HERODOTUS

BOOK VIII. 118-120is said, Xerxes said to the Persians, " Now it is foryou to prove yourselves careful for your king for;it seems that my deliverance rests with you " ;whereat they did obeisance and leapt into the sea ;and the ship, being thus lightened, came by thesemeans safe to Asia. No sooner had Xerxes disembarkedon land, than he made the pilot a giftof a golden crown for saving the king's life, butcut off his head for being the death of manyPersians.119. This is the other tale of Xerxes' return ;butI formy part believe neither the story of the Persians'fate, nor any other part of it. For if indeed thepilot had spoken to Xerxes as aforesaid, I think thatthere is not one in ten thousand but would say thatthe king would have bidden the men on deck (whowere Persians and of the best blood of Persia)descend into the ship's hold, and would have takenof the Phoenician rowers a number equal to thenumber of the Persians and cast them into thesea. Nay, the truth is that Xerxes did as I havealready said, and returned to Asia with his armyby road.120. And herein too lies a clear proof of it : it isknown that when Xerxes came to Abdera in hisreturn he entered into bonds of friendship with itspeople, and gave them a golden sword and a gilttiara ;and as the people of Abdera say (but formypart I wholly disbelieve them),it was here thatXerxes in his flight back from Athens first loosedhis 1 girdle, as being here in safety.Now Abdera1cp. perhaps v. 106, where Histiaeus swears to Dariusthat he will not take off his tunic till he reaches Ionia ;orthe reference may be to a man's being eftfavos (with his'loins girded up for swift travel.')123