herodotus

and friends, dost thou dare to make any mention of a son of thine,seeing that thou art my slave, who ought to have been accompanying methyself with thy whole household and thy wife as well? Now thereforebe assured of this, that the passionate spirit of man dwells withinthe ears; and when it has heard good things, it fills the body withdelight, but when it has heard the opposite things to this, it swellsup with anger. As then thou canst not boast of having surpassed theking in conferring benefits formerly, when thou didst to us good deedsand madest offer to do more of the same kind, so now that thou hastturned to shamelessness, thou shalt receive not thy desert but lessthan thou deservest: for thy gifts of hospitality shall rescue fromdeath thyself and the four others of thy sons, but thou shalt pay thepenalty with the life of the one to whom thou dost cling most." Havinganswered thus, he forthwith commanded those to whom it was appointedto do these things, to find out the eldest of the sons of Pythios andto cut him in two in the middle; and having cut him in two, to disposethe halves, one on the right hand of the road and the other on theleft, and that the army should pass between them by this way.40. When these had so done, the army proceeded to pass between; andfirst the baggage-bearers led the way together with their horses, andafter these the host composed of all kinds of nations mingled togetherwithout distinction: and when more than the half had gone by, aninterval was left and these were separated from the king. For beforehim went first a thousand horsemen, chosen out of all the Persians;and after them a thousand spearmen chosen also from all the Persians,having the points of their spears turned down to the ground; and thenten sacred horses, called "Nesaian,"[41] with the fairest possibletrappings. Now the horses are called Nesaian for this reason:--thereis a wide plain in the land of Media which is called the Nesaianplain, and this plain produces the great horses of which I speak.Behind these ten horses the sacred chariot of Zeus was appointed togo, which was drawn by eight white horses; and behind the horses againfollowed on foot a charioteer holding the reins, for no human creaturemounts upon the seat of that chariot. Then behind this came Xerxeshimself in a chariot drawn by Nesaian horses, and by the side of himrode a charioteer, whose name was Patiramphes, son of Otanes aPersian. 41. Thus did Xerxes march forth out of Sardis; and he used tochange, whenever he was so disposed, from the chariot to a carriage.And behind him went spearmen, the best and most noble of the Persians,a thousand in number, holding their spear-points in the customaryway;[42] and after them another thousand horsemen chosen out from thePersians; and after the horsemen ten thousand men chosen out from theremainder of the Persians. This body went on foot; and of these athousand had upon their spears pomegranates of gold instead of thespikes at the butt-end, and these enclosed the others round, while the