The two elder stood astonished and said nothing, but the youngest, having a knife in his hand, drew a line with it on the floor round the sunshine, and made as if he would draw it up into his bosom three times, and so departed and his brothers with him. Now when they were gone, one went and told to the King what the youngest had done; and the King, when he heard it, was angry, and sent horsemen after them to slay them. But a certain river swelled so high when the three brothers of Argos had safely crossed it, that the horsemen could not follow. (Their descendants yet do sacrifice to this river as to their saviour.) The brothers took up their abode in a place which they call the Gardens of Midas. (Here are roses so great as can not be found elsewhere, having each sixty leaves, and over the gardens a mountain so cold that none can climb to the top.) From this place they went forth till they had conquered the whole land of Macedonia. From this Perdiccas came Alexander the Macedonian in the seventh generation.
Alexander said, “Men of Athens, Mardonius bids me say that there has come to him this message from the King, ‘I forgive the Athenians all their trespasses against me. And do thou this, Mardonius. Give them back their land and add to it any other that they will, and build again the temples that I burned with fire, if they will make agreement with me. And they shall live under their own laws.’ Mardonius also says, ‘This will I do unless ye on your part hinder me. And why do ye stand out against the King? Do ye not know his might? See this great host that I have. If so be that ye prevail over this, which indeed ye can not hope to do, there will come against ye a host many times greater. Why then will ye resist, losing your country and going always in danger of your lives?’ These are the words of Mardonius; and I, Alexander, for that I am your friend, beseech you to give ear to him, and to make agreement with the King, who has chosen you out of all the Greeks to make friendship and alliance with you.”
Now the Spartans knew that Alexander had been sent by Mardonius to Athens. Whereupon they also sent ambassadors; and it was ordered that