CHAPTER VIII. OF THE MARCH OF XERXES.

When thou didst well and madest to me offers of good things, thou couldst not surpass the King in bounty, and now that thou doest ill, thou shalt have less than thy desert. Thy hospitality shall save thee and four of thy sons; but the life of him whom thou lovest above the rest is the forfeit.” So soon as Xerxes had said this, forthwith he gave command to them that had the charge of such things to search out the eldest of the sons of Pythius and cut him in twain; and when they had cut him in twain to put the two halves one on the right hand of the way and the other on the left. And he bade the army pass between the two. So the army passed between the two halves. First came they that bare the baggage, and the beasts of burden, and after them a great army of many nations, without any space between the nations, in all more than half of the whole. Then there was left a space between the host and the King. Afterward there came a thousand horsemen, chosen out of all the Persians, and after the horsemen a thousand spearmen, these too being chosen men, bearing their spear-points turned toward the ground, and after the spearmen ten horses of Nisa, having very fair trappings. These horses came from the plain of Nisa in the land of Media, and are very great. Behind the horses came the sacred chariot of Zeus, drawn by eight white horses, and after the horses there walked the charioteer on foot, holding the reins in his hand, for on the seat of this chariot no man may sit. After this came Xerxes himself, on a chariot drawn by horses of Nisa, and by his side was a charioteer, Patiramphes the son of Otanes. And whenever the wish took him he would change from his chariot to a litter. Behind the King came a thousand spearmen, the noblest and bravest of the Persians, holding their spears in the usual fashion; and after these a thousand chosen horsemen; and after the horsemen ten thousand chosen men on foot. A thousand of these had golden pomegranates instead of spikes at the shafts of their spears. These compassed about the other nine thousand, who had their spears with pomegranates of silver. The spearmen that pointed their spears to the ground had also pomegranates of gold, and those that came next after the King had