2. Herodotus, Histories, 1.8-1.14, 1.19-1.21, 1.25, 1.46-1.56, 1.62-1.63, 1.65-1.69, 1.85, 1.87, 1.90-1.92, 1.167, 1.174, 1.184-1.185, 1.187, 1.205, 1.213, 2.29-2.31, 2.55, 2.100, 2.133, 2.147, 2.161, 3.17-3.26, 3.57-3.58, 3.64, 3.68-3.69, 3.98-3.101, 3.119, 4.15, 4.59-4.82, 4.145-4.162, 4.164-4.167, 4.170, 4.172, 4.178-4.179, 4.181, 4.183, 4.186, 4.188-4.189, 4.198, 4.200-4.205, 5.1, 5.3-5.8, 5.42-5.45, 5.67, 5.79, 5.82-5.88, 5.92, 6.19, 6.36-6.38, 6.52, 6.57, 6.66-6.67, 6.75, 6.77, 6.80-6.82, 6.86, 6.98, 6.125, 6.132-6.136, 6.139-6.140, 7.140-7.144, 7.148-7.151, 7.169-7.171, 7.178, 7.189, 7.219-7.220, 8.20, 8.35-8.39, 8.77, 8.96, 8.121-8.122, 8.135, 9.33, 9.43, 9.76 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)
| 1.8. This Candaules, then, fell in love with his own wife, so much so that he believed her to be by far the most beautiful woman in the world; and believing this, he praised her beauty beyond measure to Gyges son of Dascylus, who was his favorite among his bodyguard; for it was to Gyges that he entrusted all his most important secrets. ,After a little while, Candaules, doomed to misfortune, spoke to Gyges thus: “Gyges, I do not think that you believe what I say about the beauty of my wife; men trust their ears less than their eyes: so you must see her naked.” Gyges protested loudly at this. ,“Master,” he said, “what an unsound suggestion, that I should see my mistress naked! When a woman's clothes come off, she dispenses with her modesty, too. ,Men have long ago made wise rules from which one ought to learn; one of these is that one should mind one's own business. As for me, I believe that your queen is the most beautiful of all women, and I ask you not to ask of me what is lawless.” 1.9. Speaking thus, Gyges resisted: for he was afraid that some evil would come of it for him. But this was Candaules' answer: “Courage, Gyges! Do not be afraid of me, that I say this to test you, or of my wife, that you will have any harm from her. I will arrange it so that she shall never know that you have seen her. ,I will bring you into the chamber where she and I lie and conceal you behind the open door; and after I have entered, my wife too will come to bed. There is a chair standing near the entrance of the room: on this she will lay each article of her clothing as she takes it off, and you will be able to look upon her at your leisure. ,Then, when she moves from the chair to the bed, turning her back on you, be careful she does not see you going out through the doorway.” 1.10. As Gyges could not escape, he consented. Candaules, when he judged it to be time for bed, brought Gyges into the chamber; his wife followed presently, and when she had come in and was laying aside her garments, Gyges saw her; ,when she turned her back upon him to go to bed, he slipped from the room. The woman glimpsed him as he went out, and perceived what her husband had done. But though shamed, she did not cry out or let it be seen that she had perceived anything, for she meant to punish Candaules; ,since among the Lydians and most of the foreign peoples it is felt as a great shame that even a man be seen naked. 1.11. For the present she made no sign and kept quiet. But as soon as it was day, she prepared those of her household whom she saw were most faithful to her, and called Gyges. He, supposing that she knew nothing of what had been done, answered the summons; for he was used to attending the queen whenever she summoned him. ,When Gyges came, the lady addressed him thus: “Now, Gyges, you have two ways before you; decide which you will follow. You must either kill Candaules and take me and the throne of Lydia for your own, or be killed yourself now without more ado; that will prevent you from obeying all Candaules' commands in the future and seeing what you should not see. ,One of you must die: either he, the contriver of this plot, or you, who have outraged all custom by looking on me uncovered.” Gyges stood awhile astonished at this; presently, he begged her not to compel him to such a choice. ,But when he could not deter her, and saw that dire necessity was truly upon him either to kill his master or himself be killed by others, he chose his own life. Then he asked: “Since you force me against my will to kill my master, I would like to know how we are to lay our hands on him.” ,She replied, “You shall come at him from the same place where he made you view me naked: attack him in his sleep.” 1.12. When they had prepared this plot, and night had fallen, Gyges followed the woman into the chamber (for Gyges was not released, nor was there any means of deliverance, but either he or Candaules must die). She gave him a dagger and hid him behind the same door; ,and presently he stole out and killed Candaules as he slept. Thus he made himself master of the king's wife and sovereignty. He is mentioned in the iambic verses of Archilochus of Parus who lived about the same time. 1.13. So he took possession of the sovereign power and was confirmed in it by the Delphic oracle. For when the Lydians took exception to what was done to Candaules, and took up arms, the faction of Gyges came to an agreement with the rest of the people that if the oracle should ordain him king of the Lydians, then he would reign; but if not, then he would return the kingship to the Heraclidae. ,The oracle did so ordain, and Gyges thus became king. However, the Pythian priestess declared that the Heraclidae would have vengeance on Gyges' posterity in the fifth generation; an utterance to which the Lydians and their kings paid no regard until it was fulfilled. 1.14. Thus the Mermnadae robbed the Heraclidae of the sovereignty and took it for themselves. Having gotten it, Gyges sent many offerings to Delphi : there are very many silver offerings of his there; and besides the silver, he dedicated a hoard of gold, among which six golden bowls are the offerings especially worthy of mention. ,These weigh thirty talents and stand in the treasury of the Corinthians; although in truth it is not the treasury of the Corinthian people but of Cypselus son of Eetion. This Gyges then was the first foreigner whom we know who placed offerings at Delphi after the king of Phrygia, Midas son of Gordias. ,For Midas too made an offering: namely, the royal seat on which he sat to give judgment, and a marvellous seat it is. It is set in the same place as the bowls of Gyges. This gold and the silver offered by Gyges is called by the Delphians “Gygian” after its dedicator. 1.19. In the twelfth year, when the Lydian army was burning the crops, the fire set in the crops, blown by a strong wind, caught the temple of Athena called Athena of Assesos, and the temple burned to the ground. ,For the present no notice was taken of this. But after the army had returned to Sardis, Alyattes fell ill; and, as his sickness lasted longer than it should, he sent to Delphi to inquire of the oracle, either at someone's urging or by his own wish to question the god about his sickness. ,But when the messengers came to Delphi, the Pythian priestess would not answer them before they restored the temple of Athena at Assesos in the Milesian territory, which they had burnt. 1.20. I know this much to be so because the Delphians told me. The Milesians add that Periander son of Cypselus, a close friend of the Thrasybulus who then was sovereign of Miletus, learned what reply the oracle had given to Alyattes, and sent a messenger to tell Thrasybulus so that his friend, forewarned, could make his plans accordingly. 1.21. The Milesians say it happened so. Then, when the Delphic reply was brought to Alyattes, he promptly sent a herald to Miletus, offering to make a truce with Thrasybulus and the Milesians during his rebuilding of the temple. So the envoy went to Miletus . But Thrasybulus, forewarned of the whole matter, and knowing what Alyattes meant to do, devised the following plan: ,he brought together into the marketplace all the food in the city, from private stores and his own, and told the men of Miletus all to drink and celebrate together when he gave the word. 1.25. Alyattes the Lydian, his war with the Milesians finished, died after a reign of fifty-seven years. ,He was the second of his family to make an offering to Delphi (after recovering from his illness) of a great silver bowl on a stand of welded iron. Among all the offerings at Delphi, this is the most worth seeing, and is the work of Glaucus the Chian, the only one of all men who discovered how to weld iron. 1.46. After the loss of his son, Croesus remained in deep sorrow for two years. After this time, the destruction by Cyrus son of Cambyses of the sovereignty of Astyages son of Cyaxares, and the growth of the power of the Persians, distracted Croesus from his mourning; and he determined, if he could, to forestall the increase of the Persian power before they became great. ,Having thus determined, he at once made inquiries of the Greek and Libyan oracles, sending messengers separately to Delphi, to Abae in Phocia, and to Dodona, while others were despatched to Amphiaraus and Trophonius, and others to Branchidae in the Milesian country. ,These are the Greek oracles to which Croesus sent for divination: and he told others to go inquire of Ammon in Libya . His intent in sending was to test the knowledge of the oracles, so that, if they were found to know the truth, he might send again and ask if he should undertake an expedition against the Persians. 1.47. And when he sent to test these shrines he gave the Lydians these instructions: they were to keep track of the time from the day they left Sardis, and on the hundredth day inquire of the oracles what Croesus, king of Lydia, son of Alyattes, was doing then; then they were to write down whatever the oracles answered and bring the reports back to him. ,Now none relate what answer was given by the rest of the oracles. But at Delphi, no sooner had the Lydians entered the hall to inquire of the god and asked the question with which they were entrusted, than the Pythian priestess uttered the following hexameter verses: , quote type="oracle" l met="dact"“I know the number of the grains of sand and the extent of the sea, /l lAnd understand the mute and hear the voiceless. /l lThe smell has come to my senses of a strong-shelled tortoise /l lBoiling in a cauldron together with a lamb's flesh, /l lUnder which is bronze and over which is bronze.” /l /quote 1.48. Having written down this inspired utterance of the Pythian priestess, the Lydians went back to Sardis . When the others as well who had been sent to various places came bringing their oracles, Croesus then unfolded and examined all the writings. Some of them in no way satisfied him. But when he read the Delphian message, he acknowledged it with worship and welcome, considering Delphi as the only true place of divination, because it had discovered what he himself had done. ,For after sending his envoys to the oracles, he had thought up something which no conjecture could discover, and carried it out on the appointed day: namely, he had cut up a tortoise and a lamb, and then boiled them in a cauldron of bronze covered with a lid of the same. 1.49. Such, then, was the answer from Delphi delivered to Croesus. As to the reply which the Lydians received from the oracle of Amphiaraus when they had followed the due custom of the temple, I cannot say what it was, for nothing is recorded of it, except that Croesus believed that from this oracle too he had obtained a true answer. 1.50. After this, he tried to win the favor of the Delphian god with great sacrifices. He offered up three thousand beasts from all the kinds fit for sacrifice, and on a great pyre burnt couches covered with gold and silver, golden goblets, and purple cloaks and tunics; by these means he hoped the better to win the aid of the god, to whom he also commanded that every Lydian sacrifice what he could. ,When the sacrifice was over, he melted down a vast store of gold and made ingots of it, the longer sides of which were of six and the shorter of three palms' length, and the height was one palm. There were a hundred and seventeen of these. Four of them were of refined gold, each weighing two talents and a half; the rest were of gold with silver alloy, each of two talents' weight. ,He also had a figure of a lion made of refined gold, weighing ten talents. When the temple of Delphi was burnt, this lion fell from the ingots which were the base on which it stood; and now it is in the treasury of the Corinthians, but weighs only six talents and a half, for the fire melted away three and a half talents. 1.51. When these offerings were ready, Croesus sent them to Delphi, with other gifts besides: namely, two very large bowls, one of gold and one of silver. The golden bowl stood to the right, the silver to the left of the temple entrance. ,These too were removed about the time of the temple's burning, and now the golden bowl, which weighs eight and a half talents and twelve minae, is in the treasury of the Clazomenians, and the silver bowl at the corner of the forecourt of the temple. This bowl holds six hundred nine-gallon measures: for the Delphians use it for a mixing-bowl at the feast of the Divine Appearance. ,It is said by the Delphians to be the work of Theodorus of Samos, and I agree with them, for it seems to me to be of no common workmanship. Moreover, Croesus sent four silver casks, which stand in the treasury of the Corinthians, and dedicated two sprinkling-vessels, one of gold, one of silver. The golden vessel bears the inscription “Given by the Lacedaemonians,” who claim it as their offering. But they are wrong, ,for this, too, is Croesus' gift. The inscription was made by a certain Delphian, whose name I know but do not mention, out of his desire to please the Lacedaemonians. The figure of a boy, through whose hand the water runs, is indeed a Lacedaemonian gift; but they did not give either of the sprinkling-vessels. ,Along with these Croesus sent, besides many other offerings of no great distinction, certain round basins of silver, and a female figure five feet high, which the Delphians assert to be the statue of the woman who was Croesus' baker. Moreover, he dedicated his own wife's necklaces and girdles. 1.52. Such were the gifts which he sent to Delphi . To Amphiaraus, of whose courage and fate he had heard, he dedicated a shield made entirely of gold and a spear all of solid gold, point and shaft alike. Both of these were until my time at Thebes, in the Theban temple of Ismenian Apollo. 1.53. The Lydians who were to bring these gifts to the temples were instructed by Croesus to inquire of the oracles whether he was to send an army against the Persians and whether he was to add an army of allies. ,When the Lydians came to the places where they were sent, they presented the offerings, and inquired of the oracles, in these words: “Croesus, king of Lydia and other nations, believing that here are the only true places of divination among men, endows you with such gifts as your wisdom deserves. And now he asks you whether he is to send an army against the Persians, and whether he is to add an army of allies.” ,Such was their inquiry; and the judgment given to Croesus by each of the two oracles was the same: namely, that if he should send an army against the Persians he would destroy a great empire. And they advised him to discover the mightiest of the Greeks and make them his friends. 1.54. When the divine answers had been brought back and Croesus learned of them, he was very pleased with the oracles. So, altogether expecting that he would destroy the kingdom of Cyrus, he sent once again to Pytho and endowed the Delphians, whose number he had learned, with two gold staters apiece. ,The Delphians, in return, gave Croesus and all Lydians the right of first consulting the oracle, exemption from all charges, the chief seats at festivals, and perpetual right of Delphian citizenship to whoever should wish it. 1.55. After his gifts to the Delphians, Croesus made a third inquiry of the oracle, for he wanted to use it to the full, having received true answers from it; and the question which he asked was whether his sovereignty would be of long duration. To this the Pythian priestess answered as follows: , quote type="oracle" l met="dact"“When the Medes have a mule as king, /l lJust then, tender-footed Lydian, by the stone-strewn Hermus /l lFlee and do not stay, and do not be ashamed to be a coward.” /l /quote 1.56. When he heard these verses, Croesus was pleased with them above all, for he thought that a mule would never be king of the Medes instead of a man, and therefore that he and his posterity would never lose his empire. Then he sought very carefully to discover who the mightiest of the Greeks were, whom he should make his friends. ,He found by inquiry that the chief peoples were the Lacedaemonians among those of Doric, and the Athenians among those of Ionic stock. These races, Ionian and Dorian, were the foremost in ancient time, the first a Pelasgian and the second a Hellenic people. The Pelasgian race has never yet left its home; the Hellenic has wandered often and far. ,For in the days of king Deucalion it inhabited the land of Phthia, then the country called Histiaean, under Ossa and Olympus, in the time of Dorus son of Hellen; driven from this Histiaean country by the Cadmeans, it settled about Pindus in the territory called Macedonian; from there again it migrated to Dryopia, and at last came from Dryopia into the Peloponnese, where it took the name of Dorian. 1.62. So after ten years they set out from Eretria and returned home. The first place in Attica which they took and held was Marathon: and while encamped there they were joined by their partisans from the city, and by others who flocked to them from the country—demesmen who loved the rule of one more than freedom. These, then, assembled; ,but the Athenians in the city, who while Pisistratus was collecting money and afterwards when he had taken Marathon took no notice of it, did now, and when they learned that he was marching from Marathon against Athens, they set out to attack him. ,They came out with all their force to meet the returning exiles. Pisistratus' men encountered the enemy when they had reached the temple of Pallenian Athena in their march from Marathon towards the city, and encamped face to face with them. ,There (by the providence of heaven) Pisistratus met Amphilytus the Acarian, a diviner, who came to him and prophesied as follows in hexameter verses: quote type="oracle" l met="dact"“The cast is made, the net spread, /l lThe tunny-fish shall flash in the moonlit night.” /l /quote 1.63. So Amphilytus spoke, being inspired; Pisistratus understood him and, saying that he accepted the prophecy, led his army against the enemy. The Athenians of the city had by this time had breakfast, and after breakfast some were dicing and some were sleeping: they were attacked by Pisistratus' men and put to flight. ,So they fled, and Pisistratus devised a very subtle plan to keep them scattered and prevent them assembling again: he had his sons mount and ride forward: they overtook the fugitives and spoke to them as they were instructed by Pisistratus, telling them to take heart and each to depart to his home. 1.65. So Croesus learned that at that time such problems were oppressing the Athenians, but that the Lacedaemonians had escaped from the great evils and had mastered the Tegeans in war. In the kingship of Leon and Hegesicles at Sparta, the Lacedaemonians were successful in all their other wars but met disaster only against the Tegeans. ,Before this they had been the worst-governed of nearly all the Hellenes and had had no dealings with strangers, but they changed to good government in this way: Lycurgus, a man of reputation among the Spartans, went to the oracle at Delphi . As soon as he entered the hall, the priestess said in hexameter: , quote type="oracle" l met="dact"You have come to my rich temple, Lycurgus, /l lA man dear to Zeus and to all who have Olympian homes. /l lI am in doubt whether to pronounce you man or god, /l lBut I think rather you are a god, Lycurgus. /l /quote ,Some say that the Pythia also declared to him the constitution that now exists at Sparta, but the Lacedaemonians themselves say that Lycurgus brought it from Crete when he was guardian of his nephew Leobetes, the Spartan king. ,Once he became guardian, he changed all the laws and took care that no one transgressed the new ones. Lycurgus afterwards established their affairs of war: the sworn divisions, the bands of thirty, the common meals; also the ephors and the council of elders. 1.66. Thus they changed their bad laws to good ones, and when Lycurgus died they built him a temple and now worship him greatly. Since they had good land and many men, they immediately flourished and prospered. They were not content to live in peace, but, confident that they were stronger than the Arcadians, asked the oracle at Delphi about gaining all the Arcadian land. ,She replied in hexameter: quote type="oracle" l met="dact"You ask me for Arcadia ? You ask too much; I grant it not. /l lThere are many men in Arcadia, eaters of acorns, /l lWho will hinder you. But I grudge you not. /l lI will give you Tegea to beat with your feet in dancing, /l lAnd its fair plain to measure with a rope. /l /quote ,When the Lacedaemonians heard the oracle reported, they left the other Arcadians alone and marched on Tegea carrying chains, relying on the deceptive oracle. They were confident they would enslave the Tegeans, but they were defeated in battle. ,Those taken alive were bound in the very chains they had brought with them, and they measured the Tegean plain with a rope by working the fields. The chains in which they were bound were still preserved in my day, hanging up at the temple of Athena Alea. 1.67. In the previous war the Lacedaemonians continually fought unsuccessfully against the Tegeans, but in the time of Croesus and the kingship of Anaxandrides and Ariston in Lacedaemon the Spartans had gained the upper hand. This is how: ,when they kept being defeated by the Tegeans, they sent ambassadors to Delphi to ask which god they should propitiate to prevail against the Tegeans in war. The Pythia responded that they should bring back the bones of Orestes, son of Agamemnon. ,When they were unable to discover Orestes' tomb, they sent once more to the god to ask where he was buried. The Pythia responded in hexameter to the messengers: , quote type="oracle" l met="dact"There is a place Tegea in the smooth plain of Arcadia, /l lWhere two winds blow under strong compulsion. /l lBlow lies upon blow, woe upon woe. /l lThere the life-giving earth covers the son of Agamemnon. /l lBring him back, and you shall be lord of Tegea . /l /quote ,When the Lacedaemonians heard this, they were no closer to discovery, though they looked everywhere. Finally it was found by Lichas, who was one of the Spartans who are called “doers of good deeds.”. These men are those citizens who retire from the knights, the five oldest each year. They have to spend the year in which they retire from the knights being sent here and there by the Spartan state, never resting in their efforts. 1.68. It was Lichas, one of these men, who found the tomb in Tegea by a combination of luck and skill. At that time there was free access to Tegea, so he went into a blacksmith's shop and watched iron being forged, standing there in amazement at what he saw done. ,The smith perceived that he was amazed, so he stopped what he was doing and said, “My Laconian guest, if you had seen what I saw, then you would really be amazed, since you marvel so at ironworking. ,I wanted to dig a well in the courtyard here, and in my digging I hit upon a coffin twelve feet long. I could not believe that there had ever been men taller than now, so I opened it and saw that the corpse was just as long as the coffin. I measured it and then reburied it.” So the smith told what he had seen, and Lichas thought about what was said and reckoned that this was Orestes, according to the oracle. ,In the smith's two bellows he found the winds, hammer and anvil were blow upon blow, and the forging of iron was woe upon woe, since he figured that iron was discovered as an evil for the human race. ,After reasoning this out, he went back to Sparta and told the Lacedaemonians everything. They made a pretence of bringing a charge against him and banishing him. Coming to Tegea, he explained his misfortune to the smith and tried to rent the courtyard, but the smith did not want to lease it. ,Finally he persuaded him and set up residence there. He dug up the grave and collected the bones, then hurried off to Sparta with them. Ever since then the Spartans were far superior to the Tegeans whenever they met each other in battle. By the time of Croesus' inquiry, the Spartans had subdued most of the Peloponnese . 1.69. Croesus, then, aware of all this, sent messengers to Sparta with gifts to ask for an alliance, having instructed them what to say. They came and said: ,“Croesus, King of Lydia and other nations, has sent us with this message: ‘Lacedaemonians, the god has declared that I should make the Greek my friend; now, therefore, since I learn that you are the leaders of Hellas, I invite you, as the oracle bids; I would like to be your friend and ally, without deceit or guile.’” ,Croesus proposed this through his messengers; and the Lacedaemonians, who had already heard of the oracle given to Croesus, welcomed the coming of the Lydians and swore to be his friends and allies; and indeed they were obliged by certain benefits which they had received before from the king. ,For the Lacedaemonians had sent to Sardis to buy gold, intending to use it for the statue of Apollo which now stands on Thornax in Laconia ; and Croesus, when they offered to buy it, made them a free gift of it. 1.85. I will now relate what happened to Croesus himself. He had a son, whom I have already mentioned, fine in other respects, but mute. Now in his days of prosperity past Croesus had done all that he could for his son; and besides resorting to other devices he had sent to Delphi to inquire of the oracle concerning him. ,The Pythian priestess answered him thus: quote type="oracle" l met="dact"“Lydian, king of many, greatly foolish Croesus, /l lWish not to hear in the palace the voice often prayed for /l lof your son speaking. /l lIt were better for you that he remain mute as before; /l lFor on an unlucky day shall he first speak.” /l /quote ,So at the taking of the fortification a certain Persian, not knowing who Croesus was, came at him meaning to kill him. Croesus saw him coming, but because of the imminent disaster he was past caring, and it made no difference to him whether he were struck and killed. ,But this mute son, when he saw the Persian coming on, in fear and distress broke into speech and cried, “Man, do not kill Croesus!” This was the first word he uttered, and after that for all the rest of his life he had power of speech. 1.87. Then the Lydians say that Croesus understood Cyrus' change of heart, and when he saw everyone trying to extinguish the fire but unable to check it, he invoked Apollo, crying out that if Apollo had ever been given any pleasing gift by him, let him offer help and deliver him from the present evil. ,Thus he in tears invoked the god, and suddenly out of a clear and windless sky clouds gathered, a storm broke, and it rained violently, extinguishing the pyre. Thus Cyrus perceived that Croesus was dear to god and a good man. He had him brought down from the pyre and asked, ,“Croesus, what man persuaded you to wage war against my land and become my enemy instead of my friend?” He replied, “O King, I acted thus for your good fortune, but for my own ill fortune. The god of the Hellenes is responsible for these things, inciting me to wage war. ,No one is so foolish as to choose war over peace. In peace sons bury their fathers, in war fathers bury their sons. But I suppose it was dear to the divinity that this be so.” 1.90. When Cyrus heard this, he was exceedingly pleased, for he believed the advice good; and praising him greatly, and telling his guard to act as Croesus had advised, he said: “Croesus, now that you, a king, are determined to act and to speak with integrity, ask me directly for whatever favor you like.” ,“Master,” said Croesus, “you will most gratify me if you will let me send these chains of mine to that god of the Greeks whom I especially honored and to ask him if it is his way to deceive those who serve him well.” When Cyrus asked him what grudge against the god led him to make this request, ,Croesus repeated to him the story of all his own aspirations, and the answers of the oracles, and more particularly his offerings, and how the oracle had encouraged him to attack the Persians; and so saying he once more insistently pled that he be allowed to reproach the god for this. At this Cyrus smiled, and replied, “This I will grant you, Croesus, and whatever other favor you may ever ask me.” ,When Croesus heard this, he sent Lydians to Delphi, telling them to lay his chains on the doorstep of the temple, and to ask the god if he were not ashamed to have persuaded Croesus to attack the Persians, telling him that he would destroy Cyrus' power; of which power (they were to say, showing the chains) these were the first-fruits. They should ask this; and further, if it were the way of the Greek gods to be ungrateful. 1.91. When the Lydians came, and spoke as they had been instructed, the priestess (it is said) made the following reply. “No one may escape his lot, not even a god. Croesus has paid for the sin of his ancestor of the fifth generation before, who was led by the guile of a woman to kill his master, though he was one of the guard of the Heraclidae, and who took to himself the royal state of that master, to which he had no right. ,And it was the wish of Loxias that the evil lot of Sardis fall in the lifetime of Croesus' sons, not in his own; but he could not deflect the Fates. ,Yet as far as they gave in, he did accomplish his wish and favor Croesus: for he delayed the taking of Sardis for three years. And let Croesus know this: that although he is now taken, it is by so many years later than the destined hour. And further, Loxias saved Croesus from burning. ,But as to the oracle that was given to him, Croesus is wrong to complain concerning it. For Loxias declared to him that if he led an army against the Persians, he would destroy a great empire. Therefore he ought, if he had wanted to plan well, to have sent and asked whether the god spoke of Croesus' or of Cyrus' empire. But he did not understood what was spoken, or make further inquiry: for which now let him blame himself. ,When he asked that last question of the oracle and Loxias gave him that answer concerning the mule, even that Croesus did not understand. For that mule was in fact Cyrus, who was the son of two parents not of the same people, of whom the mother was better and the father inferior: ,for she was a Mede and the daughter of Astyages king of the Medes; but he was a Persian and a subject of the Medes and although in all respects her inferior he married this lady of his.” This was the answer of the priestess to the Lydians. They carried it to Sardis and told Croesus, and when he heard it, he confessed that the sin was not the god's, but his. And this is the story of Croesus' rule, and of the first overthrow of Ionia . 1.92. There are many offerings of Croesus' in Hellas, and not only those of which I have spoken. There is a golden tripod at Thebes in Boeotia, which he dedicated to Apollo of Ismenus; at Ephesus there are the oxen of gold and the greater part of the pillars; and in the temple of Proneia at Delphi, a golden shield. All these survived to my lifetime; but other of the offerings were destroyed. ,And the offerings of Croesus at Branchidae of the Milesians, as I learn by inquiry, are equal in weight and like those at Delphi . Those which he dedicated at Delphi and the shrine of Amphiaraus were his own, the first-fruits of the wealth inherited from his father; the rest came from the estate of an enemy who had headed a faction against Croesus before he became king, and conspired to win the throne of Lydia for Pantaleon. ,This Pantaleon was a son of Alyattes, and half-brother of Croesus: Croesus was Alyattes' son by a Carian and Pantaleon by an Ionian mother. ,So when Croesus gained the sovereignty by his father's gift, he put the man who had conspired against him to death by drawing him across a carding-comb, and first confiscated his estate, then dedicated it as and where I have said. This is all that I shall say of Croesus' offerings. 1.167. As for the crews of the disabled ships, the Carthaginians and Tyrrhenians drew lots for them, and of the Tyrrhenians the Agyllaioi were allotted by far the majority and these they led out and stoned to death. But afterwards, everything from Agylla that passed the place where the stoned Phocaeans lay, whether sheep or beasts of burden or men, became distorted and crippled and palsied. ,The Agyllaeans sent to Delphi, wanting to mend their offense; and the Pythian priestess told them to do what the people of Agylla do to this day: for they pay great honors to the Phocaeans, with religious rites and games and horse-races. ,Such was the end of this part of the Phocaeans. Those of them who fled to Rhegium set out from there and gained possession of that city in the Oenotrian country which is now called Hyele ; ,they founded this because they learned from a man of Posidonia that the Cyrnus whose establishment the Pythian priestess ordained was the hero, and not the island. 1.174. Neither the Carians nor any Greeks who dwell in this country did any thing notable before they were all enslaved by Harpagus. ,Among those who inhabit it are certain Cnidians, colonists from Lacedaemon . Their country (it is called the Triopion) lies between the sea and that part of the peninsula which belongs to Bubassus, and all but a small part of the Cnidian territory is washed by the sea ,(for it is bounded on the north by the gulf of Ceramicus, and on the south by the sea off Syme and Rhodes ). Now while Harpagus was conquering Ionia, the Cnidians dug a trench across this little space, which is about two-thirds of a mile wide, in order that their country might be an island. So they brought it all within the entrenchment; for the frontier between the Cnidian country and the mainland is on the isthmus across which they dug. ,Many of them were at this work; and seeing that the workers were injured when breaking stones more often and less naturally than usual, some in other ways, but most in the eyes, the Cnidians sent envoys to Delphi to inquire what it was that opposed them. ,Then, as they themselves say, the priestess gave them this answer in iambic verse: quote type="oracle" l met="iamb"“Do not wall or trench the isthmus: /l l Zeus would have given you an island, if he had wanted to.” /l /quote ,At this answer from the priestess, the Cnidians stopped their digging, and when Harpagus came against them with his army they surrendered to him without resistance. 1.184. Now among the many rulers of this city of Babylon (whom I shall mention in my Assyrian history) who finished the building of the walls and the temples, there were two that were women. The first of these lived five generations earlier than the second, and her name was Semiramis: it was she who built dikes on the plain, a notable work; before that the whole plain used to be flooded by the river. 1.185. The second queen, whose name was Nitocris, was a wiser woman than the first. She left such monuments as I shall record; and moreover, seeing that the kingdom of Media was great and restless and Ninus itself among other cities had fallen to it, she took such precautions as she could for her protection. ,First she dealt with the river Euphrates, which flows through the middle of her city; this had been straight before; but by digging canals higher up she made the river so crooked that its course now passes one of the Assyrian villages three times; the village which is so approached by the Euphrates is called Ardericca. And now those who travel from our sea to Babylon must spend three days as they float down the Euphrates coming three times to the same village. ,Such was this work; and she built an embankment along either shore of the river, marvellous for its greatness and height. ,Then a long way above Babylon she dug the reservoir of a lake, a little way off from the river, always digging deep enough to find water, and making the circumference a distance of fifty two miles; what was dug out of this hole, she used to embank either edge of the river; ,and when she had it all dug, she brought stones and made a quay all around the lake. ,Her purpose in making the river wind and turning the hole into marsh was this: that the current might be slower because of the many windings that broke its force, and that the passages to Babylon might be crooked, and that right after them should come also the long circuit of the lake. ,All this work was done in that part of the country where the passes are and the shortest road from Media, so that the Medes might not mix with her people and learn of her affairs. 1.187. There was a trick, too, that this same queen contrived. She had a tomb made for herself and set high over the very gate of that entrance of the city which was used most, with writing engraved on the tomb, which read: ,“If any king of Babylon in the future is in need of money, let him open this tomb and take as much as he likes: but let him not open it unless he is in need; for it will be the worse for him.” ,This tomb remained untouched until the kingship fell to Darius. He thought it a very strange thing that he should never use this gate, or take the money when it lay there and the writing itself invited him to. ,The reason he did not use the gate was that the dead body would be over his head as he passed through. ,After opening the tomb, he found no money there, only the dead body, with writing which read: “If you were ever satisfied with what you had and did not disgrace yourself seeking more, you would not have opened the coffins of the dead.” Such a woman, it is recorded, was this queen. 1.205. Now at this time the Massagetae were ruled by a queen called Tomyris, whose husband was dead. Cyrus sent a message with a pretence of wanting her for his wife, but Tomyris would have none of his advances, well understanding that he wanted not her but the kingdom of the Massagetae. ,So when guile was of no avail, Cyrus marched to the Araxes and openly prepared to attack the Massagetae; he bridged the river for his army to cross, and built towers on the pontoons bridging the river. 1.213. Cyrus dismissed this warning when it was repeated to him. But Spargapises, the son of the queen Tomyris, after the wine wore off and he recognized his evil plight, asked Cyrus to be freed from his bonds; and this was granted him; but as soon as he was freed and had the use of his hands, he did away with himself. 2.29. I was unable to learn anything from anyone else, but this much further I did learn by the most extensive investigation that I could make, going as far as the city of Elephantine to look myself, and beyond that by question and hearsay. ,Beyond Elephantine, as one travels inland, the land rises. Here one must pass with the boat roped on both sides as men harness an ox; and if the rope breaks, the boat will be carried away by the strength of the current. ,This part of the river is a four days' journey by boat, and the Nile here is twisty just as the Maeander ; a distance of twelve schoeni must be passed in the foregoing manner. After that, you come to a level plain, where there is an island in the Nile, called Takhompso. ,The country above Elephantine now begins to be inhabited by Ethiopians: half the people of the island are Ethiopians, and half Egyptians. Near the island is a great lake, on whose shores live nomadic Ethiopians. After crossing this, you come to the stream of the Nile, which empties into this lake. ,Then you disembark and journey along the river bank for forty days; for there are sharp projecting rocks in the Nile and many reefs, through which no boat can pass. ,Having traversed this part in forty days as I have said, you take boat again and so travel for twelve days until you come to a great city called Meroe, which is said to be the capital of all Ethiopia . ,The people of the place worship no other gods but Zeus and Dionysus; these they greatly honor, and they have a place of divination sacred to Zeus; they send out armies whenever and wherever this god through his oracle commands them. 2.30. From this city you make a journey by water equal in distance to that by which you came from Elephantine to the capital city of Ethiopia, and you come to the land of the Deserters. These Deserters are called Asmakh, which translates, in Greek, as “those who stand on the left hand of the king”. ,These once revolted and joined themselves to the Ethiopians, two hundred and forty thousand Egyptians of fighting age. The reason was as follows. In the reign of Psammetichus, there were watchposts at Elephantine facing Ethiopia, at Daphnae of Pelusium facing Arabia and Assyria, and at Marea facing Libya . ,And still in my time the Persians hold these posts as they were held in the days of Psammetichus; there are Persian guards at Elephantine and at Daphnae . Now the Egyptians had been on guard for three years, and no one came to relieve them; so, organizing and making common cause, they revolted from Psammetichus and went to Ethiopia . ,Psammetichus heard of it and pursued them; and when he overtook them, he asked them in a long speech not to desert their children and wives and the gods of their fathers. Then one of them, the story goes, pointed to his genitals and said that wherever that was, they would have wives and children. ,So they came to Ethiopia, and gave themselves up to the king of the country; who, to make them a gift in return, told them to dispossess certain Ethiopians with whom he was feuding, and occupy their land. These Ethiopians then learned Egyptian customs and have become milder-mannered by intermixture with the Egyptians. 2.31. To a distance of four months' travel by land and water, then, there is knowledge of the Nile, besides the part of it that is in Egypt . So many months, as reckoning shows, are found to be spent by one going from Elephantine to the country of the Deserters. The river flows from the west and the sun's setting. Beyond this, no one has clear information to declare; for all that country is desolate because of the heat. 2.55. That, then, I heard from the Theban priests; and what follows, the prophetesses of Dodona say: that two black doves had come flying from Thebes in Egypt, one to Libya and one to Dodona ; ,the latter settled on an oak tree, and there uttered human speech, declaring that a place of divination from Zeus must be made there; the people of Dodona understood that the message was divine, and therefore established the oracular shrine. ,The dove which came to Libya told the Libyans (they say) to make an oracle of Ammon; this also is sacred to Zeus. Such was the story told by the Dodonaean priestesses, the eldest of whom was Promeneia and the next Timarete and the youngest Nicandra; and the rest of the servants of the temple at Dodona similarly held it true. 2.100. After him came three hundred and thirty kings, whose names the priests recited from a papyrus roll. In all these many generations there were eighteen Ethiopian kings, and one queen, native to the country; the rest were all Egyptian men. ,The name of the queen was the same as that of the Babylonian princess, Nitocris. She, to avenge her brother (he was king of Egypt and was slain by his subjects, who then gave Nitocris the sovereignty) put many of the Egyptians to death by treachery. ,She built a spacious underground chamber; then, with the pretence of inaugurating it, but with quite another intent in her mind, she gave a great feast, inviting to it those Egyptians whom she knew to have had the most complicity in her brother's murder; and while they feasted, she let the river in upon them by a vast secret channel. ,This was all that the priests told of her, except that when she had done this she cast herself into a chamber full of hot ashes, to escape vengeance. 2.133. After what happened to his daughter, the following happened next to this king: an oracle came to him from the city of Buto, announcing that he had just six years to live and was to die in the seventh. ,The king took this badly, and sent back to the oracle a message of reproach, blaming the god that his father and his uncle, though they had shut up the temples, and disregarded the gods, and destroyed men, had lived for a long time, but that he who was pious was going to die so soon. ,But a second oracle came announcing that for this very reason his life was hastening to a close: he had done what was contrary to fate; Egypt should have been afflicted for a hundred and fifty years, and the two kings before him knew this, but not he. ,Hearing this, Mycerinus knew that his doom was fixed. Therefore, he had many lamps made, and would light these at nightfall and drink and enjoy himself, not letting up day or night, roaming to the marsh country and the groves and wherever he heard of the likeliest places of pleasure. ,This was his recourse, so that by turning night into day he might make his six years into twelve and so prove the oracle false. 2.147. So far I have recorded what the Egyptians themselves say. I shall now relate what is recorded alike by Egyptians and foreigners, and shall add something of what I myself have seen. ,After the reign of the priest of Hephaestus the Egyptians were made free. But they could never live without a king, so they divided Egypt into twelve districts and set up twelve kings. ,These kings intermarried, and agreed to be close friends, no one deposing another or seeking to possess more than another. ,The reason for this agreement, which they scrupulously kept, was this: no sooner were they established in their districts than an oracle was given them that whichever of them poured a libation from a bronze vessel in the temple of Hephaestus (where, as in all the temples, they used to assemble) would be king of all Egypt . 2.161. Psammis reigned over Egypt for only six years; he invaded Ethiopia, and immediately thereafter died, and Apries the son of Psammis reigned in his place. ,He was more fortunate than any former king (except his great-grandfather Psammetichus) during his rule of twenty-five years, during which he sent an army against Sidon and fought at sea with the king of Tyre . ,But when it was fated that evil should overtake him, the cause of it was something that I will now deal with briefly, and at greater length in the Libyan part of this history. ,Apries sent a great force against Cyrene and suffered a great defeat. The Egyptians blamed him for this and rebelled against him; for they thought that Apries had knowingly sent his men to their doom, so that after their perishing in this way he might be the more secure in his rule over the rest of the Egyptians. Bitterly angered by this, those who returned home and the friends of the slain openly revolted. 3.17. After this Cambyses planned three expeditions, against the Carchedonians, against the Ammonians, and against the “long-lived” Ethiopians, who inhabit that part of Libya that is on the southern sea. ,He decided after consideration to send his fleet against the Carthaginians and a part of his land army against the Ammonians; to Ethiopia he would first send spies, to see what truth there was in the story of a Table of the Sun in that country, and to spy out all else besides, under the pretext of bringing gifts for the Ethiopian king. 3.18. Now the Table of the Sun is said to be something of this kind: there is a meadow outside the city, filled with the boiled flesh of all four-footed things; here during the night the men of authority among the townsmen are careful to set out the meat, and all day whoever wishes comes and feasts on it. These meats, say the people of the country, are ever produced by the earth of itself. Such is the story of the Sun's Table. 3.19. When Cambyses determined to send the spies, he sent for those Fish-eaters from the city of Elephantine who understood the Ethiopian language. ,While they were fetching them, he ordered his fleet to sail against Carthage . But the Phoenicians said they would not do it; for they were bound, they said, by strong oaths, and if they sailed against their own progeny they would be doing an impious thing; and the Phoenicians being unwilling, the rest were inadequate fighters. ,Thus the Carthaginians escaped being enslaved by the Persians; for Cambyses would not use force with the Phoenicians, seeing that they had willingly surrendered to the Persians, and the whole fleet drew its strength from them. The Cyprians too had come of their own accord to aid the Persians against Egypt . 3.20. When the Fish-eaters arrived from Elephantine at Cambyses' summons, he sent them to Ethiopia, with orders what to say, and bearing as gifts a red cloak and a twisted gold necklace and bracelets and an alabaster box of incense and an earthenware jar of palm wine. These Ethiopians, to whom Cambyses sent them, are said to be the tallest and most handsome of all men. ,Their way of choosing kings is different from that of all others, as (it is said) are all their laws; they consider that man worthy to be their king whom they judge to be tallest and to have strength proportional to his stature. 3.21. When the Fish-eaters arrived among these men, they gave the gifts to their king and said: “Cambyses, the king of the Persians, wishing to become your friend and ally, sent us with orders to address ourselves to you; and he offers you as gifts these things which he enjoys using himself.” ,But the Ethiopian, perceiving that they had come as spies, spoke thus to them: “It is not because he values my friendship that the Persian King sends you with gifts, nor do you speak the truth (for you have come to spy on my realm), nor is that man just; for were he just, he would not have coveted a land other than his own, nor would he try to lead into slavery men by whom he has not been injured. Now, give him this bow, and this message: ,‘The King of the Ethiopians advises the King of the Persians to bring overwhelming odds to attack the long-lived Ethiopians when the Persians can draw a bow of this length as easily as I do; but until then, to thank the gods who do not incite the sons of the Ethiopians to add other land to their own.’” 3.22. So speaking he unstrung the bow and gave it to the men who had come. Then, taking the red cloak, he asked what it was and how it was made; and when the Fish-eaters told him the truth about the color and the process of dyeing, he said that both the men and their garments were full of deceit. ,Next he inquired about the twisted gold necklace and the bracelets; and when the Fish-eaters told him how they were made, the king smiled, and, thinking them to be fetters, said: “We have stronger chains than these.” ,Thirdly he inquired about the incense; and when they described making and applying it, he made the same reply as about the cloak. But when he came to the wine and asked about its making, he was vastly pleased with the drink, and asked further what food their king ate, and what was the greatest age to which a Persian lived. ,They told him their king ate bread, showing him how wheat grew; and said that the full age to which a man might hope to live was eighty years. Then, said the Ethiopian, it was no wonder that they lived so few years, if they ate dung; they would not even have been able to live that many unless they were refreshed by the drink—signifying to the Fish-eaters the wine—for in this, he said, the Persians excelled the Ethiopians. 3.23. The Fish-eaters then in turn asking of the Ethiopian length of life and diet, he said that most of them attained to a hundred and twenty years, and some even to more; their food was boiled meat and their drink milk. ,The spies showed wonder at the tale of years; whereupon he led them, it is said, to a spring, by washing in which they grew sleeker, as though it were of oil; and it smelled of violets. ,So light, the spies said, was this water, that nothing would float on it, neither wood nor anything lighter than wood, but all sank to the bottom. If this water is truly such as they say, it is likely that their constant use of it makes the people long-lived. ,When they left the spring, the king led them to a prison where all the men were bound with fetters of gold. Among these Ethiopians there is nothing so scarce and so precious as bronze. Then, having seen the prison, they saw what is called the Table of the Sun. 3.24. Last after this they viewed the Ethiopian coffins; these are said to be made of alabaster, as I shall describe: ,they cause the dead body to shrink, either as the Egyptians do or in some other way, then cover it with gypsum and paint it all as far as possible in the likeness of the living man; ,then they set it within a hollow pillar of alabaster, which they dig in abundance from the ground, and it is easily worked; the body can be seen in the pillar through the alabaster, no evil stench nor anything unpleasant proceeding from it, and showing clearly all its parts, as if it were the man himself. ,The nearest of kin keep the pillar in their house for a year, giving it of the first-fruits and offering it sacrifices; after which they bring the pillars out and set them round about the city. 3.25. Having seen everything, the spies departed again. When they reported all this, Cambyses was angry, and marched at once against the Ethiopians, neither giving directions for any provision of food nor considering that he was about to lead his army to the ends of the earth; ,being not in his right mind but mad, however, he marched at once on hearing from the Fish-eaters, ordering the Greeks who were with him to await him where they were, and taking with him all his land army. ,When he came in his march to Thebes , he detached about fifty thousand men from his army, and directed them to enslave the Ammonians and burn the oracle of Zeus; and he himself went on towards Ethiopia with the rest of his host. ,But before his army had accomplished the fifth part of their journey they had come to an end of all there was in the way of provision, and after the food was gone, they ate the beasts of burden until there was none of these left either. ,Now had Cambyses, when he perceived this, changed his mind and led his army back again, he would have been a wise man at last after his first fault; but as it was, he went ever forward, taking account of nothing. ,While his soldiers could get anything from the earth, they kept themselves alive by eating grass; but when they came to the sandy desert, some did a terrible thing, taking by lot one man out of ten and eating him. ,Hearing this, Cambyses feared their becoming cannibals, and so gave up his expedition against the Ethiopians and marched back to Thebes , with the loss of many of his army; from Thebes he came down to Memphis, and sent the Greeks to sail away. 3.26. So fared the expedition against Ethiopia . As for those who were sent to march against the Ammonians, they set out and journeyed from Thebes with guides; and it is known that they came to the city of Oasis, inhabited by Samians said to be of the Aeschrionian tribe, seven days' march from Thebes across sandy desert; this place is called, in the Greek language, Islands of the Blest. ,Thus far, it is said, the army came; after that, except for the Ammonians themselves and those who heard from them, no man can say anything of them; for they neither reached the Ammonians nor returned back. ,But this is what the Ammonians themselves say: when the Persians were crossing the sand from Oasis to attack them, and were about midway between their country and Oasis, while they were breakfasting a great and violent south wind arose, which buried them in the masses of sand which it bore; and so they disappeared from sight. Such is the Ammonian tale about this army. 3.57. When the Lacedaemonians were about to abandon them, the Samians who had brought an army against Polycrates sailed away too, and went to Siphnus; ,for they were in need of money; and the Siphnians were at this time very prosperous and the richest of the islanders, because of the gold and silver mines on the island. They were so wealthy that the treasure dedicated by them at Delphi, which is as rich as any there, was made from a tenth of their income; and they divided among themselves each year's income. ,Now when they were putting together the treasure they inquired of the oracle if their present prosperity was likely to last long; whereupon the priestess gave them this answer: , quote type="oracle" l met="dact"“When the prytaneum on Siphnus becomes white /l lAnd white-browed the market, then indeed a shrewd man is wanted /l lBeware a wooden force and a red herald.” /l /quote At this time the market-place and town-hall of Siphnus were adorned with Parian marble. 3.58. They could not understand this oracle either when it was spoken or at the time of the Samians' coming. As soon as the Samians put in at Siphnus, they sent ambassadors to the town in one of their ships; ,now in ancient times all ships were painted with vermilion; and this was what was meant by the warning given by the priestess to the Siphnians, to beware a wooden force and a red herald. ,The messengers, then, demanded from the Siphnians a loan of ten talents; when the Siphnians refused them, the Samians set about ravaging their lands. ,Hearing this the Siphnians came out at once to drive them off, but they were defeated in battle, and many of them were cut off from their town by the Samians; who presently exacted from them a hundred talents. 3.64. The truth of the words and of a dream struck Cambyses the moment he heard the name Smerdis; for he had dreamt that a message had come to him that Smerdis sitting on the royal throne touched heaven with his head; ,and perceiving that he had killed his brother without cause, he wept bitterly for Smerdis. Having wept, and grieved by all his misfortune, he sprang upon his horse, with intent to march at once to Susa against the Magus. ,As he sprang upon his horse, the cap fell off the sheath of his sword, and the naked blade pierced his thigh, wounding him in the same place where he had once wounded the Egyptian god Apis; and believing the wound to be mortal, Cambyses asked what was the name of the town where he was. ,They told him it was Ecbatana . Now a prophecy had before this come to him from Buto, that he would end his life at Ecbatana ; Cambyses supposed this to signify that he would die in old age at the Median Ecbatana, his capital city; but as the event proved, the oracle prophesied his death at Ecbatana of Syria . ,So when he now inquired and learned the name of the town, the shock of his wound, and of the misfortune that came to him from the Magus, brought him to his senses; he understood the prophecy and said: “Here Cambyses son of Cyrus is to die.” 3.68. Such was his proclamation at the beginning of his reign; but in the eighth month he was exposed in the following manner. There was one Otanes, son of Pharnaspes, as well-born and rich a man as any Persian. ,This Otanes was the first to guess that the Magus was not Cyrus' son Smerdis and who, in fact, he was; the reason was, that he never left the acropolis nor summoned any notable Persian into his presence. And having formed this suspicion Otanes did as follows: ,Cambyses had taken his daughter, whose name was Phaedyme; this same girl the Magus had now and he lived with her and with all Cambyses' other wives. Otanes sent to this daughter, asking at what man's side she lay, with Smerdis, Cyrus' son, or with some other? ,She sent back a message that she did not know; for (she said) she had never seen Cyrus' son Smerdis, nor did she know who her bedfellow was. Then Otanes sent a second message, to this effect: “If you do not know Cyrus' son Smerdis yourself, then find out from Atossa who it is that she and you are living with; for surely she knows her own brother.” ,To this his daughter replied: “I cannot communicate with Atossa, nor can I see any other of the women of the household; for no sooner had this man, whoever he is, made himself king, than he sent us to live apart, each in her own appointed place.” 3.69. When Otanes heard that, he saw more clearly how the matter stood; and he sent her this third message: ,“Daughter, your noble birth obliges you to run any risk that your father commands you to face. If this man is not Smerdis son of Cyrus but who I think he is, then he must not get away with sleeping with you and sitting on the throne of Persia, but be punished. ,Now, then, when he lies with you and you see that he is sleeping, feel his ears; if he has ears, rest assured that you are living with Smerdis son of Cyrus; but if he has none, it is Smerdis the Magus.” ,Phaedyme answered by messenger that she would run a very great risk by so doing; for if it should turn out that he had no ears, and she were caught feeling for them, he would surely kill her; nevertheless she would do it. ,So she promised to do this for her father. Cyrus son of Cambyses during his reign cut off the ears of this Magus Smerdis for some grave reason. ,So Phaedyme, daughter of Otanes, performed her promise to her father. When it was her turn to go to the Magus (for their wives go in sequence to the Persians), she came to his bed and felt for the Magus' ears while he slumbered deeply; and having with no great difficulty assured herself that he had no ears, she sent and told this to her father as soon as it was morning. 3.98. All this abundance of gold, from which the Indians send the aforementioned gold-dust to the king, they obtain in the following way. ,To the east of the Indian country is sand. of all the people of Asia whom we know - even those about whom something is said with precision - the Indians dwell nearest to the dawn and the rising sun; for on the eastern side of India all is desolate because of the sand. ,There are many Indian nations, none speaking the same language; some of them are nomads, some not; some dwell in the river marshes and live on raw fish, which they catch from reed boats. Each boat is made of one joint of reed. ,These Indians wear clothes of bullrushes; they mow and cut these from the river, then weave them crosswise like a mat, and wear them like a breastplate. 3.99. Other Indians, to the east of these, are nomads and eat raw flesh; they are called Padaei. It is said to be their custom that when anyone of their fellows, whether man or woman, is sick, a man's closest friends kill him, saying that if wasted by disease he will be lost to them as meat; though he denies that he is sick, they will not believe him, but kill and eat him. ,When a woman is sick, she is put to death like the men by the women who are her close acquaintances. As for one that has come to old age, they sacrifice him and feast on his flesh; but not many reach this reckoning, for before that everyone who falls ill they kill. 3.100. There are other Indians, again, who kill no living creature, nor plant anything, nor are accustomed to have houses; they eat grass, and they have a grain growing naturally from the earth in its husk, about the size of a millet-seed, which they gather with the husk and boil and eat. When any one of them falls sick, he goes into the desert and lies there, and no one notices whether he is sick or dies. 3.101. These Indians whom I have described have intercourse openly like cattle; they are all black-skinned, like the Ethiopians. ,Their semen too, which they ejaculate into the women, is not white like other men's, but black like their skin, and resembles in this respect that of the Ethiopians. These Indians dwell far away from the Persians southwards, and were not subjects of King Darius. 3.119. They showed themselves to the king and told him why they had been treated so. Darius, fearing that the six had done this by common consent, sent for each and asked his opinion, whether they approved what had been done; ,and being assured that they had no part in it, he seized Intaphrenes with his sons and all his household—for he strongly suspected that the man was plotting a rebellion with his kinsmen—and imprisoned them with the intention of putting them to death. ,Then Intaphrenes' wife began coming to the palace gates, weeping and lamenting; and by continuing to do this same thing she persuaded Darius to pity her; and he sent a messenger to tell her, “Woman, King Darius will allow one of your imprisoned relatives to survive, whomever you prefer of them all.” ,After considering she answered, “If indeed the king gives me the life of one, I chose from them all my brother.” ,Darius was astonished when he heard her answer, and sent someone who asked her: “Woman, the king asks you with what in mind you abandon your husband and your children and choose to save the life of your brother, who is less close to you than your children and less dear than your husband?” ,“O King,” she answered, “I may have another husband, if a god is willing, and other children, if I lose these; but since my father and mother are no longer living, there is no way that I can have another brother; I said what I did with that in mind.” ,Darius thought that the woman answered well, and for her sake he released the one for whom she had asked, and the eldest of her sons as well; he put to death all the rest. Thus immediately perished one of the seven. 4.15. Such is the tale told in these two towns. But this, I know, happened to the Metapontines in Italy, two hundred and forty years after the second disappearance of Aristeas, as reckoning made at Proconnesus and Metapontum shows me: ,Aristeas, so the Metapontines say, appeared in their country and told them to set up an altar to Apollo, and set beside it a statue bearing the name of Aristeas the Proconnesian; for, he said, Apollo had come to their country alone of all Italian lands, and he—the man who was now Aristeas, but then when he followed the god had been a crow—had come with him. ,After saying this, he vanished. The Metapontines, so they say, sent to Delphi and asked the god what the vision of the man could mean; and the Pythian priestess told them to obey the vision, saying that their fortune would be better. ,They did as instructed. And now there stands beside the image of Apollo a statue bearing the name of Aristeas; a grove of bay-trees surrounds it; the image is set in the marketplace. Let it suffice that I have said this much about Aristeas. 4.59. The most important things are thus provided them. It remains now to show the customs which are established among them. The only gods whom they propitiate are these: Hestia in particular, and secondly Zeus and Earth, whom they believe to be the wife of Zeus; after these, Apollo, and the Heavenly Aphrodite, and Heracles, and Ares. All the Scythians worship these as gods; the Scythians called Royal sacrifice to Poseidon also. ,In the Scythian tongue, Hestia is called Tabiti; Zeus (in my judgment most correctly so called) Papaeus; Earth is Apia; Apollo Goetosyrus; the Heavenly Aphrodite Argimpasa; Poseidon Thagimasadas. It is their practice to make images and altars and shrines for Ares, but for no other god. 4.60. In all their sacred rites they follow the same method of sacrifice; this is how it is offered. The victim stands with its forefeet shackled together; the sacrificer stands behind the beast, and throws it down by pulling the end of the rope; ,as the victim falls, he invokes whatever god it is to whom he sacrifices. Then, throwing a noose around the beast's neck, he thrusts in a stick and twists it and so strangles the victim, lighting no fire nor offering the first-fruits, nor pouring any libation; and having strangled and skinned the beast, he sets about cooking it. 4.61. Now as the Scythian land is quite bare of wood, this is how they contrive to cook the meat. When they have skinned the victims, they strip the meat from the bones and throw it into the cauldrons of the country, if they have them: these are most like Lesbian bowls, except that they are much bigger; they throw the meat into these, then, and cook it by lighting a fire beneath with the bones of the victims. But if they have no cauldron, then they put all the meat into the victims' stomachs, adding water, and make a fire of the bones beneath, ,which burn nicely; the stomachs easily hold the meat when it is stripped from the bones; thus a steer serves to cook itself, and every other victim does likewise. When the flesh is cooked, the sacrificer takes the first-fruits of the flesh and the entrails and casts them before him. They use all grazing animals for sacrifice, but mainly horses. 4.62. This is their way of sacrificing to other gods and these are the beasts offered; but their sacrifices to Ares are of this sort. Every district in each of the governments has a structure sacred to Ares; namely, a pile of bundles of sticks three eighths of a mile wide and long, but of a lesser height, on the top of which there is a flattened four-sided surface; three of its sides are sheer, but the fourth can be ascended. ,Every year a hundred and fifty wagon-loads of sticks are heaped upon this; for the storms of winter always make it sink down. On this sacred pile an ancient scimitar of iron is set for each people: their image of Ares. They bring yearly sacrifice of sheep and goats and horses to this scimitar, offering to these symbols even more than they do to the other gods. ,of enemies that they take alive, they sacrifice one man in every hundred, not as they sacrifice sheep and goats, but differently. They pour wine on the men's heads and cut their throats over a bowl; then they carry the blood up on to the pile of sticks and pour it on the scimitar. ,They carry the blood up above, but down below by the sacred pile they cut off all the slain men's right arms and hands and throw these into the air, and depart when they have sacrificed the rest of the victims; the arm lies where it has fallen, and the body apart from it. 4.63. These then are their established rites of sacrifice; but these Scythians make no offerings of swine; nor are they willing for the most part to rear them in their country. 4.64. As to war, these are their customs. A Scythian drinks the blood of the first man whom he has taken down. He carries the heads of all whom he has slain in the battle to his king; for if he brings a head, he receives a share of the booty taken, but not otherwise. ,He scalps the head by making a cut around it by the ears, then grasping the scalp and shaking the head off. Then he scrapes out the flesh with the rib of a steer, and kneads the skin with his hands, and having made it supple he keeps it for a hand towel, fastening it to the bridle of the horse which he himself rides, and taking pride in it; for he who has most scalps for hand towels is judged the best man. ,Many Scythians even make garments to wear out of these scalps, sewing them together like coats of skin. Many too take off the skin, nails and all, from their dead enemies' right hands, and make coverings for their quivers;the human skin was, as it turned out, thick and shining, the brightest and whitest skin of all, one might say. ,Many flay the skin from the whole body, too, and carry it about on horseback stretched on a wooden frame. 4.65. The heads themselves, not all of them but those of their bitterest enemies, they treat this way. Each saws off all the part beneath the eyebrows, and cleans the rest. If he is a poor man, then he covers the outside with a piece of raw hide, and so makes use of it; but if he is rich, he covers the head with the raw hide, and gilds the inside of it and uses it for a drinking-cup. ,Such a cup a man also makes out of the head of his own kinsman with whom he has been feuding, and whom he has defeated in single combat before the king; and if guests whom he honors visit him he will serve them with these heads, and show how the dead were his kinsfolk who fought him and were beaten by him; this they call manly valor. 4.66. Furthermore, once a year each governor of a province brews a bowl of wine in his own province, which those Scythians who have slain enemies drink; those who have not achieved this do not taste this wine but sit apart dishonored; and this they consider a very great disgrace; but as many as have slain not one but many enemies have two cups apiece and drink out of both. 4.67. There are many diviners among the Scythians, who divine by means of many willow wands as I will show. They bring great bundles of wands, which they lay on the ground and unfasten, and utter their divinations as they lay the rods down one by one; and while still speaking, they gather up the rods once more and place them together again; ,this manner of divination is hereditary among them. The Enarees, who are hermaphrodites, say that Aphrodite gave them the art of divination, which they practise by means of lime-tree bark. They cut this bark into three portions, and prophesy while they braid and unbraid these in their fingers. 4.68. Whenever the king of the Scythians falls ill, he sends for the three most reputable diviners, who prophesy in the aforesaid way; and they generally tell him that such and such a man (naming whoever it may be of the people) has sworn falsely by the king's hearth; ,for when the Scythians will swear their mightiest oath, it is by the king's hearth that they are accustomed to swear. Immediately, the man whom they allege to have sworn falsely is seized and brought in, and when he comes the diviners accuse him, saying that their divination shows him to have sworn falsely by the king's hearth, and that this is the cause of the king's sickness; and the man vehemently denies that he has sworn falsely. ,When he denies it, the king sends for twice as many diviners: and if they too, consulting their art, prove him guilty of perjury, then he is instantly beheaded, and his goods are divided among the first diviners; ,but if the later diviners acquit him, then other diviners come, and yet again others. If the greater number of them acquit the man, it is decreed that the first diviners themselves be put to death. 4.69. And this is how they die. Men yoke oxen to a wagon laden with sticks and tie the diviners up in these, fettering their legs and binding their hands behind them and gagging them; then they set fire to the sticks and drive the oxen away, stampeding them. ,often the oxen are burnt to death with the diviners, and often the yoke-pole of their wagon is burnt through and the oxen escape with a scorching. They burn their diviners for other reasons, too, in the way described, calling them false prophets. ,When the king puts them to death, he does not leave the sons alive either, but kills all the males of the family; the females he does not harm. 4.70. As for giving sworn pledges to those who are to receive them, this is the Scythian way: they take blood from the parties to the agreement by making a little cut in the body with an awl or a knife, and pour it mixed with wine into a big earthenware bowl, into which they then dip a scimitar and arrows and an axe and a javelin; and when this is done those swearing the agreement, and the most honorable of their followers, drink the blood after solemn curses. 4.71. The burial-places of the kings are in the land of the Gerrhi, which is the end of the navigation of the Borysthenes. Whenever their king has died, the Scythians dig a great four-cornered pit in the ground there; when this is ready, they take up the dead man—his body enclosed in wax, his belly cut open and cleaned and filled with cut marsh-plants and frankincense, and parsley and anise seed, and sewn up again—and transport him on a wagon to another tribe. ,Then those who receive the dead man on his arrival do the same as do the Royal Scythians: that is, they cut off a part of their ears, shave their heads, make cuts around their arms, tear their foreheads and noses, and pierce their left hands with arrows. ,From there, the escorts transport the king's body on the wagon to another of the tribes that they rule, and those to whom they have already come follow them; and having carried the dead man to all in turn, they are at the place of burial, in the country of the Gerrhi, the farthest distant tribe of all under their rule. ,Then, having laid the body on a couch in the tomb, they plant spears on each side of the body and lay wooden planks across them, which they then roof over with braided osiers; in the open space which is left in the tomb they bury one of the king's concubines, his cupbearer, his cook, his groom, his squire, and his messenger, after strangling them, besides horses, and first-fruits of everything else, and golden cups; for the Scythians do not use silver or bronze. ,Having done this, they all build a great barrow of earth, vying eagerly with one another to make this as great as possible. 4.72. After a year has past, they next do as follows. They take the most trusted of the rest of the king's servants (and these are native-born Scythians, for only those whom he tells to do so serve the king, and none of the Scythians have servants bought by money) ,and strangle fifty of these and fifty of their best horses and empty and clean the bellies of them all, fill them with chaff, and sew them up again. ,Then they fasten half of a wheel to two posts, the hollow upward, and the other half to another pair of posts, until many posts thus prepared are planted in the ground, and, after driving thick stakes lengthways through the horses' bodies to their necks, they place the horses up on the wheels ,so that the wheel in front supports the horse's forequarters and the wheel behind takes the weight of the belly by the hindquarters, and the forelegs and hindlegs hang free; and putting bridles and bits in the horses' mouths, they stretch the bridles to the front and fasten them with pegs. ,Then they take each one of the fifty strangled young men and mount him on the horse; their way of doing it is to drive an upright stake through each body passing up alongside the spine to the neck leaving enough of the stake projecting below to be fixed in a hole made in the other stake, which passes through the horse. So having set horsemen of this fashion around the tomb, they ride away. 4.73. This is the way they bury their kings. All other Scythians, when they die, are laid in wagons and carried about among their friends by their nearest of kin; each receives them and entertains the retinue hospitably, setting before the dead man about as much of the fare as he serves to the rest. All but the kings are carried about like this for forty days and then buried. ,After the burial the Scythians cleanse themselves as follows: they anoint and wash their heads and, for their bodies, set up three poles leaning together to a point and cover these over with wool mats; then, in the space so enclosed to the best of their ability, they make a pit in the center beneath the poles and the mats and throw red-hot stones into it. 4.74. They have hemp growing in their country, very like flax, except that the hemp is much thicker and taller. This grows both of itself and also by their cultivation, and the Thracians even make garments of it which are very like linen; no one, unless he were an expert in hemp, could determine whether they were hempen or linen; whoever has never seen hemp before will think the garment linen. 4.75. The Scythians then take the seed of this hemp and, crawling in under the mats, throw it on the red-hot stones, where it smoulders and sends forth such fumes that no Greek vapor-bath could surpass it. ,The Scythians howl in their joy at the vapor-bath. This serves them instead of bathing, for they never wash their bodies with water. ,But their women pound cypress and cedar and frankincense wood on a rough stone, adding water also, and with the thick stuff thus pounded they anoint their bodies and faces, as a result of which not only does a fragrant scent come from them, but when on the second day they take off the ointment, their skin becomes clear and shining. 4.76. But as regards foreign customs, the Scythians (like others) very much shun practising those of any other country, and particularly of Hellas, as was proved in the case of Anacharsis and also of Scyles. ,For when Anacharsis was coming back to the Scythian country after having seen much of the world in his travels and given many examples of his wisdom, he sailed through the Hellespont and put in at Cyzicus; ,where, finding the Cyzicenes celebrating the feast of the Mother of the Gods with great ceremony, he vowed to this same Mother that if he returned to his own country safe and sound he would sacrifice to her as he saw the Cyzicenes doing, and establish a nightly rite of worship. ,So when he came to Scythia, he hid himself in the country called Woodland (which is beside the Race of Achilles, and is all overgrown with every kind of timber); hidden there, Anacharsis celebrated the goddess' ritual with exactness, carrying a small drum and hanging images about himself. ,Then some Scythian saw him doing this and told the king, Saulius; who, coming to the place himself and seeing Anacharsis performing these rites, shot an arrow at him and killed him. And now the Scythians, if they are asked about Anacharsis, say they have no knowledge of him; this is because he left his country for Hellas and followed the customs of strangers. ,But according to what I heard from Tymnes, the deputy for Ariapithes, Anacharsis was an uncle of Idanthyrsus king of Scythia, and he was the son of Gnurus, son of Lycus, son of Spargapithes. Now if Anacharsis was truly of this family, then let him know he was slain by his own brother; for Idanthyrsus was the son of Saulius, and it was Saulius who killed Anacharsis. 4.77. It is true that I have heard another story told by the Peloponnesians; namely, that Anacharsis had been sent by the king of Scythia and had been a student of the ways of Hellas, and after his return told the king who sent him that all Greeks were keen for every kind of learning, except the Lacedaemonians; but that these were the only Greeks who spoke and listened with discretion. ,But this is a tale pointlessly invented by the Greeks themselves; and be this as it may, the man was put to death as I have said. 4.78. This, then, was how Anacharsis fared, owing to his foreign ways and consorting with Greeks; and a great many years afterward, Scyles, son of Ariapithes, suffered a like fate. Scyles was one of the sons born to Ariapithes, king of Scythia; but his mother was of Istria, and not native-born; and she taught him to speak and read Greek. ,As time passed, Ariapithes was treacherously killed by Spargapithes, king of the Agathyrsi, and Scyles inherited the kingship and his father's wife, a Scythian woman whose name was Opoea, and she bore Scyles a son, Oricus. ,So Scyles was king of Scythia; but he was in no way content with the Scythian way of life, and was much more inclined to Greek ways, from the upbringing that he had received. So this is what he would do: he would lead the Scythian army to the city of the Borysthenites (who say that they are Milesians), and when he arrived there would leave his army in the suburb of the city, ,while he himself, entering within the walls and shutting the gates, would take off his Scythian apparel and put on Greek dress; and in it he would go among the townsfolk unattended by spearmen or any others (who would guard the gates, lest any Scythian see him wearing this apparel), and in every way follow the Greek manner of life, and worship the gods according to Greek usage. ,When he had spent a month or more like this, he would put on Scythian dress and leave the city. He did this often; and he built a house in Borysthenes, and married a wife of the people of the country and brought her there. 4.79. But when things had to turn out badly for him, they did so for this reason: he conceived a desire to be initiated into the rites of the Bacchic Dionysus; and when he was about to begin the sacred mysteries, he saw the greatest vision. ,He had in the city of the Borysthenites a spacious house, grand and costly (the same house I just mentioned), all surrounded by sphinxes and griffins worked in white marble; this house was struck by a thunderbolt. And though the house burnt to the ground, Scyles none the less performed the rite to the end. ,Now the Scythians reproach the Greeks for this Bacchic revelling, saying that it is not reasonable to set up a god who leads men to madness. ,So when Scyles had been initiated into the Bacchic rite, some one of the Borysthenites scoffed at the Scythians: “You laugh at us, Scythians, because we play the Bacchant and the god possesses us; but now this deity has possessed your own king, so that he plays the Bacchant and is maddened by the god. If you will not believe me, follow me now and I will show him to you.” ,The leading men among the Scythians followed him, and the Borysthenite brought them up secretly onto a tower; from which, when Scyles passed by with his company of worshippers, they saw him playing the Bacchant; thinking it a great misfortune, they left the city and told the whole army what they had seen. 4.80. After this Scyles rode off to his own place; but the Scythians rebelled against him, setting up his brother Octamasades, son of the daughter of Teres, for their king. ,Scyles, learning what had happened concerning him and the reason why it had happened, fled into Thrace; and when Octamasades heard this he led his army there. But when he was beside the Ister, the Thracians barred his way; and when the armies were about to engage, Sitalces sent this message to Octamasades: ,“Why should we try each other's strength? You are my sister's son, and you have my brother with you; give him back to me, and I will give up your Scyles to you; and let us not endanger our armies.” ,Such was the offer Sitalces sent to him; for Sitalces' brother had fled from him and was with Octamasades. The Scythian agreed to this, and took his brother Scyles, giving up his own uncle to Sitalces. ,Sitalces then took his brother and carried him away, but Octamasades beheaded Scyles on the spot. This is how closely the Scythians guard their customs, and these are the penalties they inflict on those who add foreign customs to their own. 4.81. How numerous the Scythians are, I was not able to learn exactly, and the accounts that I heard did not tally, some saying that they are very numerous, and some that they are few, so far as they are true Scythians. ,But this much they let me see for myself: there is a region between the Borysthenes and Hypanis rivers, whose name is Exampaeus; this is the land that I mentioned when I said that there is a spring of salt water in it, whose water makes the Hypanis unfit to drink. ,In this region is a bronze vessel, as much as six times greater than the cauldron dedicated by Pausanias son of Cleombrotus at the entrance of the Pontus. ,For anyone who has not yet seen the latter, I will make my meaning plain: the Scythian bronze vessel easily contains five thousand four hundred gallons, and it is of six fingers' thickness. This vessel (so the people of the country said) was made out of arrowheads. ,For their king, whose name was Ariantas, desiring to know the census of the Scythians, commanded every Scythian to bring him the point from an arrow, threatening death to all who did not. ,So a vast number of arrow-heads was brought, and he decided to make and leave a memorial out of them; and he made of these this bronze vessel, and set it up in this country Exampaeus. This much I heard about the number of the Scythians. 4.82. As for marvels, there are none in the land, except that it has by far the greatest and the most numerous rivers in the world; and over and above the rivers and the great extent of the plains there is one most marvellous thing for me to mention: they show a footprint of Heracles by the Tyras river stamped on rock, like the mark of a man's foot, but forty inches in length. Having described this, I will now return to the story which I began to tell. 4.145. At the same time that he was doing this, another great force was sent against Libya, for the reason that I shall give after I finish the story that I am going to tell now. ,The descendants of the crew of the Argo were driven out by the Pelasgians who carried off the Athenian women from Brauron; after being driven out of Lemnos by them, they sailed away to Lacedaemon, and there camped on Teügetum and kindled a fire. ,Seeing it, the Lacedaemonians sent a messenger to inquire who they were and where they came from. They answered the messenger that they were Minyae, descendants of the heroes who had sailed in the Argo and put in at Lemnos and there begot their race. ,Hearing the story of the lineage of the Minyae, the Lacedaemonians sent a second time and asked why they had come into Laconia and kindled a fire. They replied that, having been expelled by the Pelasgians, they had come to the land of their fathers, as was most just; and their wish was to live with their fathers' people, sharing in their rights and receiving allotted pieces of land. ,The Lacedaemonians were happy to receive the Minyae on the terms which their guests desired; the chief cause of their consenting was that the Tyndaridae had been in the ship's company of the Argo; so they received the Minyae and gave them land and distributed them among their own tribes. The Minyae immediately married, and gave in marriage to others the women they had brought from Lemnos. 4.146. But in no time these Minyae became imperious, demanding an equal right to the kingship, and doing other impious things; ,hence the Lacedaemonians resolved to kill them, and they seized them and cast them into prison. (When the Lacedaemonians execute, they do it by night, never by day.) ,Now when they were about to kill the prisoners, the wives of the Minyae, who were natives of the country, daughters of leading Spartans, asked permission to enter the prison and each converse with her husband; the Lacedamonians granted this, not expecting that there would be any treachery from them. ,But when the wives came into the prison, they gave their husbands all their own garments, and themselves put on the men's clothing; so the Minyae passed out in the guise of women dressed in women's clothing; and thus escaping, once more camped on Teügetum. 4.147. Now, about this same time, Theras, a descendant of Polynices through Thersander, Tisamenus, and Autesion, was preparing to lead out colonists from Lacedaemon. ,This Theras was of the line of Cadmus and was an uncle on their mother's side to Aristodemus' sons Eurysthenes and Procles; and while these boys were yet children he held the royal power of Sparta as regent; ,but when his nephews grew up and became kings, then Theras could not endure to be a subject when he had had a taste of supreme power, and said he would no longer stay in Lacedaemon but would sail away to his family. ,On the island now called Thera, but then Calliste, there were descendants of Membliarus the son of Poeciles, a Phoenician; for Cadmus son of Agenor had put in at the place now called Thera during his search for Europa; and having put in, either because the land pleased him, or because for some other reason he desired to do so, he left on this island his own relation Membliarus together with other Phoenicians. ,These dwelt on the island of Calliste for eight generations before Theras came from Lacedaemon. 4.148. It was these that Theras was preparing to join, taking with him a company of people from the tribes; his intention was to settle among the people of Calliste and not drive them out but claim them as in fact his own people. ,So when the Minyae escaped from prison and camped on Teügetum, and the Lacedaemonians were planning to put them to death, Theras interceded for their lives, that there might be no killing, promising to lead them out of the country himself. ,The Lacedaemonians consented to this, and Theras sailed with three thirty-oared ships to join the descendants of Membliarus, taking with him not all the Minyae but only a few; ,for the greater part of them made their way to the lands of the Paroreatae and Caucones, and after having driven these out of their own country, they divided themselves into six companies and established the cities of Lepreum, Macistus, Phrixae, Pyrgus, Epium, and Nudium in the land they had won; most of these were in my time taken and sacked by the Eleans. As for the island Calliste, it was called Thera after its colonist. 4.149. But as Theras' son would not sail with him, his father said that he would leave him behind as a sheep among wolves; after which saying the boy got the nickname of Oeolycus, and it so happened that this became his customary name. He had a son, Aegeus, from whom the Aegidae, a great Spartan clan, take their name. ,The men of this clan, finding that none of their children lived, set up a temple of the avenging spirits of Laïus and Oedipus, by the instruction of an oracle, after which their children lived. It fared thus, too, with the children of the Aegidae at Thera. 4.150. So far in the story the Lacedaemonian and Theraean records agree; for the rest, we have only the word of the Theraeans. ,Grinnus son of Aesanius, king of Thera, a descendant of this same Theras, came to Delphi bringing a hecatomb from his city; among others of his people, Battus son of Polymnestus came with him, a descendant of Euphemus of the Minyan clan. ,When Grinnus king of Thera asked the oracle about other matters, the priestess' answer was that he should found a city in Libya. “Lord, I am too old and heavy to stir; command one of these younger men to do this,” answered Grinnus, pointing to Battus as he spoke. ,No more was said then. But when they departed, they neglected to obey the oracle, since they did not know where Libya was, and were afraid to send a colony out to an uncertain destination. 4.151. For seven years after this there was no rain in Thera; all the trees in the island except one withered. The Theraeans inquired at Delphi again, and the priestess mentioned the colony they should send to Libya. ,So, since there was no remedy for their ills, they sent messengers to Crete to find any Cretan or traveller there who had travelled to Libya. In their travels about the island, these came to the town of Itanus, where they met a murex fisherman named Corobius, who told them that he had once been driven off course by winds to Libya, to an island there called Platea. ,They hired this man to come with them to Thera; from there, just a few men were sent aboard ship to spy out the land first; guided by Corobius to the aforesaid island Platea, these left him there with provision for some months, and themselves sailed back with all speed to Thera to bring news of the island. 4.152. But after they had been away for longer than the agreed time, and Corobius had no provisions left, a Samian ship sailing for Egypt, whose captain was Colaeus, was driven off her course to Platea, where the Samians heard the whole story from Corobius and left him provisions for a year; ,they then put out to sea from the island and would have sailed to Egypt, but an easterly wind drove them from their course, and did not abate until they had passed through the Pillars of Heracles and came providentially to Tartessus. ,Now this was at that time an untapped market; hence, the Samians, of all the Greeks whom we know with certainty, brought back from it the greatest profit on their wares except Sostratus of Aegina, son of Laodamas; no one could compete with him. ,The Samians took six talents, a tenth of their profit, and made a bronze vessel with it, like an Argolic cauldron, with griffins' heads projecting from the rim all around; they set this up in their temple of Hera, supporting it with three colossal kneeling figures of bronze, each twelve feet high. ,What the Samians had done was the beginning of a close friendship between them and the men of Cyrene and Thera. 4.153. As for the Theraeans, when they came to Thera after leaving Corobius on the island, they brought word that they had established a settlement on an island off Libya. The Theraeans determined to send out men from their seven regions, taking by lot one of every pair of brothers, and making Battus leader and king of all. Then they manned two fifty-oared ships and sent them to Platea. 4.154. This is what the Theraeans say; and now begins the part in which the Theraean and Cyrenaean stories agree, but not until now, for the Cyrenaeans tell a wholly different story about Battus, which is this. There is a town in Crete called Oaxus, of which one Etearchus became ruler. He was a widower with a daughter whose name was Phronime, and he married a second wife. ,When the second wife came into his house, she thought fit to be the proverbial stepmother to Phronime, ill-treating her and devising all sorts of evil against her; at last she accused the girl of lewdness, and persuaded her husband that the charge was true. So Etearchus was persuaded by his wife and contrived a great sin against his daughter. ,There was at Oaxus a Theraean trader, one Themison; Etearchus made this man his guest and friend, and got him to swear that he would do him whatever service he desired; then he gave the man his own daughter, telling him to take her away and throw her into the sea. ,But Themison was very angry at being thus tricked on his oath and renounced his friendship with Etearchus; presently, he took the girl and sailed away, and so as to fulfill the oath that he had sworn to Etearchus, when he was on the high seas he bound her with ropes and let her down into the sea and drew her up again, and presently arrived at Thera. 4.155. There Polymnestus, a notable Theraean, took Phronime and made her his concubine. In time, a son of weak and stammering speech was born to him, to whom he gave the name Battus, as the Theraeans and Cyrenaeans say; but in my opinion the boy was given some other name, ,and changed it to Battus on his coming to Libya, taking this new name because of the oracle given to him at Delphi and the honorable office which he received. For the Libyan word for king is “Battus,” and this (I believe) is why the Pythian priestess called him so in her prophecy, using a Libyan name because she knew that he was to be king in Libya. ,For when he grew to adulthood, he went to Delphi to inquire about his voice; and the priestess in answer gave him this: quote type="oracle" l met="dact"“Battus, you have come for a voice; but Lord Phoebus Apollo /l lSends you to found a city in Libya, nurse of sheep,” /l /quote just as if she addressed him using the Greek word for “king,” “Basileus, you have come for a voice,” et cetera. ,But he answered: “Lord, I came to you to ask about my speech; but you talk of other matters, things impossible to do; you tell me to plant a colony in Libya; where shall I get the power or strength of hand for it?” Battus spoke thus, but as the god would not give him another oracle and kept answering as before, he departed while the priestess was still speaking, and went away to Thera. 4.156. But afterward things turned out badly for Battus and the rest of the Theraeans; and when, ignorant of the cause of their misfortunes, they sent to Delphi to ask about their present ills, ,the priestess declared that they would fare better if they helped Battus plant a colony at Cyrene in Libya. Then the Theraeans sent Battus with two fifty-oared ships; these sailed to Libya, but, not knowing what else to do, presently returned to Thera. ,There, the Theraeans shot at them as they came to land and would not let the ship put in, telling them to sail back; which they did under constraint of necessity, and planted a colony on an island off the Libyan coast called (as I have said already) Platea. This island is said to be as big as the city of Cyrene is now. 4.157. Here they lived for two years; but as everything went wrong, the rest sailed to Delphi leaving one behind, and on their arrival questioned the oracle, and said that they were living in Libya, but that they were no better off for that. ,Then the priestess gave them this reply: quote type="oracle" l met="dact"“If you know Libya nurse of sheep better than I, /l lThough I have been there and you have not, then I am very much astonished at your knowledge.” /l /quote Hearing this, Battus and his men sailed back again; for the god would not let them do anything short of colonizing Libya itself; ,and having come to the island and taken aboard the one whom they had left there, they made a settlement at a place in Libya itself, opposite the island which was called Aziris. This is a place enclosed on both sides by the fairest of groves, with a river flowing along one side of it. 4.158. Here they dwelt for six years; but in the seventh, the Libyans got them to leave the place, saying that they would lead them to a better; ,and they brought the Greeks from Aziris and led them west, so calculating the hours of daylight that they led the Greeks past the fairest place in their country, called Irasa, at night, lest the Greeks see it in their journey. ,Then they brought the Greeks to what is called the Fountain of Apollo, and said to them: “Here, Greeks, it is suitable for you to live; for here the sky is torn.” 4.159. Now in the time of Battus the founder of the colony, who ruled for forty years, and of his son Arcesilaus who ruled for sixteen, the inhabitants of Cyrene were no more in number than when they had first gone out to the colony. ,But in the time of the third ruler, Battus, who was called the Fortunate, the Pythian priestess warned all Greeks by an oracle to cross the sea and live in Libya with the Cyrenaeans; for the Cyrenaeans invited them, promising a distribution of land; ,and this was the oracle: quote type="oracle" l met="dact"“Whoever goes to beloved Libya after /l lThe fields are divided, I say shall be sorry afterward.” /l /quote ,So a great multitude gathered at Cyrene, and cut out great tracts of land from the territory of the neighboring Libyans. Robbed of their lands and treated violently by the Cyrenaeans, these then sent to Egypt together with their king, whose name was Adicran, and put their affairs in the hands of Apries, the king of that country. ,Apries mustered a great force of Egyptians and sent it against Cyrene; the Cyrenaeans marched out to Irasa and the Thestes spring, and there fought with the Egyptians and beat them; ,for the Egyptians had as yet had no experience of Greeks, and despised their enemy; as a result of which, they were so utterly destroyed that few of them returned to Egypt. Because of this misfortune, and because they blamed him for it, the Egyptians revolted from Apries. 4.160. This Battus had a son Arcesilaus; on his first coming to reign, he quarrelled with his brothers, until they left him and went away to another place in Libya, where they founded a city for themselves, which was then and is now called Barce; and while they were founding it, they persuaded the Libyans to revolt from the Cyrenaeans. ,Then Arcesilaus led an army into the country of the Libyans who had received his brothers and had also revolted; and they fled in fear of him to the eastern Libyans. ,Arcesilaus pursued them until he came in his pursuit to Leucon in Libya, where the Libyans resolved to attack him; they engaged, and so wholly overcame the Cyrenaeans that seven thousand Cyrenaean soldiers were killed there. ,After this disaster, Arcesilaus, being worn down and having taken a drug, was strangled by his brother Learchus; Learchus was deftly killed by Arcesilaus' wife, Eryxo. 4.161. Arcesilaus' kingship passed to his son Battus, who was lame and infirm in his feet. The Cyrenaeans, in view of the affliction that had overtaken them, sent to Delphi to ask what political arrangement would enable them to live best; ,the priestess told them bring a mediator from Mantinea in Arcadia. When the Cyrenaeans sent their request, the Mantineans gave them their most valued citizen, whose name was Demonax. ,When this man came to Cyrene and learned everything, he divided the people into three tribes; of which the Theraeans and dispossessed Libyans were one, the Peloponnesians and Cretans the second, and all the islanders the third; furthermore, he set apart certain domains and priesthoods for their king Battus, but all the rest, which had belonged to the kings, were now to be held by the people in common. 4.162. During the life of this Battus, these ordices held good, but in the time of his son Arcesilaus much contention arose about the king's rights. ,Arcesilaus, son of the lame Battus and Pheretime, would not abide by the ordices of Demonax, but demanded back the prerogatives of his forefathers, and made himself head of a faction; but he was defeated and banished to Samos, and his mother fled to Salamis in Cyprus. ,Now Salamis at this time was ruled by Evelthon, who dedicated that marvellous censer at Delphi which stands in the treasury of the Corinthians. Pheretime came to him, asking him for an army to bring her and her son back to Cyrene; ,Evelthon was willing to give her everything else, only not an army, and when she accepted what he gave her, she said that it was fine, but it would be better to give her an army as she asked. ,This she said whatever the gift, until at last Evelthon sent her a golden spindle and distaff, and wool, and when Pheretime uttered the same words as before, he answered that these, and not armies, were gifts for women. 4.164. But he returned to Cyrene with the men from Samos, and having made himself master of it he forgot the oracle, and demanded justice upon his enemies for his banishment. ,Some of these left the country altogether; others, Arcesilaus seized and sent away to Cyprus to be killed there. These were carried off their course to Cnidus, where the Cnidians saved them and sent them to Thera. Others of the Cyrenaeans fled for refuge into a great tower that belonged to one Aglomachus, a private man, and Arcesilaus piled wood around it and burnt them there. ,Then, perceiving too late that this was the meaning of the Delphic oracle which forbade him to bake the amphora if he found them in the oven, he deliberately refrained from going into the city of the Cyrenaeans, fearing the death prophesied and supposing the tidal place to be Cyrene. ,Now he had a wife who was a relation of his, a daughter of Alazir king of the Barcaeans, and Arcesilaus went to Alazir; but men of Barce and some of the exiles from Cyrene were aware of him and killed him as he walked in the town, and Alazir his father-in-law too. So Arcesilaus whether with or without meaning to missed the meaning of the oracle and fulfilled his destiny. 4.165. While Arcesilaus was living at Barce, accomplishing his own destruction, his mother Pheretime held her son's prerogative at Cyrene, where she administered all his business and sat with others in council. ,But when she learned of her son's death at Barce, she made her escape to Egypt, trusting to the good service which Arcesilaus had done Cambyses the son of Cyrus; for this was the Arcesilaus who gave Cyrene to Cambyses and agreed to pay tribute. ,So, on her arrival in Egypt, Pheretime supplicated Aryandes, asking that he avenge her, on the plea that her son had been killed for allying himself with the Medes. 4.166. This Aryandes had been appointed viceroy of Egypt by Cambyses; at a later day, he was put to death for making himself equal to Darius. For, learning and seeing that Darius desired to leave a memorial of himself such as no king ever had, Aryandes imitated him, until he got his reward; ,for Darius had coined money out of gold refined to an extreme purity, and Aryandes, then ruling Egypt, made a similar silver coinage; and now there is no silver money so pure as is the Aryandic. But when Darius heard that Aryandes was doing so, he put him to death, not on this charge but as a rebel. 4.167. At this time, Aryandes took pity on Pheretime and gave her all the Egyptian land and sea forces, appointing Amasis, a Maraphian, general of the army, and Badres of the tribe of the Pasargadae, admiral of the fleet. ,But before despatching the troops, Aryandes sent a herald to Barce to ask who it was who had killed Arcesilaus. The Barcaeans answered that it was the deed of the whole city, for the many wrongs that Arcesilaus had done them; when he heard this, Aryandes sent his troops with Pheretime. ,This was the pretext; but I myself think that the troops were sent to subjugate Libya. For the Libyan tribes are many and of different kinds, and though a few of them were the king's subjects, the greater part cared nothing for Darius. 4.170. The next people west of the Giligamae are the Asbystae, who live inland of Cyrene, not coming down to the coast, for that is Cyrenaean territory. These drive four-horse chariots to a greater extent than any other Libyans; it is their practice to imitate most of the Cyrenaean customs. 4.172. Next west of these Auschisae is the populous country of the Nasamones, who in summer leave their flocks by the sea and go up to the land called Augila to gather dates from the palm-trees that grow there in great abundance and all bear fruit. They hunt locusts, which they dry in the sun, and after grinding sprinkle them into milk and drink it. ,It is their custom for every man to have many wives; their intercourse with women is promiscuous, as among the Massagetae; a staff is placed before the dwelling, and then they have intercourse. When a man of the Nasamones weds, on the first night the bride must by custom lie with each of the whole company in turn; and each man after intercourse gives her whatever gift he has brought from his house. ,As for their manner of swearing and divination, they lay their hands on the graves of the men reputed to have been the most just and good among them, and by these men they swear; their practice of divination is to go to the tombs of their ancestors, where after making prayers they lie down to sleep, and take for oracles whatever dreams come to them. ,They give and receive pledges by each drinking from the hand of the other party; and if they have nothing liquid, they take the dust of the earth and lick it up. 4.178. Next to these along the coast are the Machlyes, who also use the lotus, but less than the aforesaid people. Their country reaches to a great river called the Triton, which empties into the great Tritonian lake, in which is an island called Phla. It is said that the Lacedaemonians were told by an oracle to plant a settlement on this island. 4.179. The following story is also told: it is said that Jason, when the Argo had been built at the foot of Pelion, put aboard besides a hecatomb a bronze tripod, and set out to sail around the Peloponnese, to go to Delphi. ,But when he was off Malea, a north wind caught and carried him away to Libya; and before he saw land, he came into the shallows of the Tritonian lake. There, while he could find no way out yet, Triton (the story goes) appeared to him and told Jason to give him the tripod, promising to show the sailors the channel and send them on their way unharmed. ,Jason did, and Triton then showed them the channel out of the shallows and set the tripod in his own temple; but first he prophesied over it, declaring the whole matter to Jason's comrades: namely, that should any descendant of the Argo's crew take away the tripod, then a hundred Greek cities would be founded on the shores of the Tritonian lake. Hearing this (it is said) the Libyan people of the country hid the tripod. 4.181. I have now described all the nomadic Libyans who live on the coast. Farther inland than these is that Libyan country which is haunted by wild beasts, and beyond this wild beasts' haunt runs a ridge of sand that stretches from Thebes of Egypt to the Pillars of Heracles. ,At intervals of about ten days' journey along this ridge there are masses of great lumps of salt in hills; on the top of every hill, a fountain of cold sweet water shoots up from the midst of the salt; men live around it who are farthest away toward the desert and inland from the wild beasts' country. The first on the journey from Thebes, ten days distant from there, are the Ammonians, who follow the worship of the Zeus of Thebes ; for, as I have said before, the image of Zeus at Thebes has the head of a ram. ,They have another spring of water besides, which is warm at dawn, and colder at market-time, and very cold at noon; ,and it is then that they water their gardens; as the day declines, the coldness abates, until at sunset the water grows warm. It becomes ever hotter and hotter until midnight, and then it boils and bubbles; after midnight it becomes ever cooler until dawn. This spring is called the Spring of the Sun. 4.183. After ten days' journey again from Augila there is yet another hill of salt and springs of water and many fruit-bearing palms, as at the other places; men live there called Garamantes, an exceedingly great nation, who sow in earth which they have laid on the salt. ,The shortest way to the Lotus Eaters' country is from here, thirty days' journey distant. Among the Garamantes are the cattle that go backward as they graze, the reason being that their horns curve forward; ,therefore, not being able to go forward, since the horns would stick in the ground, they walk backward grazing. Otherwise, they are like other cattle, except that their hide is thicker and harder to the touch. ,These Garamantes go in their four-horse chariots chasing the cave-dwelling Ethiopians: for the Ethiopian cave-dwellers are swifter of foot than any men of whom tales are brought to us. They live on snakes and lizards and such-like creeping things. Their speech is like no other in the world: it is like the squeaking of bats. 4.186. Thus from Egypt to the Tritonian lake, the Libyans are nomads that eat meat and drink milk; for the same reason as the Egyptians too profess, they will not touch the flesh of cows; and they rear no swine. ,The women of Cyrene, too, consider it wrong to eat cows' flesh, because of the Isis of Egypt; and they even honor her with fasts and festivals; and the Barcaean women refuse to eat swine too, as well as cows. 4.188. The nomads' way of sacrificing is to cut a piece from the victim's ear for first-fruits and throw it over the house; then they wring the victim's neck. They sacrifice to no gods except the sun and moon; that is, this is the practice of the whole nation; but the dwellers by the Tritonian lake sacrifice to Athena chiefly, and next to Triton and Poseidon. 4.189. It would seem that the robe and aegis of the images of Athena were copied by the Greeks from the Libyan women; for except that Libyan women dress in leather, and that the tassels of their goatskin cloaks are not snakes but thongs of hide, in everything else their equipment is the same. ,And in fact, the very name betrays that the attire of the statues of Pallas has come from Libya; for Libyan women wear the hairless tasselled “aegea” over their dress, colored with madder, and the Greeks have changed the name of these aegeae into their “aegides.” ,Furthermore, in my opinion the ceremonial chant first originated in Libya: for the women of that country chant very tunefully. And it is from the Libyans that the Greeks have learned to drive four-horse chariots. 4.198. In my opinion, there is in no part of Libya any great excellence for which it should be compared to Asia or Europe, except in the region which is called by the same name as its river, Cinyps. ,But this region is a match for the most fertile farmland in the world, nor is it at all like to the rest of Libya. For the soil is black and well-watered by springs, and has no fear of drought, nor is it harmed by drinking excessive showers (there is rain in this part of Libya). Its yield of grain is of the same measure as in the land of Babylon. ,The land inhabited by the Euhesperitae is also good; it yields at the most a hundredfold; but the land of the Cinyps region yields three hundredfold. 4.200. Now when the Persians that Aryandes sent from Egypt to avenge Pheretime came to Barce, they laid siege to the city, demanding the surrender of those who were guilty of the murder of Arcesilaus: but the Barcaeans, whose whole people were accessory to the deed, would not yield. ,The Persians besieged Barce for nine months, digging underground passages leading to the walls, and making violent assaults. As for the tunnels, a blacksmith discovered them by the means of a bronze shield, and this is how he found them: carrying the shield around the inner side of the walls, he struck it against the ground of the city; ,all the other places which he struck returned a dull sound; but where there were tunnels, the bronze of the shield rang clear. Here the Barcaeans made a counter-tunnel and killed those Persians who were digging underground. Thus the tunnels were discovered, and the assaults were repelled by the townsfolk. 4.201. When much time had been spent and many on both sides (not less of the Persians than of their enemies) slain, Amasis the general of the foot soldiers devised a plot, knowing that Barce could not be taken by force but might be taken by guile: he dug by night a wide trench and laid frail planks across it, which he then covered over with a layer of earth level with the ground about it. ,Then when day came, he invited the Barcaeans to confer with him, and they readily consented; at last all agreed to conditions of peace. This was done thus: standing on the hidden trench, they gave and accepted a sworn assurance that their treaty would hold good while the ground where they stood was unchanged; the Barcaeans promised to pay a due sum to the king, and the Persians to do the Barcaeans no harm. ,When the sworn agreement was made, the townsfolk, trusting in it and opening all their gates, themselves came out of the city, and let all their enemies who so desired enter within the walls. But the Persians broke down the hidden bridge and ran into the city. They broke down the bridge that they had made, so that they might keep the oath which they had sworn to the Barcaeans: namely, that this treaty would hold good for as long as the ground remained as it was; but if they broke the bridge the treaty held good no longer. 4.202. When they were delivered to her by the Persians, Pheretime took the most guilty of the Barcaeans and set them impaled around the top of the wall; the breasts of their women she cut off and planted around the wall in like manner. ,As for the rest of the Barcaeans, she told the Persians to take them as their booty, except those who were of the house of Battus and not accessory to the murder: to these she turned over the city. 4.203. The Persians thus enslaved the rest of the Barcaeans, and went home. When they appeared before the city of Cyrene, the Cyrenaeans let them pass through their city, so that a certain oracle might be fulfilled. ,As the army was passing through, Badres the admiral of the fleet was for taking the city, but Amasis the general of the land army would not consent, saying that he had been sent against Barce and no other Greek city; at last they passed through Cyrene and camped on the hill of Lycaean Zeus; there they regretted not having taken the city, and tried to enter it again, but the Cyrenaeans would not let them. ,Then, although no one attacked them, panic seized the Persians, and they fled to a place seven miles distant and camped there; and while they were there, a messenger from Aryandes came to the camp asking them to return. The Persians asked and received from the Cyrenaeans provisions for their march, after which they left to go to Egypt; ,but then they fell into the hands of the Libyans, who killed the laggards and stragglers of the army for the sake of their garments and possessions; until at last they came to Egypt. 4.204. This Persian force advanced as far as Euhesperidae in Libya and no farther. As for the Barcaeans whom they had taken for slaves, they carried them from Egypt into banishment and brought them to the king, and Darius gave them a town of Bactria to live in. They gave this town the name Barce, and it remained an inhabited place in Bactria until my own lifetime. 4.205. But Pheretime did not end well, either. For as soon as she had revenged herself on the Barcaeans and returned to Egypt, she met an awful death. For while still alive she teemed with maggots: thus does over-brutal human revenge invite retribution from the gods. That of Pheretime, daughter of Battus, against the Barcaeans was revenge of this nature and this brutality. 5.1. Those Persians whom Darius had left in Europe under the command of Megabazus, finding the Perinthians unwilling to be Darius' subjects, subdued them before any others of the people of the Hellespont. These Perinthians had already been roughly handled by the Paeonians. ,For the oracle of the god ordered the Paeonians from the Strymon to march against Perinthus, and if the Perinthians, who were encamped opposite them, should call to them, crying out their name, then to attack them. If, however, there were no such call, they were not to attack. The Paeonians acted accordingly. When the Perinthians set up camp in front of their city, the armies then challenged each other to a threefold duel, in which man was matched against man, horse against horse, and dog against dog. ,The Perinthians were victorious in two of the combats and raised the cry of “Paean” in their joy. The Paeonians reasoned that this was what the oracle had spoken of and must have said to each other, “This is surely the fulfillment of the prophecy; now it is time for us to act.” Accordingly, the Paeonians set upon the Perinthians and won a great victory, leaving few of their enemies alive. 5.3. The Thracians are the biggest nation in the world, next to the Indians. If they were under one ruler, or united, they would, in my judgment, be invincible and the strongest nation on earth. Since, however, there is no way or means to bring this about, they are weak. ,The Thracians have many names, each tribe according to its region, but they are very similar in all their customs, save the Getae, the Trausi, and those who dwell above the Crestonaeans. 5.4. As for the Getae, who claim to be immortal, I have already given an account of their practices. The Trausi, who in all else conform to the customs of other Thracians, do as I will show at the times of birth and death. ,When a child is born, the kinsmen sit around it and lament all the ills that it must endure from its birth onward, recounting all the sorrows of men. The dead, however, they bury with celebration and gladness, asserting that he is rid of so many ills and has achieved a state of complete blessedness. 5.5. Those who dwell above the Crestonaeans have yet other practices. Each man has many wives, and at his death there is both great rivalry among his wives and eager contention on their friends' part to prove which wife was best loved by her husband. She to whom the honor is adjudged is praised by men and women alike and then slain over the tomb by her nearest of kin. After the slaying she is buried with the husband. The rest of the wives are greatly displeased by this, believing themselves to be deeply dishonored. 5.6. Among the rest of the Thracians, it is the custom to sell their children for export and to take no care of their maidens, allowing them to have intercourse with any man they wish. Their wives, however, they strictly guard, and buy them for a price from the parents. ,To be tattooed is a sign of noble birth, while to bear no such marks is for the baser sort. The idler is most honored, the tiller of the soil most scorned; he is held in highest honor who lives by war and robbery. 5.7. These are most notable of their usages. They worship no gods but Ares, Dionysus, and Artemis. Their princes, however, unlike the rest of their countrymen, worship Hermes above all gods and swear only by him, claiming him for their ancestor. 5.8. The wealthy have the following funeral practices. First they lay out the dead for three days, and after killing all kinds of victims and making lamentation, they feast. After that they do away with the body either by fire or else by burial in the earth, and when they have built a barrow, they initiate all kinds of contests, in which the greatest prizes are offered for the hardest type of single combat. Such are the Thracian funeral rites. 5.42. Now Cleomenes, as the story goes, was not in his right mind and really quite mad, while Dorieus was first among all of his peers and fully believed that he would be made king for his manly worth. ,Since he was of this opinion, Dorieus was very angry when at Anaxandrides' death the Lacedaemonians followed their custom and made Cleomenes king by right of age. Since he would not tolerate being made subject to Cleomenes, he asked the Spartans for a group of people whom he took away as colonists. He neither inquired of the oracle at Delphi in what land he should establish his settlement, nor did anything else that was customary but set sail in great anger for Libya, with men of Thera to guide him. ,When he arrived there, he settled by the Cinyps river in the fairest part of Libya, but in the third year he was driven out by the Macae, the Libyans and the Carchedonians and returned to the Peloponnesus. 5.43. There Antichares, a man of Eleon, advised him, on the basis of the oracles of Laius, to plant a colony at Heraclea in Sicily, for Heracles himself, said Antichares, had won all the region of Eryx, which accordingly belonged to his descendants. When Dorieus heard that, he went away to Delphi to enquire of the oracle if he should seize the place to which he was preparing to go. The priestess responded that it should be so, and he took with him the company that he had led to Libya and went to Italy. 5.44. Now at this time, as the Sybarites say, they and their king Telys were making ready to march against Croton, and the men of Croton, who were very much afraid, entreated Dorieus to come to their aid. Their request was granted, and Dorieus marched with them to Sybaris helping them to take it. ,This is the story which the Sybarites tell of Dorieus and his companions, but the Crotoniats say that they were aided by no stranger in their war with Sybaris with the exception of Callias, an Elean diviner of the Iamid clan. About him there was a story that he had fled to Croton from Telys, the tyrant of Sybaris, because as he was sacrificing for victory over Croton, he could obtain no favorable omens. 5.45. This is their tale, and both cities have proof of the truth of what they say. The Sybarites point to a precinct and a temple beside the dry bed of the Crathis, which, they say, Dorieus founded in honor of Athena of Crathis after he had helped to take their city. and find their strongest proof in his death. He perished through doing more than the oracle bade him, for if he had accomplished no more than that which he set out to do, he would have taken and held the Erycine region without bringing about the death of himself and his army. ,The Crotoniats, on the other hand, show many plots of land which had been set apart for and given to Callias of Elis and on which Callias' posterity dwelt even to my time but show no gift to Dorieus and his descendants. They claim, however,that if Dorieus had aided them in their war with Sybaris, he would have received a reward many times greater than what was given to Callias. This, then is the evidence brought forward by each party, and each may side with that which seems to him to deserve more credence. 5.67. In doing this, to my thinking, this Cleisthenes was imitating his own mother's father, Cleisthenes the tyrant of Sicyon, for Cleisthenes, after going to war with the Argives, made an end of minstrels' contests at Sicyon by reason of the Homeric poems, in which it is the Argives and Argos which are primarily the theme of the songs. Furthermore, he conceived the desire to cast out from the land Adrastus son of Talaus, the hero whose shrine stood then as now in the very marketplace of Sicyon because he was an Argive. ,He went then to Delphi, and asked the oracle if he should cast Adrastus out, but the priestess said in response: “Adrastus is king of Sicyon, and you but a stone thrower.” When the god would not permit him to do as he wished in this matter, he returned home and attempted to devise some plan which might rid him of Adrastus. When he thought he had found one, he sent to Boeotian Thebes saying that he would gladly bring Melanippus son of Astacus into his country, and the Thebans handed him over. ,When Cleisthenes had brought him in, he consecrated a sanctuary for him in the government house itself, where he was established in the greatest possible security. Now the reason why Cleisthenes brought in Melanippus, a thing which I must relate, was that Melanippus was Adrastus' deadliest enemy, for Adrastus had slain his brother Mecisteus and his son-in-law Tydeus. ,Having then designated the precinct for him, Cleisthenes took away all Adrastus' sacrifices and festivals and gave them to Melanippus. The Sicyonians had been accustomed to pay very great honor to Adrastus because the country had once belonged to Polybus, his maternal grandfather, who died without an heir and bequeathed the kingship to him. ,Besides other honors paid to Adrastus by the Sicyonians, they celebrated his lamentable fate with tragic choruses in honor not of Dionysus but of Adrastus. Cleisthenes, however, gave the choruses back to Dionysus and the rest of the worship to Melanippus. 5.79. This, then, is the course of action which the Athenians took, and the Thebans, desiring vengeance on Athens, afterwards appealed to Delphi for advice. The Pythian priestess said that the Thebans themselves would not be able to obtain the vengeance they wanted and that they should lay the matter before the “many-voiced” and entreat their “nearest.” ,Upon the return of the envoys, an assembly was called and the oracle put before it. When the Thebans heard that they must entreat their “nearest,” they said, “If this is so, our nearest neighbors are the men of Tanagra and Coronea and Thespiae. These are always our comrades in battle and zealously wage our wars. What need, then, is there to entreat them? Perhaps this is the meaning of the oracle.” 5.82. This was the beginning of the Aeginetans' long-standing debt of enmity against the Athenians. The Epidaurians' land bore no produce. For this reason they inquired at Delphi concerning this calamity, and the priestess bade them set up images of Damia and Auxesia, saying that if they so did their luck would be better. The Epidaurians then asked in addition whether they should make the images of bronze or of stone, and the priestess bade them do neither, but make them of the wood of the cultivated olive. ,So the men of Epidaurus asked the Athenians to permit them to cut down some olive trees, supposing the olives there to be the holiest. Indeed it is said that at that time there were no olives anywhere save at Athens. ,The Athenians consented to give the trees, if the Epidaurians would pay yearly sacred dues to Athena, the city's goddess, and to Erechtheus. The Epidaurians agreed to this condition, and their request was granted. When they set up images made of these olive trees, their land brought forth fruit, and they fulfilled their agreement with the Athenians. 5.83. Now at this time, as before it, the Aeginetans were in all matters still subject to the Epidaurians and even crossed to Epidaurus for the hearing of their own private lawsuits. From this time, however, they began to build ships, and stubbornly revolted from the Epidaurians. ,In the course of this struggle, they did the Epidaurians much damage and stole their images of Damia and Auxesia. These they took away and set them up in the middle of their own country at a place called Oea, about twenty furlongs distant from their city. ,Having set them up in this place they sought their favor with sacrifices and female choruses in the satirical and abusive mode. Ten men were appointed providers of a chorus for each of the deities, and the choruses aimed their raillery not at any men but at the women of the country. The Epidaurians too had the same rites, and they have certain secret rites as well. 5.84. When these images were stolen, the Epidaurians ceased from fulfilling their agreement with the Athenians. Then the Athenians sent an angry message to the Epidaurians who pleaded in turn that they were doing no wrong. “For as long,” they said, “as we had the images in our country, we fulfilled our agreement. Now that we are deprived of them, it is not just that we should still be paying. Ask your dues of the men of Aegina, who have the images.” ,The Athenians therefore sent to Aegina and demanded that the images be restored, but the Aeginetans answered that they had nothing to do with the Athenians. 5.85. The Athenians report that after making this demand, they despatched one trireme with certain of their citizens who, coming in the name of the whole people to Aegina, attempted to tear the images, as being made of Attic wood, from their bases so that they might carry them away. ,When they could not obtain possession of them in this manner, they tied cords around the images with which they could be dragged. While they were attempting to drag them off, they were overtaken both by a thunderstorm and an earthquake. This drove the trireme's crew to such utter madness that they began to slay each other as if they were enemies. At last only one of all was left, who returned by himself to Phalerum. 5.86. This is the Athenian version of the matter, but the Aeginetans say that the Athenians came not in one ship only, for they could easily have kept off a single ship, or several, for that matter, even if they had no navy themselves. The truth was, they said, that the Athenians descended upon their coasts with many ships and that they yielded to them without making a fight of it at sea. ,They are not able to determine clearly whether it was because they admitted to being weaker at sea-fighting that they yielded, or because they were planning what they then actually did. ,When, as the Aeginetans say, no man came out to fight with them, the Athenians disembarked from their ships and turned their attention to the images. Unable to drag them from the bases, they fastened cords on them and dragged them until they both—this I cannot believe, but another might—fell on their knees. Both have remained in this position ever since. ,This is what the Athenians did, but the Aeginetans say that they discovered that the Athenians were about to make war upon them and therefore assured themselves of help from the Argives. So when the Athenians disembarked on the land of Aegina, the Argives came to aid the Aeginetans, crossing over from Epidaurus to the island secretly. They then fell upon the Athenians unaware and cut them off from their ships. It was at this moment that the thunderstorm and earthquake came upon them 5.87. This, then, is the story told by the Argives and Aeginetans, and the Athenians too acknowledge that only one man of their number returned safely to Attica. ,The Argives, however, say that he escaped after they had destroyed the rest of the Athenian force, while the Athenians claim that the whole thing was to be attributed to divine power. This one man did not survive but perished in the following manner. It would seem that he made his way to Athens and told of the mishap. When the wives of the men who had gone to attack Aegina heard this, they were very angry that he alone should be safe. They gathered round him and stabbed him with the brooch-pins of their garments, each asking him where her husband was. ,This is how this man met his end, and the Athenians found the action of their women to be more dreadful than their own misfortune. They could find, it is said, no other way to punish the women than changing their dress to the Ionian fashion. Until then the Athenian women had worn Dorian dress, which is very like the Corinthian. It was changed, therefore, to the linen tunic, so that they might have no brooch-pins to use. 5.88. The truth of the matter, however, is that this form of dress is not in its origin Ionian, but Carian, for in ancient times all women in Greece wore the costume now known as Dorian. ,As for the Argives and Aeginetans, this was the reason of their passing a law in both their countries that brooch-pins should be made half as long as they used to be and that brooches should be the principal things offered by women in the shrines of these two goddesses. Furthermore, nothing else Attic should be brought to the temple, not even pottery, and from that time on only drinking vessels made in the country should be used. 5.92. These were the words of the Lacedaemonians, but their words were ill-received by the greater part of their allies. The rest then keeping silence, Socles, a Corinthian, said, ,“In truth heaven will be beneath the earth and the earth aloft above the heaven, and men will dwell in the sea and fishes where men dwelt before, now that you, Lacedaemonians, are destroying the rule of equals and making ready to bring back tyranny into the cities, tyranny, a thing more unrighteous and bloodthirsty than anything else on this earth. ,If indeed it seems to you to be a good thing that the cities be ruled by tyrants, set up a tyrant among yourselves first and then seek to set up such for the rest. As it is, however, you, who have never made trial of tyrants and take the greatest precautions that none will arise at Sparta, deal wrongfully with your allies. If you had such experience of that thing as we have, you would be more prudent advisers concerning it than you are now.” ,The Corinthian state was ordered in such manner as I will show.There was an oligarchy, and this group of men, called the Bacchiadae, held sway in the city, marrying and giving in marriage among themselves. Now Amphion, one of these men, had a crippled daughter, whose name was Labda. Since none of the Bacchiadae would marry her, she was wedded to Eetion son of Echecrates, of the township of Petra, a Lapith by lineage and of the posterity of Caeneus. ,When no sons were born to him by this wife or any other, he set out to Delphi to enquire concerning the matter of acquiring offspring. As soon as he entered, the Pythian priestess spoke these verses to him: quote type="oracle" l met="dact" Eetion,worthy of honor, no man honors you. /l l Labda is with child, and her child will be a millstone /l lWhich will fall upon the rulers and will bring justice to Corinth. /l /quote ,This oracle which was given to Eetion was in some way made known to the Bacchiadae. The earlier oracle sent to Corinth had not been understood by them, despite the fact that its meaning was the same as the meaning of the oracle of Eetion, and it read as follows: quote type="oracle" l met="dact"An eagle in the rocks has conceived, and will bring forth a lion, /l lStrong and fierce. The knees of many will it loose. /l lThis consider well, Corinthians, /l lYou who dwell by lovely Pirene and the overhanging heights of Corinth. /l /quote ,This earlier prophecy had been unintelligible to the Bacchiadae, but as soon as they heard the one which was given to Eetion, they understood it at once, recognizing its similarity with the oracle of Eetion. Now understanding both oracles, they kept quiet but resolved to do away with the offspring of Eetion. Then, as soon as his wife had given birth, they sent ten men of their clan to the township where Eetion dwelt to kill the child. ,These men came to Petra and passing into Eetion's courtyard, asked for the child. Labda, knowing nothing of the purpose of their coming and thinking that they wished to see the baby out of affection for its father, brought it and placed it into the hands of one of them. Now they had planned on their way that the first of them who received the child should dash it to the ground. ,When, however, Labda brought and handed over the child, by divine chance it smiled at the man who took it. This he saw, and compassion prevented him from killing it. Filled with pity, he handed it to a second, and this man again to a third.In fact it passed from hand to hand to each of the ten, for none would make an end of it. ,They then gave the child back to its mother, and after going out, they stood before the door reproaching and upbraiding one another, but chiefly him who had first received it since he had not acted in accordance with their agreement. Finally they resolved to go in again and all have a hand in the killing. ,Fate, however, had decreed that Eetion's offspring should be the source of ills for Corinth, for Labda, standing close to this door, heard all this. Fearing that they would change their minds and that they would take and actually kill the child, she took it away and hid it where she thought it would be hardest to find, in a chest, for she knew that if they returned and set about searching they would seek in every place—which in fact they did. ,They came and searched, but when they did not find it, they resolved to go off and say to those who had sent them that they had carried out their orders. They then went away and said this. ,Eetion's son, however, grew up, and because of his escape from that danger, he was called Cypselus, after the chest. When he had reached manhood and was seeking a divination, an oracle of double meaning was given him at Delphi. Putting faith in this, he made an attempt on Corinth and won it. ,The oracle was as follows: quote type="oracle" l met="dact"That man is fortunate who steps into my house, /l l Cypselus, son of Eetion, the king of noble Corinth, /l lHe himself and his children, but not the sons of his sons. /l /quote Such was the oracle. Cypselus, however, when he had gained the tyranny, conducted himself in this way: many of the Corinthians he drove into exile, many he deprived of their wealth, and by far the most he had killed. ,After a reign of thirty years, he died in the height of prosperity, and was succeeded by his son Periander. Now Periander was to begin with milder than his father, but after he had held converse by messenger with Thrasybulus the tyrant of Miletus, he became much more bloodthirsty than Cypselus. ,He had sent a herald to Thrasybulus and inquired in what way he would best and most safely govern his city. Thrasybulus led the man who had come from Periander outside the town, and entered into a sown field. As he walked through the corn, continually asking why the messenger had come to him from Corinth, he kept cutting off all the tallest ears of wheat which he could see, and throwing them away, until he had destroyed the best and richest part of the crop. ,Then, after passing through the place and speaking no word of counsel, he sent the herald away. When the herald returned to Corinth, Periander desired to hear what counsel he brought, but the man said that Thrasybulus had given him none. The herald added that it was a strange man to whom he had been sent, a madman and a destroyer of his own possessions, telling Periander what he had seen Thrasybulus do. ,Periander, however, understood what had been done, and perceived that Thrasybulus had counselled him to slay those of his townsmen who were outstanding in influence or ability; with that he began to deal with his citizens in an evil manner. Whatever act of slaughter or banishment Cypselus had left undone, that Periander brought to accomplishment. In a single day he stripped all the women of Corinth naked, because of his own wife Melissa. ,Periander had sent messengers to the Oracle of the Dead on the river Acheron in Thesprotia to enquire concerning a deposit that a friend had left, but Melissa, in an apparition, said that she would tell him nothing, nor reveal where the deposit lay, for she was cold and naked. The garments, she said, with which Periander had buried with her had never been burnt, and were of no use to her. Then, as evidence for her husband that she spoke the truth, she added that Periander had put his loaves into a cold oven. ,When this message was brought back to Periander (for he had had intercourse with the dead body of Melissa and knew her token for true), immediately after the message he made a proclamation that all the Corinthian women should come out into the temple of Hera. They then came out as to a festival, wearing their most beautiful garments, and Periander set his guards there and stripped them all alike, ladies and serving-women, and heaped all the clothes in a pit, where, as he prayed to Melissa, he burnt them. ,When he had done this and sent a second message, the ghost of Melissa told him where the deposit of the friend had been laid. “This, then, Lacedaimonians, is the nature of tyranny, and such are its deeds. ,We Corinthians marvelled greatly when we saw that you were sending for Hippias, and now we marvel yet more at your words to us. We entreat you earnestly in the name of the gods of Hellas not to establish tyranny in the cities, but if you do not cease from so doing and unrighteously attempt to bring Hippias back, be assured that you are proceeding without the Corinthians' consent.” 6.19. When the Argives inquired at Delphi about the safety of their city, a common response was given, one part regarding the Argives themselves, but there was an additional response for the Milesians. ,I will mention the part concerning the Argives when I come to that part of my history; this was the prophecy given to the Milesians in their absence: quote type="oracle" l met="dact"Then, Miletus, contriver of evil deeds, /l lFor many will you become a banquet and glorious gifts; /l lYour wives will wash the feet of many long-haired men; /l lOther ministers will tend my Didyman shrine! /l /quote ,All this now came upon the Milesians, since most of their men were slain by the Persians, who wore long hair, and their women and children were accounted as slaves, and the temple at Didyma with its shrine and place of divination was plundered and burnt. of the wealth that was in this temple I have often spoken elsewhere in my history. 6.36. The Pythia also bade him do so. Then Miltiades son of Cypselus, previously an Olympic victor in the four-horse chariot, recruited any Athenian who wanted to take part in the expedition, sailed off with the Dolonci, and took possession of their land. Those who brought him appointed him tyrant. ,His first act was to wall off the isthmus of the Chersonese from the city of Cardia across to Pactye, so that the Apsinthians would not be able to harm them by invading their land. The isthmus is thirty-six stadia across, and to the south of the isthmus the Chersonese is four hundred and twenty stadia in length. 6.37. After Miltiades had pushed away the Apsinthians by walling off the neck of the Chersonese, he made war first on the people of Lampsacus, but the Lampsacenes laid an ambush and took him prisoner. However, Miltiades stood high in the opinion of Croesus the Lydian, and when Croesus heard what had happened, he sent to the Lampsacenes and commanded them to release Miltiades. If they did not do so, he threatened to cut them down like a pine tree. ,The Lampsacenes went astray in their counsels as to what the utterance meant which Croesus had threatened them with, saying he would devastate them like a pine tree, until at last one of the elders understood and said what it was: the pine is the only tree that once cut down never sends out any shoots; it is utterly destroyed. So out of fear of Croesus the Lampsacenes released Miltiades and let him go. 6.38. So he escaped by the intervention of Croesus, but he later died childless and left his rule and possessions to Stesagoras, the son of his half-brother Cimon. Since his death, the people of the Chersonese offer sacrifices to him as their founder in the customary manner, instituting a contest of horse races and gymnastics. No one from Lampsacus is allowed to compete. ,But in the war against the Lampsacenes Stesagoras too met his end and died childless; he was struck on the head with an axe in the town-hall by a man who pretended to be a deserter but in truth was an enemy and a man of violence. 6.52. The Lacedaemonians say (but no poet agrees) that it was Aristodemus son of Aristomachus son of Cleodaeus son of Hyllus, and not his sons, who led them to that land which they now possess. ,After no long time Aristodemus' wife, whose name was Argeia, bore him offspring; they say she was daughter of Autesion son of Tisamenus son of Thersander son of Polynices; she bore him twins; Aristodemus lived to see the children, then died of a sickness. ,The Lacedaemonians of that day planned to follow their custom and make the eldest of the children king. But the children were identical in all respects, so the Lacedaemonians did not know which to choose; when they could not judge between them, or perhaps even before this, they asked the mother. ,She said she knew no better than the Lacedaemonians which was the elder; she knew perfectly well, but she said this because she desired that by some means both might be made kings. The Lacedaemonians were at a loss, so they sent to Delphi to inquire how they should deal with the matter. ,The priestess bade them make both children kings but give greater honor to the elder. When the priestess gave this response, the Lacedaemonians knew no better than before how to discover the elder child, and a man of Messenia, whose name was Panites, gave them advice: ,he advised them to watch the mother and see which of the children she washed and fed before the other; if she was seen to do this always in the same order, they would then have all that they sought and desired to discover; but if she changed her practice haphazardly, then it would be manifest to the Lacedaemonians that she know no more than they did, and they must have recourse to some other means. ,Then the Spartans did as the Messenian advised; as they watched the mother of Aristodemus' children, they found her always preferring the elder when she fed and washed them, since she did not know why she was being watched. So they took the child that was preferred by its mother and brought it up at public expense as the first-born; and they called it Eurysthenes, and the other Procles. ,They say that when these two brothers grew to manhood, they feuded with each other as long as they lived, and their descendants continued to do likewise. 6.57. Such are their rights in war; in peace the powers given them are as follows: at all public sacrifices the kings first sit down to the banquet and are first served, each of them receiving a portion double of what is given to the rest of the company; they make the first libations, and the hides of the sacrificed beasts are theirs. ,At each new moon and each seventh day of the first part of the month, a full-grown victim for Apollo's temple, a bushel of barley-meal, and a Laconian quart of wine are given to each from the public store, and chief seats are set apart for them at the games. ,It is their right to appoint whatever citizens they wish to be protectors of foreigners; and they each choose two Pythians. (The Pythians are the ambassadors to Delphi and eat with the kings at the public expense.) If the kings do not come to the public dinner, two choenixes of barley-meal and half a pint of wine are sent to their houses, but when they come, they receive a double share of everything; and the same honor shall be theirs when they are invited by private citizens to dinner. ,They keep all oracles that are given, though the Pythians also know them. The kings alone judge cases concerning the rightful possessor of an unwedded heiress, if her father has not betrothed her, and cases concerning public roads. ,If a man desires to adopt a son, it is done in the presence of the kings. They sit with the twenty-eight elders in council; if they do not come, the elders most closely related to them hold the king's privilege, giving two votes over and above the third which is their own. 6.66. Disputes arose over it, so the Spartans resolved to ask the oracle at Delphi if Demaratus was the son of Ariston. ,At Cleomenes' instigation this was revealed to the Pythia. He had won over a man of great influence among the Delphians, Cobon son of Aristophantus, and Cobon persuaded the priestess, Periallus, to say what Cleomenes wanted her to. ,When the ambassadors asked if Demaratus was the son of Ariston, the Pythia gave judgment that he was not. All this came to light later; Cobon was exiled from Delphi, and Periallus was deposed from her position. 6.67. So it was concerning Demaratus' loss of the kingship, and from Sparta he went into exile among the Medes because of the following reproach: after he was deposed from the kingship, he was elected to office. ,When it was the time of the dateGymnopaidia /date, Leotychides, now king in his place, saw him in the audience and, as a joke and an insult, sent a messenger to him to ask what it was like to hold office after being king. ,He was grieved by the question and said that he had experience of both, while Leotychides did not, and that this question would be the beginning for Sparta of either immense evil or immense good fortune. He said this, covered his head, left the theater, and went home, where he immediately made preparations and sacrificed an ox to Zeus. Then he summoned his mother. 6.75. When the Lacedaemonians learned that Cleomenes was doing this, they took fright and brought him back to Sparta to rule on the same terms as before. Cleomenes had already been not entirely in his right mind, and on his return from exile a mad sickness fell upon him: any Spartan that he happened to meet he would hit in the face with his staff. ,For doing this, and because he was out of his mind, his relatives bound him in the stocks. When he was in the stocks and saw that his guard was left alone, he demanded a dagger; the guard at first refused to give it, but Cleomenes threatened what he would do to him when he was freed, until the guard, who was a helot, was frightened by the threats and gave him the dagger. ,Cleomenes took the weapon and set about slashing himself from his shins upwards; from the shin to the thigh he cut his flesh lengthways, then from the thigh to the hip and the sides, until he reached the belly, and cut it into strips; thus he died, as most of the Greeks say, because he persuaded the Pythian priestess to tell the tale of Demaratus. The Athenians alone say it was because he invaded Eleusis and laid waste the precinct of the gods. The Argives say it was because when Argives had taken refuge after the battle in their temple of Argus he brought them out and cut them down, then paid no heed to the sacred grove and set it on fire. 6.77. The Argives heard of this and came to the coast to do battle with him. When they had come near Tiryns and were at the place called Hesipeia, they encamped opposite the Lacedaemonians, leaving only a little space between the armies. There the Argives had no fear of fair fighting, but rather of being captured by a trick. ,This was the affair referred to by that oracle which the Pythian priestess gave to the Argives and Milesians in common, which ran thus: quote type="oracle" l met="dact"When the female defeats the male /l lAnd drives him away, winning glory in Argos, /l lShe will make many Argive women tear their cheeks. /l lAs someday one of men to come will say: /l lThe dread thrice-coiled serpent died tamed by the spear. /l /quote ,All these things coming together spread fear among the Argives. Therefore they resolved to defend themselves by making use of the enemies' herald, and they performed their resolve in this way: whenever the Spartan herald signalled anything to the Lacedaemonians, the Argives did the same thing. 6.80. Then Cleomenes bade all the helots pile wood about the grove; they obeyed, and he burnt the grove. When the fire was now burning, he asked of one of the deserters to what god the grove belonged; the man said it was of Argos. When he heard that, he groaned aloud, “Apollo, god of oracles, you have gravely deceived me by saying that I would take Argos; this, I guess, is the fulfillment of that prophecy.” 6.81. Then Cleomenes sent most of his army back to Sparta, while he himself took a thousand of the best warriors and went to the temple of Hera to sacrifice. When he wished to sacrifice at the altar the priest forbade him, saying that it was not holy for a stranger to sacrifice there. Cleomenes ordered the helots to carry the priest away from the altar and whip him, and he performed the sacrifice. After doing this, he returned to Sparta. 6.82. But after his return his enemies brought him before the ephors, saying that he had been bribed not to take Argos when he might have easily taken it. Cleomenes alleged (whether falsely or truly, I cannot rightly say; but this he alleged in his speech) that he had supposed the god's oracle to be fulfilled by his taking of the temple of Argus; therefore he had thought it best not to make any attempt on the city before he had learned from the sacrifices whether the god would deliver it to him or withstand him; ,when he was taking omens in Hera's temple a flame of fire had shone forth from the breast of the image, and so he learned the truth of the matter, that he would not take Argos. If the flame had come out of the head of the image, he would have taken the city from head to foot utterly; but its coming from the breast signified that he had done as much as the god willed to happen. This plea of his seemed to the Spartans to be credible and reasonable, and he far outdistanced the pursuit of his accusers. 6.86. When Leutychides came to Athens and demanded back the hostages, the Athenians were unwilling to give them back and made excuses, saying that two kings had given them the trust and they deemed it wrong to restore it to one without the other. ,When the Athenians refused to give them back, Leutychides said to them: “Men of Athens, do whichever thing you desire. If you give them back, you do righteously; if you do not give them back, you do the opposite. But I want to tell you the story of what happened at Sparta in the matter of a trust. ,We Spartans say that three generations ago there was at Lacedaemon one Glaucus, the son of Epicydes. We say that this man added to his other excellences a reputation for justice above all men who at that time dwelt in Lacedaemon. ,But we say that at the fitting time this befell him: There came to Sparta a certain man of Miletus, who desired to have a talk with Glaucus and made him this offer: ‘I am a Milesian, and I have come to have the benefit of your justice, Glaucus. ,Since there is much talk about your justice throughout all the rest of Hellas, and even in Ionia, I considered the fact that Ionia is always in danger while the Peloponnese is securely established, and nowhere in Ionia are the same men seen continuing in possession of wealth. ,Considering and taking counsel concerning these matters, I resolved to turn half of my property into silver and deposit it with you, being well assured that it will lie safe for me in your keeping. Accept the money for me, and take and keep these tokens; restore the money to whoever comes with the same tokens and demands it back.’ ,Thus spoke the stranger who had come from Miletus, and Glaucus received the trust according to the agreement. After a long time had passed, the sons of the man who had deposited the money came to Sparta; they spoke with Glaucus, showing him the tokens and demanding the money back. ,But Glaucus put them off and answered in turn: ‘I do not remember the matter, and nothing of what you say carries my mind back. Let me think; I wish to do all that is just. If I took the money, I will duly restore it; if I never took it at all, I will deal with you according to the customs of the Greeks. I will put off making my decision for you until the fourth month from this day.’ ,So the Milesians went away in sorrow, as men robbed of their possessions; but Glaucus journeyed to Delphi to question the oracle. When he asked the oracle whether he should seize the money under oath, the Pythian priestess threatened him in these verses: , quote type="oracle" l met="dact" Glaucus son of Epicydes, it is more profitable now /l lTo prevail by your oath and seize the money. /l lSwear, for death awaits even the man who swears true. /l lBut Oath has a son, nameless; he is without hands /l lOr feet, but he pursues swiftly, until he catches /l lAnd destroys all the family and the entire house. /l lThe line of a man who swears true is better later on. /l /quote When Glaucus heard this, he entreated the god to pardon him for what he had said. The priestess answered that to tempt the god and to do the deed had the same effect. ,So Glaucus summoned the Milesian strangers and gave them back their money. But hear now, Athenians, why I began to tell you this story: there is today no descendant of Glaucus, nor any household that bears Glaucus' name; he has been utterly rooted out of Sparta. So good is it not even to think anything concerning a trust except giving it back on demand!” 6.98. After doing this, Datis sailed with his army against Eretria first, taking with him Ionians and Aeolians; and after he had put out from there, Delos was shaken by an earthquake, the first and last, as the Delians say, before my time. This portent was sent by heaven, as I suppose, to be an omen of the ills that were coming on the world. ,For in three generations, that is, in the time of Darius son of Hystaspes and Xerxes son of Darius and Artaxerxes son of Xerxes, more ills happened to Hellas than in twenty generations before Darius; some coming from the Persians, some from the wars for preeminence among the chief of the nations themselves. ,Thus it was no marvel that there should be an earthquake in Delos when there had been none before. Also there was an oracle concerning Delos, where it was written: quote type="oracle" l met="dact"I will shake Delos, though unshaken before. /l /quote In the Greek language these names have the following meanings: Darius is the Doer, Xerxes the Warrior, Artaxerxes the Great Warrior. The Greeks would rightly call the kings thus in their language. 6.125. The Alcmeonidae had been men of renown at Athens even in the old days, and from the time of Alcmeon and then Megacles their renown increased. ,When the Lydians from Sardis came from Croesus to the Delphic oracle, Alcmeon son of Megacles worked with them and zealously aided them; when Croesus heard from the Lydians who visited the oracle of Alcmeon's benefits to him, he summoned Alcmeon to Sardis, and there made him a gift of as much gold as he could carry away at one time on his person. ,Considering the nature of the gift, Alcmeon planned and employed this device: he donned a wide tunic, leaving a deep fold in it, and put on the most spacious boots that he could find, then went into the treasury to which they led him. ,Falling upon a heap of gold-dust, first he packed next to his legs as much gold as his boots would contain; then he filled all the fold of his tunic with gold and strewed the dust among the hair of his head, and took more of it into his mouth; when he came out of the treasury, hardly dragging the weight of his boots, he was like anything rather than a human being, with his mouth crammed full and all his body swollen. ,Croesus burst out laughing at the sight and gave him all the gold he already had and that much more again. Thus the family grew very rich; Alcmeon came to keep four-horse chariots and won with them at Olympia. 6.132. After the Persian disaster at Marathon, the reputation of Miltiades, already great at Athens, very much increased. He asked the Athenians for seventy ships, an army, and money, not revealing against what country he would lead them, but saying that he would make them rich if they followed him; he would bring them to a country from which they could easily carry away an abundance of gold; so he said when he asked for the ships. The Athenians were induced by these promises and granted his request. 6.133. Miltiades took his army and sailed for Paros, on the pretext that the Parians had brought this on themselves by first sending triremes with the Persian fleet to Marathon. Such was the pretext of his argument, but he had a grudge against the Parians because Lysagoras son of Tisias, a man of Parian descent, had slandered him to Hydarnes the Persian. ,When he reached his voyage's destination, Miltiades with his army drove the Parians inside their walls and besieged them; he sent in a herald and demanded a hundred talents, saying that if they did not give it to him, his army would not return home before it had stormed their city. ,The Parians had no intention of giving Miltiades any money at all, and they contrived how to defend their city. They did this by building their wall at night to double its former height where it was most assailable, and also by other devices. 6.134. All the Greeks tell the same story up to this point; after this the Parians themselves say that the following happened: as Miltiades was in a quandary, a captive woman named Timo, Parian by birth and an under-priestess of the goddesses of the dead, came to talk with him. ,Coming before Miltiades, she advised him, if taking Paros was very important to him, to do whatever she suggested. Then, following her advice, he passed through to the hill in front of the city and jumped over the fence of the precinct of Demeter the Lawgiver, since he was unable to open the door. After leaping over, he went to the shrine, whether to move something that should not be moved, or with some other intention. When he was right at the doors, he was immediately seized with panic and hurried back by the same route; leaping down from the wall he twisted his thigh, but some say he hit his knee. 6.135. So Miltiades sailed back home in a sorry condition, neither bringing money for the Athenians nor having won Paros; he had besieged the town for twenty-six days and ravaged the island. ,The Parians learned that Timo the under-priestess of the goddesses had been Miltiades' guide and desired to punish her for this. Since they now had respite from the siege, they sent messengers to Delphi to ask if they should put the under-priestess to death for guiding their enemies to the capture of her native country, and for revealing to Miltiades the rites that no male should know. ,But the Pythian priestess forbade them, saying that Timo was not responsible: Miltiades was doomed to make a bad end, and an apparition had led him in these evils. 6.136. Such was the priestess' reply to the Parians. The Athenians had much to say about Miltiades on his return from Paros, especially Xanthippus son of Ariphron, who prosecuted Miltiades before the people for deceiving the Athenians and called for the death penalty. ,Miltiades was present but could not speak in his own defense, since his thigh was festering; he was laid before the court on a couch, and his friends spoke for him, often mentioning the fight at Marathon and the conquest of Lemnos: how Miltiades had punished the Pelasgians and taken Lemnos, delivering it to the Athenians. ,The people took his side as far as not condemning him to death, but they fined him fifty talents for his wrongdoing. Miltiades later died of gangrene and rot in his thigh, and the fifty talents were paid by his son Cimon. 6.139. But when the Pelasgians had murdered their own sons and women, their land brought forth no fruit, nor did their wives and their flocks and herds bear offspring as before. Crushed by hunger and childlessness, they sent to Delphi to ask for some release from their present ills. ,The Pythian priestess ordered them to pay the Athenians whatever penalty the Athenians themselves judged. The Pelasgians went to Athens and offered to pay the penalty for all their wrongdoing. ,The Athenians set in their town-hall a couch adorned as finely as possible, and placed beside it a table covered with all manner of good things, then ordered the Pelasgians to deliver their land to them in the same condition. ,The Pelasgians answered, “We will deliver it when a ship with a north wind accomplishes the voyage from your country to ours in one day”; they supposed that this was impossible, since Attica is far to the south of Lemnos. 6.140. At the time that was all. But a great many years later, when the Chersonese on the Hellespont was made subject to Athens, Miltiades son of Cimon accomplished the voyage from Elaeus on the Chersonese to Lemnos with the Etesian winds then constantly blowing; he proclaimed that the Pelasgians must leave their island, reminding them of the oracle which the Pelasgians thought would never be fulfilled. ,The Hephaestians obeyed, but the Myrinaeans would not agree that the Chersonese was Attica and were besieged, until they too submitted. Thus did Miltiades and the Athenians take possession of Lemnos. 7.140. The Athenians had sent messages to Delphi asking that an oracle be given them, and when they had performed all due rites at the temple and sat down in the inner hall, the priestess, whose name was Aristonice, gave them this answer: , quote type="oracle" l met="dact"Wretches, why do you linger here? Rather flee from your houses and city, /l lFlee to the ends of the earth from the circle embattled of Athens! /l lThe head will not remain in its place, nor in the body, /l lNor the feet beneath, nor the hands, nor the parts between; /l lBut all is ruined, for fire and the headlong god of war speeding in a Syrian chariot will bring you low. /l /quote , quote type="oracle" l met="dact"Many a fortress too, not yours alone, will he shatter; /l lMany a shrine of the gods will he give to the flame for devouring; /l lSweating for fear they stand, and quaking for dread of the enemy, /l lRunning with gore are their roofs, foreseeing the stress of their sorrow; /l lTherefore I bid you depart from the sanctuary. /l lHave courage to lighten your evil. /l /quote 7.141. When the Athenian messengers heard that, they were very greatly dismayed, and gave themselves up for lost by reason of the evil foretold. Then Timon son of Androbulus, as notable a man as any Delphian, advised them to take boughs of supplication and in the guise of suppliants, approach the oracle a second time. ,The Athenians did exactly this; “Lord,” they said, “regard mercifully these suppliant boughs which we bring to you, and give us some better answer concerning our country. Otherwise we will not depart from your temple, but remain here until we die.” Thereupon the priestess gave them this second oracle: , quote type="oracle" l met="dact"Vainly does Pallas strive to appease great Zeus of Olympus; /l lWords of entreaty are vain, and so too cunning counsels of wisdom. /l lNevertheless I will speak to you again of strength adamantine. /l lAll will be taken and lost that the sacred border of Cecrops /l lHolds in keeping today, and the dales divine of Cithaeron; /l lYet a wood-built wall will by Zeus all-seeing be granted /l lTo the Trito-born, a stronghold for you and your children. /l /quote , quote type="oracle" l met="dact"Await not the host of horse and foot coming from Asia, /l lNor be still, but turn your back and withdraw from the foe. /l lTruly a day will come when you will meet him face to face. /l lDivine Salamis, you will bring death to women's sons /l lWhen the corn is scattered, or the harvest gathered in. /l /quote 7.142. This answer seemed to be and really was more merciful than the first, and the envoys, writing it down, departed for Athens. When the messengers had left Delphi and laid the oracle before the people, there was much inquiry concerning its meaning, and among the many opinions which were uttered, two contrary ones were especially worthy of note. Some of the elder men said that the gods answer signified that the acropolis should be saved, for in old time the acropolis of Athens had been fenced by a thorn hedge, ,which, by their interpretation, was the wooden wall. But others supposed that the god was referring to their ships, and they were for doing nothing but equipping these. Those who believed their ships to be the wooden wall were disabled by the two last verses of the oracle: quote type="oracle" l met="dact"Divine Salamis, you will bring death to women's sons /l lWhen the corn is scattered, or the harvest gathered in. /l /quote ,These verses confounded the opinion of those who said that their ships were the wooden wall, for the readers of oracles took the verses to mean that they should offer battle by sea near Salamis and be there overthrown. 7.143. Now there was a certain Athenian, by name and title Themistocles son of Neocles, who had lately risen to be among their chief men. He claimed that the readers of oracles had incorrectly interpreted the whole of the oracle and reasoned that if the verse really pertained to the Athenians, it would have been formulated in less mild language, calling Salamis “cruel” rather than “divine ” seeing that its inhabitants were to perish. ,Correctly understood, the gods' oracle was spoken not of the Athenians but of their enemies, and his advice was that they should believe their ships to be the wooden wall and so make ready to fight by sea. ,When Themistocles put forward this interpretation, the Athenians judged him to be a better counsellor than the readers of oracles, who would have had them prepare for no sea fight, and, in short, offer no resistance at all, but leave Attica and settle in some other country. 7.144. The advice of Themistocles had prevailed on a previous occasion. The revenues from the mines at Laurium had brought great wealth into the Athenians' treasury, and when each man was to receive ten drachmae for his share, Themistocles persuaded the Athenians to make no such division but to use the money to build two hundred ships for the war, that is, for the war with Aegina. ,This was in fact the war the outbreak of which saved Hellas by compelling the Athenians to become seamen. The ships were not used for the purpose for which they were built, but later came to serve Hellas in her need. These ships, then, had been made and were already there for the Athenians' service, and now they had to build yet others. ,In their debate after the giving of the oracle they accordingly resolved that they would put their trust in the god and meet the foreign invader of Hellas with the whole power of their fleet, ships and men, and with all other Greeks who were so minded. 7.148. So the spies were sent back after they had seen all and returned to Europe. After sending the spies, those of the Greeks who had sworn alliance against the Persian next sent messengers to Argos. ,Now this is what the Argives say of their own part in the matter. They were informed from the first that the foreigner was stirring up war against Hellas. When they learned that the Greeks would attempt to gain their aid against the Persian, they sent messengers to Delphi to inquire of the god how it would be best for them to act, for six thousand of them had been lately slain by a Lacedaemonian army and Cleomenes son of Anaxandrides its general. For this reason, they said, the messengers were sent. ,The priestess gave this answer to their question: quote type="oracle" l met="dact"Hated by your neighbors, dear to the immortals, /l lCrouch with a lance in rest, like a warrior fenced in his armor, /l lGuarding your head from the blow, and the head will shelter the body. /l /quote This answer had already been uttered by the priestess when the envoys arrived in Argos and entered the council chamber to speak as they were charged. ,Then the Argives answered to what had been said that they would do as was asked of them if they might first make a thirty years peace with Lacedaemonia and if the command of half the allied power were theirs. It was their right to have the full command, but they would nevertheless be content with half. 7.149. This, they say, was the answer of their council, although the oracle forbade them to make the alliance with the Greeks; furthermore, they, despite their fear of the oracle, were eager to secure a thirty years treaty so that their children might have time in those years to grow to be men. If there were to be no such treaty—so they reasoned—then, if after the evil that had befallen them the Persian should deal them yet another blow, it was to be feared that they would be at the Lacedaemonians' mercy. ,Then those of the envoys who were Spartans replied to the demands of the council, saying that they would refer the question of the truce to their own government at home; as for the command, however, they themselves had been commissioned to say that the Spartans had two kings, and the Argives but one. Now it was impossible to deprive either Spartan of his command, but there was nothing to prevent the Argive from having the same right of voting as their two had. ,At that, say the Argives, they decided that the Spartans' covetousness was past all bearing and that it was better to be ruled by the foreigners than give way to the Lacedaemonians. They then bade the envoys depart from the land of Argos before sunset, for they would otherwise be treated as enemies. 7.150. Such is the Argives' account of this matter, but there is another story told in Hellas, namely that before Xerxes set forth on his march against Hellas, he sent a herald to Argos, who said on his coming (so the story goes), ,“Men of Argos, this is the message to you from King Xerxes. Perses our forefather had, as we believe, Perseus son of Danae for his father, and Andromeda daughter of Cepheus for his mother; if that is so, then we are descended from your nation. In all right and reason we should therefore neither march against the land of our forefathers, nor should you become our enemies by aiding others or do anything but abide by yourselves in peace. If all goes as I desire, I will hold none in higher esteem than you.” ,The Argives were strongly moved when they heard this, and although they made no promise immediately and demanded no share, they later, when the Greeks were trying to obtain their support, did make the claim, because they knew that the Lacedaemonians would refuse to grant it, and that they would thus have an excuse for taking no part in the war. 7.151. This is borne out, some of the Greeks say, by the tale of a thing which happened many years afterwards. It happened that while Athenian envoys, Callias son of Hipponicus, and the rest who had come up with him, were at Susa, called the Memnonian, about some other business, the Argives also had at this same time sent envoys to Susa, asking of Xerxes' son Artoxerxes whether the friendship which they had forged with Xerxes still held good, as they desired, or whether he considered them as his enemies. Artoxerxes responded to this that it did indeed hold good and that he believed no city to be a better friend to him than Argos.” 7.169. But the Cretans, when the Greeks appointed to deal with them were trying to gain their aid, acted as I will show. They sent messengers to Delphi, inquiring if it would be to their advantage to help the Greeks. ,The Pythia answered them, “Foolish men, was not the grief enough which Minos sent upon your people for the help given to Menelaus, out of anger that those others would not help to avenge his death at Camicus, while you helped them to avenge the stealing of that woman from Sparta by a barbarian?” When this was brought to the ears of the Cretans, they would have nothing to do with aiding the Greeks. 7.170. Now Minos, it is said, went to Sicania, which is now called Sicily, in search for Daedalus, and perished there by a violent death. Presently all the Cretans except the men of Polichne and Praesus were bidden by a god to go with a great host to Sicania. Here they besieged the town of Camicus, where in my day the men of Acragas dwelt, for five years. ,Presently, since they could neither take it nor remain there because of the famine which afflicted them, they departed. However, when they were at sea off Iapygia, a great storm caught and drove them ashore. Because their ships had been wrecked and there was no way left of returning to Crete, they founded there the town of Hyria, and made this their dwelling place, accordingly changing from Cretans to Messapians of Iapygia, and from islanders to dwellers on the mainland. ,From Hyria they made settlements in those other towns which a very long time afterwards the Tarentines attempted to destroy, thereby suffering great disaster. The result was that no one has ever heard of so great a slaughter of Greeks as that of the Tarentines and Rhegians; three thousand townsmen of the latter, men who had been coerced by Micythus son of Choerus to come and help the Tarentines, were killed, and no count was kept of the Tarentine slain. ,Micythus was a servant of Anaxilaus and had been left in charge of Rhegium; it was he who was banished from Rhegium and settled in Tegea of Arcadia, and who set up those many statues at Olympia. 7.171. In relating the matter of the Rhegians and Tarentines, however, I digress from the main thread of my history. The Praesians say that when Crete was left desolate, it was populated especially by Greeks, among other peoples. Then, in the third generation after Minos, the events surrounding the Trojan War, in which the Cretans bore themselves as bravely as any in the cause of Menelaus, took place. ,After this, when they returned from Troy, they and their flocks and herds were afflicted by famine and pestilence, until Crete was once more left desolate. Then came a third influx of Cretans, and it is they who, with those that were left, now dwell there. It was this that the priestess bade them remember, and so prevented them from aiding the Greeks as they were previously inclined. 7.178. So with all speed the Greeks went their several ways to meet the enemy. In the meantime, the Delphians, who were afraid for themselves and for Hellas, consulted the god. They were advised to pray to the winds, for these would be potent allies for Hellas. ,When they had received the oracle, the Delphians first sent word of it to those Greeks who desired to be free; because of their dread of the barbarian, they were forever grateful. Subsequently they erected an altar to the winds at Thyia, the present location of the precinct of Thyia the daughter of Cephisus, and they offered sacrifices to them. This, then, is the reason why the Delphians to this day offer the winds sacrifice of propitiation. 7.189. The story is told that because of an oracle the Athenians invoked Boreas, the north wind, to help them, since another oracle told them to summon their son-in-law as an ally. According to the Hellenic story, Boreas had an Attic wife, Orithyia, the daughter of Erechtheus, ancient king of Athens. ,Because of this connection, so the tale goes, the Athenians considered Boreas to be their son-in-law. They were stationed off Chalcis in Euboea, and when they saw the storm rising, they then, if they had not already, sacrificed to and called upon Boreas and Orithyia to help them by destroying the barbarian fleet, just as before at Athos. ,I cannot say whether this was the cause of Boreas falling upon the barbarians as they lay at anchor, but the Athenians say that he had come to their aid before and that he was the agent this time. When they went home, they founded a sacred precinct of Boreas beside the Ilissus river. 7.219. The seer Megistias, examining the sacrifices, first told the Hellenes at Thermopylae that death was coming to them with the dawn. Then deserters came who announced the circuit made by the Persians. These gave their signals while it was still night; a third report came from the watchers running down from the heights at dawn. ,The Hellenes then took counsel, but their opinions were divided. Some advised not to leave their post, but others spoke against them. They eventually parted, some departing and dispersing each to their own cities, others preparing to remain there with Leonidas. 7.220. It is said that Leonidas himself sent them away because he was concerned that they would be killed, but felt it not fitting for himself and the Spartans to desert that post which they had come to defend at the beginning. ,I, however, tend to believe that when Leonidas perceived that the allies were dispirited and unwilling to run all risks with him, he told then to depart. For himself, however, it was not good to leave; if he remained, he would leave a name of great fame, and the prosperity of Sparta would not be blotted out. ,When the Spartans asked the oracle about this war when it broke out, the Pythia had foretold that either Lacedaemon would be destroyed by the barbarians or their king would be killed. She gave them this answer in hexameter verses running as follows: , quote type="oracle" l met="dact"For you, inhabitants of wide-wayed Sparta, /l lEither your great and glorious city must be wasted by Persian men, /l lOr if not that, then the bound of Lacedaemon must mourn a dead king, from Heracles' line. /l lThe might of bulls or lions will not restrain him with opposing strength; for he has the might of Zeus. /l lI declare that he will not be restrained until he utterly tears apart one of these. /l /quote Considering this and wishing to win distinction for the Spartans alone, he sent away the allies rather than have them leave in disorder because of a difference of opinion. 8.20. Now the Euboeans had neglected the oracle of Bacis, believing it to be empty of meaning, and neither by carrying away nor by bringing in anything had they shown that they feared an enemy's coming. In so doing they were the cause of their own destruction, ,for Bacis' oracle concerning this matter runs as follows quote type="oracle" l met="dact"When a strange-tongued man casts a yoke of papyrus on the waves, /l lThen take care to keep bleating goats far from the coasts of Euboea /l /quote To these verses the Euboeans gave no heed; but in the evils then present and soon to come they suffered the greatest calamity. 8.35. So this part of the barbarian army marched as I have said, and others set forth with guides for the temple at Delphi, keeping Parnassus on their right. These, too, laid waste to every part of Phocis which they occupied, burning the towns of the Panopeans and Daulii and Aeolidae. ,The purpose of their parting from the rest of the army and marching this way was that they might plunder the temple at Delphi and lay its wealth before Xerxes, who (as I have been told) had better knowledge of the most notable possessions in the temple than of what he had left in his own palace, chiefly the offerings of Croesus son of Alyattes; so many had always spoken of them. 8.36. When the Delphians learned all this, they were very much afraid, and in their great fear they inquired of the oracle whether they should bury the sacred treasure in the ground or take it away to another country. The god told them to move nothing, saying that he was able to protect what belonged to him. ,Upon hearing that, the Delphians took thought for themselves. They sent their children and women overseas to Achaia. Most of the men went up to the peaks of Parnassus and carried their goods into the Corycian cave, but some escaped to Amphissa in Locris. In short, all the Delphians left the town save sixty men and the prophet. 8.37. Now when the barbarians drew near and could see the temple, the prophet, whose name was Aceratus, saw certain sacred arms, which no man might touch without sacrilege, brought out of the chamber within and laid before the shrine. ,So he went to tell the Delphians of this miracle, but when the barbarians came with all speed near to the temple of Athena Pronaea, they were visited by miracles yet greater than the aforesaid. Marvellous indeed it is, that weapons of war should of their own motion appear lying outside in front of the shrine, but the visitation which followed was more wondrous than anything else ever seen. ,When the barbarians were near to the temple of Athena Pronaea, they were struck by thunderbolts from the sky, and two peaks broken off from Parnassus came rushing among them with a mighty noise and overwhelmed many of them. In addition to this a shout and a cry of triumph were heard from the temple of Athena. 8.38. All of this together struck panic into the barbarians, and the Delphians, perceiving that they fled, descended upon them and killed a great number. The survivors fled straight to Boeotia. Those of the barbarians who returned said (as I have been told) that they had seen other divine signs besides what I have just described: two men-at-arms of stature greater than human,they said, had come after them, slaying and pursuing. 8.39. These two, say the Delphians, were the native heroes Phylacus and Autonous, whose precincts are near the temple, Phylacus' by the road itself above the shrine of Athena Pronaea, and Autonous' near the Castalian spring, under the Hyarapean Peak. ,The rocks that fell from Parnassus were yet to be seen in my day, lying in the precinct of Athena Pronaea, from where their descent through the foreigners' ranks had hurled them. Such, then, was the manner of those men's departure from the temple. 8.77. I cannot say against oracles that they are not true, and I do not wish to try to discredit them when they speak plainly. Look at the following matter: quote type="oracle" l met="dact"When the sacred headland of golden-sworded Artemis and Cynosura by the sea they bridge with ships, /l lAfter sacking shiny Athens in mad hope, /l lDivine Justice will extinguish mighty Greed the son of Insolence /l lLusting terribly, thinking to devour all. /l /quote , quote type="oracle" l met="dact"Bronze will come together with bronze, and Ares /l lWill redden the sea with blood. To Hellas the day of freedom /l lFar-seeing Zeus and august Victory will bring. /l /quote Considering this, I dare to say nothing against Bacis concerning oracles when he speaks so plainly, nor will I consent to it by others. 8.96. When the battle was broken off, the Hellenes towed to Salamis as many of the wrecks as were still there and kept ready for another battle, supposing that the king could still make use of his surviving ships. ,A west wind had caught many of the wrecks and carried them to the shore in Attica called Colias. Thus not only was all the rest of the oracle fulfilled which Bacis and Musaeus had spoken about this battle, but also what had been said many years before this in an oracle by Lysistratus, an Athenian soothsayer, concerning the wrecks carried to shore there. Its meaning had eluded all the Hellenes: quote type="oracle" l met="dact"The Colian women will cook with oars. /l lBut this was to happen after the king had marched away. /l /quote 8.121. As for the Greeks, not being able to take Andros, they went to Carystus. When they had laid it waste, they returned to Salamis. First of all they set apart for the gods, among other first-fruits, three Phoenician triremes, one to be dedicated at the Isthmus, where it was till my lifetime, the second at Sunium, and the third for Ajax at Salamis where they were. ,After that, they divided the spoils and sent the first-fruits of it to Delphi; of this was made a man's image twelve cubits high, holding in his hand the figurehead of a ship. This stood in the same place as the golden statue of Alexander the Macedonian. 8.122. Having sent the first-fruits to Delphi, the Greeks, in the name of the country generally, made inquiry of the god whether the first-fruits which he had received were of full measure and whether he was content. To this he said that he was content with what he had received from all other Greeks, but not from the Aeginetans. From these he demanded the victor's prize for the sea-fight of Salamis. When the Aeginetans learned that, they dedicated three golden stars which are set on a bronze mast, in the angle, nearest to Croesus' bowl. 8.135. But at this time there happened, as the Thebans say, a thing at which I marvel greatly. It would seem that this man Mys of Europus came in his wanderings among the places of divination to the precinct of Ptoan Apollo. This temple is called Ptoum, and belongs to the Thebans. It lies by a hill, above lake Copais, very near to the town Acraephia. ,When the man called Mys entered into this temple together with three men of the town who were chosen on the state's behalf to write down the oracles that should be given, straightway the diviner prophesied in a foreign tongue. ,The Thebans who followed him were astonished to hear a strange language instead of Greek and knew not what this present matter might be. Mys of Europus, however, snatched from them the tablet which they carried and wrote on it that which was spoken by the prophet, saying that the words of the oracle were Carian. After writing everything down, he went back to Thessaly. 9.33. On the second day after they had all been arrayed according to their nations and their battalions, both armies offered sacrifice. It was Tisamenus who sacrificed for the Greeks, for he was with their army as a diviner; he was an Elean by birth, a Clytiad of the Iamid clan, and the Lacedaemonians gave him the freedom of their city. ,This they did, for when Tisamenus was inquiring of the oracle at Delphi concerning offspring, the priestess prophesied to him that he should win five great victories. Not understanding that oracle, he engaged in bodily exercise, thinking that he would then be able to win in similar sports. When he had trained himself for the Five Contests, he came within one wrestling bout of winning the Olympic prize, in a match with Hieronymus of Andros. ,The Lacedaemonians, however, perceived that the oracle given to Tisamenus spoke of the lists not of sport but of war, and they attempted to bribe Tisamenus to be a leader in their wars jointly with their kings of Heracles' line. ,When he saw that the Spartans set great store by his friendship, he set his price higher, and made it known to them that he would do what they wanted only in exchange for the gift of full citizenship and all of the citizen's rights. ,Hearing that, the Spartans at first were angry and completely abandoned their request; but when the dreadful menace of this Persian host hung over them, they consented and granted his demand. When he saw their purpose changed, he said that he would not be content with that alone; his brother Hegias too must be made a Spartan on the same terms as himself. 9.43. Now for this prophecy, which Mardonius said was spoken of the Persians, I know it to have been made concerning not them but the Illyrians and the army of the Enchelees. There is, however, a prophecy made by Bacis concerning this battle: , quote type="oracle" l met="dact"By Thermodon's stream and the grass-grown banks of Asopus, /l lWill be a gathering of Greeks for fight and the ring of the barbarian's war-cry; /l lMany a Median archer, by death untimely overtaken will fall /l lThere in the battle when the day of his doom is upon him. /l /quote I know that these verses and others very similar to them from Musaeus referred to the Persians. As for the river Thermodon, it flows between Tanagra and Glisas. 9.76. Immediately after the Greeks had devastated the barbarians at Plataea, a woman, who was the concubine of Pharandates a Persian, son of Teaspis, deserting from the enemy, came to them. She, learning that the Persians were ruined and the Greeks victorious, decked herself (as did also her attendants) with many gold ornaments and the fairest clothing that she had, and alighting thus from her carriage came to the Lacedaemonians while they were still in the midst of slaughtering. When she saw Pausanias, whose name and country she had often heard of, directing everything, she knew that it was he, and supplicated him clasping his knees: ,“Save me, your suppliant, O king of Sparta, from captive slavery, for you have aided me till now, by making an end of those men who hold sacred nothing of the gods or of any divinities. Coan I am by birth, the daughter of Hegetorides, son of Antagoras; in Cos the Persian seized me by force and held me prisoner.” ,“Take heart, lady,” Pausanias answered, “for you are my suppliant, and furthermore if you are really the daughter of Hegetorides of Cos, he is my closest friend of all who dwell in those lands.” For the present, he then entrusted her to those of the ephors who were present. Later he sent her to Aegina, where she herself desired to go. |
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