Now therefore (for thou didst well in that thou camest hither) this is that which I propose to thee:⁠—leave Miletos alone and also thy newly-founded city in Thracia, and coming with me to Susa, have whatsoever things I have, eating at my table and being my counsellor.”

25. Thus said Darius, and having appointed Artaphrenes 743 his own brother and the son of his father to be governor of Sardis, he marched away to Susa taking with him Histiaios, after he had first named Otanes to be commander of those who dwelt along the sea coasts. This man’s father Sisamnes, who had been made one of the Royal Judges, king Cambyses slew, because he had judged a cause unjustly for money, and flayed off all his skin: then after he had torn away the skin he cut leathern thongs out of it and stretched them across the seat where Sisamnes had been wont to sit to give judgment; and having stretched them in the seat, Cambyses appointed the son of that Sisamnes whom he had slain and flayed, to be judge instead of his father, enjoining him to remember in what seat he was sitting to give judgment. 26.