circular, and made of skins. The frames, which
are of willow, are cut in the country of the
Armenians above Assyria, and on these, which
serve for hulls, a covering of skins is stretched
outside, and thus the boats are made, without
either stem or stern, quite round like a shield.
They are then entirely filled with straw, and their
cargo is put on board, after which they are suf-
fered to float down the stream. Their chief freight
is wine, stored in casks made of the wood of the
palm-tree. They are managed by two men who
stand upright in them, each plying an oar, one
pulling and the other pushing. The boats are of
various sizes, some larger, some smaller; the

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biggest reach as high as five thousand talents’ bur-
then. Each vessel has a live ass on board; those of
larger size have more than one. When they reach
Babylon, the cargo is landed and offered for sale;
after which the men break up their boats, sell the
straw and the frames, and loading their asses with
the skins, set off on their way back to Armenia.
The current is too strong to allow a boat to return
upstream, for which reason they make their boats
of skins rather than wood. On their return to
Armenia they build fresh boats for the next voy-
age.

The dress of the Babylonians is a linen tunic
reaching to the feet, and above it another tunic
made in wool, besides which they have a short
white cloak thrown round them, and shoes of a
peculiar fashion, not unlike those worn by the
Boeotians. They have long hair, wear turbans on
their heads, and anoint their whole body with
perfumes. Every one carries a seal, and a walking-
stick, carved at the top into the form of an apple,
a rose, a lily, an eagle, or something similar; for it

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is not their habit to use a stick without an orna-
ment.

Of their customs, whereof I shall now proceed to
give an account, the following (which I under-
stand belongs to them in common with the
Illyrian tribe of the Eneti) is the wisest in my judg-
ment. Once a year in each village the maidens of
age to marry were collected all together into one
place; while the men stood round them in a circle.
Then a herald called up the damsels one by one,
and offered them for sale. He began with the most
beautiful. When she was sold for no small sum of
money, he offered for sale the one who came next
to her in beauty. All of them were sold to be
wives. The richest of the Babylonians who wished
to wed bid against each other for the loveliest
maidens, while the humbler wife-seekers, who
were indifferent about beauty, took the more
homely damsels with marriage-portions. For the
custom was that when the herald had gone
through the whole number of the beautiful
damsels, he should then call up the ugliest- a crip-

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ple, if there chanced to be one- and offer her to
the men, asking who would agree to take her with
the smallest marriage-portion. And the man who
offered to take the smallest sum had her assigned
to him. The marriage-portions were furnished by
the money paid for the beautiful damsels, and
thus the fairer maidens portioned out the uglier.
No one was allowed to give his daughter in mar-
riage to the man of his choice, nor might any one
carry away the damsel whom he had purchased
without finding bail really and truly to make her
his wife; if, however, it turned out that they did
not agree, the money might be paid back. All who
liked might come even from distant villages and
bid for the women. This was the best of all their
customs, but it has now fallen into disuse. They
have lately hit upon a very different plan to save
their maidens from violence, and prevent their
being torn from them and carried to distant cities,
which is to bring up their daughters to be courte-
sans. This is now done by all the poorer of the
common people, who since the conquest have
been maltreated by their lords, and have had ruin
brought upon their families.

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The following custom seems to me the wisest of
their institutions next to the one lately praised.
They have no physicians, but when a man is ill,
they lay him in the public square, and the passers-
by come up to him, and if they have ever had his
disease themselves or have known any one who
has suffered from it, they give him advice, recom-
mending him to do whatever they found good in
their own case, or in the case known to them; and
no one is allowed to pass the sick man in silence
without asking him what his ailment is.

They bury their dead in honey, and have funeral
lamentations like the Egyptians. When a
Babylonian has consorted with his wife, he sits
down before a censer of burning incense, and the
woman sits opposite to him. At dawn of day they
wash; for till they are washed they will not touch
any of their common vessels. This practice is
observed also by the Arabians.

The Babylonians have one most shameful cus-
tom. Every woman born in the country must
once in her life go and sit down in the precinct

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of Venus, and there consort with a stranger.
Many of the wealthier sort, who are too proud
to mix with the others, drive in covered carriages
to the precinct, followed by a goodly train of
attendants, and there take their station. But the
larger number seat themselves within the holy
enclosure with wreaths of string about their
heads- and here there is always a great crowd,
some coming and others going; lines of cord
mark out paths in all directions the women, and
the strangers pass along them to make their
choice. A woman who has once taken her seat is
not allowed to return home till one of the
strangers throws a silver coin into her lap, and
takes her with him beyond the holy ground.
When he throws the coin he says these words-
“The goddess Mylitta prosper thee.” (Venus is
called Mylitta by the Assyrians.) The silver coin
may be of any size; it cannot be refused, for that
is forbidden by the law, since once thrown it is
sacred. The woman goes with the first man who
throws her money, and rejects no one. When she
has gone with him, and so satisfied the goddess,
she returns home, and from that time forth no

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gift however great will prevail with her. Such of
the women as are tall and beautiful are soon
released, but others who are ugly have to stay a
long time before they can fulfil the law. Some
have waited three or four years in the precinct.
A custom very much like this is found also in
certain parts of the island of Cyprus.

Such are the customs of the Babylonians general-
ly. There are likewise three tribes among them
who eat nothing but fish. These are caught and
dried in the sun, after which they are brayed in a
mortar, and strained through a linen sieve. Some
prefer to make cakes of this material, while others
bake it into a kind of bread.

When Cyrus had achieved the conquest of the
Babylonians, he conceived the desire of bringing
the Massagetae under his dominion. Now the
Massagetae are said to be a great and warlike
nation, dwelling eastward, toward the rising of
the sun, beyond the river Araxes, and opposite the
Issedonians. By many they are regarded as a
Scythian race.

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As for the Araxes, it is, according to some
accounts, larger, according to others smaller than
the Ister (Danube). It has islands in it, many of
which are said to be equal in size to Lesbos. The
men who inhabit them feed during the summer on
roots of all kinds, which they dig out of the
ground, while they store up the fruits, which they
gather from the trees at the fitting season, to serve
them as food in the winter-time. Besides the trees
whose fruit they gather for this purpose, they
have also a tree which bears the strangest pro-
duce. When they are met together in companies
they throw some of it upon the fire round which
they are sitting, and presently, by the mere smell
of the fumes which it gives out in burning, they
grow drunk, as the Greeks do with wine. More of
the fruit is then thrown on the fire, and, their
drunkenness increasing, they often jump up and
begin to dance and sing. Such is the account
which I have heard of this people.

The river Araxes, like the Gyndes, which Cyrus
dispersed into three hundred and sixty channels,
has its source in the country of the Matienians. It

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has forty mouths, whereof all, except one, end in
bogs and swamps. These bogs and swamps are
said to be inhabited by a race of men who feed on
raw fish, and clothe themselves with the skins of
seals. The other mouth of the river flows with a
clear course into the Caspian Sea.

The Caspian is a sea by itself, having no connec-
tion with any other. The sea frequented by the
Greeks, that beyond the Pillars of Hercules, which
is called the Atlantic, and also the Erythraean, are
all one and the same sea. But the Caspian is a dis-
tinct sea, lying by itself, in length fifteen days’
voyage with a row-boat, in breadth, at the broad-
est part, eight days’ voyage. Along its western
shore runs the chain of the Caucasus, the most
extensive and loftiest of all mountain-ranges.
Many and various are the tribes by which it is
inhabited, most of whom live entirely on the wild
fruits of the forest. In these forests certain trees
are said to grow, from the leaves of which, pound-
ed and mixed with water, the inhabitants make a
dye, wherewith they paint upon their clothes the
figures of animals; and the figures so impressed

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never wash out, but last as though they had been
inwoven in the cloth from the first, and wear as
long as the garment.

On the west then, as I have said, the Caspian Sea
is bounded by the range of Caucasus. On the cast
it is followed by a vast plain, stretching out inter-
minably before the eye, the greater portion of
which is possessed by those Massagetae, against
whom Cyrus was now so anxious to make an
expedition. Many strong motives weighed with
him and urged him on- his birth especially, which
seemed something more than human, and his
good fortune in all his former wars, wherein he
had always found that against what country soev-
er he turned his arms, it was impossible for that
people to escape.

At this time the Massagetae were ruled by a
queen, named Tomyris, who at the death of her
husband, the late king, had mounted the throne.
To her Cyrus sent ambassadors, with instructions
to court her on his part, pretending that he
wished to take her to wife. Tomyris, however,

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aware that it was her kingdom, and not herself,
that he courted, forbade the men to approach.
Cyrus, therefore, finding that he did not advance
his designs by this deceit, marched towards the
Araxes, and openly displaying his hostile inten-
tions; set to work to construct a bridge on which
his army might cross the river, and began building
towers upon the boats which were to be used in
the passage.

While the Persian leader was occupied in these
labours, Tomyris sent a herald to him, who said,
“King of the Medes, cease to press this enterprise,
for thou canst not know if what thou art doing
will be of real advantage to thee. Be content to
rule in peace thy own kingdom, and bear to see us
reign over the countries that are ours to govern.
As, however, I know thou wilt not choose to hear-
ken to this counsel, since there is nothing thou
less desirest than peace and quietness, come now,
if thou art so mightily desirous of meeting the
Massagetae in arms, leave thy useless toil of
bridge-making; let us retire three days’ march
from the river bank, and do thou come across

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with thy soldiers; or, if thou likest better to give us
battle on thy side the stream, retire thyself an
equal distance.” Cyrus, on this offer, called
together the chiefs of the Persians, and laid the
matter before them, requesting them to advise
him what he should do. All the votes were in
favour of his letting Tomyris cross the stream, and
giving battle on Persian ground.

But Croesus the Lydian, who was present at the
meeting of the chiefs, disapproved of this advice;
he therefore rose, and thus delivered his senti-
ments in opposition to it: “Oh! my king! I
promised thee long since, that, as Jove had given
me into thy hands, I would, to the best of my
power, avert impending danger from thy house.
Alas! my own sufferings, by their very bitterness,
have taught me to be keen-sighted of dangers. If
thou deemest thyself an immortal, and thine army
an army of immortals, my counsel will doubtless
be thrown away upon thee. But if thou feelest thy-
self to be a man, and a ruler of men, lay this first
to heart, that there is a wheel on which the affairs

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of men revolve, and that its movement forbids the
same man to be always fortunate. Now concern-
ing the matter in hand, my judgment runs counter
to the judgment of thy other counsellors. For if
thou agreest to give the enemy entrance into thy
country, consider what risk is run! Lose the bat-
tle, and therewith thy whole kingdom is lost. For
assuredly, the Massagetae, if they win the fight,
will not return to their homes, but will push for-
ward against the states of thy empire. Or if thou
gainest the battle, why, then thou gainest far less
than if thou wert across the stream, where thou
mightest follow up thy victory. For against thy
loss, if they defeat thee on thine own ground,
must be set theirs in like case. Rout their army on
the other side of the river, and thou mayest push
at once into the heart of their country. Moreover,
were it not disgrace intolerable for Cyrus the son
of Cambyses to retire before and yield ground to
a woman? My counsel, therefore, is that we cross
the stream, and pushing forward as far as they
shall fall back, then seek to get the better of them
by stratagem. I am told they are unacquainted

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with the good things on which the Persians live,
and have never tasted the great delights of life. Let
us then prepare a feast for them in our camp; let
sheep be slaughtered without stint, and the
winecups be filled full of noble liquor, and let all
manner of dishes be prepared: then leaving
behind us our worst troops, let us fall back
towards the river. Unless I very much mistake,
when they see the good fare set out, they will for-
get all else and fall to. Then it will remain for us
to do our parts manfully.”

Cyrus, when the two plans were thus placed in
contrast before him, changed his mind, and pre-
ferring the advice which Croesus had given,
returned for answer to Tomyris that she should
retire, and that he would cross the stream. She
therefore retired, as she had engaged; and Cyrus,
giving Croesus into the care of his son Cambyses
(whom he had appointed to succeed him on the
throne), with strict charge to pay him all respect
and treat him well, if the expedition failed of suc-
cess; and sending them both back to Persia,
crossed the river with his army.

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213

The first night after the passage, as he slept in the
enemy’s country, a vision appeared to him. He
seemed to see in his sleep the eldest of the sons of
Hystaspes, with wings upon his shoulders, shad-
owing with the one wing Asia, and Europe with
the other. Now Hystaspes, the son of Arsames,
was of the race of the Achaemenidae, and his
eldest son, Darius, was at that time scarce twen-
ty years old; wherefore, not being of age to go to
the wars, he had remained behind in Persia.
When Cyrus woke from his sleep, and turned the
vision over in his mind, it seemed to him no light
matter. He therefore sent for Hystaspes, and tak-
ing him aside said, “Hystaspes, thy son is discov-
ered to be plotting against me and my crown. I
will tell thee how I know it so certainly. The gods
watch over my safety, and warn me beforehand
of every danger. Now last night, as I lay in my
bed, I saw in a vision the eldest of thy sons with
wings upon his shoulders, shadowing with the
one wing Asia, and Europe with the other. From
this it is certain, beyond all possible doubt, that
he is engaged in some plot against me. Return
thou then at once to Persia, and be sure, when I

214

Herodotus

come back from conquering the Massagetae, to
have thy son ready to produce before me, that I
may examine him.”

Thus Cyrus spoke, in the belief that he was plot-
ted against by Darius; but he missed the true
meaning of the dream, which was sent by God to
forewarn him, that he was to die then and there,
and that his kingdom was to fall at last to Darius.

Hystaspes made answer to Cyrus in these words:-
“Heaven forbid, sire, that there should be a
Persian living who would plot against thee! If
such an one there be, may a speedy death over-
take him! Thou foundest the Persians a race of
slaves, thou hast made them free men: thou
foundest them subject to others, thou hast made
them lords of all. If a vision has announced that
my son is practising against thee, lo, I resign him
into thy hands to deal with as thou wilt.”
Hystaspes, when he had thus answered, recrossed
the Araxes and hastened back to Persia, to keep a
watch on his son Darius.

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215

Meanwhile Cyrus, having advanced a day’s march
from the river, did as Croesus had advised him,
and, leaving the worthless portion of his army in
the camp, drew off with his good troops towards
the river. Soon afterwards, a detachment of the
Massagetae, one-third of their entire army, led by
Spargapises, son of the queen Tomyris, coming
up, fell upon the body which had been left behind
by Cyrus, and on their resistance put them to the
sword. Then, seeing the banquet prepared, they
sat down and began to feast. When they had
eaten and drunk their fill, and were now sunk in
sleep, the Persians under Cyrus arrived, slaugh-
tered a great multitude, and made even a larger
number prisoners. Among these last was
Spargapises himself.

When Tomyris heard what had befallen her son
and her army, she sent a herald to Cyrus, who
thus addressed the conqueror:- “Thou blood-
thirsty Cyrus, pride not thyself on this poor suc-
cess: it was the grape-juice- which, when ye drink
it, makes you so mad, and as ye swallow it down

216

Herodotus

brings up to your lips such bold and wicked
words- it was this poison wherewith thou didst
ensnare my child, and so overcamest him, not in
fair open fight. Now hearken what I advise, and
be sure I advise thee for thy good. Restore my son
to me and get thee from the land unharmed, tri-
umphant over a third part of the host of the
Massagetae. Refuse, and I swear by the sun, the
sovereign lord of the Massagetae, bloodthirsty as
thou art, I will give thee thy fill of blood.”

To the words of this message Cyrus paid no man-
ner of regard. As for Spargapises, the son of the
queen, when the wine went off, ‘and he saw the
extent of his calamity, he made request to Cyrus
to release him from his bonds; then, when his
prayer was granted, and the fetters were taken
from his limbs, as soon as his hands were free, he
destroyed himself.

Tomyris, when she found that Cyrus paid no heed
to her advice, collected all the forces of her king-
dom, and gave him battle. Of all the combats in

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217

which the barbarians have engaged among them-
selves, I reckon this to have been the fiercest. The
following, as I understand, was the manner of it:-
First, the two armies stood apart and shot their
arrows at each other; then, when their quivers
were empty, they closed and fought hand-to-hand
with lances and daggers; and thus they continued
fighting for a length of time, neither choosing to
give ground. At length the Massagetae prevailed.
The greater part of the army of the Persians was
destroyed and Cyrus himself fell, after reigning
nine and twenty years. Search was made among
the slain by order of the queen for the body of
Cyrus, and when it was found she took a skin,
and, filling it full of human blood, she dipped the
head of Cyrus in the gore, saying, as she thus
insulted the corse, “I live and have conquered thee
in fight, and yet by thee am I ruined, for thou
tookest my son with guile; but thus I make good
my threat, and give thee thy fill of blood.” Of the
many different accounts which are given of the
death of Cyrus, this which I have followed
appears to me most worthy of credit.

218

Herodotus

In their dress and mode of living the Massagetae
resemble the Scythians. They fight both on horse-
back and on foot, neither method is strange to
them: they use bows and lances, but their
favourite weapon is the battle-axe. Their arms are
all either of gold or brass. For their spear-points,
and arrow-heads, and for their battle-axes, they
make use of brass; for head-gear, belts, and gir-
dles, of gold. So too with the caparison of their
horses, they give them breastplates of brass, but
employ gold about the reins, the bit, and the
cheek-plates. They use neither iron nor silver, hav-
ing none in their country; but they have brass and
gold in abundance.

The following are some of their customs;- Each
man has but one wife, yet all the wives are held in
common; for this is a custom of the Massagetae
and not of the Scythians, as the Greeks wrongly
say. Human life does not come to its natural close
with this people; but when a man grows very old,
all his kinsfolk collect together and offer him up
in sacrifice; offering at the same time some cattle
also. After the sacrifice they boil the flesh and

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219

feast on it; and those who thus end their days are
reckoned the happiest. If a man dies of disease
they do not eat him, but bury him in the ground,
bewailing his ill-fortune that he did not come to
be sacrificed. They sow no grain, but live on their
herds, and on fish, of which there is great plenty
in the Araxes. Milk is what they chiefly drink.
The only god they worship is the sun, and to him
they offer the horse in sacrifice; under the notion
of giving to the swiftest of the gods the swiftest of
all mortal creatures.

Th e H i s to r i e s

o f

H e ro d o t u s o f H a l i c a r n a s s u s

Book Two

TRANSLATED BY

George Rawlinson

Ames, Iowa

This translation is in the public domain.

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BOOK TWO

n the death of Cyrus, Cambyses his son

by Cassandane daughter of Pharnaspes took the
kingdom. Cassandane had died in the lifetime of
Cyrus, who had made a great mourning for her at
her death, and had commanded all the subjects of
his empire to observe the like. Cambyses, the son
of this lady and of Cyrus, regarding the Ionian
and Aeolian Greeks as vassals of his father, took
them with him in his expedition against Egypt
among the other nations which owned his sway.

Now the Egyptians, before the reign of their king
Psammetichus, believed themselves to be the most
ancient of mankind. Since Psammetichus, howev-
er, made an attempt to discover who were actual-
ly the primitive race, they have been of opinion

Th e H i s t o r i e s

o f

H e r o d o t u s o f H a l i c a r n a s s u s

that while they surpass all other nations, the
Phrygians surpass them in antiquity.

This king, finding it impossible to make out by
dint of inquiry what men were the most ancient,
contrived the following method of discovery:- He
took two children of the common sort, and gave
them over to a herdsman to bring up at his folds,
strictly charging him to let no one utter a word in
their presence, but to keep them in a sequestered
cottage, and from time to time introduce goats to
their apartment, see that they got their fill of milk,
and in all other respects look after them. His
object herein was to know, after the indistinct
babblings of infancy were over, what word they
would first articulate. It happened as he had
anticipated. The herdsman obeyed his orders for
two years, and at the end of that time, on his one
day opening the door of their room and going in,
the children both ran up to him with outstretched
arms, and distinctly said “Becos.” When this first
happened the herdsman took no notice; but after-
wards when he observed, on coming often to see
after them, that the word was constantly in their

Herodotus

The Histories–Book Two

mouths, he informed his lord, and by his com-
mand brought the children into his presence.
Psammetichus then himself heard them say the
word, upon which he proceeded to make inquiry
what people there was who called anything
“becos,” and hereupon he learnt that “becos”
was the Phrygian name for bread. In considera-
tion of this circumstance the Egyptians yielded
their claims, and admitted the greater antiquity of
the Phrygians.

That these were the real facts I learnt at Memphis
from the priests of Vulcan. The Greeks, among
other foolish tales, relate that Psammetichus had
the children brought up by women whose tongues
he had previously cut out; but the priests said
their bringing up was such as I have stated above.
I got much other information also from conversa-
tion with these priests while I was at Memphis,
and I even went to Heliopolis and to Thebes,
expressly to try whether the priests of those places
would agree in their accounts with the priests at
Memphis. The Heliopolitans have the reputation
of being the best skilled in history of all the

Egyptians. What they told me concerning their
religion it is not my intention to repeat, except the
names of their deities, which I believe all men
know equally. If I relate anything else concerning
these matters, it will only be when compelled to
do so by the course of my narrative.

Now with regard to mere human matters, the
accounts which they gave, and in which all
agreed, were the following. The Egyptians, they
said, were the first to discover the solar year, and
to portion out its course into twelve parts. They
obtained this knowledge from the stars. (To my
mind they contrive their year much more cleverly
than the Greeks, for these last every other year
intercalate a whole month, but the Egyptians,
dividing the year into twelve months of thirty
days each, add every year a space of five days
besides, whereby the circuit of the seasons is made
to return with uniformity.) The Egyptians, they
went on to affirm, first brought into use the
names of the twelve gods, which the Greeks
adopted from them; and first erected altars,
images, and temples to the gods; and also first

Herodotus

The Histories–Book Two

engraved upon stone the figures of animals. In
most of these cases they proved to me that what
they said was true. And they told me that the first
man who ruled over Egypt was Min, and that in
his time all Egypt, except the Thebaic canton, was
a marsh, none of the land below Lake Moeris
then showing itself above the surface of the water.
This is a distance of seven days’ sail from the sea
up the river.

What they said of their country seemed to me very
reasonable. For any one who sees Egypt, without
having heard a word about it before, must per-
ceive, if he has only common powers of observa-
tion, that the Egypt to which the Greeks go in
their ships is an acquired country, the gift of the
river. The same is true of the land above the lake,
to the distance of three days’ voyage, concerning
which the Egyptians say nothing, but which
exactly the same kind of country.

The following is the general character of the
region. In the first place, on approaching it by sea,
when you are still a day’s sail from the land, if you

Herodotus

let down a sounding-line you will bring up mud,
and find yourself in eleven fathoms’ water, which
shows that the soil washed down by the stream
extends to that distance.

The length of the country along shore, according
to the bounds that we assign to Egypt, namely
from the Plinthinetic gulf to Lake Serbonis, which
extends along the base of Mount Casius, is sixty
schoenes. The nations whose territories are scanty
measure them by the fathom; those whose bounds
are less confined, by the furlong; those who have
an ample territory, by the parasang; but if men
have a country which is very vast, they measure it
by the schoene. Now the length of the parasang is
thirty furlongs, but the schoene, which is an
Egyptian measure, is sixty furlongs. Thus the
coastline of Egypt would extend a length of three
thousand six hundred furlongs.

From the coast inland as far as Heliopolis the
breadth of Egypt is considerable, the country is
flat, without springs, and full of swamps. The
length of the route from the sea up to Heliopolis

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is almost exactly the same as that of the road
which runs from the altar of the twelve gods at
Athens to the temple of Olympian Jove at Pisa. If
a person made a calculation he would find but a
very little difference between the two routes, not
more than about fifteen furlongs; for the road
from Athens to Pisa falls short of fifteen hundred
furlongs by exactly fifteen, whereas the distance
of Heliopolis from the sea is just the round num-
ber.

As one proceeds beyond Heliopolis up the coun-
try, Egypt becomes narrow, the Arabian range of
hills, which has a direction from north to south,
shutting it in upon the one side, and the Libyan
range upon the other. The former ridge runs on
without a break, and stretches away to the sea
called the Erythraean; it contains the quarries
whence the stone was cut for the pyramids of
Memphis: and this is the point where it ceases its
first direction, and bends away in the manner
above indicated. In its greatest length from east to
west it is, as I have been informed, a distance of
two months’ journey towards the extreme east its

Herodotus

skirts produce frankincense. Such are the chief
features of this range. On the Libyan side, the
other ridge whereon the pyramids stand is rocky
and covered with sand; its direction is the same as
that of the Arabian ridge in the first part of its
course. Above Heliopolis, then, there is no great
breadth of territory for such a country as Egypt,
but during four days’ sail Egypt is narrow; the
valley between the two ranges is a level plain, and
seemed to me to be, at the narrowest point, not
more than two hundred furlongs across from the
Arabian to the Libyan hills. Above this point
Egypt again widens.

From Heliopolis to Thebes is nine days’ sail up
the river; the distance is eighty-one schoenes, or
4860 furlongs. If we now put together the several
measurements of the country we shall find that
the distance along shore is, as I stated above,
3600 furlongs, and the distance from the sea
inland to Thebes 6120 furlongs. Further, it is a
distance of eighteen hundred furlongs from
Thebes to the place called Elephantine.

The Histories–Book Two

The greater portion of the country above
described seemed to me to be, as the priests
declared, a tract gained by the inhabitants. For
the whole region above Memphis, lying between
the two ranges of hills that have been spoken of,
appeared evidently to have formed at one time a
gulf of the sea. It resembles (to compare small
things with great) the parts about Ilium and
Teuthrania, Ephesus, and the plain of the
Maeander. In all these regions the land has been
formed by rivers, whereof the greatest is not to
compare for size with any one of the five mouths
of the Nile. I could mention other rivers also, far
inferior to the Nile in magnitude, that have effect-
ed very great changes. Among these not the least
is the Achelous, which, after passing through
Acarnania, empties itself into the sea opposite the
islands called Echinades, and has already joined
one-half of them to the continent.

In Arabia, not far from Egypt, there is a long and
narrow gulf running inland from the sea called
the Erythraean, of which I will here set down the

Herodotus

dimensions. Starting from its innermost recess,
and using a row-boat, you take forty days to
reach the open main, while you may cross the
gulf at its widest part in the space of half a day.
In this sea there is an ebb and flow of the tide
every day. My opinion is that Egypt was former-
ly very much such a gulf as this- one gulf pene-
trated from the sea that washes Egypt on the
north, and extended itself towards Ethiopia;
another entered from the southern ocean, and
stretched towards Syria; the two gulfs ran into
the land so as almost to meet each other, and left
between them only a very narrow tract of coun-
try. Now if the Nile should choose to divert his
waters from their present bed into this Arabian
gulf, what is there to hinder it from being filled
up by the stream within, at the utmost, twenty
thousand years? For my part, I think it would be
filled in half the time. How then should not a
gulf, even of much greater size, have been filled
up in the ages that passed before I was born, by
a river that is at once so large and so given to
working changes?

The Histories–Book Two

Thus I give credit to those from whom I received
this account of Egypt, and am myself, moreover,
strongly of the same opinion, since I remarked
that the country projects into the sea further than
the neighbouring shores, and I observed that there
were shells upon the hills, and that salt exuded
from the soil to such an extent as even to injure
the pyramids; and I noticed also that there is but
a single hill in all Egypt where sand is found,
namely, the hill above Memphis; and further, I
found the country to bear no resemblance either
to its borderland Arabia, or to Libya- nay, nor
even to Syria, which forms the seaboard of
Arabia; but whereas the soil of Libya is, we know,
sandy and of a reddish hue, and that of Arabia
and Syria inclines to stone and clay, Egypt has a
soil that is black and crumbly, as being alluvial
and formed of the deposits brought down by the
river from Ethiopia.

One fact which I learnt of the priests is to me a
strong evidence of the origin of the country. They
said that when Moeris was king, the Nile over-

Herodotus

flowed all Egypt below Memphis, as soon as it
rose so little as eight cubits. Now Moeris had not
been dead 900 years at the time when I heard this
of the priests; yet at the present day, unless the
river rise sixteen, or, at the very least, fifteen
cubits, it does not overflow the lands. It seems to
me, therefore, that if the land goes on rising and
growing at this rate, the Egyptians who dwell
below Lake Moeris, in the Delta (as it is called)
and elsewhere, will one day, by the stoppage of
the inundations, suffer permanently the fate
which they told me they expected would some
time or other befall the Greeks. On hearing that
the whole land of Greece is watered by rain from
heaven, and not, like their own, inundated by
rivers, they observed- “Some day the Greeks will
be disappointed of their grand hope, and then
they will be wretchedly hungry”; which was as
much as to say, “If God shall some day see fit not
to grant the Greeks rain, but shall afflict them
with a long drought, the Greeks will be swept
away by a famine, since they have nothing to rely
on but rain from Jove, and have no other resource
for water.”

The Histories–Book Two

And certes, in thus speaking of the Greeks the
Egyptians say nothing but what is true. But now
let me tell the Egyptians how the case stands
with themselves. If, as I said before, the country
below Memphis, which is the land that is
always rising, continues to increase in height at
the rate at which it has risen in times gone by,
how will it be possible for the inhabitants of
that region to avoid hunger, when they will cer-
tainly have no rain, and the river will not be
able to overflow their cornlands? At present, it
must be confessed, they obtain the fruits of the
field with less trouble than any other people in
the world, the rest of the Egyptians included,
since they have no need to break up the ground
with the plough, nor to use the hoe, nor to do
any of the work which the rest of mankind find
necessary if they are to get a crop; but the hus-
bandman waits till the river has of its own
accord spread itself over the fields and with-
drawn again to its bed, and then sows his plot
of ground, and after sowing turns his swine into
it- the swine tread in the corn- after which he
has only to await the harvest. The swine serve

Herodotus

him also to thrash the grain, which is then car-
ried to the garner.

If then we choose to adopt the views of the
Ionians concerning Egypt, we must come to the
conclusion that the Egyptians had formerly no
country at all. For the Ionians say that nothing is
really Egypt but the Delta, which extends along
shore from the Watch-tower of Perseus, as it is
called, to the Pelusiac Salt-Pans, a distance of
forty schoenes, and stretches inland as far as the
city of Cercasorus, where the Nile divides into the
two streams which reach the sea at Pelusium and
Canobus respectively. The rest of what is account-
ed Egypt belongs, they say, either to Arabia or
Libya. But the Delta, as the Egyptians affirm, and
as I myself am persuaded, is formed of the
deposits of the river, and has only recently, if I
may use the expression, come to light. If, then,
they had formerly no territory at all, how came
they to be so extravagant as to fancy themselves
the most ancient race in the world? Surely there
was no need of their making the experiment with

The Histories–Book Two

the children to see what language they would first
speak. But in truth I do not believe that the
Egyptians came into being at the same time with
the Delta, as the Ionians call it; I think they have
always existed ever since the human race began;
as the land went on increasing, part of the popu-
lation came down into the new country, part
remained in their old settlements. In ancient times
the Thebais bore the name of Egypt, a district of
which the entire circumference is but 6120 fur-
longs.

If, then, my judgment on these matters be right,
the Ionians are mistaken in what they say of
Egypt. If, on the contrary, it is they who are right,
then I undertake to show that neither the Ionians
nor any of the other Greeks know how to count.
For they all say that the earth is divided into three
parts, Europe, Asia, and Libya, whereas they
ought to add a fourth part, the Delta of Egypt,
since they do not include it either in Asia or
Libya. For is it not their theory that the Nile sep-
arates Asia from Libya? As the Nile, therefore,

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splits in two at the apex of the Delta, the Delta
itself must be a separate country, not contained in
either Asia or Libya.

Here I take my leave of the opinions of the
Ionians, and proceed to deliver my own senti-
ments on these subjects. I consider Egypt to be the
whole country inhabited by the Egyptians, just as
Cilicia is the tract occupied by the Cilicians, and
Assyria that possessed by the Assyrians. And I
regard the only proper boundary-line between
Libya and Asia to be that which is marked out by
the Egyptian frontier. For if we take the bound-
ary-line commonly received by the Greeks, we
must regard Egypt as divided, along its whole
length from Elephantine and the Cataracts to
Cercasorus, into two parts, each belonging to a
different portion of the world, one to Asia, the
other to Libya; since the Nile divides Egypt in two
from the Cataracts to the sea, running as far as
the city of Cercasorus in a single stream, but at
that point separating into three branches, where-
of the one which bends eastward is called the
Pelusiac mouth, and that which slants to the west,

The Histories–Book Two

the Canobic. Meanwhile the straight course of the
stream, which comes down from the upper coun-
try and meets the apex of the Delta, continues on,
dividing the Delta down the middle, and empties
itself into the sea by a mouth, which is as cele-
brated, and carries as large a body of water, as
most of the others, the mouth called the
Sebennytic. Besides these there are two other
mouths which run out of the Sebennytic called
respectively the Saitic and the Mendesian. The
Bolbitine mouth, and the Bucolic, are not natural
branches, but channels made by excavation.

My judgment as to the extent of Egypt is con-
firmed by an oracle delivered at the shrine of
Ammon, of which I had no knowledge at all until
after I had formed my opinion. It happened that
the people of the cities Marea and Apis, who live
in the part of Egypt that borders on Libya, took a
dislike to the religious usages of the country con-
cerning sacrificial animals, and wished no longer
to be restricted from eating the flesh of cows. So,
as they believed themselves to be Libyans and not
Egyptians, they sent to the shrine to say that, hav-

Herodotus

ing nothing in common with the Egyptians, nei-
ther inhabiting the Delta nor using the Egyptian
tongue, they claimed to be allowed to eat whatev-
er they pleased. Their request, however, was
refused by the god, who declared in reply that
Egypt was the entire tract of country which the
Nile overspreads and irrigates, and the Egyptians
were the people who lived below Elephantine,
and drank the waters of that river.

So said the oracle. Now the Nile, when it over-
flows, floods not only the Delta, but also the
tracts of country on both sides the stream which
are thought to belong to Libya and Arabia, in
some places reaching to the extent of two days’
journey from its banks, in some even exceeding
that distance, but in others falling short of it.

Concerning the nature of the river, I was not able
to gain any information either from the priests or
from others. I was particularly anxious to learn
from them why the Nile, at the commencement of
the summer solstice, begins to rise, and continues
to increase for a hundred days- and why, as soon

The Histories–Book Two

as that number is past, it forthwith retires and
contracts its stream, continuing low during the
whole of the winter until the summer solstice
comes round again. On none of these points could
I obtain any explanation from the inhabitants,
though I made every inquiry, wishing to know
what was commonly reported- they could neither
tell me what special virtue the Nile has which
makes it so opposite in its nature to all other
streams, nor why, unlike every other river, it gives
forth no breezes from its surface.

Some of the Greeks, however, wishing to get a
reputation for cleverness, have offered explana-
tions of the phenomena of the river, for which
they have accounted in three different ways. Two
of these I do not think it worth while to speak of,
further than simply to mention what they are.
One pretends that the Etesian winds cause the rise
of the river by preventing the Nile-water from
running off into the sea. But in the first place it
has often happened, when the Etesian winds did
not blow, that the Nile has risen according to its

Herodotus

usual wont; and further, if the Etesian winds pro-
duced the effect, the other rivers which flow in a
direction opposite to those winds ought to present
the same phenomena as the Nile, and the more so
as they are all smaller streams, and have a weak-
er current. But these rivers, of which there are
many both in Syria and Libya, are entirely unlike
the Nile in this respect.

The second opinion is even more unscientific than
the one just mentioned, and also, if I may so say,
more marvellous. It is that the Nile acts so
strangely, because it flows from the ocean, and
that the ocean flows all round the earth.

The third explanation, which is very much more
plausible than either of the others, is positively the
furthest from the truth; for there is really nothing
in what it says, any more than in the other theo-
ries. It is, that the inundation of the Nile is caused
by the melting of snows. Now, as the Nile flows
out of Libya, through Ethiopia, into Egypt, how
is it possible that it can be formed of melted snow,
running, as it does, from the hottest regions of the

The Histories–Book Two

world into cooler countries? Many are the proofs
whereby any one capable of reasoning on the sub-
ject may be convinced that it is most unlikely this
should be the case. The first and strongest argu-
ment is furnished by the winds, which always
blow hot from these regions. The second is that
rain and frost are unknown there. Now whenever
snow falls, it must of necessity rain within five
days;.so that, if there were snow, there must be
rain also in those parts. Thirdly, it is certain that
the natives of the country are black with the heat,
that the kites and the swallows remain there the
whole year, and that the cranes, when they fly
from the rigours of a Scythian winter, flock thith-
er to pass the cold season. If then, in the country
whence the Nile has its source, or in that through
which it flows, there fell ever so little snow, it is
absolutely impossible that any of these circum-
stances could take place.

As for the writer who attributes the phenomenon
to the ocean, his account is involved in such
obscurity that it is impossible to disprove it by
argument. For my part I know of no river called

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Ocean, and I think that Homer, or one of the ear-
lier poets, invented the name, and introduced it
into his poetry.

Perhaps, after censuring all the opinions that have
been put forward on this obscure subject, one
ought to propose some theory of one’s own. I will
therefore proceed to explain what I think to be
the reason of the Nile’s swelling in the summer
time. During the winter, the sun is driven out of
his usual course by the storms, and removes to the
upper parts of Libya. This is the whole secret in
the fewest possible words; for it stands to reason
that the country to which the Sun-god approach-
es the nearest, and which he passes most directly
over, will be scantest of water, and that there the
streams which feed the rivers will shrink the most.

To explain, however, more at length, the case is
this. The sun, in his passage across the upper
parts of Libya, affects them in the following way.
As the air in those regions is constantly clear, and
the country warm through the absence of cold
winds, the sun in his passage across them acts

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upon them exactly as he wont to act elsewhere in
summer, when his path is in the middle of heaven-
that is, he attracts the water. After attracting it, he
again repels it into the upper regions, where the
winds lay hold of it, scatter it, and reduce it to a
vapour, whence it naturally enough comes to pass
that the winds which blow from this quarter- the
south and south-west- are of all winds the most
rainy. And my own opinion is that the sun does
not get rid of all the water which he draws year
by year from the Nile, but retains some about
him. When the winter begins to soften, the sun
goes back again to his old place in the middle of
the heaven, and proceeds to attract water equally
from all countries. Till then the other rivers run
big, from the quantity of rain-water which they
bring down from countries where so much mois-
ture falls that all the land is cut into gullies; but in
summer, when the showers fail, and the sun
attracts their water, they become low. The Nile,
on the contrary, not deriving any of its bulk from
rains, and being in winter subject to the attraction
of the sun, naturally runs at that season, unlike all
other streams, with a less burthen of water than

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in the summer time. For in summer it is exposed
to attraction equally with all other rivers, but in
winter it suffers alone. The sun, therefore, I
regard as the sole cause of the phenomenon.

It is the sun also, in my opinion, which, by heat-
ing the space through which it passes, makes the
air in Egypt so dry. There is thus perpetual sum-
mer in the upper parts of Libya. Were the position
of the heavenly regions reversed, so that the place
where now the north wind and the winter have
their dwelling became the station of the south
wind and of the noon-day, while, on the other
hand, the station of the south wind became that
of the north, the consequence would be that the
sun, driven from the mid-heaven by the winter
and the northern gales, would betake himself to
the upper parts of Europe, as he now does to
those of Libya, and then I believe his passage
across Europe would affect the Ister exactly as the
Nile is affected at the present day.

And with respect to the fact that no breeze blows
from the Nile, I am of opinion that no wind is

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likely to arise in very hot countries, for breezes
love to blow from some cold quarter.

Let us leave these things, however, to their natur-
al course, to continue as they are and have been
from the beginning. With regard to the sources of
the Nile, I have found no one among all those
with whom I have conversed, whether Egyptians,
Libyans, or Greeks, who professed to have any
knowledge, except a single person. He was the
scribe who kept the register of the sacred trea-
sures of Minerva in the city of Sais, and he did not
seem to me to be in earnest when he said that he
knew them perfectly well. His story was as fol-
lows:- “Between Syene, a city of the Thebais, and
Elephantine, there are” (he said) “two hills with
sharp conical tops; the name of the one is Crophi,
of the other, Mophi. Midway between them are
the fountains of the Nile, fountains which it is
impossible to fathom. Half the water runs north-
ward into Egypt, half to the south towards
Ethiopia.” The fountains were known to be
unfathomable, he declared, because
Psammetichus, an Egyptian king, had made trial

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of them. He had caused a rope to be made, many
thousand fathoms in length, and had sounded the
fountain with it, but could find no bottom. By
this the scribe gave me to understand, if there was
any truth at all in what he said, that in this foun-
tain there are certain strong eddies, and a regurgi-
tation, owing to the force wherewith the water
dashes against the mountains, and hence a
Sounding-line cannot be got to reach the bottom
of the spring.

No other information on this head could I obtain
from any quarter. All that I succeeded in learning
further of the more distant portions of the Nile,
by ascending myself as high as Elephantine and
making inquiries concerning the parts beyond,
was the following:- As one advances beyond
Elephantine, the land rises. Hence it is necessary
in this part of the river to attach a rope to the boat
on each side, as men harness an ox, and so pro-
ceed on the journey. If the rope snaps, the vessel is
borne away down stream by the force of the cur-
rent. The navigation continues the same for four
days, the river winding greatly, like the Maeander,

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and the distance traversed amounting to twelve
schoenes. Here you come upon a smooth and
level plain, where the Nile flows in two branches,
round an island called Tachompso. The country
above Elephantine is inhabited by the Ethiopians,
who possess one-half of this island, the Egyptians
occupying the other. Above the island there is a
great lake, the shores of which are inhabited by
Ethiopian nomads; after passing it, you come
again to the stream of the Nile, which runs into
the lake. Here you land, and travel for forty days
along the banks of the river, since it is impossible
to proceed further in a boat on account of the
sharp peaks which jut out from the water, and the
sunken rocks which abound in that part of the
stream. When you have passed this portion of the
river in the space of forty days, you go on board
another boat and proceed by water for twelve
days more, at the end of which time you reach a
great city called Meroe, which is said to be the
capital of the other Ethiopians. The only gods
worshipped by the inhabitants are Jupiter and
Bacchus, to whom great honours are paid. There
is an oracle of Jupiter in the city, which directs the

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warlike expeditions of the Ethiopians; when it
commands they go to war, and in whatever direc-
tion it bids them march, thither straightway they
carry their arms.

On leaving this city, and again mounting the
stream, in the same space of time which it took
you to reach the capital from Elephantine, you
come to the Deserters, who bear the name of
Asmach. This word, translated into our language,
means “the men who stand on the left hand of the
king.” These Deserters are Egyptians of the war-
rior caste, who, to the number of two hundred
and forty thousand, went over to the Ethiopians
in the reign of king Psammetichus. The cause of
their desertion was the following:- Three gar-
risons were maintained in Egypt at that time, one
in the city of Elephantine against the Ethiopians,
another in the Pelusiac Daphnae, against the
Syrians and Arabians, and a third, against the
Libyans, in Marea. (The very same posts are to
this day occupied by the Persians, whose forces
are in garrison both in Daphnae and in
Elephantine.) Now it happened, that on one occa-

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sion the garrisons were not relieved during the
space of three years; the soldiers, therefore, at the
end of that time, consulted together, and having
determined by common consent to revolt,
marched away towards Ethiopia. Psammetichus,
informed of the movement, set out in pursuit, and
coming up with them, besought them with many
words not to desert the gods of their country, nor
abandon their wives and children. “Nay, but,”
said one of the deserters with an unseemly ges-
ture, “wherever we go, we are sure enough of
finding wives and children.” Arrived in Ethiopia,
they placed themselves at the disposal of the king.
In return, he made them a present of a tract of
land which belonged to certain Ethiopians with
whom he was at feud, bidding them expel the
inhabitants and take possession of their territory.
From the time that this settlement was formed,
their acquaintance with Egyptian manners has
tended to civilise the Ethiopians.

Thus the course of the Nile is known, not only
throughout Egypt, but to the extent of four
months’ journey either by land or water above the

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Egyptian boundary; for on calculation it will be
found that it takes that length of time to travel
from Elephantine to the country of the Deserters.
There the direction of the river is from west to
east. Beyond, no one has any certain knowledge
of its course, since the country is uninhabited by
reason of the excessive heat.

I did hear, indeed, what I will now relate, from
certain natives of Cyrene. Once upon a time, they
said, they were on a visit to the oracular shrine of
Ammon, when it chanced that in the course of
conversation with Etearchus, the Ammonian
king, the talk fell upon the Nile, how that its
sources were unknown to all men. Etearchus
upon this mentioned that some Nasamonians had
once come to his court, and when asked if they
could give any information concerning the unin-
habited parts of Libya, had told the following
tale. (The Nasamonians are a Libyan race who
occupy the Syrtis, and a tract of no great size
towards the east.) They said there had grown up
among them some wild young men, the sons of
certain chiefs, who, when they came to man’s

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estate, indulged in all manner of extravagancies,
and among other things drew lots for five of their
number to go and explore the desert parts of
Libya, and try if they could not penetrate further
than any had done previously. The coast of Libya
along the sea which washes it to the north,
throughout its entire length from Egypt to Cape
Soloeis, which is its furthest point, is inhabited by
Libyans of many distinct tribes who possess the
whole tract except certain portions which belong
to the Phoenicians and the Greeks. Above the
coast-line and the country inhabited by the mar-
itime tribes, Libya is full of wild beasts; while
beyond the wild beast region there is a tract
which is wholly sand, very scant of water, and
utterly and entirely a desert. The young men
therefore, despatched on this errand by their com-
rades with a plentiful supply of water and provi-
sions, travelled at first through the inhabited
region, passing which they came to the wild beast
tract, whence they finally entered upon the desert,
which they proceeded to cross in a direction from
east to west. After journeying for many days over
a wide extent of sand, they came at last to a plain

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where they observed trees growing; approaching
them, and seeing fruit on them, they proceeded to
gather it. While they were thus engaged, there
came upon them some dwarfish men, under the
middle height, who seized them and carried them
off. The Nasamonians could not understand a
word of their language, nor had they any acquain-
tance with the language of the Nasamonians.
They were led across extensive marshes, and
finally came to a town, where all the men were of
the height of their conductors, and black-com-
plexioned. A great river flowed by the town, run-
ning from west to east, and containing crocodiles.

Here let me dismiss Etearchus the Ammonian,
and his story, only adding that (according to the
Cyrenaeans) he declared that the Nasamonians
got safe back to their country, and that the men
whose city they had reached were a nation of sor-
cerers. With respect to the river which ran by their
town, Etearchus conjectured it to be the Nile; and
reason favours that view. For the Nile certainly
flows out of Libya, dividing it down the middle,
and as I conceive, judging the unknown from the

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known, rises at the same distance from its mouth
as the Ister. This latter river has its source in the
country of the Celts near the city Pyrene, and runs
through the middle of Europe, dividing it into two
portions. The Celts live beyond the pillars of
Hercules, and border on the Cynesians, who
dwell at the extreme west of Europe. Thus the
Ister flows through the whole of Europe before it
finally empties itself into the Euxine at Istria, one
of the colonies of the Milesians.

Now as this river flows through regions that are
inhabited, its course is perfectly well known; but
of the sources of the Nile no one can give any
account, since Libya, the country through which
it passes, is desert and without inhabitants. As far
as it was possible to get information by inquiry, I
have given a description of the stream. It enters
Egypt from the parts beyond. Egypt lies almost
exactly opposite the mountainous portion of
Cilicia, whence a lightly-equipped traveller may
reach Sinope on the Euxine in five days by the
direct route. Sinope lies opposite the place where
the Ister falls into the sea. My opinion therefore is

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that the Nile, as it traverses the whole of Libya, is
of equal length with the Ister. And here I take my
leave of this subject.

Concerning Egypt itself I shall extend my remarks
to a great length, because there is no country that
possesses so many wonders, nor any that has such
a number of works which defy description. Not
only is the climate different from that of the rest
of the world, and the rivers unlike any other
rivers, but the people also, in most of their man-
ners and customs, exactly reverse the common
practice of mankind. The women attend the mar-
kets and trade, while the men sit at home at the
loom; and here, while the rest of the world works
the woof up the warp, the Egyptians work it
down; the women likewise carry burthens upon
their shoulders, while the men carry them upon
their heads. They eat their food out of doors in
the streets, but retire for private purposes to their
houses, giving as a reason that what is unseemly,
but necessary, ought to be done in secret, but
what has nothing unseemly about it, should be
done openly. A woman cannot serve the priestly

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office, either for god or goddess, but men are
priests to both; sons need not support their par-
ents unless they choose, but daughters must,
whether they choose or no.

In other countries the priests have long hair, in
Egypt their heads are shaven; elsewhere it is cus-
tomary, in mourning, for near relations to cut
their hair close: the Egyptians, who wear no hair
at any other time, when they lose a relative, let
their beards and the hair of their heads grow long.
All other men pass their lives separate from ani-
mals, the Egyptians have animals always living
with them; others make barley and wheat their
food; it is a disgrace to do so in Egypt, where the
grain they live on is spelt, which some call zea.
Dough they knead with their feet; but they mix
mud, and even take up dirt, with their hands.
They are the only people in the world- they at
least, and such as have learnt the practice from
them- who use circumcision. Their men wear two
garments apiece, their women but one. They put
on the rings and fasten the ropes to sails inside;
others put them outside. When they write or cal-

Herodotus

culate, instead of going, like the Greeks, from left
to right, they move their hand from right to left;
and they insist, notwithstanding, that it is they
who go to the right, and the Greeks who go to the
left. They have two quite different kinds of writ-
ing, one of which is called sacred, the other com-
mon.

They are religious to excess, far beyond any other
race of men, and use the following ceremonies:-
They drink out of brazen cups, which they scour
every day: there is no exception to this practice.
They wear linen garments, which they are spe-
cially careful to have always fresh washed. They
practise circumcision for the sake of cleanliness,
considering it better to be cleanly than comely.
The priests shave their whole body every other
day, that no lice or other impure thing may adhere
to them when they are engaged in the service of
the gods. Their dress is entirely of linen, and their
shoes of the papyrus plant: it is not lawful for
them to wear either dress or shoes of any other
material. They bathe twice every day in cold
water, and twice each night; besides which they

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observe, so to speak, thousands of ceremonies.
They enjoy, however, not a few advantages. They
consume none of their own property, and are at
no expense for anything; but every day bread is
baked for them of the sacred corn, and a plentiful
supply of beef and of goose’s flesh is assigned to
each, and also a portion of wine made from the
grape. Fish they are not allowed to eat; and
beans- which none of the Egyptians ever sow, or
eat, if they come up of their own accord, either
raw or boiled- the priests will not even endure to
look on, since they consider it an unclean kind of
pulse. Instead of a single priest, each god has the
attendance of a college, at the head of which is a
chief priest; when one of these dies, his son is
appointed in his room.

Male kine are reckoned to belong to Epaphus,
and are therefore tested in the following manner:-
One of the priests appointed for the purpose
searches to see if there is a single black hair on the
whole body, since in that case the beast is unclean.
He examines him all over, standing on his legs,
and again laid upon his back; after which he takes

Herodotus

the tongue out of his mouth, to see if it be clean
in respect of the prescribed marks (what they are
I will mention elsewhere); he also inspects the
hairs of the tail, to observe if they grow naturally.
If the animal is pronounced clean in all these var-
ious points, the priest marks him by twisting a
piece of papyrus round his horns, and attaching
thereto some sealing-clay, which he then stamps
with his own signet-ring. After this the beast is led
away; and it is forbidden, under the penalty of
death, to sacrifice an animal which has not been
marked in this way.

The following is their manner of sacrifice:- They
lead the victim, marked with their signet, to the
altar where they are about to offer it, and setting
the wood alight, pour a libation of wine upon the
altar in front of the victim, and at the same time
invoke the god. Then they slay the animal, and
cutting off his head, proceed to flay the body.
Next they take the head, and heaping impreca-
tions on it, if there is a market-place and a body
of Greek traders in the city, they carry it there and
sell it instantly; if, however, there are no Greeks

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among them, they throw the head into the river.
The imprecation is to this effect:- They pray that
if any evil is impending either over those who sac-
rifice, or over universal Egypt, it may be made to
fall upon that head. These practices, the impreca-
tions upon the heads, and the libations of wine,
prevail all over Egypt, and extend to victims of all
sorts; and hence the Egyptians will never eat the
head of any animal.

The disembowelling and burning are, however,
different in different sacrifices. I will mention the
mode in use with respect to the goddess whom
they regard as the greatest, and honour with the
chiefest festival. When they have flayed their steer
they pray, and when their prayer is ended they
take the paunch of the animal out entire, leaving
the intestines and the fat inside the body; they
then cut off the legs, the ends of the loins, the
shoulders, and the neck; and having so done, they
fill the body of the steer with clean bread, honey,
raisins, figs, frankincense, myrrh, and other aro-
matics. Thus filled, they burn the body, pouring
over it great quantities of oil. Before offering the

Herodotus

sacrifice they fast, and while the bodies of the vic-
tims are being consumed they beat themselves.
Afterwards, when they have concluded this part
of the ceremony, they have the other parts of the
victim served up to them for a repast.

The male kine, therefore, if clean, and the male
calves, are used for sacrifice by the Egyptians uni-
versally; but the females they are not allowed to
sacrifice, since they are sacred to Isis. The statue
of this goddess has the form of a woman but with
horns like a cow, resembling thus the Greek rep-
resentations of Io; and the Egyptians, one and all,
venerate cows much more highly than any other
animal. This is the reason why no native of Egypt,
whether man or woman, will give a Greek a kiss,
or use the knife of a Greek, or his spit, or his caul-
dron, or taste the flesh of an ox, known to be
pure, if it has been cut with a Greek knife. When
kine die, the following is the manner of their
sepulture:- The females are thrown into the river;
the males are buried in the suburbs of the towns,
with one or both of their horns appearing above
the surface of the ground to mark the place. When

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the bodies are decayed, a boat comes, at an
appointed time, from the island called Prosopitis,-
which is a portion of the Delta, nine schoenes in
circumference,- and calls at the several cities in
turn to collect the bones of the oxen. Prosopitis is
a district containing several cities; the name of
that from which the boats come is Atarbechis.
Venus has a temple there of much sanctity. Great
numbers of men go forth from this city and pro-
ceed to the other towns, where they dig up the
bones, which they take away with them and bury
together in one place. The same practice prevails
with respect to the interment of all other cattle-
the law so determining; they do not slaughter any
of them.

Such Egyptians as possess a temple of the Theban
Jove, or live in the Thebaic canton, offer no sheep
in sacrifice, but only goats; for the Egyptians do
not all worship the same gods, excepting Isis and
Osiris, the latter of whom they say is the Grecian
Bacchus. Those, on the contrary, who possess a
temple dedicated to Mendes, or belong to the
Mendesian canton, abstain from offering goats,

Herodotus

and sacrifice sheep instead. The Thebans, and
such as imitate them in their practice, give the fol-
lowing account of the origin of the custom:-
“Hercules,” they say, “wished of all things to see
Jove, but Jove did not choose to be seen of him.
At length, when Hercules persisted, Jove hit on a
device- to flay a ram, and, cutting off his head,
hold the head before him, and cover himself with
the fleece. In this guise he showed himself to
Hercules.” Therefore the Egyptians give their
statues of Jupiter the face of a ram: and from
them the practice has passed to the Ammonians,
who are a joint colony of Egyptians and
Ethiopians, speaking a language between the two;
hence also, in my opinion, the latter people took
their name of Ammonians, since the Egyptian
name for Jupiter is Amun. Such, then, is the rea-
son why the Thebans do not sacrifice rams, but
consider them sacred animals. Upon one day in
the year, however, at the festival of Jupiter, they
slay a single ram, and stripping off the fleece,
cover with it the statue of that god, as he once
covered himself, and then bring up to the statue of
Jove an image of Hercules. When this has been

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done, the whole assembly beat their breasts in
mourning for the ram, and afterwards bury him
in a holy sepulchre.

The account which I received of this Hercules
makes him one of the twelve gods. Of the other
Hercules, with whom the Greeks are familiar, I
could hear nothing in any part of Egypt. That the
Greeks, however (those I mean who gave the son
of Amphitryon that name), took the name from
the Egyptians, and not the Egyptians from the
Greeks, is I think clearly proved, among other
arguments, by the fact that both the parents of
Hercules, Amphitryon as well as Alcmena, were
of Egyptian origin. Again, the Egyptians disclaim
all knowledge of the names of Neptune and the
Dioscuri, and do not include them in the number
of their gods; but had they adopted the name of
any god from the Greeks, these would have been
the likeliest to obtain notice, since the Egyptians,
as I am well convinced, practised navigation at
that time, and the Greeks also were some of them
mariners, so that they would have been more like-
ly to know the names of these gods than that of

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Hercules. But the Egyptian Hercules is one of
their ancient gods. Seventeen thousand years
before the reign of Amasis, the twelve gods were,
they affirm, produced from the eight: and of these
twelve, Hercules is one.

In the wish to get the best information that I
could on these matters, I made a voyage to Tyre
in Phoenicia, hearing there was a temple of
Hercules at that place, very highly venerated. I
visited the temple, and found it richly adorned
with a number of offerings, among which were
two pillars, one of pure gold, the other of emer-
ald, shining with great brilliancy at night. In a
conversation which I held with the priests, I
inquired how long their temple had been built,
and found by their answer that they, too, differed
from the Greeks. They said that the temple was
built at the same time that the city was founded,
and that the foundation of the city took place two
thousand three hundred years ago. In Tyre I
remarked another temple where the same god was
worshipped as the Thasian Hercules. So I went on
to Thasos, where I found a temple of Hercules

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which had been built by the Phoenicians who
colonised that island when they sailed in search of
Europa. Even this was five generations earlier
than the time when Hercules, son of Amphitryon,
was born in Greece. These researches show plain-
ly that there is an ancient god Hercules; and my
own opinion is that those Greeks act most wisely
who build and maintain two temples of Hercules,
in the one of which the Hercules worshipped is
known by the name of Olympian, and has sacri-
fice offered to him as an immortal, while in the
other the honours paid are such as are due to a
hero.

The Greeks tell many tales without due investiga-
tion, and among them the following silly fable
respecting Hercules:- “Hercules,” they say, “went
once to Egypt, and there the inhabitants took
him, and putting a chaplet on his head, led him
out in solemn procession, intending to offer him a
sacrifice to Jupiter. For a while he submitted qui-
etly; but when they led him up to the altar and
began the ceremonies, he put forth his strength
and slew them all.” Now to me it seems that such

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a story proves the Greeks to be utterly ignorant of
the character and customs of the people. The
Egyptians do not think it allowable even to sacri-
fice cattle, excepting sheep, and the male kine and
calves, provided they be pure, and also geese.
How, then, can it be believed that they would sac-
rifice men? And again, how would it have been
possible for Hercules alone, and, as they confess,
a mere mortal, to destroy so many thousands? In
saying thus much concerning these matters, may I
incur no displeasure either of god or hero!

I mentioned above that some of the Egyptians
abstain from sacrificing goats, either male or
female. The reason is the following:- These
Egyptians, who are the Mendesians, consider Pan
to be one of the eight gods who existed before the
twelve, and Pan is represented in Egypt by the
painters and the sculptors, just as he is in Greece,
with the face and legs of a goat. They do not,
however, believe this to be his shape, or consider
him in any respect unlike the other gods; but they
represent him thus for a reason which I prefer not
to relate. The Mendesians hold all goats in vener-

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ation, but the male more than the female, giving
the goatherds of the males especial honour. One is
venerated more highly than all the rest, and when
he dies there is a great mourning throughout all
the Mendesian canton. In Egyptian, the goat and
Pan are both called Mendes.

The pig is regarded among them as an unclean
animal, so much so that if a man in passing acci-
dentally touch a pig, he instantly hurries to the
river, and plunges in with all his clothes on.
Hence, too, the swineherds, notwithstanding that
they are of pure Egyptian blood, are forbidden to
enter into any of the temples, which are open to
all other Egyptians; and further, no one will give
his daughter in marriage to a swineherd, or take a
wife from among them, so that the swineherds are
forced to intermarry among themselves. They do
not offer swine in sacrifice to any of their gods,
excepting Bacchus and the Moon, whom they
honour in this way at the same time, sacrificing
pigs to both of them at the same full moon, and
afterwards eating of the flesh. There is a reason
alleged by them for their detestation of swine at

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all other seasons, and their use of them at this fes-
tival, with which I am well acquainted, but which
I do not think it proper to mention. The follow-
ing is the mode in which they sacrifice the swine
to the Moon:- As soon as the victim is slain, the
tip of the tail, the spleen, and the caul are put
together, and having been covered with all the fat
that has been found in the animal’s belly, are
straightway burnt. The remainder of the flesh is
eaten on the same day that the sacrifice is offered,
which is the day of the full moon: at any other
time they would not so much as taste it. The
poorer sort, who cannot afford live pigs, form
pigs of dough, which they bake and offer in sacri-
fice.

To Bacchus, on the eve of his feast, every Egyptian
sacrifices a hog before the door of his house,
which is then given back to the swineherd by
whom it was furnished, and by him carried away.
In other respects the festival is celebrated almost
exactly as Bacchic festivals are in Greece, except-
ing that the Egyptians have no choral dances.
They also use instead of phalli another invention,

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consisting of images a cubit high, pulled by
strings, which the women carry round to the vil-
lages. A piper goes in front, and the women fol-
low, singing hymns in honour of Bacchus. They
give a religious reason for the peculiarities of the
image.

Melampus, the son of Amytheon, cannot (I think)
have been ignorant of this ceremony- nay, he
must, I should conceive, have been well acquaint-
ed with it. He it was who introduced into Greece
the name of Bacchus, the ceremonial of his wor-
ship, and the procession of the phallus. He did
not, however, so completely apprehend the whole
doctrine as to be able to communicate it entirely,
but various sages since his time have carried out
his teaching to greater perfection. Still it is certain
that Melampus introduced the phallus, and that
the Greeks learnt from him the ceremonies which
they now practise. I therefore maintain that
Melampus, who was a wise man, and had
acquired the art of divination, having become
acquainted with the worship of Bacchus through
knowledge derived from Egypt, introduced it into

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Greece, with a few slight changes, at the same
time that he brought in various other practices.
For I can by no means allow that it is by mere
coincidence that the Bacchic ceremonies in Greece
are so nearly the same as the Egyptian- they
would then have been more Greek in their char-
acter, and less recent in their origin. Much less can
I admit that the Egyptians borrowed these cus-
toms, or any other, from the Greeks. My belief is
that Melampus got his knowledge of them from
Cadmus the Tyrian, and the followers whom he
brought from Phoenicia into the country which is
now called Boeotia.

Almost all the names of the gods came into
Greece from Egypt. My inquiries prove that they
were all derived from a foreign source, and my
opinion is that Egypt furnished the greater num-
ber. For with the exception of Neptune and the
Dioscuri, whom I mentioned above, and Juno,
Vesta, Themis, the Graces, and the Nereids, the
other gods have been known from time immemo-
rial in Egypt. This I assert on the authority of the

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Egyptians themselves. The gods, with whose
names they profess themselves unacquainted, the
Greeks received, I believe, from the Pelasgi,
except Neptune. Of him they got their knowledge
from the Libyans, by whom he has been always
honoured, and who were anciently the only peo-
ple that had a god of the name. The Egyptians dif-
fer from the Greeks also in paying no divine hon-
ours to heroes.

Besides these which have been here mentioned,
there are many other practices whereof I shall
speak hereafter, which the Greeks have borrowed
from Egypt. The peculiarity, however, which they
observe in their statues of Mercury they did not
derive from the Egyptians, but from the Pelasgi;
from them the Athenians first adopted it, and
afterwards it passed from the Athenians to the
other Greeks. For just at the time when the
Athenians were entering into the Hellenic body,
the Pelasgi came to live with them in their coun-
try, whence it was that the latter came first to be
regarded as Greeks. Whoever has been initiated

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into the mysteries of the Cabiri will understand
what I mean. The Samothracians received these
mysteries from the Pelasgi, who, before they went
to live in Attica, were dwellers in Samothrace, and
imparted their religious ceremonies to the inhabi-
tants. The Athenians, then, who were the first of
all the Greeks to make their statues of Mercury in
this way, learnt the practice from the Pelasgians;
and by this people a religious account of the mat-
ter is given, which is explained in the
Samothracian mysteries.

In early times the Pelasgi, as I know by informa-
tion which I got at Dodona, offered sacrifices of
all kinds, and prayed to the gods, but had no dis-
tinct names or appellations for them, since they
had never heard of any. They called them gods
(Theoi, disposers), because they disposed and
arranged all things in such a beautiful order. After
a long lapse of time the names of the gods came
to Greece from Egypt, and the Pelasgi learnt
them, only as yet they knew nothing of Bacchus,
of whom they first heard at a much later date.

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Not long after the arrival of the names they sent
to consult the oracle at Dodona about them. This
is the most ancient oracle in Greece, and at that
time there was no other. To their question,
“Whether they should adopt the names that had
been imported from the foreigners?” the oracle
replied by recommending their use. Thenceforth
in their sacrifices the Pelasgi made use of the
names of the gods, and from them the names
passed afterwards to the Greeks.

Whence the gods severally sprang, whether or no
they had all existed from eternity, what forms
they bore- these are questions of which the Greeks
knew nothing until the other day, so to speak. For
Homer and Hesiod were the first to compose
Theogonies, and give the gods their epithets, to
allot them their several offices and occupations,
and describe their forms; and they lived but four
hundred years before my time, as I believe. As for
the poets who are thought by some to be earlier
than these, they are, in my judgment, decidedly
later writers. In these matters I have the authority

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of the priestesses of Dodona for the former por-
tion of my statements; what I have said of Homer
and Hesiod is my own opinion.

The following tale is commonly told in Egypt con-
cerning the oracle of Dodona in Greece, and that
of Ammon in Libya. My informants on the point
were the priests of Jupiter at Thebes. They said
“that two of the sacred women were once carried
off from Thebes by the Phoenicians, and that the
story went that one of them was sold into Libya,
and the other into Greece, and these women were
the first founders of the oracles in the two coun-
tries.” On my inquiring how they came to know
so exactly what became of the women, they
answered, “that diligent search had been made
after them at the time, but that it had not been
found possible to discover where they were; after-
wards, however, they received the information
which they had given me.”

This was what I heard from the priests at Thebes;
at Dodona, however, the women who deliver the
oracles relate the matter as follows:- “Two black

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doves flew away from Egyptian Thebes, and
while one directed its flight to Libya, the other
came to them. She alighted on an oak, and sitting
there began to speak with a human voice, and
told them that on the spot where she was, there
should henceforth be an oracle of Jove. They
understood the announcement to be from heaven,
so they set to work at once and erected the shrine.
The dove which flew to Libya bade the Libyans to
establish there the oracle of Ammon.” This like-
wise is an oracle of Jupiter. The persons from
whom I received these particulars were three
priestesses of the Dodonaeans, the eldest
Promeneia, the next Timarete, and the youngest
Nicandra- what they said was confirmed by the
other Dodonaeans who dwell around the temple.

My own opinion of these matters is as follows:- I
think that, if it be true that the Phoenicians car-
ried off the holy women, and sold them for slaves,
the one into Libya and the other into Greece, or
Pelasgia (as it was then called), this last must have
been sold to the Thesprotians. Afterwards, while
undergoing servitude in those parts, she built

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under a real oak a temple to Jupiter, her thoughts
in her new abode reverting- as it was likely they
would do, if she had been an attendant in a tem-
ple of Jupiter at Thebes- to that particular god.
Then, having acquired a knowledge of the Greek
tongue, she set up an oracle. She also mentioned
that her sister had been sold for a slave into Libya
by the same persons as herself.

The Dodonaeans called the women doves because
they were foreigners, and seemed to them to make
a noise like birds. After a while the dove spoke
with a human voice, because the woman, whose
foreign talk had previously sounded to them like
the chattering of a bird, acquired the power of
speaking what they could understand. For how
can it be conceived possible that a dove should
really speak with the voice of a man? Lastly, by
calling the dove black the Dodonaeans indicated
that the woman was an Egyptian. And certainly
the character of the oracles at Thebes and
Dodona is very similar. Besides this form of div-
ination, the Greeks learnt also divination by
means of victims from the Egyptians.

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The Egyptians were also the first to introduce
solemn assemblies, processions, and litanies to the
gods; of all which the Greeks were taught the use
by them. It seems to me a sufficient proof of this
that in Egypt these practices have been established
from remote antiquity, while in Greece they are
only recently known.

The Egyptians do not hold a single solemn assem-
bly, but several in the course of the year. Of these
the chief, which is better attended than any other,
is held at the city of Bubastis in honour of Diana.
The next in importance is that which takes place
at Busiris, a city situated in the very middle of the
Delta; it is in honour of Isis, who is called in the
Greek tongue Demiter (Ceres). There is a third
great festival in Sais to Minerva, a fourth in
Heliopolis to the Sun, a fifth in Buto to Latona,
and a sixth in Papremis to Mars.

The following are the proceedings on occasion of
the assembly at Bubastis:- Men and women come
sailing all together, vast numbers in each boat,
many of the women with castanets, which they

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strike, while some of the men pipe during the
whole time of the voyage; the remainder of the
voyagers, male and female, sing the while, and
make a clapping with their hands. When they
arrive opposite any of the towns upon the banks
of the stream, they approach the shore, and, while
some of the women continue to play and sing,
others call aloud to the females of the place and
load them with abuse, while a certain number
dance, and some standing up uncover themselves.
After proceeding in this way all along the river-
course, they reach Bubastis, where they celebrate
the feast with abundant sacrifices. More grape-
wine is consumed at this festival than in all the
rest of the year besides. The number of those who
attend, counting only the men and women and
omitting the children, amounts, according to the
native reports, to seven hundred thousand.

The ceremonies at the feast of Isis in the city of
Busiris have been already spoken of. It is there
that the whole multitude, both of men and
women, many thousands in number, beat them-

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selves at the close of the sacrifice, in honour of a
god, whose name a religious scruple forbids me to
mention. The Carian dwellers in Egypt proceed
on this occasion to still greater lengths, even cut-
ting their faces with their knives, whereby they let
it been seen that they are not Egyptians but for-
eigners.

At Sais, when the assembly takes place for the sac-
rifices, there is one night on which the inhabitants
all burn a multitude of lights in the open air round
their houses. They use lamps in the shape of flat
saucers filled with a mixture of oil and salt, on the
top of which the wick floats. These burn the whole
night, and give to the festival the name of the Feast
of Lamps. The Egyptians who are absent from the
festival observe the night of the sacrifice, no less
than the rest, by a general lighting of lamps; so
that the illumination is not confined to the city of
Sais, but extends over the whole of Egypt. And
there is a religious reason assigned for the special
honour paid to this night, as well as for the illu-
mination which accompanies it.

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At Heliopolis and Buto the assemblies are merely
for the purpose of sacrifice; but at Papremis,
besides the sacrifices and other rites which are
performed there as elsewhere, the following cus-
tom is observed:- When the sun is getting low, a
few only of the priests continue occupied about
the image of the god, while the greater number,
armed with wooden clubs, take their station at
the portal of the temple. Opposite to them is
drawn up a body of men, in number above a
thousand, armed, like the others, with clubs, con-
sisting of persons engaged in the performance of
their vows. The image of the god, which is kept in
a small wooden shrine covered with plates of
gold, is conveyed from the temple into a second
sacred building the day before the festival begins.
The few priests still in attendance upon the image
place it, together with the shrine containing it, on
a four-wheeled car, and begin to drag it along; the
others stationed at the gateway of the temple,
oppose its admission. Then the votaries come for-
ward to espouse the quarrel of the god, and set
upon the opponents, who are sure to offer resis-
tance. A sharp fight with clubs ensues, in which

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heads are commonly broken on both sides. Many,
I am convinced, die of the wounds that they
receive, though the Egyptians insist that no one is
ever killed.

The natives give the subjoined account of this fes-
tival. They say that the mother of the god Mars
once dwelt in the temple. Brought up at a distance
from his parent, when he grew to man’s estate he
conceived a wish to visit her. Accordingly he
came, but the attendants, who had never seen him
before, refused him entrance, and succeeded in
keeping him out. So he went to another city and
collected a body of men, with whose aid he han-
dled the attendants very roughly, and forced his
way in to his mother. Hence they say arose the
custom of a fight with sticks in honour of Mars at
this festival.

The Egyptians first made it a point of religion to
have no converse with women in the sacred
places, and not to enter them without washing,
after such converse. Almost all other nations,
except the Greeks and the Egyptians, act differ-

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ently, regarding man as in this matter under no
other law than the brutes. Many animals, they
say, and various kinds of birds, may be seen to
couple in the temples and the sacred precincts,
which would certainly not happen if the gods
were displeased at it. Such are the arguments by
which they defend their practice, but I neverthe-
less can by no means approve of it. In these points
the Egyptians are specially careful, as they are
indeed in everything which concerns their sacred
edifices.

Egypt, though it borders upon Libya, is not a
region abounding in wild animals. The animals
that do exist in the country, whether domesticat-
ed or otherwise, are all regarded as sacred. If I
were to explain why they are consecrated to the
several gods, I should be led to speak of religious
matters, which I particularly shrink from men-
tioning; the points whereon I have touched slight-
ly hitherto have all been introduced from sheer
necessity. Their custom with respect to animals is
as follows:- For every kind there are appointed
certain guardians, some male, some female,

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whose business it is to look after them; and this
honour is made to descend from father to son.
The inhabitants of the various cities, when they
have made a vow to any god, pay it to his animals
in the way which I will now explain. At the time
of making the vow they shave the head of the
child, cutting off all the hair, or else half, or some-
times a third part, which they then weigh in a bal-
ance against a sum of silver; and whatever sum
the hair weighs is presented to the guardian of the
animals, who thereupon cuts up some fish, and
gives it to them for food- such being the stuff
whereon they are fed. When a man has killed one
of the sacred animals, if he did it with malice
prepense, he is punished with death; if unwitting-
ly, he has to pay such a fine as the priests choose
to impose. When an ibis, however, or a hawk is
killed, whether it was done by accident or on pur-
pose, the man must needs die.

The number of domestic animals in Egypt is very
great, and would be still greater were it not for
what befalls the cats. As the females, when they
have kittened, no longer seek the company of the

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males, these last, to obtain once more their com-
panionship, practise a curious artifice. They seize
the kittens, carry them off, and kill them, but do
not cat them afterwards. Upon this the females,
being deprived of their young, and longing to sup-
ply their place, seek the males once more, since
they are particularly fond of their offspring. On
every occasion of a fire in Egypt the strangest
prodigy occurs with the cats. The inhabitants
allow the fire to rage as it pleases, while they
stand about at intervals and watch these animals,
which, slipping by the men or else leaping over
them, rush headlong into the flames. When this
happens, the Egyptians are in deep affliction. If a
cat dies in a private house by a natural death, all
the inmates of the house shave their eyebrows; on
the death of a dog they shave the head and the
whole of the body.

The cats on their decease are taken to the city of
Bubastis, where they are embalmed, after which
they are buried in certain sacred repositories. The
dogs are interred in the cities to which they

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belong, also in sacred burial-places. The same
practice obtains with respect to the ichneumons;
the hawks and shrew-mice, on the contrary, are
conveyed to the city of Buto for burial, and the
ibises to Hermopolis. The bears, which are scarce
in Egypt, and the wolves, which are not much big-
ger than foxes, they bury wherever they happen to
find them lying.

The following are the peculiarities of the croco-
dile:- During the four winter months they eat
nothing; they are four-footed, and live indifferent-
ly on land or in the water. The female lays and
hatches her eggs ashore, passing the greater por-
tion of the day on dry land, but at night retiring
to the river, the water of which is warmer than the
night-air and the dew. Of all known animals this
is the one which from the smallest size grows to
be the greatest: for the egg of the crocodile is but
little bigger than that of the goose, and the young
crocodile is in proportion to the egg; yet when it
is full grown, the animal measures frequently sev-
enteen cubits and even more. It has the eyes of a

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pig, teeth large and tusk-like, of a size propor-
tioned to its frame; unlike any other animal, it is
without a tongue; it cannot move its under-jaw,
and in this respect too it is singular, being the only
animal in the world which moves the upper-jaw
but not the under. It has strong claws and a scaly
skin, impenetrable upon the back. In the water it
is blind, but on land it is very keen of sight. As it
lives chiefly in the river, it has the inside of its
mouth constantly covered with leeches; hence it
happens that, while all the other birds and beasts
avoid it, with the trochilus it lives at peace, since
it owes much to that bird: for the crocodile, when
he leaves the water and comes out upon the land,
is in the habit of lying with his mouth wide open,
facing the western breeze: at such times the
trochilus goes into his mouth and devours the
leeches. This benefits the crocodile, who is
pleased, and takes care not to hurt the trochilus.

The crocodile is esteemed sacred by some of the
Egyptians, by others he is treated as an enemy.
Those who live near Thebes, and those who dwell

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around Lake Moeris, regard them with especial
veneration. In each of these places they keep one
crocodile in particular, who is taught to be tame
and tractable. They adorn his ears with ear-rings
of molten stone or gold, and put bracelets on his
fore-paws, giving him daily a set portion of bread,
with a certain number of victims; and, after hav-
ing thus treated him with the greatest possible
attention while alive, they embalm him when he
dies and bury him in a sacred repository. The peo-
ple of Elephantine on the other hand, are so far
from considering these animals as sacred that they
even eat their flesh. In the Egyptian language they
are not called crocodiles, but Champsae. The
name of crocodiles was given them by the Ionians,
who remarked their resemblance to the lizards,
which in Ionia live in the walls and are called
crocodiles.

The modes of catching the crocodile are many
and various. I shall only describe the one which
seems to me most worthy of mention. They bait a
hook with a chine of pork and let the meat be car-

Herodotus

ried out into the middle of the stream, while the
hunter upon the bank holds a living pig, which he
belabours. The crocodile hears its cries, and mak-
ing for the sound, encounters the pork, which he
instantly swallows down. The men on the shore
haul, and when they have got him to land, the
first thing the hunter does is to plaster his eyes
with mud. This once accomplished, the animal is
despatched with ease, otherwise he gives great
trouble.

The hippopotamus, in the canton of Papremis, is
a sacred animal, but not in any other part of
Egypt. It may be thus described:- It is a
quadruped, cloven-footed, with hoofs like an ox,
and a flat nose. It has the mane and tail of a horse,
huge tusks which are very conspicuous, and a
voice like a horse’s neigh. In size it equals the
biggest oxen, and its skin is so tough that when
dried it is made into javelins.

Otters also are found in the Nile, and are consid-
ered sacred. Only two sorts of fish are venerated,
that called the lepidotus and the eel. These are

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regarded as sacred to the Nile, as likewise among
birds is the vulpanser, or fox-goose.

They have also another sacred bird called the
phoenix which I myself have never seen, except in
pictures. Indeed it is a great rarity, even in Egypt,
only coming there (according to the accounts of
the people of Heliopolis) once in five hundred
years, when the old phoenix dies. Its size and
appearance, if it is like the pictures, are as follow:-
The plumage is partly red, partly golden, while
the general make and size are almost exactly that
of the eagle. They tell a story of what this bird
does, which does not seem to me to be credible:
that he comes all the way from Arabia, and brings
the parent bird, all plastered over with myrrh, to
the temple of the Sun, and there buries the body.
In order to bring him, they say, he first forms a
ball of myrrh as big as he finds that he can carry;
then he hollows out the ball, and puts his parent
inside, after which he covers over the opening
with fresh myrrh, and the ball is then of exactly
the same weight as at first; so he brings it to
Egypt, plastered over as I have said, and deposits

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it in the temple of the Sun. Such is the story they
tell of the doings of this bird.

In the neighbourhood of Thebes there are some
sacred serpents which are perfectly harmless.
They are of small size, and have two horns grow-
ing out of the top of the head. These snakes, when
they die, are buried in the temple of Jupiter, the
god to whom they are sacred.

I went once to a certain place in Arabia, almost
exactly opposite the city of Buto, to make
inquiries concerning the winged serpents. On my
arrival I saw the back-bones and ribs of serpents
in such numbers as it is impossible to describe: of
the ribs there were a multitude of heaps, some
great, some small, some middle-sized. The place
where the bones lie is at the entrance of a narrow
gorge between steep mountains, which there open
upon a spacious plain communicating with the
great plain of Egypt. The story goes that with the
spring the winged snakes come flying from Arabia
towards Egypt, but are met in this gorge by the
birds called ibises, who forbid their entrance and

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destroy them all. The Arabians assert, and the
Egyptians also admit, that it is on account of the
service thus rendered that the Egyptians hold the
ibis in so much reverence.

The ibis is a bird of a deep-black colour, with legs
like a crane; its beak is strongly hooked, and its
size is about that of the land-rail. This is a
description of the black ibis which contends with
the serpents. The commoner sort, for there are
two quite distinct species, has the head and the
whole throat bare of feathers; its general plumage
is white, but the head and neck are jet black, as
also are the tips of the wings and the extremity of
the tail; in its beak and legs it resembles the other
species. The winged serpent is shaped like the
water-snake. Its wings are not feathered, but
resemble very closely those of the bat. And thus I
conclude the subject of the sacred animals.

With respect to the Egyptians themselves, it is to
be remarked that those who live in the corn coun-
try, devoting themselves, as they do, far more
than any other people in the world, to the preser-

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vation of the memory of past actions, are the best
skilled in history of any men that I have ever met.
The following is the mode of life habitual to
them:- For three successive days in each month
they purge the body by means of emetics and
clysters, which is done out of a regard for their
health, since they have a persuasion that every
disease to which men are liable is occasioned by
the substances whereon they feed. Apart from any
such precautions, they are, I believe, next to the
Libyans, the healthiest people in the world- an
effect of their climate, in my opinion, which has
no sudden changes. Diseases almost always attack
men when they are exposed to a change, and
never more than during changes of the weather.
They live on bread made of spelt, which they form
into loaves called in their own tongue cyllestis.
Their drink is a wine which they obtain from bar-
ley, as they have no vines in their country. Many
kinds of fish they eat raw, either salted or dried in
the sun. Quails also, and ducks and small birds,
they eat uncooked, merely first salting them. All
other birds and fishes, excepting those which are

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set apart as sacred, are eaten either roasted or
boiled.

In social meetings among the rich, when the ban-
quet is ended, a servant carries round to the sev-
eral guests a coffin, in which there is a wooden
image of a corpse, carved and painted to resemble
nature as nearly as possible, about a cubit or two
cubits in length. As he shows it to each guest in
turn, the servant says, “Gaze here, and drink and
be merry; for when you die, such will you be.”

The Egyptians adhere to their own national cus-
toms, and adopt no foreign usages. Many of these
customs are worthy of note: among others their
song, the Linus, which is sung under various
names not only in Egypt but in Phoenicia, in
Cyprus, and in other places; and which seems to
be exactly the same as that in use among the
Greeks, and by them called Linus. There were
very many things in Egypt which filled me with
astonishment, and this was one of them. Whence
could the Egyptians have got the Linus? It appears

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to have been sung by them from the very earliest
times. For the Linus in Egyptian is called
Maneros; and they told me that Maneros was the
only son of their first king, and that on his
untimely death he was honoured by the Egyptians
with these dirgelike strains, and in this way they
got their first and only melody.

There is another custom in which the Egyptians
resemble a particular Greek people, namely the
Lacedaemonians. Their young men, when they
meet their elders in the streets, give way to them
and step aside; and if an elder come in where
young men are present, these latter rise from their
seats. In a third point they differ entirely from all
the nations of Greece. Instead of speaking to each
other when they meet in the streets, they make an
obeisance, sinking the hand to the knee.

They wear a linen tunic fringed about the legs,
and called calasiris; over this they have a white
woollen garment thrown on afterwards. Nothing
of woollen, however, is taken into their temples or
buried with them, as their religion forbids it. Here

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their practice resembles the rites called Orphic
and Bacchic, but which are in reality Egyptian
and Pythagorean; for no one initiated in these
mysteries can be buried in a woollen shroud, a
religious reason being assigned for the obser-
vance.

The Egyptians likewise discovered to which of the
gods each month and day is sacred; and found out
from the day of a man’s birth what he will meet
with in the course of his life, and how he will end
his days, and what sort of man he will be- discov-
eries whereof the Greeks engaged in poetry have
made a use. The Egyptians have also discovered
more prognostics than all the rest of mankind
besides. Whenever a prodigy takes place, they
watch and record the result; then, if anything sim-
ilar ever happens again, they expect the same con-
sequences.

With respect to divination, they hold that it is a
gift which no mortal possesses, but only certain of
the gods: thus they have an oracle of Hercules,
one of Apollo, of Minerva, of Diana, of Mars,

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and of Jupiter. Besides these, there is the oracle of
Latona at Buto, which is held in much higher
repute than any of the rest. The mode of deliver-
ing the oracles is not uniform, but varies at the
different shrines.

Medicine is practised among them on a plan of
separation; each physician treats a single disorder,
and no more: thus the country swarms with med-
ical practitioners, some undertaking to cure dis-
eases of the eye, others of the head, others again
of the teeth, others of the intestines, and some
those which are not local.

The following is the way in which they conduct
their mournings and their funerals:- On the death
in any house of a man of consequence, forthwith
the women of the family beplaster their heads,
and sometimes even their faces, with mud; and
then, leaving the body indoors, sally forth and
wander through the city, with their dress fastened
by a band, and their bosoms bare, beating them-
selves as they walk. All the female relations join
them and do the same. The men too, similarly

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begirt, beat their breasts separately. When these
ceremonies are over, the body is carried away to
be embalmed.

There are a set of men in Egypt who practice the
art of embalming, and make it their proper busi-
ness. These persons, when a body is brought to
them, show the bearers various models of
corpses, made in wood, and painted so as to
resemble nature. The most perfect is said to be
after the manner of him whom I do not think it
religious to name in connection with such a mat-
ter; the second sort is inferior to the first, and
less costly; the third is the cheapest of all. All this
the embalmers explain, and then ask in which
way it is wished that the corpse should be pre-
pared. The bearers tell them, and having con-
cluded their bargain, take their departure, while
the embalmers, left to themselves, proceed to
their task. The mode of embalming, according to
the most perfect process, is the following:- They
take first a crooked piece of iron, and with it
draw out the brain through the nostrils, thus get-
ting rid of a portion, while the skull is cleared of

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the rest by rinsing with drugs; next they make a
cut along the flank with a sharp Ethiopian stone,
and take out the whole contents of the abdomen,
which they then cleanse, washing it thoroughly
with palm wine, and again frequently with an
infusion of pounded aromatics. After this they
fill the cavity with the purest bruised myrrh,
with cassia, and every other sort of spicery
except frankincense, and sew up the opening.
Then the body is placed in natrum for seventy
days, and covered entirely over. After the expira-
tion of that space of time, which must not be
exceeded, the body is washed, and wrapped
round, from head to foot, with bandages of fine
linen cloth, smeared over with gum, which is
used generally by the Egyptians in the place of
glue, and in this state it is given back to the rela-
tions, who enclose it in a wooden case which
they have had made for the purpose, shaped into
the figure of a man. Then fastening the case, they
place it in a sepulchral chamber, upright against
the wall. Such is the most costly way of embalm-
ing the dead.

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If persons wish to avoid expense, and choose the
second process, the following is the method pur-
sued:- Syringes are filled with oil made from the
cedar-tree, which is then, without any incision or
disembowelling, injected into the abdomen. The
passage by which it might be likely to return is
stopped, and the body laid in natrum the pre-
scribed number of days. At the end of the time the
cedar-oil is allowed to make its escape; and such
is its power that it brings with it the whole stom-
ach and intestines in a liquid state. The natrum
meanwhile has dissolved the flesh, and so nothing
is left of the dead body but the skin and the bones.
It is returned in this condition to the relatives,
without any further trouble being bestowed upon
it.

The third method of embalming, which is prac-
tised in the case of the poorer classes, is to clear
out the intestines with a clyster, and let the body
lie in natrum the seventy days, after which it is
at once given to those who come to fetch it
away.

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The wives of men of rank are not given to be
embalmed immediately after death, nor indeed
are any of the more beautiful and valued women.
It is not till they have been dead three or four days
that they are carried to the embalmers. This is
done to prevent indignities from being offered
them. It is said that once a case of this kind
occurred: the man was detected by the informa-
tion of his fellow-workman.

Whensoever any one, Egyptian or foreigner, has
lost his life by falling a prey to a crocodile, or by
drowning in the river, the law compels the inhabi-
tants of the city near which the body is cast up to
have it embalmed, and to bury it in one of the
sacred repositories with all possible magnificence.
No one may touch the corpse, not even any of the
friends or relatives, but only the priests of the Nile,
who prepare it for burial with their own hands-
regarding it as something more than the mere
body of a man- and themselves lay it in the tomb.

The Egyptians are averse to adopt Greek customs,
or, in a word, those of any other nation. This feel-

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ing is almost universal among them. At Chemmis,
however, which is a large city in the Thebaic can-
ton, near Neapolis, there is a square enclosure
sacred to Perseus, son of Danae. Palm trees grow
all round the place, which has a stone gateway of
an unusual size, surmounted by two colossal stat-
ues, also in stone. Inside this precinct is a temple,
and in the temple an image of Perseus. The people
of Chemmis say that Perseus often appears to
them, sometimes within the sacred enclosure,
sometimes in the open country: one of the sandals
which he has worn is frequently found- two cubits
in length, as they affirm- and then all Egypt flour-
ishes greatly. In the worship of Perseus Greek cer-
emonies are used; gymnastic games are celebrated
in his honour, comprising every kind of contest,
with prizes of cattle, cloaks, and skins. I made
inquiries of the Chemmites why it was that
Perseus appeared to them and not elsewhere in
Egypt, and how they came to celebrate gymnastic
contests unlike the rest of the Egyptians: to which
they answered, “that Perseus belonged to their
city by descent. Danans and Lynceus were
Chemmites before they set sail for Greece, and

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from them Perseus was descended,” they said,
tracing the genealogy; “and he, when he came to
Egypt for the purpose” (which the Greeks also
assign) “of bringing away from Libya the
Gorgon’s head, paid them a visit, and acknowl-
edged them for his kinsmen- he had heard the
name of their city from his mother before he left
Greece- he bade them institute a gymnastic con-
test in his honour, and that was the reason why
they observed the practice.”

The customs hitherto described are those of the
Egyptians who live above the marsh-country. The
inhabitants of the marshes have the same customs
as the rest, as well in those matters which have
been mentioned above as in respect of marriage,
each Egyptian taking to himself, like the Greeks,
a single wife; but for greater cheapness of living
the marsh-men practise certain peculiar customs,
such as these following. They gather the blossoms
of a certain water-lily, which grows in great abun-
dance all over the flat country at the time when
the Nile rises and floods the regions along its
banks- the Egyptians call it lotus- they gather, I

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say, the blossoms of this plant and dry them in the
sun, after which they extract from the centre of
each blossom a substance like the head of a
poppy, which they crush and make into bread.
The root of the lotus is likewise eatable, and has
a pleasant sweet taste: it is round, and about the
size of an apple. There is also another species of
the lily in Egypt, which grows, like the lotus, in
the river, and resembles the rose. The fruit springs
up side by side with the blossom, on a separate
stalk, and has almost exactly the look of the comb
made by wasps. It contains a number of seeds,
about the size of an olive-stone, which are good
to eat: and these are eaten both green and dried.
The byblus (papyrus), which grows year after
year in the marshes, they pull up, and, cutting the
plant in two, reserve the upper portion for other
purposes, but take the lower, which is about a
cubit long, and either eat it or else sell it. Such as
wish to enjoy the byblus in full perfection bake it
first in a closed vessel, heated to a glow. Some of
these folk, however, live entirely on fish, which
are gutted as soon as caught, and then hung up in
the sun: when dry, they are used as food.

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Gregarious fish are not found in any numbers in
the rivers; they frequent the lagunes, whence, at
the season of breeding, they proceed in shoals
towards the sea. The males lead the way, and
drop their milt as they go, while the females, fol-
lowing close behind, eagerly swallow it down.
From this they conceive, and when, after passing
some time in the sea, they begin to be in spawn,
the whole shoal sets off on its return to its ancient
haunts. Now, however, it is no longer the males,
but the females, who take the lead: they swim in
front in a body, and do exactly as the males did
before, dropping, little by little, their grains of
spawn as they go, while the males in the rear
devour the grains, each one of which is a fish. A
portion of the spawn escapes and is not swal-
lowed by the males, and hence come the fishes
which grow afterwards to maturity. Whan any of
this sort of fish are taken on their passage to the
sea, they are found to have the left side of the
head scarred and bruised; while if taken on their
return, the marks appear on the right. The reason
is that as they swim down the Nile seaward, they

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keep close to the bank of the river upon their left,
and returning again up stream they still cling to
the same side, hugging it and brushing against it
constantly, to be sure that they miss not their road
through the great force of the current. When the
Nile begins to rise, the hollows in the land and the
marshy spots near the river are flooded before any
other places by the percolation of the water
through the riverbanks; and these, almost as soon
as they become pools, are found to be full of num-
bers of little fishes. I think that I understand how
it is this comes to pass. On the subsidence of the
Nile the year before, though the fish retired with
the retreating waters, they had first deposited
their spawn in the mud upon the banks; and so,
when at the usual season the water returns, small
fry are rapidly engendered out of the spawn of the
preceding year. So much concerning the fish.

The Egyptians who live in the marshes use for the
anointing of their bodies an oil made from the
fruit of the sillicyprium, which is known among
them by the name of “kiki.” To obtain this they

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plant the sillicyprium (which grows wild in
Greece) along the banks of the rivers and by the
sides of the lakes, where it produces fruit in great
abundance, but with a very disagreeable smell.
This fruit is gathered, and then bruised and
pressed, or else boiled down after roasting: the
liquid which comes from it is collected and is
found to be unctuous, and as well suited as olive-
oil for lamps, only that it gives out an unpleasant
odour.

The contrivances which they use against gnats,
wherewith the country swarms, are the following.
In the parts of Egypt above the marshes the inhab-
itants pass the night upon lofty towers, which are
of great service, as the gnats are unable to fly to
any height on account of the winds. In the marsh-
country, where there are no towers, each man
possesses a net instead. By day it serves him to
catch fish, while at night he spreads it over the
bed in which he is to rest, and creeping in, goes to
sleep underneath. The gnats, which, if he rolls
himself up in his dress or in a piece of muslin, are

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sure to bite through the covering, do not so much
as attempt to pass the net.

The vessels used in Egypt for the transport of mer-
chandise are made of the Acantha (Thorn), a tree
which in its growth is very like the Cyrenaic lotus,
and from which there exudes a gum. They cut a
quantity of planks about two cubits in length
from this tree, and then proceed to their ship-
building, arranging the planks like bricks, and
attaching them by ties to a number of long stakes
or poles till the hull is complete, when they lay the
cross-planks on the top from side to side. They
give the boats no ribs, but caulk the seams with
papyrus on the inside. Each has a single rudder,
which is driven straight through the keel. The
mast is a piece of acantha-wood, and the sails are
made of papyrus. These boats cannot make way
against the current unless there is a brisk breeze;
they are, therefore, towed up-stream from the
shore: down-stream they are managed as follows.
There is a raft belonging to each, made of the
wood of the tamarisk, fastened together with a

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wattling of reeds; and also a stone bored through
the middle about two talents in weight. The raft is
fastened to the vessel by a rope, and allowed to
float down the stream in front, while the stone is
attached by another rope astern. The result is that
the raft, hurried forward by the current, goes
rapidly down the river, and drags the “baris” (for
so they call this sort of boat) after it; while the
stone, which is pulled along in the wake of the
vessel, and lies deep in the water, keeps the boat
straight. There are a vast number of these vessels
in Egypt, and some of them are of many thousand
talents’ burthen.

When the Nile overflows, the country is convert-
ed into a sea, and nothing appears but the cities,
which look like the islands in the Egean. At this
season boats no longer keep the course of the
river, but sail right across the plain. On the voy-
age from Naucratis to Memphis at this season,
you pass close to the pyramids, whereas the usual
course is by the apex of the Delta, and the city of
Cercasorus. You can sail also from the maritime
town of Canobus across the flat to Naucratis,

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passing by the cities of Anthylla and
Archandropolis.

The former of these cities, which is a place of
note, is assigned expressly to the wife of the ruler
of Egypt for the time being, to keep her in shoes.
Such has been the custom ever since Egypt fell
under the Persian yoke. The other city seems to
me to have got its name of Archandropolis from
Archander the Phthian, son of Achaeus, and son-
in-law of Danaus. There might certainly have
been another Archander; but, at any rate, the
name is not Egyptian.

Thus far I have spoken of Egypt from my own
observation, relating what I myself saw, the ideas
that I formed, and the results of my own research-
es. What follows rests on the accounts given me
by the Egyptians, which shall now repeat, adding
thereto some particulars which fell under by own
notice.

The priests said that Min was the first king of
Egypt, and that it was he who raised the dyke

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which protects Memphis from the inundations of
the Nile. Before his time the river flowed entirely
along the sandy range of hills which skirts Egypt
on the side of Libya. He, however, by banking up
the river at the bend which it forms about a hun-
dred furlongs south of Memphis, laid the ancient
channel dry, while he dug a new course for the
stream halfway between the two lines of hills. To
this day, the elbow which the Nile forms at the
point where it is forced aside into the new chan-
nel is guarded with the greatest care by the
Persians, and strengthened every year; for if the
river were to burst out at this place, and pour
over the mound, there would be danger of
Memphis being completely overwhelmed by the
flood. Min, the first king, having thus, by turning
the river, made the tract where it used to run, dry
land, proceeded in the first place to build the city
now called Memphis, which lies in the narrow
part of Egypt; after which he further excavated a
lake outside the town, to the north and west,
communicating with the river, which was itself
the eastern boundary. Besides these works, he
also, the priests said, built the temple of Vulcan

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which stands within the city, a vast edifice, very
worthy of mention.

Next, they read me from a papyrus the names of
three hundred and thirty monarchs, who (they
said) were his successors upon the throne. In this
number of generations there were eighteen
Ethiopian kings, and one queen who was a native;
all the rest were kings and Egyptians. The queen
bore the same name as the Babylonian princess,
namely, Nitocris. They said that she succeeded her
brother; he had been king of Egypt, and was put
to death by his subjects, who then placed her
upon the throne. Bent on avenging his death, she
devised a cunning scheme by which she destroyed
a vast number of Egyptians. She constructed a
spacious underground chamber, and, on pretence
of inaugurating it, contrived the following:-
Inviting to a banquet those of the Egyptians
whom she knew to have had the chief share in the
murder of her brother, she suddenly, as they were
feasting, let the river in upon them by means of a
secret duct of large size. This and this only did
they tell me of her, except that, when she had

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done as I have said, she threw herself into an
apartment full of ashes, that she might escape the
vengeance whereto she would otherwise have
been exposed.

The other kings, they said, were personages of no
note or distinction, and left no monuments of any
account, with the exception of the last, who was
named Moeris. He left several memorials of his
reign- the northern gateway of the temple of
Vulcan, the lake excavated by his orders, whose
dimensions I shall give presently, and the pyra-
mids built by him in the lake, the size of which
will be stated when I describe the lake itself
wherein they stand. Such were his works: the
other kings left absolutely nothing.

Passing over these monarchs, therefore, I shall
speak of the king who reigned next, whose name
was Sesostris. He, the priests said, first of all pro-
ceeded in a fleet of ships of war from the Arabian
gulf along the shores of the Erythraean sea, sub-
duing the nations as he went, until he finally
reached a sea which could not be navigated by

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reason of the shoals. Hence he returned to Egypt,
where, they told me, he collected a vast arma-
ment, and made a progress by land across the
continent, conquering every people which fell in
his way. In the countries where the natives with-
stood his attack, and fought gallantly for their lib-
erties, he erected pillars, on which he inscribed his
own name and country, and how that he had here
reduced the inhabitants to subjection by the might
of his arms: where, on the contrary, they submit-
ted readily and without a struggle, he inscribed on
the pillars, in addition to these particulars, an
emblem to mark that they were a nation of
women, that is, unwarlike and effeminate.

In this way he traversed the whole continent of
Asia, whence he passed on into Europe, and made
himself master of Scythia and of Thrace, beyond
which countries I do not think that his army
extended its march. For thus far the pillars which
he erected are still visible, but in the remoter
regions they are no longer found. Returning to
Egypt from Thrace, he came, on his way, to the
banks of the river Phasis. Here I cannot say with

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any certainty what took place. Either he of his
own accord detached a body of troops from his
main army and left them to colonise the country,
or else a certain number of his soldiers, wearied
with their long wanderings, deserted, and estab-
lished themselves on the banks of this stream.

There can be no doubt that the Colchians are an
Egyptian race. Before I heard any mention of the
fact from others, I had remarked it myself. After
the thought had struck me, I made inquiries on
the subject both in Colchis and in Egypt, and I
found that the Colchians had a more distinct rec-
ollection of the Egyptians, than the Egyptians had
of them. Still the Egyptians said that they believed
the Colchians to be descended from the army of
Sesostris. My own conjectures were founded,
first, on the fact that they are black-skinned and
have woolly hair, which certainly amounts to but
little, since several other nations are so too; but
further and more especially, on the circumstance
that the Colchians, the Egyptians, and the
Ethiopians, are the only nations who have prac-
tised circumcision from the earliest times. The

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Phoenicians and the Syrians of Palestine them-
selves confess that they learnt the custom of the
Egyptians; and the Syrians who dwell about the
rivers Thermodon and Parthenius, as well as their
neighbours the Macronians, say that they have
recently adopted it from the Colchians. Now
these are the only nations who use circumcision,
and it is plain that they all imitate herein the
Egyptians. With respect to the Ethiopians, indeed,
I cannot decide whether they learnt the practice of
the Egyptians, or the Egyptians of them- it is
undoubtedly of very ancient date in Ethiopia- but
that the others derived their knowledge of it from
Egypt is clear to me from the fact that the
Phoenicians, when they come to have commerce
with the Greeks, cease to follow the Egyptians in
this custom, and allow their children to remain
uncircumcised.

I will add a further proof to the identity of the
Egyptians and the Colchians. These two nations
weave their linen in exactly the same way, and
this is a way entirely unknown to the rest of the
world; they also in their whole mode of life and in

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their language resemble one another. The
Colchian linen is called by the Greeks Sardinian,
while that which comes from Egypt is known as
Egyptian.

The pillars which Sesostris erected in the con-
quered countries have for the most part disap-
peared; but in the part of Syria called Palestine, I
myself saw them still standing, with the writing
above-mentioned, and the emblem distinctly visi-
ble. In Ionia also, there are two representations of
this prince engraved upon rocks, one on the road
from Ephesus to Phocaea, the other between
Sardis and Smyrna. In each case the figure is that
of a man, four cubits and a span high, with a
spear in his right hand and a bow in his left, the
rest of his costume being likewise half Egyptian,
half Ethiopian. There is an inscription across the
breast from shoulder to shoulder, in the sacred
character of Egypt, which says, “With my own
shoulders I conquered this land.” The conqueror
does not tell who he is, or whence he comes,
though elsewhere Sesostris records these facts.

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Hence it has been imagined by some of those who
have seen these forms, that they are figures of
Memnon; but such as think so err very widely
from the truth.

This Sesostris, the priests went on to say, upon his
return home, accompanied by vast multitudes of
the people whose countries he had subdued, was
received by his brother, whom he had made
viceroy of Egypt on his departure, at Daphnae
near Pelusium, and invited by him to a banquet,
which he attended, together with his sons. Then
his brother piled a quantity of wood all round the
building, and having so done set it alight.
Sesostris, discovering what had happened, took
counsel instantly with his wife, who had accom-
panied him to the feast, and was advised by her to
lay two of their six sons upon the fire, and so
make a bridge across the flames, whereby the rest
might effect their escape. Sesostris did as she rec-
ommended, and thus while two of his sons were
burnt to death, he himself and his other children
were saved.

100

Herodotus

The king then returned to his own land and took
vengeance upon his brother, after which he pro-
ceeded to make use of the multitudes whom he
had brought with him from the conquered coun-
tries, partly to drag the huge masses of stone
which were moved in the course of his reign to the
temple of Vulcan- partly to dig the numerous
canals with which the whole of Egypt is intersect-
ed. By these forced labours the entire face of the
country was changed; for whereas Egypt had for-
merly been a region suited both for horses and car-
riages, henceforth it became entirely unfit for
either. Though a flat country throughout its whole
extent, it is now unfit for either horse or carriage,
being cut up by the canals, which are extremely
numerous and run in all directions. The king’s
object was to supply Nile water to the inhabitants
of the towns situated in the mid-country, and not
lying upon the river; for previously they had been
obliged, after the subsidence of the floods, to drink
a brackish water which they obtained from wells.

Sesostris also, they declared, made a division of
the soil of Egypt among the inhabitants, assigning

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101

square plots of ground of equal size to all, and
obtaining his chief revenue from the rent which
the holders were required to pay him year by
year. If the river carried away any portion of a
man’s lot, he appeared before the king, and relat-
ed what had happened; upon which the king sent
persons to examine, and determine by measure-
ment the exact extent of the loss; and thenceforth
only such a rent was demanded of him as was
proportionate to the reduced size of his land.
From this practice, I think, geometry first came to
be known in Egypt, whence it passed into Greece.
The sun-dial, however, and the gnomon with the
division of the day into twelve parts, were
received by the Greeks from the Babylonians.

Sesostris was king not only of Egypt, but also of
Ethiopia. He was the only Egyptian monarch who
ever ruled over the latter country. He left, as
memorials of his reign, the stone statues which
stand in front of the temple of Vulcan, two of
which, representing himself and his wife, are thir-
ty cubits in height, while the remaining four,
which represent his sons, are twenty cubits. These

102

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are the statues, in front of which the priest of
Vulcan, very many years afterwards, would not
allow Darius the Persian to place a statue of him-
self; “because,” he said, “Darius had not equalled
the achievements of Sesostris the Egyptian: for
while Sesostris had subdued to the full as many
nations as ever Darius had brought under, he had
likewise conquered the Scythians, whom Darius
had failed to master. It was not fair, therefore, that
he should erect his statue in front of the offerings
of a king, whose deeds he had been unable to sur-
pass.” Darius, they say, pardoned the freedom of
this speech.

On the death of Sesostris, his son Pheron, the
priests said, mounted the throne. He undertook
no warlike expeditions; being struck with blind-
ness, owing to the following circumstance. The
river had swollen to the unusual height of eigh-
teen cubits, and had overflowed all the fields,
when, a sudden wind arising, the water rose in
great waves. Then the king, in a spirit of impious
violence, seized his spear, and hurled it into the
strong eddies of the stream. Instantly he was smit-

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103

ten with disease of the eyes, from which after a lit-
tle while he became blind, continuing without the
power of vision for ten years. At last, in the
eleventh year, an oracular announcement reached
him from the city of Buto, to the effect, that “the
time of his punishment had run out, and he
should recover his sight by washing his eyes with
urine. He must find a woman who had been faith-
ful to her husband, and had never preferred to
him another man.” The king, therefore, first of all
made trial of his wife, but to no purpose he con-
tinued as blind as before. So he made the experi-
ment with other women, until at length he suc-
ceeded, and in this way recovered his sight.
Hereupon he assembled all the women, except the
last, and bringing them to the city which now
bears the name of Erythrabolus (Red-soil), he
there burnt them all, together with the place itself.
The woman to whom he owed his cure, he mar-
ried, and after his recovery was complete, he pre-
sented offerings to all the temples of any note,
among which the best worthy of mention are the
two stone obelisks which he gave to the temple of
the Sun. These are magnificent works; each is

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made of a single stone, eight cubits broad, and a
hundred cubits in height.

Pheron, they said, was succeeded by a man of
Memphis, whose name, in the language of the
Greeks, was Proteus. There is a sacred precinct of
this king in Memphis, which is very beautiful, and
richly adorned, situated south of the great temple
of Vulcan. Phoenicians from the city of Tyre dwell
all round this precinct, and the whole place is
known by the name of “the camp of the Tyrians.”
Within the enclosure stands a temple, which is
called that of Venus the Stranger. I conjecture the
building to have been erected to Helen, the
daughter of Tyndarus; first, because she, as I have
heard say, passed some time at the court of
Proteus; and secondly, because the temple is ded-
icated to Venus the Stranger; for among all the
many temples of Venus there is no other where
the goddess bears this title.

The priests, in answer to my inquiries on the sub-
ject of Helen, informed me of the following par-
ticulars. When Alexander had carried off Helen

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from Sparta, he took ship and sailed homewards.
On his way across the Egean a gale arose, which
drove him from his course and took him down to
the sea of Egypt; hence, as the wind did not abate,
he was carried on to the coast, when he went
ashore, landing at the Salt-Pans, in that mouth of
the Nile which is now called the Canobic. At this
place there stood upon the shore a temple, which
still exists, dedicated to Hercules. If a slave runs
away from his master, and taking sanctuary at
this shrine gives himself up to the god, and
receives certain sacred marks upon his person,
whosoever his master may be, he cannot lay hand
on him. This law still remained unchanged to my
time. Hearing, therefore, of the custom of the
place, the attendants of Alexander deserted him,
and fled to the temple, where they sat as suppli-
ants. While there, wishing to damage their master,
they accused him to the Egyptians, narrating all
the circumstances of the rape of Helen and the
wrong done to Menelaus. These charges they
brought, not only before the priests, but also
before the warden of that mouth of the river,
whose name was Thonis.

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As soon as he received the intelligence, Thonis
sent a message to Proteus, who was at Memphis,
to this effect: “A stranger is arrived from Greece;
he is by race a Teucrian, and has done a wicked
deed in the country from which he is come.
Having beguiled the wife of the man whose guest
he was, he carried her away with him, and much
treasure also. Compelled by stress of weather, he
has now put in here. Are we to let him depart as
he came, or shall we seize what he has brought?”
Proteus replied, “Seize the man, be he who he
may, that has dealt thus wickedly with his friend,
and bring him before me, that I may hear what he
will say for himself.”

Thonis, on receiving these orders, arrested
Alexander, and stopped the departure of his ships;
then, taking with him Alexander, Helen, the trea-
sures, and also the fugitive slaves, he went up to
Memphis. When all were arrived, Proteus asked
Alexander, “who he was, and whence he had
come?” Alexander replied by giving his descent,
the name of his country, and a true account of his
late voyage. Then Proteus questioned him as to

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how he got possession of Helen. In his reply
Alexander became confused, and diverged from
the truth, whereon the slaves interposed, confuted
his statements, and told the whole history of the
crime. Finally, Proteus delivered judgment as fol-
lows: “Did I not regard it as a matter of the
utmost consequence that no stranger driven to my
country by adverse winds should ever be put to
death, I would certainly have avenged the Greek
by slaying thee. Thou basest of men,- after accept-
ing hospitality, to do so wicked a deed! First, thou
didst seduce the wife of thy own host- then, not
content therewith, thou must violently excite her
mind, and steal her away from her husband. Nay,
even so thou wert not satisfied, but on leaving,
thou must plunder the house in which thou hadst
been a guest. Now then, as I think it of the great-
est importance to put no stranger to death, I suf-
fer thee to depart; but the woman and the trea-
sures I shall not permit to be carried away. Here
they must stay, till the Greek stranger comes in
person and takes them back with him. For thyself
and thy companions, I command thee to begone
from my land within the space of three days- and

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I warn you, that otherwise at the end of that time
you will be treated as enemies.”

Such was the tale told me by the priests concern-
ing the arrival of Helen at the court of Proteus. It
seems to me that Homer was acquainted with this
story, and while discarding it, because he thought
it less adapted for epic poetry than the version
which he followed, showed that it was not
unknown to him. This is evident from the travels
which he assigns to Alexander in the Iliad- and let
it be borne in mind that he has nowhere else con-
tradicted himself- making him be carried out of
his course on his return with Helen, and after
divers wanderings come at last to Sidon in
Phoenicia. The passage is in the Bravery of
Diomed, and the words are as follows:-

There were the robes, many-coloured, the work

of Sidonian women:

They from Sidon had come, what time god-

shaped Alexander

Over the broad sea brought, that way, the high-

born Helen.

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109

In the Odyssey also the same fact is alluded to, in
these words:-

Such, so wisely prepared, were the drugs that her

stores afforded,

Excellent; gift which once Polydamna, partner of

Thonis,

Gave her in Egypt, where many the simples that

grow in the meadows,

Potent to cure in part, in part as potent to

injure.

Menelaus too, in the same poem, thus addresses
Telemachus:-

Much did I long to return, but the Gods still

kept me in Egypt-

Angry because I had failed to pay them their

hecatombs duly.

In these places Homer shows himself acquainted
with the voyage of Alexander to Egypt, for Syria
borders on Egypt, and the Phoenicians, to whom
Sidon belongs, dwell in Syria.

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From these various passages, and from that about
Sidon especially, it is clear that Homer did not
write the Cypria. For there it is said that
Alexander arrived at Ilium with Helen on the
third day after he left Sparta, the wind having
been favourable, and the sea smooth; whereas in
the Iliad, the poet makes him wander before he
brings her home. Enough, however, for the pre-
sent of Homer and the Cypria.

I made inquiry of the priests whether the story
which the Greeks tell about Ilium is a fable, or no.
In reply they related the following particulars, of
which they declared that Menelaus had himself
informed them. After the rape of Helen, a vast
army of Greeks, wishing to render help to
Menelaus, set sail for the Teucrian territory; on
their arrival they disembarked, and formed their
camp, after which they sent ambassadors to
Ilium, of whom Menelaus was one. The embassy
was received within the walls, and demanded the
restoration of Helen with the treasures which
Alexander had carried off, and likewise required
satisfaction for the wrong done. The Teucrians

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gave at once the answer in which they persisted
ever afterwards, backing their assertions some-
times even with oaths, to wit, that neither Helen,
nor the treasures claimed, were in their posses-
sion,- both the one and the other had remained,
they said, in Egypt; and it was not just to come
upon them for what Proteus, king of Egypt, was
detaining. The Greeks, imagining that the
Teucrians were merely laughing at them, laid siege
to the town, and never rested until they finally
took it. As, however, no Helen was found, and
they were still told the same story, they at length
believed in its truth, and despatched Menelaus to
the court of Proteus.

So Menelaus travelled to Egypt, and on his arrival
sailed up the river as far as Memphis, and related
all that had happened. He met with the utmost
hospitality, received Helen back unharmed, and
recovered all his treasures. After this friendly
treatment Menelaus, they said, behaved most
unjustly towards the Egyptians; for as it happened
that at the time when he wanted to take his depar-
ture, he was detained by the wind being contrary,

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and as he found this obstruction continue, he had
recourse to a most wicked expedient. He seized,
they said, two children of the people of the coun-
try, and offered them up in sacrifice. When this
became known, the indignation of the people was
stirred, and they went in pursuit of Menelaus,
who, however, escaped with his ships to Libya,
after which the Egyptians could not say whither
he went. The rest they knew full well, partly by
the inquiries which they had made, and partly
from the circumstances having taken place in
their own land, and therefore not admitting of
doubt.

Such is the account given by the Egyptian priests,
and I am myself inclined to regard as true all that
they say of Helen from the following considera-
tions:- If Helen had been at Troy, the inhabitants
would, I think, have given her up to the Greeks,
whether Alexander consented to it or no. For
surely neither Priam, nor his family, could have
been so infatuated as to endanger their own per-
sons, their children, and their city, merely that
Alexander might possess Helen. At any rate, if

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they determined to refuse at first, yet afterwards
when so many of the Trojans fell on every
encounter with the Greeks, and Priam too in each
battle lost a son, or sometimes two, or three, or
even more, if we may credit the epic poets, I do
not believe that even if Priam himself had been
married to her he would have declined to deliver
her up, with the view of bringing the series of
calamities to a close. Nor was it as if Alexander
had been heir to the crown, in which case he
might have had the chief management of affairs,
since Priam was already old. Hector, who was his
elder brother, and a far braver man, stood before
him, and was the heir to the kingdom on the
death of their father Priam. And it could not be
Hector’s interest to uphold his brother in his
wrong, when it brought such dire calamities upon
himself and the other Trojans. But the fact was
that they had no Helen to deliver, and so they told
the Greeks, but the Greeks would not believe
what they said- Divine Providence, as I think, so
willing, that by their utter destruction it might be
made evident to all men that when great wrongs
are done, the gods will surely visit them with great

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punishments. Such, at least, is my view of the
matter.

When Proteus died, Rhampsinitus, the priests
informed me, succeeded to the throne. His monu-
ments were the western gateway of the temple of
Vulcan, and the two statues which stand in front
of this gateway, called by the Egyptians, the one
Summer, the other Winter, each twenty-five cubits
in height. The statue of Summer, which is the
northernmost of the two, is worshipped by the
natives, and has offerings made to it; that of
Winter, which stands towards the south, is treat-
ed in exactly the contrary way. King
Rhampsinitus was possessed, they said, of great
riches in silver- indeed to such an amount, that
none of the princes, his successors, surpassed or
even equalled his wealth. For the better custody of
this money, he proposed to build a vast chamber
of hewn stone, one side of which was to form a
part of the outer wall of his palace. The builder,
therefore, having designs upon the treasures, con-
trived, as he was making the building, to insert in
this wall a stone, which could easily be removed

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from its place by two men, or even by one. So the
chamber was finished, and the king’s money
stored away in it. Time passed, and the builder
fell sick, when finding his end approaching, he
called for his two sons, and related to them the
contrivance he had made in the king’s treasure-
chamber, telling them it was for their sakes he had
done it, that so they might always live in afflu-
ence. Then he gave them clear directions concern-
ing the mode of removing the stone, and commu-
nicated the measurements, bidding them carefully
keep the secret, whereby they would be
Comptrollers of the Royal Exchequer so long as
they lived. Then the father died, and the sons were
not slow in setting to work: they went by night to
the palace, found the stone in the wall of the
building, and having removed it with ease, plun-
dered the treasury of a round sum.

When the king next paid a visit to the apartment,
he was astonished to see that the money was sunk
in some of the vessels wherein it was stored away.
Whom to accuse, however, he knew not, as the
seals were all perfect, and the fastenings of the

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room secure. Still each time that he repeated his
visits, he found that more money was gone. The
thieves in truth never stopped, but plundered the
treasury ever more and more. At last the king
determined to have some traps made, and set near
the vessels which contained his wealth. This was
done, and when the thieves came, as usual, to the
treasure-chamber, and one of them entering
through the aperture, made straight for the jars,
suddenly he found himself caught in one of the
traps. Perceiving that he was lost, he instantly
called his brother and telling him what had hap-
pened, entreated him to enter as quickly as possi-
ble and cut off his head, that when his body
should be discovered it might not be recognised,
which would have the effect of bringing ruin upon
both. The other thief thought the advice good,
and was persuaded to follow it then, fitting the
stone into its place, he went home, taking with
him his brother’s head.

When day dawned, the king came into the room,
and marvelled greatly to see the body of the thief
in the trap without a head, while the building was

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still whole, and neither entrance nor exit was to
be seen anywhere. In this perplexity he com-
manded the body of the dead man to be hung up
outside the palace wall, and set a guard to watch
it, with orders that if any persons were seen weep-
ing or lamenting near the place, they should be
seized and brought before him. When the mother
heard of this exposure of the corpse of her son,
she took it sorely to heart, and spoke to her sur-
viving child, bidding him devise some plan or
other to get back the body, and threatening, that
if he did not exert himself, she would go herself to
the king, and denounce him as the robber.

The son said all he could to persuade her to let the
matter rest, but in vain; she still continued to
trouble him, until at last he yielded to her impor-
tunity, and contrived as follows:- Filling some
skins with wine, he loaded them on donkeys,
which he drove before him till he came to the
place where the guards were watching the dead
body, when pulling two or three of the skins
towards him, he untied some of the necks which
dangled by the asses’ sides. The wine poured

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freely out, whereupon he began to beat his head,
and shout with all his might, seeming not to know
which of the donkeys he should turn to first.
When the guards saw the wine running, delighted
to profit by the occasion, they rushed one and all
into the road, each with some vessel or other, and
caught the liquor as it was spilling. The driver
pretended anger, and loaded them with abuse;
whereon they did their best to pacify him, until at
last he appeared to soften, and recover his good
humour, drove his asses aside out of the road, and
set to work to rearrange their burthens; mean-
while, as he talked and chatted with the guards,
one of them began to rally him, and make him
laugh, whereupon he gave them one of the skins
as a gift. They now made up their minds to sit
down and have a drinking-bout where they were,
so they begged him to remain and drink with
them. Then the man let himself be persuaded, and
stayed. As the drinking went on, they grew very
friendly together, so presently he gave them
another skin, upon which they drank so copious-
ly that they were all overcome with the liquor, and
growing drowsy lay down, and fell asleep on the

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spot. The thief waited till it was the dead of the
night, and then took down the body of his broth-
er; after which, in mockery, he shaved off the
right side of all the soldiers’ beards, and so left
them. Laying his brother’s body upon the asses,
he carried it home to his mother, having thus
accomplished the thing that she had required of
him.

When it came to the king’s ears that the thief’s
body was stolen away, he was sorely vexed.
Wishing, therefore, whatever it might cost, to
catch the man who had contrived the trick, he had
recourse (the priests said) to an expedient, which
I can scarcely credit. He sent his own daughter to
the common stews, with orders to admit all com-
ers, but to require every man to tell her what was
the cleverest and wickedest thing he had done in
the whole course of his life. If any one in reply
told her the story of the thief, she was to lay hold
of him and not allow him to get away. The daugh-
ter did as her father willed, whereon the thief,
who was well aware of the king’s motive, felt a
desire to outdo him in craft and cunning.

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Accordingly he contrived the following plan:- He
procured the corpse of a man lately dead, and cut-
ting of one of the arms at the shoulder, put it
under his dress, and so went to the king’s daugh-
ter. When she put the question to him as she had
done to all the rest, he replied that the wickedest
thing he had ever done was cutting off the head of
his brother when he was caught in a trap in the
king’s treasury, and the cleverest was making the
guards drunk and carrying off the body. As he
spoke, the princess caught at him, but the thief
took advantage of the darkness to hold out to her
the hand of the corpse. Imagining it to be his own
hand, she seized and held it fast; while the thief,
leaving it in her grasp, made his escape by the
door.

The king, when word was brought him of this
fresh success, amazed at the sagacity and boldness
of the man, sent messengers to all the towns in his
dominions to proclaim a free pardon for the thief,
and to promise him a rich reward, if he came and
made himself known. The thief took the king at
his word, and came boldly into his presence;

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whereupon Rhampsinitus, greatly admiring him,
and looking on him as the most knowing of men,
gave him his daughter in marriage. “The
Egyptians,” he said, “excelled all the rest of the
world in wisdom, and this man excelled all other
Egyptians.”

The same king, I was also informed by the priests,
afterwards descended alive into the region which
the Greeks call Hades, and there played at dice
with Ceres, sometimes winning and sometimes
suffering defeat. After a while he returned to
earth, and brought with him a golden napkin, a
gift which he had received from the goddess.
From this descent of Rhampsinitus into Hades,
and return to earth again, the Egyptians, I was
told, instituted a festival, which they certainly cel-
ebrated in my day. On what occasion it was that
they instituted it, whether upon this or upon any
other, I cannot determine. The following are the
ceremonies:- On a certain day in the year the
priests weave a mande, and binding the eyes of
one of their number with a fillet, they put the
mantle upon him, and take him with them into

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the roadway conducting to the temple of Ceres,
when they depart and leave him to himself. Then
the priest, thus blindfolded, is led (they say) by
two wolves to the temple of Ceres, distant twenty
furlongs from the city, where he stays awhile,
after which he is brought back from the temple by
the wolves, and left upon the spot where they first
joined him.

Such as think the tales told by the Egyptians cred-
ible are free to accept them for history. For my
own part, I propose to myself throughout my
whole work faithfully to record the traditions of
the several nations. The Egyptians maintain that
Ceres and Bacchus preside in the realms below.
They were also the first to broach the opinion
that the soul of man is immortal and that, when
the body dies, it enters into the form of an animal
which is born at the moment, thence passing on
from one animal into another, until it has circled
through the forms of all the creatures which ten-
ant the earth, the water, and the air, after which it
enters again into a human frame, and is born
anew. The whole period of the transmigration is

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(they say) three thousand years. There are Greek
writers, some of an earlier, some of a later date,
who have borrowed this doctrine from the
Egyptians, and put it forward as their own. I
could mention their names, but I abstain from
doing so.

Till the death of Rhampsinitus, the priests said,
Egypt was excellently governed, and flourished
greatly; but after him Cheops succeeded to the
throne, and plunged into all manner of wicked-
ness. He closed the temples, and forbade the
Egyptians to offer sacrifice, compelling them
instead to labour, one and all, in his service. Some
were required to drag blocks of stone down to the
Nile from the quarries in the Arabian range of
hills; others received the blocks after they had
been conveyed in boats across the river, and drew
them to the range of hills called the Libyan. A
hundred thousand men laboured constantly, and
were relieved every three months by a fresh lot. It
took ten years’ oppression of the people to make
the causeway for the conveyance of the stones, a
work not much inferior, in my judgment, to the

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pyramid itself. This causeway is five furlongs in
length, ten fathoms wide, and in height, at the
highest part, eight fathoms. It is built of polished
stone, and is covered with carvings of animals. To
make it took ten years, as I said- or rather to
make the causeway, the works on the mound
where the pyramid stands, and the underground
chambers, which Cheops intended as vaults for
his own use: these last were built on a sort of
island, surrounded by water introduced from the
Nile by a canal. The pyramid itself was twenty
years in building. It is a square, eight hundred feet
each way, and the height the same, built entirely
of polished stone, fitted together with the utmost
care. The stones of which it is composed are none
of them less than thirty feet in length.

The pyramid was built in steps, battlement-wise,
as it is called, or, according to others, altar-wise.
After laying the stones for the base, they raised
the remaining stones to their places by means of
machines formed of short wooden planks. The
first machine raised them from the ground to the
top of the first step. On this there was another

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machine, which received the stone upon its
arrival, and conveyed it to the second step,
whence a third machine advanced it still higher.
Either they had as many machines as there were
steps in the pyramid, or possibly they had but a
single machine, which, being easily moved, was
transferred from tier to tier as the stone rose-
both accounts are given, and therefore I mention
both. The upper portion of the pyramid was fin-
ished first, then the middle, and finally the part
which was lowest and nearest the ground. There
is an inscription in Egyptian characters on the
pyramid which records the quantity of radishes,
onions, and garlic consumed by the labourers
who constructed it; and I perfectly well remem-
ber that the interpreter who read the writing to
me said that the money expended in this way was
1600 talents of silver. If this then is a true record,
what a vast sum must have been spent on the
iron tools used in the work, and on the feeding
and clothing of the labourers, considering the
length of time the work lasted, which has already
been stated, and the additional time- no small
space, I imagine- which must have been occupied

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by the quarrying of the stones, their conveyance,
and the formation of the underground apart-
ments.

The wickedness of Cheops reached to such a pitch
that, when he had spent all his treasures and
wanted more, he sent his daughter to the stews,
with orders to procure him a certain sum- how
much I cannot say, for I was not told; she pro-
cured it, however, and at the same time, bent on
leaving a monument which should perpetuate her
own memory, she required each man to make her
a present of a stone towards the works which she
contemplated. With these stones she built the
pyramid which stands midmost of the three that
are in front of the great pyramid, measuring along
each side a hundred and fifty feet.

Cheops reigned, the Egyptians said, fifty years,
and was succeeded at his demise by Chephren, his
brother.

Chephren imitated the conduct of his predecessor,
and, like him, built a pyramid, which did not,

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however, equal the dimensions of his brother’s. Of
this I am certain, for I measured them both
myself. It has no subterraneous apartments, nor
any canal from the Nile to supply it with water, as
the other pyramid has. In that, the Nile water,
introduced through an artificial duct, surrounds
an island, where the body of Cheops is said to lie.
Chephren built his pyramid close to the great
pyramid of Cheops, and of the same dimensions,
except that he lowered the height forty feet. For
the basement he employed the many-coloured
stone of Ethiopia. These two pyramids stand both
on the same hill, an elevation not far short of a
hundred feet in height. The reign of Chephren
lasted fifty-six years.

Thus the affliction of Egypt endured for the space
of one hundred and six years, during the whole of
which time the temples were shut up and never
opened. The Egyptians so detest the memory of
these kings that they do not much like even to
mention their names. Hence they commonly call
the pyramids after Philition, a shepherd who at
that time fed his flocks about the place.

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After Chephren, Mycerinus (they said), son of
Cheops, ascended the throne. This prince disap-
proved the conduct of his father, re-opened the
temples, and allowed the people, who were
ground down to the lowest point of misery, to
return to their occupations, and to resume the
practice of sacrifice. His justice in the decision of
causes was beyond that of all the former kings.
The Egyptians praise him in this respect more
highly than any of their other monarchs, declar-
ing that he not only gave his judgments with fair-
ness, but also, when any one was dissatisfied with
his sentence, made compensation to him out of
his own purse, and thus pacified his anger.
Mycerinus had established his character for mild-
ness, and was acting as I have described, when the
stroke of calamity fell on him. First of all his
daughter died, the only child that he possessed.
Experiencing a bitter grief at this visitation, in his
sorrow he conceived the wish to entomb his child
in some unusual way. He therefore caused a cow
to be made of wood, and after the interior had
been hollowed out, he had the whole surface coat-

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ed with gold; and in this novel tomb laid the dead
body of his daughter.

The cow was not placed under ground, but con-
tinued visible to my times: it was at Sais, in the
royal palace, where it occupied a chamber richly
adorned. Every day there are burnt before it aro-
matics of every kind; and all night long a lamp is
kept burning in the apartment. In an adjoining
chamber are statues which the priests at Sais,
declared to represent the various concubines of
Mycerinus. They are colossal figures in wood, of
the number of about twenty, and are represented
naked. Whose images they really are, I cannot
say- I can only repeat the account which was
given to me.

Concerning these colossal figures and the sacred
cow, there is also another tale narrated, which
runs thus: “Mycerinus was enamoured of his
daughter, and offered her violence- the damsel for
grief hanged herself, and Mycerinus entombed
her in the cow. Then her mother cut off the hands

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of all her tiring- maids, because they had sided
with the father, and betrayed the child; and so the
statues of the maids have no hands.” All this is
mere fable in my judgment, especially what is said
about the hands of the colossal statues. I could
plainly see that the figures had only lost their
hands through the effect of time. They had
dropped off, and were still lying on the ground
about the feet of the statues.

As for the cow, the greater portion of it is hidden
by a scarlet coverture; the head and neck, howev-
er, which are visible, are coated very thickly with
gold, and between the horns there is a representa-
tion in gold of the orb of the sun. The figure is not
erect, but lying down, with the limbs under the
body; the dimensions being fully those of a large
animal of the kind. Every year it is taken from the
apartment where it is kept, and exposed to the
light of day- this is done at the season when the
Egyptians beat themselves in honour of one of
their gods, whose name I am unwilling to mention
in connection with such a matter. They say that
the daughter of Mycerinus requested her father in

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her dying moments to allow her once a year to see
the sun.

After the death of his daughter, Mycerinus was
visited with a second calamity, of which I shall
now proceed to give an account. An oracle
reached him from the town of Buto, which said,
“Six years only shalt thou live upon the earth, and
in the seventh thou shalt end thy days.”
Mycerinus, indignant, sent an angry message to
the oracle, reproaching the god with his injustice-
“My father and uncle,” he said, “though they
shut up the temples, took no thought of the gods,
and destroyed multitudes of men, nevertheless
enjoyed a long life; I, who am pious, am to die so
soon!” There came in reply a second message
from the oracle- “For this very reason is thy life
brought so quickly to a close- thou hast not done
as it behoved thee. Egypt was fated to suffer
affliction one hundred and fifty years- the two
kings who preceded thee upon the throne under-
stood this- thou hast not understood it.”
Mycerinus, when this answer reached him, per-
ceiving that his doom was fixed, had prepared,

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which he lighted every day at eventime, and feast-
ed and enjoyed himself unceasingly both day and
night, moving about in the marsh-country and the
woods, and visiting all the places that he heard
were agreeable sojourns. His wish was to prove
the oracle false, by turning the nights into days,
and so living twelve years in the space of six.

He too left a pyramid, but much inferior in size to
his father’s. It is a square, each side of which falls
short of three plethra by twenty feet, and is built
for half its height of the stone of Ethiopia. Some
of the Greeks call it the work of Rhodopis the
courtesan, but they report falsely. It seems to me
that these persons cannot have any real knowl-
edge who Rhodopis was; otherwise they would
scarcely have ascribed to her a work on which
uncounted treasures, so to speak, must have been
expended. Rhodopis also lived during the reign of
Amasis, not of Mycerinus, and was thus very
many years later than the time of the kings who
built the pyramids. She was a Thracian by birth,
and was the slave of Iadmon, son of
Hephaestopolis, a Samian. Aesop, the fable-

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writer, was one of her fellow-slaves. That Aesop
belonged to Iadmon is proved by many facts-
among others, by this. When the Delphians, in
obedience to the command of the oracle, made
proclamation that if any one claimed compensa-
tion for the murder of Aesop he should receive it,
the person who at last came forward was Iadmon,
grandson of the former Iadmon, and he received
the compensation. Aesop therefore must certainly
have been the former Iadmon’s slave.

Rhodopis really arrived in Egypt under the con-
duct of Xantheus the Samian; she was brought
there to exercise her trade, but was redeemed for
a vast sum by Charaxus, a Mytilenaean, the son
of Scamandronymus, and brother of Sappho the
poetess. After thus obtaining her freedom, she
remained in Egypt, and, as she was very beautiful,
amassed great wealth, for a person in her condi-
tion; not, however, enough to enable her to erect
such a work as this pyramid. Any one who likes
may go and see to what the tenth part of her
wealth amounted, and he will thereby learn that
her riches must not be imagined to have been very

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wonderfully great. Wishing to leave a memorial
of herself in Greece, she determined to have some-
thing made the like of which was not to be found
in any temple, and to offer it at the shrine at
Delphi. So she set apart a tenth of her possessions,
and purchased with the money a quantity of iron
spits, such as are fit for roasting oxen whole,
whereof she made a present to the oracle. They
are still to be seen there, lying of a heap, behind
the altar which the Chians dedicated, opposite the
sanctuary. Naucratis seems somehow to be the
place where such women are most attractive. First
there was this Rhodopis of whom we have been
speaking, so celebrated a person that her name
came to be familiar to all the Greeks; and, after-
wards, there was another, called Archidice, noto-
rious throughout Greece, though not so much
talked of as her predecessor. Charaxus, after ran-
soming Rhodopis, returned to Mytilene, and was
often lashed by Sappho in her poetry. But enough
has been said on the subject of this courtesan.

After Mycerinus, the priests said, Asychis ascend-
ed the throne. He built the eastern gateway of the

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temple of Vulcan, which in size and beauty far
surpasses the other three. All the four gateways
have figures graven on them, and a vast amount
of architectural ornament, but the gateway of
Asychis is by far the most richly adorned. In the
reign of this king, money being scarce and com-
mercial dealings straitened, a law was passed that
the borrower might pledge his father’s body to
raise the sum whereof he had need. A proviso was
appended to this law, giving the lender authority
over the entire sepulchre of the borrower, so that
a man who took up money under this pledge, if he
died without paying the debt, could not obtain
burial either in his own ancestral tomb, or in any
other, nor could he during his lifetime bury in his
own tomb any member of his family. The same
king, desirous of eclipsing all his predecessors
upon the throne, left as a monument of his reign
a pyramid of brick. It bears an inscription, cut in
stone, which runs thus:- “Despise me not in com-
parison with the stone pyramids; for I surpass
them all, as much as Jove surpasses the other
gods. A pole was plunged into a lake, and the
mud which clave thereto was gathered; and bricks

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were made of the mud, and so I was formed.”
Such were the chief actions of this prince.

He was succeeded on the throne, they said, by a
blind man, a native of Anysis, whose own name
also was Anysis. Under him Egypt was invaded by
a vast army of Ethiopians, led by Sabacos, their
king. The blind Anysis fled away to the marsh-
country, and the Ethiopian was lord of the land
for fifty years, during which his mode of rule was
the following:- When an Egyptian was guilty of
an offence, his plan was not to punish him with
death: instead of so doing, he sentenced him,
according to the nature of his crime, to raise the
ground to a greater or a less extent in the neigh-
bourhood of the city to which he belonged. Thus
the cities came to be even more elevated than they
were before. As early as the time of Sesostris, they
had been raised by those who dug the canals in
his reign; this second elevation of the soil under
the Ethiopian king gave them a very lofty posi-
tion. Among the many cities which thus attained
to a great elevation, none (I think) was raised so

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much as the town called Bubastis, where there is
a temple of the goddess Bubastis, which well
deserves to be described. Other temples may be
grander, and may have cost more in the building,
but there is none so pleasant to the eye as this of
Bubastis. The Bubastis of the Egyptians is the
same as the Artemis (Diana) of the Greeks.

The following is a description of this edifice:-
Excepting the entrance, the whole forms an
island. Two artificial channels from the Nile, one
on either side of the temple, encompass the build-
ing, leaving only a narrow passage by which it is
approached. These channels are each a hundred
feet wide, and are thickly shaded with trees. The
gateway is sixty feet in height, and is ornamented
with figures cut upon the stone, six cubits high
and well worthy of notice. The temple stands in
the middle of the city, and is visible on all sides as
one walks round it; for as the city has been raised
up by embankment, while the temple has been left
untouched in its original condition, you look
down upon it wheresoever you are. A low wall

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runs round the enclosure, having figures engraved
upon it, and inside there is a grove of beautiful
tall trees growing round the shrine, which con-
tains the image of the goddess. The enclosure is a
furlong in length, and the same in breadth. The
entrance to it is by a road paved with stone for a
distance of about three furlongs, which passes
straight through the market-place with an easter-
ly direction, and is about four hundred feet in
width. Trees of an extraordinary height grow on
each side the road, which conducts from the tem-
ple of Bubastis to that of Mercury.

The Ethiopian finally quitted Egypt, the priests
said, by a hasty flight under the following cir-
cumstances. He saw in his sleep a vision:- a man
stood by his side, and counselled him to gather
together all the priests of Egypt and cut every one
of them asunder. On this, according to the
account which he himself gave, it came into his
mind that the gods intended hereby to lead him to
commit an act of sacrilege, which would be sure
to draw down upon him some punishment either

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at the hands of gods or men. So he resolved not to
do the deed suggested to him, but rather to retire
from Egypt, as the time during which it was fated
that he should hold the country had now (he
thought) expired. For before he left Ethiopia he
had been told by the oracles which are venerated
there, that he was to reign fifty years over Egypt.
The years were now fled, and the dream had come
to trouble him; he therefore of his own accord
withdrew from the land.

As soon as Sabacos was gone, the blind king left
the marshes, and resumed the government. He
had lived in the marsh-region the whole time,
having formed for himself an island there by a
mixture of earth and ashes. While he remained,
the natives had orders to bring him food unbe-
known to the Ethiopian, and latterly, at his
request, each man had brought him, with the
food, a certain quantity of ashes. Before
Amyrtaeus, no one was able to discover the site of
this island, which continued unknown to the
kings of Egypt who preceded him on the throne

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for the space of seven hundred years and more.
The name which it bears is Elbo. It is about ten
furlongs across in each direction.

The next king, I was told, was a priest of Vulcan,
called Sethos. This monarch despised and neglect-
ed the warrior class of the Egyptians, as though
he did not need their services. Among other indig-
nities which he offered them, he took from them
the lands which they had possessed under all the
previous kings, consisting of twelve acres of
choice land for each warrior. Afterwards, there-
fore, when Sanacharib, king of the Arabians and
Assyrians, marched his vast army into Egypt, the
warriors one and all refused to come to his aid.
On this the monarch, greatly distressed, entered
into the inner sanctuary, and, before the image of
the god, bewailed the fate which impended over
him. As he wept he fell asleep, and dreamed that
the god came and stood at his side, bidding him
be of good cheer, and go boldly forth to meet the
Arabian host, which would do him no hurt, as he
himself would send those who should help him.
Sethos, then, relying on the dream, collected such

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of the Egyptians as were willing to follow him,
who were none of them warriors, but traders,
artisans, and market people; and with these
marched to Pelusium, which commands the
entrance into Egypt, and there pitched his camp.
As the two armies lay here opposite one another,
there came in the night, a multitude of field-mice,
which devoured all the quivers and bowstrings of
the enemy, and ate the thongs by which they man-
aged their shields. Next morning they commenced
their fight, and great multitudes fell, as they had
no arms with which to defend themselves. There
stands to this day in the temple of Vulcan, a stone
statue of Sethos, with a mouse in his hand, and an
inscription to this effect- “Look on me, and learn
to reverence the gods.”

Thus far I have spoken on the authority of the
Egyptians and their priests. They declare that
from their first king to this last-mentioned
monarch, the priest of Vulcan, was a period of
three hundred and forty-one generations; such, at
least, they say, was the number both of their
kings, and of their high-priests, during this inter-

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val. Now three hundred generations of men make
ten thousand years, three generations filling up
the century; and the remaining forty-one genera-
tions make thirteen hundred and forty years.
Thus the whole number of years is eleven thou-
sand, three hundred and forty; in which entire
space, they said, no god had ever appeared in a
human form; nothing of this kind had happened
either under the former or under the later
Egyptian kings. The sun, however, had within this
period of time, on four several occasions, moved
from his wonted course, twice rising where he
now sets, and twice setting where he now rises.
Egypt was in no degree affected by these changes;
the productions of the land, and of the river,
remained the same; nor was there anything
unusual either in the diseases or the deaths.

When Hecataeus the historian was at Thebes,
and, discoursing of his genealogy, traced his
descent to a god in the person of his sixteenth
ancestor, the priests of Jupiter did to him exactly
as they afterwards did to me, though I made no

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boast of my family. They led me into the inner
sanctuary, which is a spacious chamber, and
showed me a multitude of colossal statues, in
wood, which they counted up, and found to
amount to the exact number they had said; the
custom being for every high priest during his life-
time to set up his statue in the temple. As they
showed me the figures and reckoned them up,
they assured me that each was the son of the one
preceding him; and this they repeated throughout
the whole line, beginning with the representation
of the priest last deceased, and continuing till they
had completed the series. When Hecataeus, in giv-
ing his genealogy, mentioned a god as his six-
teenth ancestor, the priests opposed their genealo-
gy to his, going through this list, and refusing to
allow that any man was ever born of a god. Their
colossal figures were each, they said, a Piromis,
born of a Piromis, and the number of them was
three hundred and forty-five; through the whole
series Piromis followed Piromis, and the line did
not run up either to a god or a hero. The word
Piromis may be rendered “gentleman.”

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Of such a nature were, they said, the beings rep-
resented by these images- they were very far
indeed from being gods. However, in the times
anterior to them it was otherwise; then Egypt had
gods for its rulers, who dwelt upon the earth with
men, one being always supreme above the rest.
The last of these was Horus, the son of Osiris,
called by the Greeks Apollo. He deposed Typhon,
and ruled over Egypt as its last god-king. Osiris is
named Dionysus (Bacchus) by the Greeks.

The Greeks regard Hercules, Bacchus, and Pan as
the youngest of the gods. With the Egyptians,
contrariwise, Pan is exceedingly ancient, and
belongs to those whom they call “the eight gods,”
who existed before the rest. Hercules is one of the
gods of the second order, who are known as “the
twelve”; and Bacchus belongs to the gods of the
third order, whom the twelve produced. I have
already mentioned how many years intervened
according to the Egyptians between the birth of
Hercules and the reign of Amasis. From Pan to
this period they count a still longer time; and even
from Bacchus, who is the youngest of the three,

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they reckon fifteen thousand years to the reign of
that king. In these matters they say they cannot be
mistaken, as they have always kept count of the
years, and noted them in their registers. But from
the present day to the time of Bacchus, the reput-
ed son of Semele, daughter of Cadmus, is a peri-
od of not more than sixteen hundred years; to
that of Hercules, son of Alcmena, is about nine
hundred; while to the time of Pan, son of
Penelope (Pan, according to the Greeks, was her
child by Mercury), is a shorter space than to the
Trojan war, eight hundred years or thereabouts.

It is open to all to receive whichever he may pre-
fer of these two traditions; my own opinion about
them has been already declared. If indeed these
gods had been publicly known, and had grown
old in Greece, as was the case with Hercules, son
of Amphitryon, Bacchus, son of Semele, and Pan,
son of Penelope, it might have been said that the
last-mentioned personages were men who bore
the names of certain previously existing deities.
But Bacchus, according to the Greek tradition,
was no sooner born than he was sewn up in

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Jupiter’s thigh, and carried off to Nysa, above
Egypt, in Ethiopia; and as to Pan, they do not
even profess to know what happened to him after
his birth. To me, therefore, it is quite manifest
that the names of these gods became known to the
Greeks after those of their other deities, and that
they count their birth from the time when they
first acquired a knowledge of them. Thus far my
narrative rests on the accounts given by the
Egyptians.

In what follows I have the authority, not of the
Egyptians only, but of others also who agree with
them. I shall speak likewise in part from my own
observation. When the Egyptians regained their
liberty after the reign of the priest of Vulcan,
unable to continue any while without a king, they
divided Egypt into twelve districts, and set twelve
kings over them. These twelve kings, united
together by intermarriages, ruled Egypt in peace,
having entered into engagements with one anoth-
er not to depose any of their number, nor to aim
at any aggrandisement of one above the rest, but
to dwell together in perfect amity. Now the rea-

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son why they made these stipulations, and guard-
ed with care against their infraction, was because
at the very first establishment of the twelve king-
doms an oracle had declared- “That he among
them who should pour in Vulcan’s temple a liba-
tion from a cup of bronze would become
monarch of the whole land of Egypt.” Now the
twelve held their meetings at all the temples.

To bind themselves yet more closely together, it
seemed good to them to leave a common monu-
ment. In pursuance of this resolution they made
the Labyrinth which lies a little above Lake
Moeris, in the neighbourhood of the place called
the city of Crocodiles. I visited this place, and
found it to surpass description; for if all the walls
and other great works of the Greeks could be put
together in one, they would not equal, either for
labour or expense, this Labyrinth; and yet the
temple of Ephesus is a building worthy of note,
and so is the temple of Samos. The pyramids like-
wise surpass description, and are severally equal
to a number of the greatest works of the Greeks,
but the Labyrinth surpasses the pyramids. It has

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twelve courts, all of them roofed, with gates
exactly opposite one another, six looking to the
north, and six to the south. A single wall sur-
rounds the entire building. There are two differ-
ent sorts of chambers throughout- half under
ground, half above ground, the latter built upon
the former; the whole number of these chambers
is three thousand, fifteen hundred of each kind.
The upper chambers I myself passed through and
saw, and what I say concerning them is from my
own observation; of the underground chambers I
can only speak from report: for the keepers of the
building could not be got to show them, since
they contained (as they said) the sepulchres of the
kings who built the Labyrinth, and also those of
the sacred crocodiles. Thus it is from hearsay only
that I can speak of the lower chambers. The upper
chambers, however, I saw with my own eyes, and
found them to excel all other human productions;
for the passages through the houses, and the var-
ied windings of the paths across the courts excit-
ed in me infinite admiration as I passed from the
courts into chambers, and from the chambers into
colonnades, and from the colonnades into fresh

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houses, and again from these into courts unseen
before. The roof was throughout of stone, like the
walls; and the walls were carved all over with fig-
ures; every court was surrounded with a colon-
nade which was built of white stones exquisitely
fitted together. At the corner of the Labyrinth
stands a pyramid, forty fathoms high, with large
figures engraved on it, which is entered by a sub-
terranean passage.

Wonderful as is the Labyrinth, the work called the
Lake of Moeris, which is close by the Labyrinth,
is yet more astonishing. The measure of its cir-
cumference is sixty schoenes, or three thousand
six hundred furlongs, which is equal to the entire
length of Egypt along the sea-coast. The lake
stretches in its longest direction from north to
south, and in its deepest parts is of the depth of
fifty fathoms. It is manifestly an artificial excava-
tion, for nearly in the centre there stand two pyra-
mids, rising to the height of fifty fathoms above
the surface of the water, and extending as far
beneath, crowned each of them with a colossal
statue sitting upon a throne. Thus these pyramids

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are one hundred fathoms high, which is exactly a
furlong (stadium) of six hundred feet: the fathom
being six feet in length, or four cubits, which is
the same thing, since a cubit measures six, and a
foot four, palms. The water of the lake does not
come out of the ground, which is here excessively
dry, but is introduced by a canal from the Nile.
The current sets for six months into the lake from
the river, and for the next six months into the
river from the lake. it runs outward it returns a
talent of silver daily to the royal treasury from the
fish that are taken, but when the current is the
other way the return sinks to one-third of that
sum.

The natives told me that there was a subterranean
passage from this lake to the Libyan Syrtis, run-
ning westward into the interior by the hills above
Memphis. As I could not anywhere see the earth
which had been taken out when the excavation
was made, and I was curious to know what had
become of it, I asked the Egyptians who live clos-
est to the lake where the earth had been put. The
answer that they gave me I readily accepted as

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true, since I had heard of the same thing being
done at Nineveh of the Assyrians. There, once
upon a time, certain thieves, having formed a plan
to get into their possession the vast treasures of
Sardanapalus, the Ninevite king, which were laid
up in subterranean treasuries, proceeded to tunnel
a passage from the house where they lived into the
royal palace, calculating the distance and the
direction. At nightfall they took the earth from
the excavation and carried it to the river Tigris,
which ran by Nineveh, continuing to get rid of it
in this manner until they had accomplished their
purpose. It was exactly in the same way that the
Egyptians disposed of the mould from their exca-
vation, except that they did it by day and not by
night; for as fast as the earth was dug, they car-
ried it to the Nile, which they knew would dis-
perse it far and wide. Such was the account which
I received of the formation of this lake.

The twelve kings for some time dealt honourably
by one another, but at length it happened that on
a certain occasion, when they had met to worship
in the temple of Vulcan, the high-priest on the last

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day of the festival, in bringing forth the golden
goblets from which they were wont to pour the
libations, mistook the number and brought eleven
goblets only for the twelve princes. Psammetichus
was standing last, and, being left without a cup,
he took his helmet, which was of bronze, from off
his head, stretched it out to receive the liquor, and
so made his libation. All the kings were accus-
tomed to wear helmets, and all indeed wore them
at this very time. Nor was there any crafty design
in the action of Psammetichus. The eleven, how-
ever, when they came to consider what had been
done, and bethought them of the oracle which
had declared “that he who, of the twelve, should
pour a libation from a cup of bronze, the same
would be king of the whole land of Egypt,”
doubted at first if they should not put
Psammetichus to death. Finding, however, upon
examination, that he had acted in the matter
without any guilty intent, they did not think it
would be just to kill him; but determined, instead,
to strip him of the chief part of his power and to
banish him to the marshes, forbidding him to

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leave them or to hold any communication with
the rest of Egypt.

This was the second time that Psammetichus had
been driven into banishment. On a former occa-
sion he had fled from Sabacos the Ethiopian, who
had put his father Necos to death; and had taken
refuge in Syria from whence, after the retirement
of the Ethiop in consequence of his dream, he was
brought back by the Egyptians of the Saitic can-
ton. Now it was his ill-fortune to be banished a
second time by the eleven kings, on account of the
libation which he had poured from his helmet; on
this occasion he fled to the marshes. Feeling that
he was an injured man, and designing to avenge
himself upon his persecutors, Psammetichus sent
to the city of Buto, where there is an oracle of
Latona, the most veracious of all the oracles of
the Egyptians, and having inquired concerning
means of vengeance, received for answer that
“Vengeance would come from the sea, when
brazen men should appear.” Great was his
incredulity when this answer arrived, for never, he

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thought, would brazen men arrive to be his
helpers. However, not long afterwards certain
Carians and Ionians who had left their country on
a voyage of plunder, were carried by stress of
weather to Egypt where they disembarked, all
equipped in their brazen armour, and were seen
by the natives, one of whom carried the tidings to
Psammetichus, and, as he had never before seen
men clad in brass, he reported that brazen men
had come from the sea and were plundering the
plain. Psammetichus, perceiving at once that the
oracle was accomplished, made friendly advances
to the strangers, and engaged them, by splendid
promises, to enter into his service. He then, with
their aid and that of the Egyptians who espoused
his cause, attacked the eleven and vanquished
them.

When Psammetichus had thus become sole
monarch of Egypt, he built the southern gateway
of the temple of Vulcan in Memphis, and also a
court for Apis, in which Apis is kept whenever he
makes his appearance in Egypt. This court is
opposite the gateway of Psammetichus, and is

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surrounded with a colonnade and adorned with a
multitude of figures. Instead of pillars, the colon-
nade rests upon colossal statues, twelve cubits in
height. The Greek name for Apis is Epaphus.

To the Ionians and Carians who had lent him
their assistance Psammetichus assigned as abodes
two places opposite to each other, one on either
side of the Nile, which received the name of “the
Camps.” He also made good all the splendid
promises by which he had gained their support;
and further, he intrusted to their care certain
Egyptian children whom they were to teach the
language of the Greeks. These children, thus
instructed, became the parents of the entire class
of interpreters in Egypt. The Ionians and Carians
occupied for many years the places assigned them
by Psammetichus, which lay near the sea, a little
below the city of Bubastis, on the Pelusiac mouth
of the Nile. King Amasis long afterwards removed
the Greeks hence, and settled them at Memphis to
guard him against the native Egyptians. From the
date of the original settlement of these persons in
Egypt, we Greeks, through our intercourse with

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them, have acquired an accurate knowledge of the
several events in Egyptian history, from the reign
of Psammetichus downwards; but before his time
no foreigners had ever taken up their residence in
that land. The docks where their vessels were laid
up and the ruins of their habitations were still to
be seen in my day at the place where they dwelt
originally, before they were removed by Amasis.
Such was the mode by which Psammetichus
became master of Egypt.

I have already made mention more than once of
the Egyptian oracle, and, as it well deserves
notice, I shall now proceed to give an account of
it more at length. It is a temple of Latona, situat-
ed in the midst of a great city on the Sebennytic
mouth of the Nile, at some distance up the river
from the sea. The name of the city, as I have
before observed, is Buto; and in it are two other
temples also, one of Apollo and one of Diana.
Latona’s temple, which contains the oracle, is a
spacious building with a gateway ten fathoms in
height. The most wonderful thing that was actu-
ally to be seen about this temple was a chapel in

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the enclosure made of a single stone, the length
and height of which were the same, each wall
being forty cubits square, and the whole a single
block! Another block of stone formed the roof
and projected at the eaves to the extent of four
cubits.

This, as I have said, was what astonished me the
most, of all the things that were actually to be
seen about the temple. The next greatest marvel
was the island called Chemmis. This island lies in
the middle of a broad and deep lake close by the
temple, and the natives declare that it floats. For
my own part I did not see it float, or even move;
and I wondered greatly, when they told me con-
cerning it, whether there be really such a thing as
a floating island. It has a grand temple of Apollo
built upon it, in which are three distinct altars.
Palm trees grow on it in great abundance, and
many other trees, some of which bear fruit, while
others are barren. The Egyptians tell the follow-
ing story in connection with this island, to explain
the way in which it first came to float:- “In former
times, when the isle was still fixed and motionless,

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Latona, one of the eight gods of the first order,
who dwelt in the city of Buto, where now she has
her oracle, received Apollo as a sacred charge
from Isis, and saved him by hiding him in what is
now called the floating island. Typhon meanwhile
was searching everywhere in hopes of finding the
child of Osiris.” (According to the Egyptians,
Apollo and Diana are the children of Bacchus and
Isis, while Latona is their nurse and their preserv-
er. They call Apollo, in their language, Horus;
Ceres they call Isis; Diana, Bubastis. From this
Egyptian tradition, and from no other, it must
have been that Aeschylus, the son of Euphorion,
took the idea, which is found in none of the earli-
er poets, of making Diana the daughter of Ceres.)
The island, therefore, in consequence of this
event, was first made to float. Such at least is the
account which the Egyptians give.

Psammetichus ruled Egypt for fifty-four years,
during twenty-nine of which he pressed the siege
of Azotus without intermission, till finally he took
the place. Azotus is a great town in Syria. Of all

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the cities that we know, none ever stood so long a
siege.

Psammetichus left a son called Necos, who suc-
ceeded him upon the throne. This prince was the
first to attempt the construction of the canal to
the Red Sea- a work completed afterwards by
Darius the Persian- the length of which is four
days’ journey, and the width such as to admit of
two triremes being rowed along it abreast. The
water is derived from the Nile, which the canal
leaves a little above the city of Bubastis, near
Patumus, the Arabian town, being continued
thence until it joins the Red Sea. At first it is car-
ried along the Arabian side of the Egyptian plain,
as far as the chain of hills opposite Memphis,
whereby the plain is bounded, and in which lie
the great stone quarries; here it skirts the base of
the hills running in a direction from west to east,
after which it turns and enters a narrow pass,
trending southwards from this point until it enters
the Arabian Gulf. From the northern sea to that
which is called the southern or Erythraean, the

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shortest and quickest passage, which is from
Mount Casius, the boundary between Egypt and
Syria, to the Gulf of Arabia, is a distance of exact-
ly one thousand furlongs. But the way by the
canal is very much longer on account of the
crookedness of its course. A hundred and twenty
thousand of the Egyptians, employed upon the
work in the reign of Necos, lost their lives in mak-
ing the excavation. He at length desisted from his
undertaking, in consequence of an oracle which
warned him “that he was labouring for the bar-
barian.” The Egyptians call by the name of bar-
barians all such as speak a language different
from their own.

Necos, when he gave up the construction of the
canal, turned all his thoughts to war, and set to
work to build a fleet of triremes, some intended
for service in the northern sea, and some for the
navigation of the Erythraean. These last were
built in the Arabian Gulf where the dry docks in
which they lay are still visible. These fleets he
employed wherever he had occasion, while he
also made war by land upon the Syrians and

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defeated them in a pitched battle at Magdolus,
after which he made himself master of Cadytis, a
large city of Syria. The dress which he wore on
these occasions he sent to Branchidae in Milesia,
as an offering to Apollo. After having reigned in
all sixteen years, Necos died, and at his death
bequeathed the throne to his son Psammis.

In the reign of Psammis, ambassadors from Elis
arrived in Egypt, boasting that their arrangements
for the conduct of the Olympic Games were the
best and fairest that could be devised, and fancy-
ing that not even the Egyptians, who surpassed all
other nations in wisdom, could add anything to
their perfection. When these persons reached
Egypt, and explained the reason of their visit, the
king summoned an assembly of all the wisest of
the Egyptians. They met, and the Eleans having
given them a full account of all their rules and
regulations with respect to the contests said that
they had come to Egypt for the express purpose of
learning whether the Egyptians could improve the
fairness of their regulations in any particular. The
Egyptians considered awhile and then made

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inquiry, “If they allowed their own citizens to
enter the lists?” The Eleans answered, “That the
lists were open to all Greeks, whether they
belonged to Elis or to any other state.” Hereupon
the Egyptians observed, “That if this were so,
they departed from justice very widely, since it
was impossible but that they would favour their
own countrymen and deal unfairly by foreigners.
If therefore they really wished to manage the
games with fairness, and if this was the object of
their coming to Egypt, they advised them to con-
fine the contests to strangers, and allow no native
of Elis to be a candidate.” Such was the advice
which the Egyptians gave to the Eleans.

Psammis reigned only six years. He attacked
Ethiopia, and died almost directly afterwards.
Apries, his son, succeeded him upon the throne,
who, excepting Psammetichus, his great-grandfa-
ther, was the most prosperous of all the kings that
ever ruled over Egypt. The length of his reign was
twenty-five years, and in the course of it he
marched an army to attack Sidon, and fought a
battle with the king of Tyre by sea. When at

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length the time came that was fated to bring him
woe, an occasion arose which I shall describe
more fully in my Libyan history, only touching it
very briefly here. An army despatched by Apries
to attack Cyrene, having met with a terrible
reverse, the Egyptians laid the blame on him,
imagining that he had, of malice prepense, sent
the troops into the jaws of destruction. They
believed he had wished a vast number of them to
be slain in order that he himself might reign with
more security over the rest of the Egyptians.
Indignant therefore at this usage, the soldiers who
returned and the friends of the slain broke
instantly into revolt.

Apries, on learning these circumstances, sent
Amasis to the rebels to appease the tumult by per-
suasion. Upon his arrival, as he was seeking to
restrain the malcontents by his exhortations, one
of them, coming behind him, put a helmet on his
head, saying, as he put it on, that he thereby
crowned him king. Amasis was not altogether dis-
pleased at the action, as his conduct soon made
manifest; for no sooner had the insurgents agreed

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to make him actually their king than he prepared
to march with them against Apries. That
monarch, on tidings of these events reaching him,
sent Patarbemis, one of his courtiers, a man of
high rank, to Amasis with orders to bring him
alive into his presence. Patarbemis, on arriving at
the place where Amasis was, called on him to
come back with him to the king, whereupon
Amasis broke a coarse jest, and said, “Prythee
take that back to thy master.” When the envoy,
notwithstanding this reply, persisted in his
request, exhorting Amasis to obey the summons
of the king, he made answer “that this was exact-
ly what he had long been intending to do; Apries
would have no reason to complain of him on the
score of delay; he would shortly come himself to
the king, and bring others with him.” Patarbemis,
upon this, comprehending the intention of
Amasis, partly from his replies and partly from
the preparations which he saw in progress,
departed hastily, wishing to inform the king with
all speed of what was going on. Apries, however,
when he saw him approaching without Amasis,
fell into a paroxysm of rage, and not giving him-

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self time for reflection, commanded the nose and
ears of Patarbemis to be cut off. Then the rest of
the Egyptians, who had hitherto espoused the
cause of Apries, when they saw a man of such
note among them so shamefully outraged, with-
out a moment’s hesitation went over to the rebels,
and put themselves at the disposal of Amasis.

Apries, informed of this new calamity, armed his
mercenaries, and led them against the Egyptians:
this was a body of Carians and Ionians, number-
ing thirty thousand men, which was now with
him at Says, where his palace stood- a vast build-
ing, well worthy of notice. The army of Apries
marched out to attack the host of the Egyptians,
while that of Amasis went forth to fight the
strangers; and now both armies drew near the city
of Momemphis and prepared for the coming
fight.

The Egyptians are divided into seven distinct
classes- these are, the priests, the warriors, the
cowherds, the swineherds, the tradesmen, the
interpreters, and the boatmen. Their titles indi-

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cate their occupations. The warriors consist of
Hermotybians and Calascirians, who come from
different cantons, the whole of Egypt being par-
celled out into districts bearing this name.

The following cantons furnish the
Hermotybians:- The cantons of Busiris, Sais,
Chemmis, Papremis, that of the island called
Prosopitis, and half of Natho. They number,
when most numerous, a hundred and sixty thou-
sand. None of them ever practices a trade, but all
are given wholly to war.

The cantons of the Calascirians are different- they
include the following:- The cantons of Thebes,
Bubastis, Aphthis, Tanis, Mendes, Sebennytus,
Athribis, Pharbaethus, Thmuis, Onuphis, Anysis,
and Myecphoris- this last canton consists of an
island which lies over against the town of
Bubastis. The Calascirians, when at their greatest
number, have amounted to two hundred and fifty
thousand. Like the Hermotybians, they are for-
bidden to pursue any trade, and devote them-

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selves entirely to warlike exercises, the son fol-
lowing the father’s calling.

Whether the Greeks borrowed from the Egyptians
their notions about trade, like so many others, I
cannot say for certain. I have remarked that the
Thracians, the Scyths, the Persians, the Lydians,
and almost all other barbarians, hold the citizens
who practice trades, and their children, in less
repute than the rest, while they esteem as noble
those who keep aloof from handicrafts, and espe-
cially honour such as are given wholly to war.
These ideas prevail throughout the whole of
Greece, particularly among the Lacedaemonians.
Corinth is the place where mechanics are least
despised.

The warrior class in Egypt had certain special
privileges in which none of the rest of the
Egyptians participated, except the priests. In the
first place each man had twelve arurae of land
assigned him free from tax. (The arura is a square
of a hundred Egyptian cubits, the Egyptian cubit

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being of the same length as the Samian.) All the
warriors enjoyed this privilege together, but there
were other advantages which came to each in
rotation, the same man never obtaining them
twice. A thousand Calascirians, and the same
number of Hermotybians, formed in alternate
years the body-guard of the king; and during their
year of service these persons, besides their arurae,
received a daily portion of meat and drink, con-
sisting of five pounds of baked bread, two pounds
of beef, and four cups of wine.

When Apries, at the head of his mercenaries, and
Amasis, in command of the whole native force of
the Egyptians, encountered one another near the
city of Momemphis, an engagement presently
took place. The foreign troops fought bravely, but
were overpowered by numbers, in which they fell
very far short of their adversaries. It is said that
Apries believed that there was not a god who
could cast him down from his eminence, so firm-
ly did he think that he had established himself in
his kingdom. But at this time the battle went

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against him, and his army being worsted, he fell
into the enemy’s hands and was brought back a
prisoner to Sais, where he was lodged in what had
been his own house, but was now the palace of
Amasis. Amasis treated him with kindness, and
kept him in the palace for a while; but finding his
conduct blamed by the Egyptians, who charged
him with acting unjustly in preserving a man who
had shown himself so bitter an enemy both to
them and him, he gave Apries over into the hands
of his former subjects, to deal with as they chose.
Then the Egyptians took him and strangled him,
but having so done they buried him in the sepul-
chre of his fathers. This tomb is in the temple of
Minerva, very near the sanctuary, on the left hand
as one enters. The Saites buried all the kings who
belonged to their canton inside this temple; and
thus it even contains the tomb of Amasis, as well
as that of Apries and his family. The latter is not
so close to the sanctuary as the former, but still it
is within the temple. It stands in the court, and is
a spacious cloister built of stone and adorned
with pillars carved so as to resemble palm trees,

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and with other sumptuous ornaments. Within the
cloister is a chamber with folding doors, behind
which lies the sepulchre of the king.

Here too, in this same precinct of Minerva at Sais,
is the burial-place of one whom I think it not right
to mention in such a connection. It stands behind
the temple, against the backwall, which it entire-
ly covers. There are also some large stone obelisks
in the enclosure, and there is a lake near them,
adorned with an edging of stone. In form it is cir-
cular, and in size, as it seemed to me, about equal
to the lake in Delos called “the Hoop.”

On this lake it is that the Egyptians represent by
night his sufferings whose name I refrain from
mentioning, and this representation they call their
Mysteries. I know well the whole course of the
proceedings in these ceremonies, but they shall
not pass my lips. So too, with regard to the mys-
teries of Ceres, which the Greeks term “the
Thesmophoria,” I know them, but I shall not
mention them, except so far as may be done with-
out impiety. The daughters of Danaus brought

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these rites from Egypt, and taught them to the
Pelasgic women of the Peloponnese. Afterwards,
when the inhabitants of the peninsula were driven
from their homes by the Dorians, the rites per-
ished. Only in Arcadia, where the natives
remained and were not compelled to migrate,
their observance continued.

After Apries had been put to death in the way that
I have described above, Amasis reigned over
Egypt. He belonged to the canton of Sais, being a
native of the town called Siouph. At first his sub-
jects looked down on him and held him in small
esteem, because he had been a mere private per-
son, and of a house of no great distinction; but
after a time Amasis succeeded in reconciling them
to his rule, not by severity, but by cleverness.
Among his other splendour he had a golden foot-
pan, in which his guests and himself were wont
upon occasion to wash their feet. This vessel he
caused to be broken in pieces, and made of the
gold an image of one of the gods, which he set up
in the most public place in the whole city; upon
which the Egyptians flocked to the image, and

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worshipped it with the utmost reverence. Amasis,
finding this was so, called an assembly, and
opened the matter to them, explaining how the
image had been made of the foot-pan, wherein
they had been wont formerly to wash their feet
and to put all manner of filth, yet now it was
greatly reverenced. “And truly,” he went on to
say, “it had gone with him as with the foot-pan. If
he was a private person formerly, yet now he had
come to be their king. And so he bade them hon-
our and reverence him.” Such was the mode in
which he won over the Egyptians, and brought
them to be content to do him service.

The following was the general habit of his life:-
from early dawn to the time when the forum is
wont to fill, he sedulously transacted all the busi-
ness that was brought before him; during the
remainder of the day he drank and joked with his
guests, passing the time in witty and, sometimes,
scarce seemly conversation. It grieved his friends
that he should thus demean himself, and accord-
ingly some of them chid him on the subject, say-
ing to him- “Oh! king, thou dost but ill guard thy

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royal dignity whilst thou allowest thyself in such
levities. Thou shouldest sit in state upon a stately
throne, and busy thyself with affairs the whole
day long. So would the Egyptians feel that a great
man rules them, and thou wouldst be better spo-
ken of. But now thou conductest thyself in no
kingly fashion.” Amasis answered them thus:-
“Bowmen bend their bows when they wish to
shoot; unbrace them when the shooting is over.
Were they kept always strung they would break,
and fail the archer in time of need. So it is with
men. If they give themselves constantly to serious
work, and never indulge awhile in pastime or
sport, they lose their senses, and become mad or
moody. Knowing this, I divide my life between
pastime and business.” Thus he answered his
friends.

It is said that Amasis, even while he was a private
man, had the same tastes for drinking and jesting,
and was averse to engaging in any serious
employment. He lived in constant feasts and rev-
elries, and whenever his means failed him, he
roamed about and robbed people. On such occa-

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sions the persons from whom he had stolen would
bring him, if he denied the charge, before the
nearest oracle; sometimes the oracle would pro-
nounce him guilty of the theft, at other times it
would acquit him. When afterwards he came to
be king, he neglected the temples of such gods as
had declared that he was not a thief, and neither
contributed to their adornment nor frequented
them for sacrifice, since he regarded them as
utterly worthless and their oracles as wholly false:
but the gods who had detected his guilt he con-
sidered to be true gods whose oracles did not
deceive, and these he honoured exceedingly.

First of all, therefore, he built the gateway of the
temple of Minerva at Sais, which is an astonishing
work, far surpassing all other buildings of the
same kind both in extent and height, and built
with stones of rare size and excellency. In the next
place, he presented to the temple a number of
large colossal statues and several prodigious
andro-sphinxes, besides certain stones for the
repairs, of a most extraordinary size. Some of
these he got from the quarries over against

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Memphis, but the largest were brought from
Elephantine, which is twenty days’ voyage from
Sais. Of all these wonderful masses that which I
most admire is a chamber made of a single stone,
which was quarried at Elephantine. It took three
years to convey this block from the quarry to Sais;
and in the conveyance were employed no fewer
than two thousand labourers, who were all from
the class of boatmen. The length of this chamber
on the outside is twenty-one cubits, its breadth
fourteen cubits, and its height, eight. The mea-
surements inside are the following:- the length,
eighteen cubits and five-sixths; the breadth,
twelve cubits; and the height, five. It lies near the
entrance of the temple, where it was left in conse-
quence of the following circumstance:- it hap-
pened that the architect, just as the stone had
reached the spot where it now stands, heaved a
sigh, considering the length of time that the
removal had taken, and feeling wearied with the
heavy toil. The sigh was heard by Amasis who,
regarding it as an omen, would not allow the
chamber to be moved forward any farther. Some,
however, say that one of the workmen engaged at

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the levers was crushed and killed by the mass, and
that this was the reason of its being left where it
now stands.

To the other temples of much note Amasis also
made magnificent offerings- at Memphis, for
instance, he gave the recumbent colossus in front
of the temple of Vulcan, which is seventy-five feet
long. Two other colossal statues stand on the
same base, each twenty feet high, carved in the
stone of Ethiopia, one on either side of the tem-
ple. There is also a stone colossus of the same size
at Says, recumbent like that at Memphis. Amasis
finally built the temple of Isis at Memphis, a vast
structure, well worth seeing.

It is said that the reign of Amasis was the most
prosperous time that Egypt ever saw,- the river
was more liberal to the land, and the land
brought forth more abundantly for the service of
man than had ever been known before; while the
number of inhabited cities was not less than twen-
ty thousand. It was this king Amasis who estab-
lished the law that every Egyptian should appear

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once a year before the governor of his canton, and
show his means of living; or, failing to do so, and
to prove that he got an honest livelihood, should
be put to death. Solon the Athenian borrowed this
law from the Egyptians, and imposed it on his
countrymen, who have observed it ever since. It is
indeed an excellent custom.

Amasis was partial to the Greeks, and among
other favours which he granted them, gave to
such as liked to settle in Egypt the city of
Naucratis for their residence. To those who only
wished to trade upon the coast, and did not want
to fix their abode in the country, he granted cer-
tain lands where they might set up altars and erect
temples to the gods. Of these temples the grand-
est and most famous, which is also the most fre-
quented, is that called “the Hellenium.” It was
built conjointly by the Ionians, Dorians, and
Aeolians, the following cities taking part in the
work:- the Ionian states of Chios, Teos, Phocaea,
and Clazomenae; Rhodes, Cnidus, Halicarnassus,
and Phaselis of the Dorians; and Mytilene of the
Aeolians. These are the states to whom the temple

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belongs, and they have the right of appointing the
governors of the factory; the other cities which
claim a share in the building, claim what in no
sense belongs to them. Three nations, however,
consecrated for themselves separate temples- the
Eginetans one to Jupiter, the Samians to Juno, and
the Milesians to Apollo.

In ancient times there was no factory but
Naucratis in the whole of Egypt; and if a person
entered one of the other mouths of the Nile, he
was obliged to swear that he had not come there
of his own free will. Having so done, he was
bound to sail in his ship to the Canobic mouth, or
were that impossible owing to contrary winds, he
must take his wares by boat all round the Delta,
and so bring them to Naucratis, which had an
exclusive privilege.

It happened in the reign of Amasis that the temple
of Delphi had been accidentally burnt, and the
Amphictyons had contracted to have it rebuilt for
three hundred talents, of which sum one-fourth
was to be furnished by the Delphians. Under these

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circumstances the Delphians went from city to
city begging contributions, and among their other
wanderings came to Egypt and asked for help.
From few other places did they obtain so much-
Amasis gave them a thousand talents of alum, and
the Greek settlers twenty minae.

A league was concluded by Amasis with the
Cyrenaeans, by which Cyrene and Egypt became
close friends and allies. He likewise took a wife
from that city, either as a sign of his friendly feel-
ing, or because he had a fancy to marry a Greek
woman. However this may be, certain it is that he
espoused a lady of Cyrene, by name Ladice,
daughter, some say, of Battus or Arcesilaus, the
king- others, of Critobulus, one of the chief citi-
zens. When the time came to complete the con-
tract, Amasis was struck with weakness.
Astonished hereat- for he was not wont to be so
afflicted- the king thus addressed his bride:
“Woman, thou hast certainly bewitched me- now
therefore be sure thou shalt perish more miserably
than ever woman perished yet.” Ladice protested
her innocence, but in vain; Amasis was not soft-

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ened. Hereupon she made a vow internally, that if
he recovered within the day (for no longer time
was allowed her), she would present a statue to
the temple of Venus at Cyrene. Immediately she
obtained her wish, and the king’s weakness disap-
peared. Amasis loved her greatly ever after, and
Ladice performed her vow. The statue which she
caused to be made, and sent to Cyrene continued
there to my day, standing with its face looking
outwards from the city. Ladice herself, when
Cambyses conquered Egypt, suffered no wrong;
for Cambyses, on learning of her who she was,
sent her back unharmed to her country.

Besides the marks of favour already mentioned,
Amasis also enriched with offerings many of the
Greek temples. He sent to Cyrene a statue of
Minerva covered with plates of gold, and a paint-
ed likeness of himself. To the Minerva of Lindus
he gave two statues in stone, and a linen corslet
well worth inspection. To the Samian Juno he pre-
sented two statues of himself, made in wood,
which stood in the great temple to my day, behind
the doors. Samos was honoured with these gifts

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181

on account of the bond of friendship subsisting
between Amasis and Polycrates, the son of
Aeaces: Lindus, for no such reason, but because
of the tradition that the daughters of Danaus
touched there in their flight from the sons of
Aegyptus, and built the temple of Minerva. Such
were the offerings of Amasis. He likewise took
Cyprus, which no man had ever done before, and
compelled it to pay him a tribute.

Th e H i s to r i e s

o f

H e ro d o t u s o f H a l i c a r n a s s u s

Book Three

TRANSLATED BY

George Rawlinson

Ames, Iowa

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BOOK THREE

he above-mentioned Amasis was the

Egyptian king against whom Cambyses, son of
Cyrus, made his expedition; and with him went
an army composed of the many nations under his
rule, among them being included both Ionic and
Aeolic Greeks. The reason of the invasion was the
following. Cambyses, by the advice of a certain
Egyptian, who was angry with Amasis for having
torn him from his wife and children and given
him over to the Persians, had sent a herald to
Amasis to ask his daughter in marriage. His advis-
er was a physician, whom Amasis, when Cyrus
had requested that he would send him the most
skilful of all the Egyptian eye-doctors, singled out
as the best from the whole number. Therefore the
Egyptian bore Amasis a grudge, and his reason

Th e H i s t o r i e s

o f

H e r o d o t u s o f H a l i c a r n a s s u s

for urging Cambyses to ask the hand of the king’s
daughter was, that if he complied, it might cause
him annoyance; if he refused, it might make
Cambyses his enemy. When the message came,
Amasis, who much dreaded the power of the
Persians, was greatly perplexed whether to give
his daughter or no; for that Cambyses did not
intend to make her his wife, but would only
receive her as his concubine, he knew for certain.
He therefore cast the matter in his mind, and
finally resolved what he would do. There was a
daughter of the late king Apries, named Nitetis, a
tall and beautiful woman, the last survivor of that
royal house. Amasis took this woman, and deck-
ing her out with gold and costly garments, sent
her to Persia as if she had been his own child.
Some time afterwards, Cambyses, as he gave her
an embrace, happened to call her by her father’s
name, whereupon she said to him, “I see, O king,
thou knowest not how thou has been cheated by
Amasis; who took me, and, tricking me out with
gauds, sent me to thee as his own daughter. But I
am in truth the child of Apries, who was his lord
and master, until he rebelled against him, togeth-

Herodotus

The Histories–Book Three

er with the rest of the Egyptians, and put him to
death.” It was this speech, and the cause of quar-
rel it disclosed, which roused the anger of
Cambyses, son of Cyrus, and brought his arms
upon Egypt. Such is the Persian story.

The Egyptians, however, claim Cambyses as
belonging to them, declaring that he was the son
of this Nitetis. It was Cyrus, they say, and not
Cambyses, who sent to Amasis for his daughter.
But here they mis-state the truth. Acquainted as
they are beyond all other men with the laws and
customs of the Persians, they cannot but be well
aware, first, that it is not the Persian wont to
allow a bastard to reign when there is a legitimate
heir; and next, that Cambyses was the son of
Cassandane, the daughter of Pharnaspes, an
Achaemenian, and not of this Egyptian. But the
fact is that they pervert history in order to claim
relationship with the house of Cyrus. Such is the
truth of this matter.

I have also heard another account, which I do not
at all believe: that a Persian lady came to visit the

wives of Cyrus, and seeing how tall and beautiful
were the children of Cassandane, then standing
by, broke out into loud praise of them, and
admired them exceedingly. But Cassandane, wife
of Cyrus, answered, “Though such the children I
have borne him, yet Cyrus slights me and gives all
his regard to the new-comer from Egypt.” Thus
did she express her vexation on account of
Nitetis: whereupon Cambyses, the eldest of her
boys, exclaimed, “Mother, when I am a man, I
will turn Egypt upside down for you.” He was
but ten years old, as the tale runs, when he said
this, and astonished all the women, yet he never
forgot it afterwards; and on this account, they
say, when he came to be a man, and mounted the
throne, he made his expedition against Egypt.

There was another matter, quite distinct, which
helped to bring about the expedition. One of the
mercenaries of Amasis, a Halicarnassian, Phanes
by name, a man of good judgment, and a brave
warrior, dissatisfied for some reason or other with
his master, deserted the service, and taking ship,
fled to Cambyses, wishing to get speech with him.

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The Histories–Book Three

As he was a person of no small account among
the mercenaries, and one who could give very
exact intelligence about Egypt, Amasis, anxious
to recover him, ordered that he should be pur-
sued. He gave the matter in charge to one of the
most trusty of the eunuchs, who went in quest of
the Halicarnassian in a vessel of war. The eunuch
caught him in Lycia, but did not contrive to bring
him back to Egypt, for Phanes outwitted him by
making his guards drunk, and then escaping into
Persia. Now it happened that Cambyses was med-
itating his attack on Egypt, and doubting how he
might best pass the desert, when Phanes arrived,
and not only told him all the secrets of Amasis,
but advised him also how the desert might be
crossed. He counselled him to send an ambas-
sador to the king of the Arabs, and ask him for
safe-conduct through the region.

Now the only entrance into Egypt is by this
desert: the country from Phoenicia to the borders
of the city Cadytis belongs to the people called the
Palaestine Syrians; from Cadytis, which it appears
to me is a city almost as large as Sardis, the marts

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upon the coast till you reach Jenysus are the
Arabian king’s; after Jenysus the Syrians again
come in, and extend to Lake Serbonis, near the
place where Mount Casius juts out into the sea.
At Lake Serbonis, where the tale goes that
Typhon hid himself, Egypt begins. Now the whole
tract between Jenysus on the one side, and Lake
Serbonis and Mount Casius on the other, and this
is no small space, being as much as three days’
journey, is a dry desert without a drop of water.

I shall now mention a thing of which few of those
who sail to Egypt are aware. Twice a year wine is
brought into Egypt from every part of Greece, as
well as from Phoenicia, in earthen jars; and yet in
the whole country you will nowhere see, as I may
say, a single jar. What then, every one will ask,
becomes of the jars? This, too, I will clear up. The
burgomaster of each town has to collect the wine-
jars within his district, and to carry them to
Memphis, where they are all filled with water by
the Memphians, who then convey them to this
desert tract of Syria. And so it comes to pass that
all the jars which enter Egypt year by year, and

The Histories–Book Three

are there put up to sale, find their way into Syria,
whither all the old jars have gone before them.

This way of keeping the passage into Egypt fit for
use by storing water there, was begun by the
Persians so soon as they became masters of that
country. As, however, at the time of which we
speak the tract had not yet been so supplied,
Cambyses took the advice of his Halicarnassian
guest, and sent messengers to the Arabian to beg
a safe-conduct through the region. The Arabian
granted his prayer, and each pledged faith to the
other.

The Arabs keep such pledges more religiously
than almost any other people. They plight faith
with the forms following. When two men would
swear a friendship, they stand on each side of a
third: he with a sharp stone makes a cut on the
inside of the hand of each near the middle finger,
and, taking a piece from their dress, dips it in the
blood of each, and moistens therewith seven
stones lying in the midst, calling the while on
Bacchus and Urania. After this, the man who

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makes the pledge commends the stranger (or the
citizen, if citizen he be) to all his friends, and they
deem themselves bound to stand to the engage-
ment. They have but these two gods, to wit,
Bacchus and Urania; and they say that in their
mode of cutting the hair, they follow Bacchus.
Now their practice is to cut it in a ring, away from
the temples. Bacchus they call in their language
Orotal, and Urania, Alilat.

When therefore the Arabian had pledged his faith
to the messengers of Cambyses, he straightway
contrived as follows:- he filled a number of
camels’ skins with water, and loading therewith
all the live camels that he possessed, drove them
into the desert, and awaited the coming of the
army. This is the more likely of the two tales that
are told. The other is an improbable story, but, as
it is related, I think that I ought not to pass it by.
There is a great river in Arabia, called the Corys,
which empties itself into the Erythraean sea. The
Arabian king, they say, made a pipe of the skins
of oxen and other beasts, reaching from this river

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all the way to the desert, and so brought the water
to certain cisterns which he had dug in the desert
to receive it. It is a twelve days’ journey from the
river to this desert tract. And the water, they say,
was brought through three different pipes to three
separate places.

Psammenitus, son of Amasis, lay encamped at the
mouth of the. Nile, called the Pelusiac, awaiting
Cambyses. For Cambyses, when he went up
against Egypt, found Amasis no longer in life: he
had died after ruling Egypt forty and four years,
during all which time no great misfortune had
befallen him. When he died, his body was
embalmed, and buried in the tomb which he had
himself caused to be made in the temple. After his
son Psammenitus had mounted the throne, a
strange prodigy occurred in Egypt- rain fell at
Egyptian Thebes, a thing which never happened
before, and which, to the present time, has never
happened again, as the Thebans themselves testify.
In Upper Egypt it does not usually rain at all; but
on this occasion, rain fell at Thebes in small drops.

Herodotus

The Persians crossed the desert, and, pitching their
camp close to the Egyptians, made ready for bat-
tle. Hereupon the mercenaries in the pay of
Psammenitus, who were Greeks and Carians, full
of anger against Phanes for having brought a for-
eign army upon Egypt, bethought themselves of a
mode whereby they might be revenged on him.
Phanes had left sons in Egypt. The mercenaries
took these, and leading them to the camp, dis-
played them before the eyes of their father; after
which they brought out a bowl, and, placing it in
the space between the two hosts, they led the sons
of Phanes, one by one, to the vessel, and slew them
over it. When the last was dead, water and wine
were poured into the bowl, and all the soldiers
tasted of the blood, and so they went to the battle.
Stubborn was the fight which followed, and it was
not till vast numbers had been slain upon both
sides, that the Egyptians turned and fled.

On the field where this battle was fought I saw a
very wonderful thing which the natives pointed
out to me. The bones of the slain lie scattered

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upon the field in two lots, those of the Persians in
one place by themselves, as the bodies lay at the
first- those of the Egyptians in another place apart
from them. If, then, you strike the Persian skulls,
even with a pebble, they are so weak, that you
break a hole in them; but the Egyptian skulls are
so strong, that you may smite them with a stone
and you will scarcely break them in. They gave
me the following reason for this difference, which
seemed to me likely enough:- The Egyptians (they
said) from early childhood have the head shaved,
and so by the action of the sun the skull becomes
thick and hard. The same cause prevents baldness
in Egypt, where you see fewer bald men than in
any other land. Such, then, is the reason why the
skulls of the Egyptians are so strong. The
Persians, on the other hand, have feeble skulls,
because they keep themselves shaded from the
first, wearing turbans upon their heads. What I
have here mentioned I saw with my own eyes, and
I observed also the like at Papremis, in the case of
the Persians who were killed with Achaeamenes,
the son of Darius, by Inarus the Libyan.

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The Egyptians who fought in the battle, no soon-
er turned their backs upon the enemy, than they
fled away in complete disorder to Memphis,
where they shut themselves up within the walls.
Hereupon Cambyses sent a Mytilenaean vessel,
with a Persian herald on board, who was to sail
up the Nile to Memphis, and invite the Egyptians
to a surrender. They, however, when they saw the
vessel entering the town, poured forth in crowds
from the castle, destroyed the ship, and, tearing
the crew limb from limb, so bore them into the
fortress. After this Memphis was besieged, and in
due time surrendered. Hereon the Libyans who
bordered upon Egypt, fearing the fate of that
country, gave themselves up to Cambyses without
a battle, made an agreement to pay tribute to him,
and forthwith sent him gifts. The Cyrenaeans too,
and the Barcaeans, having the same fear as the
Libyans, immediately did the like. Cambyses
received the Libyan presents very graciously, but
not so the gifts of the Cyrenaeans. They had sent
no more than five hundred minx of silver, which
Cambyses, I imagine, thought too little. He there-

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fore snatched the money from them, and with his
own hands scattered it among his soldiers.

Ten days after the fort had fallen, Cambyses
resolved to try the spirit of Psammenitus, the
Egyptian king, whose whole reign had been but
six months. He therefore had him set in one of the
suburbs, and many other Egyptians with him, and
there subjected him to insult. First of all he sent
his daughter out from the city, clothed in the garb
of a slave, with a pitcher to draw water. Many vir-
gins, the daughters of the chief nobles, accompa-
nied her, wearing the same dress. When the
damsels came opposite the place where their
fathers sate, shedding tears and uttering cries of
woe, the fathers, all but Psammenitus, wept and
wailed in return, grieving to see their children in
so sad a plight; but he, when he had looked and
seen, bent his head towards the ground. In this
way passed by the water-carriers. Next to them
came Psammenitus’ son, and two thousand
Egyptians of the same age with him- all of them
having ropes round their necks and bridles in

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their mouths- and they too passed by on their way
to suffer death for the murder of the Mytilenaeans
who were destroyed, with their vessel, in
Memphis. For so had the royal judges given their
sentence for each Mytilenaean ten of the noblest
Egyptians must forfeit life.” King Psammenitus
saw the train pass on, and knew his son was being
led to death, but while the other Egyptians who
sate around him wept and were sorely troubled,
he showed no further sign than when he saw his
daughter. And now, when they too were gone, it
chanced that one of his former boon-companions,
a man advanced in years, who had been stripped
of all that he had and was a beggar, came where
Psammenitus, son of Amasis, and the rest of the
Egyptians were, asking alms from the soldiers. At
this sight the king burst into tears, and weeping
out aloud, called his friend by his name, and
smote himself on the head. Now there were some
who had been set to watch Psammenitus and see
what he would do as each train went by; so these
persons went and told Cambyses of his behaviour.
Then he, astonished at what was done, sent a
messenger to Psammenitus, and questioned him,

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saying, “Psammenitus, thy lord Cambyses asketh
thee why, when thou sawest thy daughter brought
to shame, and thy son on his way to death, thou
didst neither utter cry nor shed tear, while to a
beggar, who is, he hears, a stranger to thy race,
thou gavest those marks of honour.” To this ques-
tion Psammenitus made answer, “O son of Cyrus,
my own misfortunes were too great for tears; but
the woe of my friend deserved them. When a man
falls from splendour and plenty into beggary at
the threshold of old age, one may well weep for
him.” When the messenger brought back this
answer, Cambyses owned it was just; Croesus,
likewise, the Egyptians say, burst into tears- for he
too had come into Egypt with Cambyses- and the
Persians who were present wept. Even Cambyses
himself was touched with pity, and he forthwith
gave an order that the son of Psammenitus should
be spared from the number of those appointed to
die, and Psammenitus himself brought from the
suburb into his presence.

The messengers were too late to save the life of
Psammenitus’ son, who had been cut in pieces

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the first of all; but they took Psammenitus him-
self and brought him before the king. Cambyses
allowed him to live with him, and gave him no
more harsh treatment; nay, could he have kept
from intermeddling with affairs, he might have
recovered Egypt, and ruled it as governor. For
the Persian wont is to treat the sons of kings
with honour, and even to give their fathers’ king-
doms to the children of such as revolt from
them. There are many cases from which one may
collect that this is the Persian rule, and especial-
ly those of Pausiris and Thannyras. Thannyras
was son of Inarus the Libyan, and was allowed
to succeed his father, as was also Pausiris, son of
Amyrtaeus; yet certainly no two persons ever did
the Persians more damage than Amyrtaeus and
Inarus. In this case Psammenitus plotted evil,
and received his reward accordingly. He was dis-
covered to be stirring up revolt in Egypt, where-
fore Cambyses, when his guilt clearly appeared,
compelled him to drink bull’s blood, which
presently caused his death. Such was the end of
Psammenitus.

The Histories–Book Three

After this Cambyses left Memphis, and went to
Sais, wishing to do that which he actually did on
his arrival there. He entered the palace of Amasis,
and straightway commanded that the body of the
king should be brought forth from the sepulchre.
When the attendants did according to his com-
mandment, he further bade them scourge the
body, and prick it with goads, and pluck the hair
from it, and heap upon it all manner of insults.
The body, however, having been embalmed, resist-
ed, and refused to come apart, do what they
would to it; so the attendants grew weary of their
work; whereupon Cambyses bade them take the
corpse and burn it. This was truly an impious
command to give, for the Persians hold fire to be
a god, and never by any chance burn their dead.
Indeed this practice is unlawful, both with them
and with the Egyptians- with them for the reason
above mentioned, since they deem it wrong to give
the corpse of a man to a god; and with the
Egyptians, because they believe fire to be a live
animal, which eats whatever it can seize, and then,
glutted with the food, dies with the matter which

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it feeds upon. Now to give a man’s body to be
devoured by beasts is in no wise agreeable to their
customs, and indeed this is the very reason why
they embalm their dead; namely, to prevent them
from being eaten in the grave by worms. Thus
Cambyses commanded what both nations
accounted unlawful. According to the Egyptians,
it was not Amasis who was thus treated, but
another of their nation who was of about the same
height. The Persians, believing this man’s body to
be the king’s, abused it in the fashion described
above. Amasis, they say, was warned by an oracle
of what would happen to him after his death: in
order, therefore, to prevent the impending fate, he
buried the body, which afterwards received the
blows, inside his own tomb near the entrance,
commanding his son to bury him, when he died, in
the furthest recess of the same sepulchre. For my
own part I do not believe that these orders were
ever given by Amasis; the Egyptians, as it seems to
me, falsely assert it, to save their own dignity.

After this Cambyses took counsel with himself,
and planned three expeditions. One was against

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the Carthaginians, another against the
Ammonians, and a third against the long-lived
Ethiopians, who dwelt in that part of Libya which
borders upon the southern sea. He judged it best
to despatch his fleet against Carthage and to send
some portion of his land army to act against the
Ammonians, while his spies went into Ethiopia,
under the pretence of carrying presents to the
king, but in reality to take note of all they saw,
and especially to observe whether there was real-
ly what is called “the table of the Sun” in
Ethiopia.

Now the table of the Sun according to the
accounts given of it may be thus described:- It is a
meadow in the skirts of their city full of the boiled
flesh of all manner of beasts, which the magis-
trates are careful to store with meat every night,
and where whoever likes may come and eat dur-
ing the day. The people of the land say that the
earth itself brings forth the food. Such is the
description which is given of this table.

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When Cambyses had made up his mind that the
spies should go, he forthwith sent to Elephantine
for certain of the Icthyophagi who were acquaint-
ed with the Ethiopian tongue; and, while they
were being fetched, issued orders to his fleet to
sail against Carthage. But the Phoenicians said
they would not go, since they were bound to the
Carthaginians by solemn oaths, and since besides
it would be wicked in them to make war on their
own children. Now when the Phoenicians
refused, the rest of the fleet was unequal to the
undertaking; and so it was that the Carthaginians
escaped, and were not enslaved by the Persians.
Cambyses thought it not right to force the war
upon the Phoenicians, because they had yielded
themselves to the Persians, and because upon the
Phoenicians all his sea-service depended. The
Cyprians had also joined the Persians of their own
accord, and took part with them in the expedition
against Egypt.

As soon as the Icthyophagi arrived from
Elephantine, Cambyses, having told them what
they were to say, forthwith despatched them into

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Ethiopia with these following gifts: to wit, a pur-
ple robe, a gold chain for the neck, armlets, an
alabaster box of myrrh, and a cask of palm wine.
The Ethiopians to whom this embassy was sent
are said to be the tallest and handsomest men in
the whole world. In their customs they differ
greatly from the rest of mankind, and particular-
ly in the way they choose their kings; for they find
out the man who is the tallest of all the citizens,
and of strength equal to his height, and appoint
him to rule over them.

The Icthyophagi on reaching this people, deliv-
ered the gifts to the king of the country, and spoke
as follows:- “Cambyses, king of the Persians, anx-
ious to become thy ally and sworn friend, has sent
us to hold converse with thee, and to bear thee the
gifts thou seest, which are the things wherein he
himself delights the most.” Hereon the Ethiopian,
who knew they came as spies, made answer:-
“The king of the Persians sent you not with these
gifts because he much desired to become my
sworn friend- nor is the account which ye give of
yourselves true, for ye are come to search out my

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kingdom. Also your king is not a just man- for
were he so, he had not coveted a land which is not
his own, nor brought slavery on a people who
never did him any wrong. Bear him this bow, and
say- ‘The king of the Ethiops thus advises the king
of the Persians when the Persians can pull a bow
of this strength thus easily, then let him come with
an army of superior strength against the long-
lived Ethiopians- till then, let him thank the gods
that they have not put it into the heart of the sons
of the Ethiops to covet countries which do not
belong to them.’

So speaking, he unstrung the bow, and gave it into
the hands of the messengers. Then, taking the
purple robe, he asked them what it was, and how
it had been made. They answered truly, telling
him concerning the purple, and the art of the
dyer- whereat he observed “that the men were
deceitful, and their garments also.” Next he took
the neck-chain and the armlets, and asked about
them. So the Icthyophagi explained their use as
ornaments. Then the king laughed, and fancying
they were fetters, said, “the Ethiopians had much

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stronger ones.” Thirdly, he inquired about the
myrrh, and when they told him how it was made
and rubbed upon the limbs, he said the same as he
had said about the robe. Last of all he came to the
wine, and having learnt their way of making it, he
drank a draught, which greatly delighted him;
whereupon he asked what the Persian king was
wont to eat, and to what age the longest-lived of
the Persians had been known to attain. They told
him that the king ate bread, and described the
nature of wheat- adding that eighty years was the
longest term of man’s life among the Persians.
Hereat he remarked, “It did not surprise him, if
they fed on dirt, that they died so soon; indeed he
was sure they never would have lived so long as
eighty years, except for the refreshment they got
from that drink (meaning the wine), wherein he
confessed the Persians surpassed the Ethiopians.”

The Icthyophagi then in their turn questioned the
king concerning the term of life, and diet of his
people, and were told that most of them lived to
be a hundred and twenty years old, while some
even went beyond that age- they ate boiled flesh,

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and had for their drink nothing but milk. When
the Icthyophagi showed wonder at the number of
the years, he led them to a fountain, wherein
when they had washed, they found their flesh all
glossy and sleek, as if they had bathed in oil- and
a scent came from the spring like that of violets.
The water was so weak, they said, that nothing
would float in it, neither wood, nor any lighter
substance, but all went to the bottom. If the
account of this fountain be true, it would be their
constant use of the water from it which makes
them so long-lived. When they quitted the foun-
tain the king led them to a prison, where the pris-
oners were all of them bound with fetters of gold.
Among these Ethiopians copper is of all metals
the most scarce and valuable. After they had seen
the prison, they were likewise shown what is
called “the table of the Sun.”

Also, last of all, they were allowed to behold the
coffins of the Ethiopians, which are made
(according to report) of crystal, after the follow-
ing fashion:- When the dead body has been dried,
either in the Egyptian, or in some other manner,

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they cover the whole with gypsum, and adorn it
with painting until it is as like the living man as
possible. Then they place the body in a crystal pil-
lar which has been hollowed out to receive it,
crystal being dug up in great abundance in their
country, and of a kind very easy to work. You
may see the corpse through the pillar within
which it lies; and it neither gives out any unpleas-
ant odour, nor is it in any respect unseemly; yet
there is no part that is not as plainly visible as if
the body were bare. The next of kin keep the crys-
tal pillar in their houses for a full year from the
time of the death, and give it the first fruits con-
tinually, and honour it with sacrifice. After the
year is out they bear the pillar forth, and set it up
near the town.

When the spies had now seen everything, they
returned back to Egypt, and made report to
Cambyses, who was stirred to anger by their
words. Forthwith he set out on his march against
the Ethiopians without having made any provi-
sion for the sustenance of his army, or reflected
that he was about to wage war in the uttermost

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parts of the earth. Like a senseless madman as he
was, no sooner did he receive the report of the
Icthyophagi than he began his march, bidding the
Greeks who were with his army remain where
they were, and taking only his land force with
him. At Thebes, which he passed through on his
way, he detached from his main body some fifty
thousand men, and sent them against the
Ammonians with orders to carry the people into
captivity, and burn the oracle of Jupiter.
Meanwhile he himself went on with the rest of his
forces against the Ethiopians. Before, however, he
had accomplished one-fifth part of the distance,
all that the army had in the way of provisions
failed; whereupon the men began to eat the
sumpter beasts, which shortly failed also. If then,
at this time, Cambyses, seeing what was happen-
ing, had confessed himself in the wrong, and led
his army back, he would have done the wisest
thing that he could after the mistake made at the
outset; but as it was, he took no manner of heed,
but continued to march forwards. So long as the
earth gave them anything, the soldiers sustained
life by eating the grass and herbs; but when they

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came to the bare sand, a portion of them were
guilty of a horrid deed: by tens they cast lots for a
man, who was slain to be the food of the others.
When Cambyses heard of these doings, alarmed
at such cannibalism, he gave up his attack on
Ethiopia, and retreating by the way he had come,
reached Thebes, after he had lost vast numbers of
his soldiers. From Thebes he marched down to
Memphis, where he dismissed the Greeks, allow-
ing them to sail home. And so ended the expedi-
tion against Ethiopia.

The men sent to attack the Ammonians, started
from Thebes, having guides with them, and may
be clearly traced as far as the city Oasis, which is
inhabited by Samians, said to be of the tribe
Aeschrionia. The place is distant from Thebes
seven days’ journey across the sand, and is called
in our tongue “the Island of the Blessed.” Thus
far the army is known to have made its way; but
thenceforth nothing is to be heard of them, except
what the Ammonians, and those who get their
knowledge from them, report. It is certain they
neither reached the Ammonians, nor even came

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back to Egypt. Further than this, the Ammonians
relate as follows:- That the Persians set forth from
Oasis across the sand, and had reached about half
way between that place and themselves when, as
they were at their midday meal, a wind arose
from the south, strong and deadly, bringing with
it vast columns of whirling sand, which entirely
covered up the troops and caused them wholly to
disappear. Thus, according to the Ammonians,
did it fare with this army.

About the time when Cambyses arrived at
Memphis, Apis appeared to the Egyptians. Now
Apis is the god whom the Greeks call Epaphus. As
soon as he appeared, straightway all the
Egyptians arrayed themselves in their gayest gar-
ments, and fell to feasting and jollity: which when
Cambyses saw, making sure that these rejoicings
were on account of his own ill success, he called
before him the officers who had charge of
Memphis, and demanded of them- “Why, when
he was in Memphis before, the Egyptians had
done nothing of this kind, but waited until now,

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when he had returned with the loss of so many of
his troops?” The officers made answer, “That one
of their gods had appeared to them, a god who at
long intervals of time had been accustomed to
show himself in Egypt- and that always on his
appearance the whole of Egypt feasted and kept
jubilee.” When Cambyses heard this, he told them
that they lied, and as liars he condemned them all
to suffer death.

When they were dead, he called the priests to his
presence, and questioning them received the same
answer; whereupon he observed, “That he would
soon know whether a tame god had really come
to dwell in Egypt”- and straightway, without
another word, he bade them bring Apis to him. So
they went out from his presence to fetch the god.
Now this Apis, or Epaphus, is the calf of a cow
which is never afterwards able to bear young. The
Egyptians say that fire comes down from heaven
upon the cow, which thereupon conceives Apis.
The calf which is so called has the following
marks:- He is black, with a square spot of white

Herodotus

upon his forehead, and on his back the figure of
an eagle; the hairs in his tail are double, and there
is a beetle upon his tongue.

When the priests returned bringing Apis with
them, Cambyses, like the harebrained person that
he was, drew his dagger, and aimed at the belly of
the animal, but missed his mark, and stabbed him
in the thigh. Then he laughed, and said thus to the
priests:- “Oh! blockheads, and think ye that gods
become like this, of flesh and blood, and sensible
to steel? A fit god indeed for Egyptians, such an
one! But it shall cost you dear that you have made
me your laughing-stock.” When he had so spo-
ken, he ordered those whose business it was to
scourge the priests, and if they found any of the
Egyptians keeping festival to put them to death.
Thus was the feast stopped throughout the land
of Egypt, and the priests suffered punishment.
Apis, wounded in the thigh, lay some time pining
in the temple; at last he died of his wound, and
the priests buried him secretly without the knowl-
edge of Cambyses.

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And now Cambyses, who even before had not
been quite in his right mind, was forthwith, as the
Egyptians say, smitten with madness for this
crime. The first of his outrages was the slaying of
Smerdis, his full brother, whom he had sent back
to Persia from Egypt out of envy, because he drew
the bow brought from the Ethiopians by the
Icthyophagi (which none of the other Persians
were able to bend) the distance of two fingers’
breadth. When Smerdis was departed into Persia,
Cambyses had a vision in his sleep- he thought a
messenger from Persia came to him with tidings
that Smerdis sat upon the royal throne and with
his head touched the heavens. Fearing therefore
for himself, and thinking it likely that his brother
would kill him and rule in his stead, Cambyses
sent into Persia Prexaspes, whom he trusted
beyond all the other Persians, bidding him put
Smerdis to death. So this Prexaspes went up to
Susa and slew Smerdis. Some say he killed him as
they hunted together, others, that he took him
down to the Erythraean Sea, and there drowned
him.

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This, it is said, was the first outrage which
Cambyses committed. The second was the slaying
of his sister, who had accompanied him into
Egypt, and lived with him as his wife, though she
was his full sister, the daughter both of his father
and his mother. The way wherein he had made
her his wife was the following:-It was not the cus-
tom of the Persians, before his time, to marry
their sisters, but Cambyses, happening to fall in
love with one of his and wishing to take her to
wife, as he knew that it was an uncommon thing,
called together the royal judges, and put it to
them, “whether there was any law which allowed
a brother, if he wished, to marry his sister?” Now
the royal judges are certain picked men among the
Persians, who hold their office for life, or until
they are found guilty of some misconduct. By
them justice is administered in Persia, and they
are the interpreters of the old laws, all disputes
being referred to their decision. When Cambyses,
therefore, put his question to these judges, they
gave him an answer which was at once true and
safe- “they did not find any law,” they said,
“allowing a brother to take his sister to wife, but

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they found a law, that the king of the Persians
might do whatever he pleased.” And so they nei-
ther warped the law through fear of Cambyses,
nor ruined themselves by over stiffly maintaining
the law; but they brought another quite distinct
law to the king’s help, which allowed him to have
his wish. Cambyses, therefore, married the object
of his love, and no long time afterwards he took
to wife another sister. It was the younger of these
who went with him into Egypt, and there suffered
death at his hands.

Concerning the manner of her death, as concern-
ing that of Smerdis, two different accounts are
given. The story which the Greeks tell is that
Cambyses had set a young dog to fight the cub of
a lioness- his wife looking on at the time. Now the
dog was getting the worse, when a pup of the
same litter broke his chain, and came to his broth-
er’s aid- then the two dogs together fought the
lion, and conquered him. The thing greatly
pleased Cambyses, but his sister who was sitting
by shed tears. When Cambyses saw this, he asked
her why she wept: whereon she told him, that see-

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ing the young dog come to his brother’s aid made
her think of Smerdis, whom there was none to
help. For this speech, the Greeks say, Cambyses
put her to death. But the Egyptians tell the story
thus:- The two were sitting at table, when the sis-
ter took a lettuce, and stripping the leaves off,
asked her brother “when he thought the lettuce
looked the prettiest- when it had all its leaves on,
or now that it was stripped?” He answered,
“When the leaves were on.” “But thou,” she
rejoined, “hast done as I did to the lettuce, and
made bare the house of Cyrus.” Then Cambyses
was wroth, and sprang fiercely upon her, though
she was with child at the time. And so it came to
pass that she miscarried and died.

Thus mad was Cambyses upon his own kindred,
and this either from his usage of Apis, or from
some other among the many causes from which
calamities are wont to arise. They say that from
his birth he was afflicted with a dreadful disease,
the disorder which some call “the sacred sick-
ness.” It would be by no means strange, therefore,

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if his mind were affected in some degree, seeing
that his body laboured under so sore a malady.

He was mad also upon others besides his kindred;
among the rest, upon Prexaspes, the man whom
he esteemed beyond all the rest of the Persians,
who carried his messages, and whose son held the
office- an honour of no small account in Persia- of
his cupbearer. Him Cambyses is said to have once
addressed as follows:- “What sort of man,
Prexaspes, do the Persians think me? What do
they say of me?” Prexaspes answered, “Oh! sire,
they praise thee greatly in all things but one- they
say thou art too much given to love of wine.”
Such Prexaspes told him was the judgment of the
Persians; whereupon Cambyses, full of rage,
made answer, “What? they say now that I drink
too much wine, and so have lost my senses, and
am gone out of my mind! Then their former
speeches about me were untrue.” For once, when
the Persians were sitting with him, and Croesus
was by, he had asked them, “What sort of man
they thought him compared to his father Cyrus?”

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Hereon they had answered, “That he surpassed
his father, for he was lord of all that his father
ever ruled, and further had made himself master
of Egypt, and the sea.” Then Croesus, who was
standing near, and misliked the comparison,
spoke thus to Cambyses: “In my judgment, O son
of Cyrus, thou art not equal to thy father, for thou
hast not yet left behind thee such a son as he.”
Cambyses was delighted when he heard this reply,
and praised the judgment of Croesus.

Recollecting these answers, Cambyses spoke
fiercely to Prexaspes, saying, “Judge now thyself,
Prexaspes, whether the Persians tell the truth, or
whether it is not they who are mad for speaking
as they do. Look there now at thy son standing in
the vestibule- if I shoot and hit him right in the
middle of the heart, it will be plain the Persians
have no grounds for what they say: if I miss him,
then I allow that the Persians are right, and that I
am out of my mind.” So speaking he drew his
bow to the full, and struck the boy, who straight-
way fell down dead. Then Cambyses ordered the
body to be opened, and the wound examined; and

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when the arrow was found to have entered the
heart, the king was quite overjoyed, and said to
the father with a laugh, “Now thou seest plainly,
Prexaspes, that it is not I who am mad, but the
Persians who have lost their senses. I pray thee tell
me, sawest thou ever mortal man send an arrow
with a better aim?” Prexaspes, seeing that the
king was not in his right mind, and fearing for
himself, replied, “Oh! my lord, I do not think that
God himself could shoot so dexterously.” Such
was the outrage which Cambyses committed at
this time: at another, he took twelve of the noblest
Persians, and, without bringing any charge wor-
thy of death against them, buried them all up to
the neck.

Hereupon Croesus the Lydian thought it right to
admonish Cambyses, which he did in these words
following:- “Oh! king, allow not thyself to give
way entirely to thy youth, and the heat of thy
temper, but check and control thyself. It is well to
look to consequences, and in forethought is true
wisdom. Thou layest hold of men, who are thy
fellow-citizens, and, without cause of complaint,

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slayest them- thou even puttest children to death-
bethink thee now, if thou shalt often do things
like these, will not the Persians rise in revolt
against thee? It is by thy father’s wish that I offer
thee advice; he charged me strictly to give thee
such counsel as I might see to be most for thy
good.” In thus advising Cambyses, Croesus
meant nothing but what was friendly. But
Cambyses answered him, “Dost thou presume to
offer me advice? Right well thou ruledst thy own
country when thou wert a king, and right sage
advice thou gavest my father Cyrus, bidding him
cross the Araxes and fight the Massagetae in their
own land, when they were willing to have passed
over into ours. By thy misdirection of thine own
affairs thou broughtest ruin upon thyself, and by
thy bad counsel, which he followed, thou
broughtest ruin upon Cyrus, my father. But thou
shalt not escape punishment now, for I have long
been seeking to find some occasion against thee.”
As he thus spoke, Cambyses took up his bow to
shoot at Croesus; but Croesus ran hastily out, and
escaped. So when Cambyses found that he could
not kill him with his bow, he bade his servants

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seize him, and put him to death. The servants,
however, who knew their master’s humour,
thought it best to hide Croesus; that so, if
Cambyses relented, and asked for him, they might
bring him out, and get a reward for having saved
his life- if, on the other hand, he did not relent, or
regret the loss, they might then despatch him. Not
long afterwards, Cambyses did in fact regret the
loss of Croesus, and the servants, perceiving it, let
him know that he was still alive. “I am glad,” said
he, “that Croesus lives, but as for you who saved
him, ye shall not escape my vengeance, but shall
all of you be put to death.” And he did even as he
had said.

Many other wild outrages of this sort did
Cambyses commit, both upon the Persians and
the allies, while he still stayed at Memphis; among
the rest he opened the ancient sepulchres, and
examined the bodies that were buried in them. He
likewise went into the temple of Vulcan, and
made great sport of the image. For the image of
Vulcan is very like the Pataeci of the Phoenicians,
wherewith they ornament the prows of their ships

Herodotus

of war. If persons have not seen these, I will
explain in a different way- it is a figure resembling
that of a pigmy. He went also into the temple of
the Cabiri, which it is unlawful for any one to
enter except the priests, and not only made sport
of the images, but even burnt them. They are
made like the statue of Vulcan, who is said to
have been their father.

Thus it appears certain to me, by a great variety
of proofs, that Cambyses was raving mad; he
would not else have set himself to make a mock
of holy rites and long-established usages. For if
one were to offer men to choose out of all the cus-
toms in the world such as seemed to them the
best, they would examine the whole number, and
end by preferring their own; so convinced are they
that their own usages far surpass those of all oth-
ers. Unless, therefore, a man was mad, it is not
likely that he would make sport of such matters.
That people have this feeling about their laws
may be seen by very many proofs: among others,
by the following. Darius, after he had got the
kingdom, called into his presence certain Greeks

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who were at hand, and asked- “What he should
pay them to eat the bodies of their fathers when
they died?” To which they answered, that there
was no sum that would tempt them to do such a
thing. He then sent for certain Indians, of the race
called Callatians, men who eat their fathers, and
asked them, while the Greeks stood by, and knew
by the help of an interpreter all that was said -
“What he should give them to burn the bodies of
their fathers at their decease?” The Indians
exclaimed aloud, and bade him forbear such lan-
guage. Such is men’s wont herein; and Pindar was
right, in my judgment, when he said, “Law is the
king o’er all.”

While Cambyses was carrying on this war in
Egypt, the Lacedaemonians likewise sent a force
to Samos against Polycrates, the son of Aeaces,
who had by insurrection made himself master of
that island. At the outset he divided the state into
three parts, and shared the kingdom with his
brothers, Pantagnotus and Syloson; but later, hav-
ing killed the former and banished the latter, who
was the younger of the two, he held the whole

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island. Hereupon he made a contract of friend-
ship with Amasis the Egyptian king, sending him
gifts, and receiving from him others in return. In
a little while his power so greatly increased, that
the fame of it went abroad throughout Ionia and
the rest of Greece. Wherever he turned his arms,
success waited on him. He had a fleet of a hun-
dred penteconters, and bowmen to the number of
a thousand. Herewith he plundered all, without
distinction of friend or foe; for he argued that a
friend was better pleased if you gave him back
what you had taken from him, than if you spared
him at the first. He captured many of the islands,
and several towns upon the mainland. Among his
other doings he overcame the Lesbians in a sea-
fight, when they came with all their forces to the
help of Miletus, and made a number of them pris-
oners. These persons, laden with fetters, dug the
moat which surrounds the castle at Samos.

The exceeding good fortune of Polycrates did not
escape the notice of Amasis, who was much dis-
turbed thereat. When therefore his successes con-
tinued increasing, Amasis wrote him the follow-

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ing letter, and sent it to Samos. “Amasis to
Polycrates thus sayeth: It is a pleasure to hear of
a friend and ally prospering, but thy exceeding
prosperity does not cause me joy, forasmuch as I
know that the gods are envious. My wish for
myself and for those whom I love is to be now
successful, and now to meet with a check; thus
passing through life amid alternate good and ill,
rather than with perpetual good fortune. For
never yet did I hear tell of any one succeeding in
all his undertakings, who did not meet with
calamity at last, and come to utter ruin. Now,
therefore, give ear to my words, and meet thy
good luck in this way: bethink thee which of all
thy treasures thou valuest most and canst least
bear to part with; take it, whatsoever it be, and
throw it away, so that it may be sure never to
come any more into the sight of man. Then, if thy
good fortune be not thenceforth chequered with
ill, save thyself from harm by again doing as I
have counselled.”

When Polycrates read this letter, and perceived
that the advice of Amasis was good, he considered

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carefully with himself which of the treasures that
he had in store it would grieve him most to lose.
After much thought he made up his mind that it
was a signet-ring which he was wont to wear, an
emerald set in gold, the workmanship of
Theodore, son of Telecles, a Samian. So he deter-
mined to throw this away; and, manning a pente-
conter, he went on board, and bade the sailors put
out into the open sea. When he was now a long
way from the island, he took the ring from his fin-
ger, and, in the sight of all those who were on
board, flung it into the deep. This done, he
returned home, and gave vent to his sorrow.

Now it happened five or six days afterwards that
a fisherman caught a fish so large and beautiful
that he thought it well deserved to be made a pre-
sent of to the king. So he took it with him to the
gate of the palace, and said that he wanted to see
Polycrates. Then Polycrates allowed him to come
in, and the fisherman gave him the fish with these
words following- “Sir king, when I took this
prize, I thought I would not carry it to market,
though I am a poor man who live by my trade. I

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said to myself, it is worthy of Polycrates and his
greatness; and so I brought it here to give it to
you.” The speech pleased the king, who thus
spoke in reply:- “Thou didst right well, friend,
and I am doubly indebted, both for the gift, and
for the speech. Come now, and sup with me.” So
the fisherman went home, esteeming it a high
honour that he had been asked to sup with the
king. Meanwhile the servants, on cutting open the
fish, found the signet of their master in its belly.
No sooner did they see it than they seized upon it,
and hastening to Polycrates with great joy,
restored it to him, and told him in what way it
had been found. The king, who saw something
providential in the matter, forthwith wrote a let-
ter to Amasis, telling him all that had happened,
what he had himself done, and what had been the
upshot- and despatched the letter to Egypt.

When Amasis had read the letter of Polycrates, he
perceived that it does not belong to man to save
his fellow-man from the fate which is in store for
him; likewise he felt certain that Polycrates would
end ill, as he prospered in everything, even finding

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what he had thrown away. So he sent a herald to
Samos, and dissolved the contract of friendship.
This he did, that when the great and heavy mis-
fortune came, he might escape the grief which he
would have felt if the sufferer had been his bond-
friend.

It was with this Polycrates, so fortunate in every
undertaking, that the Lacedaemonians now went
to war. Certain Samians, the same who after-
wards founded the city of Cydonia in Crete, had
earnestly intreated their help. For Polycrates, at
the time when Cambyses, son of Cyrus, was gath-
ering together an armament against Egypt, had
sent to beg him not to omit to ask aid from
Samos; whereupon Cambyses with much readi-
ness despatched a messenger to the island, and
made request that Polycrates would give some
ships to the naval force which he was collecting
against Egypt. Polycrates straightway picked out
from among the citizens such as he thought most
likely to stir revolt against him, and manned with
them forty triremes, which he sent to Cambyses,

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bidding him keep the men safe, and never allow
them to return home.

Now some accounts say that these Samians did
not reach Egypt; for that when they were off
Carpathus, they took counsel together and
resolved to sail no further. But others maintain
that they did go to Egypt, and, finding themselves
watched, deserted, and sailed back to Samos.
There Polycrates went out against them with his
fleet, and a battle was fought and gained by the
exiles; after which they disembarked upon the
island and engaged the land forces of Polycrates,
but were defeated, and so sailed off to
Lacedaemon. Some relate that the Samians from
Egypt overcame Polycrates, but it seems to me
untruly; for had the Samians been strong enough
to conquer Polycrates by themselves, they would
not have needed to call in the aid of the
Lacedaemonians. And moreover, it is not likely
that a king who had in his pay so large a body of
foreign mercenaries, and maintained likewise
such a force of native bowmen, would have been

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worsted by an army so small as that of the
returned Samians. As for his own subjects, to hin-
der them from betraying him and joining the
exiles, Polycrates shut up their wives and children
in the sheds built to shelter his ships, and was
ready to burn sheds and all in case of need.

When the banished Samians reached Sparta, they
had audience of the magistrates, before whom
they made a long speech, as was natural with per-
sons greatly in want of aid. Accordingly at this
first sitting the Spartans answered them that they
had forgotten the first half of their speech, and
could make nothing of the remainder. Afterwards
the Samians had another audience, whereat they
simply said, showing a bag which they had
brought with them, “The bag wants flour.” The
Spartans answered that they did not need to have
said “the bag”; however, they resolved to give
them aid.

Then the Lacedaemonians made ready and set
forth to the attack of Samos, from a motive of
gratitude, if we may believe the Samians, because

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the Samians had once sent ships to their aid
against the Messenians; but as the Spartans them-
selves say, not so much from any wish to assist the
Samians who begged their help, as from a desire
to punish the people who had seized the bowl
which they sent to Croesus, and the corselet
which Amasis, king of Egypt, sent as a present to
them. The Samians made prize of this corselet the
year before they took the bowl- it was of linen,
and had a vast number of figures of animals
inwoven into its fabric, and was likewise embroi-
dered with gold and tree-wool. What is most wor-
thy of admiration in it is that each of the twists,
although of fine texture, contains within it three
hundred and sixty threads, all of them clearly vis-
ible. The corselet which Amasis gave to the tem-
ple of Minerva in Lindus is just such another.

The Corinthians likewise right willingly lent a
helping hand towards the expedition against
Samos; for a generation earlier, about the time of
the seizure of the wine-bowl, they too had suf-
fered insult at the hands of the Samians. It hap-
pened that Periander, son of Cypselus, had taken

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three hundred boys, children of the chief nobles
among the Corcyraeans, and sent them to
Alyattes for eunuchs; the men who had them in
charge touched at Samos on their way to Sardis;
whereupon the Samians, having found out what
was to become of the boys when they reached that
city, first prompted them to take sanctuary at the
temple of Diana; and after this, when the
Corinthians, as they were forbidden to tear the
suppliants from the holy place, sought to cut off
from them all supplies of food, invented a festival
in their behalf, which they celebrate to this day
with the selfsame rites. Each evening, as night
closed in, during the whole time that the boys
continued there, choirs of youths and virgins were
placed about the temple, carrying in their hands
cakes made of sesame and honey, in order that the
Corcyraean boys might snatch the cakes, and so
get enough to live upon.

And this went on for so long, that at last the
Corinthians who had charge of the boys gave
them up, and took their departure, upon which
the Samians conveyed them back to Corcyra. If

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now, after the death of Periander, the Corinthians
and Corcyraeans had been good friends, it is not
to be imagined that the former would ever have
taken part in the expedition against Samos for
such a reason as this; but as, in fact, the two peo-
ple have always, ever since the first settlement of
the island, been enemies to one another, this out-
rage was remembered, and the Corinthians bore
the Samians a grudge for it. Periander had chosen
the youths from among the first families in
Corcyra, and sent them a present to Alyattes, to
avenge a wrong which he had received. For it was
the Corcyraeans who began the quarrel and
injured Periander by an outrage of a horrid
nature.

After Periander had put to death his wife Melissa,
it chanced that on this first affliction a second fol-
lowed of a different kind. His wife had borne him
two sons, and one of them had now reached the
age of seventeen, the other of eighteen years,
when their mother’s father, Procles, tyrant of
Epidaurus, asked them to his court. They went,
and Procles treated them with much kindness, as

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was natural, considering they were his own
daughter’s children. At length, when the time for
parting came, Procles, as he was sending them on
their way, said, “Know you now, my children,
who it was that caused your mother’s death?”
The elder son took no account of this speech, but
the younger, whose name was Lycophron, was
sorely troubled at it- so much so, that when he got
back to Corinth, looking upon his father as his
mother’s murderer, he would neither speak to
him, nor answer when spoken to, nor utter a
word in reply to all his questionings. So Periander
at last, growing furious at such behaviour, ban-
ished him from his house.

The younger son gone, he turned to the elder and
asked him, “what it was that their grandfather
had said to them?” Then he related in how kind
and friendly a fashion he had received them; but,
not having taken any notice of the speech which
Procles had uttered at parting, he quite forgot to
mention it. Periander insisted that it was not pos-
sible this should be all- their grandfather must

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have given them some hint or other- and he went
on pressing him, till at last the lad remembered
the parting speech and told it. Periander, after he
had turned the whole matter over in his thoughts,
and felt unwilling to give way at all, sent a mes-
senger to the persons who had opened their hous-
es to his outcast son, and forbade them to har-
bour him. Then the boy, when he was chased
from one friend, sought refuge with another, but
was driven from shelter to shelter by the threats of
his father, who menaced all those that took him
in, and commanded them to shut their doors
against him. Still, as fast as he was forced to leave
one house he went to another, and was received
by the inmates; for his acquaintance, although in
no small alarm, yet gave him shelter, as he was
Periander’s son.

At last Periander made proclamation that whoev-
er harboured his son or even spoke to him, should
forfeit a certain sum of money to Apollo. On
hearing this no one any longer liked to take him
in, or even to hold converse with him, and he

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himself did not think it right to seek to do what
was forbidden; so, abiding by his resolve, he made
his lodging in the public porticos. When four days
had passed in this way, Periander, secing how
wretched his son was, that he neither washed nor
took any food, felt moved with compassion
towards him; wherefore, foregoing his anger, he
approached him, and said, “Which is better, oh!
my son, to fare as now thou farest, or to receive
my crown and all the good things that I possess,
on the one condition of submitting thyself to thy
father? See, now, though my own child, and lord
of this wealthy Corinth, thou hast brought thyself
to a beggar’s life, because thou must resist and
treat with anger him whom it least behoves thee
to oppose. If there has been a calamity, and thou
bearest me ill will on that account, bethink thee
that I too feel it, and am the greatest sufferer, in as
much as it was by me that the deed was done. For
thyself, now that thou knowest how much better
a thing it is to be envied than pitied, and how dan-
gerous it is to indulge anger against parents and
superiors, come back with me to thy home.” With
such words as these did Periander chide his son;

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but the son made no reply, except to remind his
father that he was indebted to the god in the
penalty for coming and holding converse with
him. Then Periander knew that there was no cure
for the youth’s malady, nor means of overcoming
it; so he prepared a ship and sent him away out of
his sight to Corcyra, which island at that time
belonged to him. As for Procles, Periander,
regarding him as the true author of all his present
troubles, went to war with him as soon as his son
was gone, and not only made himself master of
his kingdom Epidaurus, but also took Procles
himself, and carried him into captivity.

As time went on, and Periander came to be old, he
found himself no longer equal to the oversight
and management of affairs. Seeing, therefore, in
his eldest son no manner of ability, but knowing
him to be dull and blockish, he sent to Corcyra
and recalled Lycophron to take the kingdom.
Lycophron, however, did not even deign to ask
the bearer of this message a question. But
Periander’s heart was set upon the youth, so he
sent again to him, this time by his own daughter,

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the sister of Lycophron, who would, he thought,
have more power to persuade him than any other
person. Then she, when she reached Corcyra,
spoke thus with her brother:- “Dost thou wish the
kingdom, brother, to pass into strange hands, and
our father’s wealth to be made a prey, rather than
thyself return to enjoy it? Come back home with
me, and cease to punish thyself. It is scant gain,
this obstinacy. Why seek to cure evil by evil?
Mercy, remember, is by many set above justice.
Many, also, while pushing their mother’s claims
have forfeited their father’s fortune. Power is a
slippery thing- it has many suitors; and he is old
and stricken in years- let not thy own inheritance
go to another.” Thus did the sister, who had been
tutored by Periander what to say, urge all the
arguments most likely to have weight with her
brother. He however made answer, “That so long
as he knew his father to be still alive, he would
never go back to Corinth.” When the sister
brought Periander this reply, he sent his son a
third time by a herald, and said he would come
himself to Corcyra, and let his son take his place
at Corinth as heir to his kingdom. To these terms

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Lycophron agreed; and Periander was making
ready to pass into Corcyra and his son to return
to Corinth, when the Corcyraeans, being
informed of what was taking place, to keep
Periander away, put the young man to death. For
this reason it was that Periander took vengeance
on the Corcyraeans.

The Lacedaemonians arrived before Samos with a
mighty armament, and forthwith laid siege to the
place. In one of the assaults upon the walls, they
forced their way to the top of the tower which
stands by the sea on the side where the suburb is,
but Polycrates came in person to the rescue with
a strong force, and beat them back. Meanwhile at
the upper tower, which stood on the ridge of the
hill, the besieged, both mercenaries and Samians,
made a sally; but after they had withstood the
Lacedaemonians a short time, they fled back-
wards, and the Lacedaemonians, pressing upon
them, slew numbers.

If now all who were present had behaved that day
like Archias and Lycopas, two of the

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Lacedaemonians, Samos might have been taken.
For these two heroes, following hard upon the fly-
ing Samians, entered the city along with them,
and, being all alone, and their retreat cut off, were
slain within the walls of the place. I myself once
fell in with the grandson of this Archias, a man
named Archias like his grandsire, and the son of
Samius, whom I met at Pitana, to which canton he
belonged. He respected the Samians beyond all
other foreigners, and he told me that his father
was called Samius, because his grandfather
Archias died in Samos so gloriously, and that the
reason why he respected the Samians so greatly
was that his grandsire was buried with public
honours by the Samian people.

The Lacedaemonians besieged Samos during forty
days, but not making any progress before the
place, they raised the siege at the end of that time,
and returned home to the Peloponnese. There is a
silly tale told that Polycrates struck a quantity of
the coin of his country in lead, and, coating it
with gold, gave it to the Lacedaemonians, who on
receiving it took their departure.

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This was the first expedition into Asia of the
Lacedaemonian Dorians.

The Samians who had fought against Polycrates,
when they knew that the Lacedaemonians were
about to forsake them, left Samos themselves, and
sailed to Siphnos. They happened to be in want of
money; and the Siphnians at that time were at the
height of their greatness, no islanders having so
much wealth as they. There were mines of gold
and silver in their country, and of so rich a yield,
that from a tithe of the ores the Siphnians fur-
nished out a treasury at Delphi which was on a par
with the grandest there. What the mines yielded
was divided year by year among the citizens. At
the time when they formed the treasury, the
Siphnians consulted the oracle, and asked whether
their good things would remain to them many
years. The Pythoness made answer as follows:-

When the Prytanies’ seat shines white in the

island of Siphnos,

White-browed all the forum-need then of a true

seer’s wisdom-

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Danger will threat from a wooden host, and a

herald in scarlet.

Now about this time the forum of the Siphnians
and their townhall or prytaneum had been
adorned with Parian marble. The Siphnians, how-
ever, were unable to understand the oracle, either
at the time when it was given, or afterwards on
the arrival of the Samians. For these last no soon-
er came to anchor off the island than they sent
one of their vessels, with an ambassage on board,
to the city. All ships in these early times were
painted with vermilion; and this was what the
Pythoness had meant when she told them to
beware of danger “from a wooden host, and a
herald in scarlet.” So the ambassadors came
ashore and besought the Siphnians to lend them
ten talents; but the Siphnians refused, whereupon
the Samians began to plunder their lands. Tidings
of this reached the Siphnians, who straightway
sallied forth to save their crops; then a battle was
fought, in which the Siphnians suffered defeat,
and many of their number were cut off from the

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city by the Samians, after which these latter
forced the Siphnians to give them a hundred tal-
ents.

With this money they bought of the Hermionians
the island of Hydrea, off the coast of the
Peloponnese, and this they gave in trust to the
Troezenians, to keep for them, while they them-
selves went on to Crete, and founded the city of
Cydonia. They had not meant, when they set sail,
to settle there, but only to drive out the
Zacynthians from the island. However they rest-
ed at Cydonia, where they flourished greatly for
five years. It was they who built the various tem-
ples that may still be seen at that place, and
among them the fane of Dictyna. But in the sixth
year they were attacked by the Eginetans, who
beat them in a sea-fight, and, with the help of the
Cretans, reduced them all to slavery. The beaks of
their ships, which carried the figure of a wild
boar, they sawed off, and laid them up in the tem-
ple of Minerva in Egina. The Eginetans took part
against the Samians on account of an ancient

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grudge, since the Samians had first, when
Amphicrates was king of Samos, made war on
them and done great harm to their island, suffer-
ing, however, much damage also themselves. Such
was the reason which moved the Eginetans to
make this attack.

I have dwelt the longer on the affairs of the
Samians, because three of the greatest works in all
Greece were made by them. One is a tunnel,
under a hill one hundred and fifty fathoms high,
carried entirely through the base of the hill, with
a mouth at either end. The length of the cutting is
seven furlongs- the height and width are each
eight feet. Along the whole course there is a sec-
ond cutting, twenty cubits deep and three feet
broad, whereby water is brought, through pipes,
from an abundant source into the city. The archi-
tect of this tunnel was Eupalinus, son of
Naustrophus, a Megarian. Such is the first of their
great works; the second is a mole in the sea,
which goes all round the harbour, near twenty
fathoms deep, and in length above two furlongs.
The third is a temple; the largest of all the temples

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known to us, whereof Rhoecus, son of Phileus, a
Samian, was first architect. Because of these
works I have dwelt the longer on the affairs of
Samos.

While Cambyses, son of Cyrus, after losing his
senses, still lingered in Egypt, two Magi, brothers,
revolted against him. One of them had been left in
Persia by Cambyses as comptroller of his house-
hold; and it was he who began the revolt. Aware
that Smerdis was dead, and that his death was hid
and known to few of the Persians, while most
believed that he was still alive, he laid his plan,
and made a bold stroke for the crown. He had a
brother- the same of whom I spoke before as his
partner in the revolt- who happened greatly to
resemble Smerdis the son of Cyrus, whom
Cambyses his brother had put to death. And not
only was this brother of his like Smerdis in per-
son, but he also bore the selfsame name, to wit
Smerdis. Patizeithes, the other Magus, having per-
suaded him that he would carry the whole busi-
ness through, took him and made him sit upon
the royal throne. Having so done, he sent heralds

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through all the land, to Egypt and elsewhere, to
make proclamation to the troops that henceforth
they were to obey Smerdis the son of Cyrus, and
not Cambyses.

The other heralds therefore made proclamation as
they were ordered, and likewise the herald whose
place it was to proceed into Egypt. He, when he
reached Agbatana in Syria, finding Cambyses and
his army there, went straight into the middle of
the host, and standing forth before them all, made
the proclamation which Patizeithes the Magus
had commanded. Cambyses no sooner heard him,
than believing that what the herald said was true,
and imagining that he had been betrayed by
Prexaspes (who, he supposed, had not put
Smerdis to death when sent into Persia for that
purpose), he turned his eyes full upon Prexaspes,
and said, “Is this the way, Prexaspes, that thou
didst my errand?” “Oh! my liege,” answered the
other, “there is no truth in the tidings that Smerdis
thy brother has revolted against thee, nor hast
thou to fear in time to come any quarrel, great or
small, with that man. With my own hands I

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wrought thy will on him, and with my own hands
I buried him. If of a truth the dead can leave their
graves, expect Astyages the Mede to rise and fight
against thee; but if the course of nature be the
same as formerly, then be sure no ill will ever
come upon thee from this quarter. Now, there-
fore, my counsel is that we send in pursuit of the
herald, and strictly question him who it was that
charged him to bid us obey king Smerdis.”

When Prexaspes had so spoken, and Cambyses
had approved his words, the herald was forthwith
pursued, and brought back to the king. Then
Prexaspes said to him, “Sirrah, thou bear’st us a
message, sayst thou, from Smerdis, son of Cyrus.
Now answer truly, and go thy way scathless. Did
Smerdis have thee to his presence and give thee
thy orders, or hadst thou them from one of his
officers?” The herald answered, “Truly I have not
set eyes on Smerdis son of Cyrus, since the day
when king Cambyses led the Persians into Egypt.
The man who gave me my orders was the Magus
that Cambyses left in charge of the household; but
he said that Smerdis son of Cyrus sent you the

Herodotus

message.” In all this the herald spoke nothing but
the strict truth. Then Cambyses said thus to
Prexaspes:- “Thou art free from all blame,
Prexaspes, since, as a right good man, thou hast
not failed to do the thing which I commanded.
But tell me now, which of the Persians can have
taken the name of Smerdis, and revolted from
me?” “I think, my liege,” he answered, “that I
apprehend the whole business. The men who have
risen in revolt against thee are the two Magi,
Patizeithes, who was left comptroller of thy
household, and his brother, who is named
Smerdis.”

Cambyses no sooner heard the name of Smerdis
than he was struck with the truth of Prexaspes’
words, and the fulfilment of his own dream- the
dream, I mean, which he had in former days,
when one appeared to him in his sleep and told
him that Smerdis sate upon the royal throne, and
with his head touched the heavens. So when he
saw that he had needlessly slain his brother
Smerdis, he wept and bewailed his loss: after

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which, smarting with vexation as he thought of
all his ill luck, he sprang hastily upon his steed,
meaning to march his army with all haste to Susa
against the Magus. As he made his spring, the
button of his sword-sheath fell off, and the bared
point entered his thigh, wounding him exactly
where he had himself once wounded the Egyptian
god Apis. Then Cambyses, feeling that he had got
his death-wound, inquired the name of the place
where he was, and was answered, “Agbatana.”
Now before this it had been told him by the ora-
cle at Buto that he should end his days at
Agbatana. He, however, had understood the
Median Agbatana, where all his treasures were,
and had thought that he should die there in a
good old age; but the oracle meant Agbatana in
Syria. So when Cambyses heard the name of the
place, the double shock that he had received, from
the revolt of the Magus and from his wound,
brought him back to his senses. And he under-
stood now the true meaning of the oracle, and
said, “Here then Cambyses, son of Cyrus, is
doomed to die.”

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At this time he said no more; but twenty days
afterwards he called to his presence all the chief
Persians who were with the army, and addressed
them as follows:- “Persians, needs must I tell you
now what hitherto I have striven with the greatest
care to keep concealed. When I was in Egypt I
saw in my sleep a vision, which would that I had
never beheld! I thought a messenger came to me
from my home, and told me that Smerdis sate
upon the royal throne, and with his head touched
the heavens. Then I feared to be cast from my
throne by Smerdis my brother, and I did what was
more hasty than wise. Ah! truly, do what they
may, it is impossible for men to turn aside the
coming fate. I, in my folly, sent Prexaspes to Susa
to put my brother to death. So this great woe was
accomplished, and I then lived without fear, never
imagining that, after Smerdis was dead, I need
dread revolt from any other. But herein I had
quite mistaken what was about to happen, and so
I slew my brother without any need, and never-
theless have lost my crown. For it was Smerdis the
Magus, and not Smerdis my brother, of whose
rebellion God forewarned me by the vision. The

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deed is done, however, and Smerdis, son of Cyrus,
be sure is lost to you. The Magi have the royal
power- Patizeithes, whom I left at Susa to over-
look my household, and Smerdis his brother.
There was one who would have been bound
beyond all others to avenge the wrongs I have suf-
fered from these Magians, but he, alas! has per-
ished by a horrid fate, deprived of life by those
nearest and dearest to him. In his default, nothing
now remains for me but to tell you, O Persians,
what I would wish to have done after I have
breathed my last. Therefore, in the name of the
gods that watch over our royal house, I charge
you all, and specially such of you as are
Achaemenids, that ye do not tamely allow the
kingdom to go back to the Medes. Recover it one
way or another, by force or fraud; by fraud, if it
is by fraud that they have seized on it; by force, if
force has helped them in their enterprise. Do this,
and then may your land bring you forth fruit
abundantly, and your wives bear children, and
your herds increase, and freedom be your portion
for ever: but do it not- make no brave struggle to
regain the kingdom- and then my curse be on you,

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and may the opposite of all these things happen to
you- and not only so, but may you, one and all,
perish at the last by such a fate as mine!” Then
Cambyses, when he left speaking, bewailed his
whole misfortune from beginning to end.

Whereupon the Persians, seeing their king weep,
rent the garments that they had on, and uttered
lamentable cries; after which, as the bone present-
ly grew carious, and the limb gangrened,
Cambyses, son of Cyrus, died. He had reigned in
all seven years and five months, and left no issue
behind him, male or female. The Persians who
had heard his words, put no faith in anything that
he said concerning the Magi having the royal
power; but believed that he spoke out of hatred
towards Smerdis, and had invented the tale of his
death to cause the whole Persian race to rise up in
arms against him. Thus they were convinced that
it was Smerdis the son of Cyrus who had rebelled
and now sate on the throne. For Prexaspes stout-
ly denied that he had slain Smerdis, since it was
not safe for him, after Cambyses was dead, to

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allow that a son of Cyrus had met with death at
his hands.

Thus then Cambyses died, and the Magus now
reigned in security, and passed himself off for
Smerdis the son of Cyrus. And so went by the
seven months which were wanting to complete
the eighth year of Cambyses. His subjects, while
his reign lasted, received great benefits from him,
insomuch that, when he died, all the dwellers in
Asia mourned his loss exceedingly, except only
the Persians. For no sooner did he come to the
throne than forthwith he sent round to every
nation under his rule, and granted them freedom
from war-service and from taxes for the space of
three years.

In the eighth month, however, it was discovered
who he was in the mode following. There was a
man called Otanes, the son of Pharnaspes, who
for rank and wealth was equal to the greatest of
the Persians. This Otanes was the first to suspect
that the Magus was not Smerdis the son of Cyrus,

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and to surmise moreover who he really was. He
was led to guess the truth by the king never quit-
ting the citadel, and never calling before him any
of the Persian noblemen. As soon, therefore, as
his suspicions were aroused he adopted the fol-
lowing measures:- One of his daughters, who was
called Phaedima, had been married to Cambyses,
and was taken to wife, together with the rest of
Cambyses’ wives, by the Magus. To this daughter
Otanes sent a message, and inquired of her “who
it was whose bed she shared,- was it Smerdis the
son of Cyrus, or was it some other man?”
Phaedima in reply declared she did not know-
Smerdis the son of Cyrus she had never seen, and
so she could not tell whose bed she shared. Upon
this Otanes sent a second time, and said, “If thou
dost not know Smerdis son of Cyrus thyself, ask
queen Atossa who it is with whom ye both live-
she cannot fail to know her own brother.” To this
the daughter made answer, “I can neither get
speech with Atossa, nor with any of the women
who lodge in the palace. For no sooner did this
man, be he who he may, obtain the kingdom, than

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he parted us from one another, and gave us all
separate chambers.”

This made the matter seem still more plain to
Otanes. Nevertheless he sent a third message to
his daughter in these words following:-
“Daughter, thou art of noble blood- thou wilt not
shrink from a risk which thy father bids thee
encounter. If this fellow be not Smerdis the son of
Cyrus, but the man whom I think him to be, his
boldness in taking thee to be his wife, and lording
it over the Persians, must not be allowed to pass
unpunished. Now therefore do as I command-
when next he passes the night with thee, wait till
thou art sure he is fast asleep, and then feel for his
ears. If thou findest him to have ears, then believe
him to be Smerdis the son of Cyrus, but if he has
none, know him for Smerdis the Magian.”
Phaedima returned for answer, “It would be a
great risk. If he was without ears, and caught her
feeling for them, she well knew he would make
away with her- nevertheless she would venture.”
So Otanes got his daughter’s promise that she

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would do as he desired. Now Smerdis the Magian
had had his ears cut off in the lifetime of Cyrus
son of Cambyses, as a punishment for a crime of
no slight heinousness. Phaedima therefore,
Otanes’ daughter, bent on accomplishing what
she had promised her father, when her turn came,
and she was taken to the bed of the Magus (in
Persia a man’s wives sleep with him in their
turns), waited till he was sound asleep, and then
felt for his ears. She quickly perceived that he had
no ears; and of this, as soon as day dawned, she
sent word to her father.

Then Otanes took to him two of the chief
Persians, Aspathines and Gobryas, men whom it
was most advisable to trust in such a matter, and
told them everything. Now they had already of
themselves suspected how the matter stood.
When Otanes therefore laid his reasons before
them they at once came into his views; and it was
agreed that each of the three should take as com-
panion in the work the Persian in whom he placed
the greatest confidence. Then Otanes chose

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Intaphernes, Gobryas Megabyzus, and Aspathines
Hydarnes. After the number had thus become six,
Darius, the son of Hystaspes, arrived at Susa from
Persia, whereof his father was governor. On his
coming it seemed good to the six to take him like-
wise into their counsels.

After this, the men, being now seven in all, met
together to exchange oaths, and hold discourse
with one another. And when it came to the turn of
Darius to speak his mind, he said as follows:-
“Methought no one but I knew that Smerdis, the
son of Cyrus, was not now alive, and that Smerdis
the Magian ruled over us; on this account I came
hither with speed, to compass the death of the
Magian. But as it seems the matter is known to
you all, and not to me only, my judgment is that
we should act at once, and not any longer delay.
For to do so were not well.” Otanes spoke upon
this:- “Son of Hystaspes,” said he, “thou art the
child of a brave father, and seemest likely to show
thyself as bold a gallant as he. Beware, however,
of rash haste in this matter; do not hurry so, but

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proceed with soberness. We must add to our num-
ber ere we adventure to strike the blow.” “Not
so,” Darius rejoined; “for let all present be well
assured that if the advice of Otanes guide our
acts, we shall perish most miserably. Some one
will betray our plot to the Magians for lucre’s
sake. Ye ought to have kept the matter to your-
selves, and so made the venture; but as ye have
chosen to take others into your secret, and have
opened the matter to me, take my advice and
make the attempt today- or if not, if a single day
be suffered to pass by, be sure that I will let no
one betray me to the Magian. I myself will go to
him, and plainly denounce you all.”

Otanes, when he saw Darius so hot, replied, “But
if thou wilt force us to action, and not allow a
day’s delay, tell us, I pray thee, how we shall get
entrance into the palace, so as to set upon them.
Guards are placed everywhere, as thou thyself
well knowest- for if thou hast not seen, at least
thou hast heard tell of them. How are we to pass
these guards, I ask thee?” answered Darius,

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“there are many things easy enough in act, which
by speech it is hard to explain. There are also
things concerning which speech is easy, but no
noble action follows when the speech is done. As
for these guards, ye know well that we shall not
find it hard to make our way through them. Our
rank alone would cause them to allow us to enter-
shame and fear alike forbidding them to say us
nay. But besides, I have the fairest plea that can be
conceived for gaining admission. I can say that I
have just come from Persia, and have a message to
deliver to the king from my father. An untruth
must be spoken, where need requires. For
whether men lie, or say true, it is with one and the
same object. Men lie, because they think to gain
by deceiving others; and speak the truth, because
they expect to get something by their true speak-
ing, and to be trusted afterwards in more impor-
tant matters. Thus, though their conduct is so
opposite, the end of both is alike. If there were no
gain to be got, your true-speaking man would tell
untruths as much as your liar, and your liar would
tell the truth as much as your true-speaking man.

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The doorkeeper, who lets us in readily, shall have
his guerdon some day or other; but woe to the
man who resists us, he must forthwith be declared
an enemy. Forcing our way past him, we will
press in and go straight to our work.”

After Darius had thus said, Gobryas spoke as fol-
lows:- “Dear friends, when will a fitter occasion
offer for us to recover the kingdom, or, if we are
not strong enough, at least die in the attempt?
Consider that we Persians are governed by a
Median Magus, and one, too, who has had his
ears cut off! Some of you were present when
Cambyses lay upon his deathbed- such, doubtless,
remember what curses he called down upon the
Persians if they made no effort to recover the
kingdom. Then, indeed, we paid but little heed to
what he said, because we thought he spoke out of
hatred to set us against his brother. Now, howev-
er, my vote is that we do as Darius has counselled-
march straight in a body to the palace from the
place where we now are, and forthwith set upon
the Magian.” So Gobryas spake, and the others
all approved.

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While the seven were thus taking counsel togeth-
er, it so chanced that the following events were
happening:- The Magi had been thinking what
they had best do, and had resolved for many rea-
sons to make a friend of Prexaspes. They knew
how cruelly he had been outraged by Cambyses,
who slew his son with an arrow; they were also
aware that it was by his hand that Smerdis the son
of Cyrus fell, and that he was the only person
privy to that prince’s death; and they further
found him to be held in the highest esteem by all
the Persians. So they called him to them, made
him their friend, and bound him by a promise and
by oaths to keep silence about the fraud which
they were practising upon the Persians, and not
discover it to any one; and they pledged them-
selves that in this case they would give him thou-
sands of gifts of every sort and kind. So Prexaspes
agreed, and the Magi, when they found that they
had persuaded him so far, went on to another
proposal, and said they would assemble the
Persians at the foot of the palace wall, and he
should mount one of the towers and harangue
them from it, assuring them that Smerdis the son

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of Cyrus, and none but he, ruled the land. This
they bade him do, because Prexaspes was a man
of great weight with his countrymen, and had
often declared in public that Smerdis the son of
Cyrus was still alive, and denied being his mur-
derer.

Prexaspes said he was quite ready to do their will
in the matter; so the Magi assembled the people,
and placed Prexaspes upon the top of the tower,
and told him to make his speech. Then this man,
forgetting of set purpose all that the Magi had
intreated him to say, began with Achaeamenes,
and traced down the descent of Cyrus; after
which, when he came to that king, he recounted
all the services that had been rendered by him to
the Persians, from whence he went on to declare
the truth, which hitherto he had concealed, he
said, because it would not have been safe for him
to make it known, but now necessity was laid on
him to disclose the whole. Then he told how,
forced to it by Cambyses, he had himself taken
the life of Smerdis, son of Cyrus, and how that

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Persia was now ruled by the Magi. Last of all,
with many curses upon the Persians if they did
not recover the kingdom, and wreak vengeance
on the Magi, he threw himself headlong from the
tower into the abyss below. Such was the end of
Prexaspes, a man all his life of high repute among
the Persians.

And now the seven Persians, having resolved that
they would attack the Magi without more delay,
first offered prayers to the gods and then set off
for the palace, quite unacquainted with what had
been done by Prexaspes. The news of his doings
reached them upon their way, when they had
accomplished about half the distance. Hereupon
they turned aside out of the road, and consulted
together. Otanes and his party said they must cer-
tainly put off the business, and not make the
attack when affairs were in such a ferment.
Darius, on the other hand, and his friends, were
against any change of plan, and wished to go
straight on, and not lose a moment. Now, as they
strove together, suddenly there came in sight two

Herodotus

pairs of vultures, and seven pairs of hawks, pur-
suing them, and the hawks tore the vultures both
with their claws and bills. At this sight the seven
with one accord came in to the opinion of Darius,
and encouraged by the omen hastened on towards
the palace.

At the gate they were received as Darius had fore-
told. The guards, who had no suspicion that they
came for any ill purpose, and held the chief
Persians in much reverence, let them pass without
difficulty- it seemed as if they were under the spe-
cial protection of the gods- none even asked them
any question. When they were now in the great
court they fell in with certain of the eunuchs,
whose business it was to carry the king’s mes-
sages, who stopped them and asked what they
wanted, while at the same time they threatened
the doorkeepers for having let them enter. The
seven sought to press on, but the eunuchs would
not suffer them. Then these men, with cheers
encouraging one another, drew their daggers, and
stabbing those who strove to withstand them,
rushed forward to the apartment of the males.

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Now both the Magi were at this time within,
holding counsel upon the matter of Prexaspes. So
when they heard the stir among the eunuchs, and
their loud cries, they ran out themselves, to see
what was happening. Instantly perceiving their
danger, they both flew to arms; one had just time
to seize his bow, the other got hold of his lance;
when straightway the fight began. The one whose
weapon was the bow found it of no service at all;
the foe was too near, and the combat too close to
allow of his using it. But the other made a stout
defence with his lance, wounding two of the
seven, Aspathines in the leg, and Intaphernes in
the eye. This wound did not kill Intaphernes, but
it cost him the sight of that eye. The other Magus,
when he found his bow of no avail, fled into a
chamber which opened out into the apartment of
the males, intending to shut to the doors. But two
of the seven entered the room with him, Darius
and Gobryas. Gobryas seized the Magus and
grappled with him, while Darius stood over them,
not knowing what to do; for it was dark, and he
was afraid that if he struck a blow he might kill
Gobryas. Then Gobyras, when he perceived that

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Darius stood doing nothing, asked him, “why his
hand was idle?” “I fear to hurt thee,” he
answered. “Fear not,” said Gobryas; “strike,
though it be through both.” Darius did as he
desired, drove his dagger home, and by good hap
killed the Magus.

Thus were the Magi slain; and the seven, cutting
off both the heads, and leaving their own wound-
ed in the palace, partly because they were dis-
abled, and partly to guard the citadel, went forth
from the gates with the heads in their hands,
shouting and making an uproar. They called out
to all the Persians whom they met, and told them
what had happened, showing them the heads of
the Magi, while at the same time they slew every
Magus who fell in their way. Then the Persians,
when they knew what the seven had done, and
understood the fraud of the Magi, thought it but
just to follow the example set them, and, drawing
their daggers, they killed the Magi wherever they
could find any. Such was their fury, that, unless
night had closed in, not a single Magus would

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have been left alive. The Persians observe this day
with one accord, and keep it more strictly than
any other in the whole year. It is then that they
hold the great festival, which they call the
Magophonia. No Magus may show himself
abroad during the whole time that the feast lasts;
but all must remain at home the entire day.

And now when five days were gone, and the hub-
bub had settled down, the conspirators met
together to consult about the situation of affairs.
At this meeting speeches were made, to which
many of the Greeks give no credence, but they
were made nevertheless. Otanes recommended
that the management of public affairs should be
entrusted to the whole nation. “To me,” he said,
“it seems advisable, that we should no longer
have a single man to rule over us- the rule of one
is neither good nor pleasant. Ye cannot have for-
gotten to what lengths Cambyses went in his
haughty tyranny, and the haughtiness of the Magi
ye have yourselves experienced. How indeed is it
possible that monarchy should be a well-adjusted
thing, when it allows a man to do as he likes with-

Herodotus

out being answerable? Such licence is enough to
stir strange and unwonted thoughts in the heart of
the worthiest of men. Give a person this power,
and straightway his manifold good things puff
him up with pride, while envy is so natural to
human kind that it cannot but arise in him. But
pride and envy together include all wickedness-
both of them leading on to deeds of savage vio-
lence. True it is that kings, possessing as they do
all that heart can desire, ought to be void of envy;
but the contrary is seen in their conduct towards
the citizens. They are jealous of the most virtuous
among their subjects, and wish their death; while
they take delight in the meanest and basest, being
ever ready to listen to the tales of slanderers. A
king, besides, is beyond all other men inconsistent
with himself. Pay him court in moderation, and
he is angry because you do not show him more
profound respect- show him profound respect,
and he is offended again, because (as he says) you
fawn on him. But the worst of all is, that he sets
aside the laws of the land, puts men to death
without trial, and subjects women to violence.
The rule of the many, on the other hand, has, in

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the first place, the fairest of names, to wit, isono-
my; and further it is free from all those outrages
which a king is wont to commit. There, places are
given by lot, the magistrate is answerable for
what he does, and measures rest with the com-
monalty. I vote, therefore, that we do away with
monarchy, and raise the people to power. For the
people are all in all.”

Such were the sentiments of Otanes. Megabyzus
spoke next, and advised the setting up of an oli-
garchy:- “In all that Otanes has said to persuade
you to put down monarchy,” he observed, “I fully
concur; but his recommendation that we should
call the people to power seems to me not the best
advice. For there is nothing so void of under-
standing, nothing so full of wantonness, as the
unwieldy rabble. It were folly not to be borne, for
men, while seeking to escape the wantonness of a
tyrant, to give themselves up to the wantonness of
a rude unbridled mob. The tyrant, in all his
doings, at least knows what is he about, but a
mob is altogether devoid of knowledge; for how
should there be any knowledge in a rabble,

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untaught, and with no natural sense of what is
right and fit? It rushes wildly into state affairs
with all the fury of a stream swollen in the winter,
and confuses everything. Let the enemies of the
Persians be ruled by democracies; but let us
choose out from the citizens a certain number of
the worthiest, and put the government into their
hands. For thus both we ourselves shall be among
the governors, and power being entrusted to the
best men, it is likely that the best counsels will
prevail in the state.”

This was the advice which Megabyzus gave, and
after him Darius came forward, and spoke as fol-
lows:- “All that Megabyzus said against democra-
cy was well said, I think; but about oligarchy he
did not speak advisedly; for take these three forms
of government- democracy, oligarchy, and monar-
chy- and let them each be at their best, I maintain
that monarchy far surpasses the other two. What
government can possibly be better than that of the
very best man in the whole state? The counsels of
such a man are like himself, and so he governs the
mass of the people to their heart’s content; while

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at the same time his measures against evil-doers
are kept more secret than in other states.
Contrariwise, in oligarchies, where men vie with
each other in the service of the commonwealth,
fierce enmities are apt to arise between man and
man, each wishing to be leader, and to carry his
own measures; whence violent quarrels come,
which lead to open strife, often ending in blood-
shed. Then monarchy is sure to follow; and this
too shows how far that rule surpasses all others.
Again, in a democracy, it is impossible but that
there will be malpractices: these malpractices,
however, do not lead to enmities, but to close
friendships, which are formed among those
engaged in them, who must hold well together to
carry on their villainies. And so things go on until
a man stands forth as champion of the common-
alty, and puts down the evil-doers. Straightway
the author of so great a service is admired by all,
and from being admired soon comes to be
appointed king; so that here too it is plain that
monarchy is the best government. Lastly, to sum
up all in a word, whence, I ask, was it that we got
the freedom which we enjoy?- did democracy give

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it us, or oligarchy, or a monarch? As a single man
recovered our freedom for us, my sentence is that
we keep to the rule of one. Even apart from this,
we ought not to change the laws of our forefa-
thers when they work fairly; for to do so is not
well.”

Such were the three opinions brought forward at
this meeting; the four other Persians voted in
favour of the last. Otanes, who wished to give his
countrymen a democracy, when he found the
decision against him, arose a second time, and
spoke thus before the assembly:- “Brother con-
spirators, it is plain that the king who is to be cho-
sen will be one of ourselves, whether we make the
choice by casting lots for the prize, or by letting
the people decide which of us they will have to
rule over them, in or any other way. Now, as I
have neither a mind to rule nor to be ruled, I shall
not enter the lists with you in this matter. I with-
draw, however, on one condition- none of you
shall claim to exercise rule over me or my seed for
ever.” The six agreed to these terms, and Otanes
withdraw and stood aloof from the contest. And

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still to this day the family of Otanes continues to
be the only free family in Persia; those who
belong to it submit to the rule of the king only so
far as they themselves choose; they are bound,
however, to observe the laws of the land like the
other Persians.

After this the six took counsel together, as to the
fairest way of setting up a king: and first, with
respect to Otanes, they resolved, that if any of
their own number got the kingdom, Otanes and
his seed after him should receive year by year, as
a mark of special honour, a Median robe, and all
such other gifts as are accounted the most hon-
ourable in Persia. And these they resolved to give
him, because he was the man who first planned
the outbreak, and who brought the seven togeth-
er. These privileges, therefore, were assigned spe-
cially to Otanes. The following were made com-
mon to them all:- It was to be free to each, when-
ever he pleased, to enter the palace unannounced,
unless the king were in the company of one of his
wives; and the king was to be bound to marry
into no family excepting those of the conspira-

Herodotus

tors. Concerning the appointment of a king, the
resolve to which they came was the following:-
They would ride out together next morning into
the skirts of the city, and he whose steed first
neighed after the sun was up should have the
kingdom.

Now Darius had a groom, a sharp-witted knave,
called Oebares. After the meeting had broken up,
Darius sent for him, and said, “Oebares, this is
the way in which the king is to be chosen- we are
to mount our horses, and the man whose horse
first neighs after the sun is up is to have the king-
dom. If then you have any cleverness, contrive a
plan whereby the prize may fall to us, and not go
to another.” “Truly, master,” Oebares answered,
“if it depends on this whether thou shalt be king
or no, set thine heart at ease, and fear nothing: I
have a charm which is sure not to fail.” “If thou
hast really aught of the kind,” said Darius, “has-
ten to get it ready. The matter does not brook
delay, for the trial is to be to-morrow.” So
Oebares when he heard that, did as follows:-
When night came, he took one of the mares, the

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chief favourite of the horse which Darius rode,
and tethering it in the suburb, brought his mas-
ter’s horse to the place; then, after leading him
round and round the mare several times, nearer
and nearer at each circuit, he ended by letting
them come together.

And now, when the morning broke, the six
Persians, according to agreement, met together on
horseback, and rode out to the suburb. As they
went along they neared the spot where the mare
was tethered the night before, whereupon the
horse of Darius sprang forward and neighed. just
at the same time, though the sky was clear and
bright, there was a flash of lightning, followed by
a thunderclap. It seemed as if the heavens con-
spired with Darius, and hereby inaugurated him
king: so the five other nobles leaped with one
accord from their steeds, and bowed down before
him and owned him for their king.

This is the account which some of the Persians
gave of the contrivance of Oebares; but there are
others who relate the matter differently. They say

Herodotus

that in the morning he stroked the mare with his
hand, which he then hid in his trousers until the
sun rose and the horses were about to start, when
he suddenly drew his hand forth and put it to the
nostrils of his master’s horse, which immediately
snorted and neighed.

Thus was Darius, son of Hystaspes, appointed
king; and, except the Arabians, all they of Asia
were subject to him; for Cyrus, and after him
Cambyses, had brought them all under. The
Arabians were never subject as slaves to the
Persians, but had a league of friendship with them
from the time when they brought Cambyses on
his way as he went into Egypt; for had they been
unfriendly the Persians could never have made
their invasion.

And now Darius contracted marriages of the first
rank, according to the notions of the Persians: to
wit, with two daughters of Cyrus, Atossa and
Artystone; of whom, Atossa had been twice mar-
ried before, once to Cambyses, her brother, and

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once to the Magus, while the other, Artystone,
was a virgin. He married also Parmys, daughter of
Smerdis, son of Cyrus; and he likewise took to
wife the daughter of Otanes, who had made the
discovery about the Magus. And now when his
power was established firmly throughout all the
kingdoms, the first thing that he did was to set up
a carving in stone, which showed a man mounted
upon a horse, with an inscription in these words
following:- “Darius, son of Hystaspes, by aid of
his good horse” (here followed the horse’s name),
“and of his good groom Oebares, got himself the
kingdom of the Persians.”

This he set up in Persia; and afterwards he pro-
ceeded to establish twenty governments of the
kind which the Persians call satrapies, assigning
to each its governor, and fixing the tribute which
was to be paid him by the several nations. And
generally he joined together in one satrapy the
nations that were neighbours, but sometimes he
passed over the nearer tribes, and put in their
stead those which were more remote. The follow-

Herodotus

ing is an account of these governments, and of the
yearly tribute which they paid to the king:- Such
as brought their tribute in silver were ordered to
pay according to the Babylonian talent; while the
Euboic was the standard measure for such as
brought gold. Now the Babylonian talent con-
tains seventy Euboic minae. During all the reign
of Cyrus, and afterwards when Cambyses ruled,
there were no fixed tributes, but the nations sev-
erally brought gifts to the king. On account of
this and other like doings, the Persians say that
Darius was a huckster, Cambyses a master, and
Cyrus a father; for Darius looked to making a
gain in everything; Cambyses was harsh and reck-
less; while Cyrus was gentle, and procured them
all manner of goods.

The Ionians, the Magnesians of Asia, the
Aeolians, the Carians, the Lycians, the Milyans,
and the Pamphylians, paid their tribute in a sin-
gle sum, which was fixed at four hundred tal-
ents of silver. These formed together the first
satrapy.

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The Mysians, Lydians, Lasonians, Cabalians, and
Hygennians paid the sum of five hundred talents.
This was the second satrapy.

The Hellespontians, of the right coast as one
enters the straits, the Phrygians, the Asiatic
Thracians, the Paphlagonians, the
Mariandynians’ and the Syrians paid a tribute of
three hundred and sixty talents. This was the
third satrapy.

The Cilicians gave three hundred and sixty white
horses, one for each day in the year, and five hun-
dred talents of silver. Of this sum one hundred
and forty talents went to pay the cavalry which
guarded the country, while the remaining three
hundred and sixty were received by Darius. This
was the fourth satrapy.

The country reaching from the city of Posideium
(built by Amphilochus, son of Amphiaraus, on
the confines of Syria and Cilicia) to the borders of
Egypt, excluding therefrom a district which

100

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belonged to Arabia and was free from tax, paid a
tribute of three hundred and fifty talents. All
Phoenicia, Palestine Syria, and Cyprus, were here-
in contained. This was the fifth satrapy.

From Egypt, and the neighbouring parts of Libya,
together with the towns of Cyrene and Barca,
which belonged to the Egyptian satrapy, the trib-
ute which came in was seven hundred talents.
These seven hundred talents did not include the
profits of the fisheries of Lake Moeris, nor the
corn furnished to the troops at Memphis. Corn
was supplied to 120,000 Persians, who dwelt at
Memphis in the quarter called the White Castle,
and to a number of auxiliaries. This was the sixth
satrapy.

The Sattagydians, the Gandarians, the Dadicae,
and the Aparytae, who were all reckoned togeth-
er, paid a tribute of a hundred and seventy talents.
This was the seventh satrapy.

Susa, and the other parts of Cissia, paid three
hundred talents. This was the eighth satrapy.

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101

From Babylonia, and the rest of Assyria, were
drawn a thousand talents of silver, and five hun-
dred boy-eunuchs. This was the ninth satrapy.

Agbatana, and the other parts of Media, together
with the Paricanians and Orthocorybantes, paid
in all four hundred and fifty talents. This was the
tenth satrapy.

The Caspians, Pausicae, Pantimathi, and Daritae,
were joined in one government, and paid the sum
of two hundred talents. This was the eleventh
satrapy.

From the Bactrian tribes as far as the Aegli the
tribute received was three hundred and sixty tal-
ents. This was the twelfth satrapy.

From Pactyica, Armenia, and the countries reach-
ing thence to the Euxine, the sum drawn was four
hundred talents. This was the thirteenth satrapy.

The Sagartians, Sarangians, Thamanaeans,
Utians, and Mycians, together with the inhabi-

102

Herodotus

tants of the islands in the Erythraean sea, where
the king sends those whom he banishes, furnished
altogether a tribute of six hundred talents. This
was the fourteenth satrapy.

The Sacans and Caspians gave two hundred and
fifty talents. This was the fifteenth satrapy.

The Parthians, Chorasmians, Sogdians, and
Arians, gave three hundred. This was the six-
teenth satrapy.

The Paricanians and Ethiopians of Asia furnished
a tribute of four hundred talents. This was the
seventeenth satrapy.

The Matienians, Saspeires, and Alarodians were
rated to pay two hundred talents. This was the
eighteenth satrapy.

The Moschi, Tibareni, Macrones, Mosynoeci,
and Mares had to pay three hundred talents. This
was the nineteenth satrapy.

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103

The Indians, who are more numerous than any
other nation with which we are acquainted, paid
a tribute exceeding that of every other people, to
wit, three hundred and sixty talents of gold-dust.
This was the twentieth satrapy.

If the Babylonian money here spoken of be
reduced to the Euboic scale, it will make nine
thousand five hundred and forty such talents; and
if the gold be reckoned at thirteen times the worth
of silver, the Indian gold-dust will come to four
thousand six hundred and eighty talents. Add
these two amounts together and the whole rev-
enue which came in to Darius year by year will be
found to be in Euboic money fourteen thousand
five hundred and sixty talents, not to mention
parts of a talent.

Such was the revenue which Darius derived from
Asia and a small part of Libya. Later in his reign
the sum was increased by the tribute of the
islands, and of the nations of Europe as far as
Thessaly. The Great King stores away the tribute

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Herodotus

which he receives after this fashion- he melts it
down, and, while it is in a liquid state, runs it into
earthen vessels, which are afterwards removed,
leaving the metal in a solid mass. When money is
wanted, he coins as much of this bullion as the
occasion requires.

Such then were the governments, and such the
amounts of tribute at which they were assessed
respectively. Persia alone has not been reckoned
among the tributaries- and for this reason,
because the country of the Persians is altogether
exempt from tax. The following peoples paid no
settled tribute, but brought gifts to the king: first,
the Ethiopians bordering upon Egypt, who were
reduced by Cambyses when he made war on the
long-lived Ethiopians, and who dwell about the
sacred city of Nysa, and have festivals in honour
of Bacchus. The grain on which they and their
next neighbours feed is the same as that used by
the Calantian Indians. Their dwelling-houses are
under ground. Every third year these two nations
brought- and they still bring to my day- two
choenices of virgin gold, two hundred logs of

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105

ebony, five Ethiopian boys, and twenty elephant
tusks. The Colchians, and the neighbouring tribes
who dwell between them and the Caucasus- for so
far the Persian rule reaches, while north of the
Caucasus no one fears them any longer- under-
took to furnish a gift, which in my day was still
brought every fifth year, consisting of a hundred
boys, and the same number of maidens. The
Arabs brought every year a thousand talents of
frankincense. Such were the gifts which the king
received over and above the tribute-money.

The way in which the Indians get the plentiful
supply of gold which enables them to furnish year
by year so vast an amount of gold-dust to the
kind is the following:- eastward of India lies a
tract which is entirely sand. Indeed of all the
inhabitants of Asia, concerning whom anything
certain is known, the Indians dwell the nearest to
the east, and the rising of the sun. Beyond them
the whole country is desert on account of the
sand. The tribes of Indians are numerous, and do
not all speak the same language- some are wan-
dering tribes, others not. They who dwell in the

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marshes along the river live on raw fish, which
they take in boats made of reeds, each formed out
of a single joint. These Indians wear a dress of
sedge, which they cut in the river and bruise;
afterwards they weave it into mats, and wear it as
we wear a breast-plate.

Eastward of these Indians are another tribe, called
Padaeans, who are wanderers, and live on raw
flesh. This tribe is said to have the following cus-
toms:- If one of their number be ill, man or
woman, they take the sick person, and if he be a
man, the men of his acquaintance proceed to put
him to death, because, they say, his flesh would be
spoilt for them if he pined and wasted away with
sickness. The man protests he is not ill in the least;
but his friends will not accept his denial- in spite
of all he can say, they kill him, and feast them-
selves on his body. So also if a woman be sick, the
women, who are her friends, take her and do with
her exactly the same as the men. If one of them
reaches to old age, about which there is seldom
any question, as commonly before that time they

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107

have had some disease or other, and so have been
put to death- but if a man, notwithstanding,
comes to be old, then they offer him in sacrifice to
their gods, and afterwards eat his flesh.

There is another set of Indians whose customs are
very different. They refuse to put any live animal
to death, they sow no corn, and have no dwelling-
houses. Vegetables are their only food. There is a
plant which grows wild in their country, bearing
seed, about the size of millet-seed, in a calyx: their
wont is to gather this seed and having boiled it,
calyx and all, to use it for food. If one of them is
attacked with sickness, he goes forth into the
wilderness, and lies down to die; no one has the
least concern either for the sick or for the dead.

All the tribes which I have mentioned live togeth-
er like the brute beasts: they have also all the same
tint of skin, which approaches that of the
Ethiopians. Their country is a long way from
Persia towards the south: nor had king Darius
ever any authority over them.

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Besides these, there are Indians of another tribe,
who border on the city of Caspatyrus, and the
country of Pactyica; these people dwell north-
ward of all the rest of the Indians, and follow
nearly the same mode of life as the Bactrians.
They are more warlike than any of the other
tribes, and from them the men are sent forth who
go to procure the gold. For it is in this part of
India that the sandy desert lies. Here, in this
desert, there live amid the sand great ants, in size
somewhat less than dogs, but bigger than foxes.
The Persian king has a number of them, which
have been caught by the hunters in the land
whereof we are speaking. Those ants make their
dwellings under ground, and like the Greek ants,
which they very much resemble in shape, throw
up sand-heaps as they burrow. Now the sand
which they throw up is full of gold. The Indians,
when they go into the desert to collect this sand,
take three camels and harness them together, a
female in the middle and a male on either side, in
a leading-rein. The rider sits on the female, and
they are particular to choose for the purpose one
that has but just dropped her young; for their

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109

female camels can run as fast as horses, while they
bear burthens very much better.

As the Greeks are well acquainted with the shape
of the camel, I shall not trouble to describe it; but
I shall mention what seems to have escaped their
notice. The camel has in its hind legs four thigh-
bones and four knee-joints.

When the Indians therefore have thus equipped
themselves they set off in quest of the gold, calcu-
lating the time so that they may be engaged in
seizing it during the most sultry part of the day,
when the ants hide themselves to escape the heat.
The sun in those parts shines fiercest in the morn-
ing, not, as elsewhere, at noonday; the greatest
heat is from the time when he has reached a cer-
tain height, until the hour at which the market
closes. During this space he burns much more
furiously than at midday in Greece, so that the
men there are said at that time to drench them-
selves with water. At noon his heat is much the
same in India as in other countries, after which, as
the day declines, the warmth is only equal to that

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of the morning sun elsewhere. Towards evening
the coolness increases, till about sunset it becomes
very cold.

When the Indians reach the place where the gold
is, they fill their bags with the sand, and ride away
at their best speed: the ants, however, scenting
them, as the Persians say, rush forth in pursuit.
Now these animals are, they declare, so swift, that
there is nothing in the world like them: if it were
not, therefore, that the Indians get a start while
the ants are mustering, not a single gold-gatherer
could escape. During the flight the male camels,
which are not so fleet as the females, grow tired,
and begin to drag, first one, and then the other;
but the females recollect the young which they
have left behind, and never give way or flag. Such,
according to the Persians, is the manner in which
the Indians get the greater part of their gold; some
is dug out of the earth, but of this the supply is
more scanty.

It seems as if the extreme regions of the earth
were blessed by nature with the most excellent

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productions, just in the same way that Greece
enjoys a climate more excellently tempered than
any other country. In India, which, as I observed
lately, is the furthest region of the inhabited world
towards the east, all the four-footed beasts and
the birds are very much bigger than those found
elsewhere, except only the horses, which are sur-
passed by the Median breed called the Nisaean.
Gold too is produced there in vast abundance,
some dug from the earth, some washed down by
the rivers, some carried off in the mode which I
have but now described. And further, there are
trees which grow wild there, the fruit whereof is a
wool exceeding in beauty and goodness that of
sheep. The natives make their clothes of this tree-
wool.

Arabia is the last of inhabited lands towards the
south, and it is the only country which produces
frankincense, myrrh, cassia, cinnamon, and
ledanum. The Arabians do not get any of these,
except the myrrh, without trouble. The frankin-
cense they procure by means of the gum styrax,
which the Greeks obtain from the Phoenicians;

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this they burn, and thereby obtain the spice. For
the trees which bear the frankincense are guarded
by winged serpents, small in size, and of varied
colours, whereof vast numbers hang about every
tree. They are of the same kind as the serpents
that invade Egypt; and there is nothing but the
smoke of the styrax which will drive them from
the trees.

The Arabians say that the whole world would
swarm with these serpents, if they were not kept
in check in the way in which I know that vipers
are. Of a truth Divine Providence does appear to
be, as indeed one might expect beforehand, a wise
contriver. For timid animals which are a prey to
others are all made to produce young abundantly,
that so the species may not be entirely eaten up
and lost; while savage and noxious creatures are
made very unfruitful. The hare, for instance,
which is hunted alike by beasts, birds, and men,
breeds so abundantly as even to superfetate, a
thing which is true of no other animal. You find
in a hare’s belly, at one and the same time, some
of the young all covered with fur, others quite

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naked, others again just fully formed in the
womb, while the hare perhaps has lately con-
ceived afresh. The lioness, on the other hand,
which is one of the strongest and boldest of
brutes, brings forth young but once in her life-
time, and then a single cub; she cannot possibly
conceive again, since she loses her womb at the
same time that she drops her young. The reason
of this is that as soon as the cub begins to stir
inside the dam, his claws, which are sharper than
those of any other animal, scratch the womb; as
the time goes on, and he grows bigger, he tears it
ever more and more; so that at last, when the
birth comes, there is not a morsel in the whole
womb that is sound.

Now with respect to the vipers and the winged
snakes of Arabia, if they increased as fast as their
nature would allow, impossible were it for man to
maintain himself upon the earth. Accordingly it is
found that when the male and female come
together, at the very moment of impregnation, the
female seizes the male by the neck, and having
once fastened, cannot be brought to leave go till

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she has bit the neck entirely through. And so the
male perishes; but after a while he is revenged
upon the female by means of the young, which,
while still unborn, gnaw a passage through the
womb, and then through the belly of their moth-
er, and so make their entrance into the world.
Contrariwise, other snakes, which are harmless,
lay eggs, and hatch a vast number of young.
Vipers are found in all parts of the world, but the
winged serpents are nowhere seen except in
Arabia, where they are all congregated together.
This makes them appear so numerous.

Such, then, is the way in which the Arabians
obtain their frankincense; their manner of collect-
ing the cassia is the following:- They cover all
their body and their face with the hides of oxen
and other skins, leaving only holes for the eyes,
and thus protected go in search of the cassia,
which grows in a lake of no great depth. All
round the shores and in the lake itself there dwell
a number of winged animals, much resembling
bats, which screech horribly, and are very valiant.

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These creatures they must keep from their eyes all
the while that they gather the cassia.

Still more wonderful is the mode in which they
collect the cinnamon. Where the wood grows,
and what country produces it, they cannot tell-
only some, following probability, relate that it
comes from the country in which Bacchus was
brought up. Great birds, they say, bring the sticks
which we Greeks, taking the word from the
Phoenicians, call cinnamon, and carry them up
into the air to make their nests. These are fastened
with a sort of mud to a sheer face of rock, where
no foot of man is able to climb. So the Arabians,
to get the cinnamon, use the following artifice.
They cut all the oxen and asses and beasts of bur-
then that die in their land into large pieces, which
they carry with them into those regions, and Place
near the nests: then they withdraw to a distance,
and the old birds, swooping down, seize the
pieces of meat and fly with them up to their nests;
which, not being able to support the weight,
break off and fall to the ground. Hereupon the

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Arabians return and collect the cinnamon, which
is afterwards carried from Arabia into other
countries.

Ledanum, which the Arabs call ladanum, is pro-
cured in a yet stranger fashion. Found in a most
inodorous place, it is the sweetest-scented of all
substances. It is gathered from the beards of he-
goats, where it is found sticking like gum, having
come from the bushes on which they browse. It is
used in many sorts of unguents, and is what the
Arabs burn chiefly as incense.

Concerning the spices of Arabia let no more be
said. The whole country is scented with them, and
exhales an odour marvellously sweet. There are
also in Arabia two kinds of sheep worthy of
admiration, the like of which is nowhere else to be
seen; the one kind has long tails, not less than
three cubits in length, which, if they were allowed
to trail on the ground, would be bruised and fall
into sores. As it is, all the shepherds know enough
of carpentering to make little trucks for their
sheep’s tails. The trucks are placed under the tails,

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each sheep having one to himself, and the tails are
then tied down upon them. The other kind has a
broad tail, which is a cubit across sometimes.

Where the south declines towards the setting sun
lies the country called Ethiopia, the last inhabited
land in that direction. There gold is obtained in
great plenty, huge elephants abound, with wild
trees of all sorts, and ebony; and the men are
taller, handsomer, and longer lived than anywhere
else.

Now these are the farthest regions of the world in
Asia and Libya. Of the extreme tracts of Europe
towards the west I cannot speak with any certain-
ty; for I do not allow that there is any river, to
which the barbarians give the name of Eridanus,
emptying itself into the northern sea, whence (as
the tale goes) amber is procured; nor do I know of
any islands called the Cassiterides (Tin Islands),
whence the tin comes which we use. For in the
first place the name Eridanus is manifestly not a
barbarian word at all, but a Greek name, invent-
ed by some poet or other; and secondly, though I

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have taken vast pains, I have never been able to
get an assurance from an eye-witness that there is
any sea on the further side of Europe.
Nevertheless, tin and amber do certainly come to
us from the ends of the earth.

The northern parts of Europe are very much rich-
er in gold than any other region: but how it is pro-
cured I have no certain knowledge. The story runs
that the one-eyed Arimaspi purloin it from the
griffins; but here too I am incredulous, and can-
not persuade myself that there is a race of men
born with one eye, who in all else resemble the
rest of mankind. Nevertheless it seems to be true
that the extreme regions of the earth, which sur-
round and shut up within themselves all other
countries, produce the things which are the rarest,
and which men reckon the most beautiful.

There is a plain in Asia which is shut in on all
sides by a mountain-range, and in this mountain-
range are five openings. The plain lies on the con-
fines of the Chorasmians, Hyrcanians, Parthians,
Sarangians, and Thamanaeans, and belonged for-

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merly to the first-mentioned of those peoples.
Ever since the Persians, however, obtained the
mastery of Asia, it has been the property of the
Great King. A mighty river, called the Aces, flows
from the hills inclosing the plain; and this stream,
formerly splitting into five channels, ran through
the five openings in the hills, and watered the
lands of the five nations which dwell around. The
Persian came, however, and conquered the region,
and then it went ill with the people of these lands.
The Great King blocked up all the passages
between the hills with dykes and flood gates, and
so prevented the water from flowing out. Then
the plain within the hills became a sea, for the
river kept rising, and the water could find no out-
let. From that time the five nations which were
wont formerly to have the use of the stream, los-
ing their accustomed supply of water, have been
in great distress. In winter, indeed, they have rain
from heaven like the rest of the world, but in sum-
mer, after sowing their millet and their sesame,
they always stand in need of water from the river.
When, therefore, they suffer from this want, has-
tening to Persia, men and women alike, they take

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their station at the gate of the king’s palace, and
wail aloud. Then the king orders the flood-gates
to be opened towards the country whose need is
greatest, and lets the soil drink until it has had
enough; after which the gates on this side are
shut, and others are unclosed for the nation
which, of the remainder, needs it most. It has been
told me that the king never gives the order to
open the gates till the suppliants have paid him a
large sum of money over and above the tribute.

Of the seven Persians who rose up against the
Magus, one, Intaphernes, lost his life very shortly
after the outbreak, for an act of insolence. He
wished to enter the palace and transact a certain
business with the king. Now the law was that all
those who had taken part in the rising against the
Magus might enter unannounced into the king’s
presence, unless he happened to be in private with
his wife. So Intaphernes would not have any one
announce him, but, as he belonged to the seven,
claimed it as his right to go in. The doorkeeper,
however, and the chief usher forbade his entrance,

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since the king, they said, was with his wife. But
Intaphernes thought they told lies; so, drawing his
scymitar, he cut off their noses and their ears, and,
hanging them on the bridle of his horse, put the
bridle round their necks, and so let them go.

Then these two men went and showed themselves
to the king, and told him how it had come to pass
that they were thus treated. Darius trembled lest
it was by the common consent of the six that the
deed had been done; he therefore sent for them all
in turn, and sounded them to know if they
approved the conduct of Intaphernes. When he
found by their answers that there had been no
concert between him and them, he laid hands on
Intaphernes, his children, and all his near kindred;
strongly suspecting that he and his friends were
about to raise a revolt. When all had been seized
and put in chains, as malefactors condemned to
death, the wife of Intaphernes came and stood
continually at the palace-gates, weeping and wail-
ing sore. So Darius after a while, seeing that she
never ceased to stand and weep, was touched with

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pity for her, and bade a messenger go to her and
say, “Lady, king Darius gives thee as a boon the
life of one of thy kinsmen- choose which thou wilt
of the prisoners.” Then she pondered awhile
before she answered, “If the king grants me the
life of one alone, I make choice of my brother.”
Darius, when he heard the reply, was astonished,
and sent again, saying, “Lady, the king bids thee
tell him why it is that thou passest by thy husband
and thy children, and preferrest to have the life of
thy brother spared. He is not so near to thee as
thy children, nor so dear as thy husband.” She
answered, “O king, if the gods will, I may have
another husband and other children when these
are gone. But as my father and my mother are no
more, it is impossible that I should have another
brother. This was my thought when I asked to
have my brother spared.” Then it seemed to
Darius that the lady spoke well, and he gave her,
besides the life that she had asked, the life also of
her eldest son, because he was greatly pleased
with her. But he slew all the rest. Thus one of the
seven died, in the way I have described, very
shortly after the insurrection.

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About the time of Cambyses’ last sickness, the fol-
lowing events happened. There was a certain
Oroetes, a Persian, whom Cyrus had made gover-
nor of Sardis. This man conceived a most unholy
wish. He had never suffered wrong or had an ill
word from Polycrates the Samian- nay, he had not
so much as seen him in all his life; yet, notwith-
standing, he conceived the wish to seize him and
put him to death. This wish, according to the
account which the most part give, arose from
what happened one day as he was sitting with
another Persian in the gate of the king’s palace.
The man’s name was Mitrobates, and he was
ruler of the satrapy of Dascyleium. He and
Oroetes had been talking together, and from talk-
ing they fell to quarrelling and comparing their
merits; whereupon Mitrobates said to Oroetes
reproachfully, “Art thou worthy to be called a
man, when, near as Samos lies to thy government,
and easy as it is to conquer, thou hast omitted to
bring it under the dominion of the king? Easy to
conquer, said I? Why, a mere common citizen,
with the help of fifteen men-at-arms, mastered the
island, and is still king of it.” Oroetes, they say,

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took this reproach greatly to heart; but, instead of
seeking to revenge himself on the man by whom
it was uttered, he conceived the desire of destroy-
ing Polycrates, since it was on Polycrates’ account
that the reproach had fallen on him.

Another less common version of the story is that
Oroetes sent a herald to Samos to make a request,
the nature of which is not stated; Polycrates was
at the time reclining in the apartment of the
males, and Anacreon the Teian was with him;
when therefore the herald came forward to con-
verse, Polycrates, either out of studied contempt
for the power of Oroetes, or it may be merely by
chance, was lying with his face turned away
towards the wall; and so he lay all the time that
the herald spake, and when he ended, did not
even vouchsafe him a word.

Such are the two reasons alleged for the death of
Polycrates; it is open to all to believe which they
please. What is certain is that Oroetes, while
residing at Magnesia on the Maeander, sent a
Lydian, by name Myrsus, the son of Gyges, with

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a message to Polycrates at Samos, well knowing
what that monarch designed. For Polycrates
entertained a design which no other Greek, so far
as we know, ever formed before him, unless it
were Minos the Cnossian, and those (if there were
any such) who had the mastery of the Egaean at
an earlier time- Polycrates, I say, was the first of
mere human birth who conceived the design of
gaining the empire of the sea, and aspired to rule
over Ionia and the islands. Knowing then that
Polycrates was thus minded, Oroetes sent his mes-
sage, which ran as follows:-

“Oroetes to Polycrates thus sayeth: I hear thou
raisest thy thoughts high, but thy means are not
equal to thy ambition. Listen then to my words,
and learn how thou mayest at once serve thyself
and preserve me. King Cambyses is bent on my
destruction- of this I have warning from a sure
hand. Come thou, therefore, and fetch me away,
me and all my wealth- share my wealth with me,
and then, so far as money can aid, thou mayest
make thyself master of the whole of Greece. But if
thou doubtest of my wealth, send the trustiest of

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thy followers, and I will show my treasures to
him.”

Polycrates, when he heard this message, was full
of joy, and straightway approved the terms; but,
as money was what he chiefly desired, before stir-
ring in the business he sent his secretary,
Maeandrius, son of Maeandrius, a Samian, to
look into the matter. This was the man who, not
very long afterwards, made an offering at the tem-
ple of Juno of all the furniture which had adorned
the male apartments in the palace of Polycrates,
an offering well worth seeing. Oroetes learning
that one was coming to view his treasures, con-
trived as follows:- he filled eight great chests
almost brimful of stones, and then covering over
the stones with gold, corded the chests, and so
held them in readiness. When Maeandrius
arrived, he was shown this as Oroetes’ treasure,
and having seen it returned to Samos.

On hearing his account, Polycrates, notwith-
standing many warnings given him by the sooth-
sayers, and much dissuasion of his friends, made

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ready to go in person. Even the dream which vis-
ited his daughter failed to check him. She had
dreamed that she saw her father hanging high in
air, washed by love, and anointed by the sun.
Having therefore thus dreamed, she used every
effort to prevent her father from going; even as he
went on board his penteconter crying after him
with words of evil omen. Then Polycrates threat-
ened her that, if he returned in safety, he would
keep her unmarried many years. She answered,
“Oh! that he might perform his threat; far better
for her to remain long unmarried than to be bereft
of her father!”

Polycrates, however, making light of all the coun-
sel offered him, set sail and went to Oroetes.
Many friends accompanied him; among the rest,
Democedes, the son of Calliphon, a native of
Crotona, who was a physician, and the best
skilled in his art of all men then living. Polycrates,
on his arrival at Magnesia, perished miserably, in
a way unworthy of his rank and of his lofty
schemes. For, if we except the Syracusans, there
has never been one of the Greek tyrants who was

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to be compared with Polycrates for magnificence.
Oroetes, however, slew him in a mode which is
not fit to be described, and then hung his dead
body upon a cross. His Samian followers Oroetes
let go free, bidding them thank him that they were
allowed their liberty; the rest, who were in part
slaves, in part free foreigners, he alike treated as
his slaves by conquest. Then was the dream of the
daughter of Polycrates fulfilled; for Polycrates, as
he hung upon the cross, and rain fell on him, was
washed by Jupiter; and he was anointed by the
sun, when his own moisture overspread his body.
And so the vast good fortune of Polycrates came
at last to the end which Amasis the Egyptian king
had prophesied in days gone by.

It was not long before retribution for the murder
of Polycrates overtook Oroetes. After the death of
Cambyses, and during all the time that the Magus
sat upon the throne, Oroetes remained in Sardis,
and brought no help to the Persians, whom the
Medes had robbed of the sovereignty. On the con-
trary, amid the troubles of this season, he slew
Mitrobates, the satrap of Dascyleium, who had

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cast the reproach upon him in the matter of
Polycrates; and he slew also Mitrobates’s son,
Cranaspes- both men of high repute among the
Persians. He was likewise guilty of many other
acts of insolence; among the rest, of the follow-
ing:- there was a courier sent to him by Darius
whose message was not to his mind- Oroetes had
him waylaid and murdered on his road back to
the king; the man and his horse both disappeared,
and no traces were left of either.

Darius therefore was no sooner settled upon the
throne than he longed to take vengeance upon
Oroetes for all his misdoings, and especially for
the murder of Mitrobates and his son. To send an
armed force openly against him, however, he did
not think advisable, as the whole kingdom was
still unsettled, and he too was but lately come to
the throne, while Oroetes, as he understood, had
a great power. In truth a thousand Persians
attended on him as a bodyguard, and he held the
satrapies of Phrygia, Lydia, and Ionia. Darius
therefore proceeded by artifice. He called togeth-
er a meeting of all the chief of the Persians, and

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thus addressed them:- “Who among you, O
Persians, will undertake to accomplish me a mat-
ter by skill without force or tumult? Force is mis-
placed where the work wants skilful manage-
ment. Who, then, will undertake to bring me
Oroetes alive, or else to kill him? He never did the
Persians any good in his life, and he has wrought
us abundant injury. Two of our number,
Mitrobates and his son, he has slain; and when
messengers go to recall him, even though they
have their mandate from me, with an insolence
which is not to be endured, he puts them to death.
We must kill this man, therefore, before he does
the Persians any greater hurt.”

Thus spoke Darius; and straightway thirty of
those present came forward and offered them-
selves for the work. As they strove together,
Darius interfered, and bade them have recourse to
the lot. Accordingly lots were cast, and the task
fell to Bagaeus, son of Artontes. Then Bagaeus
caused many letters to be written on divers mat-
ters, and sealed them all with the king’s signet;
after which he took the letters with him, and

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departed for Sardis. On his arrival he was shown
into the presence of Oroetes, when he uncovered
the letters one by one, and giving them to the
king’s secretary- every satrap has with him a
king’s secretary- commanded him to read their
contents. Herein his design was to try the fidelity
of the bodyguard, and to see if they would be like-
ly to fall away from Oroetes. When therefore he
saw that they showed the letters all due respect,
and even more highly reverenced their contents,
he gave the secretary a paper in which was writ-
ten, “Persians, king Darius forbids you to guard
Oroetes.” The soldiers at these words laid aside
their spears. So Bagaeus, finding that they obeyed
this mandate, took courage, and gave into the sec-
retary’s hands the last letter, wherein it was writ-
ten, “King Darius commands the Persians who
are in Sardis to kill Oroetes.” Then the guards
drew their swords and slew him upon the spot.
Thus did retribution for the murder of Polycrates
the Samian overtake Oroetes the Persian.

Soon after the treasures of Oroetes had been con-
veyed to Sardis it happened that king Darius, as

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he leaped from his horse during the chase,
sprained his foot. The sprain was one of no com-
mon severity, for the ankle-bone was forced quite
out of the socket. Now Darius already had at his
court certain Egyptians whom he reckoned the
best-skilled physicians in all the world; to their
aid, therefore, he had recourse; but they twisted
the foot so clumsily, and used such violence, that
they only made the mischief greater. For seven
days and seven nights the king lay without sleep,
so grievous was the pain he suffered. On the
eighth day of his indisposition, one who had
heard before leaving Sardis of the skill of
Democedes the Crotoniat, told Darius, who com-
manded that he should be brought with all speed
into his presence. When, therefore, they had
found him among the slaves of Oroetes, quite
uncared for by any one, they brought him just as
he was, clanking his fetters, and all clothed in
rags, before the king.

As soon as he was entered into the presence,
Darius asked him if he knew medicine- to which
he answered “No,” for he feared that if he made

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himself known he would lose all chance of ever
again beholding Greece. Darius, however, per-
ceiving that he dealt deceitfully, and really under-
stood the art, bade those who had brought him to
the presence go fetch the scourges and the prick-
ing-irons. Upon this Democedes made confession,
but at the same time said, that he had no thor-
ough knowledge of medicine- he had but lived
some time with a physician, and in this way had
gained a slight smattering of the art. However,
Darius put himself under his care, and
Democedes, by using the remedies customary
among the Greeks, and exchanging the violent
treatment of the Egyptians for milder means, first
enabled him to get some sleep, and then in a very
little time restored him altogether, after he had
quite lost the hope of ever having the use of his
foot. Hereupon the king presented Democedes
with two sets of fetters wrought in gold; so
Democedes asked if he meant to double his suf-
ferings because he had brought him back to
health? Darius was pleased at the speech, and
bade the eunuchs take Democedes to see his
wives, which they did accordingly, telling them all

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that this was the man who had saved the king’s
life. Then each of the wives dipped with a saucer
into a chest of gold, and gave so bountifully to
Democedes, that a slave named Sciton, who fol-
lowed him, and picked up the staters which fell
from the saucers, gathered together a great heap
of gold.

This Democedes left his country and became
attached to Polycrates in the following way:- His
father, who dwelt at Crotona, was a man of a sav-
age temper, and treated him cruelly. When, there-
fore, he could no longer bear such constant ill-
usage, Democedes left his home, and sailed away
to Egina. There he set up in business, and suc-
ceeded the first year in surpassing all the best-
skilled physicians of the place, notwithstanding
that he was without instruments, and had with
him none of the appliances needful for the prac-
tice of his art. In the second year the state of Egina
hired his services at the price of a talent; in the
third the Athenians engaged him at a hundred
minae; and in the fourth Polycrates at two talents.

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So he went to Samos, and there took up his
abode. It was in no small measure from his suc-
cess that the Crotoniats came to be reckoned such
good physicians; for about this period the physi-
cians of Crotona had the name of being the best,
and those of Cyrene the second best, in all Greece.
The Argives, about the same time, were thought
to be the first musicians in Greece.

After Democedes had cured Darius at Susa, he
dwelt there in a large house, and feasted daily at
the king’s table, nor did he lack anything that his
heart desired, excepting liberty to return to his
country. By interceding for them with Darius, he
saved the lives of the Egyptian physicians who
had had the care of the king before he came, when
they were about to be impaled because they had
been surpassed by a Greek; and further, he suc-
ceeded in rescuing an Elean soothsayer, who had
followed the fortunes of Polycrates, and was lying
in utter neglect among his slaves. In short there
was no one who stood so high as Democedes in
the favour of the king.

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Moreover, within a little while it happened that
Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus, who was married
to Darius, had a boil form upon her breast,
which, after it burst, began to spread and
increase. Now so long as the sore was of no great
size, she hid it through shame and made no men-
tion of it to any one; but when it became worse,
she sent at last for Democedes, and showed it to
him. Democedes said that he would make her
well, but she must first promise him with an oath
that if he cured her she would grant him whatev-
er request he might prefer; assuring her at the
same time that it should be nothing which she
could blush to hear.

On these terms Democedes applied his art, and
soon cured the abscess; and Atossa, when she had
heard his request, spake thus one night to Darius:-

“It seemeth to me strange, my lord, that, with the
mighty power which is thine, thou sittest idle, and
neither makest any conquest, nor advancest the
power of the Persians. Methinks that one who is
so young, and so richly endowed with wealth,

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should perform some noble achievement to prove
to the Persians that it is a man who governs them.
Another reason, too, should urge thee to attempt
some enterprise. Not only does it befit thee to
show the Persians that a man rules them, but for
thy own peace thou shouldest waste their strength
in wars lest idleness breed revolt against thy
authority. Now, too, whilst thou art still young,
thou mayest well accomplish some exploit; for as
the body grows in strength the mind too ripens,
and as the body ages, the mind’s powers decay, till
at last it becomes dulled to everything.”

So spake Atossa, as Democedes had instructed
her. Darius answered:- “Dear lady, thou hast
uttered the very thoughts that occupy my brain. I
am minded to construct a bridge which shall join
our continent with the other, and so carry war
into Scythia. Yet a brief space and all will be
accomplished as thou desirest.”

But Atossa rejoined:- “Look now, this war with
Scythia were best reserved awhile- for the
Scythians may be conquered at any time. Prithee,

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lead me thy host first into Greece. I long to be
served by some of those Lacedaemonian maids of
whom I have heard so much. I want also Argive,
and Athenian, and Corinthian women. There is
now at the court a man who can tell thee better
than any one else in the whole world whatever
thou wouldst know concerning Greece, and who
might serve thee right well as guide; I mean him
who performed the cure on thy foot.”

“Dear lady,” Darius answered, “since it is thy
wish that we try first the valour of the Greeks, it
were best, methinks, before marching against
them, to send some Persians to spy out the land;
they may go in company with the man thou men-
tionest, and when they have seen and learnt all,
they can bring us back a full report. Then, having
a more perfect knowledge of them, I will begin the
war.”

Darius, having so spoke, put no long distance
between the word and the deed, but as soon as
day broke he summoned to his presence fifteen
Persians of note, and bade them take Democedes

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for their guide, and explore the sea-coasts of
Greece. Above all, they were to be sure to bring
Democedes back with them, and not suffer him to
run away and escape. After he had given these
orders, Darius sent for Democedes, and besought
him to serve as guide to the Persians, and when he
had shown them the whole of Greece to come
back to Persia. He should take, he said, all the
valuables he possessed as presents to his father
and his brothers, and he should receive on his
return a far more abundant store. Moreover, the
king added, he would give him, as his contribu-
tion towards the presents, a merchantship laden
with all manner of precious things, which should
accompany him on his voyage. Now I do not
believe that Darius, when he made these promis-
es, had any guile in his heart: Democedes, howev-
er, who suspected that the king spoke to try him,
took care not to snatch at the offers with any
haste; but said, “he would leave his own goods
behind to enjoy upon his return- the merchant-
ship which the king proposed to grant him to
carry gifts to his brothers, that he would accept at
the king’s hands.” So when Darius had laid his

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orders upon Democedes, he sent him and the
Persians away to the coast.

The men went down to Phoenicia, to Sidon, the
Phoenician town, where straightway they fitted
out two triremes and a trading-vessel, which they
loaded with all manner of precious merchandise;
and, everything being now ready, they set sail for
Greece. When they had made the land, they kept
along the shore and examined it, taking notes of
all that they saw; and in this way they explored
the greater portion of the country, and all the
most famous regions, until at last they reached
Tarentum in Italy. There Aristophilides, king of
the Tarentines, out of kindness to Democedes,
took the rudders off the Median ships, and
detained their crews as spies. Meanwhile
Democedes escaped to Crotona, his native city,
whereupon Aristophilides released the Persians
from prison, and gave their rudders back to them.

The Persians now quitted Tarentum, and sailed to
Crotona in pursuit of Democedes; they found him
in the market-place, where they straightway laid

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violent hands on him. Some of the Crotoniats,
who greatly feared the power of the Persians,
were willing to give him up; but others resisted,
held Democedes fast, and even struck the Persians
with their walking-sticks. They, on their part,
kept crying out, “Men of Crotona, beware what
you do. It is the king’s runaway slave that you are
rescuing. Think you Darius will tamely submit to
such an insult? Think you, that if you carry off
the man from us, it will hereafter go well with
you? Will you not rather be the first persons on
whom we shall make war? Will not your city be
the first we shall seek to lead away captive?” Thus
they spake, but the Crotoniats did not heed them;
they rescued Democedes, and seized also the trad-
ing-ship which the Persians had brought with
them from Phoenicia. Thus robbed, and bereft of
their guide, the Persians gave up all hope of
exploring the rest of Greece, and set sail for Asia.
As they were departing, Democedes sent to them
and begged they would inform Darius that the
daughter of Milo was allianced to him as his
bride. For the name of Milo the wrestler was in
high repute with the king. My belief is, that

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Democedes hastened his marriage by the payment
of a large sum of money for the purpose of show-
ing Darius that he was a man of mark in his own
country.

The Persians weighed anchor and left Crotona,
but, being wrecked on the coast of Iapygia, were
made slaves by the inhabitants. From this condi-
tion they were rescued by Gillus, a banished
Tarentine, who ransomed them at his own cost,
and took them back to Darius. Darius offered to
repay this service by granting Gillus whatever
boon he chose to ask; whereupon Gillus told the
king of his misfortune, and begged to be restored
to his country. Fearing, however, that he might
bring trouble on Greece if a vast armament were
sent to Italy on his account, he added that it
would content him if the Cnidians undertook to
obtain his recall. Now the Cnidians were dose
friends of the Tarentines, which made him think
there was no likelier means of procuring his
return. Darius promised and performed his part;
for he sent messenger to Cnidus, and commanded
the Cnidians to restore Gillus. The Cnidians did

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as he wished, but found themselves unable to per-
suade the Tarentines, and were too weak to
attempt force. Such then was the course which
this matter took. These were the first Persians
who ever came from Asia to Greece; and they
were sent to spy out the land for the reason which
I have before mentioned.

After this, king Darius besieged and took Samos,
which was the first city, Greek or Barbarian, that
he conquered. The cause of his making war upon
Samos was the following:- at the time when
Cambyses, son of Cyrus, marched against Egypt,
vast numbers of Greeks flocked thither; some, as
might have been looked for, to push their trade;
others, to serve in his army; others again, merely
to see the land: among these last was Syloson, son
of Aeaces, and brother of Polycrates, at that time
an exile from Samos. This Syloson, during his stay
in Egypt, met with a singular piece of good for-
tune. He happened one day to put on a scarlet
cloak, and thus attired to go into the market-place
at Memphis, when Dariuss who was one of
Cambyses’ bodyguard, and not at that time a man

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of any account, saw him, and taking a strong lik-
ing to the dress, went up and offered to purchase
it. Syloson perceived how anxious he was, and by
a lucky inspiration answered: “There is no price
at which I would sell my cloak; but I will give it
thee for nothing, if it must needs be thine.” Darius
thanked him, and accepted the garment.

Poor Syloson felt at the time that he had fooled
away his cloak in a very simple manner; but after-
wards, when in the course of years Cambyses
died, and the seven Persians rose in revolt against
the Magus, and Darius was the man chosen out of
the seven to have the kingdom, Syloson learnt
that the person to whom the crown had come was
the very man who had coveted his cloak in Egypt,
and to whom he had freely given it. So he made
his way to Susa, and seating himself at the portal
of the royal palace, gave out that he was a bene-
factor of the king. Then the doorkeeper went and
told Darius. Amazed at what he heard, king said
thus within himself:- “What Greek can have been
my benefactor, or to which of them do I owe any-
thing, so lately as I have got the kingdom?

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Scarcely a man of them all has been here, not
more than one or two certainly, since I came to
the throne. Nor do I remember that I am in the
debt of any Greek. However, bring him in, and let
me hear what he means by his boast.” So the
doorkeeper ushered Syloson into the presence,
and the interpreters asked him who he was, and
what he had done that he should call himself a
benefactor of the king. Then Syloson told the
whole story of the cloak, and said that it was he
who had made Darius the present. Hereupon
Darius exclaimed, “Oh! thou most generous of
men, art thou indeed he who, when I had no
power at all, gavest me something, albeit little?
Truly the favour is as great as a very grand pre-
sent would be nowadays. I will therefore give thee
in return gold and silver without stint, that thou
mayest never repent of having rendered a service
to Darius, son of Hystaspes. “Give me not, O
king,” replied Syloson, “either silver or gold, but
recover me Samos, my native land, and let that be
thy gift to me. It belongs now to a slave of ours,
who, when Oroetes put my brother Polycrates to
death, became its master. Give me Samos, I beg;

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but give it unharmed, with no bloodshed- no lead-
ing into captivity.”

When he heard this, Darius sent off an army,
under Otanes, one of the seven, with orders to
accomplish all that Syloson had desired. And
Otanes went down to the coast and made ready to
cross over.

The government of Samos was held at this time by
Maeandrius, son of Maeandrius, whom
Polycrates had appointed as his deputy. This per-
son conceived the wish to act like the justest of
men, but it was not allowed him to do so. On
receiving tidings of the death of Polycrates, he
forthwith raised an altar to love the Protector of
Freedom, and assigned it the piece of ground
which may still be seen in the suburb. This done,
he assembled all the citizens, and spoke to them as
follows:-

“Ye know, friends, that the sceptre of Polycrates,
and all his power, has passed into my hands, and
if I choose I may rule over you. But what I con-

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demn in another I will, if I may, avoid myself. I
never approved the ambition of Polycrates to lord
it over men as good as himself, nor looked with
favour on any of those who have done the like.
Now therefore, since he has fulfilled his destiny, I
lay down my office, and proclaim equal rights. All
that I claim in return is six talents from the trea-
sures of Polycrates, and the priesthood of Jove the
Protector of Freedom, for myself and my descen-
dants for ever. Allow me this, as the man by
whom his temple has been built, and by whom ye
yourselves are now restored to liberty.” As soon
as Maeandrius had ended, one of the Samians
rose up and said, “As if thou wert fit to rule us,
base-born and rascal as thou art! Think rather of
accounting for the monies which thou hast fin-
gered.”

The man who thus spoke was a certain
Telesarchus, one of the leading citizens.
Maeandrius, therefore, feeling sure that if he laid
down the sovereign power some one else would
become tyrant in his room, gave up the thought of
relinquishing it. Withdrawing to the citadel, he

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sent for the chief men one by one, under pretence
of showing them his accounts, and as fast as they
came arrested them and put them in irons. So
these men were bound; and Maeandrius within a
short time fell sick: whereupon Lycaretus, one of
his brothers, thinking that he was going to die, and
wishing to make his own accession to the throne
the easier, slew all the prisoners. It seemed that the
Samians did not choose to be a free people.

When the Persians whose business it was to
restore Syloson reached Samos, not a man was
found to lift up his hand against them.
Maeandrius and his partisans expressed them-
selves willing to quit the island upon certain
terms, and these terms were agreed to by Otanes.
After the treaty was made, the most distinguished
of the Persians had their thrones brought, and
seated themselves over against the citadel.

Now the king Maeandrius had a lightheaded
brother- Charilaus by name- whom for some
offence or other he had shut up in prison: this
man heard what was going on, and peering

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through his bars, saw the Persians sitting peace-
fully upon their seats, whereupon he exclaimed
aloud, and said he must speak with Maeandrius.
When this was reported to him, Maeandrius gave
orders that Charilaus should be released from
prison and brought into his presence. No sooner
did he arrive than he began reviling and abusing
his brother, and strove to persuade him to attack
the Persians. “Thou meanest-spirited of men,” he
said, “thou canst keep me, thy brother, chained in
a dungeon, notwithstanding that I have done
nothing worthy of bonds; but when the Persians
come and drive thee forth a houseless wanderer
from thy native land, thou lookest on, and hast
not the heart to seek revenge, though they might
so easily be subdued. If thou, however, art afraid,
lend me thy soldiers, and I will make them pay
dearly for their coming here. I engage too to send
thee first safe out of the island.”

So spake Charilaus, and Maeandrius gave con-
sent; not (I believe) that he was so void of sense as
to imagine that his own forces could overcome
those of the king, but because he was jealous of

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Syloson, and did not wish him to get so quietly an
unharmed city. He desired therefore to rouse the
anger of the Persians against Samos, that so he
might deliver it up to Syloson with its power at
the lowest possible ebb; for he knew well that if
the Persians met with a disaster they would be
furious against the Samians, while he himself felt
secure of a retreat at any time that he liked, since
he had a secret passage under ground leading
from the citadel to the sea. Maeandrius accord-
ingly took ship and sailed away from Samos; and
Charilaus, having armed all the mercenaries,
threw open the gates, and fell upon the Persians,
who looked for nothing less, since they supposed
that the whole matter had been arranged by
treaty. At the first onslaught therefore all the
Persians of most note, men who were in the habit
of using litters, were slain by the mercenaries; the
rest of the army, however, came to the rescue,
defeated the mercenaries, and drove them back
into the citadel.

Then Otanes, the general, when he saw the great
calamity which had befallen the Persians, made

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up his mind to forget the orders which Darius had
given him, “not to kill or enslave a single Samian,
but to deliver up the island unharmed to
Syloson,” and gave the word to his army that they
should slay the Samians, both men and boys,
wherever they could find them. Upon this some of
his troops laid siege to the citadel, while others
began the massacre, killing all they met, some
outside, some inside the temples.

Maeandrius fled from Samos to Lacedaemon, and
conveyed thither all the riches which he had
brought away from the island, after which he
acted as follows. Having placed upon his board
all the gold and silver vessels that he had, and
bade his servants employ themselves in cleaning
them, he himself went and entered into conversa-
tion with Cleomenes, son of Anaxandridas, king
of Sparta, and as they talked brought him along
to his house. There Cleomenes, seeing the plate,
was filled with wonder and astonishment; where-
on the other begged that he would carry home
with him any of the vessels that he liked.
Maeandrius said this two or three times; but

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Cleomenes here displayed surpassing honesty. He
refused the gift, and thinking that if Maeandrius
made the same offers to others he would get the
aid he sought, the Spartan king went straight to
the ephors and told them “it would be best for
Sparta that the Samian stranger should be sent
away from the Peloponnese; for otherwise he
might perchance persuade himself or some other
Spartan to be base.” The ephors took his advice,
and let Maeandrius know by a herald that he
must leave the city.

Meanwhile the Persians netted Samos, and deliv-
ered it up to Syloson, stripped of all its men. After
some time, however, this same general Otanes
was induced to repeople it by a dream which he
had, and a loathsome disease that seized on him.

After the armament of Otanes had set sail for
Samos, the Babylonians revolted, having made
every preparation for defence. During all the time
that the Magus was king, and while the seven
were conspiring, they had profited by the trou-
bles, and had made themselves ready against a

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siege. And it happened somehow or other that no
one perceived what they were doing. At last when
the time came for rebelling openly, they did as fol-
lows:- having first set apart their mothers, each
man chose besides out of his whole household one
woman, whomsoever he pleased; these alone were
allowed to live, while all the rest were brought to
one place and strangled. The women chosen were
kept to make bread for the men; while the others
were strangled that they might not consume the
stores.

When tidings reached Darius of what had hap-
pened, he drew together all his power, and began
the war by marching straight upon Babylon, and
laying siege to the place. The Babylonians, how-
ever, cared not a whit for his siege. Mounting
upon the battlements that crowned their walls,
they insulted and jeered at Darius and his mighty
host. One even shouted to them and said, “Why
sit ye there, Persians? why do ye not go back to
your homes? Till mules foal ye will not take our
city.” This was by a Babylonian who thought that
a mule would never foal.

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Now when a year and seven months had passed,
Darius and his army were quite wearied out, find-
ing that they could not anyhow take the city. All
stratagems and all arts had been used, and yet the
king could not prevail- not even when he tried the
means by which Cyrus made himself master of the
place. The Babylonians were ever upon the watch,
and he found no way of conquering them.

At last, in the twentieth month, a marvellous
thing happened to Zopyrus, son of the
Megabyzus who was among the seven men that
overthrew the Magus. One of his sumpter-mules
gave birth to a foal. Zopyrus, when they told him,
not thinking that it could be true, went and saw
the colt with his own eyes; after which he com-
manded his servants to tell no one what had come
to pass, while he himself pondered the matter.
Calling to mind then the words of the Babylonian
at the beginning of the siege, “Till mules foal ye
shall not take our city”- he thought, as he reflect-
ed on this speech, that Babylon might now be
taken. For it seemed to him that there was a

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Divine Providence in the man having used the
phrase, and then his mule having foaled.

As soon therefore as he felt within himself that
Babylon was fated to be taken, he went to Darius
and asked him if he set a very high value on its
conquest. When he found that Darius did indeed
value it highly, he considered further with himself
how he might make the deed his own, and be the
man to take Babylon. Noble exploits in Persia are
ever highly honoured and bring their authors to
greatness. He therefore reviewed all ways of
bringing the city under, but found none by which
he could hope to prevail, unless he maimed him-
self and then went over to the enemy. To do this
seeming to him a light matter, he mutilated him-
self in a way that was utterly without remedy. For
he cut off his own nose and ears, and then, clip-
ping his hair close and flogging himself with a
scourge, he came in this plight before Darius.

Wrath stirred within the king at the sight of a man
of his lofty rank in such a condition; leaping

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down from his throne, he exclaimed aloud, and
asked Zopyrus who it was that had disfigured
him, and what he had done to be so treated.
Zopyrus answered, “There is not a man in the
world, but thou, O king, that could reduce me to
such a plight- no stranger’s hands have wrought
this work on me, but my own only. I maimed
myself I could not endure that the Assyrians
should laugh at the Persians.” “Wretched man,”
said Darius, “thou coverest the foulest deed with
the fairest possible name, when thou sayest thy
maiming is to help our siege forward. How will
thy disfigurement, thou simpleton, induce the
enemy to yield one day the sooner? Surely thou
hadst gone out of thy mind when thou didst so
misuse thyself.” “Had I told thee,” rejoined the
other, “what I was bent on doing, thou wouldest
not have suffered it; as it is, I kept my own coun-
sel, and so accomplished my plans. Now, there-
fore, if there be no failure on thy part, we shall
take Babylon. I will desert to the enemy as I am,
and when I get into their city I will tell them that
it is by thee I have been thus treated. I think they
will believe my words, and entrust me with a

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command of troops. Thou, on thy part, must wait
till the tenth day after I am entered within the
town, and then place near to the gates of
Semiramis a detachment of thy army, troops for
whose loss thou wilt care little, a thousand men.
Wait, after that, seven days, and post me another
detachment, two thousand strong, at the Nineveh
gates; then let twenty days pass, and at the end of
that time station near the Chaldaean gates a body
of four thousand. Let neither these nor the former
troops be armed with any weapons but their
swords- those thou mayest leave them. After the
twenty days are over, bid thy whole army attack
the city on every side, and put me two bodies of
Persians, one at the Belian, the other at the
Cissian gates; for I expect, that, on account of my
successes, the Babylonians will entrust everything,
even the keys of their gates, to me. Then it will be
for me and my Persians to do the rest.”

Having left these instructions, Zopyrus fled
towards the gates of the town, often looking
back, to give himself the air of a deserter. The men
upon the towers, whose business it was to keep a

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lookout, observing him, hastened down, and set-
ting one of the gates slightly ajar, questioned him
who he was, and on what errand he had come. He
replied that he was Zopyrus, and had deserted to
them from the Persians. Then the doorkeepers,
when they heard this, carried him at once before
the Magistrates. Introduced into the assembly, he
began to bewail his misfortunes, telling them that
Darius had maltreated him in the way they could
see, only because he had given advice that the
siege should be raised, since there seemed no hope
of taking the city. “And now,” he went on to say,
“my coming to you, Babylonians, will prove the
greatest gain that you could possibly receive,
while to Darius and the Persians it will be the
severest loss. Verily he by whom I have been so
mutilated shall not escape unpunished. And truly
all the paths of his counsels are known to me.”
Thus did Zopyrus speak.

The Babylonians, seeing a Persian of such exalted
rank in so grievous a plight, his nose and ears cut
off, his body red with marks of scourging and

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with blood, had no suspicion but that he spoke
the truth, and was really come to be their friend
and helper. They were ready, therefore, to grant
him anything that he asked; and on his suing for
a command, they entrusted to him a body of
troops, with the help of which he proceeded to do
as he had arranged with Darius. On the tenth day
after his flight he led out his detachment, and sur-
rounding the thousand men, whom Darius
according to agreement had sent first, he fell upon
them and slew them all. Then the Babylonians,
seeing that his deeds were as brave as his words,
were beyond measure pleased, and set no bounds
to their trust. He waited, however, and when the
next period agreed on had elapsed, again with a
band of picked men he sallied forth, and slaugh-
tered the two thousand. After this second exploit,
his praise was in all mouths. Once more, howev-
er, he waited till the interval appointed had gone
by, and then leading the troops to the place where
the four thousand were, he put them also to the
sword. This last victory gave the finishing stroke
to his power, and made him all in all with the

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Babylonians: accordingly they committed to him
the command of their whole army, and put the
keys of their city into his hands.

Darius now, still keeping to the plan agreed upon,
attacked the walls on every side, whereupon
Zopyrus played out the remainder of his strata-
gem. While the Babylonians, crowding to the
walls, did their best to resist the Persian assault,
he threw open the Cissian and the Belian gates,
and admitted the enemy. Such of the Babylonians
as witnessed the treachery, took refuge in the tem-
ple of Jupiter Belus; the rest, who did not see it,
kept at their posts, till at last they too learnt that
they were betrayed.

Thus was Babylon taken for the second time.
Darius having become master of the place,
destroyed the wall, and tore down all the gates;
for Cyrus had done neither the one nor the other
when he took Babylon. He then chose out near
three thousand of the leading citizens, and caused
them to be crucified, while he allowed the remain-
der still to inhabit the city. Further, wishing to

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prevent the race of the Babylonians from becom-
ing extinct, he provided wives for them in the
room of those whom (as I explained before) they
strangled, to save their stores. These he levied
from the nations bordering on Babylonia, who
were each required to send so large a number to
Babylon, that in all there were collected no fewer
than fifty thousand. It is from these women that
the Babylonians of our times are sprung.

As for Zopyrus, he was considered by Darius to
have surpassed, in the greatness of his achieve-
ments, all other Persians, whether of former or of
later times, except only Cyrus- with whom no
Persian ever yet thought himself worthy to com-
pare. Darius, as the story goes, would often say
that “he had rather Zopyrus were unmaimed,
than be master of twenty more Babylons.” And he
honoured Zopyrus greatly; year by year he pre-
sented him with all the gifts which are held in
most esteem among the Persians; he gave him
likewise the government of Babylon for his life,
free from tribute; and he also granted him many
other favours. Megabyzus, who held the com-

Th e H i s to r i e s

o f

H e ro d o t u s o f H a l i c a r n a s s u s

Book Four

TRANSLATED BY

George Rawlinson

Ames, Iowa

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BOOK FOUR

fter the taking of Babylon, an expedition was

led by Darius into Scythia. Asia abounding in
men, and vast sums flowing into the treasury, the
desire seized him to exact vengeance from the
Scyths, who had once in days gone by invaded
Media, defeated those who met them in the field,
and so begun the quarrel. During the space of
eight-and-twenty years, as I have before men-
tioned, the Scyths continued lords of the whole of
Upper Asia. They entered Asia in pursuit of the
Cimmerians, and overthrew the empire of the
Medes, who till they came possessed the sover-
eignty. On their return to their homes after the
long absence of twenty-eight years, a task await-
ed them little less troublesome than their struggle
with the Medes. They found an army of no small

Th e H i s t o r i e s

o f

H e r o d o t u s o f H a l i c a r n a s s u s

size prepared to oppose their entrance. For the
Scythian women, when they saw that time went
on, and their husbands did not come back, had
intermarried with their slaves.

Now the Scythians blind all their slaves, to use
them in preparing their milk. The plan they fol-
low is to thrust tubes made of bone, not unlike
our musical pipes, up the vulva of the mare, and
then to blow into the tubes with their mouths,
some milking while the others blow. They say that
they do this because when the veins of the animal
are full of air, the udder is forced down. The milk
thus obtained is poured into deep wooden casks,
about which the blind slaves are placed, and then
the milk is stirred round. That which rises to the
top is drawn off, and considered the best part; the
under portion is of less account. Such is the rea-
son why the Scythians blind all those whom they
take in war; it arises from their not being tillers of
the ground, but a pastoral race.

When therefore the children sprung from these
slaves and the Scythian women grew to manhood,

Herodotus

The Histories–Book Four

and understood the circumstances of their birth,
they resolved to oppose the army which was
returning from Media. And, first of all, they cut
off a tract of country from the rest of Scythia by
digging a broad dyke from the Tauric mountains
to the vast lake of the Maeotis. Afterwards, when
the Scythians tried to force an entrance, they
marched out and engaged them. Many battles
were fought, and the Scythians gained no advan-
tage, until at last one of them thus addressed the
remainder: “What are we doing, Scythians? We
are fighting our slaves, diminishing our own num-
ber when we fall, and the number of those that
belong to us when they fall by our hands. Take
my advice- lay spear and bow aside, and let each
man fetch his horsewhip, and go boldly up to
them. So long as they see us with arms in our
hands, they imagine themselves our equals in
birth and bravery; but let them behold us with no
other weapon but the whip, and they will feel that
they are our slaves, and flee before us.”

The Scythians followed this counsel, and the
slaves were so astounded, that they forgot to

fight, and immediately ran away. Such was the
mode in which the Scythians, after being for a
time the lords of Asia, and being forced to quit it
by the Medes, returned and settled in their own
country. This inroad of theirs it was that Darius
was anxious to avenge, and such was the purpose
for which he was now collecting an army to
invade them.

According to the account which the Scythians
themselves give, they are the youngest of all
nations. Their tradition is as follows. A certain
Targitaus was the first man who ever lived in their
country, which before his time was a desert with-
out inhabitants. He was a child- I do not believe
the tale, but it is told nevertheless- of Jove and a
daughter of the Borysthenes. Targitaus, thus
descended, begat three sons, Leipoxais, Arpoxais,
and Colaxais, who was the youngest born of the
three. While they still ruled the land, there fell
from the sky four implements, all of gold- a
plough, a yoke, a battle-axe, and a drinking-cup.
The eldest of the brothers perceived them first,

Herodotus

The Histories–Book Four

and approached to pick them up; when lo! as he
came near, the gold took fire, and blazed. He
therefore went his way, and the second coming
forward made the attempt, but the same thing
happened again. The gold rejected both the eldest
and the second brother. Last of all the youngest
brother approached, and immediately the flames
were extinguished; so he picked up the gold, and
carried it to his home. Then the two elder agreed
together, and made the whole kingdom over to
the youngest born.

From Leipoxais sprang the Scythians of the race
called Auchatae; from Arpoxais, the middle
brother, those known as the Catiari and
Traspians; from Colaxais, the youngest, the Royal
Scythians, or Paralatae. All together they are
named Scoloti, after one of their kings: the
Greeks, however, call them Scythians.

Such is the account which the Scythians give of
their origin. They add that from the time of
Targitaus, their first king, to the invasion of their

Herodotus

country by Darius, is a period of one thousand
years, neither less nor more. The Royal Scythians
guard the sacred gold with most especial care, and
year by year offer great sacrifices in its honour. At
this feast, if the man who has the custody of the
gold should fall asleep in the open air, he is sure
(the Scythians say) not to outlive the year. His pay
therefore is as much land as he can ride round on
horseback in a day. As the extent of Scythia is
very great, Colaxais gave each of his three sons a
separate kingdom, one of which was of ampler
size than the other two: in this the gold was pre-
served. Above, to the northward of the farthest
dwellers in Scythia, the country is said to be con-
cealed from sight and made impassable by reason
of the feathers which are shed abroad abundant-
ly. The earth and air are alike full of them, and
this it is which prevents the eye from obtaining
any view of the region.

Such is the account which the Scythians give of
themselves, and of the country which lies above
them. The Greeks who dwell about the Pontus tell

The Histories–Book Four

a different story. According to Hercules, when he
was carrying off the cows of Geryon, arrived in
the region which is now inhabited by the Scyths,
but which was then a desert. Geryon lived outside
the Pontus, in an island called by the Greeks
Erytheia, near Gades, which is beyond the Pillars
of Hercules upon the Ocean. Now some say that
the Ocean begins in the east, and runs the whole
way round the world; but they give no proof that
this is really so. Hercules came from thence into
the region now called Scythia, and, being over-
taken by storm and frost, drew his lion’s skin
about him, and fell fast asleep. While he slept, his
mares, which he had loosed from his chariot to
graze, by some wonderful chance disappeared.

On waking, he went in quest of them, and, after
wandering over the whole country, came at last to
the district called “the Woodland,” where he
found in a cave a strange being, between a maid-
en and a serpent, whose form from the waist
upwards was like that of a woman, while all
below was like a snake. He looked at her won-

Herodotus

deringly; but nevertheless inquired, whether she
had chanced to see his strayed mares anywhere.
She answered him, “Yes, and they were now in
her keeping; but never would she consent to give
them back, unless he took her for his mistress.”
So Hercules, to get his mares back, agreed; but
afterwards she put him off and delayed restoring
the mares, since she wished to keep him with her
as long as possible. He, on the other hand, was
only anxious to secure them and to get away. At
last, when she gave them up, she said to him,
“When thy mares strayed hither, it was I who
saved them for thee: now thou hast paid their sal-
vage; for lo! I bear in my womb three sons of
thine. Tell me therefore when thy sons grow up,
what must I do with them? Wouldst thou wish
that I should settle them here in this land, where-
of I am mistress, or shall I send them to thee?”
Thus questioned, they say, Hercules answered,
“When the lads have grown to manhood, do thus,
and assuredly thou wilt not err. Watch them, and
when thou seest one of them bend this bow as I
now bend it, and gird himself with this girdle
thus, choose him to remain in the land. Those

The Histories–Book Four

who fail in the trial, send away. Thus wilt thou at
once please thyself and obey me.”

Hereupon he strung one of his bows- up to that
time he had carried two- and showed her how to
fasten the belt. Then he gave both bow and belt
into her hands. Now the belt had a golden goblet
attached to its clasp. So after he had given them
to her, he went his way; and the woman, when her
children grew to manhood, first gave them sever-
ally their names. One she called Agathyrsus, one
Gelonus, and the other, who was the youngest,
Scythes. Then she remembered the instructions
she had received from Hercules, and, in obedience
to his orders, she put her sons to the test. Two of
them, Agathyrsus and Gelonus, proving unequal
to the task enjoined, their mother sent them out of
the land; Scythes, the youngest, succeeded, and so
he was allowed to remain. From Scythes, the son
of Hercules, were descended the after kings of
Scythia; and from the circumstance of the goblet
which hung from the belt, the Scythians to this
day wear goblets at their girdles. This was the
only thing which the mother of Scythes did for

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him. Such is the tale told by the Greeks who dwell
around the Pontus.

There is also another different story, now to be
related, in which I am more inclined to put faith
than in any other. It is that the wandering
Scythians once dwelt in Asia, and there warred
with the Massagetae, but with ill success; they
therefore quitted their homes, crossed the Araxes,
and entered the land of Cimmeria. For the land
which is now inhabited by the Scyths was former-
ly the country of the Cimmerians. On their com-
ing, the natives, who heard how numerous the
invading army was, held a council. At this meet-
ing opinion was divided, and both parties stiffly
maintained their own view; but the counsel of the
Royal tribe was the braver. For the others urged
that the best thing to be done was to leave the
country, and avoid a contest with so vast a host;
but the Royal tribe advised remaining and fight-
ing for the soil to the last. As neither party chose
to give way, the one determined to retire without
a blow and yield their lands to the invaders; but

The Histories–Book Four

the other, remembering the good things which
they had enjoyed in their homes, and picturing to
themselves the evils which they had to expect if
they gave them up, resolved not to flee, but rather
to die and at least be buried in their fatherland.
Having thus decided, they drew apart in two bod-
ies, the one as numerous as the other, and fought
together. All of the Royal tribe were slain, and the
people buried them near the river Tyras, where
their grave is still to be seen. Then the rest of the
Cimmerians departed, and the Scythians, on their
coming, took possession of a deserted land.

Scythia still retains traces of the Cimmerians;
there are Cimmerian castles, and a Cimmerian
ferry, also a tract called Cimmeria, and a
Cimmerian Bosphorus. It appears likewise that
the Cimmerians, when they fled into Asia to
escape the Scyths, made a settlement in the penin-
sula where the Greek city of Sinope was after-
wards built. The Scyths, it is plain, pursued them,
and missing their road, poured into Media. For
the Cimmerians kept the line which led along the

Herodotus

sea-shore, but the Scyths in their pursuit held the
Caucasus upon their right, thus proceeding
inland, and falling upon Media. This account is
one which is common both to Greeks and bar-
barians.

Aristeas also, son of Caystrobius, a native of
Proconnesus, says in the course of his poem that
wrapt in Bacchic fury he went as far as the
Issedones. Above them dwelt the Arimaspi, men
with one eye; still further, the gold-guarding
griffins; and beyond these, the Hyperboreans,
who extended to the sea. Except the
Hyperboreans, all these nations, beginning with
the Arimaspi, were continually encroaching upon
their neighbours. Hence it came to pass that the
Arimaspi drove the Issedonians from their coun-
try, while the Issedonians dispossessed the Scyths;
and the Scyths, pressing upon the Cimmerians,
who dwelt on the shores of the Southern Sea,
forced them to leave their land. Thus even
Aristeas does not agree in his account of this
region with the Scythians.

The Histories–Book Four

The birthplace of Aristeas, the poet who sung of
these things, I have already mentioned. I will
now relate a tale which I heard concerning him
both at Proconnesus and at Cyzicus. Aristeas,
they said, who belonged to one of the noblest
families in the island, had entered one day into a
fuller’s shop, when he suddenly dropt down
dead. Hereupon the fuller shut up his shop, and
went to tell Aristeas’ kindred what had hap-
pened. The report of the death had just spread
through the town, when a certain Cyzicenian,
lately arrived from Artaca, contradicted the
rumour, affirming that he had met Aristeas on
his road to Cyzicus, and had spoken with him.
This man, therefore, strenuously denied the
rumour; the relations, however, proceeded to the
fuller’s shop with all things necessary for the
funeral, intending to carry the body away. But
on the shop being opened, no Aristeas was
found, either dead or alive. Seven years after-
wards he reappeared, they told me, in
Proconnesus, and wrote the poem called by the
Greeks The Arimaspeia, after which he disap-

Herodotus

peared a second time. This is the tale current in
the two cities above-mentioned.

What follows I know to have happened to the
Metapontines of Italy, three hundred and forty
years after the second disappearance of Aristeas,
as I collect by comparing the accounts given me at
Proconnesus and Metapontum. Aristeas then, as
the Metapontines affirm, appeared to them in
their own country, and ordered them to set up an
altar in honour of Apollo, and to place near it a
statue to be called that of Aristeas the
Proconnesian. “Apollo,” he told them, “had
come to their country once, though he had visited
no other Italiots; and he had been with Apollo at
the time, not however in his present form, but in
the shape of a crow.” Having said so much, he
vanished. Then the Metapontines, as they relate,
sent to Delphi, and inquired of the god in what
light they were to regard the appearance of this
ghost of a man. The Pythoness, in reply, bade
them attend to what the spectre said, “for so it
would go best with them.” Thus advised, they did
as they had been directed: and there is now a stat-

The Histories–Book Four

ue bearing the name of Aristeas, close by the
image of Apollo in the market-place of
Metapontum, with bay-trees standing around it.
But enough has been said concerning Aristeas.

With regard to the regions which lie above the
country whereof this portion of my history treats,
there is no one who possesses any exact knowl-
edge. Not a single person can I find who profess-
es to be acquainted with them by actual observa-
tion. Even Aristeas, the traveller of whom I lately
spoke, does not claim- and he is writing poetry- to
have reached any farther than the Issedonians.
What he relates concerning the regions beyond is,
he confesses, mere hearsay, being the account
which the Issedonians gave him of those coun-
tries. However, I shall proceed to mention all that
I have learnt of these parts by the most exact
inquiries which I have been able to make con-
cerning them.

Above the mart of the Borysthenites, which is sit-
uated in the very centre of the whole sea-coast of
Scythia, the first people who inhabit the land are

Herodotus

the Callipedae, a Greco-Scythic race. Next to
them, as you go inland, dwell the people called
the Alazonians. These two nations in other
respects resemble the Scythians in their usages,
but sow and eat corn, also onions, garlic, lentils,
and millet. Beyond the Alazonians reside Scythian
cultivators, who grow corn, not for their own use,
but for sale. Still higher up are the Neuri.
Northwards of the Neuri the continent, as far as
it is known to us, is uninhabited. These are the
nations along the course of the river Hypanis,
west of the Borysthenes.

Across the Borysthenes, the first country after you
leave the coast is Hylaea (the Woodland). Above
this dwell the Scythian Husbandmen, whom the
Greeks living near the Hypanis call Borysthenites,
while they call themselves Olbiopolites. These
Husbandmen extend eastward a distance of three
days’ journey to a river bearing the name of
Panticapes, while northward the country is theirs
for eleven days’ sail up the course of the
Borysthenes. Further inland there is a vast tract
which is uninhabited. Above this desolate region

The Histories–Book Four

dwell the Cannibals, who are a people apart,
much unlike the Scythians. Above them the coun-
try becomes an utter desert; not a single tribe, so
far as we know, inhabits it.

Crossing the Panticapes, and proceeding eastward
of the Husbandmen, we come upon the wander-
ing Scythians, who neither plough nor sow. Their
country, and the whole of this region, except
Hylaea, is quite bare of trees. They extend
towards the east a distance of fourteen’ days’
journey, occupying a tract which reaches to the
river Gerrhus.

On the opposite side of the Gerrhus is the Royal
district, as it is called: here dwells the largest and
bravest of the Scythian tribes, which looks upon
all the other tribes in the light of slaves. Its coun-
try reaches on the south to Taurica, on the east to
the trench dug by the sons of the blind slaves, the
mart upon the Palus Maeotis, called Cremni (the
Cliffs), and in part to the river Tanais. North of
the country of the Royal Scythians are the
Melanchaeni (Black-Robes), a people of quite a

Herodotus

different race from the Scythians. Beyond them lie
marshes and a region without inhabitants, so far
as our knowledge reaches.

When one crosses the Tanais, one is no longer in
Scythia; the first region on crossing is that of the
Sauromatae, who, beginning at the upper end of
the Palus Maeotis, stretch northward a distance
of fifteen days’ journey, inhabiting a country
which is entirely bare of trees, whether wild or
cultivated. Above them, possessing the second
region, dwell the Budini, whose territory is thick-
ly wooded with trees of every kind.

Beyond the Budini, as one goes northward, first
there is a desert, seven days’ journey across; after
which, if one inclines somewhat to the east, the
Thyssagetae are reached, a numerous nation quite
distinct from any other, and living by the chase.
Adjoining them, and within the limits of the same
region, are the people who bear the name of
Iyrcae; they also support themselves by hunting,
which they practise in the following manner. The
hunter climbs a tree, the whole country abound-

The Histories–Book Four

ing in wood, and there sets himself in ambush; he
has a dog at hand, and a horse, trained to lie
down upon its belly, and thus make itself low; the
hunter keeps watch, and when he sees his game,
lets fly an arrow; then mounting his horse, he
gives the beast chase, his dog following hard all
the while. Beyond these people, a little to the east,
dwells a distinct tribe of Scyths, who revolted
once from the Royal Scythians, and migrated into
these parts.

As far as their country, the tract of land whereof I
have been speaking is all a smooth plain, and the
soil deep; beyond you enter on a region which is
rugged and stony. Passing over a great extent of
this rough country, you come to a people dwelling
at the foot of lofty mountains, who are said to be
all- both men and women- bald from their birth,
to have flat noses, and very long chins. These peo-
ple speak a language of their own,. the dress
which they wear is the same as the Scythian. They
live on the fruit of a certain tree, the name of
which is Ponticum; in size it is about equal to our

Herodotus

fig-tree, and it bears a fruit like a bean, with a
stone inside. When the fruit is ripe, they strain it
through cloths; the juice which runs off is black
and thick, and is called by the natives “aschy.”
They lap this up with their tongues, and also mix
it with milk for a drink; while they make the lees,
which are solid, into cakes, and eat them instead
of meat; for they have but few sheep in their
country, in which there is no good pasturage.
Each of them dwells under a tree, and they cover
the tree in winter with a cloth of thick white felt,
but take off the covering in the summer-time. No
one harms these people, for they are looked upon
as sacred- they do not even possess any warlike
weapons. When their neighbours fall out, they
make up the quarrel; and when one flies to them
for refuge, he is safe from all hurt. They are called
the Argippaeans.

Up to this point the territory of which we are
speaking is very completely explored, and all the
nations between the coast and the bald-headed
men are well known to us. For some of the

The Histories–Book Four

Scythians are accustomed to penetrate as far, of
whom inquiry may easily be made, and Greeks
also go there from the mart on the Borysthenes,
and from the other marts along the Euxine. The
Scythians who make this journey communicate
with the inhabitants by means of seven inter-
preters and seven languages.

Thus far, therefore, the land is known; but beyond
the bald-headed men lies a region of which no one
can give any exact account. Lofty and precipitous
mountains, which are never crossed, bar further
progress. The bald men say, but it does not seem
to me credible, that the people who live in these
mountains have feet like goats; and that after
passing them you find another race of men, who
sleep during one half of the year. This latter state-
ment appears to me quite unworthy of credit. The
region east of the bald-headed men is well known
to be inhabited by the Issedonians, but the tract
that lies to the north of these two nations is
entirely unknown, except by the accounts which
they give of it.

Herodotus

The Issedonians are said to have the following
customs. When a man’s father dies, all the near
relatives bring sheep to the house; which are sac-
rificed, and their flesh cut in pieces, while at the
same time the dead body undergoes the like treat-
ment. The two sorts of flesh are afterwards mixed
together, and the whole is served up at a banquet.
The head of the dead man is treated differently: it
is stripped bare, cleansed, and set in gold. It then
becomes an ornament on which they pride them-
selves, and is brought out year by year at the great
festival which sons keep in honour of their
fathers’ death, just as the Greeks keep their
Genesia. In other respects the Issedonians are
reputed to be observers of justice: and it is to be
remarked that their women have equal authority
with the men. Thus our knowledge extends as far
as this nation.

The regions beyond are known only from the
accounts of the Issedonians, by whom the stories
are told of the one-eyed race of men and the gold-
guarding griffins. These stories are received by the
Scythians from the Issedonians, and by them

The Histories–Book Four

passed on to us Greeks: whence it arises that we
give the one-eyed race the Scythian name of
Arimaspi, “arima” being the Scythic word for
“one,” and “spu” for “the eye.”

The whole district whereof we have here dis-
coursed has winters of exceeding rigour. During
eight months the frost is so intense that water
poured upon the ground does not form mud, but
if a fire be lighted on it mud is produced. The sea
freezes, and the Cimmerian Bosphorus is frozen
over. At that season the Scythians who dwell
inside the trench make warlike expeditions upon
the ice, and even drive their waggons across to the
country of the Sindians. Such is the intensity of
the cold during eight months out of the twelve;
and even in the remaining four the climate is still
cool. The character of the winter likewise is
unlike that of the same season in any other coun-
try; for at that time, when the rains ought to fall
in Scythia, there is scarcely any rain worth men-
tioning, while in summer it never gives over rain-
ing; and thunder, which elsewhere is frequent
then, in Scythia is unknown in that part of the

Herodotus

year, coming only in summer, when it is very
heavy. Thunder in the winter-time is there
accounted a prodigy; as also are earthquakes,
whether they happen in winter or summer. Horses
bear the winter well, cold as it is, but mules and
asses are quite unable to bear it; whereas in other
countries mules and asses are found to endure the
cold, while horses, if they stand still, are frost-bit-
ten.

To me it seems that the cold may likewise be the
cause which prevents the oxen in Scythia from
having horns. There is a line of Homer’s in the
Odyssey which gives a support to my opinion:-

Libya too, where horns hud quick on the fore-

heads of lambkins.

He means to say what is quite true, that in warm
countries the horns come early. So too in coun-
tries where the cold is severe animals either have
no horns, or grow them with difficulty- the cold
being the cause in this instance.

The Histories–Book Four

Here I must express my wonder- additions being
what my work always from the very first affected-
that in Elis, where the cold is not remarkable, and
there is nothing else to account for it, mules are
never produced. The Eleans say it is in conse-
quence of a curse; and their habit is, when the
breeding-time comes, to take their mares into one
of the adjoining countries, and there keep them
till they are in foal, when they bring them back
again into Elis.

With respect to the feathers which are said by the
Scythians to fill the air, and to prevent persons
from penetrating into the remoter parts of the
continent, even having any view of those regions,
my opinion is that in the countries above Scythia
it always snows- less, of course, in the summer
than in the wintertime. Now snow when it falls
looks like feathers, as every one is aware who has
seen it come down close to him. These northern
regions, therefore, are uninhabitable by reason of
the severity of the winter; and the Scythians, with
their neighbours, call the snow-flakes feathers
because, I think, of the likeness which they bear to

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them. I have now related what is said of the most
distant parts of this continent whereof any
account is given.

Of the Hyperboreans nothing is said either by the
Scythians or by any of the other dwellers in these
regions, unless it be the Issedonians. But in my
opinion, even the Issedonians are silent concern-
ing them; otherwise the Scythians would have
repeated their statements, as they do those con-
cerning the one-eyed men. Hesiod, however, men-
tions them, and Homer also in the Epigoni, if that
be really a work of his.

But the persons who have by far the most to say
on this subject are the Delians. They declare that
certain offerings, packed in wheaten straw, were
brought from the country of the Hyperboreans
into Scythia, and that the Scythians received them
and passed them on to their neighbours upon the
west, who continued to pass them on until at last
they reached the Adriatic. From hence they were
sent southward, and when they came to Greece,
were received first of all by the Dodonaeans.

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Thence they descended to the Maliac Gulf, from
which they were carried across into Euboea,
where the people handed them on from city to
city, till they came at length to Carystus. The
Carystians took them over to Tenos, without
stopping at Andros; and the Tenians brought
them finally to Delos. Such, according to their
own account, was the road by which the offerings
reached the Delians. Two damsels, they say,
named Hyperoche and Laodice, brought the first
offerings from the Hyperboreans; and with them
the Hyperboreans sent five men to keep them
from all harm by the way; these are the persons
whom the Delians call “Perpherees,” and to
whom great honours are paid at Delos.
Afterwards the Hyperboreans, when they found
that their messengers did not return, thinking it
would be a grievous thing always to be liable to
lose the envoys they should send, adopted the fol-
lowing plan:- they wrapped their offerings in the
wheaten straw, and bearing them to their borders,
charged their neighbours to send them forward
from one nation to another, which was done
accordingly, and in this way the offerings reached

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Delos. I myself know of a practice like this, which
obtains with the women of Thrace and Paeonia.
They in their sacrifices to the queenly Diana bring
wheaten straw always with their offerings. Of my
own knowledge I can testify that this is so.

The damsels sent by the Hyperboreans died in
Delos; and in their honour all the Delian girls and
youths are wont to cut off their hair. The girls,
before their marriage-day, cut off a curl, and
twining it round a distaff, lay it upon the grave of
the strangers. This grave is on the left as one
enters the precinct of Diana, and has an olive-tree
growing on it. The youths wind some of their hair
round a kind of grass, and, like the girls, place it
upon the tomb. Such are the honours paid to
these damsels by the Delians.

They add that, once before, there came to Delos
by the same road as Hyperoche and Laodice, two
other virgins from the Hyperboreans, whose
names were Arge and Opis. Hyperoche and
Laodice came to bring to Ilithyia the offering
which they had laid upon themselves, in acknowl-

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edgment of their quick labours; but Arge and
Opis came at the same time as the gods of Delos,’
and are honoured by the Delians in a different
way. For the Delian women make collections in
these maidens’ names, and invoke them in the
hymn which Olen, a Lycian, composed for them;
and the rest of the islanders, and even the Ionians,
have been taught by the Delians to do the like.
This Olen, who came from Lycia, made the other
old hymns also which are sung in Delos. The
Delians add that the ashes from the thigh-bones
burnt upon the altar are scattered over the tomb
of Opis and Arge. Their tomb lies behind the tem-
ple of Diana, facing the east, near the banqueting-
hall of the Ceians. Thus much then, and no more,
concerning the Hyperboreans.

As for the tale of Abaris, who is said to have been
a Hyperborean, and to have gone with his arrow
all round the world without once eating, I shall
pass it by in silence. Thus much, however, is clear:
if there are Hyperboreans, there must also be
Hypernotians. For my part, I cannot but laugh
when I see numbers of persons drawing maps of

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the world without having any reason to guide
them; making, as they do, the ocean-stream to run
all round the earth, and the earth itself to be an
exact circle, as if described by a pair of compass-
es, with Europe and Asia just of the same size.
The truth in this matter I will now proceed to
explain in a very few words, making it clear what
the real size of each region is, and what shape
should be given them.

The Persians inhabit a country upon the southern
or Erythraean sea; above them, to the north, are
the Medes; beyond the Medes, the Saspirians;
beyond them, the Colchians, reaching to the
northern sea, into which the Phasis empties itself.
These four nations fill the whole space from one
sea to the other.

West of these nations there project into the sea
two tracts which I will now describe; one, begin-
ning at the river Phasis on the north, stretches
along the Euxine and the Hellespont to Sigeum in
the Troas; while on the south it reaches from the
Myriandrian gulf, which adjoins Phoenicia, to the

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Triopic promontory. This is one of the tracts, and
is inhabited by thirty different nations.

The other starts from the country of the Persians,
and stretches into the Erythraean sea, containing
first Persia, then Assyria, and after Assyria,
Arabia. It ends, that is to say, it is considered to
end, though it does not really come to a termina-
tion, at the Arabian gulf- the gulf whereinto
Darius conducted the canal which he made from
the Nile. Between Persia and Phoenicia lies a
broad and ample tract of country, after which the
region I am describing skirts our sea, stretching
from Phoenicia along the coast of Palestine-Syria
till it comes to Egypt, where it terminates. This
entire tract contains but three nations. The whole
of Asia west of the country of the Persians is com-
prised in these two regions.

Beyond the tract occupied by the Persians, Medes,
Saspirians, and Colchians, towards the east and
the region of the sunrise, Asia is bounded on the
south by the Erythraean sea, and on the north by
the Caspian and the river Araxes, which flows

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towards the rising sun. Till you reach India the
country is peopled; but further east it is void of
inhabitants, and no one can say what sort of
region it is. Such then is the shape, and such the
size of Asia.

Libya belongs to one of the above-mentioned
tracts, for it adjoins on Egypt. In Egypt the tract
is at first a narrow neck, the distance from our sea
to the Erythraean not exceeding a hundred thou-
sand fathoms, in other words, a thousand fur-
longs; but from the point where the neck ends, the
tract which bears the name of Libya is of very
great breadth.

For my part I am astonished that men should ever
have divided Libya, Asia, and Europe as they
have, for they are exceedingly unequal. Europe
extends the entire length of the other two, and for
breadth will not even (as I think) bear to be com-
pared to them. As for Libya, we know it to be
washed on all sides by the sea, except where it is
attached to Asia. This discovery was first made by
Necos, the Egyptian king, who on desisting from

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the canal which he had begun between the Nile
and the Arabian gulf, sent to sea a number of
ships manned by Phoenicians, with orders to
make for the Pillars of Hercules, and return to
Egypt through them, and by the Mediterranean.
The Phoenicians took their departure from Egypt
by way of the Erythraean sea, and so sailed into
the southern ocean. When autumn came, they
went ashore, wherever they might happen to be,
and having sown a tract of land with corn, wait-
ed until the grain was fit to cut. Having reaped it,
they again set sail; and thus it came to pass that
two whole years went by, and it was not till the
third year that they doubled the Pillars of
Hercules, and made good their voyage home. On
their return, they declared- I for my part do not
believe them, but perhaps others may- that in sail-
ing round Libya they had the sun upon their right
hand. In this way was the extent of Libya first dis-
covered.

Next to these Phoenicians the Carthaginians,
according to their own accounts, made the voy-
age. For Sataspes, son of Teaspes the

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Achaemenian, did not circumnavigate Libya,
though he was sent to do so; but, fearing the
length and desolateness of the journey, he turned
back and left unaccomplished the task which had
been set him by his mother. This man had used
violence towards a maiden, the daughter of
Zopyrus, son of Megabyzus, and King Xerxes
was about to impale him for the offence, when his
mother, who was a sister of Darius, begged him
off, undertaking to punish his crime more heavily
than the king himself had designed. She would
force him, she said, to sail round Libya and return
to Egypt by the Arabian gulf. Xerxes gave his
consent; and Sataspes went down to Egypt, and
there got a ship and crew, with which he set sail
for the Pillars of Hercules. Having passed the
Straits, he doubled the Libyan headland, known
as Cape Soloeis, and proceeded southward.
Following this course for many months over a
vast stretch of sea, and finding that more water
than he had crossed still lay ever before him, he
put about, and came back to Egypt. Thence pro-
ceeding to the court, he made report to Xerxes,

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that at the farthest point to which he had reached,
the coast was occupied by a dwarfish race, who
wore a dress made from the palm tree. These peo-
ple, whenever he landed, left their towns and fled
away to the mountains; his men, however, did
them no wrong, only entering into their cities and
taking some of their cattle. The reason why he
had not sailed quite round Libya was, he said,
because the ship stopped, and would no go any
further. Xerxes, however, did not accept this
account for true; and so Sataspes, as he had failed
to accomplish the task set him, was impaled by
the king’s orders in accordance with the former
sentence. One of his eunuchs, on hearing of his
death, ran away with a great portion of his
wealth, and reached Samos, where a certain
Samian seized the whole. I know the man’s name
well, but I shall willingly forget it here.

Of the greater part of Asia Darius was the dis-
coverer. Wishing to know where the Indus (which
is the only river save one that produces croco-
diles) emptied itself into the sea, he sent a num-

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ber of men, on whose truthfulness he could rely,
and among them Scylax of Caryanda, to sail
down the river. They started from the city of
Caspatyrus, in the region called Pactyica, and
sailed down the stream in an easterly direction to
the sea. Here they turned westward, and, after a
voyage of thirty months, reached the place from
which the Egyptian king, of whom I spoke above,
sent the Phoenicians to sail round Libya. After
this voyage was completed, Darius conquered the
Indians, and made use of the sea in those parts.
Thus all Asia, except the eastern portion, has
been found to be similarly circumstanced with
Libya.

But the boundaries of Europe are quite unknown,
and there is not a man who can say whether any
sea girds it round either on the north or on the
east, while in length it undoubtedly extends as far
as both the other two. For my part I cannot con-
ceive why three names, and women’s names espe-
cially, should ever have been given to a tract
which is in reality one, nor why the Egyptian Nile
and the Colchian Phasis (or according to others

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the Maeotic Tanais and Cimmerian ferry) should
have been fixed upon for the boundary lines; nor
can I even say who gave the three tracts their
names, or whence they took the epithets.
According to the Greeks in general, Libya was so
called after a certain Libya, a native woman, and
Asia after the wife of Prometheus. The Lydians,
however, put in a claim to the latter name, which,
they declare, was not derived from Asia the wife
of Prometheus, but from Asies, the son of Cotys,
and grandson of Manes, who also gave name to
the tribe Asias at Sardis. As for Europe, no one
can say whether it is surrounded by the sea or not,
neither is it known whence the name of Europe
was derived, nor who gave it name, unless we say
that Europe was so called after the Tyrian Europe,
and before her time was nameless, like the other
divisions. But it is certain that Europe was an
Asiatic, and never even set foot on the land which
the Greeks now call Europe, only sailing from
Phoenicia to Crete, and from Crete to Lycia.
However let us quit these matters. We shall our-
selves continue to use the names which custom
sanctions.

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The Euxine sea, where Darius now went to war,
has nations dwelling around it, with the one
exception of the Scythians, more unpolished than
those of any other region that we know of. For,
setting aside Anacharsis and the Scythian people,
there is not within this region a single nation
which can be put forward as having any claims to
wisdom, or which has produced a single person of
any high repute. The Scythians indeed have in one
respect, and that the very most important of all
those that fall under man’s control, shown them-
selves wiser than any nation upon the face of the
earth. Their customs otherwise are not such as I
admire. The one thing of which I speak is the con-
trivance whereby they make it impossible for the
enemy who invades them to escape destruction,
while they themselves are entirely out of his reach,
unless it please them to engage with him. Having
neither cities nor forts, and carrying their
dwellings with them wherever they go; accus-
tomed, moreover, one and all of them, to shoot
from horseback; and living not by husbandry but
on their cattle, their waggons the only houses that

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they possess, how can they fail of being uncon-
querable, and unassailable even?

The nature of their country, and the rivers by
which it is intersected, greatly favour this mode of
resisting attacks. For the land is level, well
watered, and abounding in pasture; while the
rivers which traverse it are almost equal in num-
ber to the canals of Egypt. Of these I shall only
mention the most famous and such as are naviga-
ble to some distance from the sea. They are, the
Ister, which has five mouths; the Tyras, the
Hypanis, the Borysthenes, the Panticapes, the
Hypacyris, the Gerrhus, and the Tanais. The
courses of these streams I shall now proceed to
describe.

The Ister is of all the rivers with which we are
acquainted the mightiest. It never varies in height,
but continues at the same level summer and win-
ter. Counting from the west it is the first of the
Scythian rivers, and the reason of its being the
greatest is that it receives the water of several trib-

Herodotus

utaries. Now the tributaries which swell its flood
are the following: first, on the side of Scythia,
these five- the stream called by the Scythians
Porata, and by the Greeks Pyretus, the Tiarantus,
the Ararus, the Naparis, and the Ordessus. The
first mentioned is a great stream, and is the east-
ernmost of the tributaries. The Tiarantus is of less
volume, and more to the west. The Ararus,
Naparis, and Ordessus fall into the Ister between
these two. All the above mentioned are genuine
Scythian rivers, and go to swell the current of the
Ister.

From the country of the Agathyrsi comes down
another river, the Maris, which empties itself into
the same; and from the heights of Haemus
descend with a northern course three mighty
streams, the Atlas, the Auras, and the Tibisis, and
pour their waters into it. Thrace gives it three trib-
utaries, the Athrys, the Noes, and the Artanes,
which all pass through the country of the
Crobyzian Thracians. Another tributary is fur-
nished by Paeonia, namely, the Scius; this river,
rising near Mount Rhodope, forces its way

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through the chain of Haemus, and so reaches the
Ister. From Illyria comes another stream, the
Angrus, which has a course from south to north,
and after watering the Triballian plain, falls into
the Brongus, which falls into the Ister. So the Ister
is augmented by these two streams, both consid-
erable. Besides all these, the Ister receives also the
waters of the Carpis and the Alpis, two rivers run-
ning in a northerly direction from the country
above the Umbrians. For the Ister flows through
the whole extent of Europe, rising in the country
of the Celts (the most westerly of all the nations
of Europe, excepting the Cynetians), and thence
running across the continent till it reaches
Scythia, whereof it washes the flanks.

All these streams, then, and many others, add
their waters to swell the flood of the Ister, which
thus increased becomes the mightiest of rivers; for
undoubtedly if we compare the stream of the Nile
with the single stream of the Ister, we must give
the preference to the Nile, of which no tributary
river, nor even rivulet, augments the volume. The
Ister remains at the same level both summer and

Herodotus

winter- owing to the following reasons, as I
believe. During the winter it runs at its natural
height, or a very little higher, because in those
countries there is scarcely any rain in winter, but
constant snow. When summer comes, this snow,
which is of great depth, begins to melt, and flows
into the Ister, which is swelled at that season, not
only by this cause but also by the rains, which are
heavy and frequent at that part of the year. Thus
the various streams which go to form the Ister are
higher in summer than in winter, and just so much
higher as the sun’s power and attraction are
greater; so that these two causes counteract each
other, and the effect is to produce a balance,
whereby the Ister remains always at the same
level.

This, then, is one of the great Scythian rivers; the
next to it is the Tyras, which rises from a great
lake separating Scythia from the land of the
Neuri, and runs with a southerly course to the
sea. Greeks dwell at the mouth of the river, who
are called Tyritae.

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The third river is the Hypanis. This stream rises
within the limits of Scythia, and has its source in
another vast lake, around which wild white hors-
es graze. The lake is called, properly enough, the
Mother of the Hypanis. The Hypanis, rising here,
during the distance of five days’ navigation is a
shallow stream, and the water sweet and pure;
thence, however, to the sea, which is a distance of
four days, it is exceedingly bitter. This change is
caused by its receiving into it at that point a
brook the waters of which are so bitter that,
although it is but a tiny rivulet, it nevertheless
taints the entire Hypanis, which is a large stream
among those of the second order. The source of
this bitter spring is on the borders of the Scythian
Husbandmen, where they adjoin upon the
Alazonians; and the place where it rises is called
in the Scythic tongue Exampaeus, which means in
our language, “The Sacred Ways.” The spring
itself bears the same name. The Tyras and the
Hypanis approach each other in the country of
the Alazonians, but afterwards separate, and
leave a wide space between their streams.

Herodotus

The fourth of the Scythian rivers is the
Borysthenes. Next to the Ister, it is the greatest of
them all; and, in my judgment, it is the most pro-
ductive river, not merely in Scythia, but in the
whole world, excepting only the Nile, with which
no stream can possibly compare. It has upon its
banks the loveliest and most excellent pasturages
for cattle; it contains abundance of the most deli-
cious fish; its water is most pleasant to the taste;
its stream is limpid, while all the other rivers near
it are muddy; the richest harvests spring up along
its course, and where the ground is not sown, the
heaviest crops of grass; while salt forms in great
plenty about its mouth without human aid, and
large fish are taken in it of the sort called
Antacaei, without any prickly bones, and good
for pickling. Nor are these the whole of its mar-
vels. As far inland as the place named Gerrhus,
which is distant forty days’ voyage from the sea,
its course is known, and its direction is from
north to south; but above this no one has traced
it, so as to say through what countries it flows. It
enters the territory of the Scythian Husbandmen

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after running for some time across a desert region,
and continues for ten days’ navigation to pass
through the land which they inhabit. It is the only
river besides the Nile the sources of which are
unknown to me, as they are also (I believe) to all
the other Greeks. Not long before it reaches the
sea, the Borysthenes is joined by the Hypanis,
which pours its waters into the same lake. The
land that lies between them, a narrow point like
the beak of a ship, is called Cape Hippolaus. Here
is a temple dedicated to Ceres, and opposite the
temple upon the Hypanis is the dwelling-place of
the Borysthenites. But enough has been said of
these streams.

Next in succession comes the fifth river, called the
Panticapes, which has, like the Borysthenes, a
course from north to south, and rises from a lake.
The space between this river and the Borysthenes
is occupied by the Scythians who are engaged in
husbandry. After watering their country, the
Panticapes flows through Hylaea, and empties
itself into the Borysthenes.

Herodotus

The sixth stream is the Hypacyris, a river rising
from a lake, and running directly through the
middle of the Nomadic Scythians. It falls into the
sea near the city of Carcinitis, leaving Hylaea and
the course of Achilles to the right.

The seventh river is the Gerrhus, which is a
branch thrown out by the Borysthenes at the
point where the course of that stream first begins
to be known, to wit, the region called by the same
name as the stream itself, viz. Gerrhus. This river
on its passage towards the sea divides the country
of the Nomadic from that of the Royal Scyths. It
runs into the Hypacyris.

The eighth river is the Tanais, a stream which has
its source, far up the country, in a lake of vast
size, and which empties itself into another still
larger lake, the Palus Maeotis, whereby the coun-
try of the Royal Scythians is divided from that of
the Sauromatae. The Tanais receives the waters
of a tributary stream, called the Hyrgis.

Such then are the rivers of chief note in Scythia.
The grass which the land produces is more apt to

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generate gall in the beasts that feed on it than any
other grass which is known to us, as plainly
appears on the opening of their carcases.

Thus abundantly are the Scythians provided with
the most important necessaries. Their manners
and customs come now to be described. They
worship only the following gods, namely, Vesta,
whom they reverence beyond all the rest, Jupiter,
and Tellus, whom they consider to be the wife of
Jupiter; and after these Apollo, Celestial Venus,
Hercules, and Mars. These gods are worshipped
by the whole nation: the Royal Scythians offer
sacrifice likewise to Neptune. In the Scythic
tongue Vesta is called Tabiti, Jupiter (very proper-
ly, in my judgment) Papaeus, Tellus Apia, Apollo
Oetosyrus, Celestial Venus Artimpasa, and
Neptune Thamimasadas. They use no images,
altars, or temples, except in the worship of Mars;
but in his worship they do use them.

The manner of their sacrifices is everywhere and
in every case the same; the victim stands with its
two fore-feet bound together by a cord, and the
person who is about to offer, taking his station

Herodotus

behind the victim, gives the rope a pull, and there-
by throws the animal down; as it falls he invokes
the god to whom he is offering; after which he
puts a noose round the animal’s neck, and, insert-
ing a small stick, twists it round, and so strangles
him. No fire is lighted, there is no consecration,
and no pouring out of drink-offerings; but direct-
ly that the beast is strangled the sacrificer flays
him, and then sets to work to boil the flesh.

As Scythia, however, is utterly barren of firewood,
a plan has had to be contrived for boiling the
flesh, which is the following. After flaying the
beasts, they take out all the bones, and (if they
possess such gear) put the flesh into boilers made
in the country, which are very like the cauldrons
of the Lesbians, except that they are of a much
larger size; then placing the bones of the animals
beneath the cauldron, they set them alight, and so
boil the meat. If they do not happen to possess a
cauldron, they make the animal’s paunch hold the
flesh, and pouring in at the same time a little
water, lay the bones under and light them. The
bones burn beautifully; and the paunch easily

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contains all the flesh when it is stript from the
bones, so that by this plan your ox is made to boil
himself, and other victims also to do the like.
When the meat is all cooked, the sacrificer offers
a portion of the flesh and of the entrails, by cast-
ing it on the ground before him. They sacrifice all
sorts of cattle, but most commonly horses.

Such are the victims offered to the other gods, and
such is the mode in which they are sacrificed; but
the rites paid to Mars are different. In every dis-
trict, at the seat of government, there stands a
temple of this god, whereof the following is a
description. It is a pile of brushwood, made of a
vast quantity of fagots, in length and breadth
three furlongs; in height somewhat less, having a
square platform upon the top, three sides of
which are precipitous, while the fourth slopes so
that men may walk up it. Each year a hundred
and fifty waggon-loads of brushwood are added
to the pile, which sinks continually by reason of
the rains. An antique iron sword is planted on the
top of every such mound, and serves as the image
of Mars: yearly sacrifices of cattle and of horses

Herodotus

are made to it, and more victims are offered thus
than to all the rest of their gods. When prisoners
are taken in war, out of every hundred men they
sacrifice one, not however with the same rites as
the cattle, but with different. Libations of wine
are first poured upon their heads, after which they
are slaughtered over a vessel; the vessel is then
carried up to the top of the pile, and the blood
poured upon the scymitar. While this takes place
at the top of the mound, below, by the side of the
temple, the right hands and arms of the slaugh-
tered prisoners are cut off, and tossed on high
into the air. Then the other victims are slain, and
those who have offered the sacrifice depart, leav-
ing the hands and arms where they may chance to
have fallen, and the bodies also, separate.

Such are the observances of the Scythians with
respect to sacrifice. They never use swine for the
purpose, nor indeed is it their wont to breed them
in any part of their country.

In what concerns war, their customs are the fol-
lowing. The Scythian soldier drinks the blood of

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the first man he overthrows in battle. Whatever
number he slays, he cuts off all their heads, and
carries them to the king; since he is thus entitled
to a share of the booty, whereto he forfeits all
claim if he does not produce a head. In order to
strip the skull of its covering, he makes a cut
round the head above the ears, and, laying hold of
the scalp, shakes the skull out; then with the rib
of an ox he scrapes the scalp clean of flesh, and
softening it by rubbing between the hands, uses it
thenceforth as a napkin. The Scyth is proud of
these scalps, and hangs them from his bridle-rein;
the greater the number of such napkins that a
man can show, the more highly is he esteemed
among them. Many make themselves cloaks, like
the capotes of our peasants, by sewing a quantity
of these scalps together. Others flay the right arms
of their dead enemies, and make of the skin,
which stripped off with the nails hanging to it, a
covering for their quivers. Now the skin of a man
is thick and glossy, and would in whiteness sur-
pass almost all other hides. Some even flay the
entire body of their enemy, and stretching it upon
a frame carry it about with them wherever they

Herodotus

ride. Such are the Scythian customs with respect
to scalps and skins.

The skulls of their enemies, not indeed of all, but
of those whom they most detest, they treat as fol-
lows. Having sawn off the portion below the eye-
brows, and cleaned out the inside, they cover the
outside with leather. When a man is poor, this is
all that he does; but if he is rich, he also lines the
inside with gold: in either case the skull is used as
a drinking-cup. They do the same with the skulls
of their own kith and kin if they have been at feud
with them, and have vanquished them in the pres-
ence of the king. When strangers whom they
deem of any account come to visit them, these
skulls are handed round, and the host tells how
that these were his relations who made war upon
him, and how that he got the better of them; all
this being looked upon as proof of bravery.

Once a year the governor of each district, at a set
place in his own province, mingles a bowl of
wine, of which all Scythians have a right to drink

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by whom foes have been slain; while they who
have slain no enemy are not allowed to taste of
the bowl, but sit aloof in disgrace. No greater
shame than this can happen to them. Such as have
slain a very large number of foes, have two cups
instead of one, and drink from both.

Scythia has an abundance of soothsayers, who
foretell the future by means of a number of wil-
low wands. A large bundle of these wands is
brought and laid on the ground. The soothsayer
unties the bundle, and places each wand by itself,
at the same time uttering his prophecy: then,
while he is still speaking, he gathers the rods
together again, and makes them up once more
into a bundle. This mode of divination is of home
growth in Scythia. The Enarees, or woman-like
men, have another method, which they say Venus
taught them. It is done with the inner bark of the
linden-tree. They take a piece of this bark, and,
splitting it into three strips, keep twining the
strips about their fingers, and untwining them,
while they prophesy.

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Whenever the Scythian king falls sick, he sends
for the three soothsayers of most renown at the
time, who come and make trial of their art in the
mode above described. Generally they say that the
king is ill because such or such a person, men-
tioning his name, has sworn falsely by the royal
hearth. This is the usual oath among the
Scythians, when they wish to swear with very
great solemnity. Then the man accused of having
foresworn himself is arrested and brought before
the king. The soothsayers tell him that by their art
it is clear he has sworn a false oath by the royal
hearth, and so caused the illness of the king- he
denies the charge, protests that he has sworn no
false oath, and loudly complains of the wrong
done to him. Upon this the king sends for six new
soothsayers, who try the matter by soothsaying. If
they too find the man guilty of the offence,
straightway he is beheaded by those who first
accused him, and his goods are parted among
them: if, on the contrary, they acquit him, other
soothsayers, and again others, are sent for, to try
the case. Should the greater number decide in
favour of the man’s innocence, then they who first
accused him forfeit their lives.

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The mode of their execution is the following: a
waggon is loaded with brushwood, and oxen are
harnessed to it; the soothsayers, with their feet
tied together, their hands bound behind their
backs, and their mouths gagged, are thrust into
the midst of the brushwood; finally the wood is
set alight, and the oxen, being startled, are made
to rush off with the waggon. It often happens that
the oxen and the soothsayers are both consumed
together, but sometimes the pole of the waggon is
burnt through, and the oxen escape with a scorch-
ing. Diviners- lying diviners, they call them- are
burnt in the way described, for other causes
besides the one here spoken of. When the king
puts one of them to death, he takes care not to let
any of his sons survive: all the male offspring are
slain with the father, only the females being
allowed to live.

Oaths among the Scyths are accompanied with
the following ceremonies: a large earthern bowl is
filled with wine, and the parties to the oath,
wounding themselves slightly with a knife or an
awl, drop some of their blood into the wine; then
they plunge into the mixture a scymitar, some

Herodotus

arrows, a battle-axe, and a javelin, all the while
repeating prayers; lastly the two contracting par-
ties drink each a draught from the bowl, as do
also the chief men among their followers.

The tombs of their kings are in the land of the
Gerrhi, who dwell at the point where the
Borysthenes is first navigable. Here, when the
king dies, they dig a grave, which is square in
shape, and of great size. When it is ready, they
take the king’s corpse, and, having opened the
belly, and cleaned out the inside, fill the cavity
with a preparation of chopped cypress, frankin-
cense, parsley-seed, and anise-seed, after which
they sew up the opening, enclose the body in wax,
and, placing it on a waggon, carry it about
through all the different tribes. On this procession
each tribe, when it receives the corpse, imitates
the example which is first set by the Royal
Scythians; every man chops off a piece of his ear,
crops his hair close, and makes a cut all round his
arm, lacerates his forehead and his nose, and
thrusts an arrow through his left hand. Then they
who have the care of the corpse carry it with them

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to another of the tribes which are under the
Scythian rule, followed by those whom they first
visited. On completing the circuit of all the tribes
under their sway, they find themselves in the
country of the Gerrhi, who are the most remote of
all, and so they come to the tombs of the kings.
There the body of the dead king is laid in the
grave prepared for it, stretched upon a mattress;
spears are fixed in the ground on either side of the
corpse, and beams stretched across above it to
form a roof, which is covered with a thatching of
osier twigs. In the open space around the body of
the king they bury one of his concubines, first
killing her by strangling, and also his cup-bearer,
his cook, his groom, his lacquey, his messenger,
some of his horses, firstlings of all his other pos-
sessions, and some golden cups; for they use nei-
ther silver nor brass. After this they set to work,
and raise a vast mound above the grave, all of
them vying with each other and seeking to make
it as tall as possible.

When a year is gone by, further ceremonies take
place. Fifty of the best of the late king’s attendants

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are taken, all native Scythians- for, as bought
slaves are unknown in the country, the Scythian
kings choose any of their subjects that they like, to
wait on them- fifty of these are taken and stran-
gled, with fifty of the most beautiful horses. When
they are dead, their bowels are taken out, and the
cavity cleaned, filled full of chaff, and straightway
sewn up again. This done, a number of posts are
driven into the ground, in sets of two pairs each,
and on every pair half the felly of a wheel is placed
archwise; then strong stakes are run lengthways
through the bodies of the horses from tail to neck,
and they are mounted up upon the fellies, so that
the felly in front supports the shoulders of the
horse, while that behind sustains the belly and
quarters, the legs dangling in mid-air; each horse is
furnished with a bit and bridle, which latter is
stretched out in front of the horse, and fastened to
a peg. The fifty strangled youths are then mount-
ed severally on the fifty horses. To effect this, a sec-
ond stake is passed through their bodies along the
course of the spine to the neck; the lower end of
which projects from the body, and is fixed into a

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socket, made in the stake that runs lengthwise
down the horse. The fifty riders are thus ranged in
a circle round the tomb, and so left.

Such, then, is the mode in which the kings are
buried: as for the people, when any one dies, his
nearest of kin lay him upon a waggon and take
him round to all his friends in succession: each
receives them in turn and entertains them with a
banquet, whereat the dead man is served with a
portion of all that is set before the others; this is
done for forty days, at the end of which time the
burial takes place. After the burial, those engaged
in it have to purify themselves, which they do in
the following way. First they well soap and wash
their heads; then, in order to cleanse their bodies,
they act as follows: they make a booth by fixing
in the ground three sticks inclined towards one
another, and stretching around them woollen
felts, which they arrange so as to fit as close as
possible: inside the booth a dish is placed upon
the ground, into which they put a number of red-
hot stones, and then add some hemp-seed.

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Hemp grows in Scythia: it is very like flax; only
that it is a much coarser and taller plant: some
grows wild about the country, some is produced
by cultivation: the Thracians make garments of it
which closely resemble linen; so much so, indeed,
that if a person has never seen hemp he is sure to
think they are linen, and if he has, unless he is
very experienced in such matters, he will not
know of which material they are.

The Scythians, as I said, take some of this hemp-
seed, and, creeping under the felt coverings,
throw it upon the red-hot stones; immediately it
smokes, and gives out such a vapour as no
Grecian vapour-bath can exceed; the Scyths,
delighted, shout for joy, and this vapour serves
them instead of a water-bath; for they never by
any chance wash their bodies with water. Their
women make a mixture of cypress, cedar, and
frankincense wood, which they pound into a
paste upon a rough piece of stone, adding a little
water to it. With this substance, which is of a
thick consistency, they plaster their faces all over,
and indeed their whole bodies. A sweet odour is

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thereby imparted to them, and when they take off
the plaster on the day following, their skin is
clean and glossy.

The Scythians have an extreme hatred of all for-
eign customs, particularly of those in use among
the Greeks, as the instances of Anacharsis, and,
more lately, of Scylas, have fully shown. The for-
mer, after he had travelled over a great portion of
the world, and displayed wherever he went many
proofs of wisdom, as he sailed through the
Hellespont on his return to Scythia touched at
Cyzicus. There he found the inhabitants celebrat-
ing with much pomp and magnificence a festival
to the Mother of the Gods, and was himself
induced to make a vow to the goddess, whereby
he engaged, if he got back safe and sound to his
home, that he would give her a festival and a
night-procession in all respects like those which
he had seen in Cyzicus. When, therefore, he
arrived in Scythia, he betook himself to the dis-
trict called the Woodland, which lies opposite the
course of Achilles, and is covered with trees of all
manner of different kinds, and there went

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through all the sacred rites with the tabour in his
hand, and the images tied to him. While thus
employed, he was noticed by one of the Scythians,
who went and told king Saulius what he had seen.
Then king Saulius came in person, and when he
perceived what Anacharsis was about, he shot at
him with an arrow and killed him. To this day, if
you ask the Scyths about Anacharsis, they pretend
ignorance of him, because of his Grecian travels
and adoption of the customs of foreigners. I
learnt, however, from Timnes, the steward of
Ariapithes, that Anacharsis was paternal uncle to
the Scythian king Idanthyrsus, being the son of
Gnurus, who was the son of Lycus and the grand-
son of Spargapithes. If Anacharsis were really of
this house, it must have been by his own brother
that he was slain, for Idanthyrsus was a son of the
Saulius who put Anacharsis to death.

I have heard, however, another tale, very different
from this, which is told by the Peloponnesians:
they say, that Anacharsis was sent by the king of
the Scyths to make acquaintance with Greece-
that he went, and on his return home reported

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that the Greeks were all occupied in the pursuit of
every kind of knowledge, except the
Lacedaemonians; who, however, alone knew how
to converse sensibly. A silly tale this, which the
Greeks have invented for their amusement! There
is no doubt that Anacharsis suffered death in the
mode already related, on account of his attach-
ment to foreign customs, and the intercourse
which he held with the Greeks.

Scylas, likewise, the son of Ariapithes, many
years later, met with almost the very same fate.
Ariapithes, the Scythian king, had several sons,
among them this Scylas, who was the child, not
of a native Scyth, but of a woman of Istria. Bred
up by her, Scylas gained an acquaintance with
the Greek language and letters. Some time after-
wards, Ariapithes was treacherously slain by
Spargapithes, king of the Agathyrsi; whereupon
Scylas succeeded to the throne, and married one
of his father’s wives, a woman named Opoea.
This Opoea was a Scythian by birth, and had
brought Ariapithes a son called Oricus. Now
when Scylas found himself king of Scythia, as he

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disliked the Scythic mode of life, and was
attached, by his bringing up, to the manners of
the Greeks, he made it his usual practice, when-
ever he came with his army to the town of the
Borysthenites, who, according to their own
account, are colonists of the Milesians- he made
it his practice, I say, to leave the army before the
city, and, having entered within the walls by
himself, and carefully closed the gates, to
exchange his Scythian dress for Grecian gar-
ments, and in this attire to walk about the
forum, without guards or retinue. The
Borysthenites kept watch at the gates, that no
Scythian might see the king thus apparelled.
Scylas, meanwhile, lived exactly as the Greeks,
and even offered sacrifices to the gods according
to the Grecian rites. In this way he would pass a
month, or more, with the Borysthenites, after
which he would clothe himself again in his
Scythian dress, and so take his departure. This
he did repeatedly, and even built himself a house
in Borysthenes, and married a wife there who
was a native of the place.

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But when the time came that was ordained to
bring him woe, the occasion of his ruin was the
following. He wanted to be initiated in the
Bacchic mysteries, and was on the point of
obtaining admission to the rites, when a most
strange prodigy occurred to him. The house
which he possessed, as I mentioned a short time
back, in the city of the Borysthenites, a building
of great extent and erected at a vast cost, round
which there stood a number of sphinxes and
griffins carved in white marble, was struck by
lightning from on high, and burnt to the ground.
Scylas, nevertheless, went on and received the ini-
tiation. Now the Scythians are wont to reproach
the Greeks with their Bacchanal rage, and to say
that it is not reasonable to imagine there is a god
who impels men to madness. No sooner, there-
fore, was Scylas initiated in the Bacchic mysteries
than one of the Borysthenites went and carried
the news to the Scythians “You Scyths laugh at
us” he said, “because we rave when the god seizes
us. But now our god has seized upon your king,
who raves like us, and is maddened by the influ-

Herodotus

ence. If you think I do not tell you true, come with
me, and I will show him to you.” The chiefs of the
Scythians went with the man accordingly, and the
Borysthenite, conducting them into the city,
placed them secretly on one of the towers.
Presently Scylas passed by with the band of rev-
ellers, raving like the rest, and was seen by the
watchers. Regarding the matter as a very great
misfortune they instantly departed, and came and
told the army what they had witnessed.

When, therefore, Scylas, after leaving
Borysthenes, was about returning home, the
Scythians broke out into revolt. They put at their
head Octamasadas, grandson (on the mother’s
side) of Teres. Then Scylas, when he learned the
danger with which he was threatened, and the
reason of the disturbance, made his escape to
Thrace. Octamasadas, discovering whither he had
fled, marched after him, and had reached the Ister,
when he was met by the forces of the Thracians.
The two armies were about to engage, but before
they joined battle, Sitalces sent a message to

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Octamasadas to this effect- “Why should there be
trial of arms betwixt thee and me? Thou art my
own sister’s son, and thou hast in thy keeping my
brother. Surrender him into my hands, and I will
give thy Scylas back to thee. So neither thou nor I
will risk our armies.” Sitalces sent this message to
Octamasadas, by a herald, and Octamasadas,
with whom a brother of Sitalces had formerly
taken refuge, accepted the terms. He surrendered
his own uncle to Sitalces, and obtained in
exchange his brother Scylas. Sitalces took his
brother with him and withdrew; but
Octamasadas beheaded Scylas upon the spot.
Thus rigidly do the Scythians maintain their own
customs, and thus severely do they punish such as
adopt foreign usages.

What the population of Scythia is I was not able
to learn with certainty; the accounts which I
received varied from one another. I heard from
some that they were very numerous indeed; oth-
ers made their numbers but scanty for such a
nation as the Scyths. Thus much, however, I wit-

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nessed with my own eyes. There is a tract called
Exampaeus between the Borysthenes and the
Hypanis. I made some mention of it in a former
place, where I spoke of the bitter stream which
rising there flows into the Hypanis, and renders
the water of that river undrinkable. Here then
stands a brazen bowl, six times as big as that at
the entrance of the Euxine, which Pausanias, the
son of Cleombrotus, set up. Such as have never
seen that vessel may understand me better if I say
that the Scythian bowl holds with ease six hun-
dred amphorae, and is of the thickness of six fin-
gers’ breadth. The natives gave me the following
account of the manner in which it was made. One
of their kings, by name Ariantas, wishing to know
the number of his subjects, ordered them all to
bring him, on pain of death, the point off one of
their arrows. They obeyed; and he collected there-
by a vast heap of arrow-heads, which he resolved
to form into a memorial that might go down to
posterity. Accordingly he made of them this bowl,
and dedicated it at Exampaeus. This was all that
I could learn concerning the number of the
Scythians.

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The country has no marvels except its rivers,
which are larger and more numerous than those
of any other land. These, and the vastness of the
great plain, are worthy of note, and one thing
besides, which I am about to mention. They show
a footmark of Hercules, impressed on a rock, in
shape like the print of a man’s foot, but two cubits
in length. It is in the neighbourhood of the Tyras.
Having described this, I return to the subject on
which I originally proposed to discourse.

The preparations of Darius against the Scythians
had begun, messengers had been despatched on
all sides with the king’s commands, some being
required to furnish troops, others to supply ships,
others again to bridge the Thracian Bosphorus,
when Artabanus, son of Hystaspes and brother of
Darius, entreated the king to desist from his expe-
dition, urging on him the great difficulty of
attacking Scythia. Good, however, as the advice
of Artabanus was, it failed to persuade Darius. He
therefore ceased his reasonings; and Darius, when
his preparations were complete, led his army
forth from Susa.

Herodotus

It was then that a certain Persian, by name
Oeobazus, the father of three sons, all of whom
were to accompany the army, came and prayed
the king that he would allow one of his sons to
remain with him. Darius made answer, as if he
regarded him in the light of a friend who had
urged a moderate request, “that he would allow
them all to remain.” Oeobazus was overjoyed,
expecting that all his children would be excused
from serving; the king, however, bade his atten-
dants take the three sons of Oeobazus and forth-
with put them to death. Thus they were all left
behind, but not till they had been deprived of life.

When Darius, on his march from Susa, reached
the territory of Chalcedon on the shores of the
Bosphorus, where the bridge had been made, he
took ship and sailed thence to the Cyanean
islands, which, according to the Greeks, once
floated. He took his seat also in the temple and
surveyed the Pontus, which is indeed well worthy
of consideration. There is not in the world any
other sea so wonderful: it extends in length eleven

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thousand one hundred furlongs, and its breadth,
at the widest part, is three thousand three hun-
dred. The mouth is but four furlongs wide; and
this strait, called the Bosphorus, and across which
the bridge of Darius had been thrown, is a hun-
dred and twenty furlongs in length, reaching from
the Euxine to the Propontis. The Propontis is five
hundred furlongs across, and fourteen hundred
long. Its waters flow into the Hellespont, the
length of which is four hundred furlongs, and the
width no more than seven. The Hellespont opens
into the wide sea called the Egean.

The mode in which these distances have been
measured is the following. In a long day a vessel
generally accomplishes about seventy thousand
fathoms, in the night sixty thousand. Now from
the mouth of the Pontus to the river Phasis, which
is the extreme length of this sea, is a voyage of
nine days and eight nights, which makes the dis-
tance one million one hundred and ten thousand
fathoms, or eleven thousand one hundred fur-
longs. Again, from Sindica, to Themiscyra on the

Herodotus

river Thermodon, where the Pontus is wider than
at any other place, is a sail of three days and two
nights; which makes three hundred and thirty
thousand fathoms, or three thousand three hun-
dred furlongs. Such is the plan on which I have
measured the Pontus, the Bosphorus, and the
Hellespont, and such is the account which I have
to give of them. The Pontus has also a lake
belonging to it, not very much inferior to itself in
size. The waters of this lake run into the Pontus:
it is called the Maeotis, and also the Mother of
the Pontus.

Darius, after he had finished his survey, sailed back
to the bridge, which had been constructed for him
by Mandrocles a Samian. He likewise surveyed the
Bosphorus, and erected upon its shores two pillars
of white marble, whereupon he inscribed the
names of all the nations which formed his army- on
the one pillar in Greek, on the other in Assyrian
characters. Now his army was drawn from all the
nations under his sway; and the whole amount,
without reckoning the naval forces, was seven hun-

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dred thousand men, including cavalry. The fleet
consisted of six hundred ships. Some time after-
wards the Byzantines removed these pillars to their
own city, and used them for an altar which they
erected to Orthosian Diana. One block remained
behind: it lay near the temple of Bacchus at
Byzantium, and was covered with Assyrian writ-
ing. The spot where Darius bridged the Bosphorus
was, I think, but I speak only from conjecture, half-
way between the city of Byzantium and the temple
at the mouth of the strait.

Darius was so pleased with the bridge thrown
across the strait by the Samain Mandrocles, that
he not only bestowed upon him all the customary
presents, but gave him ten of every kind.
Mandrocles, by the way of offering first-fruits
from these presents, caused a picture to be paint-
ed which showed the whole of the bridge, with
King Darius sitting in a seat of honour, and his
army engaged in the passage. This painting he
dedicated in the temple of Juno at Samos, attach-
ing to it the inscription following:-

Herodotus

The fish-fraught Bosphorus bridged, to Juno’s

fane

Did Mandrocles this proud memorial bring;
When for himself a crown he’d skill to gain,
For Samos praise, contenting the Great King.
Such was the memorial of his work which was

left by the architect of the bridge.

Darius, after rewarding Mandrocles, passed into
Europe, while he ordered the Ionians to enter the
Pontus, and sail to the mouth of the Ister. There
he bade them throw a bridge across the stream
and await his coming. The Ionians, Aeolians, and
Hellespontians were the nations which furnished
the chief strength of his navy. So the fleet, thread-
ing the Cyanean Isles, proceeded straight to the
Ister, and, mounting the river to the point where
its channels separate, a distance of two days’ voy-
age from the sea, yoked the neck of the stream.
Meantime Darius, who had crossed the
Bosphorus by the bridge over it, marched through
Thrace; and happening upon the sources of the
Tearus, pitched his camp and made a stay of three
days.

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Now the Tearus is said by those who dwell near
it, to be the most healthful of all streams, and to
cure, among other diseases, the scab either in man
or beast. Its sources, which are eight and thirty in
number, all flowing from the same rock, are in
part cold, in part hot. They lie at an equal dis-
tance from the town of Heraeum near Perinthus,
and Apollonia on the Euxine, a two days’ journey
from each. This river, the Tearus, is a tributary of
the Contadesdus, which runs into the Agrianes,
and that into the Hebrus. The Hebrus empties
itself into the sea near the city of Aenus.

Here then, on the banks of the Tearus, Darius
stopped and pitched his camp. The river charmed
him so, that he caused a pillar to be erected in this
place also, with an inscription to the following
effect: “The fountains of the Tearus afford the
best and most beautiful water of all rivers: they
were visited, on his march into Scythia, by the
best and most beautiful of men, Darius, son of
Hystaspes, king of the Persians, and of the whole
continent.” Such was the inscription which he set
up at this place.

Herodotus

Marching thence, he came to a second river, called
the Artiscus, which flows through the country of
the Odrysians. Here he fixed upon a certain spot,
where every one of his soldiers should throw a
stone as he passed by. When his orders were
obeyed, Darius continued his march, leaving
behind him great hills formed of the stones cast by
his troops.

Before arriving at the Ister, the first people whom
he subdued were the Getae, who believe in their
immortality. The Thracians of Salmydessus, and
those who dwelt above the cities of Apollonia and
Mesembria- the Scyrmiadae and Nipsaeans, as
they are called- gave themselves up to Darius
without a struggle; but the Getae obstinately
defending themselves, were forthwith enslaved,
notwithstanding that they are the noblest as well
as the most just of all the Thracian tribes.

The belief of the Getae in respect of immortality
is the following. They think that they do not real-
ly die, but that when they depart this life they go
to Zalmoxis, who is called also Gebeleizis by

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some among them. To this god every five years
they send a messenger, who is chosen by lot out of
the whole nation, and charged to bear him their
several requests. Their mode of sending him is
this. A number of them stand in order, each hold-
ing in his hand three darts; others take the man
who is to be sent to Zalmoxis, and swinging him
by his hands and feet, toss him into the air so that
he falls upon the points of the weapons. If he is
pierced and dies, they think that the god is propi-
tious to them; but if not, they lay the fault on the
messenger, who (they say) is a wicked man: and so
they choose another to send away. The messages
are given while the man is still alive. This same
people, when it lightens and thunders, aim their
arrows at the sky, uttering threats against the god;
and they do not believe that there is any god but
their own.

I am told by the Greeks who dwell on the shores
of the Hellespont and the Pontus, that this
Zalmoxis was in reality a man, that he lived at
Samos, and while there was the slave of
Pythagoras son of Mnesarchus. After obtaining

Herodotus

his freedom he grew rich, and leaving Samos,
returned to his own country. The Thracians at
that time lived in a wretched way, and were a
poor ignorant race; Zalmoxis, therefore, who by
his commerce with the Greeks, and especially
with one who was by no means their most con-
temptible philosopher, Pythagoras to wit, was
acquainted with the Ionic mode of life and with
manners more refined than those current among
his countrymen, had a chamber built, in which
from time to time he received and feasted all the
principal Thracians, using the occasion to teach
them that neither he, nor they, his boon compan-
ions, nor any of their posterity would ever perish,
but that they would all go to a place where they
would live for aye in the enjoyment of every con-
ceivable good. While he was acting in this way,
and holding this kind of discourse, he was con-
structing an apartment underground, into which,
when it was completed, he withdrew, vanishing
suddenly from the eyes of the Thracians, who
greatly regretted his loss, and mourned over him
as one dead. He meanwhile abode in his secret
chamber three full years, after which he came

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forth from his concealment, and showed himself
once more to his countrymen, who were thus
brought to believe in the truth of what he had
taught them. Such is the account of the Greeks.

I for my part neither put entire faith in this story
of Zalmoxis and his underground chamber, nor
do I altogether discredit it: but I believe Zalmoxis
to have lived long before the time of Pythagoras.
Whether there was ever really a man of the name,
or whether Zalmoxis is nothing but a native god
of the Getae, I now bid him farewell. As for the
Getae themselves, the people who observe the
practices described above, they were now reduced
by the Persians, and accompanied the army of
Darius.

When Darius, with his land forces, reached the
Ister, he made his troops cross the stream, and
after all were gone over gave orders to the Ionians
to break the bridge, and follow him with the
whole naval force in his land march. They were
about to obey his command, when the general of
the Mytilenaeans, Coes son of Erxander, having

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first asked whether it was agreeable to the king to
listen to one who wished to speak his mind,
addressed him in the words following:- “Thou art
about, Sire, to attack a country no part of which
is cultivated, and wherein there is not a single
inhabited city. Keep this bridge, then, as it is, and
leave those who built it to watch over it. So if we
come up with the Scythians and succeed against
them as we could wish, we may return by this
route; or if we fail of finding them, our retreat
will still be secure. For I have no fear lest the
Scythians defeat us in battle, but my dread is lest
we be unable to discover them, and suffer loss
while we wander about their territory. And now,
mayhap, it will be said, I advise thee thus in the
hope of being myself allowed to remain behind;
but in truth I have no other design than to rec-
ommend the course which seems to me the best;
nor will I consent to be among those left behind,
but my resolve is, in any case, to follow thee.”
The advice of Coes pleased Darius highly, who
thus replied to him:- “Dear Lesbian, when I am
safe home again in my palace, be sure thou come

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to me, and with good deeds will I recompense thy
good words of to-day.”

Having so said, the king took a leathern thong,
and tying sixty knots in it, called together the
Ionian tyrants, and spoke thus to them:- “Men of
Ionia, my former commands to you concerning
the bridge are now withdrawn. See, here is a
thong: take it, and observe my bidding with
respect to it. From the time that I leave you to
march forward into Scythia, untie every day one
of the knots. If I do not return before the last day
to which the knots will hold out, then leave your
station, and sail to your several homes.
Meanwhile, understand that my resolve is
changed, and that you are to guard the bridge
with all care, and watch over its safety and preser-
vation. By so doing ye will oblige me greatly.”
When Darius had thus spoken, he set out on his
march with all speed.

Before you come to Scythia, on the sea coast, lies
Thrace. The land here makes a sweep, and then

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Scythia begins, the Ister falling into the sea at this
point with its mouth facing the east. Starting from
the Ister I shall now describe the measurements of
the seashore of Scythia. Immediately that the Ister
is crossed, Old Scythia begins, and continues as
far as the city called Carcinitis, fronting towards
the south wind and the mid-day. Here upon the
same sea, there lies a mountainous tract project-
ing into the Pontus, which is inhabited by the
Tauri, as far as what is called the Rugged
Chersonese, which runs out into the sea upon the
east. For the boundaries of Scythia extend on two
sides to two different seas, one upon the south,
and the other towards the east, as is also the case
with Attica. And the Tauri occupy a position in
Scythia like that which a people would hold in
Attica, who, being foreigners and not Athenians,
should inhabit the high land of Sunium, from
Thoricus to the township of Anaphlystus, if this
tract projected into the sea somewhat further than
it does. Such, to compare great things with small,
is the Tauric territory. For the sake of those who
may not have made the voyage round these parts
of Attica, I will illustrate in another way. It is as if

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in Iapygia a line were drawn from Port
Brundusium to Tarentum, and a people different
from the Iapygians inhabited the promontory.
These two instances may suggest a number of oth-
ers where the shape of the land closely resembles
that of Taurica.

Beyond this tract, we find the Scythians again in
possession of the country above the Tauri and the
parts bordering on the eastern sea, as also of the
whole district lying west of the Cimmerian
Bosphorus and the Palus Maeotis, as far as the
river Tanais, which empties itself into that lake at
its upper end. As for the inland boundaries of
Scythia, if we start from the Ister, we find it
enclosed by the following tribes, first the
Agathyrsi, next the Neuri, then the Androphagi,
and last of all, the Melanchaeni.

Scythia then, which is square in shape, and has
two of its sides reaching down to the sea, extends
inland to the same distance that it stretches along
the coast, and is equal every way. For it is a ten
days’ journey from the Ister to the Borysthenes,

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and ten more from the Borysthenes to the Palus
Maeotis, while the distance from the coast inland
to the country of the Melanchaeni, who dwell
above Scythia, is a journey of twenty days. I reck-
on the day’s journey at two hundred furlongs.
Thus the two sides which run straight inland are
four thousand furlongs each, and the transverse
sides at right angles to these are also of the same
length, which gives the full size of Scythia.

The Scythians, reflecting on their situation, per-
ceived that they were not strong enough by them-
selves to contend with the army of Darius in open
fight. They, therefore, sent envoys to the neigh-
bouring nations, whose kings had already met,
and were in consultation upon the advance of so
vast a host. Now they who had come together
were the kings of the Tauri, the Agathyrsi, the
Neuri, the Androphagi, the Melanchaeni, the
Geloni, the Budini, and the Sauromatae.

The Tauri have the following customs. They offer
in sacrifice to the Virgin all shipwrecked persons,

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and all Greeks compelled to put into their ports
by stress of weather. The mode of sacrifice is this.
After the preparatory ceremonies, they strike the
victim on the head with a club. Then, according
to some accounts, they hurl the trunk from the
precipice whereon the temple stands, and nail the
head to a cross. Others grant that the head is
treated in this way, but deny that the body is
thrown down the cliff- on the contrary, they say,
it is buried. The goddess to whom these sacrifices
are offered the Tauri themselves declare to be
Iphigenia the daughter of Agamemnon. When
they take prisoners in war they treat them in the
following way. The man who has taken a captive
cuts off his head, and carrying it to his home,
fixes it upon a tall pole, which he elevates above
his house, most commonly over the chimney. The
reason that the heads are set up so high, is (it is
said) in order that the whole house may be under
their protection. These people live entirely by war
and plundering.

The Agathyrsi are a race of men very luxurious,
and very fond of wearing gold on their persons.

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They have wives in common, that so they may be
all brothers, and, as members of one family, may
neither envy nor hate one another. In other
respects their customs approach nearly to those of
the Thracians.

The Neurian customs are like the Scythian. One
generation before the attack of Darius they were
driven from their land by a huge multitude of ser-
pents which invaded them. Of these some were
produced in their own country, while others, and
those by far the greater number, came in from the
deserts on the north. Suffering grievously beneath
this scourge, they quitted their homes, and took
refuge with the Budini. It seems that these people
are conjurers: for both the Scythians and the
Greeks who dwell in Scythia say that every
Neurian once a year becomes a wolf for a few
days, at the end of which time he is restored to his
proper shape. Not that I believe this, but they
constantly affirm it to be true, and are even ready
to back their assertion with an oath.

The manners of the Androphagi are more savage
than those of any other race. They neither observe

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justice, nor are governed, by any laws. They are
nomads, and their dress is Scythian; but the lan-
guage which they speak is peculiar to themselves.
Unlike any other nation in these parts, they are
cannibals.

The Melanchaeni wear, all of them, black cloaks,
and from this derive the name which they bear.
Their customs are Scythic.

The Budini are a large and powerful nation: they
have all deep blue eyes, and bright red hair.
There is a city in their territory, called Gelonus,
which is surrounded with a lofty wall, thirty fur-
longs each way, built entirely of wood. All the
houses in the place and all the temples are of the
same material. Here are temples built in honour
of the Grecian gods, and adorned after the
Greek fashion with images, altars, and shrines,
all in wood. There is even a festival, held every
third year in honour of Bacchus, at which the
natives fall into the Bacchic fury. For the fact is
that the Geloni were anciently Greeks, who,
being driven out of the factories along the coast,
fled to the Budini and took up their abode with

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them. They still speak a language half Greek,
half Scythian.

The Budini, however, do not speak the same lan-
guage as the Geloni, nor is their mode of life the
same. They are the aboriginal people of the coun-
try, and are nomads; unlike any of the neighbour-
ing races, they eat lice. The Geloni on the con-
trary, are tillers of the soil, eat bread, have gar-
dens, and both in shape and complexion are quite
different from the Budini. The Greeks notwith-
standing call these latter Geloni; but it is a mis-
take to give them the name. Their country is
thickly planted with trees of all manner of kinds.
In the very woodiest part is a broad deep lake,
surrounded by marshy ground with reeds grow-
ing on it. Here otters are caught, and beavers,
with another sort of animal which has a square
face. With the skins of this last the natives border
their capotes: and they also get from them a rem-
edy, which is of virtue in diseases of the womb.

It is reported of the Sauromatae, that when the
Greeks fought with the Amazons, whom the

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Scythians call Oior-pata or “man-slayers,” as it
may be rendered, Oior being Scythic for “man,”
and pata for “to slay”- It is reported, I say, that
the Greeks after gaining the battle of the
Thermodon, put to sea, taking with them on
board three of their vessels all the Amazons
whom they had made prisoners; and that these
women upon the voyage rose up against the
crews, and massacred them to a man. As howev-
er they were quite strange to ships, and did not
know how to use either rudder, sails, or oars, they
were carried, after the death of the men, where
the winds and the waves listed. At last they
reached the shores of the Palus Maeotis and came
to a place called Cremni or “the Cliffs,” which is
in the country of the free Scythians. Here they
went ashore, and proceeded by land towards the
inhabited regions; the first herd of horses which
they fell in with they seized, and mounting upon
their backs, fell to plundering the Scythian terri-
tory.

The Scyths could not tell what to make of the
attack upon them- the dress, the language, the

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nation itself, were alike unknown whence the
enemy had come even, was a marvel. Imagining,
however, that they were all men of about the same
age, they went out against them, and fought a bat-
tle. Some of the bodies of the slain fell into their
hands, whereby they discovered the truth.
Hereupon they deliberated, and made a resolve to
kill no more of them, but to send against them a
detachment of their youngest men, as near as they
could guess equal to the women in number, with
orders to encamp in their neighbourhood, and do
as they saw them do- when the Amazons
advanced against them, they were to retire, and
avoid a fight- when they halted, the young men
were to approach and pitch their camp near the
camp of the enemy. All this they did on account of
their strong desire to obtain children from so
notable a race.

So the youths departed, and obeyed the orders
which had been given them. The Amazons soon
found out that they had not come to do them any
harm; and so they on their part ceased to offer the
Scythians any molestation. And now day after

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day the camps approached nearer to one another;
both parties led the same life, neither having any-
thing but their arms and horses, so that they were
forced to support themselves by hunting and pil-
lage.

At last an incident brought two of them together-
the man easily gained the good graces of the
woman, who bade him by signs (for they did not
understand each other’s language) to bring a
friend the next day to the spot where they had
met- promising on her part to bring with her
another woman. He did so, and the woman kept
her word. When the rest of the youths heard what
had taken place, they also sought and gained the
favour of the other Amazons.

The two camps were then joined in one, the
Scythians living with the Amazons as their wives;
and the men were unable to learn the tongue of
the women, but the women soon caught up the
tongue of the men. When they could thus under-
stand one another, the Scyths addressed the
Amazons in these words- “We have parents, and

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properties, let us therefore give up this mode of
life, and return to our nation, and live with them.
You shall be our wives there no less than here,
and we promise you to have no others.” But the
Amazons said- “We could not live with your
women- our customs are quite different from
theirs. To draw the bow, to hurl the javelin, to
bestride the horse, these are our arts of womanly
employments we know nothing. Your women, on
the contrary, do none of these things; but stay at
home in their waggons, engaged in womanish
tasks, and never go out to hunt, or to do any-
thing. We should never agree together. But if you
truly wish to keep us as your wives, and would
conduct yourselves with strict justice towards us,
go you home to your parents, bid them give you
your inheritance, and then come back to us, and
let us and you live together by ourselves.”

The youths approved of the advice, and followed
it. They went and got the portion of goods which
fell to them, returned with it, and rejoined their
wives, who then addressed them in these words
following:- “We are ashamed, and afraid to live in

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the country where we now are. Not only have we
stolen you from your fathers, but we have done
great damage to Scythia by our ravages. As you
like us for wives, grant the request we make of
you. Let us leave this country together, and go
and dwell beyond the Tanais.” Again the youths
complied.

Crossing the Tanais they journeyed eastward a
distance of three days’ march from that stream,
and again northward a distance of three days’
march from the Palus Maeotis. Here they came to
the country where they now live, and took up
their abode in it. The women of the Sauromatae
have continued from that day to the present to
observe their ancient customs, frequently hunting
on horseback with their husbands, sometimes
even unaccompanied; in war taking the field; and
wearing the very same dress as the men.

The Sauromatae speak the language of Scythia,
but have never talked it correctly, because the
Amazons learnt it imperfectly at the first. Their
marriage-law lays it down that no girl shall wed

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till she has killed a man in battle. Sometimes it
happens that a woman dies unmarried at an
advanced age, having never been able in her
whole lifetime to fulfil the condition.

The envoys of the Scythians, on being introduced
into the presence of the kings of these nations,
who were assembled to deliberate, made it known
to them that the Persian, after subduing the whole
of the other continent, had thrown a bridge over
the strait of the Bosphorus, and crossed into the
continent of Europe, where he had reduced the
Thracians, and was now making a bridge over the
Ister, his aim being to bring under his sway all
Europe also. “Stand ye not aloof then from this
contest,” they went on to say, “look not on tame-
ly while we are perishing- but make common
cause with us, and together let us meet the enemy.
If ye refuse, we must yield to the pressure, and
either quit our country, or make terms with the
invaders. For what else is left for us to do, if your
aid be withheld from us? The blow, be sure, will
not light on you more gently upon this account.
The Persian comes against you no less than

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against us: and will not be content, after we are
conquered, to leave you in peace. We can bring
strong proof of what we here advance. Had the
Persian leader indeed come to avenge the wrongs
which he suffered at our hands when we enslaved
his people, and to war on us only, he would have
been bound to march straight upon Scythia, with-
out molesting any nation by the way. Then it
would have been plain to all that Scythia alone
was aimed at. But now, what has his conduct
been? From the moment of his entrance into
Europe, he has subjugated without exception
every nation that lay in his path. All the tribes of
the Thracians have been brought under his sway,
and among them even our next neighbours, the
Getae.”

The assembled princes of the nations, after hear-
ing all that the Scythians had to say, deliberated.
At the end opinion was divided- the kings of the
Geloni, Budini, and Sauromatae were of accord,
and pledged themselves to give assistance to the
Scythians; but the Agathyrsian and Neurian
princes, together with the sovereigns of the

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Androphagi, the Melanchaeni, and the Tauri,
replied to their request as follows:- “If you had
not been the first to wrong the Persians, and begin
the war, we should have thought the request you
make just;- we should then have complied with
your wishes, and joined our arms with yours.
Now, however, the case stands thus- you, inde-
pendently of us, invaded the land of the Persians,
and so long as God gave you the power, lorded it
over them: raised up now by the same God, they
are come to do to you the like. We, on our part,
did no wrong to these men in the former war, and
will not be the first to commit wrong now. If they
invade our land, and begin aggressions upon us,
we will not suffer them; but, till we see this come
to pass, we will remain at home. For we believe
that the Persians are not come to attack us, but to
punish those who are guilty of first injuring
them.”

When this reply reached the Scythians, they
resolved, as the neighbouring nations refused
their alliance, that they would not openly venture
on any pitched battle with the enemy, but would

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retire before them, driving off their herds, chok-
ing up all the wells and springs as they retreated,
and leaving the whole country bare of forage.
They divided themselves into three bands, one of
which, namely, that commanded by Scopasis, it
was agreed should be joined by the Sauromatae,
and if the Persians advanced in the direction of
the Tanais, should retreat along the shores of the
Palus Maeotis and make for that river; while if the
Persians retired, they should at once pursue and
harass them. The two other divisions, the princi-
pal one under the command of Idanthyrsus, and
the third, of which Taxacis was king, were to
unite in one, and, joined by the detachments of
the Geloni and Budini, were, like the others, to
keep at the distance of a day’s march from the
Persians, falling back as they advanced, and doing
the same as the others. And first, they were to
take the direction of the nations which had
refused to join the alliance, and were to draw the
war upon them: that so, if they would not of their
own free will engage in the contest, they might by
these means be forced into it. Afterwards, it was
agreed that they should retire into their own land,

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and, should it on deliberation appear to them
expedient, join battle with the enemy.

When these measures had been determined on,
the Scythians went out to meet the army of
Darius, sending on in front as scouts the fleetest
of their horsemen. Their waggons wherein their
women and their children lived, and all their cat-
tle, except such a number as was wanted for food,
which they kept with them, were made to precede
them in their retreat, and departed, with orders to
keep marching, without change of course, to the
north.

The scouts of the Scythians found the Persian host
advanced three days’ march from the Ister, and
immediately took the lead of them at the distance
of a day’s march, encamping from time to time,
and destroying all that grow on the ground. The
Persians no sooner caught sight of the Scythian
horse than they pursued upon their track, while
the enemy retired before them. The pursuit of the
Persians was directed towards the single division

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101

of the Scythian army, and thus their line of march
was eastward toward the Tanais. The Scyths
crossed the river and the Persians after them, still
in pursuit. in this way they passed through the
country of the Sauromatae, and entered that of
the Budini.

As long as the march of the Persian army lay
through the countries of the Scythians and
Sauromatae, there was nothing which they could
damage, the land being waste and barren; but on
entering the territories of the Budini, they came
upon the wooden fortress above mentioned,
which was deserted by its inhabitants and left
quite empty of everything. This place they burnt
to the ground; and having so done, again pressed
forward on the track of the retreating Scythians,
till, having passed through the entire country of
the Budini, they reached the desert, which has no
inhabitants, and extends a distance of seven days’
journey above the Budinian territory. Beyond this
desert dwell the Thyssagetae, out of whose land
four great streams flow. These rivers all traverse

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the country of the Maeotians, and fall into the
Palus Maeotis. Their names are the Lycus, the
Oarus, the Tanais, and the Syrgis.

When Darius reached the desert, he paused from
his pursuit, and halted his army upon the Oarus.
Here he built eight large forts, at an equal dis-
tance from one another, sixty furlongs apart or
thereabouts, the ruins of which were still remain-
ing in my day. During the time that he was so
occupied, the Scythians whom he had been fol-
lowing made a circuit by the higher regions, and
re-entered Scythia. On their complete disappear-
ance, Darius, seeing nothing more of them, left his
forts half finished, and returned towards the west.
He imagined that the Scythians whom he had seen
were the entire nation, and that they had fled in
that direction.

He now quickened his march, and entering
Scythia, fell in with the two combined divisions of
the Scythian army, and instantly gave them chase.
They kept to their plan of retreating before him at
the distance of a day’s march; and, he still follow-

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103

ing them hotly, they led him, as had been previ-
ously settled, into the territories of the nations
that had refused to become their allies, and first of
all into the country of the Melanchaeni. Great dis-
turbance was caused among this people by the
invasion of the Scyths first, and then of the
Persians. So, having harassed them after this sort,
the Scythians led the way into the land of the
Androphagi, with the same result as before; and
thence passed onwards into Neuris, where their
coming likewise spread dismay among the inhab-
itants. Still retreating they approached the
Agathyrsi; but this people, which had witnessed
the flight and terror of their neighbours, did not
wait for the Scyths to invade them, but sent a her-
ald to forbid them to cross their borders, and to
forewarn them, that, if they made the attempt, it
would be resisted by force of arms. The Agathyrsi
then proceeded to the frontier, to defend their
country against the invaders. As for the other
nations, the Melanchaeni, the Androphagi, and
the Neuri, instead of defending themselves, when
the Scyths and Persians overran their lands, they
forgot their threats and fled away in confusion to

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the deserts lying towards the north. The
Scythians, when the Agathyrsi forbade them to
enter their country, refrained; and led the Persians
back from the Neurian district into their own
land.

This had gone on so long, and seemed so inter-
minable, that Darius at last sent a horseman to
Idanthyrsus, the Scythian king, with the following
message:- “Thou strange man, why dost thou
keep on flying before me, when there are two
things thou mightest do so easily? If thou deemest
thyself able to resist my arms, cease thy wander-
ings and come, let us engage in battle. Or if thou
art conscious that my strength is greater than
thine- even so thou shouldest cease to run away-
thou hast but to bring thy lord earth and water,
and to come at once to a conference.”

To this message Idanthyrsus, the Scythian king,
replied:- “This is my way, Persian. I never fear
men or fly from them. I have not done so in times
past, nor do I now fly from thee. There is nothing
new or strange in what I do; I only follow my

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105

common mode of life in peaceful years. Now I
will tell thee why I do not at once join battle with
thee. We Scythians have neither towns nor culti-
vated lands, which might induce us, through fear
of their being taken or ravaged, to be in any hurry
to fight with you. If, however, you must needs
come to blows with us speedily, look you now,
there are our fathers’ tombs- seek them out, and
attempt to meddle with them- then ye shall see
whether or no we will fight with you. Till ye do
this, be sure we shall not join battle, unless it
pleases us. This is my answer to the challenge to
fight. As for lords, I acknowledge only Jove my
ancestor, and Vesta, the Scythian queen. Earth
and water, the tribute thou askedst, I do not send,
but thou shalt soon receive more suitable gifts.
Last of all, in return for thy calling thyself my
lord, I say to thee, ‘Go weep.’” (This is what men
mean by the Scythian mode of speech.) So the her-
ald departed, bearing this message to Darius.

When the Scythian kings heard the name of slav-
ery they were filled with rage, and despatched the
division under Scopasis to which the Sauromatae

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were joined, with orders that they should seek a
conference with the Ionians, who had been left at
the Ister to guard the bridge. Meanwhile the
Scythians who remained behind resolved no
longer to lead the Persians hither and thither
about their country, but to fall upon them when-
ever they should be at their meals. So they waited
till such times, and then did as they had deter-
mined. In these combats the Scythian horse
always put to flight the horse of the enemy; these
last, however, when routed, fell back upon their
foot, who never failed to afford them support;
while the Scythians, on their side, as soon as they
had driven the horse in, retired again, for fear of
the foot. By night too the Scythians made many
similar attacks.

There was one very strange thing which greatly
advantaged the Persians, and was of equal disser-
vice to the Scyths, in these assaults on the Persian
camp. This was the braying of the asses and the
appearance of the mules. For, as I observed
before, the land of the Scythians produces neither
ass nor mule, and contains no single specimen of

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either animal, by reason of the cold. So, when the
asses brayed, they frightened the Scythian cavalry;
and often, in the middle of a charge, the horses,
hearing the noise made by the asses, would take
fright and wheel round, pricking up their ears,
and showing astonishment. This was owing to
their having never heard the noise, or seen the
form, of the animal before: and it was not with-
out some little influence on the progress of the
war.

The Scythians, when they perceived signs that the
Persians were becoming alarmed, took steps to
induce them not to quit Scythia, in the hope, if
they stayed, of inflicting on them the greater
injury, when their supplies should altogether fail.
To effect this, they would leave some of their cat-
tle exposed with the herdsmen, while they them-
selves moved away to a distance: the Persians
would make a foray, and take the beasts, where-
upon they would be highly elated.

This they did several times, until at last Darius
was at his wits’ end; hereon the Scythian princes,

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understanding how matters stood, despatched a
herald to the Persian camp with presents for the
king: these were, a bird, a mouse, a frog, and five
arrows. The Persians asked the bearer to tell them
what these gifts might mean, but he made answer
that he had no orders except to deliver them, and
return again with all speed. If the Persians were
wise, he added, they would find out the meaning
for themselves. So when they heard this, they held
a council to consider the matter.

Darius gave it as his opinion that the Scyths
intended a surrender of themselves and their
country, both land and water, into his hands. This
he conceived to be the meaning of the gifts,
because the mouse is an inhabitant of the earth,
and eats the same food as man, while the frog
passes his life in the water; the bird bears a great
resemblance to the horse, and the arrows might
signify the surrender of all their power. To the
explanation of Darius, Gobryas, one of the seven
conspirators against the Magus, opposed another
which was as follows:- “Unless, Persians, ye can

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turn into birds and fly up into the sky, or become
mice and burrow under the ground, or make
yourselves frogs, and take refuge in the fens, ye
will never make escape from this land, but die
pierced by our arrows. Such were meanings which
the Persians assigned to the gifts.

The single division of the Scyths, which in the
early part of the war had been appointed to keep
guard about the Palus Maeotis, and had now been
sent to get speech of the Ionians stationed at the
Ister, addressed them, on reaching the bridge, in
these words- “Men of Ionia, we bring you free-
dom, if ye will only do as we recommend. Darius,
we understand, enjoined you to keep your guard
here at this bridge just sixty days; then, if he did
not appear, you were to return home. Now, there-
fore, act so as to be free from blame, alike in his
sight, and in ours. Tarry here the appointed time,
and at the end go your ways.” Having said this,
and received a promise from the Ionians to do as
they desired, the Scythians hastened back with all
possible speed.

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After the sending of the gifts to Darius, the part of
the Scythian army which had not marched to the
Ister, drew out in battle array horse and foot
against the Persians, and seemed about to come to
an engagement. But as they stood in battle array,
it chanced that a hare started up between them
and the Persians, and set to running; when imme-
diately all the Scyths who saw it, rushed off in
pursuit, with great confusion and loud cries and
shouts. Darius, hearing the noise, inquired the
cause of it, and was told that the Scythians were
all engaged in hunting a hare. On this he turned
to those with whom he was wont to converse, and
said:- “These men do indeed despise us utterly:
and now I see that Gobryas was right about the
Scythian gifts. As, therefore, his opinion is now
mine likewise, it is time we form some wise plan
whereby we may secure ourselves a safe return to
our homes.” “Ah! sire,” Gobryas rejoined, “I was
well nigh sure, ere I came here, that this was an
impracticable race- since our coming I am yet
more convinced of it, especially now that I see
them making game of us. My advice is, therefore,

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that, when night falls, we light our fires as we are
wont to do at other times, and leaving behind us
on some pretext that portion of our army which
is weak and unequal to hardship, taking care also
to leave our asses tethered, retreat from Scythia,
before our foes march forward to the Ister and
destroy the bridge, or the Ionians come to any res-
olution which may lead to our ruin.”

So Gobryas advised; and when night came,
Darius followed his counsel, and leaving his sick
soldiers, and those whose loss would be of least
account, with the asses also tethered about the
camp, marched away. The asses were left that
their noise might be heard: the men, really
because they were sick and useless, but under the
pretence that he was about to fall upon the
Scythians with the flower of his troops, and that
they meanwhile were to guard his camp for him.
Having thus declared his plans to the men whom
he was deserting, and having caused the fires to
be lighted, Darius set forth, and marched hastily
towards the Ister. The asses, aware of the depar-

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ture of the host, brayed louder than ever; and the
Scythians, hearing the sound, entertained no
doubt of the Persians being still in the same place.

When day dawned, the men who had been left
behind, perceiving that they were betrayed by
Darius, stretched out their hands towards the
Scythians, and spoke as. befitted their situation.
The enemy no sooner heard, than they quickly
joined all their troops in one, and both portions
of the Scythian army- alike that which consisted
of a single division, and that made up of two-
accompanied by all their allies, the Sauromatae,
the Budini, and the Geloni, set off in pursuit, and
made straight for the Ister. As, however, the
Persian army was chiefly foot, and had no knowl-
edge of the routes, which are not cut out in
Scythia; while the Scyths were all horsemen and
well acquainted with the shortest way; it so hap-
pened that the two armies missed one another,
and the Scythians, getting far ahead of their
adversaries, came first to the bridge. Finding that
the Persians were not yet arrived, they addressed

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the Ionians, who were aboard their ships, in these
words:- “Men of Ionia, the number of your days
is out, and ye do wrong to remain. Fear doubtless
has kept you here hitherto: now, however, you
may safely break the bridge, and hasten back to
your homes, rejoicing that you are free, and
thanking for it the gods and the Scythians. Your
former lord and master we undertake so to han-
dle, that he will never again make war upon any
one.”

The Ionians now held a council. Miltiades the
Athenian, who was king of the Chersonesites
upon the Hellespont, and their commander at the
Ister, recommended the other generals to do as the
Scythians wished, and restore freedom to Ionia.
But Histiaeus the Milesian opposed this advice.
“It is through Darius,” he said, “that we enjoy
our thrones in our several states. If his power be
overturned, I cannot continue lord of Miletus, nor
ye of your cities. For there is not one of them
which will not prefer democracy to kingly rule.”
Then the other captains, who, till Histiaeus

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spoke, were about to vote with Miltiades,
changed their minds, and declared in favour of
the last speaker.

The following were the voters on this occasion-
all of them men who stood high in the esteem of
the Persian king: the tyrants of the Hellespont-
Daphnis of Abydos, Hippoclus of Lampsacus,
Herophantus of Parium, Metrodorus of
Proconnesus, Aristagoras of Cyzicus, and Ariston
of Byzantium; the Ionian princes- Strattis of
Chios, Aeaces of Samos, Laodamas of Phocaea,
and Histiaeus of Miletus, the man who had
opposed Miltiades. Only one Aeolian of note was
present, to wit, Aristagoras of Cyme.

Having resolved to follow the advice of Histiaeus,
the Greek leaders further determined to speak and
act as follows. In order to appear to the Scythians
to be doing something, when in fact they were
doing nothing of consequence, and likewise to
prevent them from forcing a passage across the
Ister by the bridge, they resolved to break up the
part of the bridge which abutted on Scythia, to

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the distance of a bowshot from the river bank;
and to assure the Scythians, while the demolition
was proceeding, that there was nothing which
they would not do to pleasure them. Such were
the additions made to the resolution of Histiaeus;
and then Histiaeus himself stood forth and made
answer to the Scyths in the name of all the
Greeks.- “Good is the advice which ye have
brought us, Scythians, and well have ye done to
come here with such speed. Your efforts have now
put us into the right path; and our efforts shall
not be wanting to advance your cause. Your own
eyes see that we are engaged in breaking the
bridge; and, believe us, we will work zealously to
procure our own freedom. Meantime, while we
labour here at our task, be it your business to seek
them out, and, when found, for our sakes, as well
as your own, to visit them with the vengeance
which they so well deserve.”

Again the Scyths put faith in the promises of the
Ionian chiefs, and retraced their steps, hoping to
fall in with the Persians. They missed, however,
the enemy’s whole line of march; their own for-

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mer acts being to blame for it. Had they not rav-
aged all the pasturages of that region, and filled in
all the wells, they would have easily found the
Persians whenever they chose. But, as it turned
out, the measures which seemed to them so wise-
ly planned were exactly what caused their failure.
They took a route where water was to be found
and fodder could be got for their horses, and on
this track sought their adversaries, expecting that
they too would retreat through regions where
these things were to be obtained. The Persians,
however, kept strictly to the line of their former
march, never for a moment departing from it; and
even so gained the bridge with difficulty. It was
night when they arrived, and their terror, when
they found the bridge broken up, was great; for
they thought that perhaps the Ionians had desert-
ed them.

Now there was in the army of Darius a certain
man, an Egyptian, who had a louder voice than
any other man in the world. This person was bid
by Darius to stand at the water’s edge, and call
Histiaeus the Milesian. The fellow did as he was

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bid; and Histiaeus, hearing him at the very first
summons, brought the fleet to assist in conveying
the army across, and once more made good the
bridge.

By these means the Persians escaped from Scythia,
while the Scyths sought for them in vain, again
missing their track. And hence the Scythians are
accustomed to say of the Ionians, by way of
reproach, that, if they be looked upon as freemen,
they are the basest and most dastardly of all
mankind- but if they be considered as under servi-
tude, they are the faithfullest of slaves, and the
most fondly at. to their lords.

Darius, having passed through Thrace, reached
Sestos in the Chersonese, whence he crossed by
the help of his fleet into Asia, leaving a Persian,
named Megabazus, commander on the European
side. This was the man on whom Darius once
conferred special honour by a compliment which
he paid him before all the Persians. was about to
eat some pomegranates, and had opened the first,
when his brother Artabanus asked him “what he

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would like to have in as great plenty as the seeds
of the pomegranate?” Darius answered- “Had I
as many men like Megabazus as there are seeds
here, it would please me better than to be lord of
Greece.” Such was the compliment wherewith
Darius honoured the general to whom at this time
he gave the command of the troops left in Europe,
amounting in all to some eighty thousand men.

This same Megabazus got himself an undying
remembrance among the Hellespontians, by a cer-
tain speech which he made. It came to his knowl-
edge, while he was staying at Byzantium, that the
Chalcedonians made their settlement seventeen
years earlier than the Byzantines. “Then,” said he,
“the Chalcedonians must at that time have been
labouring under blindness- otherwise, when so far
more excellent a site was open to them, they
would never have chosen one so greatly inferior.”
Megabazus now, having been appointed to take
the command upon the Hellespont, employed
himself in the reduction of all those states which
had not of their own accord joined the Medes.

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About this very time another great expedition was
undertaken against Libya, on a pretext which I
will relate when I have premised certain particu-
lars. The descendants of the Argonauts in the
third generation, driven out of Lemnos by the
Pelasgi who carried off the Athenian women from
Brauron, took ship and went to Lacedaemon,
where, seating themselves on Mount Taygetum,
they proceeded to kindle their fires. The
Lacedaemonians, seeing this, sent a herald to
inquire of them “who they were, and from what
region they had come”; whereupon they made
answer, “that they were Minyae, sons of the
heroes by whom the ship Argo was manned; for
these persons had stayed awhile in Lemnos, and
had there become their progenitors.” On hearing
this account of their descent, the Lacedaemonians
sent to them a second time, and asked “what was
their object in coming to Lacedaemon, and there
kindling their fires?” They answered, “that, dri-
ven from their own land by the Pelasgi, they had
come, as was most reasonable, to their fathers;
and their wish was to dwell with them in their

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country, partake their privileges, and obtain allot-
ments of land. It seemed good to the
Lacedaemonians to receive the Minyae among
them on their own terms; to assign them lands,
and enrol them in their tribes. What chiefly
moved them to this was the consideration that the
sons of Tyndarus had sailed on board the Argo.
The Minyae, on their part, forthwith married
Spartan wives, and gave the wives, whom they
had married in Lemnos, to Spartan husbands.

However, before much time had elapsed, the
Minyae began to wax wanton, demanded to share
the throne, and committed other impieties:
whereupon the Lacedaemonians passed on them
sentence of death, and, seizing them, cast them
into prison. Now the Lacedaemonians never put
criminals to death in the daytime, but always at
night. When the Minyae, accordingly, were about
to suffer, their wives, who were not only citizens,
but daughters of the chief men among the
Spartans, entreated to be allowed to enter the
prison, and have some talk with their lords; and
the Spartans, not expecting any fraud from such a

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quarter, granted their request. The women
entered the prison. gave their own clothes to their
husbands, and received theirs in exchange: after
which the Minyae, dressed in their wives’ gar-
ments, and thus passing for women, went forth.
Having effected their escape in this manner, they
seated themselves once more upon Taygetum.own
land

It happened that at this very time Theras, son of
Autesion (whose father Tisamenus was the son of
Thersander, and grandson of Polynices), was
about to lead out a colony from Lacedaemon This
Theras, by birth a Cadmeian, was uncle on the
mother’s side to the two sons of Aristodemus,
Procles and Eurysthenes, and, during their infan-
cy, administered in their right the royal power.
When his nephews, however, on attaining to
man’s estate, took the government, Theras, who
could not bear to be under the authority of others
after he had wielded authority so long himself,
resolved to leave Sparta and cross the sea to join
his kindred. There were in the island now called
Thera, but at that time Calliste, certain descen-

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dants of Membliarus, the son of Poeciles, a
Phoenician. (For Cadmus, the son of Agenor,
when he was sailing in search of Europe, made a
landing on this island; and, either because the
country pleased him, or because he had a purpose
in so doing, left there a number of Phoenicians,
and with them his own kinsman Membliarus.
Calliste had been inhabited by this race for eight
generations of men, before the arrival of Theras
from Lacedaemon.)

Theras now, having with him a certain number of
men from each of the tribes, was setting forth on
his expedition hitherward. Far from intending to
drive out the former inhabitants, he regarded
them as his near kin, and meant to settle among
them. It happened that just at this time the
Minyae, having escaped from their prison, had
taken up their station upon Mount Taygetum;
and the Lacedaemonians, wishing to destroy
them, were considering what was best to be done,
when Theras begged their lives, undertaking to
remove them from the territory. His prayer being
granted, he took ship, and sailed, with three tria-

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conters, to join the descendants of Membliarus.
He was not, however, accompanied by all the
Minyae, but only by some few of them. The
greater number fled to the land of the Paroreats
and Caucons, whom they drove out, themselves
occupying the region in six bodies, by which were
afterwards built the towns of Lepreum, Macistus,
Phryxae, Pyrgus, Epium, and Nudium; whereof
the greater part were in my day demolished by the
Eleans.

The island was called Thera after the name of its
founder. This same Theras had a son, who refused
to cross the sea with him; Theras therefore left
him behind, “a sheep,” as he said, “among
wolves.” From this speech his son came to be
called Oeolycus, a name which afterwards grew
to be the only one by which he was known. This
Oeolycus was the father of Aegeus, from whom
sprang the Aegidae, a great tribe in Sparta. The
men of this tribe lost at one time all their children,
whereupon they were bidden by an oracle to build
a temple to the furies of Laius and Oedipus; they
complied, and the mortality ceased. The same

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thing happened in Thera to the descendants of
these men.

Thus far the history is delivered without variation
both by the Theraeans and the Lacedaemonians;
but from this point we have only the Theraean
narrative. Grinus (they say), the son of Aesanius,
a descendant of Theras, and king of the island of
Thera, went to Delphi to offer a hecatomb on
behalf of his native city. He was accompanied by
a large number of the citizens, and among the rest
by Battus, the son of Polymnestus, who belonged
to the Minyan family of the Euphemidae. On
Grinus consulting the oracle about sundry mat-
ters, the Pythoness gave him for answer, “that he
should found a city in Libya.” Grinus replied to
this: “I, O king! am too far advanced in years,
and too inactive, for such a work. Bid one of these
youngsters undertake it.” As he spoke, he pointed
towards Battus; and thus the matter rested for
that time. When the embassy returned to Thera,
small account was taken of the oracle by the
Theraeans, as they were quite ignorant where

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Libya was, and were not so venturesome as to
send out a colony in the dark.

Seven years passed from the utterance of the ora-
cle, and not a drop of rain fell in Thera: all the
trees in the island, except one, were killed with
the drought. The Theraeans upon this sent to
Delphi, and were reminded reproachfully that
they had never colonised Libya. So, as there was
no help for it, they sent messengers to Crete, to
inquire whether any of the Cretans, or of the
strangers sojourning among them, had ever trav-
elled as far as Libya: and these messengers of
theirs, in their wanderings about the island,
among other places visited Itanus, where they fell
in with a man, whose name was Corobius, a deal-
er in purple. In answer to their inquiries, he told
them that contrary winds had once carried him to
Libya, where he had gone ashore on a certain
island which was named Platea. So they hired this
man’s services, and took him back with them to
Thera. A few persons then sailed from Thera to
reconnoitre. Guided by Corobius to the island of

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Platea, they left him there with provisions for a
certain number of months, and returned home
with all speed to give their countrymen an
account of the island.

During their absence, which was prolonged
beyond the time that had been agreed upon,
Corobius provisions failed him. He was relieved,
however, after a while by a Samian vessel, under
the command of a man named Colaeus, which, on
its way to Egypt, was forced to put in at Platea.
The crew, informed by Corobius of all the cir-
cumstances, left him sufficient food for a year.
They themselves quitted the island; and, anxious
to reach Egypt, made sail in that direction, but
were carried out of their course by a gale of wind
from the east. The storm not abating, they were
driven past the Pillars of Hercules, and at last, by
some special guiding providence, reached
Tartessus. This trading town was in those days a
virgin port, unfrequented by the merchants. The
Samians, in consequence, made by the return voy-
age a profit greater than any Greeks before their
day, excepting Sostratus, son of Laodamas, an
Eginetan, with whom no one else can compare.

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From the tenth part of their gains, amounting to
six talents, the Samians made a brazen vessel, in
shape like an Argive wine-bowl, adorned with the
heads of griffins standing out in high relief. This
bowl, supported by three kneeling colossal figures
in bronze, of the height of seven cubits, was
placed as an offering in the temple of Juno at
Samos. The aid given to Corobius was the origi-
nal cause of that close friendship which after-
wards united the Cyrenaeans and Theraeans with
the Samians.

The Theraeans who had left Corobius at Platea,
when they reached Thera, told their countrymen
that they had colonised an island on the coast of
Libya. They of Thera, upon this, resolved that
men should be sent to join the colony from each
of their seven districts, and that the brothers in
every family should draw lots to determine who
were to go. Battus was chosen to be king and
leader of the colony. So these men departed for
Platea on board of two penteconters.

Such is the account which the Theraeans give. In
the sequel of the history their accounts tally with

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those of the people of Cyrene; but in what they
relate of Battus these two nations differ most
widely. The following is the Cyrenaic story. There
was once a king named Etearchus, who ruled over
Axus, a city in Crete, and had a daughter named
Phronima. This girl’s mother having died,
Etearchus married a second wife; who no sooner
took up her abode in his house than she proved a
true step-mother to poor Phronima, always vex-
ing her, and contriving against her every sort of
mischief. At last she taxed her with light conduct;
and Etearchus, persuaded by his wife that the
charge was true, bethought himself of a most bar-
barous mode of punishment. There was a certain
Theraean, named Themison, a merchant, living at
Axus. This man Etearchus invited to be his friend
and guest, and then induced him to swear that he
would do him any service he might require. No
sooner had he given the promise, than the king
fetched Phronima, and, delivering her into his
hands, told him to carry her away and throw her
into the sea. Hereupon Themison, full of indigna-
tion at the fraud whereby his oath had been pro-
cured, dissolved forthwith the friendship, and,

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taking the girl with him, sailed away from Crete.
Having reached the open main, to acquit himself
of the obligation under which he was laid by his
oath to Etearchus, he fastened ropes about the
damsel, and, letting her down into the sea, drew
her up again, and so made sail for Thera.

At Thera, Polymnestus, one of the chief citizens of
the place, took Phronima to be his concubine. The
fruit of this union was a son, who stammered and
had a lisp in his speech. According to the
Cyrenaeans and Theraeans the name given to the
boy was Battus: in my opinion, however, he was
called at the first something else, and only got the
name of Battus after his arrival in Libya, assum-
ing it either in consequence of the words
addressed to him by the Delphian oracle, or on
account of the office which he held. For, in the
Libyan tongue, the word “Battus” means “a
king.” And this, I think, was the reason the
Pythoness addressed him as she did: she said he
was to be a king in Libya, and so she used the
Libyan word in speaking to him. For after he had
grown to man’s estate, he made a journey to

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Delphi, to consult the oracle about his voice;
when, upon his putting his question, the
Pythoness thus replied to him:-

Battus, thou camest to ask of thy voice; but

Phoebus Apollo

Bids thee establish a city in Libya, abounding in

fleeces;

which was as if she had said in her own tongue,
“King, thou camest to ask of thy voice.” Then he
replied, “Mighty lord, I did indeed come hither to
consult thee about my voice, but thou speakest to
me of quite other matters, bidding me colonise
Libya- an impossible thing! what power have I?
what followers?” Thus he spake, but he did not
persuade the Pythoness to give him any other
response; so, when he found that she persisted in
her former answer, he left her speaking, and set
out on his return to Thera.

After a while, everything began to go wrong both
with Battus and with the rest of the Theraeans,
whereupon these last, ignorant of the cause of

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their sufferings, sent to Delphi to inquire for what
reason they were afflicted. The Pythoness in reply
told them “that if they and Battus would make a
settlement at Cyrene in Libya, things would go
better with them.” Upon this the Theraeans sent
out Battus with two penteconters, and with these
he proceeded to Libya, but within a little time, not
knowing what else to do, the men returned and
arrived off Thera. The Theraeans, when they saw
the vessels approaching, received them with
showers of missiles, would not allow them to
come near the shore, and ordered the men to sail
back from whence they came. Thus compelled to
return, they settled on an island near the Libyan
coast, which (as I have already said) was called
Platea. In size it is reported to have been about
equal to the city of Cyrene, as it now stands.

In this place they continued two years, but at the
end of that time, as their ill luck still followed
them, they left the island to the care of one of
their number, and went in a body to Delphi,
where they made complaint at the shrine to the
effect that, notwithstanding they had colonised

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Libya, they prospered as poorly as before. Hereon
the Pythoness made them the following answer:-

Knowest thou better than I, fair Libya abound-

ing in fleeces?

Better the stranger than he who has trod it? Oh!

clever Theraeans!

Battus and his friends, when they heard this,
sailed back to Platea: it was plain the god would
not hold them acquitted of the colony till they
were absolutely in Libya. So, taking with them the
man whom they had left upon the island, they
made a settlement on the mainland directly oppo-
site Platea, fixing themselves at a place called
Aziris, which is closed in on both sides by the
most beautiful hills, and on one side is washed by
a river.

Here they remained six years, at the end of which
time the Libyans induced them to move, promising
that they would lead them to a better situation. So
the Greeks left Aziris and were conducted by the

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Libyans towards the west, their journey being so
arranged, by the calculation of their guides, that
they passed in the night the most beautiful district
of that whole country, which is the region called
Irasa. The Libyans brought them to a spring,
which goes by the name of Apollo’s fountain, and
told them- “Here, Grecians, is the proper place for
you to settle; for here the sky leaks.”

During the lifetime of Battus, the founder of the
colony, who reigned forty years, and during that
of his son Arcesilaus, who reigned sixteen, the
Cyrenaeans continued at the same level, neither
more nor fewer in number than they were at the
first. But in the reign of the third king, Battus, sur-
named the Happy, the advice of the Pythoness
brought Greeks from every quarter into Libya, to
join the settlement. The Cyrenaeans had offered
to all comers a share in their lands; and the oracle
had spoken as follows:-

He that is backward to share in the pleasant

Libyan acres,

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Sooner or later, I warn him, will feel regret at his
folly. Thus a great multitude were collected
together to Cyrene, and the Libyans of the neigh-
bourhood found themselves stripped of large por-
tions of their lands. So they, and their king
Adicran, being robbed and insulted by the
Cyrenaeans, sent messengers to Egypt, and put
themselves under the rule of Apries, the Egyptian
monarch; who, upon this, levied a vast army of
Egyptians, and sent them against Cyrene. The
inhabitants of that place left their walls and
marched out in force to the district of Irasa,
where, near the spring called Theste, they engaged
the Egyptian host, and defeated it. The Egyptians,
who had never before made trial of the prowess of
the Greeks, and so thought but meanly of them,
were routed with such slaughter that but a very
few of them ever got back home. For this reason,
the subjects of Apries, who laid the blame of the
defeat on him, revolted from his authority.

This Battus left a son called Arcesilaus, who,
when he came to the throne, had dissensions with
his brothers, which ended in their quitting him

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and departing to another region of Libya, where,
after consulting among themselves, they founded
the city, which is still called by the name then
given to it, Barca. At the same time they endeav-
oured to induce the Libyans to revolt from
Cyrene. Not long afterwards Arcesilaus made an
expedition against the Libyans who had received
his brothers and been prevailed upon to revolt;
and they, fearing his power, fled to their country-
men who dwelt towards the east. Arcesilaus pur-
sued, and chased them to a place called Leucon,
which is in Libya, where the Libyans resolved to
risk a battle. Accordingly they engaged the
Cyrenaeans, and defeated them so entirely that as
many as seven thousand of their heavy-armed
were slain in the fight. Arcesilaus, after this blow,
fell sick, and, whilst he was under the influence of
a draught which he had taken, was strangled by
Learchus, one of his brothers. This Learchus was
afterwards entrapped by Eryxo, the widow of
Arcesilaus, and put to death.

Battus, Arcesilaus’ son, succeeded to the king-
dom, a lame man, who limped in his walk. Their

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late calamities now induced the Cyrenaeans to
send to Delphi and inquire of the god what form
of government they had best set up to secure
themselves prosperity. The Pythoness answered
by recommending them to fetch an arbitrator
from Mantinea in Arcadia. Accordingly they sent;
and the Mantineans gave them a man named
Demonax, a person of high repute among the cit-
izens; who, on his arrival at Cyrene, having first
made himself acquainted with all the circum-
stances, proceeded to enrol the people in three
tribes. One he made to consist of the Theraeans
and their vassals; another of the Peloponnesians
and Cretans; and a third of the various islanders.
Besides this, he deprived the king Battus of his
former privileges, only reserving for him certain
sacred lands and offices; while, with respect to the
powers which had hitherto been exercised by the
king, he gave them all into the hands of the peo-
ple.

Thus matters rested during the lifetime of this
Battus, but when his son Arcesilaus came to the
throne, great disturbance arose about the privi-

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leges. For Arcesilaus, son of Battus the lame and
Pheretima, refused to submit to the arrangements
of Demonax the Mantinean, and claimed all the
powers of his forefathers. In the contention which
followed Arcesilaus was worsted, whereupon he
fled to Samos, while his mother took refuge at
Salamis in the island of Cyprus. Salamis was at
that time ruled by Evelthon, the same who offered
at Delphi the censer which is in the treasury of the
Corinthians, a work deserving of admiration. Of
him Pheretima made request that he would give
her an army whereby she and her son might
regain Cyrene. But Evelthon, preferring to give
her anything rather than an army, made her vari-
ous presents. Pheretima accepted them all, saying,
as she took them: “Good is this too, O king! but
better were it to give me the army which I crave
at thy hands.” Finding that she repeated these
words each time that he presented her with a gift,
Evelthon at last sent her a golden spindle and
distaff, with the wool ready for spinning. Again
she uttered the same speech as before, whereupon
Evelthon rejoined-”These are the gifts I present to
women, not armies.”

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At Samos, meanwhile, Arcesilaus was collecting
troops by the promise of granting them lands.
Having in this way drawn together a vast host, he
sent to Delphi to consult the oracle about his
restoration. The answer of the Pythoness was this:
“Loxias grants thy race to rule over Cyrene, till
four kings Battus, four Arcesilaus by name, have
passed away. Beyond this term of eight genera-
tions of men, he warns you not to seek to extend
your reign. Thou, for thy part, be gentle, when
thou art restored. If thou findest the oven full of
jars, bake not the jars; but be sure to speed them
on their way. If, however, thou heatest the oven,
then avoid the island else thou wilt die thyself,
and with thee the most beautiful bull.”

So spake the Pythoness. Arcesilaus upon this
returned to Cyrene, taking with him the troops
which he had raised in Samos. There he obtained
possession of the supreme power; whereupon,
forgetful of the oracle, he took proceedings
against those who had driven him into banish-
ment. Some of them fled from him and quitted the
country for good; others fell into his hands and
were sent to suffer death in Cyprus. These last

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happening on their passage to put in through
stress of weather at Cnidus, the Cnidians rescued
them, and sent them off to Thera. Another body
found a refuge in the great tower of Aglomachus,
a private edifice, and were there destroyed by
Arcesilaus, who heaped wood around the place,
and burnt them to death. Aware, after the deed
was done, that this was what the Pythoness meant
when she warned him, if he found the jars in the
oven, not to bake them, he withdrew himself of
his own accord from the city of Cyrene, believing
that to be the island of the oracle, and fearing to
die as had been prophesied. Being married to a
relation of his own, a daughter of Alazir, at that
time king of the Barcaeans, he took up his abode
with him. At Barca, however, certain of the citi-
zens, together with a number of Cyrenaean exiles,
recognising him as he walked in the forum, killed
him; they slew also at the same time Alazir, his
father-in-law. So Arcesilaus, wittingly or unwit-
tingly, disobeyed the oracle, and thereby fulfilled
his destiny.

Pheretima, the mother of Arcesilaus, during the
time that her son, after working his own ruin,

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dwelt at Barca, continued to enjoy all his privi-
leges at Cyrene, managing the government, and
taking her seat at the council-board. No sooner,
however, did she hear of the death of her son at
Barca, than leaving Cyrene, she fled in haste to
Egypt. Arcesilaus had claims for service done to
Cambyses, son of Cyrus; since it was by him that
Cyrene was put under the Persian yoke, and a rate
of tribute agreed upon. Pheretima therefore went
straight to Egypt, and presenting herself as a sup-
pliant before Aryandes, entreated him to avenge
her wrongs. Her son, she said, had met his death
on account of his being so well affected towards
the Medes.

Now Aryandes had been made governor of Egypt
by Cambyses. He it was who in after times was
punished with death by Darius for seeking to rival
him. Aware, by report and also by his own eye-
sight, that Darius wished to leave a memorial of
himself, such as no king had ever left before,
Aryandes resolved to follow his example, and did
so, till he got his reward. Darius had refined gold

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to the last perfection of purity in order to have
coins struck of it: Aryandes, in his Egyptian gov-
ernment, did the very same with silver, so that to
this day there is no such pure silver anywhere as
the Aryandic. Darius, when this came to his ears,
brought another charge, a charge of rebellion,
against Aryandes, and put him to death.

At the time of which we are speaking Aryandes,
moved with compassion for Pheretima, granted
her all the forces which there were in Egypt, both
land and sea. The command of the army he gave
to Amasis, a Maraphian; while Badres, one of the
tribe of the Pasargadae, was appointed to lead the
fleet. Before the expedition, however, left Egypt,
he sent a herald to Barca to inquire who it was
that had slain king Arcesilaus. The Barcaeans
replied “that they, one and all, acknowledged the
deed- Arcesilaus had done them many and great
injuries.” After receiving this reply, Aryandes gave
the troops orders to march with Pheretima. Such
was the cause which served as a pretext for this
expedition: its real object was, I believe, the sub-

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jugation of Libya. For Libya is inhabited by many
and various races, and of these but very few were
subjects of the Persian king, while by far the larg-
er number held Darius in no manner of respect.

The Libyans dwell in the order which I will now
describe. Beginning on the side of Egypt, the first
Libyans are the Adyrmachidae These people have,
in most points, the same customs as the
Egyptians, but use the costume of the Libyans.
Their women wear on each leg a ring made of
bronze; they let their hair grow long, and when
they catch any vermin on their persons, bite it and
throw it away. In this they differ from all the
other Libyans. They are also the only tribe with
whom the custom obtains of bringing all women
about to become brides before the king, that he
may choose such as are agreeable to him. The
Adyrmachidae extend from the borders of Egypt
to the harbour called Port Plynus.

Next to the Adyrmachidae are the Gilligammae,
who inhabit the country westward as far as the
island of Aphrodisias. Off this tract is the island

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of Platea, which the Cyrenaeans colonised. Here
too, upon the mainland, are Port Menelaus, and
Aziris, where the Cyrenaeans once lived. The
Silphium begins to grow in this region, extending
from the island of Platea on the one side to the
mouth of the Syrtis on the other. The customs of
the Gilligammae are like those of the rest of their
countrymen.

The Asbystae adjoin the Gilligammae upon the
west. They inhabit the regions above Cyrene, but
do not reach to the coast, which belongs to the
Cyrenaeans. Four-horse chariots are in more
common use among them than among any other
Libyans. In most of their customs they ape the
manners of the Cyrenaeans.

Westward of the Asbystae dwell the Auschisae,
who possess the country above Barca, reaching,
however, to the sea at the place called Euesperides.
In the middle of their territory is the little tribe of
the Cabalians, which touches the coast near
Tauchira, a city of the Barcaeans. Their customs
are like those of the Libyans above Cyrene.

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The Nasamonians, a numerous people, are the
western neighbours of the Auschisae. In summer
they leave their flocks and herds upon the sea-
shore, and go up the country to a place called
Augila, where they gather the dates from the
palms, which in those parts grow thickly, and are
of great size, all of them being of the fruit-bearing
kind. They also chase the locusts, and, when
caught, dry them in the sun, after which they
grind them to powder, and, sprinkling this upon
their milk, so drink it. Each man among them has
several wives, in their intercourse with whom they
resemble the Massagetae. The following are their
customs in the swearing of oaths and the practice
of augury. The man, as he swears, lays his hand
upon the tomb of some one considered to have
been pre-eminently just and good, and so doing
swears by his name. For divination they betake
themselves to the sepulchres of their own ances-
tors, and, after praying, lie down to sleep upon
their graves; by the dreams which then come to
them they guide their conduct. When they pledge
their faith to one another, each gives the other to
drink out of his hand; if there be no liquid to be

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had, they take up dust from the ground, and put
their tongues to it.

On the country of the Nasamonians borders that
of the Psylli, who were swept away under the fol-
lowing circumstances. The south-wind had blown
for a long time and dried up all the tanks in which
their water was stored. Now the whole region
within the Syrtis is utterly devoid of springs.
Accordingly the Psylli took counsel among them-
selves, and by common consent made war upon
the southwind- so at least the Libyans say, I do
but repeat their words- they went forth and
reached the desert; but there the south-wind rose
and buried them under heaps of sand: where-
upon, the Psylli being destroyed, their lands
passed to the Nasamonians.

Above the Nasamonians, towards the south, in
the district where the wild beasts abound, dwell
the Garamantians, who avoid all society or inter-
course with their fellow-men, have no weapon of
war, and do not know how to defend them-
selves.

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These border the Nasamonians on the south:
westward along the sea-shore their neighbours
are the Macea, who, by letting the locks about the
crown of their head grow long, while they clip
them close everywhere else, make their hair
resemble a crest. In war these people use the skins
of ostriches for shields. The river Cinyps rises
among them from the height called “the Hill of
the Graces,” and runs from thence through their
country to the sea. The Hill of the Graces is thick-
ly covered with wood, and is thus very unlike the
rest of Libya, which is bare. It is distant two hun-
dred furlongs from the sea.

Adjoining the Macae are the Gindanes, whose
women wear on their legs anklets of leather. Each
lover that a woman has gives her one; and she
who can show the most is the best esteemed, as
she appears to have been loved by the greatest
number of men.

A promontory jutting out into the sea from the
country of the Gindanes is inhabited by the
Lotophagi, who live entirely on the fruit of the

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lotus-tree. The lotus fruit is about the size of the
lentisk berry, and in sweetness resembles the date.
The Lotophagi even succeed in obtaining from it
a sort of wine.

The sea-coast beyond the Lotophagi is occupied
by the Machlyans, who use the lotus to some
extent, though not so much as the people of
whom we last spoke. The Machlyans reach as far
as the great river called the Triton, which empties
itself into the great lake Tritonis. Here, in this
lake, is an island called Phla, which it is said the
Lacedaemonians were to have colonised, accord-
ing to an oracle.

The following is the story as it is commonly told.
When Jason had finished building the Argo at the
foot of Mount Pelion, he took on board the usual
hecatomb, and moreover a brazen tripod. Thus
equipped, he set sail, intending to coast round the
Peloponnese, and so to reach Delphi. The voyage
was prosperous as far as Malea; but at that point
a gale of wind from the north came on suddenly,
and carried him out of his course to the coast of

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Libya; where, before he discovered the land, he
got among the shallows of Lake Tritonis. As he
was turning it in his mind how he should find his
way out, Triton (they say) appeared to him, and
offered to show him the channel, and secure him
a safe retreat, if he would give him the tripod.
Jason complying, was shown by Triton the pas-
sage through the shallows; after which the god
took the tripod, and, carrying it to his own tem-
ple, seated himself upon it, and, filled with
prophetic fury, delivered to Jason and his com-
panions a long prediction. “When a descendant,”
he said, “of one of the Argo’s crew should seize
and carry off the brazen tripod, then by inevitable
fate would a hundred Grecian cities be built
around Lake Tritonis.” The Libyans of that
region, when they heard the words of this
prophecy, took away the tripod and hid it.

The next tribe beyond the Machlyans is the tribe
of the Auseans. Both these nations inhabit the
borders of Lake Tritonis, being separated from
one another by the river Triton. Both also wear
their hair long, but the Machlyans let it grow at

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the back of the head, while the Auseans have it
long in front. The Ausean maidens keep year by
year a feast in honour of Minerva, whereat their
custom is to draw up in two bodies, and fight
with stones and clubs. They say that these are
rites which have come down to them from their
fathers, and that they honour with them their
native goddess, who is the same as the Minerva
(Athene) of the Grecians. If any of the maidens die
of the wounds they receive, the Auseans declare
that such are false maidens. Before the fight is suf-
fered to begin, they have another ceremony. One
of the virgins, the loveliest of the number, is select-
ed from the rest; a Corinthian helmet and a com-
plete suit of Greek armour are publicly put upon
her; and, thus adorned, she is made to mount into
a chariot, and led around the whole lake in a pro-
cession. What arms they used for the adornment
of their damsels before the Greeks came to live in
their country, I cannot say. I imagine they dressed
them in Egyptian armour, for I maintain that both
the shield and the helmet came into Greece from
Egypt. The Auseans declare that Minerva is the
daughter of Neptune and the Lake Tritonis- they

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say she quarrelled with her father, and applied to
Jupiter, who consented to let her be his child; and
so she became his adopted daughter. These people
do not marry or live in families, but dwell togeth-
er like the gregarious beasts. When their children
are full-grown, they are brought before the assem-
bly of the men, which is held every third month,
and assigned to those whom they most resemble.

Such are the tribes of wandering Libyans dwelling
upon the sea-coast. Above them inland is the
wild-beast tract: and beyond that, a ridge of sand,
reaching from Egyptian Thebes to the Pillars of
Hercules. Throughout this ridge, at the distance
of about ten days’ journey from one another,
heaps of salt in large lumps lie upon hills. At the
top of every hill there gushes forth from the mid-
dle of the salt a stream of water, which is both
cold and sweet. Around dwell men who are the
last inhabitants of Libya on the side of the desert,
living, as they do, more inland than the wild-beast
district. Of these nations the first is that of the
Ammonians, who dwell at a distance of ten days’

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from Thebes, and have a temple derived from that
of the Theban Jupiter. For at Thebes likewise, as I
mentioned above, the image of Jupiter has a face
like that of a ram. The Ammonians have another
spring besides that which rises from the salt. The
water of this stream is lukewarm at early dawn; at
the time when the market fills it is much cooler;
by noon it has grown quite cold; at this time,
therefore, they water their gardens. As the after-
noon advances the coldness goes off, till, about
sunset, the water is once more lukewarm; still the
heat increases, and at midnight it boils furiously.
After this time it again begins to cool, and grows
less and less hot till morning comes. This spring is
called “the Fountain of the Sun.”

Next to the Ammonians, at the distance of ten
days’ journey along the ridge of sand, there is a
second salt-hill like the Ammonian, and a sec-
ond spring. The country round is inhabited, and
the place bears the name of Augila. Hither it is
that the Nasamonians come to gather in the
dates.

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Ten days’ journey from Augila there is again a
salt-hill and a spring; palms of the fruitful kind
grow here abundantly, as they do also at the other
salt-hills. This region is inhabited by a nation
called the Garamantians, a very powerful people,
who cover the salt with mould, and then sow
their crops. From thence is the shortest road to
the Lutophagi, a journey of thirty days. In the
Garamantian country are found the oxen which,
as they graze, walk backwards. This they do
because their horns curve outwards in front of
their heads, so that it is not possible for them
when grazing to move forwards, since in that case
their horns would become fixed in the ground.
Only herein do they differ from other oxen, and
further in the thickness and hardness of their
hides. The Garamantians have four-horse chari-
ots, in which they chase the Troglodyte
Ethiopians, who of all the nations whereof any
account has reached our ears are by far the
swiftest of foot. The Troglodytes feed on serpents,
lizards, and other similar reptiles. Their language
is unlike that of any other people; it sounds like
the screeching of bats.

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At the distance of ten days’ journey from the
Garamantians there is again another salt-hill and
spring of water; around which dwell a people,
called the Atarantians, who alone of all known
nations are destitute of names. The title of
Atarantians is borne by the whole race in com-
mon; but the men have no particular names of
their own. The Atarantians, when the sun rises
high in the heaven, curse him, and load him with
reproaches, because (they say) he burns and
wastes both their country and themselves. Once
more at the distance of ten days’ there is a salt-
hill, a spring, and an inhabited tract. Near the salt
is a mountain called Atlas, very taper and round;
so lofty, moreover, that the top (it is said) cannot
be seen, the clouds never quitting it either summer
or winter. The natives call this mountain “the
Pillar of Heaven”; and they themselves take their
name from it, being called Atlantes. They are
reported not to eat any living thing, and never to
have any dreams.

As far as the Atlantes the names of the nations
inhabiting the sandy ridge are known to me; but

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beyond them my knowledge fails. The ridge itself
extends as far as the Pillars of Hercules, and even
further than these; and throughout the whole dis-
tance, at the end of every ten days’ there is a salt-
mine, with people dwelling round it who all of
them build their houses with blocks of the salt.
No rain falls in these parts of Libya; if it were oth-
erwise, the walls of these houses could not stand.
The salt quarried is of two colours, white and
purple. Beyond the ridge, southwards, in the
direction of the interior, the country is a desert,
with no springs, no beasts, no rain, no wood, and
altogether destitute of moisture.

Thus from Egypt as far as Lake Tritonis Libya is
inhabited by wandering tribes, whose drink is
milk and their food the flesh of animals. Cow’s
flesh, however, none of these tribes ever taste, but
abstain from it for the same reason as the
Egyptians, neither do they any of them breed
swine. Even at Cyrene, the women think it wrong
to eat the flesh of the cow, honouring in this Isis,
the Egyptian goddess, whom they worship both

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with fasts and festivals. The Barcaean women
abstain, not from cow’s flesh only, but also from
the flesh of swine.

West of Lake Tritonis the Libyans are no longer
wanderers, nor do they practise the same customs
as the wandering people, or treat their children in
the same way. For the wandering Libyans, many
of them at any rate, if not all- concerning which I
cannot speak with certainty- when their children
come to the age of four years, burn the veins at
the top of their heads with a flock from the fleece
of a sheep: others burn the veins about the tem-
ples. This they do to prevent them from being
plagued in their after lives by a flow of rheum
from the head; and such they declare is the reason
why they are so much more healthy than other
men. Certainly the Libyans are the healthiest men
that I know; but whether this is what makes them
so, or not, I cannot positively say- the healthiest
certainly they are. If when the children are being
burnt convulsions come on, there is a remedy of
which they have made discovery. It is to sprinkle

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goat’s water upon the child, who thus treated, is
sure to recover. In all this I only repeat what is
said by the Libyans.

The rites which the wandering Libyans use in sac-
rificing are the following. They begin with the ear
of the victim, which they cut off and throw over
their house: this done, they kill the animal by
twisting the neck. They sacrifice to the Sun and
Moon, but not to any other god. This worship is
common to all the Libyans. The inhabitants of the
parts about Lake Tritonis worship in addition
Triton, Neptune, and Minerva, the last especially.

The dress wherewith Minerva’s statues are
adorned, and her Aegis, were derived by the
Greeks from the women of Libya. For, except that
the garments of the Libyan women are of leather,
and their fringes made of leathern thongs instead
of serpents, in all else the dress of both is exactly
alike. The name too itself shows that the mode of
dressing the Pallas-statues came from Libya. For
the Libyan women wear over their dress stript of

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the hair, fringed at their edges, and coloured with
vermilion; and from these goat-skins the Greeks
get their word Aegis (goat-harness). I think for my
part that the loud cries uttered in our sacred rites
came also from thence; for the Libyan women are
greatly given to such cries and utter them very
sweetly. Likewise the Greeks learnt from the
Libyans to yoke four horses to a chariot.

All the wandering tribes bury their dead accord-
ing to the fashion of the Greeks, except the
Nasamonians. They bury them sitting, and are
right careful when the sick man is at the point of
giving up the ghost, to make him sit and not let
him die lying down. The dwellings of these people
are made of the stems of the asphodel, and of
rushes wattled together. They can be carried from
place to place. Such are the customs of the afore-
mentioned tribes.

Westward of the river Triton and adjoining upon
the Auseans, are other Libyans who till the
ground, and live in houses: these people are

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named the Maxyans. They let the hair grow long
on the right side of their heads, and shave it close
on the left; they besmear their bodies with red
paint; and they say that they are descended from
the men of Troy. Their country and the remainder
of Libya towards the west is far fuller of wild
beasts and of wood than the country of the wan-
dering people. For the eastern side of Libya,
where the wanderers dwell, is low and sandy, as
far as the river Triton; but westward of that the
land of the husbandmen is very hilly, and abounds
with forests and wild beasts. For this is the tract
in which the huge serpents are found, and the
lions, the elephants, the bears, the aspicks, and
the horned asses. Here too are the dog-faced crea-
tures, and the creatures without heads, whom the
Libyans declare to have their eyes in their breasts;
and also the wild men, and wild women, and
many other far less fabulous beasts.

Among the wanderers are none of these, but quite
other animals; as antelopes, gazelles, buffaloes,
and asses, not of the horned sort, but of a kind
which does not need to drink; also oryxes, whose

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horns are used for the curved sides of citherns,
and whose size is about that of the ox; foxes,
hyaenas porcupines, wild rams, dictyes, jackals,
panthers, boryes, land-crocodiles about three
cubits in length, very like lizards, ostriches, and
little snakes, each with a single horn. All these
animals are found here, and likewise those
belonging to other countries, except the stag and
the wild boar; but neither stag nor wild-boar are
found in any part of Libya. There are, however,
three sorts of mice in these parts; the first are
called two-footed; the next, zegeries, which is a
Libyan word meaning “hills”; and the third,
urchins. Weasels also are found in the Silphium
region, much like the Tartessian. So many, there-
fore, are the animals belonging to the land of the
wandering Libyans, in so far at least as my
researches have been able to reach.

Next to the Maxyan Libyans are the Zavecians,
whose wives drive their chariots to battle.

On them border the Gyzantians; in whose coun-
try a vast deal of honey is made by bees; very

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much more, however, by the skill of men. The
people all paint themselves red, and eat monkeys,
whereof there is inexhaustible store in the hills.

Off their coast, as the Carthaginians report, lies
an island, by name Cyraunis, the length of which
is two hundred furlongs, its breadth not great,
and which is soon reached from the mainland.
Vines and olive trees cover the whole of it, and
there is in the island a lake, from which the young
maidens of the country draw up gold-dust, by
dipping into the mud birds’ feathers smeared with
pitch. If this be true, I know not; I but write what
is said. It may be even so, however; since I myself
have seen pitch drawn up out of the water from a
lake in Zacynthus. At the place I speak of there
are a number of lakes; but one is larger than the
rest, being seventy feet every way, and two fath-
oms in depth. Here they let down a pole into the
water, with a bunch of myrtle tied to one end, and
when they raise it again, there is pitch sticking to
the myrtle, which in smell is like to bitumen, but
in all else is better than the pitch of Pieria. This
they pour into a trench dug by the lake’s side; and

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161

when a good deal has thus been got together, they
draw it off and put it up in jars. Whatever falls
into the lake passes underground, and comes up
in the sea, which is no less than four furlongs dis-
tant. So then what is said of the island off the
Libyan coast is not without likelihood.

The Carthaginians also relate the following:-
There is a country in Libya, and a nation, beyond
the Pillars of Hercules, which they are wont to
visit, where they no sooner arrive but forthwith
they unlade their wares, and, having disposed
them after an orderly fashion along the beach,
leave them, and, returning aboard their ships,
raise a great smoke. The natives, when they see
the smoke, come down to the shore, and, laying
out to view so much gold as they think the worth
of the wares, withdraw to a distance. The
Carthaginians upon this come ashore and look. If
they think the gold enough, they take it and go
their way; but if it does not seem to them suffi-
cient, they go aboard ship once more, and wait
patiently. Then the others approach and add to
their gold, till the Carthaginians are content.

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Neither party deals unfairly by the other: for they
themselves never touch the gold till it comes up to
the worth of their goods, nor do the natives ever
carry off the goods till the gold is taken away.

These be the Libyan tribes whereof I am able to
give the names; and most of these cared little then,
and indeed care little now, for the king of the
Medes. One thing more also I can add concerning
this region, namely, that, so far as our knowledge
reaches, four nations, and no more, inhabit it; and
two of these nations are indigenous, while two are
not. The two indigenous are the Libyans and
Ethiopians, who dwell respectively in the north
and the south of Libya. The Phoenicians and the
Greek are in-comers.

It seems to me that Libya is not to compare for
goodness of soil with either Asia or Europe,
except the Cinyps region, which is named after
the river that waters it. This piece of land is equal
to any country in the world for cereal crops, and
is in nothing like the rest of Libya. For the soil
here is black, and springs of water abound; so

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163

that there is nothing to fear from drought; nor do
heavy rains (and it rains in that part of Libya) do
any harm when they soak the ground. The returns
of the harvest come up to the measure which pre-
vails in Babylonia. The soil is likewise good in the
country of the Euesperites; for there the land
brings forth in the best years a hundred-fold. But
the Cinyps region yields three hundred-fold.

The country of the Cyrenaeans, which is the high-
est tract within the part of Libya inhabited by the
wandering tribes, has three seasons that deserve
remark. First the crops along the sea-coast begin
to ripen, and are ready for the harvest and the
vintage; after they have been gathered in, the
crops of the middle tract above the coast region
(the hill-country, as they call it) need harvesting;
while about the time when this middle crop is
housed, the fruits ripen and are fit for cutting in
the highest tract of all. So that the produce of the
first tract has been all eaten and drunk by the time
that the last harvest comes in. And the harvest-
time of the Cyrenaeans continues thus for eight
full months. So much concerning these matters.

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When the Persians sent from Egypt by Aryandes
to help Pheretima reached Barca, they laid siege to
the town, calling on those within to give up the
men who had been guilty of the murder of
Arcesilaus. The townspeople, however, as they
had one and all taken part in the deed, refused to
entertain the proposition. So the Persians belea-
guered Barca for nine months, in the course of
which they dug several mines from their own lines
to the walls, and likewise made a number of vig-
orous assaults. But their mines were discovered by
a man who was a worker in brass, who went with
a brazen shield all round the fortress, and laid it
on the ground inside the city. In other Places the
shield, when he laid it down, was quite dumb; but
where the ground was undermined, there the
brass of the shield rang. Here, therefore, the
Barcaeans countermined, and slew the Persian
diggers. Such was the way in which the mines
were discovered; as for the assaults, the Barcaeans
beat them back.

When much time had been consumed, and great
numbers had fallen on both sides, nor had the

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165

Persians lost fewer than their adversaries, Amasis,
the leader of the land-army, perceiving that,
although the Barcaeans would never be con-
quered by force, they might be overcome by
fraud, contrived as follows One night he dug a
wide trench, and laid light planks of wood across
the opening, after which he brought mould and
placed it upon the planks, taking care to make the
place level with the surrounding ground. At dawn
of day he summoned the Barcaeans to a parley:
and they gladly hearkening, the terms were at
length agreed upon. Oaths were interchanged
upon the ground over the hidden trench, and the
agreement ran thus- “So long as the ground
beneath our feet stands firm, the oath shall abide
unchanged; the people of Barca agree to pay a fair
sum to the king, and the Persians promise to cause
no further trouble to the people of Barca.” After
the oath, the Barcaeans, relying upon its terms,
threw open all their gates, went out themselves
beyond the walls, and allowed as many of the
enemy as chose to enter. Then the Persians broke
down their secret bridge, and rushed at speed into
the town- their reason for breaking the bridge

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being that so they might observe what they had
sworn; for they had promised the Barcaeans that
the oath should continue “so long as the ground
whereon they stood was firm.” When, therefore,
the bridge was once broken down, the oath
ceased to hold.

Such of the Barcaeans as were most guilty the
Persians gave up to Pheretima, who nailed them
to crosses all round the walls of the city. She also
cut off the breasts of their wives, and fastened
them likewise about the walls. The remainder of
the people she gave as booty to the Persians,
except only the Battiadae and those who had
taken no part in the murder, to whom she handed
over the possession of the town.

The Persians now set out on their return home,
carrying with them the rest of the Barcaeans,
whom they had made their slaves. On their way
they came to Cyrene; and the Cyrenaeans, out of
regard for an oracle, let them pass through the
town. During the passage, Bares, the commander
of the fleet, advised to seize the place; but Amasis,

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167

the leader of the land-force, would not consent;
“because,” he said, “they had only been charged
to attack the one Greek city of Barca.” When,
however, they had passed through the town, and
were encamped upon the hill of Lycaean Jove, it
repented them that they had not seized Cyrene,
and they endeavoured to enter it a second time.
The Cyrenaeans, however, would not suffer this;
whereupon, though no one appeared to offer
them battle, yet a panic came upon the Persians,
and they ran a distance of full sixty furlongs
before they pitched their camp. Here as they lay,
a messenger came to them from Aryandes, order-
ing them home. Then the Persians besought the
men of Cyrene to give them provisions for the
way, and, these consenting, they set off on their
return to Egypt. But the Libyans now beset them,
and, for the sake of their clothes and harness,
slew all who dropped behind and straggled, dur-
ing the whole march homewards.

The furthest point of Libya reached by this
Persian host was the city of Euesperides. The
Barcaeans carried into slavery were sent from

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Egypt to the king; and Darius assigned them a vil-
lage in Bactria for their dwelling-place. To this vil-
lage they gave the name of Barca, and it was to
my time an inhabited place in Bactria.

Nor did Pheretima herself end her days happily.
For on her return to Egypt from Libya, directly
after taking vengeance on the people of Barca, she
was overtaken by a most horrid death. Her body
swarmed with worms, which ate her flesh while
she was still alive. Thus do men, by over-harsh
punishments, draw down upon themselves the
anger of the gods. Such then, and so fierce, was
the vengeance which Pheretima, daughter of
Battus, took upon the Barcaeans.

Th e H i s to r i e s

o f

H e ro d o t u s o f H a l i c a r n a s s u s

Book Five

TRANSLATED BY

George Rawlinson

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BOOK FIVE

he Persians left behind by King Darius in

Europe, who had Megabazus for their general,
reduced, before any other Hellespontine state, the
people of Perinthus, who had no mind to become
subjects of the king. Now the Perinthians had ere
this been roughly handled by another nation, the
Paeonians. For the Paeonians from about the
Strymon were once bidden by an oracle to make
war upon the Perinthians, and if these latter, when
the camps faced one another, challenged them by
name to fight, then to venture on a battle, but if
otherwise, not to make the hazard. The Paeonians
followed the advice. Now the men of Perinthus
drew out to meet them in the skirts of their city;
and a threefold single combat was fought on chal-
lenge given. Man to man, and horse to horse, and

Th e H i s t o r i e s

o f

H e r o d o t u s o f H a l i c a r n a s s u s

dog to dog, was the strife waged; and the
Perinthians, winners of

two combats out of the three, in their joy had
raised the paean; when the Paeonians struck by
the thought that this was what the oracle had
meant, passed the word one to another, saying,
“Now of a surety has the oracle been fulfilled for
us; now our work begins.” Then the Paeonians set
upon the Perinthians in the midst of their paean,
and defeated them utterly, leaving but few of them
alive.

Such was the affair of the Paeonians, which hap-
pened a long time previously. At this time the
Perinthians, after a brave struggle for freedom,
were overcome by numbers, and yielded to
Megabazus and his Persians. After Perinthus had
been brought under, Megabazus led his host
through Thrace, subduing to the dominion of the
king all the towns and all the nations of those
parts. For the king’s command to him was that he
should conquer Thrace.

Herodotus

The Histories–Book Five

The Thracians are the most powerful people in
the world, except, of course, the Indians; and if
they had one head, or were agreed among them-
selves, it is my belief that their match could not be
found anywhere, and that they would very far
surpass all other nations. But such union is impos-
sible for them, and there are no means of ever
bringing it about. Herein therefore consists their
weakness. The Thracians bear many names in the
different regions of their country, but all of them
have like usages in every respect, excepting only
the Getae, the Trausi, and those who dwell above
the people of Creston.

Now the manners and customs of the Getae, who
believe in their immortality, I have already spoken
of. The Trausi in all else resemble the other
Thracians, but have customs at births and deaths
which I will now describe. When a child is born
all its kindred sit round about it in a circle and
weep for the woes it will have to undergo now
that it is come into the world, making mention of
every ill that falls to the lot of humankind; when,

on the other hand, a man has died, they bury him
with laughter and rejoicings, and say that now he
is free from a host of sufferings, and enjoys the
completest happiness.

The Thracians who live above the Crestonaeans
observe the following customs. Each man among
them has several wives; and no sooner does a man
die than a sharp contest ensues among the wives
upon the question which of them all the husband
loved most tenderly; the friends of each eagerly
plead on her behalf, and she to whom the honour
is adjudged, after receiving the praises both of
men and women, is slain over the grave by the
hand of her next of kin, and then buried with her
husband. The others are sorely grieved, for noth-
ing is considered such a disgrace.

The Thracians who do not belong to these tribes
have the customs which follow. They sell their
children to traders. On their maidens they keep
no watch, but leave them altogether free, while on
the conduct of their wives they keep a most strict

Herodotus

The Histories–Book Five

watch. Brides are purchased of their parents for
large sums of money. Tattooing among them
marks noble birth, and the want of it low birth.
To be idle is accounted the most honourable
thing, and to be a tiller of the ground the most
dishonourable. To live by war and plunder is of
all things the most glorious. These are the most
remarkable of their customs.

The gods which they worship are but three, Mars,
Bacchus, and Dian. Their kings, however, unlike
the rest of the citizens, worship Mercury more
than any other god, always swearing by his name,
and declaring that they are themselves sprung
from him.

Their wealthy ones are buried in the following
fashion. The body is laid out for three days; and
during this time they kill victims of all kinds, and
feast upon them, after first bewailing the depart-
ed. Then they either burn the body or else bury it
in the ground. Lastly, they raise a mound over the
grave, and hold games of all sorts, wherein the

Herodotus

single combat is awarded the highest prize. Such
is the mode of burial among the Thracians.

As regards the region lying north of this country
no one can say with any certainty what men
inhabit it. It appears that you no sooner cross the
Ister than you enter on an interminable wilder-
ness. The only people of whom I can hear as
dwelling beyond the Ister are the race named
Sigynnae, who wear, they say, a dress like the
Medes, and have horses which are covered entire-
ly with a coat of shaggy hair, five fingers in length.
They are a small breed, flat-nosed, and not strong
enough to bear men on their backs; but when
yoked to chariots, they are among the swiftest
known, which is the reason why the people of
that country use chariots. Their borders reach
down almost to the Eneti upon the Adriatic Sea,
and they call themselves colonists of the Medes;
but how they can be colonists of the Medes I for
my part cannot imagine. Still nothing is impossi-
ble in the long lapse of ages. Sigynnae is the name
which the Ligurians who dwell above Massilia

The Histories–Book Five

give to traders, while among the Cyprians the
word means spears.

According to the account which the Thracians
give, the country beyond the Ister is possessed by
bees, on account of which it is impossible to pen-
etrate farther. But in this they seem to me to say
what has no likelihood; for it is certain that those
creatures are very impatient of cold. I rather
believe that it is on account of the cold that the
regions which lie under the Bear are without
inhabitants. Such then are the accounts given of
this country, the sea-coast whereof Megabazus
was now employed in subjecting to the Persians.

King Darius had no sooner crossed the Hellespont
and reached Sardis, than he bethought himself of
the good deed of Histiaeus the Milesian, and the
good counsel of the Mytilenean Coes. He there-
fore sent for both of them to Sardis, and bade
them each crave a boon at his hands. Now
Histiaeus, as he was already king of Miletus, did
not make request for any government besides, but

Herodotus

asked Darius to give him Myrcinus of the
Edonians, where he wished to build him a city.
Such was the choice that Histiaeus made. Coes,
on the other hand, as he was a mere burgher, and
not a king, requested the sovereignty of Mytilene.
Both alike obtained their requests, and straight-
way betook themselves to the places which they
had chosen.

It chanced in the meantime that King Darius saw
a sight which determined him to bid Megabazus
remove the Paeonians from their seats in Europe
and transport them to Asia. There were two
Paeonians, Pigres and Mantyes, whose ambition
it was to obtain the sovereignty over their coun-
trymen. As soon therefore as ever Darius crossed
into Asia, these men came to Sardis, and brought
with them their sister, who was a tall and beauti-
ful woman. Having so done, they waited till a day
came when the king sat in state in the suburb of
the Lydians; and then dressing their sister in the
richest gear they could, sent her to draw water for
them. She bore a pitcher upon her head, and with
one arm led a horse, while all the way as she went

The Histories–Book Five

she span flax. Now as she passed by where the
king was, Darius took notice of her; for it was
neither like the Persians nor the Lydians, nor any
of the dwellers in Asia, to do as she did. Darius
accordingly noted her, and ordered some of his
guard to follow her steps, and watch to see what
she would do with the horse. So the spearmen
went; and the woman, when she came to the river,
first watered the horse, and then filling the pitch-
er, came back the same way she had gone, with
the pitcher of water upon her head, and the horse
dragging upon her arm, while she still kept
twirling the spindle.

King Darius was full of wonder both at what they
who had watched the woman told him, and at
what he had himself seen. So he commanded that
she should be brought before him. And the
woman came; and with her appeared her broth-
ers, who had been watching everything a little
way off. Then Darius asked them of what nation
the woman was; and the young men replied that
they were Paeonians, and she was their sister.
Darius rejoined by asking, “Who the Paeonians

Herodotus

were, and in what part of the world they lived?
and, further, what business had brought the
young men to Sardis?” Then the brothers told
him they had come to put themselves under his
power, and Paeonia was a country upon the river
Strymon, and the Strymon was at no great dis-
tance from the Hellespont. The Paeonians, they
said, were colonists of the Teucrians from Troy.
When they had thus answered his questions,
Darius asked if all the women of their country
worked so hard? Then the brothers eagerly
answered, Yes; for this was the very object with
which the whole thing had been done.

So Darius wrote letters to Megabazus, the com-
mander whom he had left behind in Thrace, and
ordered him to remove the Paeonians from their
own land, and bring them into his presence, men,
women, and children. And straightway a horse-
man took the message, and rode at speed to the
Hellespont; and, crossing it, gave the paper to
Megabazus. Then Megabazus, as soon as he had
read it, and procured guides from Thrace, made
war upon Paeonia.

The Histories–Book Five

Now when the Paeonians heard that the Persians
were marching against them, they gathered them-
selves together, and marched down to the sea-
coast, since they thought the Persians would
endeavour to enter their country on that side.
Here then they stood in readiness to oppose the
army of Megabazus. But the Persians, who knew
that they had collected, and were gone to keep
guard at the pass near the sea, got guides, and
taking the inland route before the Paeonians were
aware, poured down upon their cities, from
which the men had all marched out; and finding
them empty, easily got possession of them. Then
the men, when they heard that all their towns
were taken, scattered this way and that to their
homes, and gave themselves up to the Persians.
And so these tribes of the Paeonians, to wit, the
Siropaeonians, the Paeoplians and all the others
as far as Lake Prasias, were torn from their seats
and led away into Asia.

They on the other hand who dwelt about Mount
Pangaeum and in the country of the Doberes, the
Agrianians, and the Odomantians, and they like-

Herodotus

wise who inhabited Lake Prasias, were not con-
quered by Megabazus. He sought indeed to sub-
due the dwellers upon the lake, but could not
effect his purpose. Their manner of living is the
following. Platforms supported upon tall piles
stand in the middle of the lake, which are
approached from the land by a single narrow
bridge. At the first the piles which bear up the
platforms were fixed in their places by the whole
body of the citizens, but since that time the cus-
tom which has prevailed about fixing them is
this:- they are brought from a hill called Orbelus,
and every man drives in three for each wife that
he marries. Now the men have all many wives
apiece; and this is the way in which they live.
Each has his own hut, wherein he dwells, upon
one of the platforms, and each has also a trap-
door giving access to the lake beneath; and their
wont is to tie their baby children by the foot with
a string, to save them from rolling into the water.
They feed their horses and their other beasts upon
fish, which abound in the lake to such a degree
that a man has only to open his trap-door and to

The Histories–Book Five

let down a basket by a rope into the water, and
then to wait a very short time, when he draws it
up quite full of them. The fish are of two kinds,
which they call the paprax and the tilon.

The Paeonians therefore- at least such of them as
had been conquered- were led away into Asia. As
for Megabazus, he no sooner brought the
Paeonians under, than he sent into Macedonia an
embassy of Persians, choosing for the purpose the
seven men of most note in all the army after him-
self. These persons were to go to Amyntas, and
require him to give earth and water to King
Darius. Now there is a very short cut from the
Lake Prasias across to Macedonia. Quite close to
the lake is the mine which yielded afterwards a
talent of silver a day to Alexander; and from this
mine you have only to cross the mountain called
Dysorum to find yourself in the Macedonian ter-
ritory.

So the Persians sent upon this errand, when they
reached the court, and were brought into the pres-

Herodotus

ence of Amyntas, required him to give earth and
water to King Darius. And Amyntas not only gave
them what they asked, but also invited them to
come and feast with him; after which he made
ready the board with great magnificence, and
entertained the Persians in right friendly fashion.
Now when the meal was over, and they were all
set to the drinking, the Persians said-

“Dear Macedonian, we Persians have a custom
when we make a great feast to bring with us to
the board our wives and concubines, and make
them sit beside us. Now then, as thou hast
received us so kindly, and feasted us so hand-
somely, and givest moreover earth and water to
King Darius, do also after our custom in this mat-
ter.”

Then Amyntas answered- “O, Persians! we have
no such custom as this; but with us men and
women are kept apart. Nevertheless, since you,
who are our lords, wish it, this also shall be grant-
ed to you.”

The Histories–Book Five

When Amyntas had thus spoken, he bade some go
and fetch the women. And the women came at his
call and took their seats in a row over against the
Persians. Then, when the Persians saw that the
women were fair and comely, they spoke again to
Amyntas and said, that “what had been done was
not wise; for it had been better for the women not
to have come at all, than to come in this way, and
not sit by their sides, but remain over against
them, the torment of their eyes.” So Amyntas was
forced to bid the women sit side by side with the
Persians. The women did as he ordered; and then
the Persians, who had drunk more than they
ought, began to put their hands on them, and one
even tried to give the woman next him a kiss.

King Amyntas saw, but he kept silence, although
sorely grieved, for he greatly feared the power of
the Persians. Alexander, however, Amyntas’ son,
who was likewise there and witnessed the whole,
being a young man and unacquainted with suffer-
ing, could not any longer restrain himself. He
therefore, full of wrath, spake thus to Amyntas:-

Herodotus

“Dear father, thou art old and shouldst spare thy-
self. Rise up from table and go take thy rest; do
not stay out the drinking. I will remain with the
guests and give them all that is fitting.”

Amyntas, who guessed that Alexander would
play some wild prank, made answer:- “Dear son,
thy words sound to me as those of one who is well
nigh on fire, and I perceive thou sendest me away
that thou mayest do some wild deed. I beseech
thee make no commotion about these men, lest
thou bring us all to ruin, but bear to look calmly
on what they do. For myself, I will e’en withdraw
as thou biddest me.”

Amyntas, when he had thus besought his son,
went out; and Alexander said to the Persians,
“Look on these ladies as your own, dear
strangers, all or any of them- only tell us your
wishes. But now, as the evening wears, and I see
you have all had wine enough, let them, if you
please, retire, and when they have bathed they
shall come back again.” To this the Persians

The Histories–Book Five

agreed, and Alexander, having got the women
away, sent them off to the harem, and made ready
in their room an equal number of beardless
youths, whom he dressed in the garments of the
women, and then, arming them with daggers,
brought them in to the Persians, saying as he
introduced them, “Methinks, dear Persians, that
your entertainment has fallen short in nothing.
We have set before you all that we had ourselves
in store, and all that we could anywhere find to
give you- and now, to crown the whole, we make
over to you our sisters and our mothers, that you
may perceive yourselves to be entirely honoured
by us, even as you deserve to be- and also that you
may take back word to the king who sent you
here, that there was one man, a Greek, the satrap
of Macedonia, by whom you were both feasted
and lodged handsomely.” So speaking, Alexander
set by the side of each Persian one of those whom
he had called Macedonian women, but who were
in truth men. And these men, when the Persians
began to be rude, despatched them with their dag-
gers.

Herodotus

So the ambassadors perished by this death, both
they and also their followers. For the Persians had
brought a great train with them, carriages, and
attendants, and baggage of every kind- all of
which disappeared at the same time as the men
themselves. Not very long afterwards the Persians
made strict search for their lost embassy; but
Alexander, with much wisdom, hushed up the
business, bribing those sent on the errand, partly
with money, and partly with the gift of his own
sister Gygaea, whom he gave in marriage to
Bubares, a Persian, the chief leader of the expedi-
tion which came in search of the lost men. Thus
the death of these Persians was hushed up, and no
more was said of it.

Now that the men of this family are Greeks,
sprung from Perdiccas, as they themselves affirm,
is a thing which I can declare of my own knowl-
edge, and which I will hereafter make plainly evi-
dent. That they are so has been already adjudged
by those who manage the Pan-Hellenic contest at
Olympia. For when Alexander wished to contend

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in the games, and had come to Olympia with no
other view, the Greeks who were about to run
against him would have excluded him from the
contest- saying that Greeks only were allowed to
contend, and not barbarians. But Alexander
proved himself to be an Argive, and was distinct-
ly adjudged a Greek; after which he entered the
lists for the foot-race, and was drawn to run in
the first pair. Thus was this matter settled.

Megabazus, having reached the Hellespont with
the Paeonians, crossed it, and went up to Sardis.
He had become aware while in Europe that
Histiaeus the Milesian was raising a wall at
Myrcinus- the town upon the Strymon which he
had obtained from King Darius as his guerdon for
keeping the bridge. No sooner therefore did he
reach Sardis with the Paeonians than he said to
Darius, “What mad thing is this that thou hast
done, sire, to let a Greek, a wise man and a
shrewd, get hold of a town in Thrace, a place too
where there is abundance of timber fit for ship-
building, and oars in plenty, and mines of silver,

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and about which are many dwellers both Greek
and barbarian, ready enough to take him for their
chief, and by day and night to do his bidding! I
pray thee make this man cease his work, if thou
wouldest not be entangled in a war with thine
own followers. Stop him, but with a gentle mes-
sage, only bidding him to come to thee. Then
when thou once hast him in thy power, be sure
thou take good care that he never get back to
Greece again.”

With these words Megabazus easily persuaded
Darius, who thought he had shown true foresight
in this matter. Darius therefore sent a messenger
to Myrcinus, who said, “These be the words of
the king to thee, O Histiaeus! I have looked to
find a man well affectioned towards me and
towards my greatness; and I have found none
whom I can trust like thee. Thy deeds, and not thy
words only, have proved thy love for me. Now
then, since I have a mighty enterprise in hand, I
pray thee come to me, that I may show thee what
I purpose!”

The Histories–Book Five

Histiaeus, when he heard this, put faith in the
words of the messenger; and, as it seemed to him
a grand thing to be the king’s counsellor, he
straightway went up to Sardis. Then Darius,
when he was come, said to him, “Dear Histiaeus,
hear why I have sent for thee. No sooner did I
return from Scythia, and lose thee out of my sight,
than I longed, as I have never longed for aught
else, to behold thee once more, and to interchange
speech with thee. Right sure I am there is nothing
in all the world so precious as a friend who is at
once wise and true: both which thou art, as I have
had good proof in what thou hast already done
for me. Now then ‘tis well thou art come; for
look, I have an offer to make to thee. Let go
Miletus and thy newly-founded town in Thrace,
and come with me up to Susa; share all that I
have; live with me, and be my counsellor.

When Darius had thus spoken he made
Artaphernes, his brother by the father’s side, gov-
ernor of Sardis, and taking Histiaeus with him,
went up to Susa. He left as general of all the

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troops upon the sea-coast Otanes, son of
Sisamnes, whose father King Cambyses slew and
flayed, because that he, being of the number of
the royal judges, had taken money to give an
unrighteous sentence. Therefore Cambyses slew
and flayed Sisamnes, and cutting his skin into
strips, stretched them across the seat of the throne
whereon he had been wont to sit when he heard
causes. Having so done Cambyses appointed the
son of Sisamnes to be judge in his father’s room,
and bade him never forget in what way his seat
was cushioned.

Accordingly this Otanes, who had occupied so
strange a throne, became the successor of
Megabazus in his command, and took first of all
Byzantium and Chalcidon, then Antandrus in the
Troas, and next Lamponium. This done, he bor-
rowed ships of the Lesbians, and took Lemnos
and Imbrus, which were still inhabited by
Pelasgians.

Now the Lemnians stood on their defence, and
fought gallantly; but they were brought low in
course of time. Such as outlived the struggle were

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placed by the Persians under the government of
Lycaretus, the brother of that Maeandrius who
was tyrant of Samos. (This Lycaretus died after-
wards in his government.) The cause which
Otanes alleged for conquering and enslaving all
these nations was that some had refused to join the
king’s army against Scythia, while others had
molested the host on its return. Such were the
exploits which Otanes performed in his command.

Afterwards, but for no long time, there was a
respite from suffering. Then from Naxos and
Miletus troubles gathered anew about Ionia. Now
Naxos at this time surpassed all the other islands
in prosperity, and Miletus had reached the height
of her power, and was the glory of Ionia. But pre-
viously for two generations the Milesians had suf-
fered grievously from civil disorders, which were
composed by the Parians, whom the Milesians
chose before all the rest of the Greeks to rearrange
their government.

Now the way in which the Parians healed their
differences was the following. A number of the
chief Parians came to Miletus, and when they saw

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in how ruined a condition the Milesians were,
they said that they would like first to go over their
country. So they went through all Milesia, and on
their way, whenever they saw in the waste and
desolate country any land that was well farmed,
they took down the names of the owners in their
tablets; and having thus gone through the whole
region, and obtained after all but few names, they
called the people together on their return to
Miletus, and made proclamation that they gave
the government into the hands of those persons
whose lands they had found well farmed; for they
thought it likely (they said) that the same persons
who had managed their own affairs well would
likewise conduct aright the business of the state.
The other Milesians, who in time past had been at
variance, they placed under the rule of these men.
Thus was the Milesian government set in order by
the Parians.

It was, however, from the two cities above men-
tioned that troubles began now to gather again
about Ionia; and this is the way in which they
arose. Certain of the rich men had been banished

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from Naxos by the commonalty, and, upon their
banishment, had fled to Miletus. Aristagoras, son
of Molpagoras, the nephew and likewise the son-
in-law of Histiaeus, son of Lysagoras, who was
still kept by Darius at Susa, happened to be regent
of Miletus at the time of their coming. For the
kingly power belonged to Histiaeus; but he was at
Susa when the Naxians came. Now these Naxians
had in times past been bond-friends of Histiaeus;
and so on their arrival at Miletus they addressed
themselves to Aristagoras and begged him to lend
them such aid as his ability allowed, in hopes
thereby to recover their country. Then
Aristagoras, considering with himself that, if the
Naxians should be restored by his help, he would
be lord of Naxos, put forward the friendship with
Histiaeus to cloak his views, and spoke as fol-
lows:-

“I cannot engage to furnish you with such a
power as were needful to force you, against their
will, upon the Naxians who hold the city; for I
know they can bring into the field eight thousand
bucklers, and have also a vast number of ships of

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war. But I will do all that lies in my power to get
you some aid, and I think I can manage it in this
way. Artaphernes happens to be my friend. Now
he is a son of Hystaspes, and brother to King
Darius. All the sea-coast of Asia is under him, and
he has a numerous army and numerous ships. I
think I can prevail on him to do what we
require.”

When the Naxians heard this, they empowered
Aristagoras to manage the matter for them as well
as he could, and told him to promise gifts and pay
for the soldiers, which (they said) they would
readily furnish, since they had great hope that the
Naxians, so soon as they saw them returned,
would render them obedience, and likewise the
other islanders. For at that time not one of the
Cyclades was subject to King Darius.

So Aristagoras went to Sardis and told
Artaphernes that Naxos was an island of no great
size, but a fair land and fertile, lying near Ionia,
and containing much treasure and a vast number
of slaves. “Make war then upon this land (he

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said) and reinstate the exiles; for if thou wilt do
this, first of all, I have very rich gifts in store for
thee (besides the cost of the armament, which it is
fair that we who are the authors of the war
should pay); and, secondly, thou wilt bring under
the power of the king not only Naxos but the
other islands which depend on it, as Paros,
Andros, and all the rest of the Cyclades. And
when thou hast gained these, thou mayest easily
go on against Euboea, which is a large and
wealthy island not less in size than Cyprus, and
very easy to bring under. A hundred ships were
quite enough to subdue the whole.” The other
answered- “Truly thou art the author of a plan
which may much advantage the house of the king,
and thy counsel is good in all points except the
number of the ships. Instead of a hundred, two
hundred shall be at thy disposal when the spring
comes. But the king himself must first approve the
undertaking.”

When Aristagoras heard this he was greatly
rejoiced, and went home in good heart to Miletus.
And Artaphernes, after he had sent a messenger to

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Susa to lay the plans of Aristagoras before the
king, and received his approval of the undertak-
ing, made ready a fleet of two hundred triremes
and a vast army of Persians and their confeder-
ates. The command of these he gave to a Persian
named Megabates, who belonged to the house of
the Achaemenids, being nephew both to himself
and to King Darius. It was to a daughter of this
man that Pausanias the Lacedaemonian, the son
of Cleombrotus (if at least there be any truth in
the tale), was allianced many years afterwards,
when he conceived the desire of becoming tyrant
of Greece. Artaphernes now, having named
Megabates to the command, sent forward the
armament to Aristagoras.

Megabates set sail, and, touching at Miletus,
took on board Aristagoras with the Ionian troops
and the Naxians; after which he steered, as he
gave out, for the Hellespont; and when he
reached Chios, he brought the fleet to anchor off
Caucasa, being minded to wait there for a north
wind, and then sail straight to Naxos. The

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Naxians however were not to perish at this time;
and so the following events were brought about.
As Megabates went his rounds to visit the watch-
es on board the ships, he found a Myndian vessel
upon which there was none set. Full of anger at
such carelessness, he bade his guards to seek out
the captain, one Scylax by name, and thrusting
him through one of the holes in the ship’s side, to
fasten him there in such a way that his head
might show outside the vessel, while his body
remained within. When Scylax was thus fastened,
one went and informed Aristagoras that
Megabates had bound his Myndian friend and
was entreating him shamefully. So he came and
asked Megabates to let the man off; but the
Persian refused him; whereupon Aristagoras
went himself and set Scylax free. When
Megabates heard this he was still more angry
than before, and spoke hotly to Aristagoras.
Then the latter said to him-

“What has thou to do with these matters? Wert
thou not sent here by Artaphernes to obey me,

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and to sail whithersoever I ordered? Why dost
meddle so?

Thus spake Aristagoras. The other, in high dud-
geon at such language, waited till the night, and
then despatched a boat to Naxos, to warn the
Naxians of the coming danger.

Now the Naxians up to this time had not had any
suspicion that the armament was directed against
them; as soon, therefore, as the message reached
them, forthwith they brought within their walls
all that they had in the open field, and made
themselves ready against a siege by provisioning
their town both with food and drink. Thus was
Naxos placed in a posture of defence; and the
Persians, when they crossed the sea from Chios,
found the Naxians fully prepared for them.
However they sat down before the place, and
besieged it for four whole months. When at length
all the stores which they had brought with them
were exhausted, and Aristagoras had likewise
spent upon the siege no small sum from his pri-
vate means, and more was still needed to insure

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success, the Persians gave up the attempt, and first
building certain forts, wherein they left the ban-
ished Naxians, withdrew to the mainland, having
utterly failed in their undertaking.

And now Aristagoras found himself quite unable
to make good his promises to Artaphernes; nay,
he was even hard pressed to meet the claims
whereto he was liable for the pay of the troops;
and at the same time his fear was great, lest,
owing to the failure of the expedition and his own
quarrel with Megabates, he should be ousted
from the government of Miletus. These manifold
alarms had already caused him to contemplate
raising a rebellion, when the man with the
marked head came from Susa, bringing him
instructions on the part of Histiaeus to revolt
from the king. For Histiaeus, when he was anx-
ious to give Aristagoras orders to revolt, could
find but one safe way, as the roads were guarded,
of making his wishes known; which was by tak-
ing the trustiest of his slaves, shaving all the hair
from off his head, and then pricking letters upon
the skin, and waiting till the hair grew again.

Herodotus

Thus accordingly he did; and as soon as ever the
hair was grown, he despatched the man to
Miletus, giving him no other message than this-
“When thou art come to Miletus, bid Aristagoras
shave thy head, and look thereon.” Now the
marks on the head, as I have already mentioned,
were a command to revolt. All this Histiaeus did
because it irked him greatly to be kept at Susa,
and because he had strong hopes that, if troubles
broke out, he would be sent down to the coast to
quell them, whereas, if Miletus made no move-
ment, he did not see a chance of his ever again
returning thither.

Such, then, were the views which led Histiaeus to
despatch his messenger; and it so chanced that all
these several motives to revolt were brought to
bear upon Aristagoras at one and the same time.

Accordingly, at this conjuncture Aristagoras held
a council of his trusty friends, and laid the busi-
ness before them, telling them both what he had
himself purposed, and what message had been
sent him by Histiaeus. At this council all his

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friends were of the same way of thinking, and rec-
ommended revolt, except only Hecataeus the his-
torian. He, first of all, advised them by all means
to avoid engaging in war with the king of the
Persians, whose might he set forth, and whose
subject nations he enumerated. As however he
could not induce them to listen to this counsel, he
next advised that they should do all that lay in
their power to make themselves masters of the
sea. “There was one only way,” he said, “so far as
he could see, of their succeeding in this. Miletus
was, he knew, a weak state- but if the treasures in
the temple at Branchidae, which Croesus the
Lydian gave to it, were seized, he had strong
hopes that the mastery of the sea might be there-
by gained; at least it would give them money to
begin the war, and would save the treasures from
falling into the hands of the enemy.” Now these
treasures were of very great value, as I showed in
the first part of my History. The assembly, how-
ever, rejected the counsel of Hecataeus, while,
nevertheless, they resolved upon a revolt. One of
their number, it was agreed, should sail to Myus,
where the fleet had been lying since its return

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from Naxos, and endeavour to seize the captains
who had gone there with the vessels.

Iatragoras accordingly was despatched on this
errand, and he took with guile Oliatus the son of
Ibanolis the Mylassian, and Histiaeus the son of
Tymnes the Termerean-Coes likewise, the son of
Erxander, to whom Darius gave Mytilene, and
Aristagoras the son of Heraclides the Cymaean,
and also many others. Thus Aristagoras revolted
openly from Darius; and now he set to work to
scheme against him in every possible way. First of
all, in order to induce the Milesians to join hearti-
ly in the revolt, he gave out that he laid down his
own lordship over Miletus, and in lieu thereof
established a commonwealth: after which,
throughout all Ionia he did the like; for from
some of the cities he drove out their tyrants, and
to others, whose goodwill he hoped thereby to
gain, he handed theirs over, thus giving up all the
men whom he had seized at the Naxian fleet, each
to the city whereto he belonged.

Now the Mytileneans had no sooner got Coes
into their power, than they led him forth from the

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city and stoned him; the Cymaeans, on the other
hand, allowed their tyrant to go free; as likewise
did most of the others. And so this form of gov-
ernment ceased throughout all the cities.
Aristagoras the Milesian, after he had in this way
put down the tyrants, and bidden the cities choose
themselves captains in their room, sailed away
himself on board a trireme to Lacedaemon; for he
had great need of obtaining the aid of some pow-
erful ally.

At Sparta, Anaxandridas the son of Leo was no
longer king: he had died, and his son Cleomenes
had mounted the throne, not however by right of
merit, but of birth. Anaxandridas took to wife his
own sister’s daughter, and was tenderly attached
to her; but no children came from the marriage.
Hereupon the Ephors called him before them, and
said- “If thou hast no care for thine own self, nev-
ertheless we cannot allow this, nor suffer the race
of Eurysthenes to die out from among us. Come
then, as thy present wife bears thee no children,
put her away, and wed another. So wilt thou do
what is well-pleasing to the Spartans.”
Anaxandridas however refused to do as they

Herodotus

required, and said it was no good advice the
Ephors gave, to bid him put away his wife when
she had done no wrong, and take to himself
another. He therefore declined to obey them.

Then the Ephors and Elders took counsel togeth-
er, and laid this proposal before the king:- “Since
thou art so fond, as we see thee to be, of thy pre-
sent wife, do what we now advise, and gainsay us
not, lest the Spartans make some unwonted
decree concerning thee. We ask thee not now to
put away thy wife to whom thou art married- give
her still the same love and honour as ever- but
take thee another wife beside, who may bear thee
children.”

When he heard this offer, Anaxandridas gave way-
and henceforth he lived with two wives in two sep-
arate houses, quite against all Spartan custom.

In a short time, the wife whom he had last mar-
ried bore him a son, who received the name of
Cleomenes; and so the heir to the throne was
brought into the world by her. After this, the

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first wife also, who in time past had been barren,
by some strange chance conceived, and came to
be with child. Then the friends of the second
wife, when they heard a rumour of the truth,
made a great stir, and said it was a false boast,
and she meant, they were sure, to bring forward
as her own a supposititious child. So they raised
an outcry against her; and therefore, when her
full time was come, the Ephors, who were them-
selves incredulous, sat round her bed, and kept a
strict watch on the labour. At this time then she
bore Dorieus, and after him, quickly, Leonidas,
and after him, again quickly, Cleombrotus. Some
even say that Leonidas and Cleombrotus were
twins. On the other hand, the second wife, the
mother of Cleomenes (who was a daughter of
Prinetadas, the son of Demarmenus), never gave
birth to a second child.

Now Cleomenes, it is said, was not right in his
mind; indeed he verged upon madness; while
Dorieus surpassed all his co-mates, and looked
confidently to receiving the kingdom on the score
of merit. When, therefore, after the death of

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Anaxandridas, the Spartans kept to the law, and
made Cleomenes, his eldest son, king in his room,
Dorieus, who had imagined that he should be
chosen, and who could not bear the thought of
having such a man as Cleomenes to rule over him,
asked the Spartans to give him a body of men,
and left Sparta with them in order to found a
colony. However, he neither took counsel of the
oracle at Delphi as to the place whereto he should
go, nor observed any of the customary usages; but
left Sparta in dudgeon, and sailed away to Libya,
under the guidance of certain men who were
Theraeans. These men brought him to Cinyps,
where he colonised a spot, which has not its equal
in all Libya, on the banks of a river: but from this
place he was driven in the third year by the
Macians, the Libyans, and the Carthaginians.

Dorieus returned to the Peloponnese; whereupon
Antichares the Eleonian gave him a counsel
(which he got from the oracle of Laius), to “found
the city of Heraclea in Sicily; the whole country of
Eryx belonged,” he said, “to the Heracleids, since

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Hercules himself conquered it.” On receiving this
advice, Dorieus went to Delphi to inquire of the
oracle whether he would take the place to which
he was about to go. The Pythoness prophesied
that he would; whereupon Dorieus went back to
Libya, took up the men who had sailed with him
at the first, and proceeded upon his way along the
shores of Italy.

Just at this time, the Sybarites say, they and their
king Telys were about to make war upon
Crotona, and the Crotoniats, greatly alarmed,
besought Dorieus to lend them aid. Dorieus was
prevailed upon, bore part in the war against
Sybaris, and had a share in taking the town. Such
is the account which the Sybarites give of what
was done by Dorieus and his companions. The
Crotoniats, on the other hand, maintain that no
foreigner lent them aid in their war against the
Sybarites, save and except Callias the Elean, a
soothsayer of the race of the Iamidae; and he only
forsook Telys the Sybaritic king, and deserted to
their side, when he found on sacrificing that the

Herodotus

victims were not favourable to an attack on
Crotona. Such is the account which each party
gives of these matters.

Both parties likewise adduce testimonies to the
truth of what they say. The Sybarites show a tem-
ple and sacred precinct near the dry stream of the
Crastis, which they declare that Dorieus, after
taking their city, dedicated to Minerva Crastias.
And further, they bring forward the death of
Dorieus as the surest proof; since he fell, they say,
because he disobeyed the oracle. For had he in
nothing varied from the directions given him, but
confined himself to the business on which he was
sent, he would assuredly have conquered the
Erycian territory, and kept possession of it,
instead of perishing with all his followers. The
Crotoniats, on the other hand, point to the
numerous allotments within their borders which
were assigned to Callias the Elean by their coun-
trymen, and which to my day remained in the
possession of his family; while Dorieus and his
descendants (they remark) possess nothing. Yet if

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Dorieus had really helped them in the Sybaritic
war, he would have received very much more than
Callias. Such are the testimonies which are
adduced on either side; it is open to every man to
adopt whichever view he deems the best.

Certain Spartans accompanied Dorieus on his
voyage as co-founders, to wit, Thessalus,
Paraebates, Celeas, and Euryleon. These men and
all the troops under their command reached
Sicily; but there they fell in a battle wherein they
were defeated by the Egestaeans and Phoenicians,
only one, Euryleon, surviving the disaster. He
then, collecting the remnants of the beaten army,
made himself master of Minoa, the Selinusian
colony, and helped the Selinusians to throw off
the yoke of their tyrant Peithagoras. Having upset
Peithagoras, he sought to become tyrant in his
room, and he even reigned at Selinus for a brief
space- but after a while the Selinusians rose up in
revolt against him, and though he fled to the altar
of Jupiter Agoraeus, they notwithstanding put
him to death.

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Another man who accompanied Dorieus, and
died with him, was Philip the son of Butacidas, a
man of Crotona; who, after he had been
betrothed to a daughter of Telys the Sybarite, was
banished from Crotona, whereupon his marriage
came to nought; and he in his disappointment
took ship and sailed to Cyrene. From thence he
became a follower of Dorieus, furnishing to the
fleet a trireme of his own, the crew of which he
supported at his own charge. This Philip was an
Olympian victor, and the handsomest Greek of
his day. His beauty gained him honours at the
hands of the Egestaeans which they never accord-
ed to any one else; for they raised a hero-temple
over his grave, and they still worship him with
sacrifices.

Such then was the end of Dorieus, who if he had
brooked the rule of Cleomenes, and remained in
Sparta, would have been king of Lacedaemon;
since Cleomenes, after reigning no great length of
time, died without male offspring, leaving behind
him an only daughter, by name Gorgo.

The Histories–Book Five

Cleomenes, however, was still king when
Aristagoras, tyrant of Miletus, reached Sparta. At
their interview, Aristagoras, according to the
report of the Lacedaemonians, produced a bronze
tablet, whereupon the whole circuit of the earth
was engraved, with all its seas and rivers.
Discourse began between the two; and
Aristagoras addressed the Spartan king in these
words following:- “Think it not strange, O King
Cleomenes, that I have been at the pains to sail
hither; for the posture of affairs, which I will now
recount unto thee, made it fitting. Shame and
grief is it indeed to none so much as to us, that the
sons of the Ionians should have lost their free-
dom, and come to be the slaves of others; but yet
it touches you likewise, O Spartans, beyond the
rest of the Greeks, inasmuch as the pre-eminence
over all Greece appertains to you. We beseech
you, therefore, by the common gods of the
Grecians, deliver the Ionians, who are your own
kinsmen, from slavery. Truly the task is not diffi-
cult; for the barbarians are an unwarlike people;
and you are the best and bravest warriors in the

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whole world. Their mode of fighting is the fol-
lowing:- they use bows and arrows and a short
spear; they wear trousers in the field, and cover
their heads with turbans. So easy are they to van-
quish! Know too that the dwellers in these parts
have more good things than all the rest of the
world put together- gold, and silver, and brass,
and embroidered garments, beasts of burthen,
and bond-servants- all which, if you only wish it,
you may soon have for your own. The nations
border on one another, in the order which I will
now explain. Next to these Ionians” (here he
pointed with his finger to the map of the world
which was engraved upon the tablet that he had
brought with him) “these Lydians dwell; their soil
is fertile, and few people are so rich in silver. Next
to them,” he continued, “come these Phrygians,
who have more flocks and herds than any race
that I know, and more plentiful harvests. On them
border the Cappadocians, whom we Greeks
know by the name of Syrians: they are neighbours
to the Cilicians, who extend all the way to this
sea, where Cyprus (the island which you see here)
lies. The Cilicians pay the king a yearly tribute of

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five hundred talents. Next to them come the
Armenians, who live here- they too have numer-
ous flocks and herds. After them come the
Matieni, inhabiting this country; then Cissia, this
province, where you see the river Choaspes
marked, and likewise the town Susa upon its
banks, where the Great King holds his court, and
where the treasuries are in which his wealth is
stored. Once masters of this city, you may be bold
to vie with Jove himself for riches. In the wars
which ye wage with your rivals of Messenia, with
them of Argos likewise and of Arcadia, about pal-
try boundaries and strips of land not so remark-
ably good, ye contend with those who have no
gold, nor silver even, which often give men heart
to fight and die. Must ye wage such wars, and
when ye might so easily be lords of Asia, will ye
decide otherwise?” Thus spoke Aristagoras; and
Cleomenes replied to him,- “Milesian stranger,
three days hence I will give thee an answer.”

So they proceeded no further at that time. When,
however, the day appointed for the answer came,
and the two once more met, Cleomenes asked

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Aristagoras, “how many days’ journey it was
from the sea of the Ionians to the king’s resi-
dence?” Hereupon Aristagoras, who had man-
aged the rest so cleverly, and succeeded in deceiv-
ing the king, tripped in his speech and blundered;
for instead of concealing the truth, as he ought to
have done if he wanted to induce the Spartans to
cross into Asia, he said plainly that it was a jour-
ney of three months. Cleomenes caught at the
words, and, preventing Aristagoras from finishing
what he had begun to say concerning the road,
addressed him thus:- “Milesian stranger, quit
Sparta before sunset. This is no good proposal
that thou makest to the Lacedaemonians, to con-
duct them a distance of three months’ journey
from the sea.” When he had thus spoken,
Cleomenes went to his home.

But Aristagoras took an olive-bough in his hand,
and hastened to the king’s house, where he was
admitted by reason of his suppliant’s pliant’s
guise. Gorgo, the daughter of Cleomenes, and his
only child, a girl of about eight or nine years of
age, happened to be there, standing by her father’s

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side. Aristagoras, seeing her, requested Cleomenes
to send her out of the room before he began to
speak with him; but Cleomenes told him to say
on, and not mind the child. So Aristagoras began
with a promise of ten talents if the king would
grant him his request, and when Cleomenes
shook his head, continued to raise his offer till it
reached fifty talents; whereupon the child spoke:-
“Father,” she said, “get up and go, or the stranger
will certainly corrupt thee.” Then Cleomenes,
pleased at the warning of his child, withdrew and
went into another room. Aristagoras quitted
Sparta for good, not being able to discourse any
more concerning the road which led up to the
king.

Now the true account of the road in question is
the following:- Royal stations exist along its
whole length, and excellent caravanserais; and
throughout, it traverses an inhabited tract, and is
free from danger. In Lydia and Phrygia there are
twenty stations within a distance Of 94 1/2
parasangs. On leaving Phrygia the Halys has to be
crossed; and here are gates through which you

Herodotus

must needs pass ere you can traverse the stream.
A strong force guards this post. When you have
made the passage, and are come into Cappadocia,
28 stations and 104 parasangs bring you to the
borders of Cilicia, where the road passes through
two sets of gates, at each of which there is a guard
posted. Leaving these behind, you go on through
Cilicia, where you find three stations in a distance
of 15 1/2 parasangs. The boundary between
Cilicia and Armenia is the river Euphrates, which
it is necessary to cross in boats. In Armenia the
resting-places are 15 in number, and the distance
is 56 1/2 parasangs. There is one place where a
guard is posted. Four large streams intersect this
district, all of which have to be crossed by means
of boats. The first of these is the Tigris; the second
and the third have both of them the same name,
though they are not only different rivers, but do
not even run from the same place. For the one
which I have called the first of the two has its
source in Armenia, while the other flows after-
wards out of the country of the Matienians. The
fourth of the streams is called the Gyndes, and
this is the river which Cyrus dispersed by digging

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for it three hundred and sixty channels. Leaving
Armenia and entering the Matienian country, you
have four stations; these passed you find yourself
in Cissia, where eleven stations and 42 1/2
parasangs bring you to another navigable stream,
the Choaspes, on the banks of which the city of
Susa is built. Thus the entire number of the sta-
tions is raised to one hundred and eleven; and so
many are in fact the resting-places that one finds
between Sardis and Susa.

If then the royal road be measured aright, and the
parasang equals, as it does, thirty furlongs, the
whole distance from Sardis to the palace of
Memnon (as it is called), amounting thus to 450
parasangs, would be 13,500 furlongs. Travelling
then at the rate of 150 furlongs a day, one will
take exactly ninety days to perform the journey.

Thus when Aristagoras the Milesian told
Cleomenes the Lacedaemonian that it was a three
months’ journey from the sea up to the king, he
said no more than the truth. The exact distance (if
any one desires still greater accuracy) is somewhat

Herodotus

more; for the journey from Ephesus to Sardis
must be added to the foregoing account; and this
will make the whole distance between the Greek
Sea and Susa (or the city of Memnon, as it is
called) 14,040 furlongs; since Ephesus is distant
from Sardis 540 furlongs. This would add three
days to the three months’ journey.

When Aristagoras left Sparta he hastened to
Athens, which had got quit of its tyrants in the
way that I will now describe. After the death of
Hipparchus (the son of Pisistratus, and brother of
the tyrant Hippias), who, in spite of the clear
warning he had received concerning his fate in a
dream, was slain by Harmodius and Aristogeiton
(men both of the race of the Gephyraeans), the
oppression of the Athenians continued by the
space of four years; and they gained nothing, but
were worse used than before.

Now the dream of Hipparchus was the follow-
ing:- The night before the Panathenaic festival, he
thought he saw in his sleep a tall and beautiful

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man, who stood over him, and read him the fol-
lowing riddle:-

Bear thou unbearable woes with the all-bearing

heart of a lion;

Never, be sure, shall wrong-doer escape the

reward of wrong-doing.

As soon as day dawned he sent and submitted his
dream to the interpreters, after which he offered
the averting sacrifices, and then went and led the
procession in which he perished.

The family of the Gephyraeans, to which the mur-
derers of Hipparchus belonged, according to their
own account, came originally from Eretria. My
inquiries, however, have made it clear to me that
they are in reality Phoenicians, descendants of
those who came with Cadmus into the country
now called Boeotia. Here they received for their
portion the district of Tanagra, in which they
afterwards dwelt. On their expulsion from this
country by the Boeotians (which happened some

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time after that of the Cadmeians from the same
parts by the Argives) they took refuge at Athens.
The Athenians received them among their citizens
upon set terms, whereby they were excluded from
a number of privileges which are not worth men-
tioning.

Now the Phoenicians who came with Cadmus,
and to whom the Gephyraei belonged, introduced
into Greece upon their arrival a great variety of
arts, among the rest that of writing, whereof the
Greeks till then had, as I think, been ignorant.
And originally they shaped their letters exactly
like all the other Phoenicians, but afterwards, in
course of time, they changed by degrees their lan-
guage, and together with it the form likewise of
their characters. Now the Greeks who dwelt
about those parts at that time were chiefly the
Ionians. The Phoenician letters were accordingly
adopted by them, but with some variation in the
shape of a few, and so they arrived at the present
use, still calling the letters Phoenician, as justice
required, after the name of those who were the
first to introduce them into Greece. Paper rolls

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also were called from of old “parchments” by the
Ionians, because formerly when paper was scarce
they used, instead, the skins of sheep and goats-
on which material many of the barbarians are
even now wont to write.

I myself saw Cadmeian characters engraved upon
some tripods in the temple of Apollo Ismenias in
Boeotian Thebes, most of them shaped like the
Ionian. One of the tripods has the inscription fol-
lowing:-

Me did Amphitryon place, from the far

Teleboans coming.

This would be about the age of Laius, the son of
Labdacus, the son of Polydorus, the son of
Cadmus. Another of the tripods has this legend in
the hexameter measure:-

I to far-shooting Phoebus was offered by Scaeus

the boxer,

When he had won at the games- a wondrous

beautiful offering.

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This might be Scaeus, the son of Hippocoon; and
the tripod, if dedicated by him, and not by anoth-
er of the same name, would belong to the time of
Oedipus, the son of Laius.

The third tripod has also an inscription in hexa-
meters, which runs thus:-

King Laodamas gave this tripod to far-seeing

Phoebus,

When he was set on the throne- a wondrous

beautiful offering.

It was in the reign of this Laodamas, the son of
Eteocles, that the Cadmeians were driven by the
Argives out of their country, and found a shelter
with the Encheleans. The Gephyraeans at that
time remained in the country, but afterwards they
retired before the Boeotians, and took refuge at
Athens, where they have a number of temples for
their separate use, which the other Athenians are
not allowed to enter- among the rest, one of
Achaean Ceres, in whose honour they likewise
celebrate special orgies.

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Having thus related the dream which Hipparchus
saw, and traced the descent of the Gephyraeans,
the family whereto his murderers belonged, I
must proceed with the matter whereof I was
intending before to speak; to wit, the way in
which the Athenians got quit of their tyrants.
Upon the death of Hipparchus, Hippias, who was
king, grew harsh towards the Athenians; and the
Alcaeonidae, an Athenian family which had been
banished by the Pisistratidae, joined the other
exiles, and endeavoured to procure their own
return, and to free Athens, by force. They seized
and fortified Leipsydrium above Paeonia, and
tried to gain their object by arms; but great disas-
ters befell them, and their purpose remained
unaccomplished. They therefore resolved to
shrink from no contrivance that might bring them
success; and accordingly they contracted with the
Amphictyons to build the temple which now
stands at Delphi, but which in those days did not
exist. Having done this, they proceeded, being
men of great wealth and members of an ancient
and distinguished family, to build the temple
much more magnificently than the plan obliged

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them. Besides other improvements, instead of the
coarse stone whereof by the contract the temple
was to have been constructed, they made the fac-
ings of Parian marble.

These same men, if we may believe the Athenians,
during their stay at Delphi persuaded the
Pythoness by a bribe to tell the Spartans, whenev-
er any of them came to consult the oracle, either
on their own private affairs or on the business of
the state, that they must free Athens. So the
Lacedaemonians, when they found no answer
ever returned to them but this, sent at last
Anchimolius, the son of Aster- a man of note
among their citizens- at the head of an army
against Athens, with orders to drive out the
Pisistratidae, albeit they were bound to them by
the closest ties of friendship. For they esteemed
the things of heaven more highly than the things
of men. The troops went by sea and were con-
veyed in transports. Anchimolius brought them to
an anchorage at Phalerum; and there the men dis-
embarked. But the Pisistratidae, who had previ-
ous knowledge of their intentions, had sent to

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Thessaly, between which country and Athens
there was an alliance, with a request for aid. The
Thessalians, in reply to their entreaties, sent them
by a public vote 1000 horsemen, under the com-
mand of their king, Cineas, who was a Coniaean.
When this help came, the Pisistratidae laid their
plan accordingly: they cleared the whole plain
about Phalerum so as to make it fit for the move-
ments of cavalry, and then charged the enemy’s
camp with their horse, which fell with such fury
upon the Lacedaemonians as to kill numbers,
among the rest Anchimolius, the general, and to
drive the remainder to their ships. Such was the
fate of the first army sent from Lacedaemon, and
the tomb of Anchimolius may be seen to this day
in Attica; it is at Alopecae (Foxtown), near the
temple of Hercules in Cynosargos.

Afterwards, the Lacedaemonians despatched a
larger force against Athens, which they put under
the command of Cleomenes, son of
Anaxandridas, one of their kings. These troops
were not sent by sea, but marched by the main-
land. When they were come into Attica, their first

Herodotus

encounter was with the Thessalian horse, which
they shortly put to flight, killing above forty men;
the remainder made good their escape, and fled
straight to Thessaly. Cleomenes proceeded to the
city, and, with the aid of such of the Athenians as
wished for freedom, besieged the tyrants, who
had shut themselves up in the Pelasgic fortress.

And now there had been small chance of the
Pisistratidae falling into the hands of the
Spartans, who did not even design to sit down
before the place, which had moreover been well
provisioned beforehand with stores both of meat
and drink,- nay, it is likely that after a few days’
blockade the Lacedaemonians would have quitted
Attica altogether, and gone back to Sparta- had
not an event occurred most unlucky for the
besieged, and most advantageous for the
besiegers. The children of the Pisistratidae were
made prisoners, as they were being removed out
of the country. By this calamity all their plans
were deranged, and-as the ransom of their chil-
dren- they consented to the demands of the
Athenians, and agreed within five days’ time to

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quit Attica. Accordingly they soon afterwards left
the country, and withdrew to Sigeum on the
Scamander, after reigning thirty-six years over the
Athenians. By descent they were Pylians, of the
family of the Neleids, to which Codrus and
Melanthus likewise belonged, men who in former
times from foreign settlers became kings of
Athens. And hence it was that Hippocrates came
to think of calling his son Pisistratus: he named
him after the Pisistratus who was a son of Nestor.
Such then was the mode in which the Athenians
got quit of their tyrants. What they did and suf-
fered worthy of note from the time when they
gained their freedom until the revolt of Ionia from
King Darius, and the coming of Aristagoras to
Athens with a request that the Athenians would
lend the Ionians aid, I shall now proceed to relate.

The power of Athens had been great before; but,
now that the tyrants were gone, it became greater
than ever. The chief authority was lodged with
two persons, Clisthenes, of the family of the
Alcmaeonids, who is said to have been the per-
suader of the Pythoness, and Isagoras, the son of

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Tisander, who belonged to a noble house, but
whose pedigree I am not able to trace further.
Howbeit his kinsmen offer sacrifice to the Carian
Jupiter. These two men strove together for the
mastery; and Clisthenes, finding himself the
weaker, called to his aid the common people.
Hereupon, instead of the four tribes among which
the Athenians had been divided hitherto,
Clisthenes made ten tribes, and parcelled out the
Athenians among them. He likewise changed the
names of the tribes; for whereas they had till now
been called after Geleon, Aegicores, Argades, and
Hoples, the four sons of Ion, Clisthenes set these
names aside, and called his tribes after certain
other heroes, all of whom were native, except
Ajax. Ajax was associated because, although a
foreigner, he was a neighbour and an ally of
Athens.

My belief is that in acting thus he did but imitate
his maternal grandfather, Clisthenes, king of
Sicyon. This king, when he was at war with
Argos, put an end to the contests of the rhap-
sodists at Sicyon, because in the Homeric poems

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Argos and the Argives were so constantly the
theme of song. He likewise conceived the wish to
drive Adrastus, the son of Talaus, out of his coun-
try, seeing that he was an Argive hero. For
Adrastus had a shrine at Sicyon, which yet stands
in the market-place of the town. Clisthenes there-
fore went to Delphi, and asked the oracle if he
might expel Adrastus. To this the Pythoness is
reported to have answered- “Adrastus is the
Sicyonians’ king, but thou art only a robber.” So
when the god would not grant his request, he
went home and began to think how he might con-
trive to make Adrastus withdraw of his own
accord. After a while he hit upon a plan which he
thought would succeed. He sent envoys to Thebes
in Boeotia, and informed the Thebans that he
wished to bring Melanippus, the son of Astacus,
to Sicyon. The Thebans consenting, Clisthenes
carried Melanippus back with him, assigned him
a precinct within the government-house, and built
him a shrine there in the safest and strongest part.
The reason for his so doing (which I must not for-
bear to mention) was because Melanippus was
Adrastus’ great enemy, having slain both his

Herodotus

brother Mecistes and his son-in-law Tydeus.
Clisthenes, after assigning the precinct to
Melanippus, took away from Adrastus the sacri-
fices and festivals wherewith he had till then been
honoured, and transferred them to his adversary.
Hitherto the Sicyonians had paid extraordinary
honours to Adrastus, because the country had
belonged to Polybus, and Adrastus was Polybus’
daughter’s son; whence it came to pass that
Polybus, dying childless, left Adrastus his king-
dom. Besides other ceremonies, it had been their
wont to honour Adrastus with tragic choruses,
which they assigned to him rather than Bacchus,
on account of his calamities. Clisthenes now gave
the choruses to Bacchus, transferring to
Melanippus the rest of the sacred rites.

Such were his doings in the matter of Adrastus.
With respect to the Dorian tribes, not choosing
the Sicyonians to have the same tribes as the
Argives, he changed all the old names for new
ones; and here he took special occasion to mock
the Sicyonians, for he drew his new names from

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the words “pig,” and “ass,” adding thereto the
usual tribe-endings; only in the case of his own
tribe he did nothing of the sort, but gave them a
name drawn from his own kingly office. For he
called his own tribe the Archelai, or Rulers, while
the others he named Hyatae, or Pig-folk,
Oneatae, or Assfolk, and Choereatae, or Swine-
folk. The Sicyonians kept these names, not only
during the reign of Clisthenes, but even after his
death, by the space of sixty years: then, however,
they took counsel together, and changed to the
well-known names of Hyllaeans, Pamphylians,
and Dymanatae, taking at the same time, as a
fourth name, the title of Aegialeans, from
Aegialeus the son of Adrastus.

Thus had Clisthenes the Sicyonian done. The
Athenian Clisthenes, who was grandson by the
mother’s side of the other, and had been named
after him, resolved, from contempt (as I believe)
of the Ionians, that his tribes should not be the
same as theirs; and so followed the pattern set
him by his namesake of Sicyon. Having brought

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entirely over to his own side the common people
of Athens, whom he had before disdained, he
gave all the tribes new names, and made the num-
ber greater than formerly; instead of the four phy-
larchs he established ten; he likewise placed ten
demes in each of the tribes; and he was, now that
the common people took his part, very much
more powerful than his adversaries.

Isagoras in his turn lost ground; and therefore, to
counter-plot his enemy, he called in Cleomenes
the Lacedaemonian, who had already, at the time
when he was besieging the Pisistratidae, made a
contract of friendship with him. A charge is even
brought against Cleomenes that he was on terms
of too great familiarity with Isagoras’s wife. At
this time the first thing that he did was to send a
herald and require that Clisthenes, and a large
number of Athenians besides, whom he called
“The Accursed,” should leave Athens. This mes-
sage he sent at the suggestion of Isagoras: for in
the affair referred to, the blood-guiltiness lay on
the Alcmaeonidae and their partisans, while he
and his friends were quite clear of it.

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The way in which “The Accursed” at Athens got
their name, was the following. There was a cer-
tain Athenian called Cylon, a victor at the
Olympic Games, who aspired to the sovereignty,
and aided by a number of his companions, who
were of the same age with himself, made an
attempt to seize the citadel. But the attack failed;
and Cylon became a suppliant at the image.
Hereupon the Heads of the Naucraries, who at
that time bore rule in Athens, induced the fugi-
tives to remove by a promise to spare their lives.
Nevertheless they were all slain; and the blame
was laid on the Alcmaeonidae. All this happened
before the time of Pisistratus.

When the message of Cleomenes arrived, requir-
ing Clisthenes and “The Accursed” to quit the
city, Clisthenes departed of his own accord.
Cleomenes, however, notwithstanding his depar-
ture, came to Athens, with a small band of fol-
lowers; and on his arrival sent into banishment
seven hundred Athenian families, which were
pointed out to him by Isagoras. Succeeding here,
he next endeavoured to dissolve the council, and

Herodotus

to put the government into the hands of three
hundred of the partisans of that leader. But the
council resisted, and refused to obey his orders;
whereupon Cleomenes, Isagoras, and their fol-
lowers took possession of the citadel. Here they
were attacked by the rest of the Athenians, who
took the side of the council, and were besieged for
the space of two days: on the third day they
accepted terms, being allowed- at least such of
them as were Lacedaemonians- to quit the coun-
try. And so the word which came to Cleomenes
received its fulfilment. For when he first went up
into the citadel, meaning to seize it, just as he was
entering the sanctuary of the goddess, in order to
question her, the priestess arose from her throne,
before he had passed the doors, and said-
“Stranger from Lacedaemon, depart hence, and
presume not to enter the holy place- it is not law-
ful for a Dorian to set foot there.” But he
answered, “Oh! woman, I am not a Dorian, but
an Achaean.” Slighting this warning, Cleomenes
made his attempt, and so he was forced to retire,
together with his Lacedaemonians. The rest were

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cast into prison by the Athenians, and condemned
to die- among them Timasitheus the Delphian, of
whose prowess and courage I have great things
which I could tell.

So these men died in prison. The Athenians direct-
ly afterwards recalled Clisthenes, and the seven
hundred families which Cleomenes had driven
out; and, further, they sent envoys to Sardis, to
make an alliance with the Persians, for they knew
that war would follow with Cleomenes and the
Lacedaemonians. When the ambassadors reached
Sardis and delivered their message, Artaphernes,
son of Hystaspes, who was at that time governor
of the Place, inquired of them “who they were,
and in what part of the world they dwelt, that
they wanted to become allies of the Persians?”
The messengers told him; upon which he
answered them shortly- that “if the Athenians
chose to give earth and water to King Darius, he
would conclude an alliance with them; but if not,
they might go home again.” After consulting
together, the envoys, anxious to form the alliance,

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accepted the terms; but on their return to Athens,
they fell into deep disgrace on account of their
compliance.

Meanwhile Cleomenes, who considered himself
to have been insulted by the Athenians both in
word and deed, was drawing a force together
from all parts of the Peloponnese, without
informing any one of his object; which was to
revenge himself on the Athenians, and to establish
Isagoras, who had escaped with him from the
citadel, as despot of Athens. Accordingly, with a
large army, he invaded the district of Eleusis,
while the Boeotians, who had concerted measures
with him, took Oenoe and Hysiae, two country
towns upon the frontier; and at the same time the
Chalcideans, on another side, plundered divers
places in Attica. The Athenians, notwithstanding
that danger threatened them from every quarter,
put off all thought of the Boeotians and
Chalcideans till a future time, and marched
against the Peloponnesians, who were at Eleusis.

As the two hosts were about to engage, first of all
the Corinthians, bethinking themselves that they

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were perpetrating a wrong, changed their minds,
and drew off from the main army. Then
Demaratus, son of Ariston, who was himself king
of Sparta and joint-leader of the expedition, and
who till now had had no sort of quarrel with
Cleomenes, followed their example. On account
of this rupture between the kings, a law was
passed at Sparta, forbidding both monarchs to go
out together with the army, as had been the cus-
tom hitherto. The law also provided, that, as one
of the kings was to be left behind, one of the
Tyndaridae should also remain at home; whereas
hitherto both had accompanied the expeditions,
as auxiliaries. So when the rest of the allies saw
that the Lacedaemonian kings were not of one
mind, and that the Corinthian troops had quitted
their post, they likewise drew off and departed.

This was the fourth time that the Dorians had
invaded Attica: twice they came as enemies, and
twice they came to do good service to the
Athenian people. Their first invasion took place
at the period when they founded Megara, and is
rightly placed in the reign of Codrus at Athens;
the second and third occasions were when they

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came from Sparta to drive out the Pisistratidae;
the fourth was the present attack, when
Cleomenes, at the head of a Peloponnesian army,
entered at Eleusis. Thus the Dorians had now four
times invaded Attica.

So when the Spartan army had broken up from its
quarters thus ingloriously, the Athenians, wishing
to revenge themselves, marched first against the
Chalcideans. The Boeotians, however, advancing
to the aid of the latter as far as the Euripus, the
Athenians thought it best to attack them first. A
battle was fought accordingly; and the Athenians
gained a very complete victory, killing a vast num-
ber of the enemy, and taking seven hundred of
them alive. After this, on the very same day, they
crossed into Euboea, and engaged the
Chalcideans with the like success; whereupon
they left four thousand settlers upon the lands of
the Hippobotae,- which is the name the
Chalcideans give to their rich men. All the
Chalcidean prisoners whom they took were put in
irons, and kept for a long time in close confine-
ment, as likewise were the Boeotians, until the

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ransom asked for them was paid; and this the
Athenians fixed at two minae the man. The chains
wherewith they were fettered the Athenians sus-
pended in their citadel; where they were still to be
seen in my day, hanging against the wall scorched
by the Median flames, opposite the chapel which
faces the west. The Athenians made an offering of
the tenth part of the ransom-money: and expend-
ed it on the brazen chariot drawn by four steeds,
which stands on the left hand immediately that
one enters the gateway of the citadel. The inscrip-
tion runs as follows:-

When Chalcis and Boeotia dared her might,
Athens subdued their pride in valorous fight;
Gave bonds for insults; and, the ransom paid,
From the full tenths these steeds for Pallas made.

Thus did the Athenians increase in strength. And
it is plain enough, not from this instance only, but
from many everywhere, that freedom is an excel-
lent thing since even the Athenians, who, while
they continued under the rule of tyrants, were not
a whit more valiant than any of their neighbours,

Herodotus

no sooner shook off the yoke than they became
decidedly the first of all. These things show that,
while undergoing oppression, they let themselves
be beaten, since then they worked for a master;
but so soon as they got their freedom, each man
was eager to do the best he could for himself. So
fared it now with the Athenians.

Meanwhile the Thebans, who longed to be
revenged on the Athenians, had sent to the oracle,
and been told by the Pythoness that of their own
strength they would be unable to accomplish their
wish: “they must lay the matter,” she said,
“before the many-voiced, and ask the aid of those
nearest them.” The messengers, therefore, on
their return, called a meeting, and laid the answer
of the oracle before the people, who no sooner
heard the advice to “ask the aid of those nearest
them” than they exclaimed- “What! are not they
who dwell the nearest to us the men of Tanagra,
of Coronaea, and Thespiae? Yet these men always
fight on our side, and have aided us with a good
heart all through the war. Of what use is it to ask

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them? But maybe this is not the true meaning of
the oracle.”

As they were thus discoursing one with another, a
certain man, informed of the debate, cried out-
”Methinks that I understand what course the ora-
cle would recommend to us. Asopus, they say,
had two daughters, Thebe and Egina. The god
means that, as these two were sisters, we ought to
ask the Eginetans to lend us aid.” As no one was
able to hit on any better explanation, the Thebans
forthwith sent messengers to Egina, and, accord-
ing to the advice of the oracle, asked their aid, as
the people “nearest to them.” In answer to this
petition the Eginetans said that they would give
them the Aeacidae for helpers.

The Thebans now, relying on the assistance of the
Aeacidae, ventured to renew the war; but they
met with so rough a reception, that they resolved
to send to the Eginetans again, returning the
Aeacidae, and beseeching them to send some men
instead. The Eginetans, who were at that time a

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most flourishing people, elated with their great-
ness, and at the same time calling to mind their
ancient feud with Athens, agreed to lend the
Thebans aid, and forthwith went to war with the
Athenians, without even giving them notice by a
herald. The attention of these latter being engaged
by the struggle with the Boeotians, the Eginetans
in their ships of war made descents upon Attica,
plundered Phalerum, and ravaged a vast number
of the townships upon the sea-board, whereby the
Athenians suffered very grievous damage.

The ancient feud between the Eginetans and
Athenians arose out of the following circum-
stances. Once upon a time the land of Epidaurus
would bear no crops; and the Epidaurians sent to
consult the oracle of Delphi concerning their
affliction. The answer bade them set up the
images of Damia and Auxesia, and promised
them better fortune when that should be done.
“Shall the images be made of bronze or stone?”
the Epidaurians asked; but the Pythoness replied,
“Of neither: but let them be made of the garden
olive.” Then the Epidaurians sent to Athens and

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asked leave to cut olive wood in Attica, believing
the Athenian olives to be the holiest; or, according
to others, because there were no olives at that
time anywhere else in all the world but at Athens.’
The Athenians answered that they would give
them leave, but on condition of their bringing
offerings year by year to Minerva Polias and to
Erechtheus. The Epidaurians agreed, and having
obtained what they wanted, made the images of
olive wood, and set them up in their own country.
Henceforth their land bore its crops; and they
duly paid the Athenians what had been agreed
upon.

Anciently, and even down to the time when this
took place, the Eginetans were in all things sub-
ject to the Epidaurians, and had to cross over to
Epidaurus for the trial of all suits in which they
were engaged one with another. After this, how-
ever, the Eginetans built themselves ships, and,
growing proud, revolted from the Epidaurians.
Having thus come to be at enmity with them, the
Eginetans, who were masters of the sea, ravaged
Epidaurus, and even carried off these very images

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of Damia and Auxesia, which they set up in their
own country, in the interior, at a place called Oea,
about twenty furlongs from their city. This done,
they fixed a worship for the images, which con-
sisted in part of sacrifices, in part of female satir-
ic choruses; while at the same time they appoint-
ed certain men to furnish the choruses, ten for
each goddess. These choruses did not abuse men,
but only the women of the country. Holy orgies of
a similar kind were in use also among the
Epidaurians, and likewise another sort of holy
orgies, whereof it is not lawful to speak.

After the robbery of the images the Epidaurians
ceased to make the stipulated payments to the
Athenians, wherefore the Athenians sent to
Epidaurus to remonstrate. But the Epidaurians
proved to them that they were not guilty of any
wrong:-”While the images continued in their
country,” they said, “they had duly paid the offer-
ings according to the agreement; now that the
images had been taken from them, they were no
longer under any obligation to pay: the Athenians

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should make their demand of the Eginetans, in
whose possession the figures now were.” Upon
this the Athenians sent to Egina, and demanded
the images back; but the Eginetans answered that
the Athenians had nothing whatever to do with
them.

After this the Athenians relate that they sent a
trireme to Egina with certain citizens on board,
and that these men, who bore commission from
the state, landed in Egina, and sought to take the
images away, considering them to be their own,
inasmuch as they were made of their wood. And
first they endeavoured to wrench them from their
pedestals, and so carry them off; but failing here-
in, they in the next place tied ropes to them, and
set to work to try if they could haul them down.
In the midst of their hauling suddenly there was a
thunderclap, and with the thunderclap an earth-
quake; and the crew of the trireme were forthwith
seized with madness, and, like enemies, began to
kill one another; until at last there was but one
left, who returned alone to Phalerum.

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Such is the account given by the Athenians. The
Eginetans deny that there was only a single vessel-
“Had there been only one,” they say, “or no more
than a few, they would easily have repulsed the
attack, even if they had had no fleet at all; but the
Athenians came against them with a large number
of ships, wherefore they gave way, and did not
hazard a battle.” They do not however explain
clearly whether it was from a conviction of their
own inferiority at sea that they yielded, or
whether it was for the purpose of doing that
which in fact they did. Their account is that the
Athenians, disembarking from their ships, when
they found that no resistance was offered, made
for the statues, and failing to wrench them from
their pedestals, tied ropes to them and began to
haul. Then, they say- and some people will per-
haps believe them, though I for my part do not-
the two statues, as they were being dragged and
hauled, fell down both upon their knees; in which
attitude they still remain. Such, according to
them, was the conduct of the Athenians; they
meanwhile, having learnt beforehand what was
intended, had prevailed on the Argives to hold

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themselves in readiness; and the Athenians
accordingly were but just landed on their coasts
when the Argives came to their aid. Secretly and
silently they crossed over from Epidaurus, and,
before the Athenians were aware, cut off their
retreat to their ships, and fell upon them; and the
thunder came exactly at that moment, and the
earthquake with it.

The Argives and the Eginetans both agree in giv-
ing this account; and the Athenians themselves
acknowledge that but one of their men returned
alive to Attica. According to the Argives, he
escaped from the battle in which the rest of the
Athenian troops were destroyed by them.
According to the Athenians, it was the god who
destroyed their troops; and even this one man did
not escape, for he perished in the following man-
ner. When he came back to Athens, bringing word
of the calamity, the wives of those who had been
sent out on the expedition took it sorely to heart
that he alone should have survived the slaughter
of all the rest;- they therefore crowded round the
man, and struck him with the brooches by which

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their dresses were fastened each, as she struck,
asking him where he had left her husband. And
the man died in this way. The Athenians thought
the deed of the women more horrible even than
the fate of the troops; as however they did not
know how else to punish them, they changed their
dress and compelled them to wear the costume of
the Ionians. Till this time the Athenian women
had worn a Dorian dress, shaped nearly like that
which prevails at Corinth. Henceforth they were
made to wear the linen tunic, which does not
require brooches.

In very truth, however, this dress is not originally
Ionian, but Carian; for anciently the Greek
women all wore the costume which is now called
the Dorian. It is said further that the Argives and
Eginetans made it a custom, on this same account,
for their women to wear brooches half as large
again as formerly, and to offer brooches rather
than anything else in the temple of these goddess-
es. They also forbade the bringing of anything
Attic into the temple, were it even a jar of earth-
enware, and made a law that none but native

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drinking vessels should be used there in time to
come. From this early age to my own day the
Argive and Eginetan women have always contin-
ued to wear their brooches larger than formerly,
through hatred of the Athenians.

Such then was the origin of the feud which exist-
ed between the Eginetans and the Athenians.
Hence, when the Thebans made their application
for succour, the Eginetans, calling to mind the
matter of images, gladly lent their aid to the
Boeotians. They ravaged all the sea-coast of
Attica; and the Athenians were about to attack
them in return, when they were stopped by the
oracle of Delphi, which bade them wait till thirty
years had passed from the time that the Eginetans
did the wrong, and in the thirty-first year, having
first set apart a precinct for Aeacus, then to begin
the war. “So should they succeed to their wish,”
the oracle said; “but if they went to war at once,
though they would still conquer the island in the
end, yet they must go through much suffering and
much exertion before taking it.” On receiving this
warning the Athenians set apart a precinct for

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Aeacus- the same which still remains dedicated to
him in their market-place- but they could not hear
with any patience of waiting thirty years, after
they had suffered such grievous wrong at the
hands of the Eginetans.

Accordingly they were making ready to take their
revenge when a fresh stir on the part of the
Lacedaemonians hindered their projects. These
last had become aware of the truth- how that the
Alcmaeonidae had practised on the Pythoness,
and the Pythoness had schemed against them-
selves, and against the Pisistratidae; and the dis-
covery was a double grief to them, for while they
had driven their own sworn friends into exile,
they found that they had not gained thereby a
particle of good will from Athens. They were also
moved by certain prophecies, which declared that
many dire calamities should befall them at the
hands of the Athenians. Of these in times past
they had been ignorant; but now they had become
acquainted with them by means of Cleomenes,
who had brought them with him to Sparta, hav-
ing found them in the Athenian citadel, where

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they had been left by the Pisistratidae when they
were driven from Athens: they were in the temple,
and Cleomenes having discovered them, carried
them off.

So when the Lacedaemonians obtained possession
of the prophecies, and saw that the Athenians
were growing in strength, and had no mind to
acknowledge any subjection to their control, it
occurred to them that, if the people of Attica were
free, they would be likely to be as powerful as
themselves, but if they were oppressed by a tyran-
ny, they would be weak and submissive. Under
this feeling they sent and recalled Hippias, the son
of Pisistratus, from Sigeum upon the Hellespont,
where the Pisistratidae had taken shelter. Hippias
came at their bidding, and the Spartans on his
arrival summoned deputies from all their other
allies, and thus addressed the assembly:-

“Friends and brothers in arms, we are free to con-
fess that we did lately a thing which was not right.
Misled by counterfeit oracles, we drove from their
country those who were our sworn and true

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friends, and who had, moreover, engaged to keep
Athens in dependence upon us; and we delivered
the government into the hands of an unthankful
people- a people who no sooner got their freedom
by our means, and grew in power, than they
turned us and our king, with every token of
insult, out of their city. Since then they have gone
on continually raising their thoughts higher, as
their neighbours of Boeotia and Chalcis have
already discovered to their cost, and as others too
will presently discover if they shall offend them.
Having thus erred, we will endeavour now, with
your help, to remedy the evils we have caused,
and to obtain vengeance on the Athenians. For
this cause we have sent for Hippias to come here,
and have summoned you likewise from your sev-
eral states, that we may all now with heart and
hand unite to restore him to Athens, and thereby
give him back that which we took from him for-
merly.”

Such was the address of the Spartans. The greater
number of the allies listened without being per-

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suaded. None however broke silence but Sosicles
the Corinthian, who exclaimed-

“Surely the heaven will soon be below, and the
earth above, and men will henceforth live in the
sea, and fish take their place upon the dry land,
since you, Lacedaemonians, propose to put down
free governments in the cities of Greece, and to set
up tyrannies in their room. There is nothing in the
whole world so unjust, nothing so bloody, as a
tyranny. If, however, it seems to you a desirable
thing to have the cities under despotic rule, begin
by putting a tyrant over yourselves, and then
establish despots in the other states. While you
continue yourselves, as you have always been,
unacquainted with tyranny, and take such excel-
lent care that Sparta may not suffer from it, to act
as you are now doing is to treat your allies
unworthily. If you knew what tyranny was as well
as ourselves, you would be better advised than
you now are in regard to it.

The government at Corinth was once an oligarchy
—a single race, called Bacchiadae, who intermar-

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ried only among themselves, held the manage-
ment of affairs. Now it happened that Amphion,
one of these, had a daughter, named Labda, who
was lame, and whom therefore none of the
Bacchiadae would consent to marry; so she was
taken to wife by Aetion, son of Echecrates, a man
of the township of Petra, who was, however, by
descent of the race of the Lapithae, and of the
house of Caeneus. Aetion, as he had no child,
either by this wife or by any other, went to Delphi
to consult the oracle concerning the matter.
Scarcely had he entered the temple when the
Pythoness saluted him in these words-

No one honours thee now, Aetion, worthy of

honour-

Labda shall soon be a mother- her offspring a

rock, that will one day

Fall on the kingly race, and right the city of

Corinth.

By some chance this address of the oracle to
Aetion came to the ears of the Bacchiadae, who

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till then had been unable to perceive the meaning
of another earlier prophecy which likewise bore
upon Corinth, and pointed to the same event as
Aetion’s prediction. It was the following:-

When mid the rocks an eagle shall bear a carniv-

orous lion,

Mighty and fierce, he shall loosen the limbs of

many beneath them-

Brood ye well upon this, all ye Corinthian peo-

ple,

Ye who dwell by fair Peirene, and beetling

Corinth.

The Bacchiadae had possessed this oracle for
some time; but they were quite at a loss to know
what it meant until they heard the response given
to Aetion; then however they at once perceived its
meaning, since the two agreed so well together.
Nevertheless, though the bearing of the first
prophecy was now clear to them, they remained
quiet, being minded to put to death the child
which Aetion was expecting. As soon, therefore,

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as his wife was delivered, they sent ten of their
number to the township where Aetion lived, with
orders to make away with the baby. So the men
came to Petra, and went into Aetion’s house, and
there asked if they might see the child; and Labda,
who knew nothing of their purpose, but thought
their inquiries arose from a kindly feeling towards
her husband, brought the child, and laid him in
the arms of one of them. Now they had agreed by
the way that whoever first got hold of the child
should dash it against the ground. It happened,
however, by a providential chance, that the babe,
just as Labda put him into the man’s arms, smiled
in his face. The man saw the smile, and was
touched with pity, so that he could not kill it; he
therefore passed it on to his next neighbour, who
gave it to a third; and so it went through all the
ten without any one choosing to be the murderer.
The mother received her child back; and the men
went out of the house, and stood near the door,
and there blamed and reproached one another;
chiefly however accusing the man who had first
had the child in his arms, because he had not done

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as had been agreed upon. At last, after much time
had been thus spent, they resolved to go into the
house again and all take part in the murder.

But it was fated that evil should come upon
Corinth from the progeny of Aetion; and so it
chanced that Labda, as she stood near the door,
heard all that the men said to one another, and
fearful of their changing their mind, and returning
to destroy her baby, she carried him off and hid
him in what seemed to her the most unlikely place
to be suspected, viz., a ‘cypsel’ or corn-bin. She
knew that if they came back to look for the child,
they would search all her house; and so indeed
they did, but not finding the child after looking
everywhere, they thought it best to go away, and
declare to those by whom they had been sent that
they had done their bidding. And thus they
reported on their return home.

Aetion’s son grew up, and, in remembrance of the
danger from which he had escaped, was named
Cypselus, after the cornbin. When he reached to

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man’s estate, he went to Delphi, and on consult-
ing the oracle, received a response which was
two-sided. It was the following:

See there comes to my dwelling a man much

favour’d of fortune,

Cypselus, son of Aetion, and king of the glorious

Corinth-

He and his children too, but not his children’s

children.

Such was the oracle; and Cypselus put so much
faith in it that he forthwith made his attempt, and
thereby became master of Corinth. Having thus
got the tyranny, he showed himself a harsh ruler-
many of the Corinthians he drove into banish-
ment, many he deprived of their fortunes, and a
still greater number of their lives.

His reign lasted thirty years, and was prosperous
to its close; insomuch that he left the government
to Periander, his son. This prince at the beginning
of his reign was of a milder temper than his

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father; but after he corresponded by means of
messengers with Thrasybulus, tyrant of Miletus,
he became even more sanguinary. On one occa-
sion he sent a herald to ask Thrasybulus what
mode of government it was safest to set up in
order to rule with honour. Thrasybulus led the
messenger without the city, and took him into a
field of corn, through which he began to walk,
while he asked him again and again concerning
his coming from Corinth, ever as he went break-
ing off and throwing away all such ears of corn as
over-topped the rest. In this way he went through
the whole field, and destroyed all the best and
richest part of the crop; then, without a word, he
sent the messenger back. On the return of the man
to Corinth, Periander was eager to know what
Thrasybulus had counselled, but the messenger
reported that he had said nothing; and he won-
dered that Periander had sent him to so strange a
man, who seemed to have lost his senses, since he
did nothing but destroy his own property. And
upon this he told how Thrasybulus had behaved
at the interview.

Herodotus

Periander, perceiving what the action meant, and
knowing that Thrasybulus advised the destruc-
tion of all the leading citizens, treated his subjects
from this time forward with the very greatest cru-
elty. Where Cypselus had spared any, and had nei-
ther put them to death nor banished them,
Periander completed what his father had left
unfinished. One day he stripped all the women of
Corinth stark naked, for the sake of his own wife
Melissa. He had sent messengers into Thesprotia
to consult the oracle of the dead upon the
Acheron concerning a pledge which had been
given into his charge by a stranger, and Melissa
appeared, but refused to speak or tell where the
pledge was- ‘she was chill,’ she said, ‘having no
clothes; the garments buried with her were of no
manner of use, since they had not been burnt.
And this should be her token to Periander, that
what she said was true- the oven was cold when
he baked his loaves in it.’ When this message was
brought him, Periander knew the token; where-
fore he straightway made proclamation, that all
the wives of the Corinthians should go forth to
the temple of Juno. So the women apparelled

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themselves in their bravest, and went forth, as if
to a festival. Then, with the help of his guards,
whom he had placed for the purpose, he stripped
them one and all, making no difference between
the free women and the slaves; and, taking their
clothes to a pit, he called on the name of Melissa,
and burnt the whole heap. This done, he sent a
second time to the oracle; and Melissa’s ghost told
him where he would find the stranger’s pledge.
Such, O Lacedaemonians! is tyranny, and such are
the deeds which spring from it. We Corinthians
marvelled greatly when we first knew of your
having sent for Hippias; and now it surprises us
still more to hear you speak as you do. We adjure
you, by the common gods of Greece, plant not
despots in her cities. If however you are deter-
mined, if you persist, against all justice, in seeking
to restore Hippias- know, at least, that the
Corinthians will not approve your conduct.”

When Sosicles, the deputy from Corinth, had thus
spoken, Hippias replied, and, invoking the same
gods, he said-”Of a surety the Corinthians will,
beyond all others, regret the Pisistratidae, when

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the fated days come for them to be distressed by
the Athenians.” Hippias spoke thus because he
knew the prophecies better than any man living.
But the rest of the allies, who till Sosicles spoke
had remained quiet, when they heard him utter
his thoughts thus boldly, all together broke
silence, and declared themselves of the same
mind; and withal, they conjured the
Lacedaemonians “not to revolutionise a Grecian
city.” And in this way the enterprise came to
nought.

Hippias hereupon withdrew; and Amyntas the
Macedonian offered him the city of Anthemus,
while the Thessalians were willing to give him
Iolcos: but he would accept neither the one nor
the other, preferring to go back to Sigeum, which
city Pisistratus had taken by force of arms from
the Mytilenaeans. Pisistratus, when he became
master of the place, established there as tyrant his
own natural son, Hegesistratus, whose mother
was an Argive woman. But this prince was not
allowed to enjoy peaceably what his father had

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made over to him; for during very many years
there had been war between the Athenians of
Sigeum and the Mytilenaeans of the city called
Achilleum. They of Mytilene insisted on having
the place restored to them: but the Athenians
refused, since they argued that the Aeolians had
no better claim to the Trojan territory than them-
selves, or than any of the other Greeks who
helped Menelaus on occasion of the rape of
Helen.

War accordingly continued, with many and vari-
ous incidents, whereof the following was one. In
a battle which was gained by the Athenians, the
poet Alcaeus took to flight, and saved himself, but
lost his arms, which fell into the hands of the con-
querors. They hung them up in the temple of
Minerva at Sigeum; and Alcaeus made a poem,
describing his misadventure to his friend
Melanippus, and sent it to him at Mytilene. The
Mytilenaeans and Athenians were reconciled by
Periander, the son of Cypselus, who was chosen
by both parties as arbiter- he decided that they

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should each retain that of which they were at the
time possessed; and Sigeum passed in this way
under the dominion of Athens.

On the return of Hippias to Asia from
Lacedaemon, he moved heaven and earth to set
Artaphernes against the Athenians, and did all
that lay in his power to bring Athens into subjec-
tion to himself and Darius. So when the
Athenians learnt what he was about, they sent
envoys to Sardis, and exhorted the Persians not to
lend an ear to the Athenian exiles. Artaphernes
told them in reply, “that if they wished to remain
safe, they must receive back Hippias.” The
Athenians, when this answer was reported to
them, determined not to consent, and therefore
made up their minds to be at open enmity with
the Persians.

The Athenians had come to this decision, and
were already in bad odour with the Persians,
when Aristagoras the Milesian, dismissed from
Sparta by Cleomenes the Lacedaemonian, arrived

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at Athens. He knew that, after Sparta, Athens was
the most powerful of the Grecian states.
Accordingly he appeared before the people, and,
as he had done at Sparta, spoke to them of the
good things which there were in Asia, and of the
Persian mode of fight- how they used neither
shield nor spear, and were very easy to conquer.
All this he urged, and reminded them also that
Miletus was a colony from Athens, and therefore
ought to receive their succour, since they were so
powerful- and in the earnestness of his entreaties,
he cared little what he promised- till, at the last,
he prevailed and won them over. It seems indeed
to be easier to deceive a multitude than one man-
for Aristagoras, though he failed to impose on
Cleomenes the Lacedaemonian, succeeded with
the Athenians, who were thirty thousand. Won by
his persuasions, they voted that twenty ships
should be sent to the aid of the Ionians, under the
command of Melanthius, one of the citizens, a
man of mark in every way. These ships were the
beginning of mischief both to the Greeks and to
the barbarians.

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Aristagoras sailed away in advance, and when he
reached Miletus, devised a plan, from which no
manner of advantage could possibly accrue to the
Ionians;- indeed, in forming it, he did not aim at
their benefit, but his sole wish was to annoy King
Darius. He sent a messenger into Phrygia to those
Paeonians who had been led away captive by
Megabazus from the river Strymon, and who now
dwelt by themselves in Phrygia, having a tract of
land and a hamlet of their own. This man, when
he reached the Paeonians, spoke thus to them:-

“Men of Paeonia, Aristagoras, king of Miletus,
has sent me to you, to inform you that you may
now escape, if you choose to follow the advice he
proffers. All Ionia has revolted from the king; and
the way is open to you to return to your own
land. You have only to contrive to reach the sea-
coast; the rest shall be our business.”

When the Paeonians heard this, they were exceed-
ingly rejoiced, and, taking with them their wives
and children, they made all speed to the coast; a
few only remaining in Phrygia through fear. The

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rest, having reached the sea, crossed over to
Chios, where they had just landed, when a great
troop of Persian horse came following upon their
heels, and seeking to overtake them. Not succeed-
ing, however, they sent a message across to Chios,
and begged the Paeonians to come back again.
These last refused, and were conveyed by the
Chians from Chios to Lesbos, and by the Lesbians
thence to Doriscus; from which place they made
their way on foot to Paeonia.

The Athenians now arrived with a fleet of twenty
sail, and brought also in their company five
triremes of the Eretrians; which had joined the
expedition, not so much out of goodwill towards
Athens, as to pay a debt which they already owed
to the people of Miletus. For in the old war
between the Chalcideans and Eretrians, the
Milesians fought on the Eretrian side throughout,
while the Chalcideans had the help of the Samian
people. Aristagoras, on their arrival, assembled
the rest of his allies, and proceeded to attack
Sardis, not however leading the army in person,
but appointing to the command his own brother

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Charopinus and Hermophan-tus, one of the citi-
zens, while he himself remained behind in
Miletus.

The Ionians sailed with this fleet to Ephesus, and,
leaving their ships at Coressus in the Ephesian ter-
ritory, took guides from the city, and went up the
country with a great host. They marched along
the course of the river Cayster, and, crossing over
the ridge of Tmolus, came down upon Sardis and
took it, no man opposing them;- the whole city
fell into their hands, except only the citadel,
which Artaphernes defended in person, having
with him no contemptible force.

Though, however, they took the city, they did not
succeed in plundering it; for, as the houses in
Sardis were most of them built of reeds, and even
the few which were of brick had a reed thatching
for their roof, one of them was no sooner fired by
a soldier than the flames ran speedily from house
to house, and spread over the whole place. As the
fire raged, the Lydians and such Persians as were
in the city, inclosed on every side by the flames,

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which had seized all the skirts of the town, and
finding themselves unable to get out, came in
crowds into the market-place, and gathered them-
selves upon the banks of the Pactolus This stream,
which comes down from Mount Tmolus, and
brings the Sardians a quantity of gold-dust, runs
directly through the market place of Sardis, and
joins the Hermus, before that river reaches the
sea. So the Lydians and Persians, brought togeth-
er in this way in the market-place and about the
Pactolus, were forced to stand on their defence;
and the Ionians, when they saw the enemy in part
resisting, in part pouring towards them in dense
crowds, took fright, and drawing off to the ridge
which is called Tmolus when night came, went
back to their ships.

Sardis however was burnt, and, among other
buildings, a temple of the native goddess Cybele
was destroyed; which was the reason afterwards
alleged by the Persians for setting on fire the tem-
ples of the Greeks. As soon as what had happened
was known, all the Persians who were stationed
on this side the Halys drew together, and brought

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help to the Lydians. Finding however, when they
arrived, that the Ionians had already withdrawn
from Sardis, they set off, and, following close
upon their track, came up with them at Ephesus.
The Ionians drew out against them in battle array;
and a fight ensued, wherein the Greeks had very
greatly the worse. Vast numbers were slain by the
Persians: among other men of note, they killed the
captain of the Eretrians, a certain Eualcidas, a
man who had gained crowns at the Games, and
received much praise from Simonides the Cean.
Such as made their escape from the battle, dis-
persed among the several cities.

So ended this encounter. Afterwards the
Athenians quite forsook the Ionians, and, though
Aristagoras besought them much by his ambas-
sadors, refused to give him any further help. Still
the Ionians, notwithstanding this desertion, con-
tinued unceasingly their preparations to carry on
the war against the Persian king, which their late
conduct towards him had rendered unavoidable.
Sailing into the Hellespont, they brought
Byzantium, and all the other cities in that quarter,

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105

under their sway. Again, quitting the Hellespont,
they went to Caria, and won the greater part of
the Carians to their side; while Caunus, which
had formerly refused to join with them, after the
burning of Sardis, came over likewise.

All the Cyprians too, excepting those of Amathus,
of their own proper motion espoused the Ionian
cause. The occasion of their revolting from the
Medes was the following. There was a certain
Onesilus, younger brother of Gorgus, king of
Salamis, and son of Chersis, who was son of
Siromus, and grandson of Evelthon. This man
had often in former times entreated Gorgus to
rebel against the king; but, when he heard of the
revolt of the Ionians, he left him no peace with his
importunity. As, however, Gorgus would not
hearken to him, he watched his occasion, and
when his brother had gone outside the town, he
with his partisans closed the gates upon him.
Gorgus, thus deprived of his city, fled to the
Medes; and Onesilus, being now king of Salamis,
sought to bring about a revolt of the whole of
Cyprus. All were prevailed on except the

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Amathusians, who refused to listen to him;
whereupon Onesilus sate down before Amathus,
and laid siege to it.

While Onesilus was engaged in the siege of
Amathus, King Darius received tidings of the tak-
ing and burning of Sardis by the Athenians and
Ionians; and at the same time he learnt that the
author of the league, the man by whom the whole
matter had been Planned and contrived, was
Aristagoras the Milesian. It is said that he no
sooner understood what had happened, than, lay-
ing aside all thought concerning the Ionians, who
would, he was sure, pay dear for their rebellion,
he asked, “Who the Athenians were?” and, being
informed, called for his bow, and placing an
arrow on the string, shot upward into the sky,
saying, as he let fly the shaft- “Grant me, Jupiter,
to revenge myself on the Athenians!” After this
speech, he bade one of his servants every day,
when his dinner was spread, three times repeat
these words to him- “Master, remember the
Athenians.”

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107

Then he summoned into his presence Histiaeus if
Miletus, whom he had kept at his court for so long
a time; and on his appearance addressed him thus
“I am told, O Histiaeus, that thy lieutenant, to
whom thou hast given Miletus in charge, has
raised a rebellion against me. He has brought men
from the other continent to contend with me, and,
prevailing on the Ionians- whose conduct I shall
know how to recompense- to join with this force,
he has robbed me of Sardis! Is this as it should be,
thinkest thou Or can it have been done without
thy knowledge and advice? Beware lest it be found
hereafter that the blame of these acts is thine.”

Histiaeus answered- “What words are these, O
king, to which thou hast given utterance? I advise
aught from which unpleasantness of any kind, lit-
tle or great, should come to thee! What could I
gain by so doing? Or what is there that I lack
now? Have I not all that thou hast, and am I not
thought worthy to partake all thy counsels? If my
lieutenant has indeed done as thou sayest, be sure
he has done it all of his own head. For my part, I

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do not think it can really be that the Milesians and
my lieutenant have raised a rebellion against thee.
But if they have indeed committed aught to thy
hurt, and the tidings are true which have come to
thee, judge thou how ill-advised thou wert to
remove me from the sea-coast. The Ionians, it
seems, have waited till I was no longer in sight,
and then sought to execute that which they long
ago desired; whereas, if I had been there, not a sin-
gle city would have stirred. Suffer me then to has-
ten at my best speed to Ionia, that I may place
matters there upon their former footing, and deliv-
er up to thee the deputy of Miletus, who has
caused all the troubles. Having managed this busi-
ness to thy heart’s content, I swear by all the gods
of thy royal house, I will not put off the clothes in
which I reach Ionia till I have made Sardinia, the
biggest island in the world, thy tributary.”

Histiaeus spoke thus, wishing to deceive the king;
and Darius, persuaded by his words, let him go;
only bidding him be sure to do as he had
promised, and afterwards come back to Susa.

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109

In the meantime- while the tidings of the burning
of Sardis were reaching the king, and Darius was
shooting the arrow and having the conference
with Histiaeus, and the latter, by permission of
Darius, was hastening down to the sea- in Cyprus
the following events took place. Tidings came to
Onesilus, the Salaminian, who was still besieging
Amathus, that a certain Artybius, a Persian, was
looked for to arrive in Cyprus with a great
Persian armament. So Onesilus, when the news
reached him, sent off heralds to all parts of Ionia,
and besought the Ionians to give him aid. After
brief deliberation, these last in full force passed
over into the island; and the Persians about the
same time crossed in their ships from Cilicia, and
proceeded by land to attack Salamis; while the
Phoenicians, with the fleet, sailed round the
promontory which goes by the name of “the Keys
of Cyprus.”

In this posture of affairs the princes of Cyprus
called together the captains of the Ionians, and
thus addressed them:-

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“Men of Ionia, we Cyprians leave it to you to
choose whether you will fight with the Persians or
with the Phoenicians. If it be your pleasure to try
your strength on land against the Persians, come
on shore at once, and array yourselves for the bat-
tle; we will then embark aboard your ships and
engage the Phoenicians by sea. If, on the other
hand, ye prefer to encounter the Phoenicians, let
that be your task: only be sure, whichever part
you choose, to acquit yourselves so that Ionia and
Cyprus, so far as depends on you, may preserve
their freedom.”

The Ionians made answer- “The commonwealth
of Ionia sent us here to guard the sea, not to make
over our ships to you, and engage with the
Persians on shore. We will therefore keep the post
which has been assigned to us, and seek therein to
be of some service. Do you, remembering what
you suffered when you were the slaves of the
Medes, behave like brave warriors.”

Such was the reply of the Ionians. Not long after-
wards the Persians advanced into the plain before

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111

Salamis, and the Cyprian kings ranged their
troops in order of battle against them, placing
them so that while the rest of the Cyprians were
drawn up against the auxiliaries of the enemy, the
choicest troops of the Salaminians and the Solians
were set to oppose the Persians. At the same time
Onesilus, of his own accord, took post opposite
to Artybius, the Persian general.

Now Artybius rode a horse which had been
trained to rear up against a foot-soldier. Onesilus,
informed of this, called to him his shield-bearer,
who was a Carian by nation, a man well skilled in
war, and of daring courage; and thus addressed
him:- “I hear,” he said, “that the horse which
Artybius rides, rears up and attacks with his fore
legs and teeth the man against whom his rider
urges him. Consider quickly therefore and tell me
which wilt thou undertake to encounter, the steed
or the rider?” Then the squire answered him,
“Both, my liege, or either, am I ready to under-
take, and there is nothing that I will shrink from
at thy bidding. But I will tell thee what seems to
me to make most for thy interests. As thou art a

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prince and a general, I think thou shouldest
engage with one who is himself both a prince and
also a general. For then, if thou slayest thine
adversary, ‘twill redound to thine honour, and if
he slays thee (which may Heaven forefend!), yet
to fall by the hand of a worthy foe makes death
lose half its horror. To us, thy followers, leave his
war-horse and his retinue. And have thou no fear
of the horse’s tricks. I warrant that this is the last
time he will stand up against any one.”

Thus spake the Carian; and shortly after, the two
hosts joined battle both by sea and land. And here
it chanced that by sea the Ionians, who that day
fought as they have never done either before or
since, defeated the Phoenicians, the Samians espe-
cially distinguishing themselves. Meanwhile the
combat had begun on land, and the two armies
were engaged in a sharp struggle, when thus it fell
out in the matter of the generals. Artybius, astride
upon his horse, charged down upon Onesilus,
who, as he had agreed with his shield-bearer,
aimed his blow at the rider; the horse reared and
placed his fore feet upon the shield of Onesilus,

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113

when the Carian cut at him with a reaping-hook,
and severed the two legs from the body. The horse
fell upon the spot, and Artybius, the Persian gen-
eral, with him.

In the thick of the fight, Stesanor, tyrant of
Curium, who commanded no inconsiderable
body of troops, went over with them to the
enemy. On this desertion of the Curians- Argive
colonists, if report says true- forthwith the war-
chariots of the Salaminians followed the example
set them, and went over likewise; whereupon vic-
tory declared in favour of the Persians; and the
army of the Cyprians being routed, vast numbers
were slain, and among them Onesilus, the son of
Chersis, who was the author of the revolt, and
Aristocyprus, king of the Solians. This
Aristocyprus was son of Philocyprus, whom
Solon the Athenian, when he visited Cyprus,
praised in his poems beyond all other sovereigns.

The Amathusians, because Onesilus had laid siege
to their town, cut the head off his corpse, and
took it with them to Amathus, where it was set up

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over the gates. Here it hung till it became hollow;
whereupon a swarm of bees took possession of it,
and filled it with a honeycomb. On seeing this the
Amathusians consulted the oracle, and were com-
manded “to take down the head and bury it, and
thenceforth to regard Onesilus as a hero, and
offer sacrifice to him year by year; so it would go
the better with them.” And to this day the
Amathusians do as they were then bidden.

As for the Ionians who had gained the sea-fight,
when they found that the affairs of Onesilus were
utterly lost and ruined, and that siege was laid to
all the cities of Cyprus excepting Salamis, which
the inhabitants had surrendered to Gorgus, the
former king, forthwith they left Cyprus, and
sailed away home. Of the cities which were
besieged, Soli held out the longest: the Persians
took it by undermining the wall in the fifth month
from the beginning of the siege.

Thus, after enjoying a year of freedom, the
Cyprians were enslaved for the second time.
Meanwhile Daurises, who was married to one of

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115

the daughters of Darius, together with Hymeas,
Otanes, and other Persian captains, who were
likewise married to daughters of the king, after
pursuing the Ionians who had fought at Sardis,
defeating them, and driving them to their ships,
divided their efforts against the different cities,
and proceeded in succession to take and sack each
one of them.

Daurises attacked the towns upon the Hellespont,
and took in as many days the five cities of
Dardanus, Abydos, Percote, Lampsacus, and
Paesus. From Paesus he marched against Parium;
but on his way receiving intelligence that the
Carians had made common cause with the
Ionians, and thrown off the Persian yoke, he
turned round, and, leaving the Hellespont,
marched away towards Caria.

The Carians by some chance got information of
this movement before Daurises arrived, and drew
together their strength to a place called “the
White Columns,” which is on the river Marsyas,
a stream running from the Idrian country, and

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emptying itself into the Maeander. Here when
they were met, many plans were put forth; but the
best, in my judgment, was that of Pixodarus, the
son of Mausolus, a Cindyan, who was married to
a daughter of Syennesis, the Cilician king. His
advice was that the Carians should cross the
Maeander, and fight with the river at their back;
that so, all chance of flight being cut off, they
might be forced to stand their ground, and have
their natural courage raised to a still higher pitch.
His opinion, however, did not prevail; it was
thought best to make the enemy have the
Maeander behind them; that so, if they were
defeated in the battle and put to flight, they might
have no retreat open, but be driven headlong into
the river.

The Persians soon afterwards approached, and,
crossing the Maeander, engaged the Carians upon
the banks of the Marsyas; where for a long time
the battle was stoutly contested, but at last the
Carians were defeated, being overpowered by
numbers. On the side of the Persians there fell
2000, while the Carians had not fewer than

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117

10,000 slain. Such as escaped from the field of
battle collected together at Labranda, in the vast
precinct of Jupiter Stratius- a deity worshipped
only by the Carians- and in the sacred grove of
plane-trees. Here they deliberated as to the best
means of saving themselves, doubting whether
they would fare better if they gave themselves up
to the Persians, or if they abandoned Asia for
ever.

As they were debating these matters a body of
Milesians and allies came to their assistance;
whereupon the Carians, dismissing their former
thoughts, prepared themselves afresh for war, and
on the approach of the Persians gave them battle
a second time. They were defeated, however, with
still greater loss than before; and while all the
troops engaged suffered severely, the blow fell
with most force on the Milesians.

The Carians, some while after, repaired their ill
fortune in another action. Understanding that the
Persians were about to attack their cities, they laid
an ambush for them on the road which leads to

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Pedasus; the Persians, who were making a night-
march, fell into the trap, and the whole army was
destroyed, together with the generals, Daurises,
Amorges, and Sisimaces: Myrsus too, the son of
Gyges, was killed at the same time. The leader of
the ambush was Heraclides, the son of Ibanolis, a
man of Mylasa. Such was the way in which these
Persians perished.

In the meantime Hymeas, who was likewise one
of those by whom the Ionians were pursued after
their attack on Sardis, directing his course
towards the Propontis, took Cius, a city of Mysia.
Learning, however, that Daurises had left the
Hellespont, and was gone into Caria, he in his
turn quitted the Propontis, and marching with the
army under his command to the Hellespont,
reduced all the Aeolians of the Troad, and like-
wise conquered the Gergithae, a remnant of the
ancient Teucrians. He did not, however, quit the
Troad, but, after gaining these successes, was
himself carried off by disease.

After his death, which happened as have related,
Artaphernes, the satrap of Sardis, and Otanes, the

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119

third general, were directed to undertake the con-
duct of the war against Ionia and the neighbouring
Aeolis. By them Clazomenae in the former, and
Cyme in the latter, were recovered.

As the cities fell one after another, Aristagoras the
Milesian (who was in truth, as he now plainly
showed, a man of but little courage), notwith-
standing that it was he who had caused the distur-
bances in Ionia and made so great a commotion,
began, seeing his danger, to look about for means
of escape. Being convinced that it was in vain to
endeavour to overcome King Darius, he called his
brothers-in-arms together, and laid before them the
following project:- “‘Twould be well,” he said, “to
have some place of refuge, in case they were driven
out of Miletus. Should he go out at the head of a
colony to Sardinia, or should he sail to Myrcinus in
Edonia, which Histiaeus had received as a gift from
King Darius, and had begun to fortify?”

To this question of Aristagoras, Hecataeus, the
historian, son of Hegesander, made answer that in
his judgement neither place was suitable.
“Aristagoras should build a fort,” he said, “in the

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island of Leros, and, if driven from Miletus,
should go there and bide his time; from Leros
attacks might readily be made, and he might re-
establish himself in Miletus.” Such was the advice
given by Hecataeus.

Aristagoras, however, was bent on retiring to
Myrcinus. Accordingly, he put the government of
Miletus into the hands of one of the chief citizens,
named Pythagoras, and, taking with him all who
liked to go, sailed to Thrace, and there made him-
self master of the place in question. From thence
he proceeded to attack the Thracians; but here he
was cut off with his whole army, while besieging
a city whose defenders were anxious to accept
terms of surrender.

Th e H i s to r i e s

o f

H e ro d o t u s o f H a l i c a r n a s s u s

Book Six

TRANSLATED BY

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BOOK SIX

ristagoras, the author of the Ionian revolt, per-

ished in the way which I have described.
Meanwhile Histiaeus, tyrant of Miletus, who had
been allowed by Darius to leave Susa, came down
to Sardis. On his arrival, being asked by
Artaphernes, the Sardian satrap, what he thought
was the reason that the Ionians had rebelled, he
made answer that he could not conceive, and it
had astonished him greatly, pretending to be quite
unconscious of the whole business. Artaphernes,
however, who perceived that he was dealing dis-
honestly, and who had in fact full knowledge of
the whole history of the outbreak, said to him, “I
will tell thee how the case stands, Histiaeus: this
shoe is of thy stitching; Aristagoras has but put it
on.”

Th e H i s t o r i e s

o f

H e r o d o t u s o f H a l i c a r n a s s u s

Such was the remark made by Arta-phernes con-
cerning the rebellion.

Histiaeus, alarmed at the knowledge which he
displayed, so soon as night fell, fled away to the
coast. Thus he forfeited his word to Darius; for
though he had pledged himself to bring Sardinia,
the biggest island in the whole world, under the
Persian yoke, he in reality sought to obtain the
direction of the war against the king. Crossing
over to Chios, he was there laid in bonds by the
inhabitants, who accused him of intending some
mischief against them in the interest of Darius.
However, when the whole truth was laid before
them, and they found that Histiaeus was in reali-
ty a foe to the king, they forthwith set him at large
again.

After this the Ionians inquired of him for what
reason he had so strongly urged Aristagoras to
revolt from the king, thereby doing their nation so
ill a service. In reply, he took good care not to dis-
close to them the real cause, but told them that

Herodotus

The Histories–Book Six

King Darius had intended to remove the
Phoenicians from their own country, and place
them in Ionia, while he planted the Ionians in
Phoenicia, and that it was for this reason he sent
Aristagoras the order. Now it was not true that
the king had entertained any such intention, but
Histiaeus succeeded hereby in arousing the fears
of the Ionians.

After this, Histiaeus, by means of a certain
Hermippus, a native of Atarneus, sent letters to
many of the Persians in Sardis, who had before
held some discourse with him concerning a revolt.
Hermippus, however, instead of conveying them
to the persons to whom they were addressed,
delivered them into the hands of Artaphernes,
who, perceiving what was on foot, commanded
Hermippus to deliver the letters according to their
addresses, and then bring him back the answers
which were sent to Histiaeus. The traitors being
in this way discovered, Artaphernes put a number
of Persians to death, and caused a commotion in
Sardis.

As for Histiaeus, when his hopes in this matter
were disappointed, he persuaded the Chians to
carry him back to Miletus; but the Milesians were
too well pleased at having got quit of Aristagoras
to be anxious to receive another tyrant into their
country; besides which they had now tasted liber-
ty. They therefore opposed his return; and when
he endeavoured to force an entrance during the
night, one of the inhabitants even wounded him
in the thigh. Having been thus rejected from his
country, he went back to Chios; whence, after
failing in an attempt to induce the Chians to give
him ships, he crossed over to Mytilene, where he
succeeded in obtaining vessels from the Lesbians.
They fitted out a squadron of eight triremes, and
sailed with him to the Hellespont, where they
took up their station, and proceeded to seize all
the vessels which passed out from the Euxine,
unless the crews declared themselves ready to
obey his orders.

While Histiaeus and the Mytilenaeans were thus
employed, Miletus was expecting an attack from
a vast armament, which comprised both a fleet

Herodotus

The Histories–Book Six

and also a land force. The Persian captains had
drawn their several detachments together, and
formed them into a single army; and had resolved
to pass over all the other cities, which they regard-
ed as of lesser account, and to march straight on
Miletus. Of the naval states, Phoenicia showed
the greatest zeal; but the fleet was composed like-
wise of the Cyprians (who had so lately been
brought under), the Cilicians, and also the
Egyptians.

While the Persians were thus making preparations
against Miletus and Ionia, the Ionians, informed
of their intent, sent their deputies to the
Panionium, and held a council upon the posture
of their affairs. Hereat it was determined that no
land force should be collected to oppose the
Persians, but that the Milesians should be left to
defend their own walls as they could; at the same
time they agreed that the whole naval force of the
states, not excepting a single ship, should be
equipped, and should muster at Lade, a small
island lying off Miletus- to give battle on behalf of
the place.

Herodotus

Presently the Ionians began to assemble in their
ships, and with them came the Aeolians of
Lesbos; and in this way they marshalled their
line:- The wing towards the east was formed of
the Milesians themselves, who furnished eighty
ships; next to them came the Prienians with
twelve, and the Myusians with three ships; after
the Myusians were stationed the Teians, whose
ships were seventeen; then the Chians, who fur-
nished a hundred. The Erythraeans and
Phocaeans followed, the former with eight, the
latter with three ships; beyond the Phocaeans
were the Lesbians, furnishing seventy; last of all
came the Samians, forming the western wing, and
furnishing sixty vessels. The fleet amounted in all
to three hundred and fifty-three triremes. Such
was the number on the Ionian side.

On the side of the barbarians the number of ves-
sels was six hundred. These assembled off the
coast of Milesia, while the land army collected
upon the shore; but the leaders, learning the
strength of the Ionian fleet, began to fear lest they
might fail to defeat them, in which case, not hav-

The Histories–Book Six

ing the mastery at sea, they would be unable to
reduce Miletus, and might in consequence receive
rough treatment at the hands of Darius. So when
they thought of all these things, they resolved on
the following course:- Calling together the Ionian
tyrants, who had fled to the Medes for refuge
when Aristagoras deposed them from their gov-
ernments, and who were now in camp, having
joined in the expedition against Miletus, the
Persians addressed them thus: “Men of Ionia,
now is the fit time to show your zeal for the house
of the king. Use your best efforts, every one of
you, to detach your fellow-countrymen from the
general body. Hold forth to them the promise
that, if they submit, no harm shall happen to them
on account of their rebellion; their temples shall
not be burnt, nor any of their private buildings;
neither shall they be treated with greater harsh-
ness than before the outbreak. But if they refuse
to yield, and determine to try the chance of a bat-
tle, threaten them with the fate which shall
assuredly overtake them in that case. Tell them,
when they are vanquished in fight, they shall be
enslaved; their boys shall be made eunuchs, and

Herodotus

their maidens transported to Bactra; while their
country shall be delivered into the hands of for-
eigners.”

Thus spake the Persians. The Ionian tyrants sent
accordingly by night to their respective citizens,
and reported the words of the Persians; but the
people were all staunch, and refused to betray
their countrymen, those of each state thinking
that they alone had had made to them. Now these
events happened on the first appearance of the
Persians before Miletus.

Afterwards, while the Ionian fleet was still
assembled at Lade, councils were held, and
speeches made by divers persons- among the rest
by Dionysius, the Phocaean captain, who thus
expressed himself:- “Our affairs hang on the
razor’s edge, men of Ionia, either to be free or to
be slaves; and slaves, too, who have shown them-
selves runaways. Now then you have to choose
whether you will endure hardships, and so for
the present lead a life of toil, but thereby gain
ability to overcome your enemies and establish

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your own freedom; or whether you will persist in
this slothfulness and disorder, in which case I see
no hope of your escaping the king’s vengeance
for your rebellion. I beseech you, be persuaded
by me, and trust yourselves to my guidance.
Then, if the gods only hold the balance fairly
between us, I undertake to say that our foes will
either decline a battle, or, if they fight, suffer
complete discomfiture.”

These words prevailed with the Ionians, and
forthwith they committed themselves to
Dionysius; whereupon he proceeded every day to
make the ships move in column, and the rowers
ply their oars, and exercise themselves in breaking
the line; while the marines were held under arms,
and the vessels were kept, till evening fell, upon
their anchors, so that the men had nothing but
toil from morning even to night. Seven days did
the Ionians continue obedient, and do whatsoev-
er he bade them; but on the eighth day, worn out
by the hardness of the work and the heat of the
sun, and quite unaccustomed to such fatigues,
they began to confer together, and to say one to

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another, “What god have we offended to bring
upon ourselves such a punishment as this? Fools
and distracted that we were, to put ourselves into
the hands of this Phocaean braggart, who does
but furnish three ships to the fleet! He, now that
he has got us, plagues us in the most desperate
fashion; many of us, in consequence, have fallen
sick already- many more expect to follow. We had
better suffer anything rather than these hardships;
even the slavery with which we are threatened,
however harsh, can be no worse than our present
thraldom. Come, let us refuse him obedience.” So
saying, they forthwith ceased to obey his orders,
and pitched their tents, as if they had been sol-
diers, upon the island, where they reposed under
the shade all day, and refused to go aboard the
ships and train themselves.

Now when the Samian captains perceived what
was taking place, they were more inclined than
before to accept the terms which Aeaces, the son
of Syloson, had been authorised by the Persians to
offer them, on condition of their deserting from
the confederacy. For they saw that all was disor-

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der among the Ionians, and they felt also that it
was hopeless to contend with the power of the
king; since if they defeated the fleet which had
been sent against them, they knew that another
would come five times as great. So they took
advantage of the occasion which now offered,
and as soon as ever they saw the Ionians refuse to
work, hastened gladly to provide for the safety of
their temples and their properties. This Aeaces,
who made the overtures to the Samians, was the
son of Syloson, and grandson of the earlier
Aeaces. He had formerly been tyrant of Samos,
but was ousted from his government by
Aristagoras the Milesian, at the same time with
the other tyrants of the Ionians.

The Phoenicians soon afterwards sailed to the
attack; and the Ionians likewise put themselves in
line, and went out to meet them. When they had
now neared one another, and joined battle, which
of the Ionians fought like brave men and which
like cowards, I cannot declare with any certainty,
for charges are brought on all sides; but the tale
goes that the Samians, according to the agreement

Herodotus

which they had made with Aeaces, hoisted sail,
and quitting their post bore away for Samos,
except eleven ships, whose captains gave no heed
to the orders of the commanders, but remained
and took part in the battle. The state of Samos, in
consideration of this action, granted to these men,
as an acknowledgment if their bravery, the hon-
our of having their names, and the names of their
fathers, inscribed upon a pillar, which still stands
in the market-place. The Lesbians also, when they
saw the Samians, who were drawn up next them,
begin to flee, themselves did the like; and the
example, once set, was followed by the greater
number of the Ionians.

Of those who remained and fought, none were so
rudely handled as the Chians, who displayed
prodigies of valour, and disdained to play the part
of cowards. They furnished to the common fleet,
as I mentioned above, one hundred ships, having
each of them forty armed citizens, and those
picked men, on board; and when they saw the
greater portion of the allies betraying the com-
mon cause, they for their part, scorning to imitate

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the base conduct of these traitors, although they
were left almost alone and unsupported, a very
few friends continuing to stand by them, notwith-
standing went on with the fight, and ofttimes cut
the line of the enemy, until at last, after they had
taken very many of their adversaries’ ships, they
ended by losing more than half of their own.
Hereupon, with the remainder of their vessels, the
Chians fled away to their own country.

As for such of their ships as were damaged and
disabled, these, being pursued by the enemy, made
straight for Mycale, where the crews ran them
ashore, and abandoning them began their march
along the continent. Happening in their way upon
the territory of Ephesus, they essayed to cross it;
but here a dire misfortune befell them. It was
night, and the Ephesian women chanced to be
engaged in celebrating the Thesmophoria- the
previous calamity of the Chians had not been
heard of- so when the Ephesians saw their coun-
try invaded by an armed band, they made no
question of the new-comers being robbers who
purposed to carry off their women; and accord-

Herodotus

ingly they marched out against them in full force,
and slew them all. Such were the misfortunes
which befell them of Chios.

Dionysius, the Phocaean, when he perceived that
all was lost, having first captured three ships from
the enemy, himself took to flight. He would not,
however, return to Phocaea, which he well knew
must fall again, like the rest of Ionia, under the
Persian yoke; but straightway, as he was, he set
sail for Phoenicia, and there sunk a number of
merchantmen, and gained a great booty; after
which he directed his course to Sicily, where he
established himself as a corsair, and plundered the
Carthaginians and Tyrrhenians, but did no harm
to the Greeks.

The Persians, when they had vanquished the
Ionians in the sea-fight, besieged Miletus both by
land and sea, driving mines under the walls, and
making use of every known device, until at length
they took both the citadel and the town, six years
from the time when the revolt first broke out
under Aristagoras. All the inhabitants of the city

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they reduced to slavery, and thus the event tallied
with the announcement which had been made by
the oracle.

For once upon a time, when the Argives had sent
to Delphi to consult the god about the safety of
their own city, a prophecy was given them, in
which others besides themselves were interested;
for while it bore in part upon the fortunes of
Argos, it touched in a by-clause the fate of the
men of Miletus. I shall set down the portion
which concerned the Argives when I come to that
part of my History, mentioning at present only
the passage in which the absent Milesians were
spoken of. This passage was as follows:-

Then shalt thou, Miletus, so oft the contriver of

evil,

Be, thyself, to many a least and an excellent

booty:

Then shall thy matrons wash the feet of long-

haired masters-

Others shall then possess our lov’d Didymian

temple.

Herodotus

Such a fate now befell the Milesians; for the
Persians, who wore their hair long, after killing
most of the men, made the women and children
slaves; and the sanctuary at Didyma, the oracle no
less than the temple was plundered and burnt; of
the riches whereof I have made frequent mention
in other parts of my History.

Those of the Milesians whose lives were spared,
being carried prisoners to Susa, received no ill
treatment at the hands of King Darius, but were
established by him in Ampe, a city on the shores
of the Erythraean sea, near the spot where the
Tigris flows into it. Miletus itself, and the plain
about the city, were kept by the Persians for them-
selves, while the hill-country was assigned to the
Carians of Pedasus.

And now the Sybarites, who after the loss of their
city occupied Laus and Scidrus, failed duly to
return the former kindness of the Milesians. For
these last, when Sybaris was taken by the
Crotoniats, made a great mourning, all of them,
youths as well as men, shaving their heads; since

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Miletus and Sybaris were, of all the cities where-
of we have any knowledge, the two most closely
united to one another. The Athenians, on the
other hand, showed themselves beyond measure
afflicted at the fall of Miletus, in many ways
expressing their sympathy, and especially by their
treatment of Phrynichus. For when this poet
brought out upon the stage his drama of the
Capture of Miletus, the whole theatre burst into
tears; and the people sentenced him to pay a fine
of a thousand drachms, for recalling to them their
own misfortunes. They likewise made a law that
no one should ever again exhibit that piece.

Thus was Miletus bereft of its inhabitants. In
Samos the people of the richer sort were much
displeased with the doings of the captains, and the
dealings they had had the Medes; they therefore
held a council, very shortly after the sea-fight, and
resolved that they would not remain to become
the slaves of Aeaces and the Persians, but before
the tyrant set foot in their country, would sail
away and found a colony in another land. Now it
chanced that about this time the Zanclaeans of

Herodotus

Sicily had sent ambassadors to the Ionians, and
invited them to Kale-Acte where they wished an
Ionian city to be founded. This place, Kale-Acte
(or the Fair Strand) as it is called, is in the coun-
try of the Sicilians, and is situated in the part of
Sicily which looks towards Tyrrhenia. The offer
thus made to all the Ionians was embraced only
by the Samians, and by such of the Milesians as
had contrived to effect their escape.

Hereupon this is what ensued. The Samians on
their voyage reached the country of the
Epizephyrian Locrians, at a time when the
Zanclaeans and their king Scythas were engaged
in the siege of a Sicilian town which they hoped to
take. Anaxilaus, tyrant of Rhegium, who was on
ill terms with the Zanclaeans knowing how mat-
ters stood, made application to the Samians, and
persuaded them to give up the thought of Kale-
Acte the place to which they were bound, and to
seize Zancle itself, which was left without men.
The Samians followed this counsel and possessed
themselves of the town; which the Zanclaeans no

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sooner heard than they hurried to the rescue, call-
ing to their aid Hippocrates, tyrant of Gela, who
was one of their allies. Hippocrates came with his
army to their assistance; but on his arrival he
seized Scythas, the Zanclaean king, who had just
lost his city, and sent him away in chains, togeth-
er with his brother Pythogenes, to the town of
Inycus; after which he came to an understanding
with the Samians, exchanged oaths with them,
and agreed to betray the people of Zancle. The
reward of his treachery was to be one-half of the
goods and chattels, including slaves, which the
town contained, and all that he could find in the
open country. Upon this Hippocrates seized and
bound the greater number of the Zanclaeans as
slaves; delivering, however, into the hands of the
Samians three hundred of the principal citizens, to
be slaughtered; but the Samians spared the lives of
these persons.

Scythas, the king of the Zanclaeans, made his
escape from Inycus, and fled to Himera; whence
he passed into Asia, and went up to the court of

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Darius. Darius thought him the most upright of
all the Greeks to whom he afforded a refuge; for
with the king’s leave he paid a visit to Sicily, and
thence returned back to Persia, where he lived in
great comfort, and died by a natural death at an
advanced age.

Thus did the Samians escape the yoke of the
Medes, and possess themselves without any trou-
ble of Zancle, a most beautiful city. At Samos
itself the Phoenicians, after the fight which had
Miletus for its prize was over, re-established
Aeaces, the son of Syloson, upon his throne. This
they did by the command of the Persians, who
looked upon Aeaces as one who had rendered
them a high service and therefore deserved well at
their hands. They likewise spared the Samians, on
account of the desertion of their vessels, and did
not burn either their city or their temples, as they
did those of the other rebels. Immediately after
the fall of Miletus the Persians recovered Caria,
bringing some of the cities over by force, while
others submitted of their own accord.

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Meanwhile tidings of what had befallen Miletus
reached Histiaeus the Milesian, who was still at
Byzantium, employed in intercepting the Ionian
merchantmen as they issued from the Euxine.
Histiaeus had no sooner heard the news than he
gave the Hellespont in charge to Bisaltes, son of
Apollophanes, a native of Abydos, and himself, at
the head of his Lesbians, set sail for Chios. One of
the Chian garrisons which opposed him he
engaged at a place called “The Hollows,” situat-
ed in the Chian territory, and of these he slaugh-
tered a vast number; afterwards, by the help of his
Lesbians, he reduced all the rest of the Chians,
who were weakened by their losses in the sea-
fight, Polichne, a city of Chios, serving him as
head-quarters.

It mostly happens that there is some warning
when great misfortunes are about to befall a state
or nation; and so it was in this instance, for the
Chians had previously had some strange tokens
sent to them. A choir of a hundred of their youths
had been despatched to Delphi; and of these only

Herodotus

two had returned; the remaining ninety-eight hav-
ing been carried off by a pestilence. Likewise,
about the same time, and very shortly before the
sea-fight, the roof of a school-house had fallen in
upon a number of their boys, who were at
lessons; and out of a hundred and twenty children
there was but one left alive. Such were the signs
which God sent to warn them. It was very short-
ly afterwards that the sea-fight happened, which
brought the city down upon its knees; and after
the sea-fight came the attack of Histiaeus and his
Lesbians, to whom the Chians, weakened as they
were, furnished an easy conquest.

Histiaeus now led a numerous army, composed of
Ionians and Aelians, against Thasos, and had laid
siege to the place when news arrived that the
Phoenicians were about to quit Miletus and
attack the other cities of Ionia. On hearing this,
Histiaeus raised the siege of Thasos, and hastened
to Lesbos with all his forces. There his army was
in great straits for want of food; whereupon
Histiaeus left Lesbos and went across to the main-
land, intending to cut the crops which were grow-

The Histories–Book Six

ing in the Atarnean territory, and likewise in the
plain of the Caicus, which belonged to Mysia.
Now it chanced that a certain Persian named
Harpagus was in these regions at the head of an
army of no little strength. He, when Histiaeus
landed, marched out to meet him, and engaging
with his forces destroyed the greater number of
them, and took Histiaeus himself prisoner.

Histiaeus fell into the hands of the Persians in the
following manner. The Greeks and Persians
engaged at Malena, in the region of Atarneus; and
the battle was for a long time stoutly contested,
till at length the cavalry came up, and, charging
the Greeks, decided the conflict. The Greeks fled;
and Histiaeus, who thought that Darius would
not punish his fault with death, showed how he
loved his life by the following conduct. Overtaken
in his flight by one of the Persians, who was about
to run him through, he cried aloud in the Persian
tongue that he was Histiaeus the Milesian.

Now, had he been taken straightway before King
Darius, I verily believe that he would have

Herodotus

received no hurt, but the king would have freely
forgiven him. Artaphernes, however, satrap of
Sardis, and his captor Harpagus, on this very
account- because they were afraid that, if he
escaped, he would be again received into high
favour by the king- put him to death as soon as he
arrived at Sardis. His body they impaled at that
place, while they embalmed his head and sent it
up to Susa to the king. Darius, when he learnt
what had taken place, found great fault with the
men engaged in this business for not bringing
Histiaeus alive into his presence, and commanded
his servants to wash and dress the head with all
care, and then bury it, as the head of a man who
had been a great benefactor to himself and the
Persians. Such was the sequel of the history of
Histiaeus.

The naval armament of the Persians wintered at
Miletus, and in the following year proceeded to
attack the islands off the coast, Chios, Lesbos,
and Tenedos, which were reduced without diffi-
culty. Whenever they became masters of an island,
the barbarians, in every single instance, netted the

The Histories–Book Six

inhabitants. Now the mode in which they practise
this netting is the following. Men join hands, so
as to form a line across from the north coast to
the south, and then march through the island
from end to end and hunt out the inhabitants. In
like manner the Persians took also the Ionian
towns upon the mainland, not however netting
the inhabitants, as it was not possible.

And now their generals made good all the threats
wherewith they had menaced the Ionians before
the battle. For no sooner did they get possession
of the towns than they choose out all the best
favoured boys and made them eunuchs, while the
most beautiful of the girls they tore from their
homes and sent as presents to the king, at the
same time burning the cities themselves, with
their temples. Thus were the Ionians for the third
time reduced to slavery; once by the Lydians, and
a second, and now a third time, by the Persians.

The sea force, after quitting Ionia, proceeded to
the Hellespont, and took all the towns which lie
on the left shore as one sails into the straits. For

Herodotus

the cities on the right bank had already been
reduced by the land force of the Persians. Now
these are the places which border the Hellespont
on the European side; the Chersonese, which con-
tains a number of cities, Perinthus, the forts in
Thrace, Selybria, and Byzantium. The Byzantines
at this time, and their opposite neighbours, the
Chalcedonians, instead of awaiting the coming of
the Phoenicians, quitted their country, and sailing
into the Euxine, took up their abode at the city of
Mesembria. The Phoenicians, after burning all the
places above mentioned, proceeded to
Proconnresus and Artaca, which they likewise
delivered to the flames; this done, they returned to
the Chersonese, being minded to reduce those
cities which they had not ravaged in their former
cruise. Upon Cyzicus they made no attack at all,
as before their coming the inhabitants had made
terms with Oebares, the son of Megabazus, and
satrap of Dascyleium, and had submitted them-
selves to the king. In the Chersonese the
Phoenicians subdued all the cities, excepting
Cardia.

The Histories–Book Six

Up to this time the cities of the Chersonese had
been under the government of Miltiades, the son
of Cimon, and grandson of Stesagoras, to whom
they had descended from Miltiades, the son of
Cypselus, who obtained possession of them in the
following manner. The Dolonci, a Thracian tribe,
to whom the Chersonese at that time belonged,
being harassed by a war in which they were
engaged with the Apsinthians, sent their princes
to Delphi to consult the oracle about the matter.
The reply of the Pythoness bade them “take back
with them as a colonist into their country the man
who should first offer them hospitality after they
quitted the temple.” The Dolonci, following the
Sacred Road, passed through the regions of
Phocis and Boeotia; after which, as still no one
invited them in, they turned aside, and travelled
to Athens.

Now Pisistratus was at this time sole lord of
Athens; but Miltiades, the son of Cypselus, was
likewise a person of much distinction. He
belonged to a family which was wont to contend

Herodotus

in the four-horse-chariot races, and traced its
descent to Aeacus and Egina, but which, from the
time of Philaeas, the son of Ajax, who was the
first Athenian citizen of the house, had been nat-
uralised at Athens. It happened that as the
Dolonci passed his door Miltiades was sitting in
his vestibule, which caused him to remark them,
dressed as they were in outlandish garments, and
armed moreover with lances. He therefore called
to them, and, on their approach, invited them in,
offering them lodging and entertainment. The
strangers accepted his hospitality, and, after the
banquet was over, they laid before him in full the
directions of the oracle and besought him on their
own part to yield obedience to the god. Miltiades
was persuaded ere they had done speaking; for
the government of Pisistratus was irksome to him,
and he wanted to be beyond the tyrant’s reach. He
therefore went straightway to Delphi, and
inquired of the oracle whether he should do as the
Dolonci desired.

As the Pythoness backed their request, Miltiades,
son of Cypselus who had already won the four-

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horse chariot-race at Olympia, left Athens, taking
with him as many of the Athenians as liked to join
in the enterprise, and sailed away with the
Dolonci. On his arrival at the Chersonese, he was
made king by those who had invited him. After
this his first act was to build a wall across the
neck of the Chersonese from the city of Cardia to
Pactya, to protect the country from the incursions
and ravages of the Apsinthians. The breadth of
the isthmus at this part is thirty-six furlongs, the
whole length of the peninsula within the isthmus
being four hundred and twenty furlongs.

When he had finished carrying the wall across the
isthmus, and had thus secured the Chersonese
against the Apsinthians, Miltiades proceeded to
engage in other wars, and first of all attacked the
Lampsacenians; but falling into an ambush which
they had laid he had the misfortune to be taken
prisoner. Now it happened that Miltiades stood
high in the favour of Croesus, king of Lydia.
When Croesus therefore heard of his calamity, he
sent and commanded the men of Lampsacus to
give Miltiades his freedom; “if they refused,” he

Herodotus

said, “he would destroy them like a fir.” Then the
Lampsacenians were somewhile in doubt about
this speech of Croesus, and could not tell how to
construe his threat “that he would destroy them
like a fir”; but at last one of their elders divined
the true sense, and told them that the fir is the
only tree which, when cut down, makes no fresh
shoots, but forthwith dies outright. So the
Lampsacenians, being greatly afraid of Croesus,
released Miltiades, and let him go free.

Thus did Miltiades, by the help of Croesus, escape
this danger. Some time afterwards he died child-
less, leaving his kingdom and his riches to
Stesagoras, who was the son of Cimon, his half-
brother. Ever since his death the people of the
Chersonese have offered him the customary sacri-
fices of a founder; and they have further estab-
lished in his honour a gymnic contest and a char-
iot-race, in neither of which is it lawful for any
Lampsacenian to contend. Before the war with
Lampsacus was ended Stesagoras too died child-
less: he was sitting in the hall of justice when he
was struck upon the head with a hatchet by a man

The Histories–Book Six

who pretended to be a deserter, but was in good
sooth an enemy, and a bitter one.

Thus died Stesagoras; and upon his death the
Pisistratidae fitted out a trireme, and sent
Miltiades, the son of Cimon, and brother of the
deceased, to the Chersonese, that he might under-
take the management of affairs in that quarter.
They had already shown him much favour at
Athens, as if, forsooth, they had been no parties
to the death of his father Cimon- a matter where-
of I will give an account in another place. He
upon his arrival remained shut up within the
house, pretending to do honour to the memory of
his dead brother; whereupon the chief people of
the Chersonese gathered themselves together from
all the cities of the land, and came in a procession
to the place where Miltiades was, to condole with
him upon his misfortune. Miltiades commanded
them to be seized and thrown into prison; after
which he made himself master of the Chersonese,
maintained a body of five hundred mercenaries,
and married Hegesipyla, daughter of the Thracian
king Olorus.

Herodotus

This Miltiades, the son of Cimon, had not been
long in the country when a calamity befell him yet
more grievous than those in which he was now
involved: for three years earlier he had had to fly
before an incursion of the Scyths. These nomads,
angered by the attack of Darius, collected in a
body and marched as far as the Chersonese.
Miltiades did not await their coming, but fled,
and remained away until the Scyths retired, when
the Dolonci sent and fetched him back. All this
happened three years before the events which
befell Miltiades at the present time.

He now no sooner heard that the Phoenicians
were attacking Tenedos than he loaded five
triremes with his goods and chattels, and set sail
for Athens. Cardia was the point from which he
took his departure; and as he sailed down the gulf
of Melas, along the shore of the Chersonese, he
came suddenly upon the whole Phoenician fleet.
However he himself escaped, with four of his ves-
sels, and got into Imbrus, one trireme only falling
into the hands of his pursuers. This vessel was
under the command of his eldest son Metiochus,

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whose mother was not the daughter of the
Thracian king Olorus, but a different woman.
Metiochus and his ship were taken; and when the
Phoenicians found out that he was a son of
Miltiades they resolved to convey him to the king,
expecting thereby to rise high in the royal favour.
For they remembered that it was Miltiades who
counselled the Ionians to hearken when the Scyths
prayed them to break up the bridge and return
home. Darius, however, when the Phoenicians
brought Metiochus into his presence, was so far
from doing him any hurt, that he loaded him with
benefits. He gave him a house and estate, and also
a Persian wife, by whom there were children born
to him who were accounted Persians. As for
Miltiades himself, from Imbrus he made his way
in safety to Athens.

At this time the Persians did no more hurt to the
Ionians; but on the contrary, before the year was
out, they carried into effect the following mea-
sures, which were greatly to their advantage.
Artaphernes, satrap of Sardis, summoned
deputies from all the Ionian cities, and forced

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them to enter into agreements with one another,
not to harass each other by force of arms, but to
settle their disputes by reference. He likewise took
the measurement of their whole country in
parasangs- such is the name which the Persians
give to a distance of thirty furlongs- and settled
the tributes which the several cities were to pay, at
a rate that has continued unaltered from the time
when Artaphernes fixed it down to the present
day. The rate was very nearly the same as that
which had been paid before the revolt. Such were
the peaceful dealings of the Persians with the
Ionians.

The next spring Darius superseded all the other
generals, and sent down Mardonius, the son of
Gobryas, to the coast, and with him a vast body
of men, some fit for sea, others for land service.
Mardonius was a youth at this time, and had only
lately married Artazostra, the king’s daughter.
When Mardonius, accompanied by this numerous
host, reached Cilicia, he took ship and proceeded
along shore with his fleet, while the land army
marched under other leaders towards the

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Hellespont. In the course of his voyage along the
coast of Asia he came to Ionia; and here I have a
marvel to relate which will greatly surprise those
Greeks who cannot believe that Otanes advised
the seven conspirators to make Persia a common-
wealth. Mardonius put down all the despots
throughout Ionia, and in lieu of them established
democracies. Having so done, he hastened to the
Hellespont, and when a vast multitude of ships
had been brought together, and likewise a power-
ful land force, he conveyed his troops across the
strait by means of his vessels, and proceeded
through Europe against Eretria and Athens.

At least these towns served as a pretext for the
expedition, the real purpose of which was to sub-
jugate as great a number as possible of the
Grecian cities; and this became plain when the
Thasians, who did not even lift a hand in their
defence, were reduced by the sea force, while the
land army added the Macedonians to the former
slaves of the king. All the tribes on the hither side
of Macedonia had been reduced previously. From
Thasos the fleet stood across to the mainland, and

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sailed along shore to Acanthus, whence an
attempt was made to double Mount Athos. But
here a violent north wind sprang up, against
which nothing could contend, and handled a large
number of the ships with much rudeness, shatter-
ing them and driving them aground upon Athos.
‘Tis said the number of the ships destroyed was
little short of three hundred; and the men who
perished were more than twenty thousand. For
the sea about Athos abounds in monsters beyond
all others; and so a portion were seized and
devoured by these animals, while others were
dashed violently against the rocks; some, who did
not know how to swim, were engulfed; and some
died of the cold.

While thus it fared with the fleet, on land
Mardonius and his army were attacked in their
camp during the night by the Brygi, a tribe of
Thracians; and here vast numbers of the Persians
were slain, and even Mardonius himself received
a wound. The Brygi, nevertheless, did not succeed
in maintaining their own freedom: for Mardonius
would not leave the country till he had subdued

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them and made them subjects of Persia. Still,
though he brought them under the yoke, the blow
which his land force had received at their hands,
and the great damage done to his fleet off Athos,
induced him to set out upon his retreat; and so
this armament, having failed disgracefully,
returned to Asia.

The year after these events, Darius received infor-
mation from certain neighbours of the Thasians
that those islanders were making preparations for
revolt; he therefore sent a herald, and bade them
dismantle their walls, and bring all their ships to
Abdera. The Thasians, at the time when Histiaeus
the Milesian made his attack upon them, had
resolved that, as their income was very great, they
would apply their wealth to building ships of war,
and surrounding their city with another and a
stronger wall. Their revenue was derived partly
from their possessions upon the mainland, partly
from the mines which they owned. They were
masters of the gold mines at Scapte-Hyle, the
yearly produce of which amounted in all to eighty
talents. Their mines in Thasos yielded less, but

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still were so far prolific that, besides being entire-
ly free from land-tax, they had a surplus income,
derived from the two sources of their territory on
the main and their mines, in common years of two
hundred, and in the best years of three hundred
talents.

I myself have seen the mines in question: by far
the most curious of them are those which the
Phoenicians discovered at the time when they
went with Thasus and colonised the island, which
afterwards took its name from him. These
Phoenician workings are in Thasos itself, between
Coenyra and a place called Aenyra, over against
Samothrace: a huge mountain has been turned
upside down in the search for ores. Such then was
the source of their wealth. On this occasion no
sooner did the Great King issue his commands
than straightway the Thasians dismantled their
wall, and took their whole fleet to Abdera.

After this Darius resolved to prove the Greeks,
and try the bent of their minds, whether they were
inclined to resist him in arms or prepared to make

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their submission. He therefore sent out heralds in
divers directions round about Greece, with orders
to demand everywhere earth and water for the
king. At the same time he sent other heralds to the
various seaport towns which paid him tribute,
and required them to provide a number of ships
of war and horse-transports.

These towns accordingly began their prepara-
tions; and the heralds who had been sent into
Greece obtained what the king had bid them ask
from a large number of the states upon the main-
land, and likewise from all the islanders whom
they visited. Among these last were included the
Eginetans, who, equally with the rest, consented
to give earth and water to the Persian king.

When the Athenians heard what the Eginetans
had done, believing that it was from enmity to
themselves that they had given consent, and that
the Eginetans intended to join the Persian in his
attack upon Athens, they straightway took the
matter in hand. In good truth it greatly rejoiced
them to have so fair a pretext; and accordingly

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they sent frequent embassies to Sparta, and made
it a charge against the Eginetans that their con-
duct in this matter proved them to be traitors to
Greece.

Cleomenes, the son of Anaxandridas, who was
then king of the Spartans, went in person to
Egina, intending to seize those whose guilt was
the greatest. As soon however as he tried to arrest
them, a number of the Eginetins made resistance;
a certain Crius, son of Polycritus, being the fore-
most in violence. This person told him “he should
not carry off a single Eginetan without it costing
him dear- the Athenians had bribed him to make
this attack, for which he had no warrant from his
own government- otherwise both the kings would
have come together to make the seizure.” This he
said in consequence of instructions which he had
received from Demaratus. Hereupon Cleomenes,
finding that he must quit Egina, asked Crius his
name; and when Crius told him, “Get thy horns
tipped with brass with all speed, O Crius!” he
said, “for thou wilt have to struggle with a great
danger.”

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Meanwhile Demaratus, son of Ariston, was
bringing charges against Cleomenes at Sparta. He
too, like Cleomenes, was king of the Spartans, but
he belonged to the lower house- not indeed that
his house was of any lower origin than the other,
for both houses are of one blood- but the house of
Eurysthenes is the more honoured of the two,
inasmuch as it is the elder branch.

The Lacedaemonians declare, contradicting there-
in all the poets, that it was king Aristodemus him-
self, son of Aristomachus, grandson of Cleodaeus,
and great-grandson of Hyllus, who conducted
them to the land which they now possess, and not
the sons of Aristodemus. The wife of
Aristodemus, whose name (they say) was Argeia,
and who was daughter of Autesion, son of
Tisamenus, grandson of Thersander, and great-
grandson of Polynices, within a little while after
their coming into the country, gave birth to twins.
Aristodemus just lived to see his children, but died
soon afterwards of a disease. The Lacedae-
monians of that day determined, according to
custom, to take for their king the elder of the two

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children; but they were so alike, and so exactly of
one size, that they could not possibly tell which of
the two to choose: so when they found themselves
unable to make a choice, or haply even earlier,
they went to the mother and asked her to tell
them which was the elder, whereupon she
declared that “she herself did not know the chil-
dren apart”; although in good truth she knew
them very well, and only feigned ignorance in
order that, if it were possible, both of them might
be made kings of Sparta. The Lacedaemonians
were now in a great strait; so they sent to Delphi
and inquired of the oracle how they should deal
with the matter. The Pythoness made answer, “Let
both be taken to be kings; but let the elder have
the greater honour.” So the Lacedaemonians were
in as great a strait as before, and could not con-
ceive how they were to discover which was the
first-born, till at length a certain Messenian, by
name Panites, suggested to them to watch and see
which of the two the mother washed and fed first;
if they found she always gave one the preference,
that fact would tell them all they wanted to know;
if, on the contrary, she herself varied, and some-

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times took the one first, sometimes the other, it
would be plain that she knew as little as they; in
which case they must try some other plan. The
Lacedaemonians did according to the advice of
the Messenian, and, without letting her know
why, kept a watch upon the mother; by which
means they discovered that, whenever she either
washed or fed her children, she always gave the
same child the preference. So they took the boy
whom the mother honoured the most, and
regarding him as the first-born, brought him up in
the palace; and the name which they gave to the
elder boy was Eurysthenes, while his brother they
called Procles. When the brothers grew up, there
was always, so long as they lived, enmity between
them; and the houses sprung from their loins have
continued the feud to this day.

Thus much is related by the Lacedaemonians, but
not by any of the other Greeks; in what follows I
give the tradition of the Greeks generally. The
kings of the Dorians (they say)- counting up to
Perseus, son of Danae, and so omitting the god-
are rightly given in the common Greek lists, and

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rightly considered to have been Greeks them-
selves; for even at this early time they ranked
among that people. I say “up to Perseus,” and not
further, because Perseus has no mortal father by
whose name he is called, as Hercules has in
Amphitryon; whereby it appears that I have rea-
son on my side, and am right in saying, “up to
Perseus.” If we follow the line of Danad, daugh-
ter of Acrisius, and trace her progenitors, we shall
find that the chiefs of the Dorians are really gen-
uine Egyptians. In the genealogies here given I
have followed the common Greek accounts.

According to the Persian story, Perseus was an
Assyrian who became a Greek; his ancestors,
therefore, according to them, were not Greeks.
They do not admit that the forefathers of Acrisius
were in any way related to Perseus, but say they
were Egyptians, as the Greeks likewise testify.

Enough however of this subject. How it came to
pass that Egyptians obtained the kingdoms of the
Dorians, and what they did to raise themselves to
such a position, these are questions concerning

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which, as they have been treated by others, I shall
say nothing. I proceed to speak of points on
which no other writer has touched.

The prerogatives which the Spartans have
allowed their kings are the following. In the first
place, two priesthoods, those (namely) of
Lacedaemonian and of Celestial Jupiter; also the
right of making war on what country soever they
please, without hindrance from any of the other
Spartans, under pain of outlawry; on service the
privilege of marching first in the advance and last
in the retreat, and of having a hundred picked
men for their body guard while with the army;
likewise the liberty of sacrificing as many cattle in
their expeditions as it seems them good, and the
right of having the skins and the chines of the
slaughtered animals for their own use.

Such are their privileges in war; in peace their
rights are as follows. When a citizen makes a pub-
lic sacrifice the kings are given the first seats at the
banquet; they are served before any of the other
guests, and have a double portion of everything;

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they take the lead in the libations; and the hides
of the sacrificed beasts belong to them. Every
month, on the first day, and again on the seventh
of the first decade, each king receives a beast
without blemish at the public cost, which he
offers up to Apollo; likewise a medimnus of meal,
and of wine a Laconian quart. In the contests of
the Games they have always the seat of honour;
they appoint the citizens who have to entertain
foreigners; they also nominate, each of them, two
of the Pythians, officers whose business it is to
consult the oracle at Delphi, who eat with the
kings, and, like them, live at the public charge. If
the kings do not come to the public supper, each
of them must have two choenixes of meal and a
cotyle of wine sent home to him at his house; if
they come, they are given a double quantity of
each, and the same when any private man invites
them to his table. They have the custody of all the
oracles which are pronounced; but the Pythians
must likewise have knowledge of them. They have
the whole decision of certain causes, which are
these, and these only:- When a maiden is left the
heiress of her father’s estate, and has not been

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betrothed by him to any one, they decide who is
to marry her; in all matters concerning the public
highways they judge; and if a person wants to
adopt a child, he must do it before the kings. They
likewise have the right of sitting in council with
the eight-and-twenty senators; and if they are not
present, then the senators nearest of kin to them
have their privileges, and give two votes as the
royal proxies, besides a third vote, which is their
own.

Such are the honours which the Spartan people
have allowed their kings during their lifetime;
after they are dead other honours await them.
Horsemen carry the news of their death through
all Laconia, while in the city the women go hith-
er and thither drumming upon a kettle. At this
signal, in every house two free persons, a man and
a woman, must put on mourning, or else be sub-
ject to a heavy fine. The Lacedaemonians have
likewise a custom at the demise of their kings
which is common to them with the barbarians of
Asia- indeed with the greater number of the bar-
barians everywhere- namely, that when one of

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their kings dies, not only the Spartans, but a cer-
tain number of the country people from every
part of Laconia are forced, whether they will or
no, to attend the funeral. So these persons and the
helots, and likewise the Spartans themselves,
flock together to the number of several thou-
sands, men and women intermingled; and all of
them smite their foreheads violently, and weep
and wall without stint, saying always that their
last king was the best. If a king dies in battle, then
they make a statue of him, and placing it upon a
couch right bravely decked, so carry it to the
grave. After the burial, by the space of ten days
there is no assembly, nor do they elect magis-
trates, but continue mourning the whole time.

They hold with the Persians also in another cus-
tom. When a king dies, and another comes to the
throne, the newly-made monarch forgives all the
Spartans the debts which they owe either to the
king or to the public treasury. And in like manner
among the Persians each king when he begins to
reign remits the tribute due from the provinces.

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In one respect the Lacedaemonians resemble the
Egyptians. Their heralds and flute-players, and
likewise their cooks, take their trades by succes-
sion from their fathers. A flute-player must be the
son of a flute-player, a cook of a cook, a herald of
a herald; and other people cannot take advantage
of the loudness of their voice to come into the
profession and shut out the heralds’ sons; but
each follows his father’s business. Such are the
customs of the Lacedaemonians.

At the time of which we are speaking, while
Cleomenes in Egina was labouring for the gener-
al good of Greece, Demaratus at Sparta continued
to bring charges against him, moved not so much
by love of the Eginetans as by jealousy and hatred
of his colleague. Cleomenes therefore was no
sooner returned from Egina than he considered
with himself how he might deprive Demaratus of
his kingly office; and here the following circum-
stance furnished a ground for him to proceed
upon. Ariston, king of Sparta, had been married
to two wives, but neither of them had borne him

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any children; as however he still thought it was
possible he might have offspring, he resolved to
wed a third; and this was how the wedding was
brought about. He had a certain friend, a Spartan,
with whom he was more intimate than with any
other citizen. This friend was married to a wife
whose beauty far surpassed that of all the other
women in Sparta; and what was still more
strange, she had once been as ugly as she now was
beautiful. For her nurse, seeing how ill-favoured
she was, and how sadly her parents, who were
wealthy people, took her bad looks to heart,
bethought herself of a plan, which was to carry
the child every day to the temple of Helen at
Therapna, which stands above the Phoebeum,
and there to place her before the image, and
beseech the goddess to take away the child’s ugli-
ness. One day, as she left the temple, a woman
appeared to her, and begged to know what it was
she held in her arms. The nurse told her it was a
child, on which she asked to see it; but the nurse
refused; the parents, she said, had forbidden her
to show the child to any one. However the
woman would not take a denial; and the nurse,

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seeing how highly she prized a look, at last let her
see the child. Then the woman gently stroked its
head, and said, “One day this child shall be the
fairest dame in Sparta.” And her looks began to
change from that very day. When she was of mar-
riageable age, Agetus, son of Alcides, the same
whom I have mentioned above as the friend of
Ariston, made her his wife.

Now it chanced that Ariston fell in love with this
person; and his love so preyed upon his mind that
at last he devised as follows. He went to his
friend, the lady’s husband, and proposed to him
that they should exchange gifts, each taking that
which pleased him best out of all the possessions
of the other. His friend, who felt no alarm about
his wife, since Ariston was also married, consent-
ed readily; and so the matter was confirmed
between them by an oath. Then Ariston gave
Agetus the present, whatever it was, of which he
had made choice, and when it came to his turn to
name the present which he was to receive in
exchange, required to be allowed to carry home
with him Agetus’s wife. But the other demurred,

Herodotus

and said, “except his wife, he might have any-
thing else”: however, as he could not resist the
oath which he had sworn, or the trickery which
had been practised on him, at last he suffered
Ariston to carry her away to his house.

Ariston hereupon put away his second wife and
took for his third this woman; and she, in less
than the due time- when she had not yet reached
her full term of ten months- gave birth to a child,
the Demaratus of whom we have spoken. Then
one of his servants came and told him the news,
as he sat in council with the Ephors; whereat,
remembering when it was that the woman
became his wife, he counted the months upon his
fingers, and having so done, cried out with an
oath, “The boy cannot be mine.” This was said in
the hearing of the Ephors; but they made no
account of it at the time. The boy grew up; and
Ariston repented of what he had said; for he
became altogether convinced that Demaratus was
truly his son. The reason why he named him
Demaratus was the following. Some time before
these events the whole Spartan people, looking

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upon Ariston as a man of mark beyond all the
kings that had reigned at Sparta before him, had
offered up a prayer that he might have a son. On
this account, therefore, the name Demaratus was
given.

In course of time Ariston died; and Demaratus
received the kingdom: but it was fated, as it
seems, that these words, when bruited abroad,
should strip him of his sovereignty. This was
brought about by means of Cleomenes, whom he
had twice sorely vexed, once when he led the
army home from Eleusis, and a second time when
Cleomenes was gone across to Egina against such
as had espoused the side of the Medes.

Cleomenes now, being resolved to have his
revenge upon Demaratus, went to Leotychides,
the son of Menares, and grandson of Agis, who
was of the same family as Demaratus, and made
agreement with him to this tenor following.
Cleomenes was to lend his aid to make
Leotychides king in the room of Demaratus; and
then Leotychides was to take part with

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Cleomenes against the Eginetans. Now
Leotychides hated Demaratus chiefly on account
of Percalus, the daughter of Chilon, son of
Demarmenus: this lady had been betrothed to
Leotychides; but Demaratus laid a plot, and
robbed him of his bride, forestalling him in carry-
ing her off, and marrying her. Such was the origin
of the enmity. At the time of which we speak,
Leotychides was prevailed upon by the earnest
desire of Cleomenes to come forward against
Demaratus and make oath “that Demaratus was
not rightful king of Sparta, since he was not the
true son of Ariston.” After he had thus sworn,
Leotychides sued Demaratus, and brought up
against him the phrase which Ariston had let drop
when, on the coming of his servant to announce
to him the birth of his son, he counted the
months, and cried out with an oath that the child
was not his. It was on this speech of Ariston’s that
Leotychides relied to prove that Demaratus was
not his son, and therefore not rightful king of
Sparta; and he produced as witnesses the Ephors
who were sitting with Ariston at the time and
heard what he said.

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At last, as there came to be much strife concern-
ing this matter, the Spartans made a decree that
the Delphic oracle should be asked to say whether
Demaratus were Ariston’s son or no. Cleomenes
set them upon this plan; and no sooner was the
decree passed than he made a friend of Cobon,
the son of Aristophantus, a man of the greatest
weight among the Delphians; and this Cobon pre-
vailed upon Perialla, the prophetess, to give the
answer which Cleomenes wished. Accordingly,
when the sacred messengers came and put their
question, the Pythoness returned for answer “that
Demaratus was not Ariston’s son.” Some time
afterwards all this became known; and Cobon
was forced to fly from Delphi; while Perialla the
prophetess was deprived of her office.

Such were the means whereby the deposition of
Demaratus was brought about; but his flying
from Sparta to the Medes was by reason of an
affront which was put upon him. On losing his
kingdom he had been made a magistrate; and in
that office soon afterwards, when the feast of the
Gymnopaediae came around, he took his station

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among the lookers-on; whereupon Leotychides,
who was now king in his room, sent a servant to
him and asked him, by way of insult and mock-
ery, “how it felt to be a magistrate after one had
been a king?” Demaratus, who was hurt at the
question, made answer- “Tell him I have tried
them both, but he has not. Howbeit this speech
will be the cause to Sparta of infinite blessings or
else of infinite woes.” Having thus spoken he
wrapped his head in his robe, and, leaving the
theatre, went home to his own house, where he
prepared an ox for sacrifice, and offered it to
Jupiter, after which he called for his mother.

When she appeared, he took of the entrails, and
placing them in her hand, besought her in these
words following:-

“Dear mother, I beseech you, by all the gods, and
chiefly by our own hearth-god Jupiter, tell me the
very truth, who was really my father. For
Leotychides, in the suit which we had together,
declared that when thou becamest Ariston’s wife
thou didst already bear in thy womb a child by

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thy former husband, and others repeat a yet more
disgraceful tale, that our groom found favour in
thine eyes, and that I am his son. I entreat thee
therefore by the gods to tell me the truth. For if
thou hast gone astray, thou hast done no more
than many a woman; and the Spartans remark it
as strange, if I am Ariston’s son, that he had no
children by his other wives.”

Thus spake Demaratus; and his mother replied as
follows: “Dear son, since thou entreatest so
earnestly for the truth, it shall indeed be fully told
to thee. When Ariston brought me to his house,
on the third night after my coming, there
appeared to me one like to Ariston, who, after
staying with me a while, rose, and taking the gar-
lands from his own brows placed them upon my
head, and so went away. Presently after Ariston
entered, and when he saw the garlands which I
still wore, asked me who gave them to me. I said,
‘twas he; but this he stoutly denied; whereupon I
solemnly swore that it was none other, and told
him he did not do well to dissemble when he had
so lately risen from my side and left the garlands

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with me. Then Ariston, when he heard my oath,
understood that there was something beyond
nature in what had taken place. And indeed it
appeared that the garlands had come from the
hero-temple which stands by our court gates- the
temple of him they call Astrabacus- and the
soothsayers, moreover, declared that the appari-
tion was that very person. And now, my son, I
have told thee all thou wouldest fain know. Either
thou art the son of that hero- either thou mayest
call Astrabacus sire; or else Ariston was thy
father. As for that matter which they who hate
thee urge the most, the words of Ariston, who,
when the messenger told him of thy birth,
declared before many witnesses that ‘thou wert
not his son, forasmuch as the ten months were not
fully out,’ it was a random speech, uttered from
mere ignorance. The truth is, children are born
not only at ten months, but at nine, and even at
seven. Thou wert thyself, my son, a seven months’
child. Ariston acknowledged, no long time after-
wards, that his speech sprang from thoughtless-
ness. Hearken not then to other tales concerning
thy birth, my son: for be assured thou hast the

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whole truth. As for grooms, pray Heaven
Leotychides and all who speak as he does may
suffer wrong from them!” Such was the mother’s
answer.

Demaratus, having learnt all that he wished to
know, took with him provision for the journey,
and went into Elis, pretending that he purposed to
proceed to Delphi, and there consult the oracle.
The Lacedaemonians, however, suspecting that he
meant to fly his country, sent men in pursuit of
him; but Demaratus hastened, and leaving Elis
before they arrived, sailed across to Zacynthus.
The Lacedaemonians followed, and sought to lay
hands upon him, and to separate him from his ret-
inue; but the Zacynthians would not give him up
to them: so he escaping, made his way afterwards
by sea to Asia, and presented himself before King
Darius, who received him generously, and gave
him both lands and cities. Such was the chance
which drove Demaratus to Asia, a man distin-
guished among the Lacedaemonians for many
noble deeds and wise counsels, and who alone of
all the Spartan kings brought honour to his coun-

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try by winning at Olympia the prize in the four-
horse chariot-race.

After Demaratus was deposed, Leotychides, the
son of Menares, received the kingdom. He had a
son, Zeuxidamus, called Cyniscus by many of the
Spartans. This Zeuxidamus did not reign at
Sparta, but died before his father, leaving a son,
Archidamus. Leotychides, when Zeuxidamus was
taken from him, married a second wife, named
Eurydame, the sister of Menius and daughter of
Diactorides. By her he had no male offspring, but
only a daughter called Lampito, whom he gave in
marriage to Archidamus, Zeuxidamus’ son.

Even Leotychides, however, did not spend his old
age in Sparta, but suffered a punishment whereby
Demaratus was fully avenged. He commanded
the Lacedaemonians when they made war against
Thessaly, and might have conquered the whole of
it, but was bribed by a large sum of money. It
chanced that he was caught in the fact, being
found sitting in his tent on a gauntlet, quite full of

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silver. Upon this he was brought to trial and ban-
ished from Sparta; his house was razed to the
ground; and he himself fled to Tegea, where he
ended his days. But these events took place long
afterwards.

At the time of which we are speaking, Cleomenes,
having carried his proceedings in the matter of
Demaratus to a prosperous issue, forthwith took
Leotychides with him, and crossed over to attack
the Eginetans; for his anger was hot against them
on account of the affront which they had former-
ly put upon him. Hereupon the Eginetans, seeing
that both the kings were come against them,
thought it best to make no further resistance. So
the two kings picked out from all Egina the ten
men who for wealth and birth stood the highest,
among whom were Crius, son of Polycritus, and
Casambus, son of Aristocrates, who wielded the
chief power; and these men they carried with
them to Attica, and there deposited them in the
hands of the Athenians, the great enemies of the
Eginetans.

Herodotus

Afterwards, when it came to be known what evil
arts had been used against Demaratus, Cleomenes
was seized with fear of his own countrymen, and
fled into Thessaly. From thence he passed into
Arcadia, where he began to stir up troubles, and
endeavoured to unite the Arcadians against
Sparta. He bound them by various oaths to follow
him whithersoever he should lead, and was even
desirous of taking their chief leaders with him to
the city of Nonacris, that he might swear them to
his cause by the waters of the Styx. For the waters
of Styx, as the Arcadians say, are in that city, and
this is the appearance they present: you see a little
water, dripping from a rock into a basin, which is
fenced round by a low wall. Nonacris, where this
fountain is to be seen, is a city of Arcadia near
Pheneus.

When the Lacedaemonians heard how
Cleomenes was engaged, they were afraid, and
agreed with him that he should come back to
Sparta and be king as before. So Cleomenes came
back; but had no sooner returned than he, who

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had never been altogether of sound mind, was
smitten with downright madness. This he showed
by striking every Spartan he met upon the face
with his sceptre. On his behaving thus, and
showing that he was gone quite out of his mind,
his kindred imprisoned him, and even put his feet
in the stocks. While so bound, finding himself left
alone with a single keeper, he asked the man for
a knife. The keeper at first refused, whereupon
Cleomenes began to threaten him, until at last he
was afraid, being only a helot, and gave him
what he required. Cleomenes had no sooner got
the steel than, beginning at his legs, he horribly
disfigured himself, cutting gashes in his flesh,
along his legs, thighs, hips, and loins, until at last
he reached his belly, which he likewise began to
gash, whereupon in a little time he died. The
Greeks generally think that this fate came upon
him because he induced the Pythoness to pro-
nounce against Demaratus; the Athenians differ
from all others in saying that it was because he
cut down the sacred grove of the goddesses when
he made his invasion by Eleusis; while the

Herodotus

Argives ascribe it to his having taken from their
refuge and cut to pieces certain argives who had
fled from battle into a precinct sacred to Argus,
where Cleomenes slew them, burning likewise at
the same time, through irreverence, the grove
itself.

For once, when Cleomenes had sent to Delphi to
consult the oracle, it was prophesied to him that
he should take Argos; upon which he went out at
the head of the Spartans, and led them to the river
Erasinus. This stream is reported to flow from the
Stymphalian lake, the waters of which empty
themselves into a pitch-dark chasm, and then (as
they say) reappear in Argos, where the Argives
call them the Erasinus. Cleomenes, having arrived
upon the banks of this river, proceeded to offer
sacrifice to it, but, in spite of all that he could do,
the victims were not favourable to his crossing. So
he said that he admired the god for refusing to
betray his countrymen, but still the Argives
should not escape him for all that. He then with-
drew his troops, and led them down to Thyrea,

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where he sacrificed a bull to the sea, and conveyed
his men on shipboard to Nauplia in the
Tirynthian territory.

The Argives, when they heard of this, marched
down to the sea to defend their country; and
arriving in the neighbourhood of Tiryns, at the
place which bears the name of Sepeia, they
pitched their camp opposite to the
Lacedaemonians, leaving no great space between
the hosts. And now their fear was not so much
lest they should be worsted in open fight as lest
some trick should be practised on them; for such
was the danger which the oracle given to them in
common with the Milesians seemed to intimate.
The oracle ran as follows:-

Time shall be when the female shall conquer the

male, and shall chase him

Far away- gaining so great praise and honour in

Argos;

Then full many an Argive woman her cheeks

shall mangle

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Hence, in the times to come ‘twill be said by the

men who are unborn,

“Tamed by the spear expired the coiled terrible

serpent.”

At the coincidence of all these things the Argives
were greatly cast down; and so they resolved that
they would follow the signals of the enemy’s her-
ald. Having made this resolve, they proceeded to
act as follows: whenever the herald of the
Lacedaemonians gave an order to the soldiers of
his own army, the Argives did the like on their
side.

Now when Cleomenes heard that the Argives
were acting thus, he commanded his troops that,
so soon as the herald gave the word for the sol-
diers to go to dinner, they should instantly seize
their arms and charge the host of the enemy.
Which the Lacedaemonians did accordingly, and
fell upon the Argives just as, following the signal,
they had begun their repast; whereby it came to
pass that vast numbers of the Argives were slain,
while the rest, who were more than they which

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died in the fight, were driven to take refuge in the
grove of Argus hard by, where they were sur-
rounded, and watch kept upon them.

When things were at this pass Cleomenes acted as
follows: Having learnt the names of the Argives
who were shut up in the sacred precinct from cer-
tain deserters who had come over to him, he sent
a herald to summon them one by one, on pretence
of having received their ransoms. Now the ran-
som of prisoners among the Peloponnesians is
fixed at two minae the man. So Cleomenes had
these persons called forth severally, to the number
of fifty, or thereabouts, and massacred them. All
this while they who remained in the enclosure
knew nothing of what was happening; for the
grove was so thick that the people inside were
unable to see what was taking place without. But
at last one of their number climbed up into a tree
and spied the treachery; after which none of those
who were summoned would go forth.

Then Cleomenes ordered all the helots to bring
brushwood, and heap it around the grove; which

Herodotus

was done accordingly; and Cleomenes set the
grove on fire. As the flames spread he asked a
deserter “Who was the god of the grove?” where-
to the other made answer, “Argus.” So he, when
he heard that, uttered a loud groan, and said:-

“Greatly hast thou deceived me, Apollo, god of
prophecy, in saying that I should take Argos. I fear
me thy oracle has now got its accomplishment.”

Cleomenes now sent home the greater part of his
army, while with a thousand of his best troops he
proceeded to the temple of Juno, to offer sacrifice.
When however he would have slain the victim on
the altar himself, the priest forbade him, as it was
not lawful (he said) for a foreigner to sacrifice in
that temple. At this Cleomenes ordered his helots
to drag the priest from the altar and scourge him,
while he performed the sacrifice himself, after
which he went back to Sparta.

Thereupon his enemies brought him up before the
Ephors, and made it a charge against him that he
had allowed himself to be bribed, and on that

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account had not taken Argos when he might have
captured it easily. To this he answered- whether
truly or falsely I cannot say with certainty- but at
any rate his answer to the charge was that “so
soon as he discovered the sacred precinct which
he had taken to belong to Argos, he directly imag-
ined that the oracle had received its accomplish-
ment; he therefore thought it not good to attempt
the town, at the least until he had inquired by sac-
rifice, and ascertained if the god meant to grant
him the place, or was determined to oppose his
taking it. So he offered in the temple of Juno, and
when the omens were propitious, immediately
there flashed forth a flame of fire from the breast
of the image; whereby he knew of a surety that he
was not to take Argos. For if the flash had come
from the head, he would have gained the town,
citadel and all; but as it shone from the breast, he
had done so much as the god intended.” And his
words seemed to the Spartans so true and reason-
able, that he came clear off from his adversaries.

Argos however was left so bare of men that the
slaves managed the state, filled the offices, and

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administered everything until the sons of those
who were slain by Cleomenes grew up. Then
these latter cast out the slaves, and got the city
back under their own rule; while the slaves who
had been driven out fought a battle and won
Tiryns. After this for a time there was peace
between the two; but a certain man, a soothsayer,
named Cleander, who was by race a Phigalean
from Arcadia, joined himself to the slaves, and
stirred them up to make a fresh attack upon their
lords. Then were they at war with one another by
the space of many years; but at length the Argives
with much trouble gained the upper hand.

The Argives say that Cleomenes lost his senses,
and died so miserably, on account of these doings.
But his own countrymen declare that his madness
proceeded not from any supernatural cause what-
ever, but only from the habit of drinking wine
unmixed with water, which he learnt of the
Scyths. These nomads, from the time that Darius
made his inroad into their country, had always
had a wish for revenge. They therefore sent
ambassadors to Sparta to conclude a league,

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proposing to endeavour themselves to enter
Media by the Phasis, while the Spartans should
march inland from Ephesus, and then the two
armies should join together in one. When the
Scyths came to Sparta on this errand Cleomenes
was with them continually; and growing some-
what too familiar, learnt of them to drink his wine
without water, a practice which is thought by the
Spartans to have caused his madness. From this
distance of time the Spartans, according to their
own account, have been accustomed, when they
want to drink purer wine than common, to give
the order to fill “Scythian fashion.” The Spartans
then speak thus concerning Cleomenes; but for
my own part I think his death was a judgment on
him for wronging Demaratus.

No sooner did the news of Cleomenes’ death
reach Egina than straightway the Eginetans sent
ambassadors to Sparta to complain of the con-
duct of Leotychides in respect of their hostages,
who were still kept at Athens. So they of
Lacedaemon assembled a court of justice and
gave sentence upon Leotychides, that whereas he

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had grossly affronted the people of Egina, he
should be given up to the ambassadors, to be led
away in place of the men whom the Athenians
had in their keeping. Then the ambassadors were
about to lead him away; but Theasides, the son of
Leoprepes, who was a man greatly esteemed in
Sparta, interfered, and said to them:-

“What are ye minded to do, ye men of Egina? To
lead away captive the king of the Spartans, whom
his countrymen have given into your hands?
Though now in their anger they have passed this
sentence, yet belike the time will come when they
will punish you, if you act thus, by bringing utter
destruction upon your country.”

The Eginetans, when they heard this, changed
their plan, and, instead of leading Leotychides
away captive, agreed with him that he should
come with them to Athens, and give them back
their men.

When however he reached that city, and demand-
ed the restoration of his pledge, the Athenians,

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being unwilling to comply, proceeded to make
excuses, saying “that two kings had come and left
the men with them, and they did not think it right
to give them back to the one without the other.”
So when the Athenians refused plainly to restore
the men, Leotychides said to them:-

“Men of Athens, act which way you choose- give
me up the hostages, and be righteous, or keep
them, and be the contrary. I wish, however, to tell
you what happened once in Sparta about a
pledge. The story goes among us that three gener-
ations back there lived in Lacedaemon one
Glaucus, the son of Epicydes, a man who in every
other respect was on a par with the first in the
kingdom, and whose character for justice was
such as to place him above all the other Spartans.
Now to this man at the appointed season the fol-
lowing events happened. A certain Milesian came
to Sparta and, having desired to speak with him,
said- ‘I am of Miletus, and I have come hither,
Glaucus, in the hope of profiting by thy honesty.
For when I heard much talk thereof in Ionia and
through all the rest of Greece, and when I

Herodotus

observed that whereas Ionia is always insecure,
the Peloponnese stands firm and unshaken, and
noted likewise how wealth is continually chang-
ing hands in our country, I took counsel with
myself and resolved to turn one-half of my sub-
stance into money, and place it in thy hands, since
I am well assured that it will be safe in thy keep-
ing. Here then is the silver- take it- and take like-
wise these tallies, and be careful of them; remem-
ber thou art to give back the money to the person
who shall bring you their fellows.’ Such were the
words of the Milesian stranger; and Glaucus took
the deposit on the terms expressed to him. Many
years had gone by when the sons of the man by
whom the money was left came to Sparta, and
had an interview with Glaucus, whereat they pro-
duced the tallies, and asked to have the money
returned to them. But Glaucus sought to refuse,
and answered them: ‘I have no recollection of the
matter; nor can I bring to mind any of those par-
ticulars whereof ye speak. When I remember, I
will certainly do what is just. If I had the money,
you have a right to receive it back; but if it was
never given to me, I shall put the Greek law in

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force against you. For the present I give you no
answer; but four months hence I will settle the
business.’ So the Milesians went away sorrowful,
considering that their money was utterly lost to
them. As for Glaucus, he made a journey to
Delphi, and there consulted the oracle. To his
question if he should swear, and so make prize of
the money, the Pythoness returned for answer
these lines following:-

Best for the present it were, O Glaucus, to do as

thou wishest,

Swearing an oath to prevail, and so to make

prize of the money.

Swear then- death is the lot e’en of those who

never swear falsely.

Yet hath the Oath-God a son who is nameless,

footless, and handless;

Mighty in strength he approaches to vengeance,

and whelms in destruction,

All who belong to the race, or the house of the

man who is perjured.

But oath-keeping men leave behind them a flour-

ishing offspring.

Herodotus

Glaucus when he heard these words earnestly
besought the god to pardon his question; but the
Pythoness replied that it was as bad to have
tempted the god as it would have been to have
done the deed. Glaucus, however, sent for the
Milesian strangers, and gave them back their
money. And now I will tell you, Athenians, what
my purpose has been in recounting to you this
history. Glaucus at the present time has not a sin-
gle descendant; nor is there any family known as
his- root and branch has he been removed from
Sparta. It is a good thing, therefore, when a
pledge has been left with one, not even in thought
to doubt about restoring it.”

Thus spake Leotychides; but, as he found that the
Athenians would not hearken to him, he left them
and went his way.

The Eginetans had never been punished for the
wrongs which, to pleasure the Thebans, they had
committed upon Athens. Now, however, con-
ceiving that they were themselves wronged, and
had a fair ground of complaint against the

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Athenians, they instantly prepared to revenge
themselves. As it chanced that the Athenian the-
oris, which was a vessel of five banks of oars, lay
at Sunium, the Eginetans contrived an ambush,
and made themselves masters of the holy vessel,
on board of which were a number of Athenians
of the highest rank, whom they took and threw
into prison.

At this outrage the Athenians no longer delayed,
but set to work to scheme their worst against the
Eginetans; and, as there was in Egina at that time
a man of mark, Nicodromus by name, the son of
Cnoethus, who was on ill terms with his country-
men because on a former occasion they had dri-
ven him into banishment, they listened to over-
tures from this man, who had heard how deter-
mined they were to do the Eginetans a mischief,
and agreed with him that on a certain day he
should be ready to betray the island into their
hands, and they would come with a body of
troops to his assistance. And Nicodromus, some
time after, holding to the agreement, made himself
master of what is called the old town.

Herodotus

The Athenians, however, did not come to the day;
for their own fleet was not of force sufficient to
engage the Eginetans, and while they were beg-
ging the Corinthians to lend them some ships, the
failure of the enterprise took place. In those days
the Corinthians were on the best of terms with the
Athenians; and accordingly they now yielded to
their request, and furnished them with twenty
ships; but, as their law did not allow the ships to
be given for nothing, they sold them to the
Athenians for five drachms apiece. As soon then
as the Athenians had obtained this aid, and, by
manning also their own ships, had equipped a
fleet of seventy sail, they crossed over to Egina,
but arrived a day later than the time agreed upon.

Meanwhile Nicodromus, when he found the
Athenians did not come to the time appointed,
took ship and made his escape from the island.
The Eginetans who accompanied him were settled
by the Athenians at Sunium, whence they were
wont to issue forth and plunder the Eginetans of
the island. But this took place at a later date.

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When the wealthier Eginetans had thus obtained
the victory over the common people who had
revolted with Nicodromus, they laid hands on a
certain number of them, and led them out to
death. But here they were guilty of a sacrilege,
which, notwithstanding all their efforts, they were
never able to atone, being driven from the island
before they had appeased the goddess whom they
now provoked. Seven hundred of the common
people had fallen alive into their hands; and they
were all being led out to death, when one of them
escaped from his chains, and flying to the gateway
of the temple of Ceres the Lawgiver, laid hold of
the doorhandles, and clung to them. The others
sought to drag him from his refuge; but, finding
themselves unable to tear him away, they cut off
his hands, and so took him, leaving the hands still
tightly grasping the handles.

Such were the doings of the Eginetans among
themselves. When the Athenians arrived, they
went out to meet them with seventy ships; and a
battle took place, wherein the Eginetans suffered

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a defeat. Hereupon they had recourse again to
their old allies, the Argives; but these latter
refused now to lend them any aid, being angry
because some Eginetan ships, which Cleomenes
had taken by force, accompanied him in his inva-
sion of Argolis, and joined in the disembarkation.
The same thing had happened at the same time
With certain vessels of the Sicyonians; and the
Argives had laid a fine of a thousand talents upon
the misdoers, five hundred upon each: whereupon
they of Sicyon acknowledged themselves to have
sinned, and agreed with the Argives to pay them
a hundred talents, and so be quit of the debt; but
the Eginetans would make no acknowledgment at
all, and showed themselves proud and stiff-
necked. For this reason, when they now prayed
the Argives for aid, the state refused to send them
a single soldier. Notwithstanding, volunteers
joined them from Argos to the number of a thou-
sand, under a captain, Eurybates, a man skilled in
the pentathlic contests. Of these men the greater
part never returned, but were slain by the
Athenians in Egina. Eurybates, their captain,
fought a number of single combats, and, after

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killing three men in this way, was himself slain by
the fourth, who was a Decelean, named
Sophanes.

Afterwards the Eginetans fell upon the Athenian
fleet when it was in some disorder and beat it,
capturing four ships with their crews.

Thus did war rage between the Eginetans and
Athenians. Meantime the Persian pursued his
own design, from day to day exhorted by his ser-
vant to “remember the Athenians,” and likewise
urged continually by the Pisistratidae, who were
ever accusing their countrymen. Moreover it
pleased him well to have a pretext for carrying
war into Greece, that so he might reduce all those
who had refused to give him earth and water. As
for Mardonius, since his expedition had succeed-
ed so ill, Darius took the command of the troops
from him, and appointed other generals in his
stead, who were to lead the host against Eretria
and Athens; to wit, Datis, who was by descent a
Mede, and Artaphernes, the son of Artaphernes,
his own nephew. These men received orders to

Herodotus

carry Athens and Eretria away captive, and to
bring the prisoners into his presence.

So the new commanders took their departure
from the court and went down to Cilicia, to the
Aleian plain, having with them a numerous and
wellappointed land army. Encamping here, they
were joined by the sea force which had been
required of the several states, and at the same time
by the horsetransports which Darius had, the year
before, commanded his tributaries to make ready.
Aboard these the horses were embarked; and the
troops were received by the ships of war; after
which the whole fleet, amounting in all to six
hundred triremes, made sail for Ionia. Thence,
instead of proceeding with a straight course along
the shore to the Hellespont and to Thrace, they
loosed from Samos and voyaged across the
Icarian sea through the midst of the islands; main-
ly, as I believe, because they feared the danger of
doubling Mount Athos, where the year before
they had suffered so grievously on their passage;
but a constraining cause also was their former
failure to take Naxos.

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When the Persians, therefore, approaching from
the Icarian Sea, cast anchor at Naxos, which, rec-
ollecting what there befell them formerly, they
had determined to attack before any other state,
the Naxians, instead of encountering them, took
to flight, and hurried off to the hills. The Persians
however succeeded in laying hands on some, and
them they carried away captive, while at the same
time they burnt all the temples together with the
town. This done, they left Naxos, and sailed away
to the other islands.

While the Persians were thus employed, the
Delians likewise quitted Delos, and took refuge in
Tenos. And now the expedition drew near, when
Datis sailed forward in advance of the other ships;
commanding them, instead of anchoring at Delos,
to rendezvous at Rhenea, over against Delos,
while he himself proceeded to discover whither
the Delians had fled; after which he sent a herald
to them with this message:

“Why are ye fled, O holy men? Why have ye
judged me so harshly and so wrongfully? I have

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surely sense enough, even had not the king so
ordered, to spare the country which gave birth to
the two gods- to spare, I say, both the country and
its inhabitants. Come back therefore to your
dwellings; and once more inhabit your island.”

Such was the message which Datis sent by his her-
ald to the Delians. He likewise placed upon the
altar three hundred talents’ weight of frankin-
cense, and offered it.

After this he sailed with his whole host against
Eretria, taking with him both Ionians and
Aeolians. When he was departed, Delos (as the
Delians told me) was shaken by an earthquake,
the first and last shock that has been felt to this
day. And truly this was a prodigy whereby the
god warned men of the evils that were coming
upon them. For in the three following generations
of Darius the son of Hystaspes, Xerxes the son of
Darius, and Artaxerxes the son of Xerxes, more
woes befell Greece than in the twenty generations
preceding Darius- woes caused in part by the

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Persians, but in part arising from the contentions
among their own chief men respecting the
supreme power. Wherefore it is not surprising
that Delos, though it had never before been shak-
en, should at that time have felt the shock of an
earthquake. And indeed there was an oracle,
which said of Delos-

Delo’s self will I shake, which never yet has been

shaken

Of the above names Darius may be rendered
“Worker,” Xerxes “Warrior,” and Artaxerxes
“Great Warrior.” And so might we call these
kings in our own language with propriety.

The barbarians, after loosing from Delos, pro-
ceeded to touch at the other islands, and took
troops from each, and likewise carried off a num-
ber of the children as hostages. Going thus from
one to another, they came at last to Carystus; but
here the hostages were refused by the Carystians,
who said they would neither give any, nor consent
to bear arms against the cities of their neighbours,

Herodotus

meaning Athens and Eretria. Hereupon the
Persians laid siege to Carystus, and wasted the
country round, until at length the inhabitants
were brought over and agreed to do what was
required of them.

Meanwhile the Eretrians, understanding that the
Persian armament was coming against them,
besought the Athenians for assistance. Nor did
the Athenians refuse their aid, but assigned to
them as auxiliaries the four thousand landholders
to whom they had allotted the estates of the
Chalcidean Hippobatae. At Eretria, however,
things were in no healthy state; for though they
had called in the aid of the Athenians, yet they
were not agreed among themselves how they
should act; some of them were minded to leave
the city and to take refuge in the heights of
Euboea, while others, who looked to receiving a
reward from the Persians, were making ready to
betray their country. So when these things came
to the ears of Aeschines, the son of Nothon, one
of the first men in Eretria, he made known the
whole state of affairs to the Athenians who were

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already arrived, and besought them to return
home to their own land, and not perish with his
countrymen. And the Athenians hearkened to his
counsel, and, crossing over to Oropus, in this way
escaped the danger.

The Persian fleet now drew near and anchored at
Tamynae, Choereae, and Aegilia, three places in
the territory of Eretria. Once masters of these
posts, they proceeded forthwith to disembark
their horses, and made ready to attack the enemy.
But the Eretrians were not minded to sally forth
and offer battle; their only care, after it had been
resolved not to quit the city, was, if possible, to
defend their walls. And now the fortress was
assaulted in good earnest, and for six days there
fell on both sides vast numbers, but on the sev-
enth day Euphorbus, the son of Alcimachus, and
Philagrus, the son of Cyneas, who were both citi-
zens of good repute, betrayed the place to the
Persians. These were no sooner entered within the
walls than they plundered and burnt all the tem-
ples that there were in the town, in revenge for the
burning of their own temples at Sardis; moreover,

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they did according to the orders of Darius, and
carried away captive all the inhabitants.

The Persians, having thus brought Eretria into
subjection after waiting a few days, made sail for
Attica, greatly straitening the Athenians as they
approached, and thinking to deal with them as
they had dealt with the people of Eretria. And,
because there was no Place in all Attica so conve-
nient for their horse as Marathon, and it lay
moreover quite close to Eretria, therefore
Hippias, the son of Pisistratus, conducted them
thither.

When intelligence of this reached the Athenians,
they likewise marched their troops to Marathon,
and there stood on the defensive, having at their
head ten generals, of whom one was Miltiades.

Now this man’s father, Cimon, the son of
Stesagoras, was banished from Athens by
Pisistratus, the son of Hippocrates. In his banish-
ment it was his fortune to win the four-horse

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chariot-race at Olympia, whereby he gained the
very same honour which had before been carried
off by Miltiades, his half-brother on the mother’s
side. At the next Olympiad he won the prize again
with the same mares; upon which he caused
Pisistratus to be proclaimed the winner, having
made an agreement with him that on yielding him
this honour he should be allowed to come back to
his country. Afterwards, still with the same mares,
he won the prize a third time; whereupon he was
put to death by the sons of Pisistratus, whose
father was no longer living. They set men to lie in
wait for him secretly; and these men slew him
near the government-house in the night-time. He
was buried outside the city, beyond what is called
the Valley Road; and right opposite his tomb were
buried the mares which had won the three prizes.
The same success had likewise been achieved once
previously, to wit, by the mares of Evagoras the
Lacedaemonian, but never except by them. At the
time of Cimon’s death Stesagoras, the elder of his
two sons, was in the Chersonese, where he lived
with Miltiades his uncle; the younger, who was

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called Miltiades after the founder of the
Chersonesite colony, was with his father in
Athens.

It was this Miltiades who now commanded the
Athenians, after escaping from the Chersonese,
and twice nearly losing his life. First he was
chased as far as Imbrus by the Phoenicians, who
had a great desire to take him and carry him up to
the king; and when he had avoided this danger,
and, having reached his own country, thought
himself to be altogether in safety, he found his
enemies waiting for him, and was cited by them
before a court and impeached for his tyranny in
the Chersonese. But he came off victorious here
likewise, and was thereupon made general of the
Athenians by the free choice of the people.

And first, before they left the city, the generals
sent off to Sparta a herald, one Pheidippides, who
was by birth an Athenian, and by profession and
practice a trained runner. This man, according to
the account which he gave to the Athenians on his
return, when he was near Mount Parthenium,

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above Tegea, fell in with the god Pan, who called
him by his name, and bade him ask the Athenians
“wherefore they neglected him so entirely, when
he was kindly disposed towards them, and had
often helped them in times past, and would do so
again in time to come?” The Athenians, entirely
believing in the truth of this report, as soon as
their affairs were once more in good order, set up
a temple to Pan under the Acropolis, and, in
return for the message which I have recorded,
established in his honour yearly sacrifices and a
torch-race.

On the occasion of which we speak when
Pheidippides was sent by the Athenian generals,
and, according to his own account, saw Pan on
his journey, he reached Sparta on the very next
day after quitting the city of Athens- Upon his
arrival he went before the rulers, and said to
them:-

“Men of Lacedaemon, the Athenians beseech you
to hasten to their aid, and not allow that state,
which is the most ancient in all Greece, to be

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enslaved by the barbarians. Eretria, look you, is
already carried away captive; and Greece weak-
ened by the loss of no mean city.”

Thus did Pheidippides deliver the message com-
mitted to him. And the Spartans wished to help
the Athenians, but were unable to give them any
present succour, as they did not like to break their
established law. It was then the ninth day of the
first decade; and they could not march out of
Sparta on the ninth, when the moon had not
reached the full. So they waited for the full of the
moon.

The barbarians were conducted to Marathon by
Hippias. the son of Pisistratus, who the night
before had seen a strange vision in his sleep. He
dreamt of lying in his mother’s arms, and conjec-
tured the dream to mean that he would be
restored to Athens, recover the power which he
had lost, and afterwards live to a good old age in
his native country. Such was the sense in which he
interpreted the vision. He now proceeded to act as

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guide to the Persians; and, in the first place, he
landed the prisoners taken from Eretria upon the
island that is called Aegileia, a tract belonging to
the Styreans, after which he brought the fleet to
anchor off Marathon, and marshalled the bands
of the barbarians as they disembarked. As he was
thus employed it chanced that he sneezed and at
the same time coughed with more violence than
was his wont. Now, as he was a man advanced in
years, and the greater number of his teeth were
loose, it so happened that one of them was driven
out with the force of the cough, and fell down
into the sand. Hippias took all the pains he could
to find it; but the tooth was nowhere to be seen:
whereupon he fetched a deep sigh, and said to the
bystanders:-

“After all, the land is not ours; and we shall never
be able to bring it under. All my share in it is the
portion of which my tooth has possession.”

So Hippias believed that in this way his dream
was fulfilled.

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The Athenians were drawn up in order of battle in
a sacred close belonging to Hercules, when they
were joined by the Plataeans, who came in full
force to their aid. Some time before, the Plataeans
had put themselves under the rule of the Athenians;
and these last had already undertaken many
labours on their behalf. The occasion of the sur-
render was the following. The Plataeans suffered
grievous things at the hands of the men of Thebes;
so, as it chanced that Cleomenes, the son of
Anaxandridas, and the Lacedaemonians were in
their neighbourhood, they first of all offered to sur-
render themselves to them. But the
Lacedaemonians refused to receive them, and said:-

“We dwell too far off from you, and ours would
be but chill succour. Ye might oftentimes be car-
ried into slavery before one of us heard of it. We
counsel you rather to give yourselves up to the
Athenians, who are your next neighbours, and
well able to shelter you.”

This they said, not so much out of good will
towards the Plataeans as because they wished to

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involve the Athenians in trouble by engaging
them in wars with the Boeotians. The Plataeans,
however, when the Lacedaemonians gave them
this counsel, complied at once; and when the sac-
rifice to the Twelve Gods was being offered at
Athens, they came and sat as suppliants about the
altar, and gave themselves up to the Athenians.
The Thebans no sooner learnt what the Plataeans
had done than instantly they marched out against
them, while the Athenians sent troops to their aid.
As the two armies were about to join battle, the
Corinthians, who chanced to be at hand, would
not allow them to engage; both sides consented to
take them for arbitrators, whereupon they made
up the quarrel, and fixed the boundary-line
between the two states upon this condition: to
wit, that if any of the Boeotians wished no longer
to belong to Boeotia, the Thebans should allow
them to follow their own inclinations. The
Corinthians, when they had thus decreed, forth-
with departed to their homes: the Athenians like-
wise set off on their return; but the Boeotians fell
upon them during the march, and a battle was
fought wherein they were worsted by the

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Athenians. Hereupon these last would not be
bound by the line which the Corinthians had
fixed, but advanced beyond those limits, and
made the Asopus the boundary-line between the
country of the Thebans and that of the Plataeans
and Hysians. Under such circumstances did the
Plataeans give themselves up to Athens; and now
they were come to Marathon to bear the
Athenians aid.

The Athenian generals were divided in their opin-
ions; and some advised not to risk a battle,
because they were too few to engage such a host
as that of the Medes, while others were for fight-
ing at once; and among these last was Miltiades.
He therefore, seeing that opinions were thus
divided, and that the less worthy counsel
appeared likely to prevail, resolved to go to the
Polemarch, and have a conference with him. For
the man on whom the lot fell to be Polemarch at
Athens was entitled to give his vote with the ten
generals, since anciently the Athenians allowed
him an equal right of voting with them. The
Polemarch at this juncture was Callimachus of

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Aphidnae; to him therefore Miltiades went, and
said:-

“With thee it rests, Callimachus, either to bring
Athens to slavery, or, by securing her freedom, to
leave behind thee to all future generations a mem-
ory beyond even Harmodius and Aristogeiton.
For never since the time that the Athenians
became a people were they in so great a danger as
now. If they bow their necks beneath the yoke of
the Medes, the woes which they will have to suf-
fer when given into the power of Hippias are
already determined on; if, on the other hand, they
fight and overcome, Athens may rise to be the
very first city in Greece. How it comes to pass
that these things are likely to happen, and how
the determining of them in some sort rests with
thee, I will now proceed to make clear. We gener-
als are ten in number, and our votes are divided;
half of us wish to engage, half to avoid a combat.
Now, if we do not fight, I look to see a great dis-
turbance at Athens which will shake men’s reso-
lutions, and then I fear they will submit them-
selves; but if we fight the battle before any

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unsoundness show itself among our citizens, let
the gods but give us fair play, and we are well able
to overcome the enemy. On thee therefore we
depend in this matter, which lies wholly in thine
own power. Thou hast only to add thy vote to my
side and thy country will be free, and not free
only, but the first state in Greece. Or, if thou pre-
ferrest to give thy vote to them who would decline
the combat, then the reverse will follow.”

Miltiades by these words gained Callimachus;
and the addition of the Polemarch’s vote caused
the decision to be in favour of fighting. Hereupon
all those generals who had been desirous of haz-
arding a battle, when their turn came to com-
mand the army, gave up their right to Miltiades.
He however, though he accepted their offers, nev-
ertheless waited, and would not fight until his
own day of command arrived in due course.

Then at length, when his own turn was come, the
Athenian battle was set in array, and this was the
order of it. Callimachus the Polemarch led the
right wing; for it was at that time a rule with the

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101

Athenians to give the right wing to the Polemarch.
After this followed the tribes, according as they
were numbered, in an unbroken line; while last of
all came the Plataeans, forming the left wing. And
ever since that day it has been a custom with the
Athenians, in the sacrifices and assemblies held
each fifth year at Athens, for the Athenian herald
to implore the blessing of the gods on the
Plataeans conjointly with the Athenians. Now, as
they marshalled the host upon the field of
Marathon, in order that the Athenian front might
he of equal length with the Median, the ranks of
the centre were diminished, and it became the
weakest part of the line, while the wings were
both made strong with a depth of many ranks.

So when the battle was set in array, and the vic-
tims showed themselves favourable, instantly the
Athenians, so soon as they were let go, charged
the barbarians at a run. Now the distance
between the two armies was little short of eight
furlongs. The Persians, therefore, when they saw
the Greeks coming on at speed, made ready to
receive them, although it seemed to them that the

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Athenians were bereft of their senses, and bent
upon their own destruction; for they saw a mere
handful of men coming on at a run without either
horsemen or archers. Such was the opinion of the
barbarians; but the Athenians in close array fell
upon them, and fought in a manner worthy of
being recorded. They were the first of the Greeks,
so far as I know, who introduced the custom of
charging the enemy at a run, and they were like-
wise the first who dared to look upon the Median
garb, and to face men clad in that fashion. Until
this time the very name of the Medes had been a
terror to the Greeks to hear.

The two armies fought together on the plain of
Marathon for a length of time; and in the mid
battle, where the Persians themselves and the
Sacae had their place, the barbarians were victo-
rious, and broke and pursued the Greeks into the
inner country; but on the two wings the
Athenians and the Plataeans defeated the enemy.
Having so done, they suffered the routed barbar-
ians to fly at their ease, and joining the two wings
in one, fell upon those who had broken their own

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103

centre, and fought and conquered them. These
likewise fled, and now the Athenians hung upon
the runaways and cut them down, chasing them
all the way to the shore, on reaching which they
laid hold of the ships and called aloud for fire.

It was in the struggle here that Callimachus the
Polemarch, after greatly distinguishing himself,
lost his life; Stesilaus too, the son of Thrasilaus,
one of the generals, was slain; and Cynaegirus,
the son of Euphorion, having seized on a vessel of
the enemy’s by the ornament at the stern, had his
hand cut off by the blow of an axe, and so per-
ished; as likewise did many other Athenians of
note and name.

Nevertheless the Athenians secured in this way
seven of the vessels; while with the remainder the
barbarians pushed off, and taking aboard their
Eretrian prisoners from the island where they had
left them, doubled Cape Sunium, hoping to reach
Athens before the return of the Athenians. The
Alcmaeonidae were accused by their countrymen
of suggesting this course to them; they had, it was

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said, an understanding with the Persians, and
made a signal to them, by raising a shield, after
they were embarked in their ships.

The Persians accordingly sailed round Sunium.
But the Athenians with all possible speed marched
away to the defence of their city, and succeeded in
reaching Athens before the appearance of the bar-
barians: and as their camp at Marathon had been
pitched in a precinct of Hercules, so now they
encamped in another precinct of the same god at
Cynosarges. The barbarian fleet arrived, and lay
to off Phalerum, which was at that time the haven
of Athens; but after resting awhile upon their
oars, they departed and sailed away to Asia.

There fell in this battle of Marathon, on the side
of the barbarians, about six thousand and four
hundred men; on that of the Athenians, one hun-
dred and ninety-two. Such was the number of the
slain on the one side and the other. A strange
prodigy likewise happened at this fight. Epizelus,
the son of Cuphagoras, an Athenian, was in the
thick of the fray, and behaving himself as a brave

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105

man should, when suddenly he was stricken with
blindness, without blow of sword or dart; and
this blindness continued thenceforth during the
whole of his after life. The following is the
account which he himself, as I have heard, gave of
the matter: he said that a gigantic warrior, with a
huge beard, which shaded all his shield, stood
over against him; but the ghostly semblance
passed him by, and slew the man at his side. Such,
as I understand, was the tale which Epizelus told.

Datis meanwhile was on his way back to Asia,
and had reached Myconus, when he saw in his
sleep a vision. What it was is not known; but no
sooner was day come than he caused strict search
to be made throughout the whole fleet, and find-
ing on board a Phoenician vessel an image of
Apollo overlaid with gold, he inquired from
whence it had been taken, and learning to what
temple it belonged, he took it with him in his own
ship to Delos, and placed it in the temple there,
enjoining the Delians, who had now come back to
their island, to restore the image to the Theban
Delium, which lies on the coast over against

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Chalcis. Having left these injunctions, he sailed
away; but the Delians failed to restore the statue;
and it was not till twenty years afterwards that
the Thebans, warned by an oracle, themselves
brought it back to Delium.

As for the Eretrians, whom Datis and
Artaphernes had carried away captive, when the
fleet reached Asia, they were taken up to Susa.
Now King Darius, before they were made his pris-
oners, nourished a fierce anger against these men
for having injured him without provocation; but
now that he saw them brought into his presence,
and become his subjects, he did them no other
harm, but only settled them at one of his own sta-
tions in Cissia- a place called Ardericea- two hun-
dred and ten furlongs distant from Susa, and forty
from the well which yields produce of three dif-
ferent kinds. For from this well they get bitumen,
salt, and oil, procuring it in the way that I will
now describe: they draw with a swipe, and
instead of a bucket make use of the half of a wine-
skin; with this the man dips, and after drawing,
pours the liquid into a reservoir, wherefrom it

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107

passes into another, and there takes three different
shapes. The salt and the bitumen forthwith collect
and harden, while the oil is drawn off into casks.
It is called by the Persians “rhadinace,” is black,
and has an unpleasant smell. Here then King
Darius established the Eretrians; and here they
continued to my time, and still spoke their old
language. So thus it fared with the Eretrians.

After the full of the moon two thousand
Lacedaemonians came to Athens. So eager had
they been to arrive in time, that they took but
three days to reach Attica from Sparta. They
came, however, too late for the battle; yet, as they
had a longing to behold the Medes, they contin-
ued their march to Marathon and there viewed
the slain. Then, after giving the Athenians all
praise for their achievement, they departed and
returned home. But it fills me with wonderment,
and I can in no wise believe the report, that the
Alcmaeonidae had an understanding with the
Persians, and held them up a shield as a signal,
wishing Athens to be brought under the yoke of
the barbarians and of Hippias- the Alcmaeonidae,

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who have shown themselves at least as bitter
haters of tyrants as was Callias, the son of
Phaenippus, and father of Hipponicus. This
Callias was the only person at Athens who, when
the Pisistratidae were driven out, and their goods
were exposed for sale by the vote of the people,
had the courage to make purchases, and likewise
in many other ways to display the strongest hos-
tility.

He was a man very worthy to be had in remem-
brance by all, on several accounts. For not only
did he thus distinguish himself beyond others in
the cause of his country’s freedom; but likewise,
by the honours which he gained at the Olympic
Games, where he carried off the prize in the
horse-race, and was second in the four-horse
chariot-race, and by his victory at an earlier peri-
od in the Pythian Games, he showed himself in
the eyes of all the Greeks a man most unsparing
in his expenditure. He was remarkable too for his
conduct in respect of his daughters, three in num-
ber; for when they came to be of marriageable
age, he gave to each of them a most ample dowry,

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109

and placed it at their own disposal, allowing them
to choose their husbands from among all the citi-
zens of Athens, and giving each in marriage to the
man of her own choice.

Now the Alcmaeonidae fell not a whit short of
this person in their hatred of tyrants, so that I am
astonished at the charge made against them, and
cannot bring myself to believe that they held up a
shield; for they were men who had remained in
exile during the whole time that the tyranny last-
ed, and they even contrived the trick by which the
Pisistratidae were deprived of their throne. Indeed
I look upon them as the persons who in good
truth gave Athens her freedom far more than
Harmodius and Aristogeiton. For these last did
but exasperate the other Pisistratidae by slaying
Hipparchus, and were far from doing anything
towards putting down the tyranny: whereas the
Alcmaeonidae were manifestly the actual deliver-
ers of Athens, if at least it be true that the
Pythoness was prevailed upon by them to bid the
Lacedaemonians set Athens free, as I have already
related.

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But perhaps they were offended with the people
of Athens; and therefore betrayed their country.
Nay, but on the contrary there were none of the
Athenians who were held in such general esteem,
or who were so laden with honours. So that it is
not even reasonable to suppose that a shield was
held up by them on this account. A shield was
shown, no doubt; that cannot be gainsaid; but
who it was that showed it I cannot any further
determine.

Now the Alcmaeonidae were, even in days of
yore, a family of note at Athens; but from the
time of Alcmaeon, and again of Megacles, they
rose to special eminence. The former of these two
personages, to wit, Alcmaeon, the son of
Megacles, when Croesus the Lydian sent men
from Sardis to consult the Delphic oracle, gave
aid gladly to his messengers, assisted them to
accomplish their task. Croesus, informed of
Alcmaeon’s kindnesses by the Lydians who from
time to time conveyed his messages to the god,
sent for him to Sardis, and when he arrived,
made him a present of as much gold as he should

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be able to carry at one time about his person.
Finding that this was the gift assigned him,
Alcmaeon took his measures, and prepared him-
self to receive it in the following way. He clothed
himself in a loose tunic, which he made to bag
greatly at the waist, and placing upon his feet the
widest buskins that he could anywhere find, fol-
lowed his guides into the treasure-house. Here he
fell to upon a heap of gold-dust, and in the first
place packed as much as he could inside his
buskins, between them and his legs; after which
he filled the breast of his tunic quite full of gold,
and then sprinkling some among his hair, and
taking some likewise in his mouth, he came forth
from the treasure-house, scarcely able to drag his
legs along, like anything rather than a man, with
his mouth crammed full, and his bulk increased
every way. On seeing him, Croesus burst into a
laugh, and not only let him have all that he had
taken, but gave him presents besides of fully
equal worth. Thus this house became one of
great wealth; and Alcmaeon was able to keep
horses for the chariot-race, and won the prize at
Olympia.

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Afterwards, in the generation which followed,
Clisthenes, king of Sicyon, raised the family to
still greater eminence among the Greeks than
even that to which it had attained before. For
this Clisthenes, who was the son of Aristonymus,
the grandson of Myron, and the great-grandson
of Andreas, had a daughter, called Agarista,
whom he wished to marry to the best husband
that he could find in the whole of Greece. At the
Olympic Games, therefore, having gained the
prize in the chariot race, he caused public procla-
mation to be made to the following effect:-
“Whoever among the Greeks deems himself wor-
thy to become the son-in-law of Clisthenes, let
him come, sixty days hence, or, if he will, soon-
er, to Sicyon; for within a year’s time, counting
from the end of the sixty days, Clisthenes will
decide on the man to whom he shall contract his
daughter.” So all the Greeks who were proud of
their own merit or of their country flocked to
Sicyon as suitors; and Clisthenes had a foot-
course and a wrestling-ground made ready, to try
their powers.

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From Italy there came Smindyrides, the son of
Hippocrates, a native of Sybaris- which city about
that time was at the very height of its prosperity.
He was a man who in luxuriousness of living
exceeded all other persons. Likewise there came
Damasus, the son of Amyris, surnamed the Wise,
a native of Siris. These two were the only suitors
from Italy. From the Ionian Gulf appeared
Amphimnestus, the son of Epistrophus, an
Epidamnian; from Aetolia, Males, the brother of
that Titormus who excelled all the Greeks in
strength, and who wishing to avoid his fellow-
men, withdrew himself into the remotest parts of
the Aetolian territory. From the Peloponnese
came several- Leocedes, son of that Pheidon, king
of the Argives, who established weights and mea-
sures throughout the Peloponnese, and was the
most insolent of all the Grecians- the same who
drove out the Elean directors of the Games, and
himself presided over the contests at Olympia-
Leocedes, I say, appeared, this Pheidon’s son; and
likewise Amiantus, son of Lycurgus, an Arcadian
of the city of Trapezus; Laphanes, an Azenian of

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Paeus, whose father, Euphorion, as the story goes
in Arcadia, entertained the Dioscuri at his resi-
dence, and thenceforth kept open house for all
comers; and lastly, Onomastus, the son of Agaeus,
a native of Elis. These four came from the
Peloponnese. From Athens there arrived
Megacles, the son of that Alcmaeon who visited
Croesus, and Tisander’s son, Hippoclides, the
wealthiest and handsomest of the Athenians.
There was likewise one Euboean, Lysanias, who
came from Eretria, then a flourishing city. From
Thessaly came Diactorides, a Cranonian, of the
race of the Scopadae; and Alcon arrived from the
Molossians. This was the list of the suitors.

Now when they were all come, and the day
appointed had arrived, Clisthenes first of all
inquired of each concerning his country and his
family; after which he kept them with him a year,
and made trial of their manly bearing, their tem-
per, their accomplishments, and their disposition,
sometimes drawing them apart for converse,
sometimes bringing them all together. Such as
were still youths he took with him from time to

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time to the gymnasia; but the greatest trial of all
was at the banquettable. During the whole period
of their stay he lived with them as I have said;
and, further, from first to last he entertained them
sumptuously. Somehow or other the suitors who
came from Athens pleased him the best of all; and
of these Hippoclides, Tisander’s son, was special-
ly in favour, partly on account of his manly bear-
ing, and partly also because his ancestors were of
kin to the Corinthian Cypselids.

When at length the day arrived which had been
fixed for the espousals, and Clisthenes had to
speak out and declare his choice, he first of all
made a sacrifice of a hundred oxen, and held a
banquet, whereat he entertained all the suitors
and the whole people of Sicyon. After the feast
was ended, the suitors vied with each other in
music and in speaking on a given subject.
Presently, as the drinking advanced, Hippoclides,
who quite dumbfoundered the rest, called aloud
to the flute-player, and bade him strike up a
dance; which the man did, and Hippoclides
danced to it. And he fancied that he was dancing

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excellently well; but Clisthenes, who was observ-
ing him, began to misdoubt the whole business.
Then Hippoclides, after a pause, told an atten-
dant to bring in a table; and when it was brought,
he mounted upon it and danced first of all some
Laconian figures, then some Attic ones; after
which he stood on his head upon the table, and
began to toss his legs about. Clisthenes, notwith-
standing that he now loathed Hippoclides for a
son-in-law, by reason of his dancing and his
shamelessness, still, as he wished to avoid an out-
break, had restrained himself during the first and
likewise during the second dance; when, however,
he saw him tossing his legs in the air, he could no
longer contain himself, but cried out, “Son of
Tisander, thou hast danced thy wife away!”
“What does Hippoclides care?” was the other’s
answer. And hence the proverb arose.

Then Clisthenes commanded silence, and spake
thus before the assembled company:-

“Suitors of my daughter, well pleased am I with
you all; and right willingly, if it were possible,

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117

would I content you all, and not by making
choice of one appear to put a slight upon the rest.
But as it is out of my power, seeing that I have but
one daughter, to grant to all their wishes, I will
present to each of you whom I must needs dismiss
a talent of silver, for the honour that you have
done me in seeking to ally yourselves with my
house, and for your long absence from your
homes. But my daughter, Agarista, I betroth to
Megacles, the son of Alcmaeon, to be his wife,
according to the usage and wont of Athens.”

Then Megacles expressed his readiness; and
Clisthenes had the marriage solemnised.

Thus ended the affair of the suitors; and thus the
Alcmaeonidae came to be famous throughout the
whole of Greece. The issue of this marriage was
the Clisthenes named after his grandfather the
Sicyonian- who made the tribes at Athens, and set
up the popular government. Megacles had like-
wise another son, called Hippocrates, whose chil-
dren were a Megacles and an Agarista, the latter
named after Agarista the daughter of Clisthenes.

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She married Xanthippus, the son of Ariphron;
and when she was with child by him had a dream,
wherein she fancied that she was delivered of a
lion; after which, within a few days, she bore
Xanthippus a son, to wit, Pericles.

After the blow struck at Marathon, Miltiades,
who was previously held in high esteem by his
countrymen, increased yet more in influence.
Hence, when he told them that he wanted a fleet
of seventy ships, with an armed force, and money,
without informing them what country he was
going to attack, but only promising to enrich
them if they would accompany him, seeing that it
was a right wealthy land, where they might easily
get as much gold as they cared to have- when he
told them this, they were quite carried away, and
gave him the whole armament which he required.

So Miltiades, having got the armament, sailed
against Paros, with the object, as he alleged, of
punishing the Parians for having gone to war with
Athens, inasmuch as a trireme of theirs had come
with the Persian fleet to Marathon. This, howev-

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119

er, was a mere pretence; the truth was, that
Miltiades owed the Parians a grudge, because
Lysagoras, the son of Tisias, who was a Parian by
birth, had told tales against him to Hydarnes the
Persian. Arrived before the place against which
his expedition was designed, he drove the Parians
within their walls, and forthwith laid siege to the
city. At the same time he sent a herald to the
inhabitants, and required of them a hundred tal-
ents, threatening that, if they refused, he would
press the siege, and never give it over till the town
was taken. But the Parians, without giving his
demand a thought, proceeded to use every means
that they could devise for the defence of their city,
and even invented new plans for the purpose, one
of which was, by working at night, to raise such
parts of the wall as were likely to be carried by
assault to double their former height.

Thus far all the Greeks agree in their accounts of
this business; what follows is related upon the tes-
timony of the Parians only. Miltiades had come to
his wit’s end, when one of the prisoners, a woman
named Timo, who was by birth a Parian, and had

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held the office of under-priestess in the temple of
the infernal goddesses, came and conferred with
him. This woman, they say, being introduced into
the presence of Miltiades, advised him, if he set
great store by the capture of the place, to do
something which she could suggest to him. When
therefore she had told him what it was she meant,
he betook himself to the hill which lies in front of
the city, and there leapt the fence enclosing the
precinct of Ceres Thesmophorus, since he was not
able to open the door. After leaping into the place
he went straight to the sanctuary, intending to do
something within it- either to remove some of the
holy things which it was not lawful to stir, or to
perform some act or other, I cannot say what- and
had just reached the door, when suddenly a feel-
ing of horror came upon him, and he returned
back the way he had come; but in jumping down
from the outer wall, he strained his thigh, or, as
some say, struck the ground with his knee.

So Miltiades returned home sick, without bring-
ing the Athenians any money, and without con-
quering Paros, having done no more than to

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121

besiege the town for six-and-twenty days, and
ravage the remainder of the island. The Parians,
however, when it came to their knowledge that
Timo, the under-priestess of the goddesses, had
advised Miltiades what he should do, were mind-
ed to punish her for her crime; they therefore sent
messengers to Delphi, as soon as the siege was at
an end, and asked the god if they should put the
under-priestess to death. “She had discovered,”
they said, “to the enemies of her country how
they might bring it into subjection, and had
exhibited to Miltiades mysteries which it was not
lawful for a man to know.” But the Pythoness for-
bade them, and said, “Timo was not in fault;
‘twas decreed that Miltiades should come to an
unhappy end; and she was sent to lure him to his
destruction.” Such was the answer given to the
Parians by the Pythoness.

The Athenians, upon the return of Miltiades from
Paros, had much debate concerning him; and
Xanthippus, the son of Ariphron, who spoke
more freely against him than all the rest, implead-
ed him before the people, and brought him to trial

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for his life, on the charge of having dealt deceit-
fully with the Athenians. Miltiades, though he
was present in court, did not speak in his own
defence; for his thigh had begun to mortify, and
disabled him from pleading his cause. He was
forced to lie on a couch while his defence was
made by his friends, who dwelt at most length on
the fight at Marathon, while they made mention
also of the capture of Lemnos, telling how
Miltiades took the island, and, after executing
vengeance on the Pelasgians, gave up his conquest
to Athens. The judgment of the people was in his
favour so far as to spare his life; but for the wrong
he had done them they fined him fifty talents.
Soon afterwards his thigh completely gangrened
and mortified: and so Miltiades died; and the fifty
talents were paid by his son Cimon.

Now the way in which Miltiades had made him-
self master of Lemnos was the following. There
were certain Pelasgians whom the Athenians once
drove out of Attica; whether they did it- justly or
unjustly I cannot say, since I only know what is
reported concerning it, which is the following:

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123

Hecataeus, the son of Hegesander, says in his
History that it was unjustly. “The Athenians,”
according to him, “had given to the Pelasgi a tract
of land at the foot of Hymettus as payment for
the wall with which the Pelasgians had surround-
ed their citadel. This land was barren, and little
worth at the time; but the Pelasgians brought it
into good condition; whereupon the Athenians
begrudged them the tract, and desired to recover
it. And so, without any better excuse, they took
arms and drove out the Pelasgians.” But the
Athenians maintain that they were justified in
what they did. “The Pelasgians,” they say, “while
they lived at the foot of Hymettus, were wont to
sally forth from that region and commit outrages
on their children. For the Athenians used at that
time to send their sons and daughters to draw
water at the fountain called ‘the Nine Springs,’
inasmuch as neither they nor the other Greeks
had any household slaves in those days; and the
maidens, whenever they came, were used rudely
and insolently by the Pelasgians. Nor were they
even content thus; but at the last they laid a plot,
and were caught by the Athenians in the act of

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making an attempt upon their city. Then did the
Athenians give a proof how much better men they
were than the Pelasgians; for whereas they might
justly have killed them all, having caught them in
the very act of rebelling, the; spared their lives,
and only required that they should leave the coun-
try. Hereupon the Pelasgians quitted Attica, and
settled in Lemnos and other places.” Such are the
accounts respectively of Hecataeus and the
Athenians.

These same Pelasgians, after they were settled in
Lemnos, conceived the wish to be revenged on
the Athenians. So, as they were well acquainted
with the Athenian festivals, they manned some
penteconters, and having laid an ambush to catch
the Athenian women as they kept the festival of
Diana at Brauron, they succeeded in carrying off
a large number, whom they took to Lemnos and
there kept as concubines. After a while the
women bore children, whom they taught to
speak the language of Attica and observe the
manners of the Athenians. These boys refused to
have any commerce with the sons of the

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125

Pelasgian women; and if a Pelasgian boy struck
one of their number, they all made common
cause, and joined in avenging their comrade; nay,
the Greek boys even set up a claim to exercise
lordship over the others, and succeeded in gain-
ing the upper hand. When these things came to
the ears of the Pelasgians, they took counsel
together, and, on considering the matter, they
grew frightened, and said one to another, “If
these boys even now are resolved to make com-
mon cause against the sons of our lawful wives,
and seek to exercise lordship over them, what
may we expect when they grow up to be men?”
Then it seemed good to the Pelasgians to kill all
the sons of the Attic women; which they did
accordingly, and at the same time slew likewise
their mothers. From this deed, and that former
crime of the Lemnian women, when they slew
their husbands in the days of Thoas, it has come
to be usual throughout Greece to call wicked
actions by the name of “Lemnian deeds.”

When the Pelasgians had thus slain their children
and their women, the earth refused to bring forth

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its fruits for them, and their wives bore fewer chil-
dren, and their flocks and herds increased more
slowly than before, till at last, sore pressed by
famine and bereavement, they sent men to Delphi,
and begged the god to tell them how they might
obtain deliverance from their sufferings. The
Pythoness answered that “they must give the
Athenians whatever satisfaction they might
demand.” Then the Pelasgians went to Athens
and declared their wish to give the Athenians sat-
isfaction for the wrong which they had done to
them. So the Athenians had a couch prepared in
their townhall, and adorned it with the fairest
coverlets, and set by its side a table laden with all
manner of good things, and then told the
Pelasgians they must deliver up their country to
them in a similar condition. The Pelasgians
answered and said, “When a ship comes with a
north wind from your country to ours in a single
day, then will we give it up to you.” This they said
because they knew that what they required was
impossible, for Attica lies a long way to the south
of Lemnos.

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127

No more passed at that time. But very many years
afterwards, when the Hellespontian Chersonese
had been brought under the power of Athens,
Miltiades, the son of Cimon, sailed, during the
prevalence of the Etesian winds, from Elaeus in
the Chersonese to Lemnos, and called on the
Pelasgians to quit their island, reminding them of
the prophecy which they had supposed it impos-
sible to fulfil. The people of Hephaestia obeyed
the call; but they of Myrina, not acknowledging
the Chersonese to be any part of Attica, refused
and were besieged and brought over by force.
Thus was Lemnos gained by the Athenians and
Miltiades.

Th e H i s to r i e s

o f

H e ro d o t u s o f H a l i c a r n a s s u s

Book Seven

TRANSLATED BY

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BOOK SEVEN

ow when tidings of the battle that had been

fought at Marathon reached the ears of King
Darius, the son of Hystaspes, his anger against the
Athenians, which had been already roused by
their attack upon Sardis, waxed still fiercer, and
he became more than ever eager to lead an army
against Greece. Instantly he sent off messengers to
make proclamation through the several states that
fresh levies were to be raised, and these at an
increased rate; while ships, horses, provisions,
and transports were likewise to be furnished. So
the men published his commands; and now all
Asia was in commotion by the space of three
years, while everywhere, as Greece was to be
attacked, the best and bravest were enrolled for
the service, and had to make their preparations
accordingly.

Th e H i s t o r i e s

o f

H e r o d o t u s o f H a l i c a r n a s s u s

After this, in the fourth year, the Egyptians whom
Cambyses had enslaved

revolted from the Persians; whereupon Darius
was more hot for war than ever, and earnestly
desired to march an army against both adver-
saries.

Now, as he was about to lead forth his levies
against Egypt and Athens, a fierce contention for
the sovereign power arose among his sons; since
the law of the Persians was that a king must not
go out with his army, until he has appointed one
to succeed him upon the throne. Darius, before he
obtained the kingdom, had had three sons born to
him from his former wife, who was a daughter of
Gobryas; while, since he began to reign, Atossa,
the daughter of Cyrus, had borne him four.
Artabazanes was the eldest of the first family, and
Xerxes of the second. These two, therefore, being
the sons of different mothers, were now at vari-
ance. Artabazanes claimed the crown as the eldest
of all the children, because it was an established
custom all over the world for the eldest to have

Herodotus

The Histories–Book Seven

the pre-eminence; while Xerxes, on the other
hand, urged that he was sprung from Atossa, the
daughter of Cyrus, and that it was Cyrus who had
won the Persians their freedom.

Before Darius had pronounced on the matter, it
happened that Demaratus, the son of Ariston,
who had been deprived of his crown at Sparta,
and had afterwards, of his own accord, gone into
banishment, came up to Susa, and there heard of
the quarrel of the princes. Hereupon, as report
says, he went to Xerxes, and advised him, in addi-
tion to all that he had urged before, to plead- that
at the time when he was born Darius was already
king, and bore rule over the Persians; but when
Artabazanes came into the world, he was a mere
private person. It would therefore be neither right
nor seemly that the crown should go to another in
preference to himself. “For at Sparta,” said
Demaratus, byway of suggestion, “the law is that
if a king has sons before he comes to the throne,
and another son is born to him afterwards, the
child so born is heir to his father’s kingdom.”
Xerxes followed this counsel, and Darius, per-

suaded that he had justice on his side, appointed
him his successor. For my own part I believe that,
even without this, the crown would have gone to
Xerxes; for Atossa was all-powerful.

Darius, when he had thus appointed Xerxes his
heir, was minded to lead forth his armies; but he
was prevented by death while his preparations
were still proceeding. He died in the year follow-
ing the revolt of Egypt and the matters here relat-
ed, after having reigned in all six-and-thirty years,
leaving the revolted Egyptians and the Athenians
alike unpunished. At his death the kingdom
passed to his son Xerxes.

Now Xerxes, on first mounting the throne, was
coldly disposed towards the Grecian war, and
made it his business to collect an army against
Egypt. But Mardonius, the son of Gobryas, who
was at the court, and had more influence with
him than any of the other Persians, being his own
cousin, the child of a sister of Darius, plied him
with discourses like the following:-

Herodotus

The Histories–Book Seven

“Master, it is not fitting that they of Athens
escape scot-free, after doing the Persians such
great injury. Complete the work which thou hast
now in hand, and then, when the pride of Egypt
is brought low, lead an army against Athens. So
shalt thou thyself have good report among men,
and others shall fear hereafter to attack thy coun-
try.”

Thus far it was of vengeance that he spoke; but
sometimes he would vary the theme, and observe
by the way, “that Europe was a wondrous beauti-
ful region, rich in all kinds of cultivated trees, and
the soil excellent: no one, save the king, was wor-
thy to own such a land.”

All this he said, because he longed for adventures,
and hoped to become satrap of Greece under the
king; and after a while he had his way, and per-
suaded Xerxes to do according to his desires.
Other things, however, occurring about the same
time, helped his persuasions. For, in the first
place, it chanced that messengers arrived from

Herodotus

Thessaly, sent by the Aleuadae, Thessalian kings,
to invite Xerxes into Greece, and to promise him
all the assistance which it was in their power to
give. And further, the Pisistratidae, who had come
up to Susa, held the same language as the
Aleuadae, and worked upon him even more than
they, by means of Onomacritus of Athens, an ora-
cle-monger, and the same who set forth the
prophecies of Musaeus in their order. The
Pisistratidae had previously been at enmity with
this man, but made up the quarrel before they
removed to Susa. He was banished from Athens
by Hipparchus, the son of Pisistratus, because he
foisted into the writings of Musaeus a prophecy
that the islands which lie off Lemnos would one
day disappear in the sea. Lasus of Hermione
caught him in the act of so doing. For this cause
Hipparchus banished him, though till then they
had been the closest of friends. Now, however, he
went up to Susa with the sons of Pisistratus, and
they talked very grandly of him to the king; while
he, for his part, whenever he was in the king’s
company, repeated to him certain of the oracles;
and while he took care to pass over all that spoke

The Histories–Book Seven

of disaster to the barbarians, brought forward the
passages which promised them the greatest suc-
cess. “‘Twas fated,” he told Xerxes, “that a
Persian should bridge the Hellespont, and march
an army from Asia into Greece.” While
Onomacritus thus plied Xerxes with his oracles,
the Pisistratidae and Aleuadae did not cease to
press on him their advice, till at last the king
yielded, and agreed to lead forth an expedition.

First, however, in the year following the death of
Darius, he marched against those who had revolt-
ed from him; and having reduced them, and laid
all Egypt under a far harder yoke than ever his
father had put upon it, he gave the government to
Achaeamenes, who was his own brother, and son
to Darius. This Achaeamenes was afterwards
slain in his government by Inaros, the son of
Psammetichus, a Libyan.

After Egypt was subdued, Xerxes, being about to
take in hand the expedition against Athens, called
together an assembly of the noblest Persians to
learn their opinions, and to lay before them his

Herodotus

own designs. So, when the men were met, the king
spake thus to them:-

“Persians, I shall not be the first to bring in
among you a new custom- I shall but follow one
which has come down to us from our forefathers.
Never yet, as our old men assure me, has our race
reposed itself, since the time when Cyrus over-
came Astyages, and so we Persians wrested the
sceptre from the Medes. Now in all this God
guides us; and we, obeying his guidance, prosper
greatly. What need have I to tell you of the deeds
of Cyrus and Cambyses, and my own father
Darius, how many nations they conquered, and
added to our dominions? Ye know right well
what great things they achieved. But for myself, I
will say that, from the day on which I mounted
the throne, I have not ceased to consider by what
means I may rival those who have preceded me in
this post of honour, and increase the power of
Persia as much as any of them. And truly I have
pondered upon this, until at last I have found out
a way whereby we may at once win glory, and

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likewise get possession of a land which is as large
and as rich as our own nay, which is even more
varied in the fruits it bears- while at the same time
we obtain satisfaction and revenge. For this cause
I have now called you together, that I may make
known to you what I design to do.

My intent is to throw a bridge over the
Hellespont and march an army through Europe
against Greece, that thereby I may obtain
vengeance from the Athenians for the wrongs
committed by them against the Persians and
against my father. Your own eyes saw the prepa-
rations of Darius against these men; but death
came upon him, and balked his hopes of revenge.
In his behalf, therefore, and in behalf of all the
Persians, I undertake the war, and pledge myself
not to rest till I have taken and burnt Athens,
which has dared, unprovoked, to injure me and
my father. Long since they came to Asia with
Aristagoras of Miletus, who was one of our
slaves, and, entering Sardis, burnt its temples and
its sacred groves; again, more lately, when we

Herodotus

made a landing upon their coast under Datis and
Artaphernes, how roughly they handled us ye do
not need to be told.

For these reasons, therefore, I am bent upon this
war; and I see likewise therewith united no few
advantages. Once let us subdue this people, and
those neighbours of theirs who hold the land of
Pelops the Phrygian, and we shall extend the
Persian territory as far as God’s heaven reaches.
The sun will then shine on no land beyond our
borders; for I will pass through Europe from one
end to the other, and with your aid make of all the
lands which it contains one country. For thus, if
what I hear be true, affairs stand: the nations
whereof I have spoken, once swept away, there is
no city, no country left in all the world, which will
venture so much as to withstand us in arms. By
this course then we shall bring all mankind under
our yoke, alike those who are guilty and those
who are innocent of doing us wrong.

For yourselves, if you wish to please me, do as fol-
lows: when I announce the time for the army to

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meet together, hasten to the muster with a good
will, every one of you; and know that to the man
who brings with him the most gallant array I will
give the gifts which our people consider the most
honourable. This then is what ye have to do. But
to show that I am not self-willed in this matter, I
lay the business before you, and give you full
leave to speak your minds upon it openly.”

Xerxes, having so spoken, held his peace.
Whereupon Mardonius took the word, and said:
“Of a truth, my lord, thou dost surpass, not only
all living Persians, but likewise those yet unborn.
Most true and right is each word that thou hast
now uttered; but best of all thy resolve not to let
the Ionians who live in Europe- a worthless crew-
mock us any more. It were indeed a monstrous
thing if, after conquering and enslaving the Sacae,
the Indians, the Ethiopians, the Assyrians, and
many other mighty nations, not for any wrong
that they had done us, but only to increase our
empire, we should then allow the Greeks, who
have done us such wanton injury, to escape our
vengeance. What is it that we fear in them?- not

Herodotus

surely their numbers?- not the greatness of their
wealth? We know the manner of their battle- we
know how weak their power is; already have we
subdued their children who dwell in our country,
the Ionians, Aeolians, and Dorians. I myself have
had experience of these men when I marched
against them by the orders of thy father; and
though I went as far as Macedonia, and came but
a little short of reaching Athens itself, yet not a
soul ventured to come out against me to battle.

And yet, I am told, these very Greeks are wont to
wage wars against one another in the most fool-
ish way, through sheer perversity and doltishness.
For no sooner is war proclaimed than they search
out the smoothest and fairest plain that is to be
found in all the land, and there they assemble and
fight; whence it comes to pass that even the con-
querors depart with great loss: I say nothing of
the conquered, for they are destroyed altogether.
Now surely, as they are all of one speech, they
ought to interchange heralds and messengers, and
make up their differences by any means rather

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than battle; or, at the worst, if they must needs
fight one against another, they ought to post
themselves as strongly as possible, and so try their
quarrels. But, notwithstanding that they have so
foolish a manner of warfare, yet these Greeks,
when I led my army against them to the very bor-
ders of Macedonia, did not so much as think of
offering me battle.

Who then will dare, O king! to meet thee in arms,
when thou comest with all Asia’s warriors at thy
back, and with all her ships? For my part I do not
believe the Greek people will be so foolhardy.
Grant, however, that I am mistaken herein, and
that they are foolish enough to meet us in open
fight; in that case they will learn that there are no
such soldiers in the whole world as we.
Nevertheless let us spare no pains; for nothing
comes without trouble; but all that men acquire is
got by painstaking.”

When Mardonius had in this way softened the
harsh speech of Xerxes, he too held his peace.

Herodotus

The other Persians were silent; all feared to raise
their voice against the plan proposed to them. But
Artabanus, the son of Hystaspes, and uncle of
Xerxes, trusting to his relationship, was bold to
speak:- “O king!” he said, “it is impossible, if no
more than one opinion is uttered, to make choice
of the best: a man is forced then to follow what-
ever advice may have been given him; but if oppo-
site speeches are delivered, then choice can be
exercised. In like manner pure gold is not recog-
nised by itself; but when we test it along with
baser ore, we perceive which is the better. I coun-
selled thy father, Darius, who was my own broth-
er, not to attack the Scyths, a race of people who
had no town in their whole land. He thought
however to subdue those wandering tribes, and
would not listen to me, but marched an army
against them, and ere he returned home lost many
of his bravest warriors. Thou art about, O king!
to attack a people far superior to the Scyths, a
people distinguished above others both by land
and sea. ‘Tis fit therefore that I should tell thee
what danger thou incurrest hereby.

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Thou sayest that thou wilt bridge the Hellespont,
and lead thy troops through Europe against
Greece. Now suppose some disaster befall thee by
land or sea, or by both. It may be even so; for the
men are reputed valiant. Indeed one may measure
their prowess from what they have already done;
for when Datis and Artaphernes led their huge
army against Attica, the Athenians singly defeat-
ed them. But grant they are not successful on both
elements. Still, if they man their ships, and,
defeating us by sea, sail to the Hellespont, and
there destroy our bridge- that, sire, were a fearful
hazard.

And here ‘tis not by my own mother wit alone
that I conjecture what will happen; but I remem-
ber how narrowly we escaped disaster once, when
thy father, after throwing bridges over the
Thracian Bosphorus and the Ister, marched
against the Scythians, and they tried every sort of
prayer to induce the Ionians, who had charge of
the bridge over the Ister, to break the passage. On
that day, if Histiaeus, the king of Miletus, had

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sided with the other princes, and not set himself
to oppose their views, the empire of the Persians
would have come to nought. Surely a dreadful
thing is this even to hear said, that the king’s for-
tunes depended wholly on one man.

“Think then no more of incurring so great a dan-
ger when no need presses, but follow the advice I
tender. Break up this meeting, and when thou hast
well considered the matter with thyself, and set-
tled what thou wilt do, declare to us thy resolve.
I know not of aught in the world that so profits a
man as taking good counsel with himself; for even
if things fall out against one’s hopes, still one has
counselled well, though fortune has made the
counsel of none effect: whereas if a man counsels
ill and luck follows, he has gotten a windfall, but
his counsel is none the less silly.

Seest thou how God with his lightning smites
always the bigger animals, and will not suffer
them to wax insolent, while those of a lesser bulk
chafe him not? How likewise his bolts fall ever on
the highest houses and the tallest trees? So plain-

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ly does He love to bring down everything that
exalts itself. Thus ofttimes a mighty host is dis-
comfited by a few men, when God in his jealousy
sends fear or storm from heaven, and they perish
in a way unworthy of them. For God allows no
one to have high thoughts but Himself.

Again, hurry always brings about disasters, from
which huge sufferings are wont to arise; but in
delay lie many advantages, not apparent (it may
be) at first sight, but such as in course of time are
seen of all. Such then is my counsel to thee, O
king!

“And thou, Mardonius, son of Gobryas, forbear
to speak foolishly concerning the Greeks, who are
men that ought not to be lightly esteemed by us.
For while thou revilest the Greeks, thou dost
encourage the king to lead his own troops against
them; and this, as it seems to me, is what thou art
specially striving to accomplish. Heaven send
thou succeed not to thy wish! For slander is of all
evils the most terrible. In it two men do wrong,
and one man has wrong done to him. The slan-

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derer does wrong, forasmuch as he abuses a man
behind his back; and the hearer, forasmuch as he
believes what he has not searched into thorough-
ly. The man slandered in his absence suffers
wrong at the hands of both: for one brings against
him a false charge; and the other thinks him an
evildoer.

If, however, it must needs be that we go to war
with this people, at least allow the king to abide
at home in Persia. Then let thee and me both
stake our children on the issue, and do thou
choose out thy men, and, taking with thee what-
ever number of troops thou likest, lead forth our
armies to battle. If things go well for the king, as
thou sayest they will, let me and my children be
put to death; but if they fall out as I prophesy, let
thy children suffer, and thyself too, if thou shalt
come back alive. But shouldest thou refuse this
wager, and still resolve to march an army against
Greece, sure I am that some of those whom thou
leavest behind thee here will one day receive the
sad tidings that Mardonius has brought a great
disaster upon the Persian people, and lies a prey

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to dogs and birds somewhere in the land of the
Athenians, or else in that of the Lacedaemoni-ans;
unless indeed thou shalt have perished sooner by
the way, experiencing in thy own person the
might of those men on whom thou wouldest fain
induce the king to make war.”

Thus spake Artabanus. But Xerxes, full of wrath,
replied to him:-

“Artabanus, thou art my father’s brother- that
shall save thee from receiving the due meed of thy
silly words. One shame however I will lay upon
thee, coward and faint-hearted as thou art- thou
shalt not come with me to fight these Greeks, but
shalt tarry here with the women. Without thy aid
I will accomplish all of which I spake. For let me
not be thought the child of Darius, the son of
Hystaspes, the son of Arsames, the son of
Ariaramnes, the son of Teispes, the son of Cyrus,
the son of Cambyses, the son of Teispes, the son
of Achaemenes, if I take not vengeance on the
Athenians. Full well I know that, were we to

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remain at rest, yet would not they, but would
most certainly invade our country, if at least it be
right to judge from what they have already done;
for, remember, it was they who fired Sardis and
attacked Asia. So now retreat is on both sides
impossible, and the choice lies between doing and
suffering injury; either our empire must pass
under the dominion of the Greeks, or their land
become the prey of the Persians; for there is no
middle course left in this quarrel. It is right then
that we, who have in times past received wrong,
should now avenge it, and that I should thereby
discover what that great risk is which I run in
marching against these men- men whom Pelops
the Phrygian, a vassal of my forefathers, subdued
so utterly, that to this day both the land, and the
people who dwell therein, alike bear the name of
the conqueror!”

Thus far did the speaking proceed. Afterwards
evening fell; and Xerxes began to find the advice
of Artabanus greatly disquiet him. So he thought
upon it during the night, and concluded at last

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that it was not for his advantage to lead an army
into Greece. When he had thus made up his mind
anew, he fell asleep. And now he saw in the night,
as the Persians declare, a vision of this nature- he
thought a tall and beautiful man stood over him
and said, “Hast thou then changed thy mind,
Persian, and wilt thou not lead forth thy host
against the Greeks, after commanding the
Persians to gather together their levies? Be sure
thou doest not well to change; nor is there a man
here who will approve thy conduct. The course
that thou didst determine on during the day, let
that be followed.” After thus speaking the man
seemed to Xerxes to fly away.

Day dawned; and the king made no account of
this dream, but called together the same Persians
as before, and spake to them as follows:-

“Men of Persia, forgive me if I alter the resolve to
which I came so lately. Consider that I have not
yet reached to the full growth of my wisdom, and
that they who urge me to engage in this war leave

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me not to myself for a moment. When I heard the
advice of Artabanus, my young blood suddenly
boiled; and I spake words against him little befit-
ting his years: now however I confess my fault,
and am resolved to follow his counsel.
Understand then that I have changed my intent
with respect to carrying war into Greece, and
cease to trouble yourselves.”

When they heard these words, the Persians were
full of joy, and, falling down at the feet of Xerxes,
made obeisance to him.

But when night came, again the same vision stood
over Xerxes as he slept, and said, “Son of Darius,
it seems thou hast openly before all the Persians
renounced the expedition, making light of my
words, as though thou hadst not heard them spo-
ken. Know therefore and be well assured, that
unless thou go forth to the war, this thing shall
happen unto thee thou art grown mighty and
puissant in a short space, so likewise shalt thou
within a little time be brought low indeed.”

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Then Xerxes, greatly frightened at the vision
which he had seen, sprang from his couch, and
sent a messenger to call Artabanus, who came at
the summons, when Xerxes spoke to him in these
words:-

“Artabanus, at the moment I acted foolishly,
when I gave thee ill words in return for thy good
advice. However it was not long ere I repented,
and was convinced that thy counsel was such as I
ought to follow. But I may not now act in this
way, greatly as I desire to do so. For ever since I
repented and changed my mind a dream has
haunted me, which disapproves my intentions,
and has now just gone from me with threats. Now
if this dream is sent to me from God, and if it is
indeed his will that our troops should march
against Greece, thou too wilt have the same
dream come to thee and receive the same com-
mands as myself. And this will be most sure to
happen, I think, if thou puttest on the dress which
I am wont to wear, and then, after taking thy seat
upon my throne, liest down to sleep on my bed.”

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Such were the words of Xerxes. Artabanus would
not at first yield to the command of the king; for
he deemed himself unworthy to sit upon the royal
throne. At the last however he was forced to give
way, and did as Xerxes bade him; but first he
spake thus to the king:-

“To me, sire, it seems to matter little whether a
man is wise himself or willing to hearken to such
as give good advice. In thee truly are found both
but the counsels of evil men lead thee astray: they
are like the gales of wind which vex the sea- else
the most useful thing for man in the whole world-
and suffer it not to follow the bent of its own
nature. For myself, it irked me not so much to be
reproached by thee, as to observe that when two
courses were placed before the Persian people,
one of a nature to increase their pride, the other
to humble it, by showing them how hurtful it is to
allow one’s heart always to covet more than one
at present possesses, thou madest choice of that
which was the worse both for thyself and for the
Persians.

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Now thou sayest that from the time when thou
didst approve the better course, and give up the
thought of warring against Greece, a dream has
haunted thee, sent by some god or other, which
will not suffer thee to lay aside the expedition. But
such things, my son, have of a truth nothing
divine in them. The dreams that wander to and
fro among mankind, I will tell thee of what nature
they are- I who have seen so many more years
than thou. Whatever a man has been thinking of
during the day is wont to hover round him in the
visions of his dreams at night. Now we during
these many days past have had our hands full of
this enterprise.

If however the matter be not as I suppose, but
God has indeed some part therein, thou hast in
brief declared the whole that can be said concern-
ing it- let it e’en appear to me as it has to thee, and
lay on me the same injunctions. But it ought not
to appear to me any the more if I put on thy
clothes than if I wear my own, nor if I go to sleep
in thy bed than if I do so in mine- supposing, I
mean, that it is about to appear at all. For this

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thing, be it what it may, that visits thee in thy
sleep, surely is not so far gone in folly as to see
me, and because I am dressed in thy clothes,
straightway to mistake me for thee. Now howev-
er our business is to see if it will regard me as of
small account, and not vouchsafe to appear to
me, whether I wear mine own clothes or thine,
while it keeps on haunting thee continually. If it
does so, and appears often, I should myself say
that it was from God. For the rest, if thy mind is
fixed, and it is not possible to turn thee from thy
design, but I must needs go and sleep in thy bed,
well and good, let it be even so; and when I have
done as thou wishest, then let the dream appear to
me. Till such time, however, I shall keep to my
former opinion.”

Thus spake Artabanus; and when he had so said,
thinking to show Xerxes that his words were
nought, he did according to his orders. Having
put on the garments which Xerxes was wont to
wear and taken his seat upon the royal throne, he
lay down to sleep upon the king’s own bed. As he
slept, there appeared to him the very same dream

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which had been seen by Xerxes; it came and stood
over Artabanus, and said:-

“Thou art the man, then, who, feigning to be ten-
der of Xerxes, seekest to dissuade him from lead-
ing his armies against the Greeks! But thou shalt
not escape scathless, either now or in time to
come, because thou hast sought to prevent that
which is fated to happen. As for Xerxes, it has
been plainly told to himself what will befall him,
if he refuses to perform my bidding.”

In such words, as Artabanus thought, the vision
threatened him, and then endeavoured to burn
out his eyes with red-hot irons. At this he
shrieked, and, leaping from his couch, hurried to
Xerxes, and, sitting down at his side, gave him a
full account of the vision; after which he went on
to speak in the words which follow:-

“I, O King! am a man who have seen many
mighty empires overthrown by weaker ones; and
therefore it was that I sought to hinder thee from
being quite carried away by thy youth; since I

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knew how evil a thing it is to covet more than
one possesses. I could remember the expedition
of Cyrus against the Massagetae, and what was
the issue of it; I could recollect the march of
Cambyses against the Ethiops; I had taken part in
the attack of Darius upon the Scyths-bearing
therefore all these things in mind, I thought with
myself that if thou shouldst remain at peace, all
men would deem thee fortunate. But as this
impulse has plainly come from above, and a
heaven-sent destruction seems about to overtake
the Greeks, behold, I change to another mind,
and alter my thoughts upon the matter. Do thou
therefore make known to the Persians what the
god has declared, and bid them follow the orders
which were first given, and prepare their levies.
Be careful to act so that the bounty of the god
may not be hindered by slackness on thy part.”

Thus spake these two together; and Xerxes, being
in good heart on account of the vision, when day
broke, laid all before the Persians; while
Artabanus, who had formerly been the only per-
son openly to oppose the expedition, now showed
as openly that he favoured it.

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After Xerxes had thus determined to go forth to
the war, there appeared to him in his sleep yet a
third vision. The Magi were consulted upon it,
and said that its meaning reached to the whole
earth, and that all mankind would become his
servants. Now the vision which the king saw was
this: he dreamt that he was crowned with a
branch of an olive tree, and that boughs spread
out from the olive branch and covered the whole
earth; then suddenly the garland, as it lay upon
his brow, vanished. So when the Magi had thus
interpreted the vision, straightway all the
Persians who were come together departed to
their several governments, where each displayed
the greatest zeal, on the faith of the king’s offers.
For all hoped to obtain for themselves the gifts
which had been promised. And so Xerxes gath-
ered together his host, ransacking every corner of
the continent.

Reckoning from the recovery of Egypt, Xerxes
spent four full years in collecting his host and
making ready all things that were needful for his
soldiers. It was not till the close of the fifth year
that he set forth on his march, accompanied by a

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mighty multitude. For of all the armaments
whereof any mention has reached us, this was by
far the greatest; insomuch that no other expedi-
tion compared to this seems of any account, nei-
ther that which Darius undertook against the
Scythians, nor the expedition of the Scythians
(which the attack of Darius was designed to
avenge), when they, being in pursuit of the
Cimmerians, fell upon the Median territory, and
subdued and held for a time almost the whole of
Upper Asia; nor, again, that of the Atridae against
Troy, of which we hear in story; nor that of the
Mysians and Teucrians, which was still earlier,
wherein these nations crossed the Bosphorus into
Europe, and, after conquering all Thrace, pressed
forward till they came to the Ionian Sea, while
southward they reached as far as the river Peneus.

All these expeditions, and others, if such there
were, are as nothing compared with this. For was
there a nation in all Asia which Xerxes did not
bring with him against Greece? Or was there a
river, except those of unusual size, which sufficed
for his troops to drink? One nation furnished

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ships; another was arrayed among the foot-sol-
diers; a third had to supply horses; a fourth,
transports for the horse and men likewise for the
transport service; a fifth, ships of war towards the
bridges; a sixth, ships and provisions.

And in the first place, because the former fleet had
met with so great a disaster about Athos, prepa-
rations were made, by the space of about three
years, in that quarter. A fleet of triremes lay at
Elaeus in the Chersonese; and from this station
detachments were sent by the various nations
whereof the army was composed, which relieved
one another at intervals, and worked at a trench
beneath the lash of taskmasters; while the people
dwelling about Athos bore likewise a part in the
labour. Two Persians, Bubares, the son of
Megabazus, and Artachaees, the son of Artaeus,
superintended the undertaking.

Athos is a great and famous mountain, inhabited
by men, and stretching far out into the sea. Where
the mountain ends towards the mainland it forms
a peninsula; and in this place there is a neck of

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land about twelve furlongs across, the whole
extent whereof, from the sea of the Acanthians to
that over against Torone, is a level plain, broken
only by a few low hills. Here, upon this isthmus
where Athos ends, is Sand, a Greek city. Inside of
Sand, and upon Athos itself, are a number of
towns, which Xerxes was now employed in dis-
joining from the continent: these are Dium,
Olophyxus, Acrothoum, Thyssus, and Cleonae.
Among these cities Athos was divided.

Now the manner in which they dug was the fol-
lowing: a line was drawn across by the city of
Sand; and along this the various nations parcelled
out among themselves the work to be done. When
the trench grew deep, the workmen at the bottom
continued to dig, while others handed the earth,
as it was dug out, to labourers placed higher up
upon ladders, and these taking it, passed it on far-
ther, till it came at last to those at the top, who
carried it off and emptied it away. All the other
nations, therefore, except the Phoenicians, had
double labour; for the sides of the trench fell in
continually, as could not but happen, since they

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made the width no greater at the top than it was
required to be at the bottom. But the Phoenicians
showed in this the skill which they are wont to
exhibit in all their undertakings. For in the por-
tion of the work which was allotted to them they
began by making the trench at the top twice as
wide as the prescribed measure, and then as they
dug downwards approached the sides nearer and
nearer together, so that when they reached the
bottom their part of the work was of the same
width as the rest. In a meadow near, there was a
place of assembly and a market; and hither great
quantities of corn, ready ground, were brought
from Asia.

It seems to me, when I consider this work, that
Xerxes, in making it, was actuated by a feeling of
pride, wishing to display the extent of his power,
and to leave a memorial behind him to posterity.
For notwithstanding that it was open to him, with
no trouble at all, to have had his ships drawn
across the isthmus, yet he issued orders that a
canal should be made through which the sea
might flow, and that it should be of such a width

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as would allow of two triremes passing through it
abreast with the oars in action. He likewise gave
to the same persons who were set over the digging
of the trench, the task of making a bridge across
the river Strymon.

While these things were in progress, he was having
cables prepared for his bridges, some of papyrus
and some of white flax, a business which he
entrusted to the Phoenicians and the Egyptians.
He likewise laid up stores of provisions in divers
places, to save the army and the beasts of burthen
from suffering want upon their march into Greece.
He inquired carefully about all the sites, and had
the stores laid up in such as were most convenient,
causing them to be brought across from various
parts of Asia and in various ways, some in trans-
ports and others in merchantmen. The greater por-
tion was carried to Leuce-Acte, upon the Thracian
coast; some part, however, was conveyed to
Tyrodiza, in the country of the Perinthians, some
to Doriscus, some to Eion upon the Strymon, and
some to Macedonia.

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During the time that all these labours were in
progress, the land army which had been collected
was marching with Xerxes towards Sardis, having
started from Critalla in Cappadocia. At this spot
all the host which was about to accompany the
king in his passage across the continent had been
bidden to assemble. And here I have it not in my
power to mention which of the satraps was
adjudged to have brought his troops in the most
gallant array, and on that account rewarded by the
king according to his promise; for I do not know
whether this matter ever came to a judgment. But
it is certain that the host of Xerxes, after crossing
the river Halys, marched through Phrygia till it
reached the city of Celaenae. Here are the sources
of the river Maeander, and likewise of another
stream of no less size, which bears the name of
Catarrhactes (or the Cataract); the last-named
river has its rise in the market-place of Celaenae,
and empties itself into the Maeander. Here, too, in
this market-place, is hung up to view the skin of
the Silenus Marsyas, which Apollo, as the
Phrygian story goes, stripped off and placed there.

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Now there lived in this city a certain Pythius, the
son of Atys, a Lydian. This man entertained
Xerxes and his whole army in a most magnificent
fashion, offering at the same time to give him a
sum of money for the war. Xerxes, upon the men-
tion of money, turned to the Persians who stood
by, and asked of them, “Who is this Pythius, and
what wealth has he, that he should venture on
such an offer as this?” They answered him, “This
is the man, O king! who gave thy father Darius
the golden plane-tree, and likewise the golden
vine; and he is still the wealthiest man we know
of in all the world, excepting thee.”

Xerxes marvelled at these last words; and now,
addressing Pythius with his own lips, he asked
him what the amount of his wealth really was.
Pythius answered as follows:-

“O king! I will not hide this matter from thee, nor
make pretence that I do not know how rich I am;
but as I know perfectly, I will declare all fully
before thee. For when thy journey was noised
abroad, and I heard thou wert coming down to

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the Grecian coast, straightway, as I wished to give
thee a sum of money for the war, I made count of
my stores, and found them to be two thousand
talents of silver, and of gold four millions of Daric
staters, wanting seven thousand. All this I will-
ingly make over to thee as a gift; and when it is
gone, my slaves and my estates in land will be
wealth enough for my wants.”

This speech charmed Xerxes, and he replied,
“Dear Lydian, since I left Persia there is no man
but thou who has either desired to entertain my
army, or come forward of his own free will to offer
me a sum of money for the war. Thou hast done
both the one and the other, feasting my troops
magnificently, and now making offer of a right
noble sum. In return, this is what I will bestow on
thee. Thou shalt be my sworn friend from this day;
and the seven thousand staters which are wanting
to make up thy four millions I will supply, so that
the full tale may be no longer lacking, and that
thou mayest owe the completion of the round sum
to me. Continue to enjoy all that thou hast
acquired hitherto; and be sure to remain ever such

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as thou now art. If thou dost, thou wilt not repent
of it so long as thy life endures.”

When Xerxes had so spoken and had made good
his promises to Pythius, he pressed forward upon
his march; and passing Anaua, a Phrygian city,
and a lake from which salt is gathered, he came to
Colossae, a Phrygian city of great size, situated at
a spot where the river Lycus plunges into a chasm
and disappears. This river, after running under
ground a distance of about five furlongs, reap-
pears once more, and empties itself, like the
stream above mentioned, into the Maeander.
Leaving Colossae, the army approached the bor-
ders of Phrygia where it abuts on Lydia; and here
they came to a city called Cydrara, where was a
pillar set up by Croesus, having an inscription on
it, showing the boundaries of the two countries.

Where it quits Phrygia and enters Lydia the road
separates; the way on the left leads into Caria,
while that on the right conducts to Sardis. If you
follow this route, you must cross the Maeander,
and then pass by the city Callatebus, where the

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men live who make honey out of wheat and the
fruit of the tamarisk. Xerxes, who chose this way,
found here a plane-tree so beautiful, that he pre-
sented it with golden ornaments, and put it under
the care of one of his Immortals. The day after, he
entered the Lydian capital.

Here his first care was to send off heralds into
Greece, who were to prefer a demand for earth
and water, and to require that preparations
should be made everywhere to feast the king. To
Athens indeed and to Sparta he sent no such
demand; but these cities excepted, his messengers
went everywhere. Now the reason why he sent for
earth and water to states which had already
refused was this: he thought that although they
had refused when Darius made the demand, they
would now be too frightened to venture to say
him nay. So he sent his heralds, wishing to know
for certain how it would be.

Xerxes, after this, made preparations to advance
to Abydos, where the bridge across the
Hellespont from Asia to Europe was lately fin-

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ished. Midway between Sestos and Madytus in
the Hellespontine Chersonese, and right over
against Abydos, there is a rocky tongue of land
which runs out for some distance into the sea.
This is the place where no long time afterwards
the Greeks under Xanthippus, the son of
Ariphron, took Artayctes the Persian, who was at
that time governor of Sestos, and nailed him liv-
ing to a plank. He was the Artayctes who brought
women into the temple of Protesilaus at Elaeus,
and there was guilty of most unholy deeds.

Towards this tongue of land then, the men to
whom the business was assigned carried out a
double bridge from Abydos; and while the
Phoenicians constructed one line with cables of
white flax, the Egyptians in the other used ropes
made of papyrus. Now it is seven furlongs across
from Abydos to the opposite coast. When, there-
fore, the channel had been bridged successfully, it
happened that a great storm arising broke the
whole work to pieces, and destroyed all that had
been done.

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So when Xerxes heard of it he was full of wrath,
and straightway gave orders that the Hellespont
should receive three hundred lashes, and that a
pair of fetters should be cast into it. Nay, I have
even heard it said that he bade the branders take
their irons and therewith brand the Hellespont. It
is certain that he commanded those who scourged
the waters to utter, as they lashed them, these bar-
barian and wicked words:

“Thou bitter water, thy lord lays on thee this pun-
ishment because thou hast wronged him without
a cause, having suffered no evil at his hands.
Verily King Xerxes will cross thee, whether thou
wilt or no. Well dost thou deserve that no man
should honour thee with sacrifice; for thou art of
a truth a treacherous and unsavoury river.” While
the sea was thus punished by his orders, he like-
wise commanded that the overseers of the work
should lose their heads.

Then they, whose business it was, executed the
unpleasing task laid upon them; and other master-

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builders were set over the work, who accom-
plished it in the way which I will now describe.

They joined together triremes and penteconters,
360 to support the bridge on the side of the
Euxine Sea, and 314 to sustain the other; and
these they placed at right angles to the sea, and in
the direction of the current of the Hellespont,
relieving by these means the tension of the shore
cables. Having joined the vessels, they moored
them with anchors of unusual size, that the vessels
of the bridge towards the Euxine might resist the
winds which blow from within the straits, and
that those of the more western bridge facing the
Egean might withstand the winds which set in
from the south and from the south-east. A gap
was left in the penteconters in no fewer than three
places, to afford a passage for such light craft as
chose to enter or leave the Euxine. When all this
was done, they made the cables taut from the
shore by the help of wooden capstans. This time,
moreover, instead of using the two materials sep-
arately, they assigned to each bridge six cables,
two of which were of white flax, while four were

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of papyrus. Both cables were of the same size and
quality; but the flaxen were the heavier, weighing
not less than a talent the cubit. When the bridge
across the channel was thus complete, trunks of
trees were sawn into planks, which were out to
the width of the bridge, and these were laid side
by side upon the tightened cables, and then fas-
tened on the top. This done, brushwood was
brought, and arranged upon the planks, after
which earth was heaped upon the brushwood,
and the whole trodden down into a solid mass.
Lastly a bulwark was set up on either side of this
causeway, of such a height as to prevent the
sumpter-beasts and the horses from seeing over it
and taking fright at the water.

And now when all was prepared- the bridges, and
the works at Athos, the breakwaters about the
mouths of the cutting, which were made to hinder
the surf from blocking up the entrances, and the
cutting itself; and when the news came to Xerxes
that this last was completely finished- then at
length the host, having first wintered at Sardis,
began its march towards Abydos, fully equipped,

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on the first approach of spring. At the moment of
departure, the sun suddenly quitted his seat in the
heavens, and disappeared, though there were no
clouds in sight, but the sky was clear and serene.
Day was thus turned into night; whereupon
Xerxes, who saw and remarked the prodigy, was
seized with alarm, and sending at once for the
Magians, inquired of them the meaning of the
portent. They replied- “God is foreshowing to the
Greeks the destruction of their cities; for the sun
foretells for them, and the moon for us.” So
Xerxes, thus instructed, proceeded on his way
with great gladness of heart.

The army had begun its march, when Pythius the
Lydian, affrighted at the heavenly portent, and
emboldened by his gifts, came to Xerxes and said-
“Grant me, O my lord! a favour which is to thee
a light matter, but to me of vast account.” Then
Xerxes’ who looked for nothing less than such a
prayer as Pythius in fact preferred, engaged to
grant him whatever he wished, and commanded
him to tell his wish freely. So Pythius, full of bold-
ness, went on to say:-

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“O my lord! thy servant has five sons; and it
chances that all are called upon to join thee in this
march against Greece. I beseech thee, have com-
passion upon my years; and let one of my sons,
the eldest, remain behind, to be my prop and stay,
and the guardian of my wealth. Take with thee
the other four; and when thou hast done all that
is in thy heart, mayest thou come back in safety.”

But Xerxes was greatly angered, and replied to
him: “Thou wretch! darest thou speak to me of
thy son, when I am myself on the march against
Greece, with sons, and brothers, and kinsfolk,
and friends? Thou, who art my bond-slave, and
art in duty bound to follow me with all thy house-
hold, not excepting thy wife! Know that man’s
spirit dwelleth in his ears, and when it hears good
things, straightway it fills all his body with
delight; but no sooner does it hear the contrary
than it heaves and swells with passion. As when
thou didst good deeds and madest good offers to
me, thou wert not able to boast of having out-
done the king in bountifulness, so now when thou
art changed and grown impudent, thou shalt not

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receive all thy deserts, but less. For thyself and
four of thy five sons, the entertainment which I
had of thee shall gain protection; but as for him
to whom thou clingest above the rest, the forfeit
of his life shall be thy punishment.” Having thus
spoken, forthwith he commanded those to whom
such tasks were assigned to seek out the eldest of
the sons of Pythius, and having cut his body asun-
der, to place the two halves. one on the right, the
other on the left, of the great road, so that the
army might march out between them.

Then the king’s orders were obeyed; and the army
marched out between the two halves of the car-
case. First of all went the baggage-bearers, and
the sumpter-beasts, and then a vast crowd of
many nations mingled together without any inter-
vals, amounting to more than one half of the
army. After these troops an empty space was left,
to separate between them and the king. In front of
the king went first a thousand horsemen, picked
men of the Persian nation- then spearmen a thou-
sand, likewise chosen troops, with their spear-
heads pointing towards the ground- next ten of

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the sacred horses called Nisaean, all daintily
caparisoned. (Now these horses are called
Nisaean, because they come from the Nisaean
plain, a vast flat in Media, producing horses of
unusual size.) After the ten sacred horses came the
holy chariot of Jupiter, drawn by eight milk-white
steeds, with the charioteer on foot behind them
holding the reins; for no mortal is ever allowed to
mount into the car. Next to this came Xerxes him-
self, riding in a chariot drawn by Nisaean horses,
with his charioteer, Patiramphes, the son of
Otanes, a Persian, standing by his side.

Thus rode forth Xerxes from Sardis- but he was
accustomed every now and then, when the fancy
took him, to alight from his chariot and travel in
a litter. Immediately behind the king there fol-
lowed a body of a thousand spearmen, the noblest
and bravest of the Persians, holding their lances in
the usual manner- then came a thousand Persian
horse, picked men- then ten thousand, picked also
after the rest, and serving on foot. Of these last
one thousand carried spears with golden pome-
granates at their lower end instead of spikes; and

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these encircled the other nine thousand, who bore
on their spears pomegranates of silver. The spear-
men too who pointed their lances towards the
ground had golden pomegranates; and the thou-
sand Persians who followed close after Xerxes
had golden apples. Behind the ten thousand foot-
men came a body of Persian cavalry, likewise ten
thousand; after which there was again a void
space for as much as two furlongs; and then the
rest of the army followed in a confused crowd.

The march of the army, after leaving Lydia, was
directed upon the river Caicus and the land of
Mysia. Beyond the Caius the road, leaving Mount
Cana upon the left, passed through the Atarnean
plain, to the city of Carina. Quitting this, the
troops advanced across the plain of Thebe, pass-
ing Adramyttium, and Antandrus, the Pelasgic
city; then, holding Mount Ida upon the left hand,
it entered the Trojan territory. On this march the
Persians suffered some loss; for as they
bivouacked during the night at the foot of Ida, a
storm of thunder and lightning burst upon them,
and killed no small number.

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On reaching the Scamander, which was the first
stream, of all that they had crossed since they left
Sardis, whose water failed them and did not suf-
fice to satisfy the thirst of men and cattle, Xerxes
ascended into the Pergamus of Priam, since he
had a longing to behold the place. When he had
seen everything, and inquired into all particulars,
he made an offering of a thousand oxen to the
Trojan Minerva, while the Magians poured liba-
tions to the heroes who were slain at Troy. The
night after, a panic fell upon the camp: but in the
morning they set off with daylight, and skirting
on the left hand the towns Rhoeteum,
Ophryneum, and Dardanus (which borders on
Abydos), on the right the Teucrians of Gergis, so
reached Abydos.

Arrived here, Xerxes wished to look upon all his
host; so as there was a throne of white marble
upon a hill near the city, which they of Abydos
had prepared beforehand, by the king’s bidding,
for his especial use, Xerxes took his seat on it,
and, gazing thence upon the shore below, beheld
at one view all his land forces and all his ships.

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While thus employed, he felt a desire to behold a
sailing-match among his ships, which accordingly
took place, and was won by the Phoenicians of
Sidon, much to the joy of Xerxes, who was
delighted alike with the race and with his army.

And now, as he looked and saw the whole
Hellespont covered with the vessels of his fleet,
and all the shore and every plain about Abydos as
full as possible of men, Xerxes congratulated him-
self on his good fortune; but after a little while he
wept.

Then Artabanus, the king’s uncle (the same who
at the first so freely spake his mind to the king,
and advised him not to lead his army against
Greece), when he heard that Xerxes was in tears,
went to him, and said:-

“How different, sire, is what thou art now doing,
from what thou didst a little while ago! Then thou
didst congratulate thyself; and now, behold! thou
weepest.”

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“There came upon me,” replied he, “a sudden
pity, when I thought of the shortness of man’s life,
and considered that of all this host, so numerous
as it is, not one will be alive when a hundred years
are gone by.”

“And yet there are sadder things in life than that,”
returned the other. “Short as our time is, there is
no man, whether it be here among this multitude
or elsewhere, who is so happy, as not to have felt
the wish- I will not say once, but full many a time-
that he were dead rather than alive. Calamities
fall upon us; sicknesses vex and harass us, and
make life, short though it be, to appear long. So
death, through the wretchedness of our life, is a
most sweet refuge to our race: and God, who
gives us the tastes that we enjoy of pleasant times,
is seen, in his very gift, to be envious.”

“True,” said Xerxes; “human life is even such as
thou hast painted it, O Artabanus! But for this
very reason let us turn our thoughts from it, and
not dwell on what is so sad, when pleasant things

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are in hand. Tell me rather, if the vision which we
saw had not appeared so plainly to thyself,
wouldst thou have been still of the same mind as
formerly, and have continued to dissuade me from
warring against Greece, or wouldst thou at this
time think differently? Come now, tell me this
honestly.”

“O king!” replied the other, “may the dream
which hath appeared to us have such issue as we
both desire! For my own part, I am still full of
fear, and have scarcely power to control myself,
when I consider all our dangers, and especially
when I see that the two things which are of most
consequence are alike opposed to thee.”

“Thou strange man!” said Xerxes in reply-
“what, I pray thee, are the two things thou speak-
est of? Does my land army seem to thee too small
in number, and will the Greeks, thinkest thou,
bring into the field a more numerous host? Or is
it our fleet which thou deemest weaker than
theirs? Or art thou fearful on both accounts? If in
thy judgment we fall short in either respect, it

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were easy to bring together with all speed anoth-
er armament.”

“O king!” said Artabanus, “it is not possible that
a man of understanding should find fault with the
size of thy army or the number of thy ships. The
more thou addest to these, the more hostile will
those two things, whereof I spake, become. Those
two things are the land and the sea. In all the wide
sea there is not, I imagine, anywhere a harbour
large enough to receive thy vessels, in case a storm
arise, and afford them a sure protection. And yet
thou wilt want, not one such harbour only, but
many in succession, along the entire coast by
which thou art about to make thy advance. In
default then of such harbours, it is well to bear in
mind that chances rule men, and not men
chances. Such is the first of the two dangers; and
now I will speak to thee of the second. The land
will also be thine enemy; for if no one resists thy
advance, as thou proceedest farther and farther,
insensibly allured onwards (for who is ever sated
with success?), thou wilt find it more and more
hostile. I mean this, that, should nothing else

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withstand thee, yet the mere distance, becoming
greater as time goes on, will at last produce a
famine. Methinks it is best for men, when they
take counsel, to be timorous, and imagine all pos-
sible calamities, but when the time for action
comes, then to deal boldly.”

Whereto Xerxes answered- “There is reason, O
Artabanus! in everything which thou hast said;
but I pray thee, fear not all things alike, nor count
up every risk. For if in each matter that comes
before us thou wilt look to all possible chances,
never wilt thou achieve anything. Far better is it
to have a stout heart always, and suffer one’s
share of evils, than to be ever fearing what may
happen, and never incur a mischance. Moreover,
if thou wilt oppose whatever is said by others,
without thyself showing us the sure course which
we ought to take, thou art as likely to lead us into
failure as they who advise differently; for thou art
but on a par with them. And as for that sure
course, how canst thou show it us when thou art
but a man? I do not believe thou canst. Success
for the most part attends those who act boldly,

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not those who weigh everything, and are slack to
venture. Thou seest to how great a height the
power of Persia has now reached- never would it
have grown to this point if they who sate upon
the throne before me had been like-minded with
thee, or even, though not like-minded, had lis-
tened to councillors of such a spirit. ‘Twas by
brave ventures that they extended their sway; for
great empires can only be conquered by great
risks. We follow then the example of our fathers
in making this march; and we set forward at the
best season of the year; so, when we have brought
Europe under us, we shall return, without suffer-
ing from want or experiencing any other calami-
ty. For while on the one hand we carry vast stores
of provisions with us, on the other we shall have
the grain of all the countries and nations that we
attack; since our march is not directed against a
pastoral people, but against men who are tillers of
the ground.”

Then said Artabanus- “If, sire, thou art deter-
mined that we shall not fear anything, at least
hearken to a counsel which I wish to offer; for

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when the matters in hand are so many, one can-
not but have much to say. Thou knowest that
Cyrus the son of Cambyses reduced and made
tributary to the Persians all the race of the
Ionians, except only those of Attica. Now my
advice is that thou on no account lead forth these
men against their fathers; since we are well able to
overcome them without such aid. Their choice, if
we take them with us to the war, lies between
showing themselves the most wicked of men by
helping to enslave their fatherland, or the most
righteous by joining in the struggle to keep it free.
If then they choose the side of injustice, they will
do us but scant good; while if they determine to
act justly, they may greatly injure our host. Lay
thou to heart the old proverb, which says truly,
‘The beginning and end of a matter are not
always seen at once.’

“Artabanus,” answered Xerxes, “there is nothing
in all that thou hast said, wherein thou art so
wholly wrong as in this, that thou suspectest the
faith of the Ionians. Have they not given us the
surest proof of their attachment- a proof which

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thou didst thyself witness, and likewise all those
who fought with Darius against the Scythians?
When it lay wholly with them to save or to
destroy the entire Persian army, they dealt by us
honourably and with good faith, and did us no
hurt at all. Besides, they will leave behind them in
our country their wives, their children, and their
properties- can it then be conceived that they will
attempt rebellion? Have no fear, therefore, on this
score; but keep a brave heart and uphold my
house and empire. To thee, and thee only, do I
intrust my sovereignty.”

After Xerxes had thus spoken, and had sent
Artabanus away to return to Susa, he summoned
before him all the Persians of most repute, and
when they appeared, addressed them in these
words:-

“Persians, I have brought you together because I
wished to exhort you to behave bravely, and not
to sully with disgrace the former achievements of
the Persian people, which are very great and
famous. Rather let us one and all, singly and

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jointly, exert ourselves to the uttermost; for the
matter wherein we are engaged concerns the com-
mon weal. Strain every nerve, then, I beseech you,
in this war. Brave warriors are the men we march
against, if report says true; and such that, if we
conquer them, there is not a people in all the
world which will venture thereafter to with. stand
our arms. And now let us offer prayers to the
gods who watch over the welfare of Persia, and
then cross the channel.”

All that day the preparations for the passage con-
tinued; and on the morrow they burnt all kinds of
spices upon the bridges, and strewed the way with
myrtle boughs, while they waited anxiously for
the sun, which they hoped to see as he rose. And
now the sun appeared; and Xerxes took a golden
goblet and poured from it a libation into the sea,
praying the while with his face turned to the sun
“that no misfortune might befall him such as to
hinder his conquest of Europe, until he had pene-
trated to its uttermost boundaries.” After he had
prayed, he cast the golden cup into the
Hellespont, and with it a golden bowl, and a

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Persian sword of the kind which they call aci-
naces. I cannot say for certain whether it was as
an offering to the sun-god that he threw these
things into the deep, or whether he had repented
of having scourged the Hellespont, and thought
by his gifts to make amends to the sea for what he
had done.

When, however, his offerings were made, the
army began to cross; and the foot-soldiers, with
the horsemen, passed over by one of the bridges-
that (namely) which lay towards the Euxine-
while the sumpter-beasts and the camp-followers
passed by the other, which looked on the Egean.
Foremost went the Ten Thousand Persians, all
wearing garlands upon their heads; and after
them a mixed multitude of many nations. These
crossed upon the first day.

On the next day the horsemen began the passage;
and with them went the soldiers who carried their
spears with the point downwards, garlanded, like
the Ten Thousand;- then came the sacred horses
and the sacred chariot; next Xerxes with his

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lancers and the thousand horse; then the rest of
the army. At the same time the ships sailed over to
the opposite shore. According, however, to anoth-
er account which I have heard, the king crossed
the last.

As soon as Xerxes had reached the European side,
he stood to contemplate his army as they crossed
under the lash. And the crossing continued during
seven days and seven nights, without rest or
pause. ‘Tis said that here, after Xerxes had made
the passage, a Hellespontian exclaimed-

“Why, O Jove, dost thou, in the likeness of a
Persian man, and with the name of Xerxes instead
of thine own, lead the whole race of mankind to
the destruction of Greece? It would have been as
easy for thee to destroy it without their aid!”

When the whole army had crossed, and the troops
were now upon their march, a strange prodigy
appeared to them, whereof the king made no
account, though its meaning was not difficult to
conjecture. Now the prodigy was this:- a mare

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brought forth a hare. Hereby it was shown plain-
ly enough, that Xerxes would lead forth his host
against Greece with mighty pomp and splendour,
but, in order to reach again the spot from which
he set out, would have to run for his life. There
had also been another portent, while Xerxes was
still at Sardis- a mule dropped a foal, neither male
nor female; but this likewise was disregarded.

So Xerxes, despising the omens, marched for-
wards; and his land army accompanied him. But
the fleet held an opposite course, and, sailing to
the mouth of the Hellespont, made its way along
the shore. Thus the fleet proceeded westward,
making for Cape Sarpedon, where the orders
were that it should await the coming up of the
troops; but the land army marched eastward
along the Chersonese, leaving on the right the
tomb of Helle, the daughter of Athamas, and on
the left the city of Cardia. Having passed through
the town which is called Agora, they skirted the
shores of the Gulf of Melas, and then crossed the
river Melas, whence the gulf takes its name, the
waters of which they found too scanty to supply

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the host. From this point their march was to the
west; and after passing Aenos, an Aeolian settle-
ment, and likewise Lake Stentoris, they came to
Doriscus.

The name Doriscus is given to a beach and a vast
plain upon the coast of Thrace, through the mid-
dle of which flows the strong stream of the
Hebrus. Here was the royal fort which is likewise
called Doriscus, where Darius had maintained a
Persian garrison ever since the time when he
attacked the Scythians. This place seemed to
Xerxes a convenient spot for reviewing and num-
bering his soldiers; which things accordingly he
proceeded to do. The sea-captains, who had
brought the fleet to Doriscus, were ordered to
take the vessels to the beach adjoining, where Sale
stands, a city of the Samothracians, and Zone,
another city. The beach extends to Serrheum, the
well-known promontory; the whole district in
former times was inhabited by the Ciconians.
Here then the captains were to bring their ships,
and to haul them ashore for refitting, while

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Xerxes at Doriscus was employed in numbering
the soldiers.

What the exact number of the troops of each
nation was I cannot say with certainty- for it is
not mentioned by any one- but the whole land
army together was found to amount to one mil-
lion seven hundred thousand men. The manner in
which the numbering took place was the follow-
ing. A body of ten thousand men was brought to
a certain place, and the men were made to stand
as close together as possible; after which a circle
was drawn around them, and the men were let go:
then where the circle had been, a fence was built
about the height of a man’s middle; and the enclo-
sure was filled continually with fresh troops, till
the whole army had in this way been numbered.
When the numbering was over, the troops were
drawn up according to their several nations.

Now these were the nations that took part in this
expedition. The Persians, who wore on their
heads the soft hat called the tiara, and about their

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bodies, tunics with sleeves of divers colours, hav-
ing iron scales upon them like the scales of a fish.
Their legs were protected by trousers; and they
bore wicker shields for bucklers; their quivers
hanging at their backs, and their arms being a
short spear, a bow of uncommon size, and arrows
of reed. They had likewise daggers suspended
from their girdles along their right thighs. Otanes,
the father of Xerxes’ wife, Amestris, was their
leader. This people was known to the Greeks in
ancient times by the name of Cephenians; but
they called themselves and were called by their
neighbours, Artaeans. It was not till Perseus, the
son of Jove and Danae, visited Cepheus the son of
Belus, and, marrying his daughter Andromeda,
had by her a son called Perses (whom he left
behind him in the country because Cepheus had
no male offspring), that the nation took from this
Perses the name of Persians.

The Medes had exactly the same equipment as the
Persians; and indeed the dress common to both is
not so much Persian as Median. They had for

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commander Tigranes, of the race of the
Achaemenids. These Medes were called anciently
by all people Arians; but when Media, the
Colchian, came to them from Athens, they
changed their name. Such is the account which
they themselves give.

The Cissians were equipped in the Persian fash-
ion, except in one respect:- they wore on their
heads, instead of hats, fillets. Anaphes, the son of
Otanes, commanded them.

The Hyrcanians were likewise armed in the same
way as the Persians. Their leader was Megapanus,
the same who was afterwards satrap of Babylon.

The Assyrians went to the war with helmets upon
their heads made of brass, and plaited in a strange
fashion which it is not easy to describe. They car-
ried shields, lances, and daggers very like the
Egyptian; but in addition, they had wooden clubs
knotted with iron, and linen corselets. This peo-
ple, whom the Greeks call Syrians, are called

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Assyrians by the barbarians. The Chaldaeans
served in their ranks, and they had for comman-
der Otaspes, the son of Artachaeus.

The Bactrians went to the war wearing a head-
dress very like the Median, but armed with bows
of cane, after the custom of their country, and
with short spears.

The Sacae, or Scyths, were clad in trousers, and
had on their heads tall stiff caps rising to a point.
They bore the bow of their country and the dag-
ger; besides which they carried the battle-axe, or
sagaris. They were in truth Amyrgian Scythians,
but the Persians called them Sacae, since that is
the name which they give to all Scythians. The
Bactrians and the Sacae had for leader Hystaspes,
the son of Darius and of Atossa, the daughter of
Cyrus.

The Indians wore cotton dresses, and carried
bows of cane, and arrows also of cane with iron
at the point. Such was the equipment of the

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Indians, and they marched under the command of
Pharnazathres the son of Artabates.

The Arians carried Median bows, but in other
respects were equipped like the Bactrians. Their
commander was Sisamnes the son of Hydarnes.

The Parthians and Chorasmians, with the
Sogdians, the Gandarians, and the Dadicae, had
the Bactrian equipment in all respects. The
Parthians and Chorasmians were commanded by
Artabazus the son of Pharnaces, the Sogdians by
Azanes the son of Artaeus, and the Gandarians
and Dadicae by Artyphius the son of Artabanus.

The Caspians were clad in cloaks of skin, and car-
ried the cane bow of their country and the scymi-
tar. So equipped they went to the war; and they
had for commander Ariomardus the brother of
Artyphius.

The Sarangians had dyed garments which showed
brightly, and buskins which reached to the knee:

Herodotus

they bore Median bows, and lances. Their leader
was Pherendates, the son of Megabazus.

The Pactyans wore cloaks of skin, and carried the
bow of their country and the dagger. Their com-
mander was Artyntes, the son of Ithamatres.

The Utians, the Mycians, and the Paricanians
were all equipped like the Pactyans. They had for
leaders, Arsamenes, the son of Darius, who com-
manded the Utians and Mycians; and Siromitres,
the son of Oeobazus, who commanded the
Paricanians.

The Arabians wore the zeira, or long cloak, fas-
tened about them with a girdle; and carried at
their right side long bows, which when unstrung
bent backwards.

The Ethiopians were clothed in the skins of leop-
ards and lions, and had long bows made of the
stem of the palm-leaf, not less than four cubits in
length. On these they laid short arrows made of

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reed, and armed at the tip, not with iron, but with
a piece of stone, sharpened to a point, of the kind
used in engraving seals. They carried likewise
spears, the head of which was the sharpened horn
of an antelope; and in addition they had knotted
clubs. When they went into battle they painted
their bodies, half with chalk, and half with ver-
milion. The Arabians, and the Ethiopians who
came from the region above Egypt, were com-
manded by Arsames, the son of Darius and of
Artystone daughter of Cyrus. This Artystone was
the best-beloved of all the wives of Darius; and it
was she whose statue he caused to be made of
gold wrought with the hammer. Her son Arsames
commanded these two nations.

The eastern Ethiopians- for two nations of this
name served in the army- were marshalled with
the Indians. They differed in nothing from the
other Ethiopians, save in their language, and the
character of their hair. For the eastern Ethiopians
have straight hair, while they of Libya are more
woolly-haired than any other people in the world.

Herodotus

Their equipment was in most points like that of
the Indians; but they wore upon their heads the
scalps of horses, with the ears and mane attached;
the ears were made to stand upright, and the
mane served as a crest. For shields this people
made use of the skins of cranes.

The Libyans wore a dress of leather, and carried
javelins made hard in the fire. They had for com-
mander Massages, the son of Oarizus.

The Paphlagonians went to the war with plaited
helmets upon their heads, and carrying small
shields and spears of no great size. They had also
javelins and daggers, and wore on their feet the
buskin of their country, which reached half way
up the shank. In the same fashion were equipped
the Ligyans, the Matienians, the Mariandynians,
and the Syrians (or Cappadocians, as they are
called by the Persians). The Paphlagonians and
Matienians were under the command of Dotus
the son of Megasidrus; while the Mariandynians,
the Ligyans, and the Syrians had for leader
Gobryas, the son of Darius and Artystone.

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The dress of the Phrygians closely resembled the
Paphlagonian, only in a very few points differing
from it. According to the Macedonian account,
the Phrygians, during the time that they had their
abode in Europe and dwelt with them in
Macedonia, bore the name of Brigians; but on
their removal to Asia they changed their designa-
tion at the same time with their dwelling-place.

The Armenians, who are Phrygian colonists, were
armed in the Phrygian fashion. Both nations were
under the command of Artochmes, who was mar-
ried to one of the daughters of Darius.

The Lydians were armed very nearly in the
Grecian manner. These Lydians in ancient times
were called Maeonians, but changed their name,
and took their present title from Lydus the son of
Atys.

The Mysians wore upon their heads a helmet
made after the fashion of their country, and car-
ried a small buckler; they used as javelins staves
with one end hardened in the fire. The Mysians

Herodotus

are Lydian colonists, and from the mountain-
chain of Olympus, are called Olympieni. Both the
Lydians and the Mysians were under the com-
mand of Artaphernes, the son of that Artaphernes
who, with Datis, made the landing at Marathon.

The Thracians went to the war wearing the skins
of foxes upon their heads, and about their bodies
tunics, over which was thrown a long cloak of
many colours. Their legs and feet were clad in
buskins made from the skins of fawns; and they
had for arms javelins, with light targes, and short
dirks. This people, after crossing into Asia, took
the name of Bithynians; before, they had been
called Strymonians, while they dwelt upon the
Strymon; whence, according to their own
account, they had been driven out by the Mysians
and Teucrians. The commander of these Asiatic
Thracians was Bassaces the son of Artabanus.

(Text corrupted) had made small shields made of
the hide of the ox, and carried each of them two
spears such as are used in wolf-hunting. Brazen
helmets protected their heads; and above these

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they wore the ears and horns of an ox fashioned
in brass. They had also crests on their helms; and
their legs were bound round with purple bands.
There is an oracle of Mars in the country of this
people.

The Cabalians, who are Maeonians, but are
called Lasonians, had the same equipment as the
Cilicians- an equipment which I shall describe
when I come in due course to the Cilician contin-
gent.

The Milyans bore short spears, and had their gar-
ments fastened with buckles. Some of their num-
ber carried Lycian bows. They wore about their
heads skull-caps made of leather. Badres the son
of Hystanes led both nations to battle.

The Moschians wore helmets made of wood, and
carried shields and spears of a small size: their
spear-heads, however, were long. The Moschian
equipment was that likewise of the Tibarenians,
the Macronians, and the Mosynoecians. The lead-
ers of these nations were the following: the

Herodotus

Moschians and Tibarenians were under the com-
mand of Ariomardus, who was the son of Darius
and of Parmys, daughter of Smerdis son of Cyrus;
while the Macronians and Mosynoecians. had for
leader Artayctes, the son of Cherasmis, the gover-
nor of Sestos upon the Hellespont.

The Mares wore on their heads the plaited helmet
peculiar to their country, and used small leathern
bucklers, and javelins.

The Colchians wore wooden helmets, and carried
small shields of raw hide, and short spears;
besides which they had swords. Both Mares and
Colchians were under the command of
Pharandates, the son of Teaspes.

The Alarodians and Saspirians were armed like
the Colchians; their leader was Masistes, the son
of Siromitras.

The Islanders who came from the Erythraean Sea,
where they inhabited the islands to which the king
sends those whom he banishes, wore a dress and

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arms almost exactly like the Median. Their leader
was Mardontes the son of Bagaeus, who the year
after perished in the battle of Mycale, where he
was one of the captains.

Such were the nations who fought upon the dry
land, and made up the infantry of the Persians.
And they were commanded by the captains whose
names have been above recorded. The mar-
shalling and numbering of the troops had been
committed to them; and by them were appointed
the captains over a thousand, and the captains
over ten thousand; but the leaders of ten men, or
a hundred, were named by the captains over ten
thousand. There were other officers also, who
gave the orders to the various ranks and nations;
but those whom I have mentioned above were the
commanders.

Over these commanders themselves, and over the
whole of the infantry, there were set six generals-
namely Mardonius, son of Gobryas;
Tritantaechmes, son of the Artabanus who gave
his advice against the war with Greece;

Herodotus

Smerdomenes, son of Otanes- these two were the
sons of Darius’ brothers, and thus were cousins of
Xerxes- Masistes, son of Darius and Atossa;
Gergis, son of Arizus; and Megabyzus, son of
Zopyrus.

The whole of the infantry was under the com-
mand of these generals, excepting the Ten
Thousand. The Ten Thousand, who were all
Persians and all picked men, were led by
Hydarnes, the son of Hydarnes. They were called
“the Immortals,” for the following reason. If one
of their body failed either by the stroke of death
or of disease, forthwith his place was filled up by
another man, so that their number was at no time
either greater or less than 10,000.

Of all the troops the Persians were adorned with
the greatest magnificence, and they were likewise
the most valiant. Besides their arms, which have
been already described, they glittered all over
with gold, vast quantities of which they wore
about their persons. They were followed by lit-

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ters, wherein rode their concubines, and by a
numerous train of attendants handsomely
dressed. Camels and sumpter-beasts carried their
provision, apart from that of the other soldiers.

All these various nations fight on horseback; they
did not, however, at this time all furnish horse-
men, but only the following:-

(i.) The Persians, who were armed in the same
way as their own footmen, excepting that some of
them wore upon their heads devices fashioned
with the hammer in brass or steel.

(ii.) The wandering tribe known by the name of
Sagartians- a people Persian in language, and in
dress half Persian, half Pactyan, who furnished to
the army as many as eight thousand horse. It is
not the wont of this people to carry arms, either
of bronze or steel, except only a dirk; but they use
lassoes made of thongs plaited together, and trust
to these whenever they go to the wars. Now the
manner in which they fight is the following: when

Herodotus

they meet their enemy, straightway they discharge
their lassoes, which end in a noose; then, whatev-
er the noose encircles, be it man or be it horse,
they drag towards them; and the foe, entangled in
the toils, is forthwith slain. Such is the manner in
which this people fight; and now their horsemen
were drawn up with the Persians.

(iii.) The Medes, and Cissians, who had the same
equipment as their foot-soldiers.

(iv.) The Indians, equipped as their foot. men, but
some on horseback and some in chariots- the
chariots drawn either by horses, or by wild asses.

(v.) The Bactrians and Caspians, arrayed as their
foot-soldiers.

(vi.) The Libyans, equipped as their foot-soldiers,
like the rest; but all riding in chariots.

(vii.) The Caspeirians and Paricanians, equipped
as their foot-soldiers.

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(viii.) The Arabians, in the same array as their
footmen, but all riding on camels, not inferior in
fleetness to horses.

These nations, and these only, furnished horse to
the army: and the number of the horse was eighty
thousand, without counting camels or chariots.
All were marshalled in squadrons, excepting the
Arabians; who were placed last, to avoid fright-
ening the horses, which cannot endure the sight of
the camel.

The horse was commanded by Armamithras and
Tithaeus, sons of Datis. The other commander,
Pharnuches, who was to have been their col-
league, had been left sick at Sardis; since at the
moment that he was leaving the city, a sad mis-
chance befell him:- a dog ran under the feet of the
horse upon which he was mounted; and the horse,
not seeing it coming, was startled, and, rearing
bolt upright, threw his rider. After this fall
Pharnuches spat blood, and fell into a consump-
tion. As for the horse, he was treated at once as

Herodotus

Pharnuches ordered: the attendants took him to
the spot where he had thrown his master, and
there cut off his four legs at the hough. Thus
Pharnuches lost his command.

The triremes amounted in all to twelve hundred
and seven; and were furnished by the following
nations:-

(i.) The Phoenicians, with the Syrians of Palestine,
furnished three hundred vessels, the crews of
which were thus accoutred: upon their heads they
wore helmets made nearly in the Grecian manner;
about their bodies they had breastplates of linen;
they carried shields without rims; and were armed
with javelins. This nation, according to their own
account, dwelt anciently upon the Erythraean
Sea, but crossing thence, fixed themselves on the
seacoast of Syria, where they still inhabit. This
part of Syria, and all the region extending from
hence to Egypt, is known by the name of
Palestine.

(ii.) The Egyptians furnished two hundred ships.
Their crews had plaited helmets upon their heads,

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and bore concave shields with rims of unusual
size. They were armed with spears suited for a
sea-fight, and with huge pole-axes. The greater
part of them wore breastplates; and all had long
cutlasses.

(iii.) The Cyprians furnished a hundred and fifty
ships, and were equipped in the following fash-
ion. Their kings had turbans bound about their
heads, while the people wore tunics; in other
respects they were clad like the Greeks. They are
of various races; some are sprung from Athens
and Salamis, some from Arcadia, some from
Cythnus, some from Phoenicia, and a portion,
according to their own account, from Ethiopia.

(iv.) The Cilicians furnished a hundred ships. The
crews wore upon their heads the helmet of their
country, and carried instead of shields light targes
made of raw hide; they were clad in woollen
tunics, and were each armed with two javelins,
and a sword closely resembling the cutlass of the
Egyptians. This people bore anciently the name of
Hypachaeans, but took their present title from
Cilix, the son of Agenor, a Phoenician.

Herodotus

(v.) The Pamphylians furnished thirty ships, the
crews of which were armed exactly as the Greeks.
This nation is descended from those who on the
return from Troy were dispersed with
Amphilochus and Calchas.

(vi.) The Lycians furnished fifty ships. Their crews
wore greaves and breastplates, while for arms
they had bows of cornel wood, reed arrows with-
out feathers, and javelins. Their outer garment
was the skin of a goat, which hung from their
shoulders; their headdress a hat encircled with
plumes; and besides their other weapons they car-
ried daggers and falchions. This people came
from Crete, and were once called Termilae; they
got the name which they now bear from Lycus,
the son of Pandion, an Athenian.

(vii.) The Dorians of Asia furnished thirty ships.
They were armed in the Grecian fashion, inas-
much as their forefathers came from the
Peloponnese.

(viii.) The Carians furnished seventy ships, and
were equipped like the Greeks, but carried, in

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addition, falchions and daggers. What name the
Carians bore anciently was declared in the first
part of this History.

(ix.) The Ionians furnished a hundred ships, and
were armed like the Greeks. Now these Ionians,
during the time that they dwelt in the Peloponnese
and inhabited the land now called Achaea (which
was before the arrival of Danaus and Xuthus in
the Peloponnese), were called, according to the
Greek account, Aegialean Pelasgi, or “Pelasgi of
the Sea-shore”; but afterwards, from Ion the son
of Xuthus, they were called Ionians.

The Islanders furnished seventeen ships, and
wore arms like the Greeks. They too were a
Pelasgian race, who in later times took the, name
of Ionians for the same reason me reason as
those who inhabited the twelve cities founded
from Athens.

The Aeolians furnished sixty ships, and were
equipped in the Grecian fashion. They too were
anciently called Pelasgians, as the Greeks
declare.

Herodotus

The Hellespontians from the Pontus, who are
colonists of the Ionians and Dorians, furnished a
hundred ships, the crews of which wore the
Grecian armour.

This did not include the Abydenians, who stayed
in their own country, because the king had
assigned them the special duty of guarding the
bridges.

On board of every ship was a band of soldiers,
Persians, Medes, or Sacans. The Phoenician ships
were the best sailers in the fleet, and the Sidonian
the best among the Phoenicians. The contingent
of each nation, whether to the fleet or to the land
army, had at its head a native leader; but the
names of these leaders I shall not mention, as it is
not necessary for the course of my History. For
the leaders of some nations were not worthy to
have their names recorded; and besides, there
were in each nation as many leaders as there were
cities. And it was not really as commanders that
they accompanied the army, but as mere slaves,

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like the rest of the host. For I have already men-
tioned the Persian generals who had the actual
command, and were at the head of the several
nations which composed the army.

The fleet was commanded by the following-
Ariabignes, the son of Darius, Prexaspes, the son
of Aspathines, Megabazus, the son of Megabates,
and Achaemenes, the son of Darius. Ariabignes,
who was the child of Darius by a daughter of
Gobryas, was leader of the Ionian and Carian
ships; Achaemenes, who was own brother to
Xerxes, of the Egyptian; the rest of the fleet was
commanded by the other two. Besides the
triremes, there was an assemblage of thirty-oared
and fifty-oared galleys, of cercuri, and transports
for conveying horses, amounting in all to three
thousand.

Next to the commanders, the following were the
most renowned of those who sailed aboard the
fleet:- Tetramnestus, the son of Anysus, the
Sidonian; Mapen, the son of Sirom, the Tyrian;
Merbal, the son of Agbal, the Aradian; Syennesis,

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the son of Oromedon, the Cilician; Cyberniscus,
the son of Sicas, the Lycian; Gorgus, the son of
Chersis, and Timonax, the son of Timagoras, the
Cyprians; and Histiaeus, the son of Timnes,
Pigres, the son of Seldomus, and Damasithymus,
the son of Candaules, the Carians.

Of the other lower officers I shall make no men-
tion, since no necessity is laid on me; but I must
speak of a certain leader named Artemisia, whose
participation in the attack upon Greece, notwith-
standing that she was a woman, moves my special
wonder. She had obtained the sovereign power
after the death of her husband; and, though she
had now a son grown up, yet her brave spirit and
manly daring sent her forth to the war, when no
need required her to adventure. Her name, as I
said, was Artemisia, and she was the daughter of
Lygdamis; by race she was on his side a
Halicarnassian, though by her mother a Cretan.
She ruled over the Halicarnassians, the men of
Cos, of Nisyrus, and of Calydna; and the five
triremes which she furnished to the Persians were,
next to the Sidonian, the most famous ships in the

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fleet. She likewise gave to Xerxes sounder counsel
than any of his other allies. Now the cities over
which I have mentioned that she bore sway were
one and all Dorian; for the Halicarnassians were
colonists from Troezen, while the remainder were
from Epidaurus. Thus much concerning the sea-
force.

Now when the numbering and marshalling of the
host was ended, Xerxes conceived a wish to go
himself throughout the forces, and with his own
eyes behold everything. Accordingly he traversed
the ranks seated in his chariot, and, going from
nation to nation, made manifold inquiries, while
his scribes wrote down the answers; till at last he
had passed from end to end of the whole land
army, both the horsemen and likewise the foot.
This done, he exchanged his chariot for a
Sidonian galley, and, seated beneath a golden
awning, sailed along the prows of all his vessels
(the vessels having now been hauled down and
launched into the sea), while he made inquiries
again, as he had done when he reviewed the land-
force, and caused the answers to be recorded by

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his scribes. The captains took their ships to the
distance of about four hundred feet from the
shore, and there lay to, with their vessels in a sin-
gle row, the prows facing the land, and with the
fighting-men upon the decks accoutred as if for
war, while the king sailed along in the open space
between the ships and the shore, and so reviewed
the fleet.

Now after Xerxes had sailed down the whole line
and was gone ashore, he sent for Demaratus the
son of Ariston, who had accompanied him in his
march upon Greece, and bespake him thus:-

“Demaratus, it is my pleasure at this time to ask
thee certain things which I wish to know. Thou
art a Greek, and, as I hear from the other Greeks
with whom I converse, no less than from thine
own lips, thou art a native of a city which is not
the meanest or the weakest in their land. Tell me,
therefore, what thinkest thou? Will the Greeks lift
a hand against us? Mine own judgment is, that
even if all the Greeks and all the barbarians of the
West were gathered together in one place, they

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would not be able to abide my onset, not being
really of one mind. But I would fain know what
thou thinkest hereon.”

Thus Xerxes questioned; and the other replied in
his turn,- “O king! is it thy will that I give thee a
true answer, or dost thou wish for a pleasant
one?”

Then the king bade him speak the plain truth, and
promised that he would not on that account hold
him in less favour than heretofore.

So Demaratus, when he heard the promise, spake
as follows:-

“O king! since thou biddest me at all risks speak
the truth, and not say what will one day prove me
to have lied to thee, thus I answer. Want has at all
times been a fellow-dweller with us in our land,
while Valour is an ally whom we have gained by
dint of wisdom and strict laws. Her aid enables us
to drive out want and escape thraldom. Brave are
all the Greeks who dwell in any Dorian land; but

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what I am about to say does not concern all, but
only the Lacedaemonians. First then, come what
may, they will never accept thy terms, which
would reduce Greece to slavery; and further, they
are sure to join battle with thee, though all the
rest of the Greeks should submit to thy will. As
for their numbers, do not ask how many they are,
that their resistance should be a possible thing; for
if a thousand of them should take the field, they
will meet thee in battle, and so will any number,
be it less than this, or be it more.”

When Xerxes heard this answer of Demaratus, he
laughed and answered:-

“What wild words, Demaratus! A thousand men
join battle with such an army as this! Come then,
wilt thou- who wert once, as thou sayest, their
king- engage to fight this very day with ten men?
I trow not. And yet, if all thy fellow-citizens be
indeed such as thou sayest they are, thou ought-
est, as their king, by thine own country’s usages,
to be ready to fight with twice the number. If then
each one of them be a match for ten of my sol-

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diers, I may well call upon thee to be a match for
twenty. So wouldest thou assure the truth of what
thou hast now said. If, however, you Greeks, who
vaunt yourselves so much, are of a truth men like
those whom I have seen about my court, as thy-
self, Demaratus, and the others with whom I am
wont to converse- if, I say, you are really men of
this sort and size, how is the speech that thou hast
uttered more than a mere empty boast? For, to go
to the very verge of likelihood- how could a thou-
sand men, or ten thousand, or even fifty thou-
sand, particularly if they were all alike free, and
not under one lord- how could such a force, I say,
stand against an army like mine? Let them be five
thousand, and we shall have more than a thou-
sand men to each one of theirs. If, indeed, like our
troops, they had a single master, their fear of him
might make them courageous beyond their natur-
al bent; or they might be urged by lashes against
an enemy which far outnumbered them. But left
to their own free choice, assuredly they will act
differently. For mine own part, I believe, that if
the Greeks had to contend with the Persians only,
and the numbers were equal on both sides, the

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Greeks would find it hard to stand their ground.
We too have among us such men as those of
whom thou spakest- not many indeed, but still we
possess a few. For instance, some of my body-
guard would be willing to engage singly with
three Greeks. But this thou didst not know; and
therefore it was thou talkedst so foolishly.”

Demaratus answered him- “I knew, O king! at
the outset, that if I told thee the truth, my speech
would displease thine ears. But as thou didst
require me to answer thee with all possible
truthfulness, I informed thee what the Spartans
will do. And in this I spake not from any love
that I bear them- for none knows better than
thou what my love towards them is likely to be
at the present time, when they have robbed me
of my rank and my ancestral honours, and made
me a homeless exile, whom thy father did
receive, bestowing on me both shelter and suste-
nance. What likelihood is there that a man of
understanding should be unthankful for kind-
ness shown him, and not cherish it in his heart?

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For mine own self, I pretend not to cope with ten
men, nor with two- nay, had I the choice, I
would rather not fight even with one. But, if
need appeared, or if there were any great cause
urging me on, I would contend with right good
will against one of those persons who boast
themselves a match for any three Greeks. So
likewise the Lacedaemonians, when they fight
singly, are as good men as any in the world, and
when they fight in a body, are the bravest of all.
For though they be free-men, they are not in all
respects free; Law is the master whom they own;
and this master they fear more than thy subjects
fear thee. Whatever he commands they do; and
his commandment is always the same: it forbids
them to flee in battle, whatever the number of
their foes, and requires them to stand firm, and
either to conquer or die. If in these words, O
king! I seem to thee to speak foolishly, I am con-
tent from this time forward evermore to hold my
peace. I had not now spoken unless compelled
by thee. Certes, I pray that all may turn out
according to thy wishes.”

Herodotus

Such was the answer of Demaratus; and Xerxes
was not angry with him at all, but only laughed,
and sent him away with words of kindness.

After this interview, and after he had made
Mascames the son of Megadostes governor of
Doriscus, setting aside the governor appointed by
Darius, Xerxes started with his army, and
marched upon Greece through Thrace.

This man, Mascames, whom he left behind him,
was a person of such merit that gifts were sent
him yearly by the king as a special favour, because
he excelled all the other governors that had been
appointed either by Xerxes or by Darius. In like
manner, Artaxerxes, the son of Xerxes, sent gifts
yearly to the descendants of Mascames. Persian
governors had been established in Thrace and
about the Hellespont before the march of Xerxes
began; but these persons, after the expedition was
over, were all driven from their towns by the
Greeks, except the governor of Doriscus: no one
succeeded in driving out Mascames, though many

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made the attempt. For this reason the gifts are
sent him every year by the king who reigns over
the Persians.

Of the other governors whom the Greeks drove
out, there was not one who, in the judgment of
Xerxes, showed himself a brave man, excepting
Boges, the governor of Eion. Him Xerxes never
could praise enough; and such of his sons as were
left in Persia, and survived their father, he very
specially honoured. And of a truth this Boges was
worthy of great commendation; for when he was
besieged by the Athenians under Cimon, the son
of Miltiades, and it was open to him to retire
from the city upon terms, and return to Asia, he
refused, because he feared the king might think he
had played the coward to save his own life,
wherefore, instead of surrendering, he held out to
the last extremity. When all the food in the
fortress was gone, he raised a vast funeral pile,
slew his children, his wife, his concubines, and his
household slaves, and cast them all into the
flames. Then, collecting whatever gold and silver

Herodotus

there was in the place, he flung it from the walls
into the Strymon; and, when that was done, to
crown all, he himself leaped into the fire. For this
action Boges is with reason praised by the
Persians even at the present day.

Xerxes, as I have said, pursued his march from
Doriscus against Greece; and on his way he forced
all the nations through which he passed to take
part in the expedition. For the whole country as
far as the frontiers of Thessaly had been (as I have
already shown) enslaved and made tributary to
the king by the conquests of Megabazus, and,
more lately, of Mardonius. And first, after leaving
Doriscus, Xerxes passed the Samothracian
fortresses, whereof Mesambria is the farthermost
as one goes toward the west. The next city is
Stryme, which belongs to Thasos. Midway
between it and Mesambria flows the river Lissus,
which did not suffice to furnish water for the
army, but was drunk up and failed. This region
was formerly called Gallaica; now it bears the
name of Briantica; but in strict truth it likewise is
really Ciconian.

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After crossing the dry channel of the Lissus,
Xerxes passed the Grecian cities of Maroneia,
Dicaea, and Abdera, and likewise the famous
lakes which are in their neighbourhood, Lake
Ismaris between Maroneia and Stryme, and Lake
Bistonis near Dicaea, which receives the waters of
two rivers, the Travus and the Compsatus. Near
Abdera there was no famous lake for him to pass;
but he crossed the river Nestus, which there
reaches the sea. Proceeding further upon his way,
he passed by several continental cities, one of
them possessing a lake nearly thirty furlongs in
circuit, full of fish, and very salt, of which the
sumpter-beasts only drank, and which they
drained dry. The name of this city was Pistyrus.
All these towns, which were Grecian, and lay
upon the coast, Xerxes kept upon his left hand as
he passed along.

The following are the Thracian tribes through
whose country he marched: the Paeti, the
Ciconians, the Bistonians, the Sapaeans, the
Dersaeans, the Edonians, and the Satrae. Some of
these dwelt by the sea, and furnished ships to the

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king’s fleet; while others lived in the more inland
parts, and of these all the tribes which I have men-
tioned, except the Satrae, were forced to serve on
foot.

The Satrae, so far as our knowledge goes, have
never yet been brought under by any one, but
continue to this day a free and unconquered peo-
ple, unlike the other Thracians. They dwell amid
lofty mountains clothed with forests of different
trees and capped with snow, and are very valiant
in fight. They are the Thracians who have an ora-
cle of Bacchus in their country, which is situated
upon their highest mountain-range. The Bessi, a
Satrian race, deliver the oracles; but the prophet,
as at Delphi, is a woman; and her answers are not
harder to read.

When Xerxes had passed through the region men-
tioned above, he came next to the Pierian fortress-
es, one of which is called Phagres, and another
Pergamus. Here his line of march lay close by the
walls, with the long high range of Pangaeum upon

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his right, a tract in which there are mines both of
gold and silver, some worked by the Pierians and
Odomantians, but the greater part by the Satrae.

Xerxes then marched through the country of the
Paeonian tribes- the Doberians and the Paeoplae-
which lay to the north of Pangaeum, and, advanc-
ing westward, reached the river Strymon and the
city Eion, whereof Boges, of whom I spoke a short
time ago, and who was then still alive, was gov-
ernor. The tract of land lying about Mount
Pangaeum is called Phyllis; on the west it reaches
to the river Angites, which flows into the
Strymon, and on the south to the Strymon itself,
where at this time the Magi were sacrificing white
horses to make the stream favourable.

After propitiating the stream by these and many
other magical ceremonies, the Persians crossed
the Strymon, by bridges made before their arrival,
at a place called “The Nine Ways,” which was in
the territory of the Edonians. And when they
learnt that the name of the place was “The Nine

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Ways,” they took nine of the youths of the land
and as many of their maidens, and buried them
alive on the spot. Burying alive is a Persian cus-
tom. I have heard that Amestris, the wife of
Xerxes, in her old age buried alive seven pairs of
Persian youths, sons of illustrious men, as a
thank-offering to the god who is supposed to
dwell underneath the earth.

From the Strymon the army, proceeding west-
ward, came to a strip of shore, on which there
stands the Grecian town of Argilus. This shore,
and the whole tract above it, is called Bisaltia.
Passing this, and keeping on the left hand the Gulf
of Posideium, Xerxes crossed the Sylean plain, as
it is called, and passing by Stagirus, a Greek city,
came to Acanthus. The inhabitants of these parts,
as well as those who dwelt about Mount
Pangaeum, were forced to join the armament, like
those others of whom I spoke before; the dwellers
along the coast being made to serve in the fleet,
while those who lived more inland had to follow
with the land forces. The road which the army of

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Xerxes took remains to this day untouched: the
Thracians neither plough nor sow it, but hold it in
great honour.

On reaching Acanthus, the Persian king, seeing
the great zeal of the Acanthians for his service,
and hearing what had been done about the cut-
ting, took them into the number of his sworn
friends, sent them as a present a Median dress,
and besides commended them highly.

It was while he remained here that Artachaees,
who presided over the canal, a man in high repute
with Xerxes, and by birth an Achaemenid, who
was moreover the tallest of all the Persians, being
only four fingers short of five cubits, royal mea-
sure, and who had a stronger voice than any other
man in the world, fell sick and died. Xerxes there-
fore, who was greatly afflicted at the mischance,
carried him to the tomb and buried him with all
magnificence; while the whole army helped to
raise a mound over his grave. The Acanthians, in
obedience to an oracle, offer sacrifice to this

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Artachaees as a hero, invoking him in their
prayers by name. But King Xerxes sorrowed
greatly over his death.

Now the Greeks who had to feed the army, and to
entertain Xerxes, were brought thereby to the
very extremity of distress, insomuch that some of
them were forced even to forsake house and
home. When the Thasians received and feasted
the host, on account of their possessions upon the
mainland, Antipater, the son of Orges, one of the
citizens of best repute, and the man to whom the
business was assigned, proved that the cost of the
meal was four hundred talents of silver.

And estimates almost to the same amount were
made by the superintendents in other cities. For
the entertainment, which had been ordered long
beforehand and was reckoned to be of much con-
sequence, was, in the manner of it, such as I will
now describe. No sooner did the heralds who
brought the orders give their message, than in
every city the inhabitants made a division of their
stores of corn, and proceeded to grind flour of

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wheat and of barley for many months together.
Besides this, they purchased the best cattle that
they could find, and fattened them; and fed poul-
try and water-fowl in ponds and buildings, to be
in readiness for the army; while they likewise pre-
pared gold and silver vases and drinking-cups,
and whatsoever else is needed for the service of
the table. These last preparations were made for
the king only, and those who sat at meat with
him; for the rest of the army nothing was made
ready beyond the food for which orders had been
given. On the arrival of the Persians, a tent ready
pitched for the purpose received Xerxes, who
took his rest therein, while the soldiers remained
under the open heaven. When the dinner hour
came, great was the toil of those who entertained
the army; while the guests ate their fill, and then,
after passing the night at the place, tore down the
royal tent next morning, and seizing its contents,
carried them all off, leaving nothing behind.

On one of these occasions Megacreon of Abdera
wittily recommended his countrymen “to go to
the temples in a body, men and women alike, and

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there take their station as suppliants, and beseech
the gods that they would in future always spare
them one-half of the woes which might threaten
their peace- thanking them at the same time very
warmly for their past goodness in that they had
caused Xerxes to be content with one meal in the
day.” For had the order been to provide breakfast
for the king as well as dinner, the Abderites must
either have fled before Xerxes came, or, if they
awaited his coming, have been brought to
absolute ruin. As it was, the nations, though suf-
fering heavy pressure, complied nevertheless with
the directions that had been given.

At Acanthus, Xerxes separated from his fleet, bid-
ding the captains sail on ahead and await his
coming at Therma, on the Thermaic Gulf, the
place from which the bay takes its name. Through
this town lay, he understood, his shortest road.
Previously, his order of march had been the fol-
lowing:- from Doriscus to Acanthus his land force
had proceeded in three bodies, one of which took
the way along the sea-shore in company with the
fleet, and was commanded by Mardonius and

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Masistes, while another pursued an inland track
under Tritantaechmes and Gergis; the third, with
which was Xerxes himself marching midway
between the other two, and having for its leaders
Smerdomenes and Megabyzus.

The fleet, therefore, after leaving the king, sailed
through the channel which had been cut for it by
Mount Athos, and came into the bay whereon lie
the cities of Assa, Pilorus, Singus, and Sarta; from
all which it received contingents. Thence it stood
on for the Thermaic Gulf, and rounding Cape
Ampelus, the promontory of the Toronaeans,
passed the Grecian cities Torone, Galepsus,
Sermyla, Mecyberna, and Olynthus, receiving
from each a number of ships and men. This region
is called Sithonia.

From Cape Ampelus the fleet stretched across by
a short course to Cape Canastraeum, which is the
point of the peninsula of Palline that runs out far-
thest into the sea, and gathered fresh supplies of
ships and men from Potidaea, Aphytis, Neapolis,
Aega, Therambus, Scione, Mende, and Sane.

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These are the cities of the tract called anciently
Phlegra, but now Palline. Hence they again fol-
lowed the coast, still advancing towards the place
appointed by the king, and had accessions from
all the cities that lie near Pallene, and border on
the Thermaic Gulf, whereof the names are
Lipaxus, Combreia, Lisae, Gigonus, Campsa,
Smila, and Aenea. The tract where these towns lie
still retains its old name of Crossaea. After pass-
ing Aenea, the city which I last named, the fleet
found itself arrived in the Thermaic Gulf, off the
land of Mygdonia. And so at length they reached
Therma, the appointed place, and came likewise
to Sindus and Chalestra upon the river Axius,
which separates Bottiaea from Mygdonia.
Bottiaea has a scanty sea-board, which is occu-
pied by the two cities Ichnae and Pella.

So the fleet anchored off the Axius, and off
Therma, and the towns that lay between, waiting
the king’s coming. Xerxes meanwhile with his
land force left Acanthus, and started for Therma,
taking his way across the land. This road led him
through Paeonia and Crestonia to the river

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Echeidorus, which rising in the country of the
Crestonians, flows through Mygdonia, and reach-
es the sea near the marsh upon the Axius.

Upon this march the camels that carried the pro-
visions of the army were set upon by lions, which
left their lairs and came down by night, but
spared the men and the sumpter-beasts, while
they made the camels their prey. I marvel what
may have been the cause which compelled the
lions to leave the other animals untouched and
attack the camels, when they had never seen that
beast before, nor had any experience of it.

That whole region is full of lions and wild bulls,
with gigantic horns, which are brought into
Greece. The lions are confined within the tract
lying between the river Nestus (which flows
through Abdera) on the one side, and the
Achelous (which waters Acarnania) on the other.
No one ever sees a lion in the fore part of Europe
east of the Nestus, nor through the entire conti-
nent west of the Achelous; but in the space
between these bounds lions are found.

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On reaching Therma Xerxes halted his army,
which encamped along the coast, beginning at the
city of Therma in Mygdonia, and stretching out
as far as the rivers Lydias and Haliacmon, two
streams which, mingling their waters in one, form
the boundary between Bottiaea and Macedonia.
Such was the extent of country through which the
barbarians encamped. The rivers here mentioned
were all of them sufficient to supply the troops,
except the Echeidorus, which was drunk dry.

From Therma Xerxes beheld the Thessalian
mountains, Olympus and Ossa, which are of a
wonderful height. Here, learning that there lay
between these mountains a narrow gorge through
which the river Peneus ran, and where there was
a road that gave an entrance into Thessaly, he
formed the wish to go by sea himself, and exam-
ine the mouth of the river. His design was to lead
his army by the upper road through the country
of the inland Macedonians, and so to enter
Perrhaebia, and come down by the city of
Gonnus; for he was told that that way was the
most secure. No sooner therefore had he formed

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this wish than he acted accordingly. Embarking,
as was his wont on all such occasions, aboard a
Sidonian vessel, he gave the signal to the rest of
the fleet to get under weigh, and quitting his land
army, set sail and proceeded to the Peneus. Here
the view of the mouth caused him to wonder
greatly; and sending for his guides, he asked them
whether it were possible to turn the course of the
stream, and make it reach the sea at any other
point.

Now there is a tradition that Thessaly was in
ancient times a lake, shut in on every side by huge
hills. Ossa and Pelion- ranges which join at the
foot- do in fact inclose it upon the east, while
Olympus forms a barrier upon the north, Pindus
upon the west, and Othrys towards the south.
The tract contained within these mountains,
which is a deep basin, is called Thessaly. Many
rivers pour their waters into it; but five of them
are of more note than the rest, namely, the
Peneus, the Apidanus, the Onochonus, the
Enipeus, and the Pamisus. These streams flow
down from the mountains which surround

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Thessaly, and, meeting in the plain, mingle their
waters together, and discharge themselves into the
sea by a single outlet, which is a gorge of extreme
narrowness. After the junction all the other names
disappear, and the river is known as the Peneus. It
is said that of old the gorge which allows the
waters an outlet did not exist; accordingly the
rivers, which were then as well as the Lake
Boebeis, without names but flowed with as much
water as at present, made Thessaly a sea. The
Thessalians tell us that the gorge through which
the water escapes was caused by Neptune; and
this: is likely enough; at least any man who
believes that Neptune causes earthquakes, and
that chasms so produced are his handiwork,
would say, upon seeing this rent, that Neptune
did it. For it plainly appeared to me that the hills
had been torn asunder by an earthquake.

When Xerxes therefore asked the guides if there
were any other outlet by which the waters could
reach the sea, they, being men well acquainted
with the nature of their country, made answer:-

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“O king! there is no other passage by which this
stream can empty itself into the sea save that
which thine eye beholds. For Thessaly is girt
about with a circlet of hills.”

Xerxes is said to have observed upon this- “Wise
men truly are they of Thessaly, and good reason
had they to change their minds in time and con-
sult for their own safety. For, to pass by others
matters, they must have felt that they lived in a
country which may easily be brought under and
subdued. Nothing more is needed than to turn the
river upon their lands by an embankment.which
should fill up the gorge and force the stream from
its present channel, and lo! all Thessaly, except
the mountains, would at once be laid under
water.”

The king aimed in this speech at the sons of
Aleuas, who were Thessalians, and had been the
first of all the Greeks to make submission to him.
He thought that they had made their friendly
offers in the name of the whole people. So Xerxes,

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when he had viewed the place, and made the
above speech, went back to Therma.

The stay of Xerxes in Pieria lasted for several
days, during which a third part of his army was
employed in cutting down the woods on the
Macedonian mountain-range to give his forces
free passage into Perrhaebia. At this time the her-
alds who had been sent into Greece to require
earth for the king returned to the camp, some of
them empty-handed, others with earth and water.

Among the number of those from whom earth
and water were brought were the Thessalians,
Dolopians, Enianians, Perrhaebians, Locrians,
Magnetians, Malians, Achaeans of Phthiotis,
Thebans, and Boeotians generally, except those of
Plataea and Thespiae. These are the nations
against whom the Greeks that had taken up arms
to resist the barbarians swore the oath, which ran
thus- “From all those of Greek blood who deliv-
ered themselves up to the Persians without neces-
sity, when their affairs were in good condition, we
will take a tithe of their goods, and give it to the

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god at Delphi.” So ran the words of the Greek
oath.

King Xerxes had sent no heralds either to Athens
or Sparta to ask earth and water, for a reason
which I will now relate. When Darius some time
before sent messengers for the same purpose, they
were thrown, at Athens, into the pit of punish-
ment, at Sparta into a well, and bidden to take
therefrom earth and water for themselves, and
carry it to their king. On this account Xerxes did
not send to ask them. What calamity came upon
the Athenians to punish them for their treatment
of the heralds I cannot say, unless it were the lay-
ing waste of their city and territory; but that I
believe was not on account of this crime.

On the Lacedaemonians, however, the wrath of
Talthybius, Agamemnon’s herald, fell with vio-
lence. Talthybius has a temple at Sparta; and his
descendants, who are called Talthybiadae, still
live there, and have the privilege of being the only
persons who discharge the office of herald. When
therefore the Spartans had done the deed of which

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we speak, the victims at their sacrifices failed to
give good tokens; and this failure lasted for a very
long time. Then the Spartans were troubled; and,
regarding what had befallen them as a grievous
calamity, they held frequent assemblies of the peo-
ple, and made proclamation through the town,
“Was any Lacedaemonian willing to give his life
for Sparta?” Upon this two Spartans, Sperthias,
the son Aneristus, and Bulis, the son of Nicolaus,
both men of noble birth, and among the wealthi-
est in the place, came forward and freely offered
themselves as an atonement to Xerxes for the her-
alds of Darius slain at Sparta. So the Spartans sent
them away to the Medes to undergo death.

Nor is the courage which these men hereby dis-
played alone worthy of wonder; but so likewise
are the following speeches which were made by
them. On their road to Susa they presented them-
selves before Hydarnes. This Hydarnes was a
Persian by birth, and had the command of all the
nations that dwelt along the sea-coast of Asia. He
accordingly showed them hospitality, and invited

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them to a banquet, where, as they feasted, he said
to them:-

“Men of Lacedaemon, why will ye not consent to
be friends with the king? Ye have but to look at
me and my fortune to see that the king knows
well how to honour merit. In like manner ye your-
selves, were ye to make your submission to him,
would receive at his hands, seeing that he deems
you men of merit, some government in Greece.”

“Hydarnes,” they answered, “thou art a one-
sided counsellor. Thou hast experience of half the
matter; but the other half is beyond thy knowl-
edge. A slave’s life thou understandest; but, never
having tasted liberty, thou canst not tell whether
it be sweet or no. Ah! hadst thou known what
freedom is, thou wouldst have bidden us fight for
it, not with the spear only, but with the battle-
axe.”

So they answered Hydarnes. And afterwards,
when they were come to Susa into the king’s pres-

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ence, and the guards ordered them to fall down
and do obeisance, and went so far as to use force
to compel them, they refused, and said they
would never do any such thing, even were their
heads thrust down to the ground; for it was not
their custom to worship men, and they had not
come to Persia for that purpose. So they fought
off the ceremony; and having done so, addressed
the king in words much like the following:-

“O king of the Medes! the Lacedaemonians have
sent us hither, in the place of those heralds of
thine who were slain in Sparta, to make atone-
ment to thee on their account.”

Then Xerxes answered with true greatness of soul
“that he would not act like the Lacedaemonians,
who, by killing the heralds, had broken the laws
which all men hold in common. As he had blamed
such conduct in them, he would never be guilty of
it himself. And besides, he did not wish, by
putting the two men to death, to free the
Lacedaemonians from the stain of their former
outrage.”

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119

This conduct on the part of the Spartans caused
the anger of Talthybius to cease for a while,
notwithstanding that Sperthias and Bulis returned
home alive. But many years afterwards it awoke
once more, as the Lacedaemonians themselves
declare, during the war between the
Peloponnesians and the Athenians.

In my judgment this was a case wherein the hand
of Heaven was most plainly manifest. That the
wrath of Talthybius should have fallen upon
ambassadors and not slacked till it had full vent,
so much justice required; but that it should have
come upon the sons of the very men who were
sent up to the Persian king on its account- upon
Nicolaus, the son of Bulis, and Aneristus, the son
of Sperthias (the same who carried off fishermen
from Tiryns, when cruising in a well-manned mer-
chant-ship)- this does seem to me to be plainly a
supernatural circumstance.

Yet certain it is that these two men, having
been sent to Asia as ambassadors by the
Lacedaemonians, were betrayed by Sitalces, the

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son of Teres, king of Thrace, and Nymphodorus,
the son of Pythes, a native of Abdera, and being
made prisoners at Bisanthe, upon the Hellespont,
were conveyed to Attica, and there put to death
by the Athenians, at the same time as Aristeas, the
son of Adeimantus, the Corinthian. All this hap-
pened, however, very many years after the expe-
dition of Xerxes.

To return, however, to my main subject- the expe-
dition of the Persian king, though it was in name
directed against Athens, threatened really the
whole of Greece. And of this the Greeks were
aware some time before; but they did not all view
the matter in the same light. Some of them had
given the Persian earth and water, and were bold
on this account, deeming themselves thereby
secured against suffering hurt from the barbarian
army; while others, who had refused compliance,
were thrown into extreme alarm. For whereas
they considered all the ships in Greece too few to
engage the enemy, it was plain that the greater
number of states would take no part in the war,
but warmly favoured the Medes.

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And here I feel constrained to deliver an opinion,
which most men, I know, will mis-like, but which,
as it seems to me to be true, I am determined not
to withhold. Had the Athenians, from fear of the
approaching danger, quitted their country, or had
they without quitting it submitted to the power of
Xerxes, there would certainly have been no
attempt to resist the Persians by sea; in which case
the course of events by land would have been the
following. Though the Peloponnesians might
have carried ever so many breastworks across the
Isthmus, yet their allies would have fallen off
from the Lacedaemonians, not by voluntary
desertion, but because town after town must have
been taken by the fleet of the barbarians; and so
the Lacedaemonians would at last have stood
alone, and, standing alone, would have displayed
prodigies of valour and died nobly. Either they
would have done thus, or else, before it came to
that extremity, seeing one Greek state after anoth-
er embrace the cause of the Medes, they would
have come to terms with King Xerxes- and thus,
either way Greece would have been brought
under Persia. For I cannot understand of what

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possible use the walls across the Isthmus could
have been, if the king had had the mastery of the
sea. If then a man should now say that the
Athenians were the saviours of Greece, he would
not exceed the truth. For they truly held the
scales; and whichever side they espoused must
have carried the day.

They too it was who, when they had determined
to maintain the freedom of Greece, roused up that
portion of the Greek nation which had not gone
over to the Medes; and so, next to the gods, they
repulsed the invader. Even the terrible oracles
which reached them from Delphi, and struck fear
into their hearts, failed to persuade them to fly
from Greece. They had the courage to remain
faithful to their land, and await the coming of the
foe.

When the Athenians, anxious to consult the ora-
cle, sent their messengers to Delphi, hardly had
the envoys completed the customary rites about
the sacred precinct, and taken their seats inside

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the sanctuary of the god, when the Pythoness,
Aristonice by name, thus prophesied-

Wretches, why sit ye here? Fly, fly to the ends of

creation,

Quitting your homes, and the crags which your

city crowns with her circlet.

Neither the head, nor the body is firm in its

place, nor at bottom

Firm the feet, nor the hands; nor resteth the mid-

dle uninjur’d.

All- all ruined and lost. Since fire, and impetuous

Ares,

Speeding along in a Syrian chariot, hastes to

destroy her.

Not alone shalt thou suffer; full many the towers

he will level,

Many the shrines of the gods he will give to a

fiery destruction.

Even now they stand with dark sweat horribly

dripping,

Trembling and quaking for fear; and lo! from

the high roofs trickleth

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Black blood, sign prophetic of hard distresses

impending.

Get ye away from the temple; and brood on the

ills that await ye!

When the Athenian messengers heard this reply,
they were filled with the deepest affliction: where-
upon Timon, the son of Androbulus, one of the
men of most mark among the Delphians, seeing
how utterly cast down they were at the gloomy
prophecy, advised them to take an olive-branch,
and entering the sanctuary again, consult the ora-
cle as suppliants. The Athenians followed this
advice, and going in once more, said- “O king! we
pray thee reverence these boughs of supplication
which we bear in our hands, and deliver to us
something more comforting concerning our coun-
try. Else we will not leave thy sanctuary, but will
stay here till we die.” Upon this the priestess gave
them a second answer, which was the following:-

Pallas has not been able to soften the lord of

Olympus,

Though she has often prayed him, and urged

him with excellent counsel.

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Yet once more I address thee in words than

adamant firmer.

When the foe shall have taken whatever the limit

of Cecrops

Holds within it, and all which divine Cithaeron,

shelters,

Then far-seeing Jove grants this to the prayers of

Athene;

Safe shall the wooden wall continue for thee and

thy children.

Wait not the tramp of the horse, nor the foot-

men mightily moving

Over the land, but turn your hack to the foe,

and retire ye.

Yet shall a day arrive when ye shall meet him in

battle.

Holy Salamis, thou shalt destroy the offspring of

women,

When men scatter the seed, or when they gather

the harvest.

This answer seemed, as indeed it was, gentler than
the former one; so the envoys wrote it down, and
went back with it to Athens. When, however,
upon their arrival, they produced it before the

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people, and inquiry began to be made into its true
meaning, many and various were the interpreta-
tions which men put on it; two, more especially,
seemed to be directly opposed to one another.
Certain of the old men were of opinion that the
god meant to tell them the citadel would escape;
for this was anciently defended by a palisade; and
they supposed that barrier to be the “wooden
wall” of the oracle. Others maintained that the
fleet was what the god pointed at; and their
advice was that nothing should be thought of
except the ships, which had best be at once got
ready. Still such as said the “wooden wall” meant
the fleet, were perplexed by the last two lines of
the oracle-

Holy Salamis, thou shall destroy the offspring of

women,

When men scatter the seed, or when they gather

the harvest.

These words caused great disturbance among
those who took the wooden wall to be the ships;
since the interpreters understood them to mean

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that, if they made preparations for a sea-fight,
they would suffer a defeat off Salamis.

Now there was at Athens a man who had lately
made his way into the first rank of citizens: his
true name was Themistocles; but he was known
more generally as the son of Neocles. This man
came forward and said that the interpreters had
not explained the oracle altogether aright- “for
if,” he argued, “the clause in question had really
respected the Athenians, it would not have been
expressed so mildly; the phrase used would have
been ‘Luckless Salamis,’rather than ‘Holy
Salamis,’ had those to whom the island belonged
been about to perish in its neighbourhood.
Rightly taken, the response of the god threatened
the enemy, much more than the Athenians.” He
therefore counselled his countrymen to make
ready to fight on board their ships, since they
were the wooden wall in which the god told them
to trust. When Themistocles had thus cleared the
matter, the Athenians embraced his view, prefer-
ring it to that of the interpreters. The advice of
these last had been against engaging in a sea-fight;

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“all the Athenians could do,” they said, “was,
without lifting a hand in their defence, to quit
Attica, and make a settlement in some other coun-
try.”

Themistocles had before this given a counsel
which prevailed very seasonably. The Athenians,
having a large sum of money in their treasury, the
produce of the mines at Laureium, were about to
share it among the full-grown citizens, who
would have received ten drachmas apiece, when
Themistocles persuaded them to forbear the dis-
tribution, and build with the money two hundred
ships, to help them in their war against the
Eginetans. It was the breaking out of the Eginetan
war which was at this time the saving of Greece;
for hereby were the Athenians forced to become a
maritime power. The new ships were not used for
the purpose for which they had been built, but
became a help to Greece in her hour of need. And
the Athenians had not only these vessels ready
before the war, but they likewise set to work to
build more; while they determined, in a council
which was held after the debate upon the oracle,

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that, according to the advice of the god, they
would embark their whole force aboard their
ships, and, with such Greeks as chose to join
them, give battle to the barbarian invader. Such,
then, were the oracles which had been received by
the Athenians.

The Greeks who were well affected to the Grecian
cause, having assembled in one place, and there
consulted together, and interchanged pledges with
each other, agreed that, before any other step was
taken, the feuds and enmities which existed
between the different nations should first of all be
appeased. Many such there were; but one was of
more importance than the rest, namely, the war
which was still going on between the Athenians
and the Eginetans. When this business was con-
cluded, understanding that Xerxes had reached
Sardis with his army, they resolved to despatch
spies into Asia to take note of the king’s affairs. At
the same time they determined to send ambas-
sadors to the Argives, and conclude a league with
them against the Persians; while they likewise
despatched messengers to Gelo, the son of

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Deinomenes, in Sicily, to the people of Corcyra,
and to those of Crete, exhorting them to send help
to Greece. Their wish was to unite, if possible, the
entire Greek name in one, and so to bring all to
join in the same plan of defence, inasmuch as the
approaching dangers threatened all alike. Now
the power of Gelo was said to be very great, far
greater than that of any single Grecian people.

So when these resolutions had been agreed upon,
and the quarrels between the states made up, first
of all they sent into Asia three men as spies. These
men reached Sardis, and took note of the king’s
forces, but, being discovered, were examined by
order of the generals who commanded the land
army, and, having been condemned to suffer
death, were led out to execution. Xerxes, howev-
er, when the news reached him, disapproving the
sentence of the generals, sent some of his body-
guard with instructions, if they found the spies
still alive, to bring them into his presence. The
messengers found the spies alive, and brought
them before the king, who, when he heard the
purpose for which they had come, gave orders to

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his guards to take them round the camp, and
show them all the footmen and all the horse, let-
ting them gaze at everything to their hearts’ con-
tent; then, when they were satisfied, to send them
away unharmed to whatever country they
desired.

For these orders Xerxes gave afterwards the fol-
lowing reasons. “Had the spies been put to
death,” he said, “the Greeks would have contin-
ued ignorant of the vastness of his army, which
surpassed the common report of it; while he
would have done them a very small injury by
killing three of their men. On the other hand, by
the return of the spies to Greece, his power would
become known; and the Greeks,” he expected,
“would make surrender of their freedom before
he began his march, by which means his troops
would be saved all the trouble of an expedition.”
This reasoning was like to that which he used
upon another occasion. While he was staying at
Abydos, he saw some corn-ships, which were
passing through the Hellespont from the Euxine,
on their way to Egina and the Peloponnese. His

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attendants, hearing that they were the enemy’s,
were ready to capture them, and looked to see
when Xerxes would give the signal. He, however,
merely asked “whither the ships were bound?”
and when they answered, “For thy foes, master,
with corn on board, “We too are bound thither,”
he rejoined, “laden, among other things, with
corn. What harm is it, if they carry our provisions
for us?”

So the spies, when they had seen everything, were
dismissed, and came back to Europe.

The Greeks who had banded themselves together
against the Persian king, after despatching the
spies into Asia, sent next ambassadors to Argos.
The account which the Argives give of their own
proceedings is the following. They say that they
had information from the very first of the prepa-
rations which the barbarians were making against
Greece. So, as they expected that the Greeks
would come upon them for aid against the
assailant, they sent envoys to Delphi to inquire of
the god what it would be best for them to do in

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the matter. They had lost, not long before, six
thousand citizens, who had been slain by the
Lacedaemonians under Cleomenes the son of
Anaxandridas; which was the reason why they
now sent to Delphi. When the Pythoness heard
their question, she replied-

Hated of all thy neighbors, beloved of the

blessed Immortals,

Sit thou still, with thy lance drawn inward,

patiently watching;

Warily guard thine head, and the head will take
care of the body. This prophecy had been given
them some time before the envoys came; but still,
when they afterwards arrived, it was permitted
them to enter the council-house, and there deliver
their message. And this answer was returned to
their demands- “Argos is ready to do as ye require,
if the Lacedaemonians will first make a truce for
thirty years, and will further divide with Argos the
leadership of the allied army. Although in strict
right the whole command should be hers, she will
be content to have the leadership divided equally.”

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Such, they say, was the reply made by the council,
in spite of the oracle which forbade them to enter
into a league with the Greeks. For, while not with-
out fear of disobeying the oracle, they were great-
ly desirous of obtaining a thirty years’ truce, to
give time for their sons to grow to man’s estate.
They reflected, that if no such truce were con-
cluded, and it should be their lot to suffer a sec-
ond calamity at the hands of the Persians, it was
likely they would fall hopelessly under the power
of Sparta. But to the demands of the Argive coun-
cil the Lacedaemonian envoys made answer-
“They would bring before the people the question
of concluding a truce. With regard to the leader-
ship, they had received orders what to say, and
the reply was that Sparta had two kings, Argos
but one- it was not possible that either of the two
Spartans should be stripped of his dignity- but
they did not oppose the Argive king having one
vote like each of them.” The Argives say that they
could not brook this arrogance on the part of
Sparta, and rather than yield one jot to it, they
preferred to be under the rule of the barbarians.
So they told the envoys to be gone, before sunset,

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from their territory, or they should be treated as
enemies.

Such is the account which is given of these mat-
ters by the Argives themselves. There is another
story, which is told generally through Greece, of a
different tenor. Xerxes, it is said, before he set
forth on his expedition against Greece, sent a her-
ald to Argos, who on his arrival spoke as follows:
“Men of Argos, King Xerxes speaks thus to you.
We Persians deem that the Perses from whom we
descend was the child of Perseus the son of
Danae, and of Andromeda the daughter of
Cepheus. Hereby it would seem that we come of
your stock and lineage. So then it neither befits us
to make war upon those from whom we spring;
nor can it be right for you to fight, on behalf of
others, against us. Your place is to keep quiet and
hold yourself aloof. Only let matters proceed as I
wish, and there is no people whom I shall have in
higher esteem than you.”

This address, says the story, was highly valued by
the Argives, who therefore at the first neither gave

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a promise to the Greeks nor yet put forward a
demand. Afterwards, however, when the Greeks
called upon them to give their aid, they made the
claim which has been mentioned, because they
knew well that the Lacedaemonians would never
yield it, and so they would have a pretext for tak-
ing no part in the war.

Some of the Greeks say that this account agrees
remarkably with what happened many years after-
wards. Callias, the son of Hipponicus, and certain
others with him, had gone up to Susa, the city of
Memnon, as ambassadors of the Athenians, upon a
business quite distinct from this. While they were
there, it happened that the Argives likewise sent
ambassadors to Susa, to ask Artaxerxes, the son of
Xerxes, “if the friendship which they had formed
with his father still continued, or if he looked upon
them as his enemies?”- to which King Artaxerxes
replied, “Most certainly it continues; and there is no
city which I reckon more my friend than Argos.”

For my own part I cannot positively say whether
Xerxes did send the herald to Argos or not; nor

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whether Argive ambassadors at Susa did really
put this question to Artaxerxes about the friend-
ship between them and him; neither do I deliver
any opinion hereupon other than that of the
Argives themselves. This, however, I know- that if
every nation were to bring all its evil deeds to a
given place, in order to make an exchange with
some other nation, when they had all looked care-
fully at their neighbours’ faults, they would be
truly glad to carry their own back again. So, after
all, the conduct of the Argives was not perhaps
more disgraceful than that of others. For myself,
my duty is to report all that is said; but I am not
obliged to believe it all alike- a remark which may
be understood to apply to my whole History.
Some even go so far as to say that the Argives first
invited the Persians to invade Greece, because of
their ill success in the war with Lacedaemon, since
they preferred anything to the smart of their actu-
al sufferings. Thus much concerning the Argives.

Other ambassadors, among whom was Syagrus
from Lacedaemon, were sent by the allies into
Sicily, with instructions to confer with Gelo.

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The ancestor of this Gelo, who first settled at
Gela, was a native of the isle of Telos, which lies
off Triopium. When Gela was colonised by
Antiphemus and the Lindians of Rhodes, he like-
wise took part in the expedition. In course of time
his descendants became the high-priests of the
gods who dwell below- an office which they held
continually, from the time that Telines, one of
Gelo’s ancestors, obtained it in the way which I
will now mention. Certain citizens of Gela,
worsted in a sedition, had found a refuge at
Mactorium, a town situated on the heights above
Gela. Telines reinstated these men, without any
human help, solely by means of the sacred rites of
these deities. From whom he received them, or
how he himself acquired them, I cannot say; but
certain it is that relying on their power he brought
the exiles back. For this his reward was to be the
office of high-priest of those gods for himself and
his seed for ever. It surprises me especially that
such a feat should have been performed by
Telines; for I have always looked upon acts of this
nature as beyond the abilities of common men,

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and only to be achieved by such as are of a bold
and manly spirit; whereas Telines is said by those
who dwell about Sicily to have been a soft-heart-
ed and womanish person. He however obtained
this office in the manner above described.

Afterwards, on the death of Cleander the son of
Pantares, who was slain by Sabyllus, a citizen of
Gela, after he had held the tyranny for seven
years, Hippocrates, Cleander’s brother, mounted
the throne. During his reign, Gelo, a descendant
of the high-priest Telines, served with many oth-
ers- of whom Aenesidemus, son of Pataicus, was
one- in the king’s bodyguard. Within a little time
his merit caused him to be raised to the command
of all the horse. For when Hippocrates laid siege
to Callipolis, and afterwards to Naxos, to Zancle,
to Leontini, and moreover to Syracuse, and many
cities of the barbarians, Gelo in every war distin-
guished himself above all the combatants. Of the
various cities above named, there was none but
Syracuse which was not reduced to slavery. The
Syracusans were saved from this fate, after they

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had suffered defeat on the river Elorus, by the
Corinthians and Corcyraeans, who made peace
between them and Hippocrates, on condition of
their ceding Camarina to him; for that city
anciently belonged to Syracuse.

When, however, Hippocrates, after a reign of the
same length as that of Cleander his brother, per-
ished near the city Hybla, as he was warring with
the native Sicilians, then Gelo, pretending to
espouse the cause of the two sons of Hippocrates,
Eucleides and Cleander, defeated the citizens who
were seeking to recover their freedom, and having
so done, set aside the children, and himself took
the kingly power. After this piece of good fortune,
Gelo likewise became master Syracuse, in the fol-
lowing manner. The Syracusan landholders, as
they were called, had been driven from their city
by the common people assisted by their own
slaves, the Cyllyrians, and had fled to Casmenae.
Gelo brought them back to Syracuse, and so got
possession of the town; for the people surrendered
themselves, and gave up their city on his approach.

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Being now master of Syracuse, Gelo cared less to
govern Gela, which he therefore entrusted to his
brother Hiero, while he strengthened the defences
of his new city, which indeed was now all in all to
him. And Syracuse sprang up rapidly to power
and became a flourishing place. For Gelo razed
Camarina to the ground, and brought all the
inhabitants to Syracuse, and made them citizens;
he also brought thither more than half the citizens
of Gela, and gave them the same rights as the
Camarinaeans. So likewise with the Megarians of
Sicily- after besieging their town and forcing them
to surrender, he took the rich men, who, having
made the war, looked now for nothing less than
death at his hands, and carrying them to Syracuse,
established them there as citizens; while the com-
mon people, who, as they had not taken any share
in the struggle, felt secure that no harm would be
done to them, he carried likewise to Syracuse,
where he sold them all as slaves to be conveyed
abroad. He did the like also by the Euboeans of
Sicily, making the same difference. His conduct
towards both nations arose from his belief that a

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“people” was a most unpleasant companion. In
this way Gelo became a great king.

When the Greek envoys reached Syracuse, and
were admitted to an audience, they spoke as fol-
lows-

“We have been sent hither by the
Lacedaemonians and Athenians, with their
respective allies, to ask thee to join us against the
barbarian. Doubtless thou hast heard of his inva-
sion, and art aware that a Persian is about to
throw a bridge over the Hellespont, and, bringing
with him out of Asia all the forces of the East, to
carry war into Greece- professing indeed that he
only seeks to attack Athens, but really bent on
bringing all the Greeks into subjection. Do thou
therefore, we beseech thee, aid those who would
maintain the freedom of Greece, and thyself assist
to free her; since the power which thou wieldest is
great, and thy portion in Greece, as lord of Sicily,
is no small one. For if all Greece join together in
one, there will be a mighty host collected, and we
shall be a match for our assailants; but if some

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turn traitors, and others refuse their aid, and only
a small part of the whole body remains sound,
then there is reason to fear that all Greece may
perish. For do not thou cherish a hope that the
Persian, when he has conquered our country, will
be content and not advance against thee. Rather
take thy measures beforehand, and consider that
thou defendest thyself when thou givest aid to us.
Wise counsels, be sure, for the most part have
prosperous issues.”

Thus spake the envoys; and Gelo replied with
vehemence:-

“Greeks, ye have had the face to come here with
selfish words, and exhort me to join in league
with you against the barbarian. Yet when I
erewhile asked you to join with me in fighting
barbarians, what time the quarrel broke out
between me and Carthage; and when I earnestly
besought you to revenge on the men of Egesta
their murder of Dorieus, the son of
Anaxandridas, promising to assist you in setting
free the trading places from which you receive

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great profits and advantages, you neither came
hither to give me succour, nor yet to revenge
Dorieus; but, for any efforts on your part to hin-
der it, these countries might at this time have been
entirely under the barbarians. Now, however, that
matters have prospered and gone well with me,
while the danger has shifted its ground and at pre-
sent threatens yourselves, lo! you call Gelo to
mind. But though ye slighted me then, I will not
imitate you now: I am ready to give you aid, and
to furnish as my contribution two hundred
triremes, twenty thousand men-at-arms, two
thousand cavalry, and an equal number of
archers, slingers, and light horsemen, together
with corn for the whole Grecian army so long as
the war shall last. These services, however, I
promise on one condition- that ye appoint me
chief captain and commander of the Grecian
forces during the war with the barbarian. Unless
ye agree to this, I will neither send succours, nor
come myself.”

Syagrus, when he heard these words, was unable
to contain himself, and exclaimed:-

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“Surely a groan would burst from Pelops’ son,
Agamemnon, did he hear that her leadership was
snatched from Sparta by Gelo and the men of
Syracuse. Speak then no more of any such condi-
tion, as that we should yield thee the chief com-
mand; but if thou art minded to come to the aid
of Greece, prepare to serve under Lacedaemonian
generals. Wilt thou not serve under a leader?-
then, prithee, withhold thy succours.”

Hereupon Gelo, seeing the indignation which
showed itself in the wolds of Syagrus, delivered to
the envoys his final offer:- “Spartan stranger,” he
said, “reproaches cast forth against a man are
wont to provoke him to anger; but the insults
which thou hast uttered in thy speech shall not
persuade me to outstep good breeding in my
answer. Surely if you maintain so stoutly your
right to the command, it is reasonable that I
should be still more stiff in maintaining mine,
forasmuch as I am at the head of a far larger fleet
and army. Since, however, the claim which I have
put forward is so displeasing to you, I will yield,
and be content with less. Take, if it please you, the

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command of the land-force, and I will be admiral
of the fleet; or assume, if you prefer it, the com-
mand by sea, and I will be leader upon the land.
Unless you are satisfied with these terms, you
must return home by yourselves, and lose this
great alliance.” Such was the offer which Gelo
made.

Hereat broke in the Athenian envoy, before the
Spartan could answer, and thus addressed Gelo-

“King of the Syracusans! Greece sent us here to
thee to ask for an army, and not to ask for a gen-
eral. Thou, however, dost not promise to send us
any army at all, if thou art not made leader of the
Greeks; and this command is what alone thou
sticklest for. Now when thy request was to have
the whole command, we were content to keep
silence; for well we knew that we might trust the
Spartan envoy to make answer for us both. But
since, after failing in thy claim to lead the whole
armament, thou hast now put forward a request
to have the command of the fleet, know that, even
should the Spartan envoy consent to this, we will

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not consent. The command by sea, if the
Lacedaemonians do not wish for it, belongs to us.
While they like to keep this command, we shall
raise no dispute; but we will not yield our right to
it in favour of any one else. Where would be the
advantage of our having raised up a naval force
greater than that of any other Greek people, if
nevertheless we should suffer Syracusans to take
the command away from us?- from us, I say, who
are Athenians, the most ancient nation in Greece,
the only Greeks who have never changed their
abode- the people who are said by the poet
Homer to have sent to Troy the man best able of
all the Greeks to array and marshal an army- so
that we may be allowed to boast somewhat.”

Gelo replied- “Athenian stranger, ye have, it
seems, no lack of commanders; but ye are likely to
lack men to receive their orders. As ye are
resolved to yield nothing and claim everything, ye
had best make haste back to Greece, and say that
the spring of her year is lost to her.” The meaning
of this expression was the following: as the spring
is manifestly the finest season of the year, so (he

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meant to say) were his troops the finest of the
Greek army- Greece, therefore, deprived of his
alliance, would be like a year with the spring
taken from it.

Then the Greek envoys, without having any fur-
ther dealings with Gelo, sailed away home. And
Gelo, who feared that the Greeks would be too
weak to withstand the barbarians, and yet could
not any how bring himself to go to the
Peloponnese, and there, though king of Sicily,
serve under the Lacedaemonians, left off altogeth-
er to contemplate that course of action, and
betook himself to quite a different plan. As soon
as ever tidings reached him of the passage of the
Hellespont by the Persians, he sent off three pen-
teconters, under the command of Cadmus, the
son of Scythas, a native of Cos, who was to go to
Delphi, taking with him a large sum of money and
a stock of friendly words: there he was to watch
the war, and see what turn it would take: if the
barbarians prevailed, he was to give Xerxes the
treasure, and with it earth and water for the lands
which Gelo ruled- if the Greeks won the day, he
was to convey the treasure back.

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This Cadmus had at an earlier time received from
his father the kingly power at Cos in a right good
condition, and had of his own free will and with-
out the approach of any danger, from pure love of
justice, given up his power into the hands of the
people at large, and departed to Sicily; where he
assisted in the Samian seizure and settlement of
Zancle, or Messana, as it was afterwards called.
Upon this occasion Gelo chose him to send into
Greece, because he was acquainted with the
proofs of honesty which he had given. And now
he added to his former honourable deeds an
action which is not the least of his merits. With a
vast sum entrusted to him and completely in his
power, so that he might have kept it for his own
use if he had liked, he did not touch it; but when
the Greeks gained the sea-fight and Xerxes fled
away with his army, he brought the whole trea-
sure back with him to Sicily.

They, however, who dwell in Sicily, say that Gelo,
though he knew that he must serve under the
Lacedaemonians, would nevertheless have come
to the aid of the Greeks, had not it been for
Terillus, the son of Crinippus, king of Himera;

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who, driven from his city by Thero, the son of
Aenesidemus, king of Agrigentum, brought into
Sicily at this very time an army of three hundred
thousand men, Phoenicians, Libyans, Iberians,
Ligurians, Helisycians, Sardinians, and Corsicans,
under the command of Hamilcar the son of
Hanno, king of the Carthaginians. Terillus pre-
vailed upon Hamil-car, partly as his sworn friend,
but more through the zealous aid of Anaxilaus the
son of Cretines, king of Rhegium; who, by giving
his own sons to Hamilcar as hostages, induced
him to make the expedition. Anaxilaus herein
served his own father-in-law; for he was married
to a daughter of Terillus, by name Cydippe. So, as
Gelo could not give the Greeks any aid, he sent
(they say) the sum of money to Delphi.

They say too, that the victory of Gelo and Thero
in Sicily over Hamilcar the Carthaginian fell out
upon the very day that the Greeks defeated the
Persians at Salamis. Hamilcar, who was a
Carthaginian on his father’s side only, but on his
mother’s a Syracusan, and who had been raised

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by his merit to the throne of Carthage, after the
battle and the defeat, as I am informed, disap-
peared from sight: Gelo made the strictest search
for him, but he could not be found anywhere,
either dead or alive.

The Carthaginians, who take probability for their
guide, give the following account of this matter:-
Hamilcar, they say, during all the time that the
battle raged between the Greeks and the barbar-
ians, which was from early dawn till evening,
remained in the camp, sacrificing and seeking
favourable omens, while he burned on a huge
pyre the entire bodies of the victims which he
offered. Here, as he poured libations upon the
sacrifices, he saw the rout of his army; whereupon
he cast himself headlong into the flames, and so
was consumed and disappeared. But whether
Hamilcar’s disappearance happened, as the
Phoenicians tell us, in this way, or, as the
Syracusans maintain, in some other, certain it is
that the Carthaginians offer him sacrifice, and in
all their colonies have monuments erected to his

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honour, as well as one, which is the grandest of
all, at Carthage. Thus much concerning the affairs
of Sicily.

As for the Corcyraeans, whom the envoys that vis-
ited Sicily took in their way, and to whom they
delivered the same message as to Gelo- their
answers and actions were the following. With great
readiness they promised to come and give their
help to the Greeks; declaring that “the ruin of
Greece was a thing which they could not tamely
stand by to see; for should she fall, they must the
very next day submit to slavery; so that they were
bound to assist her to the very uttermost of their
power.” But notwithstanding that they answered
so smoothly, yet when the time came for the suc-
cours to be sent, they were of quite a different
mind; and though they manned sixty ships, it was
long ere they put to sea with them; and when they
had so done, they went no further than the
Peloponnese, where they lay to with their fleet, off
the Lacedaemonian coast, about Pylos and
Taenarum- like Gelo, watching to see what turn the
war would take. For they despaired altogether of

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the Greeks gaining the day, and expected that the
Persian would win a great battle, and then be mas-
ter of the whole of Greece. They therefore acted as
I have said, in order that they might be able to
address Xerxes in words like these: “O king!
though the Greeks sought to obtain our aid in their
war with thee, and though we had a force of no
small size, and could have furnished a greater num-
ber of ships than any Greek state except Athens,
yet we refused, since we would not fight against
thee, nor do aught to cause thee annoyance.” The
Corcyraeans hoped that a speech like this would
gain them better treatment from the Persians than
the rest of the Greeks; and it would have done so,
in my judgment. At the same time, they had an
excuse ready to give their countrymen, which they
used when the time came. Reproached by them for
sending no succours, they replied “that they had
fitted out a fleet of sixty triremes, but that the
Etesian winds did not allow them to double Cape
Malea, and this hindered them from reaching
Salamis- it was not from any bad motive that they
had missed the sea-fight.” In this way the
Corcyraeans eluded the reproaches of the Greeks.

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The Cretans, when the envoys sent to ask aid
from them came and made their request, acted as
follows. They despatched messengers in the name
of their state to Delphi, and asked the god,
whether it would make for their welfare if they
should lend succour to Greece. “Fools!” replied
the Pythoness, “do ye not still complain of the
woes which the assisting of Menelaus cost you at
the hands of angry Minos? How wroth was he,
when, in spite of their having lent you no aid
towards avenging his death at Camicus, you
helped them to avenge the carrying off by a bar-
barian of a woman from Sparta!” When this
answer was brought from Delphi to the Cretans,
they thought no more of assisting the Greeks.

Minos, according to tradition, went to Sicania, or
Sicily, as it is now called, in search of Daedalus,
and there perished by a violent death. After a
while the Cretans, warned by some god or other,
made a great expedition into Sicania, all except
the Polichnites and the Praesians, and besieged
Camicus (which in my time belonged to
Agrigentum) by the space of five years. At last,

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however, failing in their efforts to take the place,
and unable to carry on the siege any longer from
the pressure of hunger, they departed and went
their way. Voyaging homewards they had reached
Iapygia, when a furious storm arose and threw
them upon the coast. All their vessels were broken
in pieces; and so, as they saw no means of return-
ing to Crete, they founded the town of Hyria,
where they took up their abode, changing their
name from Cretans to Messapian Iapygians, and
at the same time becoming inhabitants of the
mainland instead of islanders. From Hyria they
afterwards founded those other towns which the
Tarentines at a much later period endeavoured to
take, but could not, being defeated signally.
Indeed so dreadful a slaughter of Greeks never
happened at any other time, so far as my knowl-
edge extends: nor was it only the Tarentines who
suffered; but the men of Rhegium too, who had
been forced to go to the aid of the Tarentines by
Micythus the son of Choerus, lost here three
thousand of their citizens; while the number of
the Tarentines who fell was beyond all count.
This Micythus had been a household slave of

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Anaxilaus, and was by him left in charge of
Rhegium: he is the same man who was afterwards
forced to leave Rhegium, when he settled at Tegea
in Arcadia, from which place he made his many
offerings of statues to the shrine at Olympia.

This account of the Rhegians and the Tarentines
is a digression from the story which I was relating.
To return- the Praesians say that men of various
nations now flocked to Crete, which was stript of
its inhabitants; but none came in such numbers as
the Grecians. Three generations after the death of
Minos the Trojan war took place; and the Cretans
were not the least distinguished among the
helpers of Menelaus. But on this account, when
they came back from Troy, famine and pestilence
fell upon them, and destroyed both the men and
the cattle. Crete was a second time stript of its
inhabitants, a remnant only being left; who form,
together with fresh settlers, the third “Cretan”
people by whom the island has been inhabited.
These were the events of which the Pythoness
now reminded the men of Crete; and thereby she
prevented them from giving the Greeks aid,

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though they wished to have gone to their assis-
tance.

The Thessalians did not embrace the cause of the
Medes until they were forced to do so; for they
gave plain proof that the intrigues of the Aleuadae
were not at all to their liking. No sooner did they
hear that the Persian was about to cross over into
Europe than they despatched envoys to the
Greeks who were met to consult together at the
Isthmus, whither all the states which were well
inclined to the Grecian cause had sent their dele-
gates. These envoys on their arrival thus
addressed their countrymen:-

“Men of Greece, it behoves you to guard the pass
of Olympus; for thus will Thessaly be placed in
safety, as well as the rest of Greece. We for our
parts are quite ready to take our share in this
work; but you must likewise send us a strong
force: otherwise we give you fair warning that we
shall make terms with the Persians. For we ought
not to be left, exposed as we are in front of all the
rest of Greece, to die in your defence alone and

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unassisted. If however you do not choose to send
us aid, you cannot force us to resist the enemy; for
there is no force so strong as inability. We shall
therefore do our best to secure our own safety.”

Such was the declaration of the Thessalians.
Hereupon the Greeks determined to send a body
of foot to Thessaly by sea, which should defend
the pass of Olympus. Accordingly a force was col-
lected, which passed up the Euripus, and disem-
barking at Alus, on the coast of Achaea, left the
ships there, and marched by land into Thessaly.
Here they occupied the defile of Tempe; which
leads from Lower Macedonia into Thessaly along
the course of the Peneus, having the range of
Olympus on the one hand and Ossa upon the
other. In this place the Greek force that had been
collected, amounting to about 10,000 heavy-
armed men, pitched their camp; and here they
were joined by the Thessalian cavalry. The com-
manders were, on the part of the
Lacedaemonians, Evaenetus, the son of Carenus,
who had been chosen out of the Polemarchs, but
did not belong to the blood royal; and on the part

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of the Athenians Themistocles, the son of
Neocles. They did not however maintain their sta-
tion for more than a few days; since envoys came
from Alexander, the son of Amyntas, the
Macedonian, and counselled them to decamp
from Tempe, telling them that if they remained in
the pass they would be trodden under foot by the
invading army, whose numbers they recounted,
and likewise the multitude of their ships. So when
the envoys thus counselled them, and the counsel
seemed to be good, and the Macedonian who sent
it friendly, they did even as he advised. In my
opinion what chiefly wrought on them was the
fear that the Persians might enter by another pass,
whereof they now heard, which led from Upper
Macedonia into Thessaly through the territory of
the Perrhaebi, and by the town of Gonnus- the
pass by which soon afterwards the army of
Xerxes actually made its entrance. The Greeks
therefore went back to their ships and sailed away
to the Isthmus.

Such were the circumstances of the expedition
into Thessaly; they took place when the king was

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at Abydos, preparing to pass from Asia into
Europe. The Thessalians, when their allies for-
sook them, no longer wavered, but warmly
espoused the side of the Medes; and afterwards,
in the course of the war, they were of the very
greatest service to Xerxes.

The Greeks, on their return to the Isthmus, took
counsel together concerning the words of
Alexander, and considered where they should fix
the war, and what places they should occupy. The
opinion which prevailed was that they should
guard the pass of Thermopylae; since it was nar-
rower than the Thessalian defile, and at the same
time nearer to them. Of the pathway, by which
the Greeks who fell at Thermopylae were inter-
cepted, they had no knowledge, until, on their
arrival at Thermopylae, it was discovered to them
by the Trachinians. This pass then it was deter-
mined that they should guard, in order to prevent
the barbarians from penetrating into Greece
through it; and at the same time it was resolved
that the fleet should proceed to Artemisium, in
the region of Histiaeotis, for, as those places are

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near to one another, it would be easy for the fleet
and army to hold communication. The two places
may be thus described.

Artemisium is where the sea of Thrace contracts
into a narrow channel, running between the isle
of Sciathus and the mainland of Magnesia. When
this narrow strait is passed you come to the line
of coast called Artemisium; which is a portion of
Euboea, and contains a temple of Artemis
(Diana). As for the entrance into Greece by
Trachis, it is, at its narrowest point, about fifty
feet wide. This however is not the place where the
passage is most contracted; for it is still narrower
a little above and a little below Thermopylae. At
Alpini, which is lower down than that place, it is
only wide enough for a single carriage; and up
above, at the river Phoenix, near the town called
Anthela, it is the same. West of Thermopylae rises
a lofty and precipitous hill, impossible to climb,
which runs up into the chain of Oeta; while to the
east the road is shut in by the sea and by marsh-
es. In this place are the warm springs, which the
natives call “The Cauldrons”; and above them

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stands an altar sacred to Hercules. A wall had
once been carried across the opening; and in this
there had of old times been a gateway. These
works were made by the Phocians, through fear
of the Thessalians, at the time when the latter
came from Thesprotia to establish themselves in
the land of Aeolis, which they still occupy. As the
Thessalians strove to reduce Phocis, the Phocians
raised the wall to protect themselves, and likewise
turned the hot springs upon the pass, that so the
ground might be broken up by watercourses,
using thus all possible means to hinder the
Thessalians from invading their country. The old
wall had been built in very remote times; and the
greater part of it had gone to decay through age.
Now however the Greeks resolved to repair its
breaches, and here make their stand against the
barbarian. At this point there is a village very nigh
the road, Alpeni by name, from which the Greeks
reckoned on getting corn for their troops.

These places, therefore, seemed to the Greeks fit
for their purpose. Weighing well all that was like-
ly to happen, and considering that in this region

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the barbarians could make no use of their vast
numbers, nor of their cavalry, they resolved to
await here the invader of Greece. And when news
reached them of the Persians being in Pieria,
straightway they broke up from the Isthmus, and
proceeded, some on foot to Thermopylae, others
by sea to Artemisium.

The Greeks now made all speed to reach the two
stations; and about the same time- the Delphians,
alarmed both for themselves and for their coun-
try, consulted the god, and received for answer a
command to “pray to the winds, for the winds
would do Greece good service.” So when this
answer was given them, forthwith the Delphians
sent word of the prophecy to those Greeks who
were zealous for freedom, and, cheering them
thereby amid the fears which they entertained
with respect to the barbarian, earned their ever-
lasting gratitude. This done, they raised an altar
to the winds at Thyia (where Thyia, the daughter
of Cephissus, from whom the region takes its
name, has a precinct), and worshipped them with
sacrifices. And even to the present day the

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Delphians sacrifice to the winds, because of this
oracle.

The fleet of Xerxes now departed from Therma;
and ten of the swiftest sailing ships ventured to
stretch across direct for Sciathus, at which place
there were upon the look-out three vessels belong-
ing to the Greeks, one a ship of Troezen, another
of Egina, and the third from Athens. These vessels
no sooner saw from a distance the barbarians
approaching than they all hurriedly took to flight.

The barbarians at once pursued, and the
Troezenian ship, which was commanded by
Prexinus, fell into their hands. Hereupon the
Persians took the handsomest of the men-at-arms,
and drew him to the prow of the vessel, where
they sacrificed him; for they thought the man a
good omen to their cause, seeing that he was at
once so beautiful, and likewise the first captive
they had made. The man who was slain in this
way was called Leo; and it may be that the name
he bore helped him to his fate in some measure.

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The Eginetan trireme, under its captain, Asonides,
gave the Persians no little trouble, one of the men-
at-arms, Pythes, the son of Ischenous, distinguish-
ing himself beyond all the others who fought that
day. After the ship was taken this man continued
to resist, and did not cease fighting till he fell
quite covered with wounds. The Persians who
served as men-at-arms in the squadron, finding
that he was not dead, but still breathed, and being
very anxious to save his life, since he had behaved
so valiantly, dressed his wounds with myrrh, and
bound them up with bandages of cotton. Then,
when they were returned to their own station,
they displayed their prisoner admiringly to the
whole host, and behaved towards him with much
kindness; but all the rest of the ship’s crew were
treated merely as slaves.

Thus did the Persians succeed in taking two of the
vessels. The third, a trireme commanded by
Phormus of Athens, took to flight and ran
aground at the mouth of the river Peneus. The
barbarians got possession of the bark but not of

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the men. For the Athenians had no sooner run
their vessel aground than they leapt out, and
made their way through Thessaly back to Athens.

When the Greeks stationed at Artemisium learnt
what had happened by fire-signals from Sciathus,
so terrified were they, that, quitting their anchor-
age-ground at Artemisium, and leaving scouts to
watch the foe on the highlands of Euboea, they
removed to Chalcis, intending to guard the
Euripus.

Meantime three of the ten vessels sent forward by
the barbarians advanced as far as the sunken rock
between Sciathus and Magnesia, which is called
“The Ant,” and there set up a stone pillar which
they had brought with them for that purpose.
After this, their course being now clear, the bar-
barians set sail with all their ships from Therma,
eleven days from the time that the king quitted the
town. The rock, which lay directly in their course,
had been made known to them by Pammon of
Scyros. A day’s voyage without a stop brought
them to Sepias in Magnesia, and to the strip of

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coast which lies between the town of Casthanaea
and the promontory of Sepias.

As far as this point then, and on land, as far as
Thermopylae, the armament of Xerxes had been
free from mischance; and the numbers were still,
according to my reckoning, of the following
amount. First there was the ancient complement
of the twelve hundred and seven vessels which
came with the king from Asia- the contingents of
the nations severally- amounting, if we allow to
each ship a crew of two hundred men, to
241,400- Each of these vessels had on board,
besides native soldiers, thirty fighting men, who
were either Persians, Medes, or Sacans; which
gives an addition of 36,210. To these two num-
bers I shall further add the crews of the pentecon-
ters; which may be reckoned, one with another, at
fourscore men each. Of such vessels there were (as
I said before) three thousand; and the men on
board them accordingly would be 240,000. This
was the sea force brought by the king from Asia;
and it amounted in all to 517,610 men. The num-
ber of the foot soldiers was 1,700,000; that of the

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horsemen 80,000; to which must be added the
Arabs who rode on camels, and the Libyans who
fought in chariots, whom I reckon at 20,000. The
whole number, therefore, of the land and sea
forces added together amounts to 2,317,610 men.
Such was the force brought from Asia, without
including the camp followers, or taking any
account of the provision- ships and the men
whom they had on board.

To the amount thus reached we have still to add
the forces gathered in Europe, concerning which I
can only speak from conjecture. The Greeks
dwelling in Thrace, and in the islands off the
coast of Thrace, furnished to the fleet one hun-
dred and twenty ships; the crews of which would
amount to 24,000 men. Besides these, footmen
were furnished by the Thracians, the Paeonians,
the Eordians, the Bottiaeans, by the Chalcidean
tribes, by the Brygians, the Pierians, the
Macedonians, the Perrhaebians the Enianians, the
Dolopians, the Magnesians, the Achaeans and by
all the dwellers upon the Thracian sea-board; and
the forces of these nations amounted, I believe, to

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three hundred thousand men. These numbers,
added to those of the force which came out of
Asia, make the sum of the fighting men
2,641,610.

Such then being the number of the fighting men,
it is my belief that the attendants who followed
the camp, together with the crews of the corn-
barks, and of the other craft accompanying the
army, made up an amount rather above than
below that of the fighting men. However I will
not reckon them as either fewer or more, but take
them at an equal number. We have therefore to
add to the sum already reached an exactly equal
amount. This will give 5,283,220 as the whole
number of men brought by Xerxes, the son of
Darius, as far as Sepias and Thermopylae.

Such then was the amount of the entire host of
Xerxes. As for the number of the women who
ground the corn, of the concubines, and the
eunuchs, no one can give any sure account of it;
nor can the baggage-horses and other sumpter-
beasts, nor the Indian hounds which followed the

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army, be calculated, by reason of their multitude.
Hence I am not at all surprised that the water of
the rivers was found too scant for the army in
some instances; rather it is a marvel to me how
the provisions did not fail, when the numbers
were so great. For I find on calculation that if
each man consumed no more than a choenix of
corn a day, there must have been used daily by the
army 110,340 medimni, and this without count-
ing what was eaten by the women, the eunuchs,
the sumpter-beasts, and the hounds. Among all
this multitude of men there was not one who, for
beauty and stature, deserved more than Xerxes
himself to wield so vast a power.

The fleet then, as I said, on leaving Therma, sailed
to the Magnesian territory, and there occupied the
strip of coast between the city of Casthanaea and
Cape Sepias. The ships of the first row were
moored to the land, while the remainder swung at
anchor further off. The beach extended but a very
little way, so that they had to anchor off the
shore, row upon row, eight deep. In this manner
they passed the night. But at dawn of day calm

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and stillness gave place to a raging sea, and a vio-
lent storm, which fell upon them with a strong
gale from the east- a wind which the people in
those parts call Hellespontias. Such of them as
perceived the wind rising, and were so moored as
to allow of it, forestalled the tempest by dragging
their ships up on the beach, and in this way saved
both themselves and their vessels. But the ships
which the storm caught out at sea were driven
ashore, some of them near the place called Ipni, or
“The Ovens,” at the foot of Pelion; others on the
strand itself; others again about Cape Sepias;
while a portion were dashed to pieces near the
cities of Meliboea and Casthanaea. There was no
resisting the tempest.

It is said that the Athenians had called upon
Boreas to aid the Greeks, on account of a fresh
oracle which had reached them, commanding
them to “seek help from their son-in-law.” For
Boreas, according to the tradition of the Greeks,
took to wife a woman of Attica, viz., Orithyia, the
daughter of Erechtheus. So the Athenians, as the
tale goes, considering that this marriage made

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Boreas their son-in-law, and perceiving, while
they lay with their ships at Chalcis of Euboea,
that the wind was rising, or, it may be, even
before it freshened, offered sacrifice both to
Boreas and likewise to Orithyia, entreating them
to come to their aid and to destroy the ships of the
barbarians, as they did once before off Mount
Athos. Whether it was owing to this that Boreas
fell with violence on the barbarians at their
anchorage I cannot say; but the Athenians declare
that they had received aid from Boreas before,
and that it was he who now caused all these dis-
asters. They therefore, on their return home, built
a temple to this god on the banks of the Ilissus.

Such as put the loss of the Persian fleet in this
storm at the lowest say that four hundred of their
ships were destroyed, that a countless multitude
of men were slain, and a vast treasure engulfed.
Ameinocles, the son of Cretines, a Magnesian,
who farmed land near Cape Sepias, found the
wreck of these vessels a source of great gain to
him; many were the gold and silver drinking-cups,
cast up long afterwards by the surf, which he

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gathered; while treasure-boxes too which had
belonged to the Persians, and golden articles of all
kinds and beyond count, came into his posses-
sion. Ameinocles grew to be a man of great
wealth in this way; but in other respects things
did not go over well with him: he too, like other
men, had his own grief- the calamity of losing his
offspring.

As for the number of the provision craft and other
merchant ships which perished, it was beyond
count. Indeed, such was the loss, that the com-
manders of the sea force, fearing lest in their shat-
tered condition the Thessalians should venture on
an attack, raised a lofty barricade around their
station out of the wreck of the vessels cast ashore.
The storm lasted three days. At length the
Magians, by offering victims to the Winds, and
charming them with the help of conjurers, while
at the same time they sacrificed to Thetis and the
Nereids, succeeded in laying the storm four days
after it first began; or perhaps it ceased of itself.
The reason of their offering sacrifice to Thetis was
this: they were told by the Ionians that here was

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the place whence Peleus carried her off, and that
the whole promontory was sacred to her and to
her sister Nereids. So the storm lulled upon the
fourth day.

The scouts left by the Greeks about the highlands
of Euboea hastened down from their stations on
the day following that whereon the storm began,
and acquainted their countrymen with all that
had befallen the Persian fleet. These no sooner
heard what had happened than straightway they
returned thanks to Neptune the Saviour, and
poured libations in his honour; after which they
hastened back with all speed to Artemisium,
expecting to find a very few ships left to oppose
them, and arriving there for the second time, took
up their station on that strip of coast: nor from
that day to the present have they ceased to
address Neptune by the name then given him, of
“Saviour.”

The barbarians, when the wind lulled and the sea
grew smooth, drew their ships down to the water,
and proceeded to coast along the mainland.

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Having then rounded the extreme point of
Magnesia, they sailed straight into the bay that
runs up to Pagasae. There is a place in this bay,
belonging to Magnesia, where Hercules is said to
have been put ashore to fetch water by Jason and
his companions; who then deserted him and went
on their way to Aea in Colchis, on board the ship
Argo, in quest of the golden fleece. From the cir-
cumstance that they intended, after watering their
vessel at this place, to quit the shore and launch
forth into the deep, it received the name of
Aphetae. Here then it was that the fleet of Xerxes
came to an anchor.

Fifteen ships, which had lagged greatly behind the
rest, happening to catch sight of the Greek fleet at
Artemisium, mistook it for their own, and sailing
down into the midst of it, fell into the hands of
the enemy. The commander of this squadron was
Sandoces, the son of Thamasius, governor of
Cyme, in Aeolis. He was of the number of the
royal judges, and had been crucified by Darius
some time before, on the charge of taking a bribe
to determine a cause wrongly; but while he yet

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hung on the cross, Darius bethought him that the
good deeds of Sandoces towards the king’s house
were more numerous than his evil deeds; and so,
confessing that he had acted with more haste than
wisdom, he ordered him to be taken down and set
at large. Thus Sandoces escaped destruction at the
hands of Darius, and was alive at this time; but he
was not fated to come off so cheaply from his sec-
ond peril; for as soon as the Greeks saw the ships
making towards them, they guessed their mistake,
and putting to sea, took them without difficulty.

Aridolis, tyrant of Alabanda in Caria, was on
board one of the ships, and was made prisoner; as
also was the Paphian general, Penthylus, the son
of Domonous, who was on board another. This
person had brought with him twelve ships from
Paphos, and, after losing eleven in the storm off
Sepias, was taken in the remaining one as he
sailed towards Artemisium. The Greeks, after
questioning their prisoners as much as they
wished concerning the forces of Xerxes, sent them
away in chains to the Isthmus of Corinth.

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The sea force of the barbarians, with the excep-
tion of the fifteen ships commanded (as I said) by
Sandoces, came safe to Aphetae. Xerxes mean-
while, with the land army, had proceeded through
Thessaly and Achaea, and three days earlier, had
entered the territory of the Malians. In Thessaly,
he matched his own horses against the Thessalian,
which he heard were the best in Greece, but the
Greek coursers were left far behind in the race. All
the rivers in this region had water enough to sup-
ply his army, except only the Onochonus; but in
Achaea, the largest of the streams, the Apidanus,
barely held out.

On his arrival at Alus in Achaea, his guides, wish-
ing to inform him of everything, told him the tale
known to the dwellers in those parts concerning
the temple of the Laphystian Jupiter- how that
Athamas the son of Aeolus took counsel with Ino
and plotted the death of Phrixus; and how that
afterwards the Achaeans, warned by an oracle,
laid a forfeit upon his posterity, forbidding the
eldest of the race ever to enter into the court-

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house (which they call the people’s house), and
keeping watch themselves to see the law obeyed.
If one comes within the doors, he can never go
out again except to be sacrificed. Further, they
told him how that many persons, when on the
point of being slain, are seized with such fear that
they flee away and take refuge in some other
country; and that these, if they come back long
afterwards, and are found to be the persons who
entered the court-house, are led forth covered
with chaplets, and in a grand procession, and are
sacrificed. This forfeit is paid by the descendants
of Cytissorus the son of Phrixus, because, when
the Achaeans, in obedience to an oracle, made
Athamas the son of Aeolus their sin-offering, and
were about to slay him, Cytissorus came from
Aea in Colchis and rescued Athamus; by which
deed he brought the anger of the god upon his
own posterity. Xerxes, therefore, having heard
this story, when he reached the grove of the god,
avoided it, and commanded his army to do the
like. He also paid the same respect to the house
and precinct of the descendants of Athamas.

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Such were the doing of Xerxes in Thessaly and in
Achaea, From hence he passed on into Malis,
along the shores of a bay, in which there is an ebb
and flow of the tide daily. By the side of this bay
lies a piece of flat land, in one part broad, but in
another very narrow indeed, around which runs a
range of lofty hills, impossible to climb, enclosing
all Malis within them, and called the Trachinian
cliffs. The first city upon the bay, as you come
from Achaea, is Anticyra, near which the river
Spercheius, flowing down from the country of the
Enianians, empties itself into the sea. About twen-
ty furlongs from this stream there is a second
river, called the Dyras, which is said to have
appeared first to help Hercules when he was
burning. Again, at the distance of twenty fur-
longs, there is a stream called the Melas, near
which, within about five furlongs, stands the city
of Trachis.

At the point where this city is built, the plain
between the hills and the sea is broader than at
any other, for it there measures 22,000 plethra.

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South of Trachis there is a cleft in the mountain-
range which shuts in the territory of Trachinia;
and the river Asopus issuing from this cleft flows
for a while along the foot of the hills.

Further to the south, another river, called the
Phoenix, which has no great body of water, flows
from the same hills, and falls into the Asopus.
Here is the narrowest place of all; for in this part
there is only a causeway wide enough for a single
carriage. From the river Phoenix to Thermopylae
is a distance of fifteen furlongs; and in this space
is situate the village called Anthela, which the
river Asopus passes ere it reaches the sea. The
space about Anthela is of some width, and con-
tains a temple of Amphictyonian Ceres, as well as
the seats of the Amphictyonic deputies, and a
temple of Amphictyon himself.

King Xerxes pitched his camp in the region of
Malis called Trachinia, while on their side the
Greeks occupied the straits. These straits the
Greeks in general call Thermopylae (the Hot
Gates); but the natives, and those who dwell in

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the neighbourhood, call them Pylae (the Gates).
Here then the two armies took their stand; the
one master of all the region lying north of Trachis,
the other of the country extending southward of
that place to the verge of the continent.

The Greeks who at this spot awaited the coming
of Xerxes were the following:- From Sparta, three
hundred men-at-arms; from Arcadia, a thousand
Tegeans and Mantineans, five hundred of each
people; a hundred and twenty Orchomenians,
from the Arcadian Orchomenus; and a thousand
from other cities: from Corinth, four hundred
men; from Phlius, two hundred; and from
Mycenae eighty. Such was the number from the
Peloponnese. There were also present, from
Boeotia, seven hundred Thespians and four hun-
dred Thebans.

Besides these troops, the Locrians of Opus and
the Phocians had obeyed the call of their country-
men, and sent, the former all the force they had,
the latter a thousand men. For envoys had gone
from the Greeks at Thermopylae among the

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Locrians and Phocians, to call on them for assis-
tance, and to say- “They were themselves but the
vanguard of the host, sent to precede the main
body, which might every day be expected to fol-
low them. The sea was in good keeping, watched
by the Athenians, the Eginetans, and the rest of
the fleet. There was no cause why they should
fear; for after all the invader was not a god but a
man; and there never had been, and never would
be, a man who was not liable to misfortunes from
the very day of his birth, and those misfortunes
greater in proportion to his own greatness. The
assailant therefore, being only a mortal, must
needs fall from his glory.” Thus urged, the
Locrians and the Phocians had come with their
troops to Trachis.

The various nations had each captains of their
own under whom they served; but the one to
whom all especially looked up, and who had the
command of the entire force, was the
Lacedaemonian, Leonidas. Now Leonidas was
the son of Anaxandridas, who was the son of Leo,
who was the son of Eurycratidas, who was the

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son of Anaxander, who was the son of Eurycrates,
who was the son of Polydorus, who was the son
of Alcamenes, who was the son of Telecles, who
was the son of Archelaus, who was the son of
Agesilaus, who was the son of Doryssus, who was
the son of Labotas, who was the son of
Echestratus, who was the son of Agis, who was
the son of Eurysthenes, who was the son of
Aristodemus, who was the son of Aristomachus,
who was the son of Cleodaeus, who was the son
of Hyllus, who was the son of Hercules.

Leonidas had come to be king of Sparta quite
unexpectedly.

Having two elder brothers, Cleomenes and
Dorieus, he had no thought of ever mounting the
throne. However, when Cleomenes died without
male offspring, as Dorieus was likewise deceased,
having perished in Sicily, the crown fell to
Leonidas, who was older than Cleombrotus, the
youngest of the sons of Anaxandridas, and, more-
over, was married to the daughter of Cleomenes.
He had now come to Thermopylae, accompanied

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by the three hundred men which the law assigned
him, whom he had himself chosen from among
the citizens, and who were all of them fathers
with sons living. On his way he had taken the
troops from Thebes, whose number I have
already mentioned, and who were under the com-
mand of Leontiades the son of Eurymachus. The
reason why he made a point of taking troops
from Thebes, and Thebes only, was that the
Thebans were strongly suspected of being well
inclined to the Medes. Leonidas therefore called
on them to come with him to the war, wishing to
see whether they would comply with his demand,
or openly refuse, and disclaim the Greek alliance.
They, however, though their wishes leant the
other way, nevertheless sent the men.

The force with Leonidas was sent forward by the
Spartans in advance of their main body, that the
sight of them might encourage the allies to fight,
and hinder them from going over to the Medes, as
it was likely they might have done had they seen
that Sparta was backward. They intended
presently, when they had celebrated the Carneian

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festival, which was what now kept them at home,
to leave a garrison in Sparta, and hasten in full
force to join the army. The rest of the allies also
intended to act similarly; for it happened that the
Olympic festival fell exactly at this same period.
None of them looked to see the contest at
Thermopylae decided so speedily; wherefore they
were content to send forward a mere advanced
guard. Such accordingly were the intentions of the
allies.

The Greek forces at Thermopylae, when the
Persian army drew near to the entrance of the
pass, were seized with fear; and a council was
held to consider about a retreat. It was the wish
of the Peloponnesians generally that the army
should fall back upon the Peloponnese, and there
guard the Isthmus. But Leonidas, who saw with
what indignation the Phocians and Locrians
heard of this plan, gave his voice for remaining
where they were, while they sent envoys to the
several cities to ask for help, since they were too
few to make a stand against an army like that of
the Medes.

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While this debate was going on, Xerxes sent a
mounted spy to observe the Greeks, and note how
many they were, and see what they were doing.
He had heard, before he came out of Thessaly,
that a few men were assembled at this place, and
that at their head were certain Lacedaemonians,
under Leonidas, a descendant of Hercules. The
horseman rode up to the camp, and looked about
him, but did not see the whole army; for such as
were on the further side of the wall (which had
been rebuilt and was now carefully guarded) it
was not possible for him to behold; but he
observed those on the outside, who were
encamped in front of the rampart. It chanced that
at this time the Lacedaemonians held the outer
guard, and were seen by the spy, some of them
engaged in gymnastic exercises, others combing
their long hair. At this the spy greatly marvelled,
but he counted their number, and when he had
taken accurate note of everything, he rode back
quietly; for no one pursued after him, nor paid
any heed to his visit. So he returned, and told
Xerxes all that he had seen.

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Upon this, Xerxes, who had no means of surmis-
ing the truth- namely, that the Spartans were
preparing to do or die manfully- but thought it
laughable that they should be engaged in such
employments, sent and called to his presence
Demaratus the son of Ariston, who still remained
with the army. When he appeared, Xerxes told
him all that he had heard, and questioned him
concerning the news, since he was anxious to
understand the meaning of such behaviour on the
part of the Spartans. Then Demaratus said-

“I spake to thee, O king! concerning these men
long since, when we had but just begun our
march upon Greece; thou, however, didst only
laugh at my words, when I told thee of all this,
which I saw would come to pass. Earnestly do I
struggle at all times to speak truth to thee, sire;
and now listen to it once more. These men have
come to dispute the pass with us; and it is for this
that they are now making ready. ‘Tis their cus-
tom, when they are about to hazard their lives, to
adorn their heads with care. Be assured, however,

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that if thou canst subdue the men who are here
and the Lacedaemonians who remain in Sparta,
there is no other nation in all the world which will
venture to lift a hand in their defence. Thou hast
now to deal with the first kingdom and town in
Greece, and with the bravest men.”

Then Xerxes, to whom what Demaratus said
seemed altogether to surpass belief, asked further
“how it was possible for so small an army to con-
tend with his?”

“O king!” Demaratus answered, “let me be treat-
ed as a liar, if matters fall not out as I say.”

But Xerxes was not persuaded any the more. Four
whole days he suffered to go by, expecting that
the Greeks would run away. When, however, he
found on the fifth that they were not gone, think-
ing that their firm stand was mere impudence and
recklessness, he grew wroth, and sent against
them the Medes and Cissians, with orders to take
them alive and bring them into his presence. Then
the Medes rushed forward and charged the

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Greeks, but fell in vast numbers: others however
took the places of the slain, and would not be
beaten off, though they suffered terrible losses. In
this way it became clear to all, and especially to
the king, that though he had plenty of combat-
ants, he had but very few warriors. The struggle,
however, continued during the whole day.

Then the Medes, having met so rough a reception,
withdrew from the fight; and their place was
taken by the band of Persians under Hydarnes,
whom the king called his “Immortals”: they, it
was thought, would soon finish the business. But
when they joined battle with the Greeks, ‘twas
with no better success than the Median detach-
ment- things went much as before- the two armies
fighting in a narrow space, and the barbarians
using shorter spears than the Greeks, and having
no advantage from their numbers. The
Lacedaemonians fought in a way worthy of note,
and showed themselves far more skilful in fight
than their adversaries, often turning their backs,
and making as though they were all flying away,
on which the barbarians would rush after them

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with much noise and shouting, when the Spartans
at their approach would wheel round and face
their pursuers, in this way destroying vast num-
bers of the enemy. Some Spartans likewise fell in
these encounters, but only a very few. At last the
Persians, finding that all their efforts to gain the
pass availed nothing, and that, whether they
attacked by divisions or in any other way, it was
to no purpose, withdrew to their own quarters.

During these assaults, it is said that Xerxes, who
was watching the battle, thrice leaped from the
throne on which he sate, in terror for his army.

Next day the combat was renewed, but with no
better success on the part of the barbarians. The
Greeks were so few that the barbarians hoped to
find them disabled, by reason of their wounds,
from offering any further resistance; and so they
once more attacked them. But the Greeks were
drawn up in detachments according to their cities,
and bore the brunt of the battle in turns- all
except the Phocians, who had been stationed on
the mountain to guard the pathway. So, when the

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Persians found no difference between that day
and the preceding, they again retired to their
quarters.

Now, as the king was in great strait, and knew not
how he should deal with the emergency,
Ephialtes, the son of Eurydemus, a man of Malis,
came to him and was admitted to a conference.
Stirred by the hope of receiving a rich reward at
the king’s hands, he had come to tell him of the
pathway which led across the mountain to
Thermopylae; by which disclosure he brought
destruction on the band of Greeks who had there
withstood the barbarians. This Ephialtes after-
wards, from fear of the Lacedaemonians, fled into
Thessaly; and during his exile, in an assembly of
the Amphictyons held at Pylae, a price was set
upon his head by the Pylagorae. When some time
had gone by, he returned from exile, and went to
Anticyra, where he was slain by Athenades, a
native of Trachis. Athenades did not slay him for
his treachery, but for another reason, which I
shall mention in a later part of my history: yet still
the Lacedaemonians honoured him none the less.

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Thus then did Ephialtes perish a long time after-
wards.

Besides this there is another story told, which I do
not at all believe- to wit, that Onetas the son of
Phanagoras, a native of Carystus, and Corydallus,
a man of Anticyra, were the persons who spoke
on this matter to the king, and took the Persians
across the mountain. One may guess which story
is true, from the fact that the deputies of the
Greeks, the Pylagorae, who must have had the
best means of ascertaining the truth, did not offer
the reward for the heads of Onetas and
Corydallus, but for that of Ephialtes of Trachis;
and again from the flight of Ephialtes, which we
know to have been on this account. Onetas, I
allow, although he was not a Malian, might have
been acquainted with the path, if he had lived
much in that part of the country; but as Ephialtes
was the person who actually led the Persians
round the mountain by the pathway, I leave his
name on record as that of the man who did the
deed.

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Great was the joy of Xerxes on this occasion; and
as he approved highly of the enterprise which
Ephialtes undertook to accomplish, he forthwith
sent upon the errand Hydarnes, and the Persians
under him. The troops left the camp about the
time of the lighting of the lamps. The pathway
along which they went was first discovered by the
Malians of these parts, who soon afterwards led
the Thessalians by it to attack the Phocians, at the
time when the Phocians fortified the pass with a
wall, and so put themselves under covert from
danger. And ever since, the path has always been
put to an ill use by the Malians.

The course which it takes is the following:-
Beginning at the Asopus, where that stream flows
through the cleft in the hills, it runs along the
ridge of the mountain (which is called, like the
pathway over it, Anopaea), and ends at the city of
Alpenus- the first Locrian town as you come from
Malis- by the stone called Melampygus and the
seats of the Cercopians. Here it is as narrow as at
any other point.

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The Persians took this path, and, crossing the
Asopus, continued their march through the whole
of the night, having the mountains of Oeta on
their right hand, and on their left those of Trachis.
At dawn of day they found themselves close to the
summit. Now the hill was guarded, as I have
already said, by a thousand Phocian men-at-arms,
who were placed there to defend the pathway,
and at the same time to secure their own country.
They had been given the guard of the mountain
path, while the other Greeks defended the pass
below, because they had volunteered for the ser-
vice, and had pledged themselves to Leonidas to
maintain the post.

The ascent of the Persians became known to the
Phocians in the following manner:- During all the
time that they were making their way up, the
Greeks remained unconscious of it, inasmuch as
the whole mountain was covered with groves of
oak; but it happened that the air was very still,
and the leaves which the Persians stirred with
their feet made, as it was likely they would, a loud
rustling, whereupon the Phocians jumped up and

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flew to seize their arms. In a moment the barbar-
ians came in sight, and, perceiving men arming
themselves, were greatly amazed; for they had
fallen in with an enemy when they expected no
opposition. Hydarnes, alarmed at the sight, and
fearing lest the Phocians might be
Lacedaemonians, inquired of Ephialtes to what
nation these troops belonged. Ephialtes told him
the exact truth, whereupon he arrayed his
Persians for battle. The Phocians, galled by the
showers of arrows to which they were exposed,
and imagining themselves the special object of the
Persian attack, fled hastily to the crest of the
mountain, and there made ready to meet death;
but while their mistake continued, the Persians,
with Ephialtes and Hydarnes, not thinking it
worth their while to delay on account of
Phocians, passed on and descended the mountain
with all possible speed.

The Greeks at Thermopylae received the first
warning of the destruction which the dawn would
bring on them from the seer Megistias, who read
their fate in the victims as he was sacrificing. After

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this deserters came in, and brought the news that
the Persians were marching round by the hills: it
was still night when these men arrived. Last of all,
the scouts came running down from the heights,
and brought in the same accounts, when the day
was just beginning to break. Then the Greeks held
a council to consider what they should do, and
here opinions were divided: some were strong
against quitting their post, while others contend-
ed to the contrary. So when the council had bro-
ken up, part of the troops departed and went their
ways homeward to their several states; part how-
ever resolved to remain, and to stand by Leonidas
to the last.

It is said that Leonidas himself sent away the
troops who departed, because he tendered their
safety, but thought it unseemly that either he or
his Spartans should quit the post which they had
been especially sent to guard. For my own part, I
incline to think that Leonidas gave the order,
because he perceived the allies to be out of heart
and unwilling to encounter the danger to which
his own mind was made up. He therefore com-
manded them to retreat, but said that he himself

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could not draw back with honour; knowing that,
if he stayed, glory awaited him, and that Sparta in
that case would not lose her prosperity. For when
the Spartans, at the very beginning of the war,
sent to consult the oracle concerning it, the
answer which they received from the Pythoness
was “that either Sparta must be overthrown by
the barbarians, or one of her kings must perish.”
The prophecy was delivered in hexameter verse,
and ran thus:-

O ye men who dwell in the streets of broad

Lacedaemon!

Either your glorious town shall be sacked by the

children of Perseus,

Or, in exchange, must all through the whole

Laconian country

Mourn for the loss of a king, descendant of great

Heracles.

He cannot be withstood by the courage of bulls

nor of lions,

Strive as they may; he is mighty as Jove; there is

nought that shall stay him,

Till he have got for his prey your king, or your

glorious city.

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The remembrance of this answer, I think, and the
wish to secure the whole glory for the Spartans,
caused Leonidas to send the allies away. This is
more likely than that they quarrelled with him,
and took their departure in such unruly fashion.

To me it seems no small argument in favour of
this view, that the seer also who accompanied the
army, Megistias, the Acarnanian- said to have
been of the blood of Melampus, and the same
who was led by the appearance of the victims to
warn the Greeks of the danger which threatened
them- received orders to retire (as it is certain he
did) from Leonidas, that he might escape the com-
ing destruction. Megistias, however, though bid-
den to depart, refused, and stayed with the army;
but he had an only son present with the expedi-
tion, whom he now sent away.

So the allies, when Leonidas ordered them to
retire, obeyed him and forthwith departed. Only
the Thespians and the Thebans remained with the
Spartans; and of these the Thebans were kept
back by Leonidas as hostages, very much against

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their will. The Thespians, on the contrary, stayed
entirely of their own accord, refusing to retreat,
and declaring that they would not forsake
Leonidas and his followers. So they abode with
the Spartans, and died with them. Their leader
was Demophilus, the son of Diadromes.

At sunrise Xerxes made libations, after which he
waited until the time when the forum is wont to
fill, and then began his advance. Ephialtes had
instructed him thus, as the descent of the moun-
tain is much quicker, and the distance much short-
er, than the way round the hills, and the ascent. So
the barbarians under Xerxes began to draw nigh;
and the Greeks under Leonidas, as they now went
forth determined to die, advanced much further
than on previous days, until they reached the
more open portion of the pass. Hitherto they had
held their station within the wall, and from this
had gone forth to fight at the point where the pass
was the narrowest. Now they joined battle
beyond the defile, and carried slaughter among
the barbarians, who fell in heaps. Behind them the
captains of the squadrons, armed with whips,

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urged their men forward with continual blows.
Many were thrust into the sea, and there perished;
a still greater number were trampled to death by
their own soldiers; no one heeded the dying. For
the Greeks, reckless of their own safety and des-
perate, since they knew that, as the mountain had
been crossed, their destruction was nigh at hand,
exerted themselves with the most furious valour
against the barbarians.

By this time the spears of the greater number were
all shivered, and with their swords they hewed
down the ranks of the Persians; and here, as they
strove, Leonidas fell fighting bravely, together
with many other famous Spartans, whose names I
have taken care to learn on account of their great
worthiness, as indeed I have those of all the three
hundred. There fell too at the same time very
many famous Persians: among them, two sons of
Darius, Abrocomes and Hyperanthes, his children
by Phratagune, the daughter of Artanes. Artanes
was brother of King Darius, being a son of
Hystaspes, the son of Arsames; and when he gave

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his daughter to the king, he made him heir like-
wise of all his substance; for she was his only
child.

Thus two brothers of Xerxes here fought and fell.
And now there arose a fierce struggle between the
Persians and the Lacedaemonians over the body
of Leonidas, in which the Greeks four times drove
back the enemy, and at last by their great bravery
succeeded in bearing off the body. This combat
was scarcely ended when the Persians with
Ephialtes approached; and the Greeks, informed
that they drew nigh, made a change in the manner
of their fighting. Drawing back into the narrow-
est part of the pass, and retreating even behind the
cross wall, they posted themselves upon a hillock,
where they stood all drawn up together in one
close body, except only the Thebans. The hillock
whereof I speak is at the entrance of the straits,
where the stone lion stands which was set up in
honour of Leonidas. Here they defended them-
selves to the last, such as still had swords using
them, and the others resisting with their hands

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and teeth; till the barbarians, who in part had
pulled down the wall and attacked them in front,
in part had gone round and now encircled them
upon every side, overwhelmed and buried the
remnant which was left beneath showers of mis-
sile weapons.

Thus nobly did the whole body of
Lacedaemonians and Thespians behave; but nev-
ertheless one man is said to have distinguished
himself above all the rest, to wit, Dieneces the
Spartan. A speech which he made before the
Greeks engaged the Medes, remains on record.
One of the Trachinians told him, “Such was the
number of the barbarians, that when they shot
forth their arrows the sun would be darkened
by their multitude.” Dieneces, not at all fright-
ened at these words, but making light of the
Median numbers, answered “Our Trachinian
friend brings us excellent tidings. If the Medes
darken the sun, we shall have our fight in the
shade.” Other sayings too of a like nature are
reported to have been left on record by this same
person.

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Next to him two brothers, Lacedaemonians, are
reputed to have made themselves conspicuous:
they were named Alpheus and Maro, and were
the sons of Orsiphantus. There was also a
Thespian who gained greater glory than any of his
countrymen: he was a man called Dithyrambus,
the son of Harmatidas.

The slain were buried where they fell; and in their
honour, nor less in honour of those who died
before Leonidas sent the allies away, an inscrip-
tion was set up, which said:-

Here did four thousand men from Pelops’ land
Against three hundred myriads bravely stand.

This was in honour of all. Another was for the
Spartans alone:-

Go, stranger, and to Lacedaemon tell
That here, obeying her behests, we fell.

This was for the Lacedaemonians. The seer had
the following:-

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The great Megistias’ tomb you here may

view,

Whom slew the Medes, fresh from Spercheius’

fords.

Well the wise seer the coming death foreknew,
Yet scorned he to forsake his Spartan lords.

These inscriptions, and the pillars likewise, were
all set up by the Amphictyons, except that in hon-
our of Megistias, which was inscribed to him (on
account of their sworn friendship) by Simonides,
the son of Leoprepes.

Two of the three hundred, it is said, Aristodemus
and Eurytus, having been attacked by a disease of
the eyes, had received orders from Leonidas to
quit the camp; and both lay at Alpeni in the worst
stage of the malady. These two men might, had
they been so minded, have agreed together to
return alive to Sparta; or if they did not like to
return, they might have gone both to the field and
fallen with their countrymen. But at this time,
when either way was open to them, unhappily
they could not agree, but took contrary courses.

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205

Eurytus no sooner heard that the Persians had
come round the mountain than straightway he
called for his armour, and having buckled it on,
bade his helot lead him to the place where his
friends were fighting. The helot did so, and then
turned and fled; but Eurytus plunged into the
thick of the battle, and so perished. Aristodemus,
on the other hand, was faint of heart, and
remained at Alpeni. It is my belief that if
Aristodemus only had been sick and returned, or
if both had come back together, the Spartans
would have been content and felt no anger; but
when there were two men with the very same
excuse, and one of them was chary of his life,
while the other freely gave it, they could not but
be very wroth with the former.

This is the account which some give of the escape
of Aristodemus. Others say that he, with another,
had been sent on a message from the army, and,
having it in his power to return in time for the
battle, purposely loitered on the road, and so sur-
vived his comrades; while his fellow-messenger
came back in time, and fell in the battle.

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When Aristodemus returned to Lacedaemon,
reproach and disgrace awaited him; disgrace,
inasmuch as no Spartan would give him a light to
kindle his fire, or so much as address a word to
him; and reproach, since all spoke of him as “the
craven.” However he wiped away all his shame
afterwards at the battle of Plataea.

Another of the three hundred is likewise said to
have survived the battle, a man named Pantites,
whom Leonidas had sent on an embassy into
Thessaly. He, they say, on his return to Sparta,
found himself in such disesteem that he hanged
himself.

The Thebans under the command of Leontiades
remained with the Greeks, and fought against the
barbarians, only so long as necessity compelled
them. No sooner did they see victory inclining to
the Persians, and the Greeks under Leonidas hur-
rying with all speed towards the hillock, than they
moved away from their companions, and with
hands upraised advanced towards the barbarians,

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207

exclaiming, as was indeed most true- “that they
for their part wished well to the Medes, and had
been among the first to give earth and water to
the king; force alone had brought them to
Thermopylae; and so they must not be blamed for
the slaughter which had befallen the king’s army.”
These words, the truth of which was attested by
the Thessalians, sufficed to obtain the Thebans
the grant of their lives. However, their good for-
tune was not without some drawback; for several
of them were slain by the barbarians on their first
approach; and the rest, who were the greater
number, had the royal mark branded upon their
bodies by the command of Xerxes- Leontiades,
their captain, being the first to suffer. (This man’s
son, Eurymachus, was afterwards slain by the
Plataeans, when he came with a band Of 400
Thebans, and seized their city.)

Thus fought the Greeks at Thermopylae. And
Xerxes, after the fight was over, called for
Demaratus to question him; and began as fol-
lows:-

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“Demaratus, thou art a worthy man; thy true-
speaking proves it. All has happened as thou didst
forewarn. Now then, tell me, how many
Lacedaemonians are there left, and of those left
how many are such brave warriors as these? Or
are they all alike?”

“O king!” replied the other, “the whole number
of the Lacedaemonians is very great; and many
are the cities which they inhabit. But I will tell
thee what thou really wishest to learn. There is a
town of Lacedaemon called Sparta, which con-
tains within it about eight thousand full-grown
men. They are, one and all, equal to those who
have fought here. The other Lacedaemonians are
brave men, but not such warriors as these.”

“Tell me now, Demaratus,” rejoined Xerxes,
“how we may with least trouble subdue these
men. Thou must know all the paths of their coun-
sels, as thou wert once their king.”

Then Demaratus answered- “O king! since thou
askest my advice so earnestly, it is fitting that I

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209

should inform thee what I consider to be the best
course. Detach three hundred vessels from the
body of thy fleet, and send them to attack the
shores of Laconia. There is an island called
Cythera in those parts, not far from the coast,
concerning which Chilon, one of our wisest men,
made the remark that Sparta would gain if it were
sunk to the bottom of the sea- so constantly did
he expect that it would give occasion to some pro-
ject like that which I now recommend to thee. I
mean not to say that he had a foreknowledge of
thy attack upon Greece; but in truth he feared all
armaments. Send thy ships then to this island, and
thence affright the Spartans. If once they have a
war of their own close to their doors, fear not
their giving any help to the rest of the Greeks
while thy land force is engaged in conquering
them. In this way may all Greece be subdued; and
then Sparta, left to herself, will be powerless. But
if thou wilt not take this advice, I will tell thee
what thou mayest look to see. When thou comest
to the Peloponnese, thou wilt find a narrow neck
of land, where all the Peloponnesians who are
leagued against thee will be gathered together;

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and there thou wilt have to fight bloodier battles
than any which thou hast yet witnessed. If, how-
ever, thou wilt follow my plan, the Isthmus and
the cities of Peloponnese will yield to thee without
a battle.”

Achaeamenes, who was present, now took the
word, and spoke- he was brother to Xerxes, and,
having the command of the fleet, feared lest
Xerxes might be prevailed upon to do as
Demaratus advised “I perceive, O king” (he said),
“that thou art listening to the words of a man
who is envious of thy good fortune, and seeks to
betray thy cause. This is indeed the common tem-
per of the Grecian people- they envy good for-
tune, and hate power greater than their own. If in
this posture of our affairs, after we have lost four
hundred vessels by shipwreck, three hundred
more be sent away to make a voyage round the
Peloponnese, our enemies will be, come a match
for us. But let us keep our whole fleet in one body,
and it will be dangerous for them to venture on an
attack, as they will certainly be no match for us
then. Besides, while our sea and land forces

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211

advance together, the fleet and army can each help
the other; but if they be parted, no aid will come
either from thee to the fleet, or from the fleet to
thee. Only order thy own matters well, and trou-
ble not thyself to inquire concerning the enemy-
where they will fight, or what they will do, or
how many they are. Surely they can manage their
own concerns without us, as we can ours without
them. If the Lacedaemonians come out against the
Persians to battle, they will scarce repair the dis-
aster which has befallen them now.”

Xerxes replied- “Achaeamenes, thy counsel pleas-
es me well, and I will do as thou sayest. But
Demaratus advised what he thought best- only his
judgment was not so good as thine. Never will I
believe that he does not wish well to my cause; for
that is disproved both by his former counsels, and
also by the circumstances of the case. A citizen
does indeed envy any fellow-citizen who is more
lucky than himself, and often hates him secretly;
if such a man be called on for counsel, he will not
give his best thoughts, unless indeed he be a man
of very exalted virtue; and such are but rarely

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found. But a friend of another country delights in
the good fortune of his foreign bond-friend, and
will give him, when asked, the best advice in his
power. Therefore I warn all men to abstain hence-
forth from speaking ill of Demaratus, who is my
bond-friend.”

When Xerxes had thus spoken, he proceeded to
pass through the slain; and finding the body of
Leonidas, whom he knew to have been the
Lacedaemonian king and captain, he ordered that
the head should be struck off, and the trunk fas-
tened to a cross. This proves to me most clearly,
what is plain also in many other ways- namely,
that King Xerxes was more angry with Leonidas,
while he was still in life, than with any other mor-
tal. Certes, he would not else have used his body
so shamefully. For the Persians are wont to hon-
our those who show themselves valiant in fight
more highly than any nation that I know. They,
however, to whom the orders were given, did
according to the commands of the king.

I return now to a point in my History, which at
the time I left incomplete. The Lacedaemon-ians

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213

were the first of the Greeks to hear of the king’s
design against their country; and it was at this
time that they sent to consult the Delphic oracle,
and received the answer of which I spoke a while
ago. The discovery was made to them in a very
strange way. Demaratus, the son of Ariston, after
he took refuge with the Medes, was not, in my
judgment, which is supported by probability, a
well-wisher to the Lacedaemon-ians. It may be
questioned, therefore, whether he did what I am
about to mention from good-will or from insolent
triumph. It happened that he was at Susa at the
time when Xerxes determined to lead his army
into Greece; and in this way becoming acquaint-
ed with his design, he resolved to send tidings of
it to Sparta. So as there was no other way of
effecting his purpose, since the danger of being
discovered was great, Demaratus framed the fol-
lowing contrivance. He took a pair of tablets,
and, clearing the wax away from them, wrote
what the king was purposing to do upon the
wood whereof the tablets were made; having
done this, he spread the wax once more over the
writing, and so sent it. By these means, the guards
placed to watch the roads, observing nothing but

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a blank tablet, were sure to give no trouble to the
bearer. When the tablet reached Lacedaemon,
there was no one, I understand, who could find
out the secret, till Gorgo, the daughter of
Cleomenes and wife of Leonidas, discovered it,
and told the others. “If they would scrape the
wax off the tablet,” she said, “they would be sure
to find the writing upon the wood.” The
Lacedaemonians took her advice, found the writ-
ing, and read it; after which they sent it round to
the other Greeks. Such then is the account which
is given of this matter.

Th e H i s to r i e s

o f

H e ro d o t u s o f H a l i c a r n a s s u s

Book Eight

TRANSLATED BY

George Rawlinson

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BOOK EIGHT

he Greeks engaged in the sea-service were the

following. The Athenians furnished a hundred
and twenty-seven vessels to the fleet, which were
manned in part by the Plataeans, who, though
unskilled in such matters, were led by their active
and daring spirit to undertake this duty; the
Corinthians furnished a contingent of forty ves-
sels; the Megarians sent twenty; the Chalcideans
also manned twenty, which had been furnished to
them by the Athenians; the Eginetans came with
eighteen; the Sicyonians with twelve; the
Lacedaemonians with ten; the Epidaurians with
eight; the Eretrians with seven; the Troezenians
with five; the Styreans with two; and the Ceans
with two triremes and two penteconters. Last of
all, the Locrians of Opus came in aid with a
squadron of seven penteconters.

Th e H i s t o r i e s

o f

H e r o d o t u s o f H a l i c a r n a s s u s

Such were the nations which furnished vessels to
the fleet now at Artemisium; and in mentioning
them I have given the number of ships furnished
by each. The total number of the ships thus
brought together, without counting the pentecon-
ters, was two hundred and seventy-one; and the
captain, who had the chief command over the
whole fleet, was Eurybiades the son of
Eurycleides. He was furnished by Sparta, since the
allies had said that “if a Lacedaemon-ian did not
take the command, they would break up the fleet,
for never would they serve under the Athenians.”

From the first, even earlier than the time when the
embassy went to Sicily to solicit alliance, there
had been a talk of intrusting the Athenians with
the command at sea; but the allies were averse to
the plan, wherefore the Athenians did not press it;
for there was nothing they had so much at heart
as the salvation of Greece, and they knew that, if
they quarrelled among themselves about the com-
mand, Greece would be brought to ruin. Herein
they judged rightly; for internal strife is a thing as
much worse than war carried on by a united peo-

Herodotus

The Histories–Book Eight

ple, as war itself is worse than peace. The
Athenians therefore, being so persuaded, did not
push their claims, but waived them, so long as
they were in such great need of aid from the other
Greeks. And they afterwards showed their
motive; for at the time when the Persians had
been driven from Greece, and were now threat-
ened by the Greeks in their own country, they
took occasion of the insolence of Pausanias to
deprive the Lacedae-monians of their leadership.
This, however, happened afterwards.

At the present time the Greeks, on their arrival at
Artemisium, when they saw the number of the
ships which lay at anchor near Aphetae, and the
abundance of troops everywhere, feeling disap-
pointed that matters had gone with the barbar-
ians so far otherwise than they had expected, and
full of alarm at what they saw, began to speak of
drawing back from Artemisium towards the inner
parts of their country. So when the Euboeans
heard what was in debate, they went to
Eurybiades, and besought him to wait a few days,
while they removed their children and their slaves

to a place of safety. But, as they found that they
prevailed nothing, they left him and went to
Themistocles, the Athenian commander, to whom
they gave a bribe of thirty talents, on his promise
that the fleet should remain and risk a battle in
defence of Euboea.

And Themistocles succeeded in detaining the fleet
in the way which I will now relate. He made over
to Eurybiades five talents out of the thirty paid
him, which he gave as if they came from himself;
and having in this way gained over the admiral,
he addressed himself to Adeimantus, the son of
Ocytus, the Corinthian leader, who was the only
remonstrant now, and who still threatened to sail
away from Artemisium and not wait for the other
captains. Addressing himself to this man,
Themistocles said with an oath- “Thou forsake
us? By no means! I will pay thee better for
remaining than the Mede would for leaving thy
friends”- and straightway he sent on board the
ship of Adeimantus a present of three talents of
silver. So these two captains were won by gifts,

Herodotus

The Histories–Book Eight

and came over to the views of Themistocles, who
was thereby enabled to gratify the wishes of the
Euboeans. He likewise made his own gain on the
occasion; for he kept the rest of the money, and
no one knew of it. The commanders who took the
gifts thought that the sums were furnished by
Athens, and had been sent to be used in this way.

Thus it came to pass that the Greeks stayed at
Euboea and there gave battle to the enemy.

Now the battle was on this wise. The barbarians
reached Aphetae early in the afternoon, and then
saw (as they had previously heard reported) that
a fleet of Greek ships, weak in number, lay at
Artemisium. At once they were eager to engage,
fearing that the Greeks would fly, and hoping to
capture them before they should get away. They
did not however think it wise to make straight for
the Greek station, lest the enemy should see them
as they bore down, and betake themselves to
flight immediately; in which case night might
close in before they came up with the fugitives,

Herodotus

and so they might get clean off and make their
escape from them; whereas the Persians were
minded not to let a single soul slip through their
hands.

They therefore contrived a plan, which was the
following:- They detached two hundred of their
ships from the rest, and- to prevent the enemy
from seeing them start- sent them round outside
the island of Sciathos, to make the circuit of
Euboea by Caphareus and Geraestus, and so to
reach the Euripus. By this plan they thought to
enclose the Greeks on every side; for the ships
detached would block up the only way by which
they could retreat, while the others would press
upon them in front. With these designs therefore
they dispatched the two hundred ships, while they
themselves waited- since they did not mean to
attack the Greeks upon that day, or until they
knew, by signal, of the arrival of the detachment
which had been ordered to sail round Euboea.
Meanwhile they made a muster of the other ships
at Aphetae.

The Histories–Book Eight

Now the Persians had with them a man named
Scyllias, a native of Scione, who was the most
expert diver of his day. At the time of the ship-
wreck off Mount Pelion he had recovered for the
Persians a great part of what they lost; and at the
same time he had taken care to obtain for himself
a good share of the treasure. He had for some
time been wishing to go over to the Greeks; but
no good opportunity had offered till now, when
the Persians were making the muster of their
ships. In what way he contrived to reach the
Greeks I am not able to say for certain: I marvel
much if the tale that is commonly told be true.
‘Tis said he dived into the sea at Aphetae, and did
not once come to the surface till he reached
Artemisium, a distance of nearly eighty furlongs.
Now many things are related of this man which
are plainly false; but some of the stories seem to
be true. My own opinion is that on this occasion
he made the passage to Artemisium in a boat.

However this might be, Scyllias no sooner
reached Artemisium than he gave the Greek cap-

Herodotus

tains a full account of the damage done by the
storm, and likewise told them of the ships sent to
make the circuit of Euboea.

So the Greeks on receiving these tidings held a
council, whereat, after much debate, it was
resolved that they should stay quiet for the pre-
sent where they were, and remain at their moor-
ings, but that after midnight they should put out
to sea, and encounter the ships which were on
their way round the island. Later in the day, when
they found that no one meddled with them, they
formed a new plan, which was to wait till near
evening, and then sail out against the main body
of the barbarians, for the purpose of trying their
mode of fight and skill in manoeuvring.

When the Persian commanders and crews saw the
Greeks thus boldly sailing towards them with
their few ships, they thought them possessed with
madness, and went out to meet them, expecting
(as indeed seemed likely enough) that they would
take all their vessels with the greatest ease. The
Greek ships were so few, and their own so far out-

The Histories–Book Eight

numbered them, and sailed so much better, that
they resolved, seeing their advantage, to encom-
pass their foe on every side. And now such of the
Ionians as wished well to the Grecian cause and
served in the Persian fleet unwillingly, seeing their
countrymen surrounded, were sorely distressed;
for they felt sure that not one of them would ever
make his escape, so poor an opinion had they of
the strength of the Greeks. On the other hand,
such as saw with pleasure the attack on Greece,
now vied eagerly with each other which should be
the first to make prize of an Athenian ship, and
thereby to secure himself a rich reward from the
king. For through both the hosts none were so
much accounted of as the Athenians.

The Greeks, at a signal, brought the sterns of their
ships together into a small compass, and turned
their prows on every side towards the barbarians;
after which, at a second signal, although inclosed
within a narrow space, and closely pressed upon
by the foe, yet they fell bravely to work, and cap-
tured thirty ships of the barbarians, at the same
time taking prisoner Philaon, the son of Chersis,

Herodotus

and brother of Gorgus king of Salamis, a man of
much repute in the fleet. The first who made prize
of a ship of the enemy was Lycomedes the son of
Aeschreas, an Athenian, who was afterwards
adjudged the meed of valour. Victory however
was still doubtful when night came on, and put a
stop to the combat. The Greeks sailed back to
Artemisium; and the barbarians returned to
Aphetae, much surprised at the result, which was
far other than they had looked for. In this battle
only one of the Greeks who fought on the side of
the king deserted and joined his countrymen. This
was Antidorus of Lemnos, whom the Athenians
rewarded for his desertion by the present of a
piece of land in Salamis.

Evening had barely closed in when a heavy rain-
it was about midsummer- began to fall, which
continued the whole night, with terrible thunder-
ings and lightnings from Mount Pelion: the bod-
ies of the slain and the broken pieces of the dam-
aged ships were drifted in the direction of
Aphetae, and floated about the prows of the ves-

The Histories–Book Eight

sels there, disturbing the action of the oars. The
barbarians, hearing the storm, were greatly dis-
mayed, expecting certainly to perish, as they had
fallen into such a multitude of misfortunes. For
before they were well recovered from the tempest
and the wreck of their vessels off Mount Pelion,
they had been surprised by a sea-fight which had
taxed all their strength, and now the sea-fight was
scarcely over when they were exposed to floods of
rain, and the rush of swollen streams into the sea,
and violent thunderings.

If, however, they who lay at Aphetae passed a
comfortless night, far worse were the sufferings of
those who had been sent to make the circuit of
Euboea; inasmuch as the storm fell on them out at
sea, whereby the issue was indeed calamitous.
They were sailing along near the Hollows of
Euboea, when the wind began to rise and the rain
to pour: overpowered by the force of the gale, and
driven they knew not whither, at the last they fell
upon rocks- Heaven so contriving, in order that
the Persian fleet might not greatly exceed the

Herodotus

Greek, but be brought nearly to its level. This
squadron, therefore, was entirely lost about the
Hollows of Euboea.

The barbarians at Aphetae were glad when day
dawned, and remained in quiet at their station,
content if they might enjoy a little peace after so
many sufferings. Meanwhile there came to the aid
of the Greeks a reinforcement of fifty-three ships
from Attica. Their arrival, and the news (which
reached Artemisium about the same time) of the
complete destruction by the storm of the ships
sent to sail round Euboea, greatly cheered the
spirits of the Greek sailors. So they waited again
till the same hour as the day before, and, once
more putting out to sea, attacked the enemy. This
time they fell in with some Cilician vessels, which
they sank; when night came on, they withdrew to
Artemisium.

The third day was now come, and the captains of
the barbarians, ashamed that so small a number
of ships should harass their fleet, and afraid of the
anger of Xerxes, instead of waiting for the others

The Histories–Book Eight

to begin the battle, weighed anchor themselves,
and advanced against the Greeks about the hour
of noon, with shouts encouraging one another.
Now it happened that these sea-fights took place
on the very same days with the combats at
Thermopylae; and as the aim of the struggle was
in the one case to maintain the pass, so in the
other it was to defend the Euripus. While the
Greeks, therefore, exhorted one another not to let
the barbarians burst in upon Greece, these latter
shouted to their fellows to destroy the Grecian
fleet, and get possession of the channel.

And now the fleet of Xerxes advanced in good
order to the attack, while the Greeks on their side
remained quite motionless at Artemisium. The
Persians therefore spread themselves, and came
forward in a half-moon, seeking to encircle the
Greeks on all sides, and thereby prevent them
from escaping. The Greeks, when they saw this,
sailed out to meet their assailants; and the battle
forthwith began. In this engagement the two fleets
contended with no clear advantage to either- for
the armament of Xerxes injured itself by its own

Herodotus

greatness, the vessels falling into disorder, and oft-
times running foul of one another; yet still they
did not give way, but made a stout fight, since the
crews felt it would indeed be a disgrace to turn
and fly from a fleet so inferior in number. The
Greeks therefore suffered much, both in ships and
men; but the barbarians experienced a far larger
loss of each. So the fleets separated after such a
combat as I have described.

On the side of Xerxes the Egyptians distinguished
themselves above all the combatants; for besides
performing many other noble deeds, they took
five vessels from the Greeks with their crews on
board. On the side of the Greeks the Athenians
bore off the meed of valour; and among them the
most distinguished was Clinias, the son of
Alcibiades, who served at his own charge with
two hundred men, on board a vessel which he had
himself furnished.

The two fleets, on separating, hastened very glad-
ly to their anchorage-grounds. The Greeks,
indeed, when the battle was over, became masters

The Histories–Book Eight

of the bodies of the slain and the wrecks of the
vessels; but they had been so roughly handled,
especially the Athenians, one-half of whose ves-
sels had suffered damage, that they determined to
break up from their station, and withdraw to the
inner parts of their country.

Then Themistocles, who thought that if the
Ionian and Carian ships could be detached from
the barbarian fleet, the Greeks might be well able
to defeat the rest, called the captains together.
They met upon the seashore, where the Euboeans
were now assembling their flocks and herds; and
here Themistocles told them he thought that he
knew of a plan whereby he could detach from the
king those who were of most worth among his
allies. This was all that he disclosed to them of his
plan at that time. Meanwhile, looking to the cir-
cumstances in which they were, he advised them
to slaughter as many of the Euboean cattle- they
liked- for it was better (he said) that their own
troops should enjoy them than the enemy- and to
give orders to their men to kindle the fires as
usual. With regard to the retreat, he said that he

Herodotus

would take upon himself to watch the proper
moment, and would manage matters so that they
should return to Greece without loss. These
words pleased the captains; so they had the fires
lighted, and began the slaughter of the cattle.

The Euboeans, until now, had made light of the
oracle of Bacis, as though it had been void of all
significancy, and had neither removed their goods
from the island, nor yet taken them into their
strong places; as they would most certainly have
done if they had believed that war was approach-
ing. By this neglect they had brought their affairs
into the very greatest danger. Now the oracle of
which I speak ran as follows:-

When o’er the main shall be thrown a byblus

yoke by a stranger,

Be thou ware, and drive from Euboea the goats’

loud-bleating.

So, as the Euboeans had paid no regard to this

oracle when the evils approached and impended,
now that they had arrived, the worst was likely to
befall them.

The Histories–Book Eight

While the Greeks were employed in the way
described above, the scout who had been on the
watch at Trachis arrived at Artemisium. For the
Greeks had employed two watchers:- Polyas, a
native of Anticyra, had been stationed off
Artemisium, with a row-boat at his command
ready to sail at any moment, his orders being that,
if an engagement took place by sea, he should
convey the news at once to the Greeks at
Thermopylae; and in like manner Abronychus the
son of Lysicles, an Athenian, had been stationed
with a triaconter near Leonidas, to be ready, in
case of disaster befalling the land force, to carry
tidings of it to Artemisium. It was this
Abronychus who now arrived with news of what
had befallen Leonidas and those who were with
him. When the Greeks heard the tidings they no
longer delayed to retreat, but withdrew in the
order wherein they had been stationed, the
Corinthians leading, and the Athenians sailing
last of all.

And now Themistocles chose out the swiftest sail-
ers from among the Athenian vessels, and, pro-
ceeding to the various watering-places along the

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coast, cut inscriptions on the rocks, which were
read by the Ionians the day following, on their
arrival at Artemisium. The inscriptions ran thus:-
“Men of Ionia, ye do wrong to fight against your
own fathers, and to give your help to enslave
Greece. We beseech you therefore to come over, if
possible, to our side: if you cannot do this, then,
we pray you, stand aloof from the contest your-
selves, and persuade the Carians to do the like. If
neither of these things be possible, and you are
hindered, by a force too strong to resist, from ven-
turing upon desertion, at least when we come to
blows fight backwardly, remembering that you
are sprung from us, and that it was through you
we first provoked the hatred of the barbarian.”
Themistocles, in putting up these inscriptions,
looked, I believe, to two chances- either Xerxes
would not discover them, in which case they
might bring over the Ionians to the side of the
Greeks; or they would be reported to him and
made a ground of accusation against the Ionians,
who would thereupon be distrusted, and would
not be allowed to take part in the sea-fights.

The Histories–Book Eight

Shortly after the cutting of the inscriptions, a man
of Histiaea went in a merchantship to Aphetae,
and told the Persians that the Greeks had fled
from Artemisium. Disbelieving his report, the
Persians kept the man a prisoner, while they sent
some of their fastest vessels to see what had hap-
pened. These brought back word how matters
stood; whereupon at sunrise the whole fleet
advanced together in a body, and sailed to
Artemisium, where they remained till mid-day;
after which they went on to Histiaea. That city
fell into their hands immediately; and they short-
ly overran the various villages upon the coast in
the district of Hellopia, which was part of the
Histiaean territory.

It was while they were at this station that a herald
reached them from Xerxes, whom he had sent
after making the following dispositions with
respect to the bodies of those who fell at
Thermopylae. Of the twenty thousand who had
been slain on the Persian side, he left one thou-
sand upon the field while he buried the rest in

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trenches; and these he carefully filled up with
earth, and hid with foliage, that the sailors might
not see any signs of them. The herald, on reach-
ing Histiaea, caused the whole force to be collect-
ed together, and spake thus to them:

“Comrades, King Xerxes gives permission to all
who please, to quit their posts, and see how he
fights with the senseless men who think to over-
throw his armies.”

No sooner had these words been uttered, than it
became difficult to get a boat, so great was the
number of those who desired to see the sight.
Such as went crossed the strait, and passing
among the heaps of dead, in this way viewed the
spectacle. Many helots were included in the slain,
but every one imagined that the bodies were all
either Lacedaemonians or Thespians. However,
no one was deceived by what Xerxes had done
with his own dead. It was indeed most truly a
laughable device- on the one side a thousand men
were seen lying about the field, on the other four
thousand crowded together into one spot. This

The Histories–Book Eight

day then was given up to sight-seeing; on the next
the seamen embarked on board their ships and
sailed back to Histiaea, while Xerxes and his
army proceeded upon their march.

There came now a few deserters from Arcadia to
join the Persians- poor men who had nothing to
live on, and were in want of employment. The
Persians brought them into the king’s presence,
and there inquired of them, by a man who acted
as their spokesman, “what the Greeks were
doing?” The Arcadians answered- “They are
holding the Olympic Games, seeing the athletic
sports and the chariot-races.” “And what,” said
the man, “is the prize for which they contend?”
“An olive-wreath,” returned the others, “which is
given to the man who wins.” On hearing this,
Tritantaechmes, the son of Artabanus, uttered a
speech which was in truth most noble, but which
caused him to be taxed with cowardice by King
Xerxes. Hearing the men say that the prize was
not money but a wreath of olive, he could not for-
bear from exclaiming before them all: “Good
heavens! Mardonius, what manner of men are

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these against whom thou hast brought us to
fight?- men who contend with one another, not
for money, but for honour!”

A little before this, and just after the blow had
been struck at Thermopylae, a herald was sent
into Phocis by the Thessalians, who had always
been on bad terms with the Phocians, and espe-
cially since their last overthrow. For it was not
many years previous to this invasion of Greece by
the king, that the Thessalians, with their allies,
entered Phocis in full force, but were defeated by
the Phocians in an engagement wherein they were
very roughly handled. The Phocians, who had
with them as soothsayer Tellias of Elis, were
blocked up in the mountain of Parnassus, when
the following stratagem was contrived for them
by their Elean ally. He took six hundred of their
bravest men, and whitened their bodies and their
arms with chalk; then instructing them to slay
every one whom they should meet that was not
whitened like themselves, he made a night attack
upon the Thessalians. No sooner did the
Thessalian sentries, who were the first to see

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them, behold this strange sight, than, imagining it
to be a prodigy, they were all filled with affright.
From the sentries the alarm spread to the army,
which was seized with such a panic that the
Phocians killed four thousand of them, and
became masters of their dead bodies and shields.
Of the shields one half were sent as an offering to
the temple at Abae, the other half were deposited
at Delphi; while from the tenth part of the booty
gained in the battle, were made the gigantic fig-
ures which stand round the tripod in front of the
Delphic shrine, and likewise the figures of the
same size and character at Abae.

Besides this slaughter of the Thessalian foot when
it was blockading them, the Phocians had dealt a
blow to their horse upon its invading their terri-
tory, from which they had never recovered. There
is a pass near the city of Hyampolis, where the
Phocians, having dug a broad trench, filled up the
void with empty wine-jars, after which they cov-
ered the place with mould, so that the ground all
looked alike, and then awaited the coming of the
Thessalians. These, thinking to destroy the

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Phocians at one sweep, rushed rapidly forward,
and became entangled in the wine-jars, which
broke the legs of their horses.

The Thessalians had therefore a double cause of
quarrel with the Phocians, when they dispatched
the herald above mentioned, who thus delivered
his message:-

“At length acknowledge, ye men of Phocis, that
ye may not think to match with us. In times past,
when it pleased us to hold with the Greeks, we
had always the vantage over you; and now our
influence is such with the barbarian, that, if we
choose it, you will lose your country, and (what is
even worse) you will be sold as slaves. However,
though we can now do with you exactly as we
like, we are willing to forget our wrongs. Quit
them with a payment of fifty talents of silver, and
we undertake to ward off the evils which threaten
your country.”

Such was the message which the Thessalians sent.
The Phocians were the only people in these parts

The Histories–Book Eight

who had not espoused the cause of the Medes;
and it is my deliberate opinion that the motive
which swayed them was none other- neither more
nor less- than their hatred of the Thessalians: for
had the Thessalians declared in favour of the
Greeks, I believe that the men of Phocis would
have joined the Median side. As it was, when the
message arrived, the Phocians made answer, that
“they would not pay anything- it was open to
them, equally with the Thessalians, to make com-
mon cause with the Medes, if they only chose so
to do- but they would never of their own free will
become traitors to Greece.”

On the return of this answer, the Thessalians, full
of wrath against the Phocians, offered themselves
as guides to the barbarian army, and led them
forth from Trachinia into Doris. In this place
there is a narrow tongue of Dorian territory, not
more than thirty furlongs across, interposed
between Malis and Phocis; it is the tract in ancient
times called Dryopis; and the land, of which it is
a part, is the mother-country of the Dorians in the
Peloponnese. This territory the barbarians did not

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plunder, for the inhabitants had espoused their
side; and besides, the Thessalians wished that they
should be spared.

From Doris they marched forward into Phocis;
but here the inhabitants did not fall into their
power: for some of them had taken refuge in the
high grounds of Parnassus- one summit of which,
called Tithorea, standing quite by itself, not far
from the city of Neon, is well fitted to give shelter
to a large body of men, and had now received a
number of the Phocians with their movables;
while the greater portion had fled to the country
of the Ozolian Locrians, and placed their goods in
the city called Amphissa, which lies above the
Crissaean plain. The land of Phocis, however, was
entirely overrun, for the Thessalians led the
Persian army through the whole of it; and wher-
ever they went, the country was wasted with fire
and sword, the cities and even the temples being
wilfully set alight by the troops.

The march of the army lay along the valley of the
Cephissus; and here they ravaged far and wide,

The Histories–Book Eight

burning the towns of Drymus, Charadra,
Erochus, Tethronium, Amphicaea, Neon, Pedieis,
Triteis, Elateia, Hyampolis, Parapotamii, and
Abae. At the last-named place there was a temple
of Apollo, very rich, and adorned with a vast
number of treasures and offerings. There was
likewise an oracle there in those days, as indeed
there is at the present time. This temple the
Persians plundered and burnt; and here they cap-
tured a number of the Phocians before they could
reach the hills, and caused the death of some of
their women by ill-usage.

After passing Parapotamii, the barbarians
marched to Panopeis; and now the army separat-
ed into two bodies, whereof one, which was the
more numerous and the stronger of the two,
marched, under Xerxes himself, towards Athens,
entering Boeotia by the country of the
Orchomenians. The Boeotians had one and all
embraced the cause of the Medes; and their towns
were in the possession of Macedonian garrisons,
whom Alexander had sent there, to make it man-
ifest to Xerxes that the Boeotians were on the

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Median side. Such then was the road followed by
one division of the barbarians.

The other division took guides, and proceeded
towards the temple of Delphi, keeping Mount
Parnassus on their right hand. They too laid waste
such parts of Phocis as they passed through, burn-
ing the city of the Panopeans, together with those
of the Daulians and of the Aeolidae. This body
had been detached from the rest of the army, and
made to march in this direction, for the purpose
of plundering the Delphian temple and conveying
to King Xerxes the riches which were there laid
up. For Xerxes, as I am informed, was better
acquainted with what there was worthy of note at
Delphi, than even with what he had left in his
own house; so many of those about him were
continually describing the treasures- more espe-
cially the offerings made by Croesus the son of
Alyattes.

Now when the Delphians heard what danger they
were in, great fear fell on them. In their terror
they consulted the oracle concerning the holy

The Histories–Book Eight

treasures, and inquired if they should bury them
in the ground, or carry them away to some other
country. The god, in reply, bade them leave the
treasures untouched- “He was able,” he said,
“without help to protect his own.” So the
Delphians, when they received this answer, began
to think about saving themselves. And first of all
they sent their women and children across the gulf
into Achaea; after which the greater number of
them climbed up into the tops of Parnassus, and
placed their goods for safety in the Corycian cave;
while some effected their escape to Amphissa in
Locris. In this way all the Delphians quitted the
city, except sixty men, and the Prophet.

When the barbarian assailants drew near and
were in sight of the place, the Prophet, who was
named Aceratus, beheld, in front of the temple, a
portion of the sacred armour, which it was not
lawful for any mortal hand to touch, lying upon
the ground, removed from the inner shrine where
it was wont to hang. Then went he and told the
prodigy to the Delphians who had remained
behind. Meanwhile the enemy pressed forward

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briskly, and had reached the shrine of Minerva
Pronaia, when they were overtaken by other
prodigies still more wonderful than the first.
Truly it was marvel enough, when warlike har-
ness was seen lying outside the temple, removed
there by no power but its own; what followed,
however, exceeded in strangeness all prodigies
that had ever before been seen. The barbarians
had just reached in their advance the chapel of
Minerva Pronaia, when a storm of thunder burst
suddenly over their heads- at the same time two
crags split off from Mount Parnassus, and rolled
down upon them with a loud noise, crushing vast
numbers beneath their weight- while from the
temple of Minerva there went up the war-cry and
the shout of victory.

All these things together struck terror into the
barbarians, who forthwith turned and fled. The
Delphians, seeing this, came down from their hid-
ing-places, and smote them with a great slaughter,
from which such as escaped fled straight into
Boeotia. These men, on their return, declared (as
I am told) that besides the marvels mentioned

The Histories–Book Eight

above, they witnessed also other supernatural
sights. Two armed warriors, they said, of a stature
more than human, pursued after their flying
ranks, pressing them close and slaying them.

These men, the Delphians maintain, were two
Heroes belonging to the place- by name Phylacus
and Autonous- each of whom has a sacred
precinct near the temple; one, that of Phylacus,
hard by the road which runs above the temple of
Pronaia; the other, that of Autonous, near the
Castalian spring, at the foot of the peak called
Hyampeia. The blocks of stone which fell from
Parnassus might still be seen in my day; they lay
in the precinct of Pronaia, where they stopped,
after rolling through the host of the barbarians.
Thus was this body of men forced to retire from
the temple.

Meanwhile, the Grecian fleet, which had left
Artemisium, proceeded to Salamis, at the request
of the Athenians, and there cast anchor. The
Athenians had begged them to take up this posi-
tion, in order that they might convey their women

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and children out of Attica, and further might
deliberate upon the course which it now behoved
them to follow. Disappointed in the hopes which
they had previously entertained, they were about
to hold a council concerning the present posture
of their affairs. For they had looked to see the
Peloponnesians drawn up in full force to resist the
enemy in Boeotia, but found nothing of what they
had expected; nay, they learnt that the Greeks of
those parts, only concerning themselves about
their own safety, were building a wall across the
Isthmus, and intended to guard the Peloponnese,
and let the rest of Greece take its chance. These
tidings caused them to make the request whereof
I spoke, that the combined fleet should anchor at
Salamis.

So while the rest of the fleet lay to off this island,
the Athenians cast anchor along their own coast.
Immediately upon their arrival, proclamation was
made that every Athenian should save his children
and household as he best could; whereupon some
sent their families to Egina, some to Salamis, but

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the greater number to Troezen. This removal was
made with all possible haste, partly from a desire
to obey the advice of the oracle, but still more for
another reason. The Athenians say that they have
in their Acropolis a huge serpent, which lives in
the temple, and is the guardian of the whole place.
Nor do they only say this, but, as if the serpent
really dwelt there, every month they lay out its
food, which consists of a honey-cake. Up to this
time the honey-cake had always been consumed;
but now it remained untouched. So the priestess
told the people what had happened; whereupon
they left Athens the more readily, since they
believed that the goddess had already abandoned
the citadel. As soon as all was removed, the
Athenians sailed back to their station.

And now, the remainder of the Grecian sea-force,
hearing that the fleet which had been at
Artemisium, was come to Salamis, joined it at
that island from Troezen- orders having been
issued previously that the ships should muster at
Pogon, the port of the Troezenians. The vessels

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collected were many more in number than those
which had fought at Artemisium, and were fur-
nished by more cities. The admiral was the same
who had commanded before, to wit, Eurybiades,
the son of Eurycleides, who was a Spartan, but
not of the family of the kings: the city, however,
which sent by far the greatest number of ships,
and the best sailers, was Athens.

Now these were the nations who composed the
Grecian fleet. From the Peloponnese, the follow-
ing- the Lacedaemonians with six, teen ships; the
Corinthians with the same number as at
Artemisium; the Sicyonians with fifteen; the
Epidaurians with ten; the Troezenians with five;
and the Hermionians with three. These were
Dorians and Macedonians all of them (except
those from Hermione), and had emigrated last
from Erineus, Pindus, and Dryopis. The
Hermionians were Dryopians, of the race which
Hercules and the Malians drove out of the land
now called Doris. Such were the Peloponnesian
nations.

The Histories–Book Eight

From the mainland of Greece beyond the
Peloponnese, came the Athenians with a hundred
and eighty ships, a greater number than that fur-
nished by any other people; and these were now
manned wholly by themselves; for the Plataeans
did not serve aboard the Athenian ships at
Salamis, owing to the following reason. When the
Greeks, on their withdrawal from Artemisium,
arrived off Chalcis, the Plataeans disembarked
upon the opposite shore of Boeotia, and set to
work to remove their households, whereby it hap-
pened that they were left behind. (The Athenians,
when the region which is now called Greece was
held by the Pelasgi, were Pelasgians, and bore the
name of Cranaans; but under their king Cecrops,
they were called Cecropidae; when Erechtheus
got the sovereignty, they changed their name to
Athenians; and when Ion, the son of Xuthus,
became their general, they were named after him
Ionians.)

The Megarians served with the same number of
ships as at Artemisium; the Ambraciots came with

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seven; the Leucadians (who were Dorians from
Corinth) with three.

Of the islanders, the Eginetans furnished thirty
ships- they had a larger number equipped; but
some were kept back to guard their own coasts,
and only thirty, which however were their best
sailers, took part in the fight at Salamis. (The
Eginetans are Dorians from Epidaurus; their
island was called formerly Oenone). The
Chalcideans came next in order; they furnished
the twenty ships with which they had served at
Artemisium. The Eretrians likewise furnished
their seven. These races are Ionian. Ceos gave its
old number- the Ceans are Ionians from Attica.
Naxos furnished four: this detachment, like those
from the other islands, had been sent by the citi-
zens at home to join the Medes; but they made
light of the orders given them, and joined the
Greeks, at the instigation of Democritus, a citizen
of good report, who was at that time captain of a
trireme. The Naxians are Ionians, of the Athenian
stock. The Styreans served with the same ships as
before; the Cythnians contributed one, and like-

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wise a penteconter- these two nations are
Dryopians: the Seriphians, Siphnians, and
Melians, also served; they were the only islanders
who had not given earth and water to the barbar-
ian.

All these nations dwelt inside the river Acheron
and the country inhabited by the Thesprotians;
for that people borders on the Ambraciots and
Leucadians, who are the most remote of all those
by whom the fleet was furnished. From the coun-
tries beyond, there was only one people which
gave help to the Greeks in their danger. This was
the people of Crotona, who contributed a single
ship, under the command of Phayllus, a man who
had thrice carried off the prize at the Pythian
Games. The Crotoniats are, by descent,
Achaeans.

Most of the allies came with triremes; but the
Melians, Siphnians, and Seriphians, brought pen-
teconters. The Melians, who draw their race from
Lacedaemon, furnished two; the Siphnians and
Seriphians, who are Ionians of the Athenian

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stock, one each. The whole number of the ships,
without counting the penteconters, was three
hundred and seventy-eight.

When the captains from these various nations
were come together at Salamis, a council of war
was summoned; and Eurybiades proposed that
any one who liked to advise, should say which
place seemed to him the fittest, among those still
in the possession of the Greeks, to be the scene of
a naval combat. Attica, he said, was not to be
thought of now; but he desired their counsel as to
the remainder. The speakers mostly advised that
the fleet should sail away to the Isthmus, and
there give battle in defence of the Peloponnese;
and they urged as a reason for this, that if they
were worsted in a sea-fight at Salamis, they would
be shut up in an island where they could get no
help; but if they were beaten near the Isthmus,
they could escape to their homes.

As the captains from the Peloponnese were thus
advising, there came an Athenian to the camp,
who brought word that the barbarians had

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entered Attica, and were ravaging and burning
everything. For the division of the army under
Xerxes was just arrived at Athens from its march
through Boeotia, where it had burnt Thespiae and
Plataea- both which cities were forsaken by their
inhabitants, who had fled to the Peloponnese- and
now it was laying waste all the possessions of the
Athenians. Thespiae and Plataea had been burnt
by the Persians, because they knew from the
Thebans that neither of those cities had espoused
their side.

Since the passage of the Hellespont and the com-
mencement of the march upon Greece, a space of
four months had gone by; one, while the army
made the crossing, and delayed about the region
of the Hellespont; and three while they proceeded
thence to Attica, which they entered in the
archonship of Calliades. They found the city for-
saken; a few people only remained in the temple,
either keepers of the treasures, or men of the
poorer sort. These persons having fortified the
citadel with planks and boards, held out against
the enemy. It was in some measure their poverty

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which had prevented them from seeking shelter in
Salamis; but there was likewise another reason
which in part induced them to remain. They
imagined themselves to have discovered the true
meaning of the oracle uttered by the Pythoness,
which promised that “the wooden wall” should
never be taken- the wooden wall, they thought,
did not mean the ships, but the place where they
had taken refuge.

The Persians encamped upon the hill over against
the citadel, which is called Mars’ hill by the
Athenians, and began the siege of the place,
attacking the Greeks with arrows whereto pieces
of lighted tow were attached, which they shot at
the barricade. And now those who were within
the citadel found themselves in a most woeful
case; for their wooden rampart betrayed them;
still, however, they continued to resist. It was in
vain that the Pisistratidae came to them and
offered terms of surrender- they stoutly refused all
parley, and among their other modes of defence,
rolled down huge masses of stone upon the bar-
barians as they were mounting up to the gates: so
that Xerxes was for a long time very greatly per-

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plexed, and could not contrive any way to take
them.

At last, however, in the midst of these many diffi-
culties, the barbarians made discovery of an
access. For verily the oracle had spoken truth; and
it was fated that the whole mainland of Attica
should fall beneath the sway of the Persians.
Right in front of the citadel, but behind the gates
and the common ascent- where no watch was
kept, and no one would have thought it possible
that any foot of man could climb- a few soldiers
mounted from the sanctuary of Aglaurus,
Cecrops’ daughter, notwithstanding the steepness
of the precipice. As soon as the Athenians saw
them upon the summit, some threw themselves
headlong from the wall, and so perished; while
others fled for refuge to the inner part of the tem-
ple. The Persians rushed to the gates and opened
them, after which they massacred the suppliants,
When all were slain, they plundered the temple,
and fired every part of the citadel.

Xerxes, thus completely master of Athens,
despatched a horseman to Susa, with a message to

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Artabanus, informing him of his success hitherto.
The day after, he collected together all the
Athenian exiles who had come into Greece in his
train, and bade them go up into the citadel, and
there offer sacrifice after their own fashion. I
know not whether he had had a dream which
made him give this order, or whether he felt some
remorse on account of having set the temple on
fire. However this may have been, the exiles were
not slow to obey the command given them.

I will now explain why I have made mention of
this circumstance: there is a temple of Erechtheus
the Earth-born, as he is called, in this citadel, con-
taining within it an olive-tree and a sea. The tale
goes among the Athenians, that they were placed
there as witnesses by Neptune and Minerva, when
they had their contention about the country. Now
this olive-tree had been burnt with the rest of the
temple when the barbarians took the place. But
when the Athenians, whom the king had com-
manded to offer sacrifice, went up into the temple
for the purpose, they found a fresh shoot, as

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much as a cubit in length, thrown out from the
old trunk. Such at least was the account which
these persons gave.

Meanwhile, at Salamis, the Greeks no sooner
heard what had befallen the Athenian citadel,
than they fell into such alarm that some of the
captains did not even wait for the council to
come to a vote, but embarked hastily on board
their vessels, and hoisted sail as though they
would take to flight immediately. The rest, who
stayed at the council board, came to a vote that
the fleet should give battle at the Isthmus. Night
now drew on; and the captains, dispersing from
the meeting, proceeded on board their respective
ships.

Themistocles, as he entered his own vessel, was
met by Mnesiphilus, an Athenian, who asked him
what the council had resolved to do. On learning
that the resolve was to stand away for the
Isthmus, and there give battle on behalf of the
Peloponnese, Mnesiphilus exclaimed:-

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“If these men sail away from Salamis, thou wilt
have no fight at all for the one fatherland; for they
will all scatter themselves to their own homes;
and neither Eurybiades nor any one else will be
able to hinder them, nor to stop the breaking up
of the armament. Thus will Greece be brought to
ruin through evil counsels. But haste thee now;
and, if there be any possible way, seek to unsettle
these resolves- mayhap thou mightest persuade
Eurybiades to change his mind, and continue
here.”

The suggestion greatly pleased Themistocles; and
without answering a word, he went straight to the
vessel of Eurybiades. Arrived there, he let him
know that he wanted to speak with him on a mat-
ter touching the public service. So Eurybiades
bade him come on board, and say whatever he
wished. Then Themistocles, seating himself at his
side, went over all the arguments which he had
heard from Mnesiphilus, pretending as if they
were his own, and added to them many new ones
besides; until at last he persuaded Eurybiades, by
his importunity, to quit his ship and again collect
the captains to council.

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As soon as they were come, and before
Eurybiades had opened to them his purpose in
assembling them together, Themistocles, as men
are wont to do when they are very anxious, spoke
much to divers of them; whereupon the
Corinthian captain, Adeimantus, the son of
Ocytus, observed- “Themistocles, at the Games
they who start too soon are scourged.” “True,”
rejoined the other in his excuse, “but they who
wait too late are not crowned.”

Thus he gave the Corinthian at this time a mild
answer; and towards Eurybiades himself he did
not now use any of those arguments which he had
urged before, or say aught of the allies betaking
themselves to flight if once they broke up from
Salamis; it would have been ungraceful for him,
when the confederates were present, to make
accusation against any: but he had recourse to
quite a new sort of reasoning, and addressed him
as follows:-

“With thee it rests, O Eurybiades! to save Greece,
if thou wilt only hearken unto me, and give the
enemy battle here, rather than yield to the advice

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of those among us, who would have the fleet
withdrawn to the Isthmus. Hear now, I beseech
thee, and judge between the two courses. At the
Isthmus thou wilt fight in an open sea, which is
greatly to our disadvantage, since our ships are
heavier and fewer in number than the enemy’s;
and further, thou wilt in any case lose Salamis,
Megara, and Egina, even if all the rest goes well
with us. The land and sea force of the Persians
will advance together; and thy retreat will but
draw them towards the Peloponnese, and so bring
all Greece into peril. If, on the other hand, thou
doest as I advise, these are the advantages which
thou wilt so secure: in the first place, as we shall
fight in a narrow sea with few ships against many,
if the war follows the common course, we shall
gain a great victory; for to fight in a narrow space
is favourable to us- in an open sea, to them.
Again, Salamis will in this case be preserved,
where we have placed our wives and children.
Nay, that very point by which ye set most store, is
secured as much by this course as by the other; for
whether we fight here or at the Isthmus, we shall
equally give battle in defence of the Peloponnese.

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Assuredly ye will not do wisely to draw the
Persians upon that region. For if things turn out
as I anticipate, and we beat them by sea, then we
shall have kept your Isthmus free from the bar-
barians, and they will have advanced no further
than Attica, but from thence have fled back in dis-
order; and we shall, moreover, have saved
Megara, Egina, and Salamis itself, where an ora-
cle has said that we are to overcome our enemies.
When men counsel reasonably, reasonable success
ensues; but when in their counsels they reject rea-
son, God does not choose to follow the wander-
ings of human fancies.”

When Themistocles had thus spoken, Adeimantus
the Corinthian again attacked him, and bade him
be silent, since he was a man without a city; at the
same time he called on Eurybiades not to put the
question at the instance of one who had no coun-
try, and urged that Themistocles should show of
what state he was envoy, before he gave his voice
with the rest. This reproach he made, because the
city of Athens had been taken, and was in the
hands of the barbarians. Hereupon Themistocles

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spake many bitter things against Adeimantus and
the Corinthians generally; and for proof that he
had a country, reminded the captains, that with
two hundred ships at his command, all fully
manned for battle, he had both city and territory
as good as theirs; since there was no Grecian state
which could resist his men if they were to make a
descent.

After this declaration, he turned to Eurybiades,
and addressing him with still greater warmth and
earnestness- “If thou wilt stay here,” he said,
“and behave like a brave man, all will be well- if
not, thou wilt bring Greece to ruin. For the whole
fortune of the war depends on our ships. Be thou
persuaded by my words. If not, we will take our
families on board, and go, just as we are, to Siris,
in Italy, which is ours from of old, and which the
prophecies declare we are to colonise some day or
other. You then, when you have lost allies like us,
will hereafter call to mind what I have now said.”

At these words of Themistocles, Eurybiades
changed his determination; principally, as I

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believe, because he feared that if he withdrew the
fleet to the Isthmus, the Athenians would sail
away, and knew that without the Athenians, the
rest of their ships could be no match for the fleet
of the enemy. He therefore decided to remain, and
give battle at Salamis.

And now, the different chiefs, notwithstanding
their skirmish of words, on learning the decision
of Eurybiades, at once made ready for the fight.
Morning broke; and, just as the sun rose, the
shock of an earthquake was felt both on shore
and at sea: whereupon the Greeks resolved to
approach the gods with prayer, and likewise to
send and invite the Aeacids to their aid. And this
they did, with as much speed as they had resolved
on it. Prayers were offered to all the gods; and
Telamon and Ajax were invoked at once from
Salamis, while a ship was sent to Egina to fetch
Aeacus himself, and the other Aeacids.

The following is a tale which was told by Dicaeus,
the son of Theocydes, an Athenian, who was at
this time an exile, and had gained a good report

Herodotus

among the Medes. He declared that after the
army of Xerxes had, in the absence of the
Athenians, wasted Attica, he chanced to be with
Demaratus the Lacedaemonian in the Thriasian
plain, and that while there, he saw a cloud of dust
advancing from Eleusis, such as a host of thirty
thousand men might raise. As he and his com-
panion were wondering who the men, from
whom the dust arose, could possibly be, a sound
of voices reached his ear, and he thought that he
recognised the mystic hymn to Bacchus. Now
Demaratus was unacquainted with the rites of
Eleusis, and so he inquired of Dicaeus what the
voices were saying. Dicaeus made answer- “O
Demaratus! beyond a doubt some mighty calami-
ty is about to befall the king’s army! For it is man-
ifest, inasmuch as Attica is deserted by its inhabi-
tants, that the sound which we have heard is an
unearthly one, and is now upon its way from
Eleusis to aid the Athenians and their confeder-
ates. If it descends upon the Peloponnese, danger
will threaten the king himself and his land army-
if it moves towards the ships at Salamis, ‘twill go
hard but the king’s fleet there suffers destruction.

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Every year the Athenians celebrate this feast to
the Mother and the Daughter; and all who wish,
whether they be Athenians or any other Greeks,
are initiated. The sound thou hearest is the
Bacchic song, which is wont to be sung at that fes-
tival.” “Hush now,” rejoined the other; “and see
thou tell no man of this matter. For if thy words
be brought to the king’s ear, thou wilt assuredly
lose thy head because of them; neither I nor any
man living can then save thee. Hold thy peace
therefore. The gods will see to the king’s army.”
Thus Demaratus counselled him; and they
looked, and saw the dust, from which the sound
arose, become a cloud, and the cloud rise up into
the air and sail away to Salamis, making for the
station of the Grecian fleet. Then they knew that
it was the fleet of Xerxes which would suffer
destruction. Such was the tale told by Dicaeus the
son of Theocydes; and he appealed for its truth to
Demaratus and other eye-witnesses.

The men belonging to the fleet of Xerxes, after
they had seen the Spartan dead at Thermopylae,
and crossed the channel from Trachis to Histiaea,

Herodotus

waited there by the space of three days, and then
sailing down through the Euripus, in three more
came to Phalerum. In my judgment, the Persian
forces both by land and sea when they invaded
Attica were not less numerous than they had been
on their arrival at Sepias and Thermopylae. For
against the Persian loss in the storm and at
Thermopylae, and again in the sea-fights off
Artemisium, I set the various nations which had
since joined the king- as the Malians, the Dorians,
the Locrians, and the Boeotians- each serving in
full force in his army except the last, who did not
number in their ranks either the Thespians or the
Plataeans; and together with these, the
Carystians, the Andrians, the Tenians, and the
other people of the islands, who all fought on this
side except the five states already mentioned. For
as the Persians penetrated further into Greece,
they were joined continually by fresh nations.

Reinforced by the contingents of all these various
states, except Paros, the barbarians reached
Athens. As for the Parians, they tarried at
Cythnus, waiting to see how the war would go.

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The rest of the sea forces came safe to Phalerum;
where they were visited by Xerxes, who had con-
ceived a desire to go aboard and learn the wishes
of the fleet. So he came and sate in a seat of hon-
our; and the sovereigns of the nations, and the
captains of the ships, were sent for, to appear
before him, and as they arrived took their seats
according to the rank assigned them by the king.
In the first seat sate the king of Sidon; after him,
the king of Tyre; then the rest in their order. When
the whole had taken their places, one after anoth-
er, and were set down in orderly array, Xerxes, to
try them, sent Mardonius and questioned each,
whether a sea-fight should be risked or no.

Mardonius accordingly went round the entire
assemblage, beginning with the Sidonian
monarch, and asked this question; to which all
gave the same answer, advising to engage the
Greeks, except only Artemisia, who spake as fol-
lows (SS 1.):-

“Say to the king, Mardonius, that these are my
words to him: I was not the least brave of those

Herodotus

who fought at Euboea, nor were my achievements
there among the meanest; it is my right, therefore,
O my lord, to tell thee plainly what I think to be
most for thy advantage now. This then is my
advice. Spare thy ships, and do not risk a battle;
for these people are as much superior to thy peo-
ple in seamanship, as men to women. What so
great need is there for thee to incur hazard at sea?
Art thou not master of Athens, for which thou
didst undertake thy expedition? Is not Greece
subject to thee? Not a soul now resists thy
advance. They who once resisted, were handled
even as they deserved. (SS 2.) Now learn how I
expect that affairs will go with thy adversaries. If
thou art not over-hasty to engage with them by
sea, but wilt keep thy fleet near the land, then
whether thou abidest as thou art, or marchest for-
ward towards the Peloponnese, thou wilt easily
accomplish all for which thou art come hither.
The Greeks cannot hold out against thee very
long; thou wilt soon part them asunder, and scat-
ter them to their several homes. In the island
where they lie, I hear they have no food in store;
nor is it likely, if thy land force begins its march

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towards the Peloponnese, that they will remain
quietly where they are- at least such as come from
that region. Of a surety they will not greatly trou-
ble themselves to give battle on behalf of the
Athenians. (SS 3.) On the other hand, if thou art
hasty to fight, I tremble lest the defeat of thy sea
force bring harm likewise to thy land army. This,
too, thou shouldst remember, O king; good mas-
ters are apt to have bad servants, and bad masters
good ones. Now, as thou art the best of men, thy
servants must needs be a sorry set. These
Egyptians, Cyprians, Cilicians, and Pamphylians,
who are counted in the number of thy subject-
allies, of how little service are they to thee!”

As Artemisia spake, they who wished her well
were greatly troubled concerning her words,
thinking that she would suffer some hurt at the
king’s hands, because she exhorted him not to risk
a battle; they, on the other hand, who disliked and
envied her, favoured as she was by the king above
all the rest of the allies, rejoiced at her declara-
tion, expecting that her life would be the forfeit.
But Xerxes, when the words of the several speak-

Herodotus

ers were reported to him, was pleased beyond all
others with the reply of Artemisia; and whereas,
even before this, he had always esteemed her
much, he now praised her more than ever.
Nevertheless, he gave orders that the advice of the
greater number should be followed; for he
thought that at Euboea the fleet had not done its
best, because he himself was not there to see-
whereas this time he resolved that he would be an
eye-witness of the combat.

Orders were now given to stand out to sea; and
the ships proceeded towards Salamis, and took up
the stations to which they were directed, without
let or hindrance from the enemy. The day, howev-
er, was too far spent for them to begin the battle,
since night already approached: so they prepared
to engage upon the morrow. The Greeks, mean-
while, were in great distress and alarm, more
especially those of the Peloponnese, who were
troubled that they had been kept at Salamis to
fight on behalf of the Athenian territory, and
feared that, if they should suffer defeat, they

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would be pent up and besieged in an island, while
their own country was left unprotected.

The same night the land army of the barbarians
began its march towards the Peloponnese, where,
however, all that was possible had been done to
prevent the enemy from forcing an entrance by
land. As soon as ever news reached the
Peloponnese of the death of Leonidas and his
companions at Thermopylae, the inhabitants
flocked together from the various cities, and
encamped at the Isthmus, under the command of
Cleombrotus, son of Anaxandridas, and brother
of Leonidas. Here their first care was to block up
the Scironian Way; after which it was determined
in council to build a wall across the Isthmus. As
the number assembled amounted to many tens of
thousands, and there was not one who did not
give himself to the work, it was soon finished.
Stones, bricks, timber, baskets filled full of sand,
were used in the building; and not a moment was
lost by those who gave their aid; for they
laboured without ceasing either by night or day.

Herodotus

Now the nations who gave their aid, and who had
flocked in full force to the Isthmus, were the fol-
lowing: the Lacedaemonians, all the tribes of the
Arcadians, the Eleans, the Corinthians, the
Sicyonians, the Epidaurians, the Phliasians, the
Troezenians, and the Hermionians. These all gave
their aid, being greatly alarmed at the danger
which threatened Greece. But the other inhabi-
tants of the Peloponnese took no part in the mat-
ter; though the Olympic and Carneian festivals
were now over.

Seven nations inhabit the Peloponnese. Two of
them are aboriginal, and still continue in the
regions where they dwelt at the first- to wit, the
Arcadians and the Cynurians. A third, that of the
Achaeans, has never left the Peloponnese, but has
been dislodged from its own proper country, and
inhabits a district which once belonged to others.
The remaining nations, four out of the seven, are
all immigrants- namely, the Dorians, the
Aetolians, the Dryopians, and the Lemnians. To
the Dorians belong several very famous cities; to
the Aetolians one only, that is, Elis; to the

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Dryopians, Hermione and that Asine which lies
over against Cardamyle in Laconia; to the
Lemnians, all the towns of the Paroreats. The
aboriginal Cynurians alone seem to be Ionians;
even they, however, have, in course of time,
grown to be Dorians, under the government of
the Argives, whose Orneats and vassals they were.
All the cities of these seven nations, except those
mentioned above, stood aloof from the war; and
by so doing, if I may speak freely, they in fact took
part with the Medes.

So the Greeks at the Isthmus toiled unceasingly, as
though in the greatest peril; since they never imag-
ined that any great success would be gained by
the fleet. The Greeks at Salamis, on the other
hand, when they heard what the rest were about,
felt greatly alarmed; but their fear was not so
much for themselves as for the Peloponnese. At
first they conversed together in low tones, each
man with his fellow, secretly, and marvelled at the
folly shown by Eurybiades; but presently the
smothered feeling broke out, and another assem-
bly was held; whereat the old subjects provoked

Herodotus

much talk from the speakers, one side maintain-
ing that it was best to sail to the Peloponnese and
risk battle for that, instead of abiding at Salamis
and fighting for a land already taken by the
enemy; while the other, which consisted of the
Athenians, Eginetans, and Megarians, was urgent
to remain and have the battle fought where they
were.

Then Themistocles, when he saw that the
Peloponnesians would carry the vote against him,
went out secretly from the council, and, instruct-
ing a certain man what he should say, sent him on
board a merchant ship to the fleet of the Medes.
The man’s name was Sicinnus; he was one of
Themistocles’ household slaves, and acted as
tutor to his sons; in after times, when the
Thespians were admitting persons to citizenship,
Themistocles made him a Thespian, and a rich
man to boot. The ship brought Sicinnus to the
Persian fleet, and there he delivered his message to
the leaders in these words:-

“The Athenian commander has sent me to you
privily, without the knowledge of the other

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Greeks. He is a well-wisher to the king’s cause,
and would rather success should attend on you
than on his countrymen; wherefore he bids me tell
you that fear has seized the Greeks and they are
meditating a hasty flight. Now then it is open to
you to achieve the best work that ever ye
wrought, if only ye will hinder their escaping.
They no longer agree among themselves, so that
they will not now make any resistance- nay, ‘tis
likely ye may see a fight already begun between
such as favour and such as oppose your cause.”
The messenger, when he had thus expressed him-
self, departed and was seen no more.

Then the captains, believing all that the messenger
had said, proceeded to land a large body of
Persian troops on the islet of Psyttaleia, which lies
between Salamis and the mainland; after which,
about the hour of midnight, they advanced their
western wing towards Salamis, so as to inclose the
Greeks. At the same time the force stationed
about Ceos and Cynosura moved forward, and
filled the whole strait as far as Munychia with
their ships. This advance was made to prevent the
Greeks from escaping by flight, and to block them

Herodotus

up in Salamis, where it was thought that
vengeance might be taken upon them for the bat-
tles fought near Artemisium. The Persian troops
were landed on the islet of Psyttaleia, because, as
soon as the battle began, the men and wrecks
were likely to be drifted thither, as the isle lay in
the very path of the coming fight- and they would
thus be able to save their own men and destroy
those of the enemy. All these movements were
made in silence, that the Greeks might have no
knowledge of them; and they occupied the whole
night, so that the men had no time to get their
sleep.

I cannot say that there is no truth in prophecies,
or feel inclined to call in question those which
speak with clearness, when I think of the follow-
ing:-

When they shall bridge with their ships to the

sacred strand of Diana

Girt with the golden falchion, and eke to marine

Cynosura,

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Mad hope swelling their hearts at the downfall

of beautiful Athens

Then shall godlike Right extinguish haughty

Presumption,

Insult’s furious offspring, who thinketh to over-

throw all things.

Brass with brass shall mingle, and Mars with

blood shall empurple

Ocean’s waves. Then- then shall the day of

Grecia’s freedom

Come from Victory fair, and Saturn’s son all-

seeing.

When I look to this, and perceive how clearly
Bacis spoke, neither venture myself to say any-
thing against prophecies, nor do approve of oth-
ers impugning them.

Meanwhile, among the captains at Salamis, the
strife of words grew fierce. As yet they did not
know that they were encompassed, but imagined
that the barbarians remained in the same places
where they had seen them the day before.

Herodotus

In the midst of their contention, Aristides, the
son of Lysimachus, who had crossed from Egina,
arrived in Salamis. He was an Athenian, and had
been ostracised by the commonalty; yet I believe,
from what I have heard concerning his character,
that there was not in all Athens a man so worthy
or so just as he. He now came to the council,
and, standing outside, called for Themistocles.
Now Themistocles was not his friend, but his
most determined enemy. However, under the
pressure of the great dangers impending,
Aristides forgot their feud, and called
Themistocles out of the council, since he wished
to confer with him. He had heard before his
arrival of the impatience of the Peloponnesians
to withdraw the fleet to the Isthmus. As soon
therefore as Themistocles came forth, Aristides
addressed him in these words:-

“Our rivalry at all times, and especially at the pre-
sent season, ought to be a struggle, which of us
shall most advantage our country. Let me then say
to thee, that so far as regards the departure of the
Peloponnesians from this place, much talk and lit-

The Histories–Book Eight

tle will be found precisely alike. I have seen with
my own eyes that which I now report: that, how-
ever much the Corinthians or Eurybiades himself
may wish it, they cannot now retreat; for we are
enclosed on every side by the enemy. Go in to
them, and make this known.”

“Thy advice is excellent,” answered the other;
“and thy tidings are also good. That which I
earnestly desired to happen, thine eyes have
beheld accomplished. Know that what the Medes
have now done was at my instance; for it was nec-
essary, as our men would not fight here of their
own free will, to make them fight whether they
would or no. But come now, as thou hast brought
the good news, go in and tell it. For if I speak to
them, they will think it a feigned tale, and will not
believe that the barbarians have inclosed us
around. Therefore do thou go to them, and
inform them how matters stand. If they believe
thee, ‘twill be for the best; but if otherwise, it will
not harm. For it is impossible that they should
now flee away, if we are indeed shut in on all
sides, as thou sayest.”

Herodotus

Then Aristides entered the assembly, and spoke to
the captains: he had come, he told them, from
Egina, and had but barely escaped the blockading
vessels- the Greek fleet was entirely inclosed by
the ships of Xerxes- and he advised them to get
themselves in readiness to resist the foe. Having
said so much, he withdrew. And now another
contest arose; for the greater part of the captains
would not believe the tidings.

But while they still doubted, a Tenian trireme,
commanded by Panaetius the son of Sosimenes,
deserted from the Persians and joined the Greeks,
bringing full intelligence. For this reason the
Tenians were inscribed upon the tripod at Delphi
among those who overthrew the barbarians. With
this ship, which deserted to their side at Salamis,
and the Lemnian vessel which came over before at
Artemisium, the Greek fleet was brought to the
full number of 380 ships; otherwise it fell short by
two of that amount.

The Greeks now, not doubting what the Tenians
told them, made ready for the coming fight. At

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the dawn of day, all the men-at-arms were assem-
bled together, and speeches were made to them, of
which the best was that of Themistocles; who
throughout contrasted what was noble with what
was base, and bade them, in all that came within
the range of man’s nature and constitution,
always to make choice of the nobler part. Having
thus wound up his discourse, he told them to go
at once on board their ships, which they accord-
ingly did; and about his time the trireme, that had
been sent to Egina for the Aeacidae, returned;
whereupon the Greeks put to sea with all their
fleet.

The fleet had scarce left the land when they were
attacked by the barbarians. At once most of the
Greeks began to back water, and were about
touching the shore, when Ameinias of Palline, one
of the Athenian captains, darted forth in front of
the line, and charged a ship of the enemy. The two
vessels became entangled, and could not separate,
whereupon the rest of the fleet came up to help
Ameinias, and engaged with the Persians. Such is
the account which the Athenians give of the way

Herodotus

in which the battle began; but the Eginetans main-
tain that the vessel which had been to Egina for
the Aeacidae, was the one that brought on the
fight. It is also reported, that a phantom in the
form of a woman appeared to the Greeks, and, in
a voice that was heard from end to end of the
fleet, cheered them on to the fight; first, however,
rebuking them, and saying- “Strange men, how
long are ye going to back water?”

Against the Athenians, who held the western
extremity of the line towards Eleusis, were placed
the Phoenicians; against the Lacedaemonians,
whose station was eastward towards the Piraeus,
the Ionians. Of these last a few only followed the
advice of Themistocles, to fight backwardly; the
greater number did far otherwise. I could mention
here the names of many trierarchs who took ves-
sels from the Greeks, but I shall pass over all
excepting Theomestor, the son of Androdamas,
and Phylacus, the son of Histiaeus, both Samians.
I show this preference to them, inasmuch as for
this service Theomestor was made tyrant of

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Samos by the Persians, which Phylacus was
enrolled among the king’s benefactors, and pre-
sented with a large estate in land. In the Persian
tongue the king’s benefactors are called Orosangs.

Far the greater number of the Persian ships
engaged in this battle were disabled, either by the
Athenians or by the Eginetans. For as the Greeks
fought in order and kept their line, while the bar-
barians were in confusion and had no plan in any-
thing that they did, the issue of the battle could
scarce be other than it was. Yet the Persians
fought far more bravely here than at Euboea, and
indeed surpassed themselves; each did his utmost
through fear of Xerxes, for each thought that the
king’s eye was upon himself.

What part the several nations, whether Greek or
barbarian, took in the combat, I am not able to
say for certain; Artemisia, however, I know, dis-
tinguished herself in such a way as raised her even
higher than she stood before in the esteem of the
king. For after confusion had spread throughout

Herodotus

the whole of the king’s fleet, and her ship was
closely pursued by an Athenian trireme, she, hav-
ing no way to fly, since in front of her were a
number of friendly vessels, and she was nearest of
all the Persians to the enemy, resolved on a mea-
sure which in fact proved her safety. Pressed by
the Athenian pursuer, she bore straight against
one of the ships of her own party, a Calyndian,
which had Damasithymus, the Calyndian king,
himself on board. I cannot say whether she had
had any quarrel with the man while the fleet was
at the Hellespont, or no- neither can I decide
whether she of set purpose attacked his vessel, or
whether it merely chanced that the Calyndian
ship came in her way- but certain it is that she
bore down upon his vessel and sank it, and that
thereby she had the good fortune to procure her-
self a double advantage. For the commander of
the Athenian trireme, when he saw her bear down
on one of the enemy’s fleet, thought immediately
that her vessel was a Greek, or else had deserted
from the Persians, and was now fighting on the
Greek side; he therefore gave up the chase, and
turned away to attack others.

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Thus in the first place she saved her life by the
action, and was enabled to get clear off from the
battle; while further, it fell out that in the very act
of doing the king an injury she raised herself to a
greater height than ever in his esteem. For as
Xerxes beheld the fight, he remarked (it is said)
the destruction of the vessel, whereupon the
bystanders observed to him- “Seest thou, master,
how well Artemisia fights, and how she has just
sunk a ship of the enemy?” Then Xerxes asked if
it were really Artemisia’s doing; and they
answered, “Certainly; for they knew her ensign”:
while all made sure that the sunken vessel
belonged to the opposite side. Everything, it is
said, conspired to prosper the queen- it was espe-
cially fortunate for her that not one of those on
board the Calyndian ship survived to become her
accuser. Xerxes, they say, in reply to the remarks
made to him, observed- “My men have behaved
like women, my women like men!”

There fell in this combat Ariabignes, one of the
chief commanders of the fleet, who was son of
Darius and brother of Xerxes; and with him per-

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ished a vast number of men of high repute,
Persians, Medes, and allies. Of the Greeks there
died only a few; for, as they were able to swim, all
those that were not slain outright by the enemy
escaped from the sinking vessels and swam across
to Salamis. But on the side of the barbarians more
perished by drowning than in any other way,
since they did not know how to swim. The great
destruction took place when the ships which had
been first engaged began to fly; for they who were
stationed in the rear, anxious to display their val-
our before the eyes of the king, made every effort
to force their way to the front, and thus became
entangled with such of their own vessels as were
retreating.

In this confusion the following event occurred:
certain Phoenicians belonging to the ships which
had thus perished made their appearance before
the king, and laid the blame of their loss on the
Ionians, declaring that they were traitors, and had
wilfully destroyed the vessels. But the upshot of
this complaint was that the Ionian captains
escaped the death which threatened them, while

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their Phoenician accusers received death as their
reward. For it happened that, exactly as they
spoke, a Samothracian vessel bore down on an
Athenian and sank it, but was attacked and crip-
pled immediately by one of the Eginetan
squadron. Now the Samothracians were expert
with the javelin, and aimed their weapons so well,
that they cleared the deck of the vessel which had
disabled their own, after which they sprang on
board, and took it. This saved the Ionians.
Xerxes, when he saw the exploit, turned fiercely
on the Phoenicians- (he was ready, in his extreme
vexation, to find fault with any one)- and ordered
their heads to be cut off, to prevent them, he said,
from casting the blame of their own misconduct
upon braver men. During the whole time of the
battle Xerxes sate at the base of the hill called
Aegaleos, over against Salamis; and whenever he
saw any of his own captains perform any worthy
exploit he inquired concerning him; and the man’s
name was taken down by his scribes, together
with the names of his father and his city.
Ariaramnes too, a Persian, who was a friend of
the Ionians, and present at the time whereof I

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speak, had a share in bringing about the punish-
ment of the Phoenicians.

When the rout of the barbarians began, and they
sought to make their escape to Phalerum, the
Eginetans, awaiting them in the channel, per-
formed exploits worthy to be recorded. Through
the whole of the confused struggle the Athenians
employed themselves in destroying such ships as
either made resistance or fled to shore, while the
Eginetans dealt with those which endeavoured to
escape down the strait; so that the Persian vessels
were no sooner clear of the Athenians than forth-
with they fell into the hands of the Eginetan
squadron.

It chanced here that there was a meeting between
the ship of Themistocles, which was hasting in
pursuit of the enemy, and that of Polycritus, son
of Crius the Eginetan, which had just charged a
Sidonian trireme. The Sidonian vessel was the
same that captured the Eginetan guard-ship off
Sciathus, which had Pythias, the son of Ischenous,
on board- that Pythias, I mean, who fell covered

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with wounds, and whom the Sidonians kept on
board their ship, from admiration of his gallantry.
This man afterwards returned in safety to Egina;
for when the Sidonian vessel with its Persian crew
fell into the hands of the Greeks, he was still
found on board. Polycritus no sooner saw the
Athenian trireme than, knowing at once whose
vessel it was, as he observed that it bore the
ensign of the admiral, he shouted to Themistocles
jeeringly, and asked him, in a tone of reproach, if
the Eginetans did not show themselves rare
friends to the Medes. At the same time, while he
thus reproached Themistocles, Polycritus bore
straight down on the Sidonian. Such of the bar-
barian vessels as escaped from the battle fled to
Phalerum, and there sheltered themselves under
the protection of the land army.

The Greeks who gained the greatest glory of all in
the sea-fight off Salamis were the Eginetans, and
after them the Athenians. The individuals of most
distinction were Polycritus the Eginetan, and two
Athenians, Eumenes of Anagyrus, and Ameinias
of Palline; the latter of whom had pressed

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Artemisia so hard. And assuredly, if he had
known that the vessel carried Artemisia on board,
he would never have given over the chase till he
had either succeeded in taking her, or else been
taken himself. For the Athenian captains had
received special orders touching the queen; and
moreover a reward of ten thousand drachmas had
been proclaimed for any one who should make
her prisoner; since there was great indignation felt
that a woman should appear in arms against
Athens. However, as I said before, she escaped;
and so did some others whose ships survived the
engagement; and these were all now assembled at
the port of Phalerum.

The Athenians say that Adeimantus, the
Corinthian commander, at the moment when the
two fleets joined battle, was seized with fear, and
being beyond measure alarmed, spread his sails,
and hasted to fly away; on which the other
Corinthians, seeing their leader’s ship in full
flight, sailed off likewise. They had reached in
their flight that part of the coast of Salamis where

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stands the temple of Minerva Sciras, when they
met a light bark, a very strange apparition: it was
never discovered that any one had sent it to them;
and till it appeared they were altogether ignorant
how the battle was going. That there was some-
thing beyond nature in the matter they judged
from this- that when the men in the bark drew
near to their ships they addressed them, saying-
“Adeimantus, while thou playest the traitor’s
part, by withdrawing all these ships, and flying
away from the fight, the Greeks whom thou hast
deserted are defeating their foes as completely as
they ever wished in their prayers.” Adeimantus,
however, would not believe what the men said;
whereupon they told him “he might take them
with him as hostages, and put them to death if he
did not find the Greeks winning.” Then
Adeimantus put about, both he and those who
were with him; and they re-joined the fleet when
the victory was already gained. Such is the tale
which the Athenians tell concerning them of
Corinth; these latter however do not allow its
truth. On the contrary, they declare that they

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were among those who distinguished themselves
most in the fight. And the rest of Greece bears
witness in their favour.

In the midst of the confusion Aristides, the son of
Lysimachus, the Athenian, of whom I lately spoke
as a man of the greatest excellence, performed the
following service. He took a number of the
Athenian heavy-armed troops, who had previous-
ly been stationed along the shore of Salamis, and,
landing with them on the islet of Psyttaleia, slew
all the Persians by whom it was occupied.

As soon as the sea-fight was ended, the Greeks
drew together to Salamis all the wrecks that were
to be found in that quarter, and prepared them-
selves for another engagement, supposing that the
king would renew the fight with the vessels which
still remained to him. Many of the wrecks had
been carried away by a westerly wind to the coast
of Attica, where they were thrown upon the strip
of shore called Colias. Thus not only were the
prophecies of Bacis and Musaeus concerning this
battle fulfilled completely, but likewise, by the

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place to which the wrecks were drifted, the pre-
diction of Lysistratus, an Athenian soothsayer,
uttered many years before these events, and quite
forgotten at the time by all the Greeks, was fully
accomplished. The words were-

Then shall the sight of the oars fill Colian dames
with amazement. Now this must have happened
as soon as the king was departed.

Xerxes, when he saw the extent of his loss, began
to be afraid lest the Greeks might be counselled by
the Ionians, or without their advice might deter-
mine to sail straight to the Hellespont and break
down the bridges there; in which case he would
be blocked up in Europe, and run great risk of
perishing. He therefore made up his mind to fly;
but, as he wished to hide his purpose alike from
the Greeks and from his own people, he set to
work to carry a mound across the channel to
Salamis, and at the same time began fastening a
number of Phoenician merchant ships together, to
serve at once for a bridge and a wall. He likewise
made many warlike preparations, as if he were

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about to engage the Greeks once more at sea.
Now, when these things were seen, all grew fully
persuaded that the king was bent on remaining,
and intended to push the war in good earnest.
Mardonius, however, was in no respect deceived;
for long acquaintance enabled him to read all the
king’s thoughts. Meanwhile, Xerxes, though
engaged in this way, sent off a messenger to carry
intelligence of his misfortune to Persia.

Nothing mortal travels so fast as these Persian
messengers. The entire plan is a Persian invention;
and this is the method of it. Along the whole line
of road there are men (they say) stationed with
horses, in number equal to the number of days
which the journey takes, allowing a man and
horse to each day; and these men will not be hin-
dered from accomplishing at their best speed the
distance which they have to go, either by snow, or
rain, or heat, or by the darkness of night. The first
rider delivers his despatch to the second and the
second passes it to the third; and so it is borne
from hand to hand along the whole line, like the
light in the torch-race, which the Greeks celebrate

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to Vulcan. The Persians give the riding post in this
manner, the name of “Angarum.”

At Susa, on the arrival of the first message, which
said that Xerxes was master of Athens, such was
the delight of the Persians who had remained
behind, that they forthwith strewed all the streets
with myrtle boughs, and burnt incense, and fell to
feasting and merriment. In like manner, when the
second message reached them, so sore was their
dismay, that they all with one accord rent their
garments, and cried aloud, and wept and wailed
without stint. They laid the blame of the disaster
on Mardonius; and their grief on the occasion
was less on account of the damage done to their
ships, than owing to the alarm which they felt
about the safety of the king. Hence their trouble
did not cease till Xerxes himself, by his arrival,
put an end to their fears.

And now Mardonius, perceiving that Xerxes took
the defeat of his fleet greatly to heart, and sus-
pecting that he had made up his mind to leave
Athens and fly away, began to think of the likeli-

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hood of his being visited with punishment for
having persuaded the king to undertake the war.
He therefore considered that it would be the best
thing for him to adventure further, and either
become the conqueror of Greece- which was the
result he rather expected- or else die gloriously
after aspiring to a noble achievement. So with
these thoughts in his mind, he said one day to the
king:-

“Do not grieve, master, or take so greatly to heart
thy late loss. Our hopes hang not altogether on
the fate of a few planks, but on our brave steeds
and horsemen. These fellows, whom thou imag-
inest to have quite conquered us, will not venture-
no, not one of them- to come ashore and contend
with our land army; nor will the Greeks who are
upon the mainland fight our troops; such as did
so have received their punishment. If thou so
pleasest, we may at once attack the Peloponnese;
if thou wouldst rather wait a while, that too is in
our power. Only be not disheartened. For it is not
possible that the Greeks can avoid being brought
to account, alike for this and for their former

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injuries; nor can they anyhow escape being thy
slaves. Thou shouldst therefore do as I have said.
If, however, thy mind is made up, and thou art
resolved to retreat and lead away thy army, listen
to the counsel which, in that case, I have to offer.
Make not the Persians, O king! a laughing-stock
to the Greeks. If thy affairs have succeeded ill, it
has not been by their fault; thou canst not say that
thy Persians have ever shown themselves cow-
ards. What matters it if Phoenicians and
Egyptians, Cyprians and Cilicians, have misbe-
haved?- their misconduct touches not us. Since
then thy Persians are without fault, be advised by
me. Depart home, if thou art so minded, and take
with thee the bulk of thy army; but first let me
choose out 300,000 troops, and let it be my task
to bring Greece beneath thy sway.”

Xerxes, when he heard these words, felt a sense of
joy and delight, like a man who is relieved from
care. Answering Mardonius, therefore, “that he
would consider his counsel, and let him know
which course he might prefer,” Xerxes proceeded
to consult with the chief men among the Persians;

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and because Artemisia on the former occasion
had shown herself the only person who knew
what was best to be done, he was pleased to sum-
mon her to advise him now. As soon as she
arrived, he put forth all the rest, both councillors
and bodyguards, and said to her:-

“Mardonius wishes me to stay and attack the
Peloponnese. My Persians, he says, and my other
land forces, are not to blame for the disasters
which have befallen our arms; and of this he
declares they would very gladly give me the proof.
He therefore exhorts me, either to stay and act as
I have said, or to let him choose Out 300,000 of
my troops- wherewith he undertakes to reduce
Greece beneath my sway- while I myself retire
with the rest of my forces, and withdraw into my
own country. Do thou, therefore, as thou didst
counsel me so wisely to decline the sea-fight, now
also advise me in this matter, and say, which
course of the twain I ought to take for my own
good.”

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Thus did the king ask Artemisia’s counsel; and the
following are the words wherewith she answered
him:-

“‘Tis a hard thing, O king! to give the best possi-
ble advice to one who asks our counsel.
Nevertheless, as thy affairs now stand, it seemeth
to me that thou wilt do right to return home. As
for Mardonius, if he prefers to remain, and under-
takes to do as he has said, leave him behind by all
means, with the troops which he desires. If his
design succeeds, and he subdues the Greeks, as he
promises, thine is the conquest, master; for thy
slaves will have accomplished it. If, on the other
hand, affairs run counter to his wishes, we can
suffer no great loss, so long as thou art safe, and
thy house is in no danger. The Greeks, too, while
thou livest, and thy house flourishes, must be pre-
pared to fight full many a battle for their freedom;
whereas if Mardonius fall, it matters nothing-
they will have gained but a poor triumph- a vic-
tory over one of thy slaves! Remember also, thou
goest home having gained the purpose of thy
expedition; for thou hast burnt Athens!”

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The advice of Artemisia pleased Xerxes well; for
she had exactly uttered his own thoughts. I, for
my part, do not believe that he would have
remained had all his counsellors, both men and
women, united to urge his stay, so great was the
alarm that he felt. As it was, he gave praise to
Artemisia, and entrusted certain of his children to
her care, ordering her to convey them to Ephesus;
for he had been accompanied on the expedition
by some of his natural sons.

He likewise sent away at this time one of the prin-
cipal of his eunuchs, a man named Hermotimus,
a Pedasian, who was bidden to take charge of
these sons. Now the Pedasians inhabit the region
above Halicarnassus; and it is related of them,
that in their country the following circumstance
happens: when a mischance is about to befall any
of their neighbours within a certain time, the
priestess of Minerva in their city grows a long
beard. This has already taken place on two occa-
sions.

The Hermotimus of whom I spoke above was, as
I said, a Pedasian; and he, of all men whom we

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know, took the most cruel vengeance on the per-
son who had done him an injury. He had been
made a prisoner of war, and when his captors sold
him, he was bought by a certain Panionius, a
native of Chios, who made his living by a most
nefarious traffic. Whenever he could get any boys
of unusual beauty, he made them eunuchs, and,
carrying them to Sardis or Ephesus, sold them for
large sums of money. For the barbarians value
eunuchs more than others, since they regard them
as more trustworthy. Many were the slaves that
Panionius, who made his living by the practice,
had thus treated; and among them was this
Hermotimus of whom I have here made mention.
However, he was not without his share of good
fortune; for after a while he was sent from Sardis,
together with other gifts, as a present to the king.
Nor was it long before he came to be esteemed by
Xerxes more highly than all his eunuchs.

When the king was on his way to Athens with the
Persian army, and abode for a time at Sardis,
Hermotimus happened to make a journey upon
business into Mysia; and there, in a district which
is called Atarneus, but belongs to Chios, he

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chanced to fall in with Panionius. Recognising
him at once, he entered into a long and friendly
talk with him, wherein he counted up the numer-
ous blessings he enjoyed through his means, and
promised him all manner of favours in return, if
he would bring his household to Sardis and live
there. Panionius was overjoyed, and, accepting
the offer made him, came presently, and brought
with him his wife and children. Then
Hermotimus, when he had got Panionius and all
his family into his power, addressed him in these
words:-

“Thou man, who gettest a living by viler deeds
than any one else in the whole world, what wrong
to thee or thine had I or any of mine done, that
thou shouldst have made me the nothing that I
now am? Ah! surely thou thoughtest that the gods
took no note of thy crimes. But they in their jus-
tice have delivered thee, the doer of unrighteous-
ness, into my hands; and now thou canst not
complain of the vengeance which I am resolved to
take on thee.”

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After these reproaches, Hermotimus commanded
the four sons of Panionius to be brought, and
forced the father to make them eunuchs with his
own hand. Unable to resist, he did as Hermotimus
required; and then his sons were made to treat
him in the self-same way. So in this way there
came to Panionius requital at the hands of
Hermotimus.

Xerxes, after charging Artemisia to convey his
sons safe to Ephesus, sent for Mardonius, and
bade him choose from all his army such men as he
wished, and see that he made his achievements
answer to his promises. During this day he did no
more; but no sooner was night come, than he
issued his orders, and at once the captains of the
ships left Phalerum, and bore away for the
Hellespont, each making all the speed he could,
and hasting to guard the bridges against the king’s
return. On their way, as they sailed by Zoster,
where certain narrow points of land project into
the sea, they took the cliffs for vessels, and fled far
away in alarm. Discovering their mistake, howev-

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er, after a time, they joined company once more,
and proceeded upon their voyage.

Next day the Greeks, seeing the land force of the
barbarians encamped in the same place, thought
that their ships must still be lying at Phalerum;
and, expecting another attack from that quarter,
made preparations to defend themselves. Soon
however news came that the ships were all depart-
ed and gone away; whereupon it was instantly
resolved to make sail in pursuit. They went as far
as Andros; but, seeing nothing of the Persian fleet,
they stopped at that place, and held a council of
war. At this council Themistocles advised that the
Greeks should follow on through the islands, still
pressing the pursuit, and making all haste to the
Hellespont, there to break down the bridges.
Eurybiades, however, delivered a contrary opin-
ion. “If,” he said, “the Greeks should break down
the bridges, it would be the worst thing that could
possibly happen for Greece. The Persian, suppos-
ing that his retreat were cut off, and he compelled
to remain in Europe, would be sure never to give
them any peace. Inaction on his part would ruin

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all his affairs, and leave him no chance of ever
getting back to Asia- nay, would even cause his
army to perish by famine: whereas, if he bestirred
himself, and acted vigorously, it was likely that
the whole of Europe would in course of time
become subject to him; since, by degrees, the var-
ious towns and tribes would either fall before his
arms, or else agree to terms of submission; and in
this way, his troops would find food sufficient for
them, since each year the Greek harvest would be
theirs. As it was, the Persian, because he had lost
the sea-fight, intended evidently to remain no
longer in Europe. The Greeks ought to let him
depart; and when he was gone from among them,
and had returned into his own country, then
would be the time for them to contend with him
for the possession of that.”

The other captains of the Peloponnesians declared
themselves of the same mind.

Whereupon Themistocles, finding that the major-
ity was against him, and that he could not per-
suade them to push on to the Hellespont, changed

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round, and addressing himself to the Athenians,
who of all the allies were the most nettled at the
enemy’s escape, and who eagerly desired, if the
other Greeks would not stir, to sail on by them-
selves to the Hellespont and break the bridges,
spake as follows:-

“I have often myself witnessed occasions, and I
have heard of many more from others, where men
who had been conquered by an enemy, having
been driven quite to desperation, have renewed
the fight, and retrieved their former disasters. We
have now had the great good luck to save both
ourselves and all Greece by the repulse of this vast
cloud of men; let us then be content and not press
them too hard, now that they have begun to fly.
Be sure we have not done this by our own might.
It is the work of gods and heroes, who were jeal-
ous that one man should be king at once of
Europe and of Asia- more especially a man like
this, unholy and presumptuous- a man who
esteems alike things sacred and things profane;
who has cast down and burnt the very images of
the gods themselves; who even caused the sea to

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be scourged with rods and commanded fetters to
be thrown into it. At present all is well with us- let
us then abide in Greece, and look to ourselves and
to our families. The barbarian is clean gone- we
have driven him off- let each now repair his own
house, and sow his land diligently. In the spring
we will take ship and sail to the Hellespont and to
Ionia!” All this Themistocles said in the hope of
establishing a claim upon the king; for he wanted
to have a safe retreat in case any mischance
should befall him at Athens- which indeed came
to pass afterwards.

At present, however, he dissembled; and the
Athenians were persuaded by his words. For they
were ready now to do whatever he advised; since
they had always esteemed him a wise man, and he
had lately proved himself most truly wise and
well-judging. Accordingly, they came in to his
views; whereupon he lost no time in sending mes-
sengers, on board a light bark, to the king, choos-
ing for this purpose men whom he could trust to
keep his instructions secret, even although they
should be put to every kind of torture. Among

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them was the house-slave Sicinnus, the same
whom he had made use of previously. When the
men reached Attica, all the others stayed with the
boat; but Sicinnus went up to the king, and spake
to him as follows:-

“I am sent to thee by Themistocles, the son of
Neocles, who is the leader of the Athenians, and
the wisest and bravest man of all the allies, to
bear thee this message: ‘Themistocles the
Athenian, anxious to render thee a service, has
restrained the Greeks, who were impatient to pur-
sue thy ships, and to break up the bridges at the
Hellespont. Now, therefore, return home at thy
leisure.’”

The messengers, when they had performed their
errand, sailed back to the fleet.

And the Greeks, having resolved that they would
neither proceed further in pursuit of the barbar-
ians, nor push forward to the Hellespont and
destroy the passage, laid siege to Andros, intend-
ing to take the town by storm. For Themistocles

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had required the Andrians to pay down a sum of
money; and they had refused, being the first of all
the islanders who did so. To his declaration, “that
the money must needs be paid, as the Athenians
had brought with him two mighty gods-
Persuasion and Necessity,” they made reply, that
“Athens might well be a great and glorious city,
since she was blest with such excellent gods; but
they were wretchedly poor, stinted for land, and
cursed with two unprofitable gods, who always
dwelt with them and would never quit their
island- to wit, Poverty and Helplessness. These
were the gods of the Andrians, and therefore they
would not pay the money. For the power of
Athens could not possibly be stronger than their
inability.” This reply, coupled with the refusal to
pay the sum required, caused their city to be
besieged by the Greeks.

Meanwhile Themistocles, who never ceased his
pursuit of gain, sent threatening messages to the
other islanders with demands for different sums,
employing the same messengers and the same
words as he had used towards the Andrians. “If,”

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he said, “they did not send him the amount
required, he would bring the Greek fleet upon
them, and besiege them till he took their cities.”
By these means he collected large sums from the
Carystians and the Parians, who, when they heard
that Andros was already besieged, and that
Themistocles was the best esteemed of all the cap-
tains, sent the money through fear. Whether any
of the other islanders did the like, I cannot say for
certain; but I think some did besides those I have
mentioned. However, the Carystians, though they
complied, were not spared any the more; but
Themistocles was softened by the Parians’ gift,
and therefore they received no visit from the
army. In this way it was that Themistocles, during
his stay at Andros, obtained money from the
islanders, unbeknown to the other captains.

King Xerxes and his army waited but a few days
after the sea-fight, and then withdrew into
Boeotia by the road which they had followed on
their advance. It was the wish of Mardonius to
escort the king a part of the way; and as the time

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of year was no longer suitable for carrying on
war, he thought it best to winter in Thessaly, and
wait for the spring before he attempted the
Peloponnese. After the army was come into
Thessaly, Mardonius made choice of the troops
that were to stay with him; and, first of all, he
took the whole body called the “Immortals,”
except only their leader, Hydarnes, who refused
to quit the person of the king. Next, he chose the
Persians who wore breastplates, and the thousand
picked horse; likewise the Medes, the Sacans, the
Bactrians, and the Indians, foot and horse equal-
ly. These nations he took entire: from the rest of
the allies he culled a few men, taking either such
as were remarkable for their appearance, or else
such as had performed, to his knowledge, some
valiant deed. The Persians furnished him with the
greatest number of troops, men who were
adorned with chains and armlets. Next to them
were the Medes, who in number equalled the
Persians, but in valour fell short of them. The
whole army, reckoning the horsemen with the
rest, amounted to 300,000 men.

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At the time when Mardonius was making choice
of his troops, and Xerxes still continued in
Thessaly, the Lacedaemonians received a message
from the Delphic oracle, bidding them seek satis-
faction at the hands of Xerxes for the death of
Leonidas, and take whatever he chose to give
them. So the Spartans sent a herald with all speed
into Thessaly, who arrived while the entire
Persian army was still there. This man, being
brought before the king, spake as follows:-

“King of the Medes, the Lacedaemonians and the
Heracleids of Sparta require of thee the satisfac-
tion due for bloodshed, because thou slewest their
king, who fell fighting for Greece.”

Xerxes laughed, and for a long time spake not a
word. At last, however, he pointed to Mardonius,
who was standing by him, and said:- “Mardonius
here shall give them the satisfaction they deserve
to get.” And the herald accepted the answer, and
forthwith went his way.

Xerxes, after this, left Mardonius in Thessaly, and
marched away himself, at his best speed, toward

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the Hellespont. In five-and-forty days he reached
the place of passage, where he arrived with scarce
a fraction, so to speak, of his former army. All
along their line of march, in every country where
they chanced to be, his soldiers seized and
devoured whatever corn they could find belong-
ing to the inhabitants; while, if no corn was to be
found, they gathered the grass that grew in the
fields, and stripped the trees, whether cultivated
or wild, alike of their bark and of their leaves, and
so fed themselves. They left nothing anywhere, so
hard were they pressed by hunger. Plague too and
dysentery attacked the troops while still upon
their march, and greatly thinned their ranks.
Many died; others fell sick and were left behind in
the different cities that lay upon the route, the
inhabitants being strictly charged by Xerxes to
tend and feed them. Of these some remained in
Thessaly, others in Siris of Paeonia, others again
in Macedon. Here Xerxes, on his march into
Greece, had left the sacred car and steeds of Jove;
which upon his return he was unable to recover;
for the Paeonians had disposed of them to the
Thracians, and, when Xerxes demanded them
back, they said that the Thracian tribes who dwelt

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about the sources of the Strymon had stolen the
mares as they pastured.

Here too a Thracian chieftain, king of the
Bisaltians and of Crestonia, did a deed which
went beyond nature. He had refused to become
the willing slave of Xerxes, and had fled before
him into the heights of Rhodope, at the same time
forbidding his sons to take part in the expedition
against Greece. But they, either because they cared
little for his orders, or because they wished great-
ly to see the war, joined the army of Xerxes. At
this time they had all returned home to him- the
number of the men was six- quite safe and sound.
But their father took them, and punished their
offence by plucking out their eyes from the sock-
ets. Such was the treatment which these men
received.

The Persians, having journeyed through Thrace
and reached the passage, entered their ships hasti-
ly and crossed the Hellespont to Abydos. The
bridges were not found stretched across the strait;
since a storm had broken and dispersed them. At

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Abydos the troops halted, and, obtaining more
abundant provision than they had yet got upon
their march, they fed without stint; from which
cause, added to the change in their water, great
numbers of those who had hitherto escaped per-
ished. The remainder, together with Xerxes him-
self, came safe to Sardis.

There is likewise another account given of the
return of the king. It is said that when Xerxes on
his way from Athens arrived at Eion upon the
Strymon, he gave up travelling by land, and,
intrusting Hydarnes with the conduct of his forces
to the Hellespont, embarked himself on board a
Phoenician ship, and so crossed into Asia. On his
voyage the ship was assailed by a strong wind
blowing from the mouth of the Strymon, which
caused the sea to run high. As the storm
increased, and the ship laboured heavily, because
of the number of the Persians who had come in
the king’s train, and who now crowded the deck,
Xerxes was seized with fear, and called out to the
helmsman in a loud voice, asking him, if there
were any means whereby they might escape the

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danger. “No means, master,” the helmsman
answered, “unless we could be quit of these too
numerous passengers.” Xerxes, they say, on hear-
ing this, addressed the Persians as follows: “Men
of Persia,” he said, “now is the time for you to
show what love ye bear your king. My safety, as
it seems, depends wholly upon you.” So spake the
king; and the Persians instantly made obeisance,
and then leapt over into the sea. Thus was the
ship lightened, and Xerxes got safe to Asia. As
soon as he had reached the shore, he sent for the
helmsman, and gave him a golden crown because
he had preserved the life of the kings- but because
he had caused the death of a number of Persians,
he ordered his head to be struck from his shoul-
ders.

Such is the other account which is given of the
return of Xerxes; but to me it seems quite unwor-
thy of belief, alike in other respects, and in what
relates to the Persians. For had the helmsman
made any such speech to Xerxes, I suppose there
is not one man in ten thousand who will doubt

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that this is the course which the king would have
followed:- he would have made the men upon the
ship’s deck, who were not only Persians, but
Persians of the very highest rank, quit their place
and go down below; and would have cast into the
sea an equal number of the rowers, who were
Phoenicians. But the truth is, that the king, as I
have already said, returned into Asia by the same
road as the rest of the army.

I will add a strong proof of this. It is certain that
Xerxes on his way back from Greece passed
through Abdera, where he made a contract of
friendship with the inhabitants, and presented
them with a golden scymitar, and a tiara broi-
dered with gold. The Abderites declare- but I put
no faith in this part of their story- that from the
time of the king’s leaving Athens, he never once
loosed his girdle till he came to their city, since it
was not till then that he felt himself in safety.
Now Abdera is nearer to the Hellespont than
Eion and the Strymon, where Xerxes, according
to the other tale, took ship.

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Meanwhile the Greeks, finding that they could
not capture Andros, sailed away to Carystus, and
wasted the lands of the Carystians, after which
they returned to Salamis. Arrived here, they pro-
ceeded, before entering on any other matter, to
make choice of the first-fruits which should be set
apart as offerings to the gods. These consisted of
divers gifts; among them were three Phoenician
triremes, one of which was dedicated at the
Isthmus, where it continued to my day; another at
Sunium; and the third, at Salamis itself, which
was devoted to Ajax. This done, they made a divi-
sion of the booty, and sent away the first-fruits to
Delphi. Thereof was made the statue, holding in
its hand the beak of a ship, which is twelve cubits
high, and which stands in the same place with the
golden one of Alexander the Macedonian.

After the first-fruits had been sent to Delphi, the
Greeks made inquiry of the god, in the name of
their whole body, if he had received his full share
of the spoils and was satisfied therewith. The god
made answer that all the other Greeks had paid
him his full due, except only the Eginetans; on

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them he had still a claim for the prize of valour
which they had gained at Salamis. So the
Eginetans, when they heard this, dedicated the
three golden stars which stand on the top of a
bronze mast in the corner near the bowl offered
by Croesus.

When the spoils had been divided, the Greeks
sailed to the Isthmus, where a prize of valour was
to be awarded to the man who, of all the Greeks,
had shown the most merit during the war. When
the chiefs were all come, they met at the altar of
Neptune, and took the ballots wherewith they
were to give their votes for the first and for the
second in merit. Then each man gave himself the
first vote, since each considered that he was him-
self the worthiest; but the second votes were given
chiefly to Themistocies. In this way, while the oth-
ers received but one vote apiece, Themistocles had
for the second prize a large majority of the suf-
frages.

Envy, however, hindered the chiefs from coming
to a decision, and they all sailed away to their

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homes without making any award. Nevertheless
Themistocles was regarded everywhere as by far
the wisest man of all the Greeks; and the whole
country rang with his fame. As the chiefs who
fought at Salamis, notwithstanding that he was
really entitled to the prize, had withheld his hon-
our from him, he went without delay to
Lacedaemon, in the hope that he would be hon-
oured there. And the Lacedaemonians received
him handsomely, and paid him great respect. The
prize of valour indeed, which was a crown of
olive, they gave to Eurybiades; but Themistocles
was given a crown of olive too, as the prize of
wisdom and dexterity. He was likewise presented
with the most beautiful chariot that could be
found in Sparta; and after receiving abundant
praises, was, upon his departure, escorted as far
as the borders of Tegea, by the three hundred
picked Spartans, who are called the Knights.
Never was it known, either before or since, that
the Spartans escorted a man out of their city.

On the return of Themistocles to Athens,
Timodemus of Aphidnae, who was one of his ene-

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mies, but otherwise a man of no repute, became
so maddened with envy that he openly railed
against him, and, reproaching him with his jour-
ney to Sparta, said- “‘Twas not his own merit that
had won him honour from the men of
Lacedaemon, but the fame of Athens, his coun-
try.” Then Themistocles, seeing that Timodemus
repeated this phrase unceasingly, replied-

“Thus stands the case, friend. I had never got this
honour from the Spartans, had I been a Belbinite-
nor thou, hadst thou been an Athenian!”

Artabazus, the son of Pharnaces, a man whom the
Persians had always held in much esteem, but
who, after the affair of Plataea, rose still higher in
their opinion, escorted King Xerxes as far as the
strait, with sixty thousand of the chosen troops of
Mardonius. When the king was safe in Asia,
Artabazus set out upon his return; and on arriv-
ing near Palline, and finding that Mardonius had
gone into winter-quarters in Thessaly and
Macedonia, and was in no hurry for him to join
the camp, he thought it his bounden duty, as the

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Potidaeans had just revolted, to occupy himself in
reducing them to slavery. For as soon as the king
had passed beyond their territory, and the Persian
fleet had made its hasty flight from Salamis, the
Potidaeans revolted from the barbarians openly;
as likewise did all the other inhabitants of that
peninsula.

Artabazus, therefore, laid siege to Potidaea; and
having a suspicion that the Olynthians were like-
ly to revolt shortly, he besieged their city also.
Now Olynthus was at that time held by the
Bottiaeans, who had been driven from the parts
about the Thermaic Gulf by the Macedonians.
Artabazus took the city, and, having so done, led
out all the inhabitants to a marsh in the neigh-
bourhood, and there slew them. After this he
delivered the place into the hands of the people
called Chalcideans, having first appointed
Critobulus of Torone to be governor. Such was
the way in which the Chalcideans got Olynthus.

When this town had fallen, Artabazus pressed the
siege of Potidaea all the more unremittingly; and

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was pushing his operations with vigour, when
Timoxenus, captain of the Scionaeans, entered
into a plot to betray the town to him. How the
matter was managed at first, I cannot pretend to
say, for no account has come down to us: but at
the last this is what happened. Whenever
Timoxenus wished to send a letter to Artabazus,
or Artabazus to send one to Timoxenus, the letter
was written on a strip of paper, and rolled round
the notched end of an arrow-shaft; the feathers
were then put on over the paper, and the arrow
thus prepared was shot to some place agreed
upon. But after a while the plot of Timoxenus to
betray Potidaea was discovered in this way.
Artabazus, on one occasion, shot off his arrow,
intending to send it to the accustomed place, but,
missing his mark, hit one of the Potidaeans in the
shoulder. A crowd gathered about the wounded
man, as commonly happens in war; and when the
arrow was pulled out, they noticed the paper, and
straightway carried it to the captains who were
present from the various cities of the peninsula.
The captains read the letter, and, finding who the
traitor was, nevertheless resolved, out of regard

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for the city of Scione, that as they did not wish the
Scionaeans to be thenceforth branded with the
name of traitors, they would not bring against
him any charge of treachery. Such accordingly
was the mode in which this plot was discovered.

After Artabazus had continued the siege by the
space of three months, it happened that there was
an unusual ebb of the tide, which lasted a long
while. So when the barbarians saw that what had
been sea was now no more than a swamp, they
determined to push across it into Pallene, And
now the troops had already made good two-fifths
of their passage, and three-fifths still remained
before they could reach Palline, when the tide
came in with a very high flood, higher than had
ever been seen before, as the inhabitants of those
parts declare, though high floods are by no means
uncommon. All who were not able to swim per-
ished immediately; the rest were slain by the
Potidaeans, who bore down upon them in their
sailing vessels. The Potidaeans say that what
caused this swell and flood, and so brought about
the disaster of the Persians which ensued there-

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from, was the profanation, by the very men now
destroyed in the sea, of the temple and image of
Neptune, situated in their suburb. And in this
they seem to me to say well. Artabazus afterwards
led away the remainder of his army, and joined
Mardonius in Thessaly. Thus fared it with the
Persians who escorted the king to the strait.

As for that part of the fleet of Xerxes which had
survived the battle, when it had made good its
escape from Salamis to the coast of Asia, and con-
veyed the king with his army across the strait
from the Chersonese to Abydos, it passed the win-
ter at Cyme. On the first approach of spring, there
was an early muster of the ships at Samos, where
some of them indeed had remained throughout
the winter. Most of the men-at-arms who served
on board were Persians, or else Medes; and the
command of the fleet had been taken by
Mardontes, the son of Bagaeus, and Artayntes,
the son of Artachaeus; while there was likewise a
third commander, Ithamitres, the nephew of
Artayntes, whom his uncle had advanced to the
post. Further west than Samos, however, they did

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not venture to proceed; for they remembered
what a defeat they had suffered, and there was no
one to compel them to approach any nearer to
Greece. They therefore remained at Samos, and
kept watch over Ionia, to hinder it from breaking
into revolt. The whole number of their ships,
including those furnished by the Ionians, was
three hundred. It did not enter into their thoughts
that the Greeks would proceed against Ionia; on
the contrary, they supposed that the defence of
their own country would content them, more
especially as they had not pursued the Persian
fleet when it fled from Salamis, but had so readi-
ly given up the chase. They despaired, however,
altogether of gaining any success by sea them-
selves, though by land they thought that
Mardonius was quite sure of victory. So they
remained at Samos, and took counsel together, if
by any means they might harass the enemy, at the
same time that they waited eagerly to hear how
matters would proceed with Mardonius.

The approach of spring, and the knowledge that
Mardonius was in Thessaly, roused the Greeks

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from inaction. Their land force indeed was not yet
come together; but the fleet, consisting of one
hundred and ten ships, proceeded to Egina, under
the command of Leotychides. This Leotychides,
who was both general and admiral, was the son
of Menares, the son of Agesilaus, the son of
Hippocratides, the son of Leotychides, the son of
Anaxilaus, the son of Archidamus, the son of
Anaxandrides, the son of Theopompus, the son of
Nicander, the son of Charillus, the son of
Eunomus, the son of Polydectes, the son of
Prytanis, the son of Euryphon, the son of Procles,
the son of Aristodemus, the son of Aristomachus,
the son of Cleodaeus, the son of Hyllus, the son
of Hercules. He belonged to the younger branch
of the royal house. All his ancestors, except the
two next in the above list to himself, had been
kings of Sparta. The Athenian vessels were com-
manded by Xanthippus, the son of Ariphron.

When the whole fleet was collected together at
Egina, ambassadors from Ionia arrived at the
Greek station; they had but just come from pay-
ing a visit to Sparta, where they had been intreat-

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ing the Lacedaemonians to undertake the deliver-
ance of their native land. One of these ambas-
sadors was Herodotus, the son of Basileides.
Originally they were seven in number; and the
whole seven had conspired to slay Strattis the
tyrant of Chios; one, however, of those engaged in
the plot betrayed the enterprise; and the conspir-
acy being in this way discovered, Herodotus, and
the remaining five, quitted Chios, and went
straight to Sparta, whence they had now proceed-
ed to Egina, their object being to beseech the
Greeks that they would pass over to Ionia. It was
not, however, without difficulty that they were
induced to advance even so far as Delos. All
beyond that seemed to the Greeks full of danger;
the places were quite unknown to them, and to
their fancy swarmed with Persian troops; as for
Samos, it appeared to them as far off as the Pillars
of Hercules. Thus it came to pass, that at the very
same time the barbarians were hindered by their
fears from venturing any further west than
Samos, and the prayers of the Chians failed to
induce the Greeks to advance any further east
than Delos. Terror guarded the mid region.

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The Greek fleet was now on its way to Delos; but
Mardonius still abode in his winter-quarters in
Thessaly. When he was about to leave them, he
despatched a man named Mys, a European by
birth, to go and consult the different oracles, giv-
ing him orders to put questions everywhere to all
the oracles whereof he found it possible to make
trial. What it was that he wanted to know, when
he gave Mys these orders, I am not able to say, for
no account has reached me of the matter; but for
my own part, I suppose that he sent to inquire
concerning the business which he had in hand,
and not for any other purpose.

Mys, it is certain, went to Lebadeia, and, by the
payment of a sum of money, induced one of the
inhabitants to go down to Trophonius; he like-
wise visited Abae of the Phocians, and there con-
sulted the god; while at Thebes, to which place he
went first of all, he not only got access to Apollo
Ismenius (of whom inquiry is made by means of
victims, according to the custom practised also at
Olympia), but likewise prevailed on a man, who
was not a Theban but a foreigner, to pass the

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night in the temple of Amphiaraus. No Theban
can lawfully consult this oracle, for the following
reason: Amphiaraus by an oracle gave the
Thebans their choice, to have him for their
prophet or for their helper in war; he bade them
elect between the two, and forego either one or
the other; so they chose rather to have him for
their helper. On this account it is unlawful for a
Theban to sleep in his temple.

One thing which the Thebans declare to have
happened at this time is to me very surprising.
Mys, the European, they say, after he had gone
about to all the oracles, came at last to the sacred
precinct of Apollo Ptous. The place itself bears the
name of Ptoum; it is in the country of the
Thebans, and is situated on the mountain side
overlooking Lake Copais, only a very little way
from the town called Acraephia. Here Mys
arrived, and entered the temple, followed by three
Theban citizens- picked men whom the state had
appointed to take down whatever answer the god
might give. No sooner was he entered than the
prophet delivered him an oracle, but in a foreign

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tongue; so that his Theban attendants were aston-
ished, hearing a strange language when they
expected Greek, and did not know what to do.
Mys, however, the European, snatched from their
hands the tablet which they had brought with
them, and wrote down what the prophet uttered.
The reply, he told them, was in the Carian dialect.
After this, Mys departed and returned to
Thessaly.

Mardonius, when he had read the answers given
by the oracles, sent next an envoy to Athens. This
was Alexander, the son of Amyntas, a
Macedonian, of whom he made choice for two
reasons. Alexander was connected with the
Persians by family ties; for Gygaea, who was the
daughter of Amyntas, and sister to Alexander
himself, was married to Bubares, a Persian, and
by him had a son, to wit, Amyntas of Asia; who
was named after his mother’s father, and enjoyed
the revenues of Alabanda, a large city of Phrygia,
which had been assigned him by the king.
Alexander was likewise (and of this too
Mardonius was well aware), both by services

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which he had rendered, and by formal compact of
friendship, connected with Athens. Mardonius
therefore thought that, by sending him, he would
be most likely to gain over the Athenians to the
Persian side. He had heard that they were a
numerous and a warlike people, and he knew that
the disasters which had befallen the Persians by
sea were mainly their work; he therefore expected
that, if he could form alliance with them, he
would easily get the mastery of the sea (as indeed
he would have done, beyond a doubt), while by
land he believed that he was already greatly supe-
rior; and so he thought by this alliance to make
sure of overcoming the Greeks. Perhaps, too, the
oracles leant this way, and counselled him to
make Athens his friend: so that it may have been
in obedience to them that he sent the embassy.

This Alexander was descended in the seventh
degree from Perdiccas, who obtained the sover-
eignty over the Macedonians in the way which I
will now relate. Three brothers, descendants of
Temenus, fled from Argos to the Illyrians; their
names were Gauanes, Aeropus, and Perdiccas.

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From Illyria they went across to Upper
Macedonia, where they came to a certain town
called Lebaea. There they hired themselves out to
serve the king in different employs; one tended the
horses; another looked after the cows; while
Perdiccas, who was the youngest, took charge of
the smaller cattle. In those early times poverty
was not confined to the people: kings themselves
were poor, and so here it was the king’s wife who
cooked the victuals. Now, whenever she baked
the bread, she always observed that the loaf of the
labouring boy Perdiccas swelled to double its nat-
ural size. So the queen, finding this never fail,
spoke of it to her husband. Directly that it came
to his ears, the thought struck him that it was a
miracle, and boded something of no small
moment. He therefore sent for the three labour-
ers, and told them to begone out of his domin-
ions. They answered, “they had a right to their
wages; if he would pay them what was due, they
were quite willing to go.” Now it happened that
the sun was shining down the chimney into the
room where they were; and the king, hearing
them talk of wages, lost his wits, and said, “There

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are the wages which you deserve; take that- I give
it you!” and pointed, as he spoke, to the sunshine.
The two elder brothers, Gauanes and Aeropus,
stood aghast at the reply, and did nothing; but the
boy, who had a knife in his hand, made a mark
with it round the sunshine on the floor of the
room, and said, “O king! we accept your pay-
ment.” Then he received the light of the sun three
times into his bosom, and so went away; and his
brothers went with him.

When they were gone, one of those who sat by
told the king what the youngest of the three had
done, and hinted that he must have had some
meaning in accepting the wages given. Then the
king, when he heard what had happened, was
angry, and sent horsemen after the youths to slay
them. Now there is a river in Macedonia to which
the descendants of these Argives offer sacrifice as
their saviour. This stream swelled so much, as
soon as the sons of Temenus were safe across, that
the horsemen found it impossible to follow. So the
brothers escaped into another part of Macedonia,

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and took up their abode near the place called “the
Gardens of Midas, son of Gordias.” In these gar-
dens there are roses which grow of themselves, so
sweet that no others can come near them, and
with blossoms that have as many as sixty petals
apiece. It was here, according to the
Macedonians, that Silenus was made a prisoner.
Above the gardens stands a mountain called
Bermius, which is so cold that none can reach the
top. Here the brothers made their abode; and
from this place by, degrees they conquered all
Macedonia.

From the Perdiccas of whom we have here spo-
ken, Alexander was descended in the following
way:- Alexander was the son of Amyntas,
Amyntas of Alcetas; the father of Alcetas was
Aeropus; of Aeropus, Philip; of Philip, Argaeus;
of Argaeus, Perdiccas, the first sovereign. Such
was the descent of Alexander.

When Alexander reached Athens as the ambas-
sador of Mardonius, he spoke as follows:-

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“O men of Athens, these be the words of
Mardonius. ‘The king has sent a message to me,
saying, “All the trespasses which the Athenians
have committed against me I freely forgive. Now
then, Mardonius, thus shalt thou act towards
them. Restore to them their territory; and let them
choose for themselves whatever land they like
besides, and let them dwell therein as a free peo-
ple. Build up likewise all their temples which I
burned, if on these terms they will consent to
enter into a league with me.” Such are the orders
which I have received, and which I must needs
obey, unless there be a hindrance on your part.
And now I say unto you,- why are ye so mad as
to levy war against the king, whom ye cannot
possibly overcome, or even resist for ever? Ye
have seen the multitude and the bravery of the
host of Xerxes; ye know also how large a power
remains with me in your land; suppose then ye
should get the better of us, and defeat this army-
a thing whereof ye will not, if ye be wise, enter-
tain the least hope- what follows even then but a
contest with a still greater force? Do not, because
you would fain match yourselves with the king,

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consent to lose your country and live in constant
danger of your lives. Rather agree to make peace;
which ye can now do without any tarnish to your
honour, since the king invites you to it. Continue
free, and make an alliance with us, without fraud
or deceit.’

“These are the words, O Athenians! which
Mardonius had bid me speak to you. For my own
part, I will say nothing of the good will I bear
your nation, since ye have not now for the first
time to become acquainted with it. But I will add
my intreaties also, and beseech you to give ear to
Mardonius; for I see clearly that it is impossible
for you to go on for ever contending against
Xerxes. If that had appeared to me possible, I
would not now have come hither the bearer of
such a message. But the king’s power surpasses
that of man, and his arm reaches far. If then ye do
not hasten to conclude a peace, when such fair
terms are offered you, I tremble to think of what
you will have to endure- you, who of all the allies
lie most directly in the path of danger, whose land
will always be the chief battleground of the con-

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tending powers, and who will therefore constant-
ly have to suffer alone. Hearken then, I pray you,
to Mardonius! Surely it is no small matter that the
Great King chooses you out from all the rest of
the Greeks, to offer you forgiveness of the wrongs
you have done him, and to propose himself as
your friend and ally!”

Such were the words of Alexander. Now the
Lacedaemonians, when tidings reached them that
Alexander was gone to Athens to bring about a
league between the Athenians and the barbarians,
and when at the same time they called to mind the
prophecies which declared that the Dorian race
should one day be driven from the Peloponnese
by the Medes and the Athenians, were exceeding-
ly afraid lest the Athenians might consent to the
alliance with Persia. They therefore lost no time in
sending envoys to Athens; and it so happened that
these envoys were given their audience at the
same time with Alexander: for the Athenians had
waited and made delays, because they felt sure
that the Lacedaemonians would hear that an
ambassador was come to them from the Persians,

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and as soon as they heard it would with all speed
send an embassy. They contrived matters there-
fore of set purpose, so that the Lacedaemonians
might hear them deliver their sentiments on the
occasion.

As soon as Alexander had finished speaking, the
ambassadors from Sparta took the word and
said,-

“We are sent here by the Lacedaemonians to
entreat of you that ye will not do a new thing in
Greece, nor agree to the terms which are offered
you by the barbarian. Such conduct on the part of
any of the Greeks were alike unjust and dishon-
ourable; but in you ‘twould be worse than in oth-
ers, for divers reasons. ‘Twas by you that this war
was kindled at the first among us- our wishes
were in no way considered; the contest began by
your seeking to extend your empire- now the fate
of Greece is involved in it. Besides it was surely an
intolerable thing that the Athenians, who have
always hitherto been known as a nation to which
many men owed their freedom, should now

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become the means of bringing all other Greeks
into slavery. We feel, however, for the heavy
calamities which press on you- the loss of your
harvest these two years, and the ruin in which
your homes have lain for so long a time. We offer
you, therefore, on the part of the Lacedaemonians
and the allies, sustenance for your women and for
the unwarlike portion of your households, so long
as the war endures. Be ye not seduced by
Alexander the Macedonian, who softens down
the rough words of Mardonius. He does as is nat-
ural for him to do- a tyrant himself, he helps for-
ward a tyrant’s cause. But ye, Athenians, should
do differently, at least if ye be truly wise; for ye
should know that with barbarians there is neither
faith nor truth.”

Thus spake the envoys. After which the Athenians
returned this answer to Alexander:-

“We know, as well as thou dost, that the power of
the Mede is many times greater than our own: we
did not need to have that cast in our teeth.
Nevertheless we cling so to freedom that we shall

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offer what resistance we may. Seek not to per-
suade us into making terms with the barbarian-
say what thou wilt, thou wilt never gain our
assent. Return rather at once, and tell Mardonius
that our answer to him is this:- ‘So long as the sun
keeps his present course, we will never join
alliance with Xerxes. Nay, we shall oppose him
unceasingly, trusting in the aid of those gods and
heroes whom he has lightly esteemed, whose
houses and whose images he has burnt with fire.’
come not thou again to us with words like these;
nor, thinking to do us a service, persuade us to
unholy actions. Thou art the guest and friend of
our nation- we would not that thou shouldst
receive hurt at our hands.”

Such was the answer which the Athenians gave to
Alexander. To the Spartan envoys they said:-

“‘Twas natural no doubt that the
Lacedaemonians should be afraid we might make
terms with the barbarian; but nevertheless It was
a base fear in men who knew so well of what tem-
per and spirit we are. Not all the gold that the

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whole earth contains- not the fairest and most fer-
tile of all lands- would bribe us to take part with
the Medes and help them to enslave our country-
men. Even could we anyhow have brought our-
selves to such a thing, there are many very pow-
erful motives which would now make it impossi-
ble. The first and chief of these is the burning and
destruction of our temples and the images of our
gods, which forces us to make no terms with their
destroyer, but rather to pursue him with our
resentment to the uttermost. Again, there is our
common brotherhood with the Greeks: our com-
mon language, the altars and the sacrifices of
which we all partake, the common character
which we bear- did the Athenians betray all these,
of a truth it would not be well. Know then now,
if ye have not known it before, that while one
Athenian remains alive, we will never join alliance
with Xerxes. We thank you, however, for your
forethought on our behalf, and for your wish to
give our families sustenance, now that ruin has
fallen on us- the kindness is complete on your
part; but for ourselves, we will endure as we may,
and not be burdensome to you. Such then is our

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resolve. Be it your care with all speed to lead out
your troops; for if we surmise aright, the barbar-
ian will not wait long ere he invade our territory,
but will set out so soon as he learns our answer to
be, that we will do none of those things which he
requires of us. Now then is the time for us, before
he enters Attica, to go forth ourselves into
Boeotia, and give him battle.”

When the Athenians had thus spoken, the ambas-
sadors from Sparta departed, and returned back
to their own country.

Th e H i s to r i e s

o f

H e ro d o t u s o f H a l i c a r n a s s u s

Book Nine

TRANSLATED BY

George Rawlinson

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