The histories of Herodotus;

368 HERODOTUS—BOOK VII, POLYMNIA [6-8
him in persuading Xerxes. In the first place, messengers
coming from Thessaly on the part of the Aleuadae, invited
the king, with earnest importunity, to invade Greece: these
Aleuadae were Kings of Thessaly. And in the next place,
those of the Pisistratidae, who had gone up to Susa, holding
the same language as the Aleuadae, still more eagerly pressed
him, having with them Onomacritus, an Athenian, a soothsayer
and dispenser of the oracles of Musaeus. For they went
up to Susa, having first reconciled their former enmity with
him. For Onomacritus had been banished from Athens by
Hipparchus, son of Pisistratus, having been detected by Lasus
the Hermionian in the very act of interpolating among the
oracles of Musaeus, one importing that the islands lying off
Lemnos would disappear beneath the sea: wherefore Hipparchus
banished him, although he had before been very
familiar with him. But at that time having gone up with
them, whenever he came into the presence of the king, as the
Pisistratidae spoke of him in very high terms, he recited some
of the oracles ; if, however, there were among them any that
portended misfortune to the barbarians, of these he made no
mention ; but selecting such as were most favourable, he said
it was fated that the Hellespont should be bridged over by a
Persian, describing the march. Thus he continually assailed *
the king, rehearsing oracles, as did the Pisistratidae and Aleuadae,
by declaring their opinions. When Xerxes was persuaded
to make war against Greece, he then, in the second
year after the death of Darius, first made an expedition against
those who had revolted ; and, having subdued them and reduced
all Egypt to a worse state of servitude than it had been
under Darius, he committed the government to Achaemenes,
his own brother, and son of Darius. Some time after, Inarus,
son of Psammitichus, a Libyan, slew Achaemenes, to whom
the government of Egypt was committed.
Xerxes, after the reduction of Egypt, when he was about
to take in hand the expedition against Athens, convoked an
assembly of the principal Persians, that he might both hear
their opinions and himself make known his intentions before
them all. When they were assembled Xerxes addressed them
as follows : " Men of Persia, I shall not be the first to introduce
this custom among you, but shall adopt it, having received
it from my forefathers. For, as I learn from older
men, we have never remained inactive since we wrested the
sovereign power from the Medes, and Cyrus overthrew Astyages
: but the deity thus leads the way, and to us who follow
1 Or "conducted himself."